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Drive (ongoing story) / Part 33: Into the Bright

« Last post by Daen on January 20, 2023, 12:47:32 AM »

Because they had so few qars, it had taken several days to completely refit the cart and refuel it. Moss had worried that without qars in the desert, they wouldn't be able to leave the cart again, but Char had reassured him. If they were able to find her people, she knew they had the means to help them. If not, it wouldn't really matter.

There had been a scare the other day, though. A squad of juns had flown low to the ground, north of them and out of sight. They couldn't have missed Moss and Char just sitting there on the ground lashed together, but juns weren't any smarter than qars. The two people near their path were of no consequence, and clearly not part of their mission, so they just ignored them. Char only hoped that they wouldn't report what they'd seen when they got back to whichever warmaster had dispatched them.

"Did you see how low they were flying?" Moss had asked, worried. "They didn't come from across the sea, I bet. That means there are trejuns landed on Union soil right now. Bastards aren't even trying to hide it anymore."

"There's nothing we can do about it right now," she'd reminded him pointedly. "If we make ourselves known, even to help, we paint a target on our barks."

So now, with a sullen Moss in tow, they were headed south into the Orja. Char had let the last of the qars go an hour ago, and actually felt a little bad about it. They might be able to survive in the wilderness despite being domesticated, but only for a year at the most. It was a saddening thought, and an angering one. For a moment, she felt the same urge he did to go back and fight. They had two thunderers, which they had been able to attach to the cart before leaving. They also had a lot of experience using them. They might be able to do some good before they were targeted and destroyed.

The transition from green lands to desert was slower than she expected. She still had memories passed down to her from her lineage: vague images of the endless sand sea, stretching out forever. It matched the images she'd seen in the various letters from sandkin friends. It was so very different from everything she'd seen for herself, that somehow she'd expected it to just switch from verdant green to arid yellow in a flash.

Finally, they were on sand instead of soil. The cart seemed to take it well at first, and she was grateful Moss had fine-tuned the wheel design to make them wider. It spaced out their considerable weight more evenly. Still, she didn't want to think what it would be like if they came to a stop on top of one of those dunes. If she wasn't careful, the cart would roll over entirely, and they didn't have any qars to put them right again!

"This is a lot different than I expected," she said, surprising herself a bit by speaking out. Maybe she was more nervous about this strip than she'd been willing to admit. "I got letters from my friends that had descriptions, but you have to see it for yourself, don't you?"

Moss sent out some agreement, mixed in with his wonder. "Imagine if we had full eyes like the qars. The light would be blinding! At least we can spread it out over our oscilli."

Most of his branches and leaves hadn't grown back yet, and Char was impressed that he could so easily talk about oscilli without sending out some regret or anger over his situation. "Some sandkin researchers noticed that the mammals that live out here have two sets of eyelids. They guessed that the second set is for the glare."

"That makes sense. I wonder if they have some natural ability to store water, like we did with the second tank?" His focus shifted, and Char could sense him double-checking the seals on the water container. "So far so good."

She sent out some relief, and tried to hold on task. Steering around the larger dunes had already thrown her off as to the direction they were going.

Moss must have picked up some unease from her, because he immediately centered on that. "What's wrong?"

This wasn't good. They were barely an hour into the Orja and she was already having trouble. It would take at least two days—probably longer, since they didn't know exactly where it was—to reach Sharpcrag. "There's supposed to be a mountain chain off to the west, but the ground here is still all sand. The sand is supposed to get less deep, and the ground more rocky, but it's still the same."

He pondered that for a moment, and then let out some inspiration. "The Core! It always rises in the west, right? Keep its light to our right, and then we can make sure we're still going south at least."

Now why hadn't that occurred to her? Sending out a grudging surge of thankfulness to him, she altered the enzymes to change their course. It still took careful adjustments to keep them away from the biggest dunes, but at least she could stay relatively on course now. Thankfully, the terrain started to get rocky, indicating the mountains were nearing, but she still couldn't see them yet. She wished she had a bird's gift of sight.

But then… here she was; a tree, moving along the ground like an animal. Who knew—maybe one day sandkin might be able to soar through the air like a bird! Or swim like one of those fish she'd read about. That would really be something.

