Off toward the horizon on their left a massive mountain range could be made out, far smaller in appearance than reality due to the tricks that distance could play on the eye.
“It’s beautiful,” she gasped.
Even Heydar’s typically rough and matter-of-fact demeanor had seemed to soften a little.
“Yes, it is,” he replied, a faraway look in his eye.
Darla scanned the terrain, looking for any sign of a city or settlement. There was none.
“I don’t see any cities out there,” she said.
“No. But that does not mean there aren’t any,” he replied. “We could tell better at night, when cooking fires would be lit, but that is hours away, and we should be moving.”
He started to descend from their perch.
“Why would they use campfires to cook?” Darla asked as she followed him down.
“Because not all societies are as advanced as others. I do not recognize this world based on this limited view, but by the undeveloped look of it, this is most likely the case here. Time will tell. Now, come. We must find shelter, sustenance, and water if we are to survive.”
Heydar reversed the ascent process, descending after her then gently lowering her from the tree before leaping down to join her, landing as nimbly as a big cat. He took one look around and made a decision.
“This way.”
Darla, stubborn as she could be, was nevertheless an alien on this world, and she thought it wise to follow the lead of someone more familiar with this sort of thing than she was. The burly alien directed them down the hill back toward lower ground, descending on the opposite side of the hill from where their section of ship had gone down.
They walked quietly for some time, the shadows growing longer as the sun gradually lowered in the sky. The thing was, she had no idea when it might actually become night on this planet. Earth days were something she was familiar with, but here? A day could be half as long or double, there was no way to guess. In any case, it seemed they had a fair walk ahead of them.
Heydar motioned for her to move closer, his use of hand signals cluing Darla to the need for silence. She moved near and hunkered down low. They had come to a small creek, the gently flowing water calling out to her parched lips with its siren song. She was so thirsty she could smell the water, her mouth craving it with an almost undeniable need.
He pointed to the damp ground closer to the water’s edge.
Footprints. Many of them, and humanoid in shape and size.
Heydar cocked his head, listening intently to the sounds of the forest. After a lengthy time motionless he finally seemed satisfied, gesturing for Darla to come with him to the creek.
She dropped to her knees and filled her hands, drinking deep, not caring one bit if there might be some alien bacteria in the water. That might kill her slowly, but if she didn’t hydrate she’d be dead long before that would be a concern.
Heydar bent forward and did the same, filling his hands with great scoops of water, drinking it down, some of the liquid flowing down his neck and chest, making his tattered clothing stick to his body, outlining every muscle as it did. He was built like an Adonis. A seven-foot-tall alien one, but impressive nonetheless.
Darla felt a warm stirring in her belly at the sight.
As if that wasn’t enough, the hunky alien shook his hands dry and licked his lips, revealing a long, split tongue, each of the halves working in unison but also separating to function independently. The heat began to press lower as she watched him, her mind unable to avoid wondering precisely what a tongue like that was capable of.
She could think of several off the top of her head.
Darla felt something else. A pair of violet eyes staring at her.
“What?” she snapped.
“Nothing. You had a strange look on your face. I thought perhaps you were feeling unwell.”
“I’m fine,” she said, the happy tingle between her legs taking its own sweet time to go away. “Hey, we’ve got water, but what are we going to do about food?”
“Where there is water there is game. I will not hunt this close to our water source, but there should be acceptable prey close enough. In the meantime, you may eat these.”
He pulled a long tubular stalk from the mud and extended it to her. The base was a gnarled root, but just above the mud line the plant shifted to a pale green length, ending at a small cluster of green berry looking things.
“Do not eat the berries,” Heydar noted. “They will make you quite ill. But the stalk between them and the root is nutritious, if not particularly flavorful.”
“You’re sure about this?” Darla asked, accepting the offering, sniffing it curiously.
“We have this on my world. On many worlds, for that matter. It is a variant of the Olama plant, propagated wherever explorers landed as a hardy emergency food source. It would do you well to learn to identify it on sight. It could serve you well one day.”
Darla wasn’t exactly sure she liked the sound of that. She had no intention of living out in the middle of some alien wilderness the rest of her life. But that said, she also had an unpleasant rumbling growing in her stomach.
She shook the plant off in the water to clear off the remaining mud, then brought the stalk to her lips and took a tentative nibble. The flavor was like a bitter cacao nib, but with a slightly astringent, yet sweet, aftertaste. Not pleasant by a long shot, but something she could get down without issue if need be. And given how hungry she was, need was definitely be.
Heydar pulled a few more Olama plants from the mud and cleaned them off, handing her a few before eating his own, washing it down with more fresh water from the creek.
Their bellies were not full by any means, but at least the hunger pangs were quelled for the time being. With that accomplished, the pair headed away from the water to hopefully find something more substantial to eat and a dry place to spend the night.
They had walked for an hour without sign of game when Heydar pointed to the distant sky. The trees had thinned out as they neared a large clearing, and with the view cleared they could see a dark wisp of smoke far off in the distance.
“Campfire?” Darla wondered.
“No. It appears relatively close, but do not let that deceive you. The fire is very far away. What’s more, the color of the smoke and the way it rises is wrong for natural combustion. That is spaceship fuel cooking off. Raxxian fuel, to be specific. What you see is another downed segment of their ship.”
“The others might be alive?”
The look on his face said otherwise. “Not in that portion of the ship. Flames like that do not bode well for survivors.”
Darla felt her spirits drop. So far as she knew, she was the only human alive on this world, and she might never see her own kind again. She sank down onto a fallen log, deflated. Heydar was about to remind her they needed to keep moving but noticed the look in her eye and held his tongue.
“You should rest,” he said, gauging the darkening sky. “It will be nightfall soon. Rest. I will complete the hunt.”
“You won’t leave me here, right?”
“I will not abandon you here. You have my word of honor.”
There was something solemn in the way he said those words that made her believe him. She gave a little nod of agreement. That was all he needed to see. He was gone before she could utter another word.
I hope that wasn’t a bad call. Guess I’ll find out soon enough.
It was almost dark when the alien returned carrying a small parcel of cooked meat, already cut, cleaned, roasted, and packaged in a bundled pelt lined with clean, broad leaves. It seemed he had hunted successfully and fully processed the kill before returning to the camp. And he had even managed to make fire in the wilderness. Frankly, she was kind of impressed.