Gamma World: Tempus Fugitive: Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

Cera woke the following day to not only the smell of bacon, but the sound of it as well. She could hear her friend preparing breakfast: the noise of the frying pan moving on the stove, the bubbling hiss of bacon, the tung of the toaster and of course the happy cries of many kittens. It was a great incentive to get out of bed. She had a knee-length sleeping shirt on and that was good enough. When she moved past the curtain and into the common area, Garadun was taking bacon from the pan and putting it onto a plate. He cracked a couple of large eggs and set them frying.
    “Hey there, beautiful,” he said amiably.
    Cera ran her fingers through her long dark hair. “Morning.”
    “Up for some bacon and eggs?”
    “Am I ever,” she said and sat at the dinette table. Kittens were on the floor and taking turns eating from three plates and drinking from a big bowl of milk. A few minutes later Garadun was putting down a plate of bacon, eggs and toast in front of her. There were two empty glasses waiting for her and two pitchers: one apple juice, one milk.
    “The juice and milk are the real thing,” he announced, laying out more bacon in the frying pan. The weasel girl poured herself a glass of juice and drank it greedily. She hadn’t had fresh-squeezed juice in what seemed like forever. Garadun added a glass jar filled with some sort of dark red preserve.
    “Jam: strawberry-raspberry mix,” he said and Cera gasped. She was soon smearing a thick slice of toast and digging in. The eggs were also amazing and the bacon incredibly delicious. The sounds she made while eating were nearly orgasmic.
    “I didn’t know you cooked,” she said when he eventually sat down opposite her with his own plate of food. He poured himself a big glass of juice.
    “I can do more than heat up KwikFud pouches,” he said, smirking.
    “I’ll say! This is really good. Thank you.”
    He nodded. “Glad you like it. Breakfast is a specialty. I’ve been cooking for myself my whole life. Now that we’ve got fresh supplies, I can cook for us.”
    “Even dinosaur?”
    “Just because I don’t care for it, doesn’t mean I won’t cook it for you and Symphony,” he said and chomped into a thick bacon sandwich. “The only thing I won’t cook is fish of any kind. I hate fish. Stinks beyond belief.”
    Cera gobbled some fried egg. “Fair enough.”
    “Well, outside over an open fire, okay,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “If you or Symphony want fish. But not inside the RV.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.”
    They finished breakfast without the need for further conversation, instead focussing on their food. Besides, the expression on the weasel girl’s face said it all. Once they were done, Garadun collected the plates and cutlery, and put them in the sink. When he started running water, Cera got up and took over. He had cooked. She would clean. The kittens miaowed by the door, so he opened it and they scampered outside.
    Cera chuckled. “Symphony can open doors, y’know.”
    “Yeah, but it’s an effort,” he said, dropping into the big chair between the door and the passenger seat. “It’s nothing for me to open it for her.”
    “You’re spoiling us,” she observed fondly.
    “Whenever I can,” he admitted. “You deserve it, both of you.”
    Garadun leaned back in the chair, stuck out his legs, and closed his eyes and relaxed. Cera did the dishes in silence, feeling very content. Mornings like this helped remind her that she had a family again, something she hadn’t dare dream of after the loss of her parents. But there they were: an Ancient human and a pack of kittens. When the dishes were done, she went to the bedroom and got dressed; then came back to the front of the RV and sat on the sofa, putting on a new pair of moccasin boots she’d acquired the day before. They were very comfy and decorated with fine beadwork.
    “So I was thinking,” she said, and Garadun opened his eyes.
    “Hmm?”
    “I left Big Boat to try and find the giant aircraft, and so far nothing. Now that we’re here, I want to ask around town and see if anyone knows anything.”
    “Sounds like a plan,” he said, nodding.
    “Would you like to come with me?”
    “Always. Lemme get my boots.” Garadun hauled himself out of the chair and pulled on his new dinohide boots. He was already wearing a shirt and pair of pants he’d picked up at the swap meet. His original attire from the first day he’d arrived in Gamma Terra was freshly cleaned and neatly folded away. They closed the blinds and stepped out of the RV, locking the door behind them. They had the whole day ahead of them.