The heat increased exponentially over the next ten hours. To make matters worse, the Core continued its inexorable climb into the sky. Before long she couldn't tell where west was anymore, and just had to keep the rocks to her right. Her leaves were suffering as if near an inferno, and she felt a sense of shame roll through her. She was sandkin, and a Combustor as well! She should be able to handle the heat!

"Let me take over," Moss offered softly. Yet again he'd picked up her usually-concealed feelings. "You can protect your oscilli better if you're not using them at all times."

She could have used a break, but sent out a negative. "You're still recovering from the fire," she reminded him. "You're in no shape to control the cart."

"Voidstuff," he dismissed quickly. "I've had days to grow my leaves back, and you need a rest. You don't need to stay in control every minute of every day, you know."

The rebuke in his tone was two-fold, and she found it stung a little. This was her mission, not his! He was only alive because she'd saved him. Who was he to claim she was too controlling?

But then… it wasn't just the sandkin at risk, was it? The whole Union was under attack. He had just as much stake here as she did. And he had come up with the idea for the water tank in the first place. Without it, she doubted they'd make it through one day in here, much less three.

Reluctantly, she ceded control to him, and he took it gleefully. In retrospect it shouldn't have surprised her. He'd given off that same sense of glee back in the Arbormass when she'd directed his old cart remotely. Of course he'd feel this way now that he could actually move himself without any kind of help at all. "Let me know right away if there are any problems and I'll take over again," she said nervously, as the cart briefly clipped one of the larger rocks.

"Oops," he said excitedly, and leveled them out again. "Will do. Trust me, I'll keep us on the straight and narrow. You'll think they had a qar trail here for all the trouble we'll have."

Char tried not to think about his overconfidence, but she did admit it was encouraging to see him this giddy. At least one of them should be.

New Releases / Drive Part 32 added, 1/5/23

« Last post by Daen on January 06, 2023, 12:27:54 AM »

Drive Part 32 added, 1/5/23

Drive (ongoing story) / Part 32: A Different Kind of People

« Last post by Daen on January 06, 2023, 12:27:08 AM »

They made it back to the oil well without incident. Moss had kept up the conversation on the way, but changed it to be less confrontational. The sandkin were an entirely different people after all. Everything he'd thought he'd known about Char had been wrong.

She wasn't a loner—she was part of a massive Union of her own kind. She wasn't damaged on the inside—she was just hiding who she was because of her orders. She didn't hate her home grove for exiling her—she loved them despite the wrong they'd done her. And now that they were gone, she felt their loss keenly.

Moss didn't know what to think, so he focused on trivial or practical conversation. By the time they were rooted near the oil deposit, he'd basically run out of things to say. Which was just as well, since she lent him half her surviving qars. They had to lot of work to do.

The cart had to be refueled, and the tank made heat-resistant. The whole motion machine had to be, in fact. The desert wouldn't be forgiving on moving parts any more than it would be on their qars. Also, the qars would have to be left behind.

Moss reveled in the ability to affect his environment again. The death of Grace and the others still pained him, but at least he could give orders to qars again. He had to encode them simply—they didn't have as much experience with him as Grace or Fortitude or Strength had had.

"We should make another tank," he said after a while, as his new qars worked on gathering up insulation material. "Not for fuel, but water. We can grow roots into it, and then seal it up tightly. No matter how dry it is down there, the water will last until we use it all up."

"That's not a bad idea," Char said, her consideration leaking into their network. "I don't know exactly where Sharpcrag is, so I can't guess how long it'll take to get there."

"Why go to Sharpcrag at all? Aren't there other sandkin groves that would be easier to reach? They could contact your people for you."

She sent out a negative. "It's the closest to the green lands. There is a grove right on the western shore, but it's on the other side of a mountain chain. The cart could never take us through that safely."

"So we're going heedlessly into the world's largest desert, looking for a grove that might not even be there anymore?" He felt a burst of chagrin. This was her family he was talking about. "Sorry. It's just, for all we know the trejuns bombed Sharpcrag, too."

"You're right, we don't know for sure. Still want to come along?"

Moss allowed himself a moment of smugness. He'd already said he would go with her, but now that he knew about the sandkin's isolationist nature, he suspected her question didn't mean anything anymore. The sandkin had protected the secret of their existence for eons now. If Char found her way back to them, she'd tell them everything. Including what she'd told Moss.

Char might trust her superiors to treat him fairly, but she had an obvious blind spot when it came to them. Moss knew what they would do when they found out. They'd send some of their other agents to… deal with the information breach. If he stayed, either the trejuns would find and kill him, or the sandkin would. No, going with her was the only option he had left.

Or maybe they wouldn't. That's what the Union would do, but if Char was right, the sandkin behaved differently. Had they already voted on whether or not it was permissible to kill people to keep their secret?

"You said the sandkin voted to send you and others like you into the Union," he changed the subject to something that had been bothering him. "How do you know that vote was accurate? Whoever was handling communications could have altered it to say whatever they wanted it to."

She sent out a brief burst of anger. "Maybe that's what people in the Union would do, but that's not our way. When we cast a vote, we don't hide it. Everyone can see our voting history, right from when we were first planted. Even if the results were misreported, everyone could check them with a single message. The lie would be discovered, and the liar punished accordingly."

It was never that simple, but Moss let the topic go for the moment. Most likely, the sandkin who voted to infiltrate the Union had had a strong majority, so anyone who opposed the decision didn't really have any options on subverting it. Grove Praska had been part of a Greenleague before the Union had been formed; just a half dozen groves with similar interests working together. Moss had studied the records of how voting had been handled between groves. The Union way was better, he decided. Even a flawed leader was better than no leaders at all.

Still, the idea that sandkin voting history was public was new to him. If everyone could see what you voted for, then it forced you to have a good reason for voting that way. Or at least have a reason you thought was good.

New Releases / Drive Part 31 added, 12/30/22

« Last post by Daen on December 30, 2022, 01:35:51 AM »

Drive Part 31 added, 12/30/22

Drive (ongoing story) / Part 31: Wisdom of the Sands

« Last post by Daen on December 30, 2022, 01:35:18 AM »

"We call it the Orja Desert," she began simply, not quite sure how to lay it all out.

They were lashed together now, on their trip back to the oil deposit, so they could communicate more easily. Char found it uncomfortable at first, but traveling for days in silence hadn't exactly been great either. Moss was a good listener, too. He didn't usually interrupt or get rooted down with details.

"Most of it is what you've seen: harsh and uninhabitable. But there are places where water springs up from the sand naturally. We call that an oasis. They're rare, but they do happen."

Moss seemed to absorb that, releasing interest. "I know that rivers form from rain, especially high up. Does it rain in the Desol—I mean the Orja Desert?"

Char sent out an affirmative. "It doesn't always rain over the sand itself, but the rain trickles into massive caverns underground, that keep these oases (that's what you call more than one) from drying up. Some do disappear, but people have been living at older ones for thousands of years now."

"Amazing! How long can a treqar live like that? A hundred years? Two?"

She gave him some admonishment, and he immediately tamped down on his excitement. "We live as long as you do in the Union, for the most part. And we call ourselves sandkin. Obviously, we've never been truly treqars."

"Right. How do you build a society without qars though? I mean, did you use other animals, like the trejuns do? How did you even get that far out into the sand in the first place?"

"No one knows for sure. We have migrating birds that move through every year. It's assumed that some of them ate treqar seeds in the distant past, and left them in droppings near the oases, but we can't confirm that. In the beginning survival was more important than documenting history."

"I can imagine," he said gravely.

"At any rate, most of the sandkin thought they were alone for a long time. All they could see or hear was their own source of water, and sand in every direction around them. There were insects near each oasis, but they were far too small and independent to be domesticated. The only larger animals they encountered were the seasonal birds, and some walking creatures."

"Mammals, like the grasping primates?"

She sent out a negative. "Mammals, yes, but these ones had hooves and horns. Sometimes a herd or two would stop by, drink water and eat some of the other plants that grew there. My ancestors learned pretty quickly to grow tall and get their leaves out of reach.

"Still, they wondered what was out there. Various groves started using the birds to send messages to each other. Seeds would be purposefully dropped where the birds would eat, and then taken to other oases. When those seedlings started to grow, they could convey the differences to their new surroundings. Like your people, we can remember at least vague impressions from what our parents knew. It was enough for my ancestors to start learning that they weren't the only ones in existence."