                                                                          *****

Symphony had made a discovery: she didn’t like crowds.
    Before her exile, the young mutant katkin had lived in a forest community consisting of a few small family groups. For the two years after her exile she had lived completely alone. It had been a hard, lonely existence, every day a struggle to survive. Then came Cera and Garadun, and her whole life changed for the better. She had friends who loved her and she was no longer lonely. It was more than that: she had a family that accepted her. Together they explored the postapocalyptic world and had adventures.
    She’d been excited when they discovered New Portage, and it was a really interesting place. But the huge crowds at the swap meet had made her nervous, even scared. She just wasn’t used to so many people in one place making so much noise. Even though today was thankfully much quieter, she wanted to explore in peace. So after breakfast she made her way from the motorhome and crossed the long road spanning the lake, and went through the big gate into the old ruins. The guards tried to warn her, told her that she wouldn’t be safe beyond the walls, but she ignored them. Few creatures on Gamma Terra could match Symphony when it came to stealth.
    The ruins of the ancient town were mostly overgrown; not many buildings remained intact. Some of the streets and avenues were little more than trails, while others were maintained by the people of New Portage. There was wildlife aplenty out in the light forest, from tiny chipmunks to enormous dinosaurs; although the latter were very few in number. Most dinosaurs seemed to prefer the open prairies to the woodlands that dotted the landscape. Probably because they were so big and couldn’t walk through the trees easily, was Symphony’s guess. It was the low-slung spiky ones who ambled around the woods. There was plenty of food and little competition.
    Symphony wandered north, unnoticed by most of the local critters as her many tiny selves scampered through the underbrush, almost invisible. Being stealthy was what had kept her alive these past years; that and quick wits and being very fleet of paw when she had to run for her life. When she reached the old main highway that ran right through the middle of the overgrown municipality, the forest had thinned out somewhat. There was a lot of long grass, shrubs and wildflowers, and far fewer trees.
    There was also a tremendous kafuffle.
    Numerous kittens peered through the edge of the long grass to see an entire herd of dinosaurs on the move, going from east to west and using the wide expanse of the old road as, well, a road. They were the green and yellow species with big stripes on the tails; Garadun called them Ig-something. Their braying calls were as loud as horns and their footsteps sent rumbling tremors through the ground. There were a few spiky dinosaurs among the Iggies, and one with a big horn on its nose and a spiked crest on the back of its head. There had to be at least a hundred of the enormous beasts. Symphony watched them in awe. She’d never been this close to dinosaurs before, and certainly not from beyond the safety of the RV. They were so amazingly huge, especially for one who was comprised of nothing but dozens of wee kitties.
    She was so absorbed watching the herd march by that she didn’t notice the dinosaur coming up behind her until it was almost too late. Its footsteps likely couldn’t be heard by the herbivores, but to Symphony, so close to the ground, the vibrations and thumps got her attention. The kittens spun around and looked up, way up, to see the underside of an enormous two-legged dinosaur come stomping right over them. Mewing in fear, they scattered through the grass, some of them avoiding being squished underfoot by only a tail’s length. The dinosaur was oblivious to Symphony’s presence. It was stalking the herd from the edge of the tree line, looking for an opportunity. It was as big as the other carnivorous dinosaurs she’d seen on the plains, but its head was stumpy and there were short horns above its eyes. Its forelimbs were tiny and useless, and its scaled hide looked thick and tough. It was light greyish-green with brown splotches and irregular stripes over the top and sides of its body, from head to tail.
    The kittens regrouped in the long grass and stared at the monster walking away from them. Symphony was in shock. She’d almost been stepped on. Disbelief and fear turned into a flash of anger. She’d almost been stepped on! She miaowed furiously in outrage at the massive theropod. Yeah, you better run!
    Stupid dinosaurs.
    Deciding that a nap was in order to help her get over the close call, she trotted into the forest and back towards the town. She wouldn’t say no to a snack, either.