"That must have taken generations!" Moss exclaimed. "Without qars to carry your seeds in a specific direction, or to pick up and carry enzyme messages from one person to another, it must have taken decades to send even a simple message."

"Centuries actually," she confirmed. The cart hit a large rock, but they were lashed together pretty tightly, and it didn't interfere with their conversation. "Some groves decided to start growing roots in the direction that the birds flew. Communication roots, like the ones you know, but grown entirely instead of picked up and put down. Most didn't find anything and were left to die off, but all it took was one finding its target. Eventually, we had a network of painstakingly-maintained roots between all eighty-seven groves in the Orja. Messages could be sent from one to another in a matter of days, instead of the years it would have taken otherwise."

"Wow. So you really can do almost everything we can. It just takes a lot longer without qars."

"Pretty much. Actually it was finding qars that made us look north in the first place. Some of the larger birds would have all kinds of insect parasites, but one year the sandkin in grove Sharpcrag started noticing a strange, large kind of insect being brought along for the ride. They were wild qars, we assume, from groves up here. The qars didn't last long in the heat, but we were curious."

"That makes sense," Moss said, satisfied. "After my ancestors started domesticating qars, their population exploded in just a few years. A lot of them went missing, and some were probably eaten or just carried along by those birds."

"Well, whatever the reason, our observations suggested that the qars had been bred. Selectively. It was our first indication of intelligent life up here, so sandkin groves started growing roots to the north. It took another few hundred years, but we were pretty shocked to find the green land."

"This is incredible!" Moss said, his excitement surging to the front again. "Why didn't your people make contact? The groves would have loved to hear about treqars, or sandkin I guess I should say, living in the Desolation of all places!"

"Some of us wanted to," she admitted with a little amusement. He was practically giddy. She liked history too, but not to this degree. "Sharpcrag talked about it with the others, and decided it would be better to wait and watch at first. We wanted to know more about these strange, distant cousins of ours.

"It was like a different world to us, Moss!" She said intensely, surprising even herself. "Your groves are so much closer together, and there are so many more. And you had so, so much water! Enough to grow thousands of people, whenever and wherever you wanted!"

"I think I see what you mean," Moss responded sadly. He must have sensed some of her frustration and anger. "Your people were struggling for survival from day one, and striving to explore despite that. My people had all we could ever want, and all we did with that gift was kill each other so that we could control more."

Again, she was surprised. If he was guessing, he'd done it correctly. Maybe she was having a good influence on him after all. "When your interroot was done, and the Union formed, some of us wanted to reach out again, but the majority decided against it. Your wars were over, yes, but now you had a single leader. That's something the sandkin couldn't abide. We still can't, even to this day."

"Why not? I mean Chancellor Esta isn't perfect, but she's always tried to protect us and guide us."

"That's authority, Moss. Hierarchy. One person, or a small number of people, putting themselves over everyone else, and then claiming it's their right to be in charge! I understand why it's normal to you, because it's how every generation before you has done things, but that doesn't make it right!"

Char had dreaded the day she might have to debate a treqar about the many ills of the Union. Moss was pretty even-tempered, though. Even now he didn't seem offended by how he was wrong. Just curious.

"With authority and power comes privilege. Always. They're linked, leaf and branch, to each other. We learned the hard way that as soon as one person takes more, everyone else has to do with less. In a place as harsh and hostile as the Orja, that can mean the difference between life and death!

"Even if that person seemed to be noble—to be doing what was in the best interests of the grove—the result was always the same. The many suffered, so that the few could thrive. My ancestors did away with that kind of thinking. When we made contact with other sandkin groves, we again had some groves putting themselves above others! We had to force them to accept that we are all, young and old, firm and infirm, east to west, equals. We all deserved the exact same access to water, and the exact same standard of living!"

She let out some frustration. "It was a difficult lesson to learn. I wasn't even there, but the memories I got in enzyme packages showed how stubbornly the powerful held onto that power. A few even had to be killed: roots were grown in a pattern around them that starved them to death. It was a cold, vicious decision, but in the end it was the many who made it. Not the few."

He seemed disturbed at the idea of sandkin killing each other. Maybe it was because he thought they couldn't do anything to each other without qars. Char hoped she hadn't shocked him too badly.

"You take orders, you said," he responded after a lengthy pause. "If you don't believe in having leaders, then how do you put up with taking orders? Why would you give anyone authority over you, if you hate authority so much?" So it wasn't the ancient executions that had given him pause, but the fundamental difference between the sandkin and the Union.

"Because it was the will of the people," she answered firmly, resolutely. "And I don't mean that the way your Chancellor does. She lies when she says it's the will of your people. I mean every sandkin from every grove in the Orja had an equal part in the decision. Their votes were tallied, over the course of years, and the majority decided to send me and others like me into the green lands so that we could learn more about the Union. Torlo and a few others lived back there, organizing things, while the rest of us were sent to nearby groves. To be raised in public by Union citizens, but secretly by our own people."

"Against your will, though."

"Yes, against my will! I didn't choose to be a spy, or a traitor. But my people didn't choose to live in a desert either! I live in luxury compared to them. I'm proud to serve because I serve an entire people, and not just one fallible individual."

He still seemed skeptical, but didn't push any further. At first. Then suspicion rippled out from him. "Did you choose to become a Combustor? Or did they make you do that, too?"

Char hesitated. It had been so long ago that she barely remembered. She'd thought the fire was pretty, but then had been scared by it. Torlo had reassured her that it wasn't just pretty. It was valuable, too. They needed it. All sandkin needed it.

"That's what I thought," he said bitterly. Suspicion rose again. "Wait—the fire. The accidental fire that got you in trouble with your grove in the first place. Did they order you to do that, so that you'd be noticed by the Chancellor and brought to the Arbormass?"

He had no right to judge her! Everything Char had done had been for the good of her people. Of all people actually, Union and Trejuna included. They were all equal, whether they could admit it to themselves or not! "Yes, they did."

"They turned you into a criminal, Char! A pariah. And still you defend them?"

"You don't understand, Moss. If you'd seen what I've seen, if you'd been raised by them, you'd know how important—” She cut off briefly, trying to contain her anger. "How irreplaceable that trust is. To be part of not just a family, or a grove, or even a nation, but a people. To know that you are them, and every one of them is you as well!"

She let out some resignation. "If you come with me into the Orja, and survive the trip, maybe you'll start to understand."

New Releases / Drive Part 30 added, 12/23/22

« Last post by Daen on December 22, 2022, 11:08:39 PM »

Drive Part 30 added, 12/23/22

Drive (ongoing story) / Part 30: Shadow of Death

« Last post by Daen on December 22, 2022, 11:08:04 PM »

The next limb of their journey was a little shorter, but a lot more difficult. The terrain was rockier here. There were fewer trees and grass in the way, from what Moss' limited, newly-grown senses could tell him, but the air was also getting dryer. It was too early in the year for droughts, wasn't it?

They must be going south, towards the Desolation. There were only a twigful of groves that close to the desert, including Char's home. Or what he assumed was her home anyway. That could have been just another lie on her part.

Moss had been tempted to ask her to return him to the Union. He'd have a hard time explaining his absence to people, and his survival, but they were his people. If Rax had been right and Trejuna had just been toying with them this whole time, they'd need his help. They'd need all the help they could get.

As much as he wanted to go home again, now that the Arbormass was gone, he had a more important task in the immediate future. Char's friends, whoever they were, could help the Union far more than one damaged treqar going home. If he could open a line of communication, perhaps negotiate with them, maybe he could enlist their aid against Trejuna.

The cart jerked and came to a brief stop, as the rocky terrain grew even more unnavigable. Moss was dimly aware of Char actually reversing course and finding another route. How in the Void had she done that? He'd tinkered with the idea of spinning the wheels in the opposite direction like that, but no one in the Arbormass had even considered adding it to their prototypes! Char's friends were clearly advanced, and inventive.

If she was any indication, they didn't like the Union very much. Specifically the Chancellor. If he could find a way around that dislike, he stood a chance. Moss was no diplomat, even an amateur one, but he was literally the only option here. He had to try.