                                                                          *****

As it turned out, Cera had to go no further than the Double Bison’s common room to find out that her quest wasn’t a futile one. She had a copy of a drawing that one of the people of Big Boat had made of the visiting craft, and when she asked Emmett if anyone in his town had ever seen it before, he immediately told her that, yes, they had. The story he told was compelling. A ship had visited New Portage and it matched exactly the one in Cera’s drawing: a gigantic, vertically-oriented tube that appeared to be made of copper, with an enormous green crystal near its base. It came in from the west, hovered high above the town for about a half-hour, then flew off east and was never seen again. This happened in the same year it visited Big Boat.
    Several people who were having breakfast at the inn confirmed the story, telling their own personal recollections of the event. Emmett further informed Cera and Garadun that it was a matter of public record and that a written account of the visit, including some photographs of the ship, were kept in the City Hall records. This news of course got Cera very excited: she was on the right track! Emmett wrote a short letter and gave it to her so she could go down to City Hall and see the records herself.
    The weasel girl and her human friend did just that. As Emmett was a member of the Town Council, his authorisation was unquestioned and a clerk was assigned to help them find the record of the visit. The clerk, a middle-aged mutant prairie dog named Joseph Two-Burrows, was very helpful and friendly. He’d witnessed the mysterious vessel along with everyone else in town, and was thrilled to meet someone from another town that had been visited by the ship. The file on the event was very thick, and as promised there were photographs. Seeing them brought the whole encounter back to Cera’s mind as if it had happened yesterday, and she was nearly overcome with emotion.
    Garadun thought the ship had a very steampunk look to it.
    Joseph was not only helpful with the records of the visitation, but with the history of New Portage itself. He told his guests about the founding of the town, the enlargement of the lake, and the construction of the town wall. They also learned how well-maintained and organised the postapocalyptic municipality was.
    New Portage had a volunteer fire department, including a big ancient fire truck that the city kept in working condition. There was a tanker truck which had once transported milk; it now hauled water taken from the Assiniboine River and pumped it into the town’s water tower. The tanker was also kept full at all times. There was a public school, a library, a medical clinic, general stores, specialty shops, saloons and taverns, three competing cathouses, a city armoury, a blacksmith, a garage and mechanic, grain silos, a public stable, barns for animals, and even a post office. They learned that a few buildings in Old Portage (as the ruins of Portage La Prairie were called) were kept carefully intact to act as warehouses. These buildings were screened by trees and bushes that had been deliberately planted to hide them from bandits. There was one structure that stored firewood. Another housed assorted heavy equipment and vehicles needed to keep the town going, including spare parts. Yet another stored lots of old cars and trucks, which were cannibalised for their parts.
    An ancient gas station now held ethanol in place of gasoline in its underground tanks; the ethanol was brewed in stills kept in the station’s main building. The town had running water, garbage pickup and recycling, a sewer system, and it even had electricity. Some people had old car engines stored in sheds to act as generators, but the town’s main electricity came from a series of windmills that had been constructed near the west side of Crescent Lake. Power cables from them were buried beneath the ground and went along the road outside the city wall, under the gate, and along the lake road into the town proper. The windmills didn’t produce an overabundance of electricity, but it was enough for lights and to run the town’s telephone network. Yes, that’s right. Most homes had an antique telephone. A lot of people hardly even used them these days, but they were very handy in emergencies. Telephone cables, like the electrical lines, were all inside plastic piping buried beneath the ground. The traditional idiocy of having vulnerable cables hanging off poles that could be blown over or frozen in the winter was gone.
    Every home had its own garden, and there were public fields outside the city wall that grew crops. These were hard to keep in good order because of all the wildlife that fed on them, but most seasons produced a good enough yield to make it worthwhile. Big fences kept out most of the cattle and bison; it was the damned dinosaurs that were a problem. Every year they tried to make the fences larger and more hazardous for any animal that wanted to get past them. Autumn was a very important time because this was when the dinosaurs went south for the winter; leaving the townsfolk free to harvest and cultivate crops that grew year-round. The people of New Portage also traded with other villages and towns on the prairies, though none were as advanced as they were.
    News of other towns was of great interest to Cera and Garadun, and Joseph was only too happy to show them a local map. Villages they traded with included Dawg Lake, Do-Fin, Nepahwah, Ar-Borg, Karman, Minedoza and Brandon. This last town was as large as New Portage, and lay about a hundred and twenty kilometres to the west, give or take. It was from Brandon that they got most of their wheat.
    Joseph showed them maps of what the land was like to the west of New Portage; at least as far as anyone knew. He had made copies from travellers passing through the town, but couldn’t guarantee their accuracy. What he could tell them with certainty was that the prairies continued west for another eight hundred kilometres or so. Then they turned into dry badlands, which in turn became open desert that stretched all the way to the mountains. According to stories, there was a great ocean on the other side of the mountains; but no-one from New Portage had ever been that far. It was said the desert was impassable, that anyone who tried to cross it died of thirst, or was killed by the monsters that roamed the sandy wasteland.
    The prairie dog also heard stories from the people of Brandon about a place called the Crater. It was supposed to be a colossal hole in the ground, kilometres wide, out in the middle of the western desert where a city of the Ancients had once stood. Now all that remained was deadly radiation and monsters who were equally radioactive. There were supposed to be other ruined cities of the Ancients out on the prairies, with names like Zazkatoon and Reejinah, but he’d never met anyone who’d seen them.
    Cera was fascinated by these tales, as was Garadun. They conferred telepathically while Joseph explained what he knew of the desert; and then Cera offered the prairie dog a deal. If he would let them copy his maps and keep one of the photographs of the ship, they would let him see and copy the Ancient maps in their possession. Maps that showed all the old cities, towns and roads. Amazed that they had such treasures (Joseph was an historian after all) the prairie dog heartily agreed.


                                                                          *****

Cera and Garadun were having a last word with Joseph Two-Burrows and about to leave City Hall, when one of the waitresses from the Double Bison opened the front doors and stepped aside. Symphony came scurrying in and miaowing earnestly, and hurried over to her surprised friends.
    “What’s the matter, sweetie?” Garadun asked, kneeling and petting kitties.
    Cera listened telepathically. “She says she went outside the town to go exploring and saw a herd of dinosaurs. Then she… you what?”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “She almost got stepped on,” the weasel girl translated in alarm. “Oh, Symphony, you have to be more careful around them!”
    Kittens sat and miaowed some more, pointing with their paws.
    “She says she came back to town, but the RV was locked and she couldn’t get in. She couldn’t find us, so she went into the inn and finally got Emmett to understand that she was looking for us. He told Zala to bring her here.”
    Garadun looked at the waitress. “Thanks, Zala, we appreciate it.”
    “My pleasure,” said Zala cheerfully. “She’s so adorable.”
    “I’m sorry you couldn’t find us,” said Cera, sinking to her knees. “We thought we’d get back to the RV before you did.”
    “I’ll see you later then,” said Joseph and strolled away. Zala gave the kittens a fond wave and left the building.
    “She should have the extra key,” Garadun suggested.
    Cera frowned. “How will she carry it? It’s not like she has pockets.”
    “We’ll put it on a piece of string. One kitten can wear it around her neck.”
    “That’s a good idea,” said the weasel, brightening. “How about it, Symphony?”
    Symphony mewed in joyful agreement. Now reunited, the three adventurers made their way across town and back to the waiting motorhome. Cera unlocked the door and the kittens swarmed inside, heading into the bedroom. While Cera got them a big bowl of milk, Garadun took the spare door key from the little box under the bathroom sink and fitted it with a loop of string. He knelt beside the bed, and one of the kittens sat still while he secured it around her neck. She pawed it happily while other kitties turned on the bedroom’s TV and got a video going. It was time to relax.
    Garadun took a plastic jug of KwikFud orange soda from the fridge and a pair of cups, and he and Cera went and sat outside under the motorhome’s awning. He filled their cups and they sat there looking out over the lake.
    “Well, she’s certainly had a busy morning,” Garadun remarked eventually. “Not even eleven yet and she almost gets squished.”
    Cera sighed. “I worry about her.”
    “She just has to be a bit more careful out here,” he said, sipping his drink. “It’s not like she can’t take care of herself. Dinosaurs are just so damn big.”
    The weasel looked at her friend. “Gar, she needs to be looked after.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Symphony’s just a kid. She’s very resourceful, yes; but she was born katkin before she mutated. There’s a katkin community not far from Big Boat. Katkins grow up much faster than we do, but she’s only about three years old. In human terms she’s still a child. I’m astonished she survived on her own.”
    “She’s a child? I though the swarm of kittens thing was simply her physical body, her mutation. How young a child?”
    “In our terms? Around ten or so.”
    Garadun was stunned. With how weird things could be in the postapocalyptic world, he’d regarded the swarm of kittens as simply a very unique lifeform. He knew her story and it was heartbreaking, but he’d made the mistake of judging her age when compared to normal housecats. At three years old a housecat was a full adult. He felt a swell of rage. Symphony’s own mother had let her child get banished. This little kid, sent into the wilds to fend for herself. She was one smart, resourceful, brave and lucky little cat to have survived all on her own. It was only when his fingers began to hurt that he realised how tightly he’d clenched his hands into fists.
    I share your outrage, my friend, Cera told him in solidarity.
    I swear, Cera, if we ever meet her tribe or whatever it is, I’m gonna kick their collective asses into the middle of next week! And you know how I love cats.
    It happens, she observed sadly. Even in a world full of weird mutants, it happens.
    Bastards.
    Now you understand what I mean when I say we have to look after her.
    Gods yes, he said and got a lump in his throat. Poor little kitty.
    Cera gave him a kind smile, laying her hand over his. Family.
    Garadun held her hand and smiled back. Family.

                                                                          *****

The sky clouded over the following day, and the day after that it started to rain. And kept on raining almost continuously for the next week. For Cera and Garadun this wasn’t much of a problem because they were using the stay-indoors time to sit around copying maps with Joseph. The mutant prairie dog was utterly fascinated with the Ancient maps his new friends had, and even got the Mayor to come have a look at them. In the evenings they would relax at the Double Bison, or try some of New Portage’s other taverns.
    The kittens, on the other hand, were bored. Symphony wound up spending a lot of time in front of the television; which in truth was something she liked to do anyway. Or sometimes she would just sit by the windows in the RV and watch the rain come down. Her friends used the rain to give the motorhome a good cleaning, but otherwise there wasn’t much to do. At least when she lived at the omega mall she could roam around the vast interior during bad weather. Yet she wasn’t left entirely on her own. Her friends were always with her at meal times and would often come and hangout with her during the day, watching TV or playing games.
    It’s what you did on rainy days.
    The clouds finally went away and the summer sunshine came back, leaving the town refreshed and the lake several inches higher. The motorhome’s clean water tanks were topped off; the tanks holding dirty water or waste flushed out. They left the windows open and the shades up during the day, now that they knew they were in a safe, friendly town. The three companions made a few acquaintances and were regarded kindly by most of the citizens; a few even got to see the inside of the RV, which was a marvel of technology. With the fine weather back, they would take strolls around the town or sit by the edge of the lake and simply enjoy the day. Sometimes they even went exploring in the ruins, wary of the potential dangers that could be lurking out there. One thing about New Portage that they were definitely enjoying was the food. It was really good; and of course they weren’t using up any of their KwikFud pouches in the meantime.
    During all this downtime, Cera and Garadun made plans for continuing their journey ever westwards in search of the mysterious vessel and its people. One thing that was on their minds was this desert their prairie dog friend spoke of. If what he said was accurate, then it covered maybe half of Saskatchewan and all of Alberta (going by old geography) right up to the edge of the Rocky Mountains. Garadun told his friends that this desert definitely wasn’t part of old Earth, and in that regard he didn’t have a clue what to expect. Gamma Terra was always full of surprises. They would simply have to wait and see for themselves. Until then, they would spend a little more time in peaceful New Portage and enjoy what it had to offer.