After nearly a full day of alternating between diplomatic strategy, frustration at his lack of knowledge, and sheer boredom, Moss was aware they were coming to a stop again. It took a few minutes for Char's qars to connect one of her roots to him, and then she was present in his mind again.

"This is your last chance, Moss. Just beyond that rise is grove Kulik. They're expecting me, alone. If I show up with you, they will react badly. They might just tear you apart and do the same to me for bringing you. I can leave you here, out of sight, and they'll never even know you're here."

Moss sent out some uncertainty. He'd never heard of a grove Kulik, and he'd memorized every grove name in the Union. Besides, risk to himself was one thing, but Char might be punished as well? She seemed fine with it, but he wasn't sure he felt the same. "I'm going with you," he repeated, releasing determination. "You're not getting rid of me that easily."

He thought he caught a slight sense of approval, but it was gone in an instant. Fortunately the ground on this hill was flat enough that they could stay connected as she pushed her way over it. Using her senses which were about a thousand times more accurate than his right now, Moss looked eagerly for the grove up ahead.

There were shapes, just at the edge of her sight. They became more clearly formed… as blackened corpses. Trees gutted by Streek Fire. By now, they both knew the signs very well. "No!"

Confusion and fear burst out from her, detectable even through this limited network. She manipulated a control, speeding them up, and towards the grove. Moss did his best to hold back his dull despair. She needed hope right now, and he shouldn't strangle it.

Grove Kulik was gone. It had happened at least a day ago, while they'd been refueling. Ash had blown away from the site, into the Desolation to the south, leaving wood scorched so badly it had burned white.

"Torlo! Renna. Sarm," she said despairingly, sweeping her oscilli from left to right over the blasted bodies. "They were my friends. My family, really. They sent me secret messages ever since I was a seedling!"

"I'm sorry, Char," Moss said tritely. She had shown some grief over the loss of the Arbormass, but those relationships had only been a season old. These had been decades!

"Not as sorry as the trejuns are going to be," she promised grimly. Rage reverberated through their link, to such a degree that Moss was having a hard time being sure some of it wasn't his. He hadn't even known these people, but still felt the hatred oozing from her like open sap.

From what he could tell, this wasn't the grove she'd grown up in, but it was close. Her secret friends must have connected to her as a seedling, raising her with their own values in addition to what she was learning from the Union. It couldn't have been easy to grow a communication line in secret, but presumably these people had qars as well. Or once had, anyway.

Her despair faded quickly. Char's righteous wrath was fierce, but impractical in their current situation. "I don't know what to do now! I was instructed to come here to get my new orders. I assume it was to take the cart somewhere it could be fitted with thunderers. Then we could go trejun-hunting."

"We could take the cart north," he suggested. "But we don't know for sure if there are any Union groves still standing nearby. If there are, we can get a message to the Chancellor, and she'll have orders. For me, anyway. She doesn't have to know you're alive."

"No. Even if she could be trusted—and she can't—we don't know if the trejuns are listening in on your interroot now. Our only advantage right now is that they think we're dead." Char paused, as if bracing herself. "We have to go south. Into the Desolation."

The dryness in the air had been uncomfortable so far, but suddenly it seemed to have desiccated Moss completely. "Are you insane? Your qars wouldn't last a day in there! And we'd probably follow them in a week or so."

"A week should be enough, I think. I hope." She reversed the cart again, and turned it around. They weren't heading south, but east again. Back towards the oil deposit. Her shock and horror were still there, but determination was now present as well. "You wanted to know who I work for? If we're going into the land that water forgot, you deserve to know the whole story. Who knows? Maybe it'll push you into growing some common sense and staying behind."

"Not much chance of that, after all we've been through," Moss said wryly, and indicated the desert. "Now tell me. What kind of strange and wonderful creature could survive in there?"

New Releases / Drive part 29 added, 12/16/22

« Last post by Daen on December 15, 2022, 11:04:19 PM »

Drive part 29 added, 12/16/22

Drive (ongoing story) / Part 29: The Importance of Choice

« Last post by Daen on December 15, 2022, 11:03:29 PM »

Mixing fuel without qars to help wasn't easy, but Char was getting the hang of it. She'd been spoiled by having them around for so long. There were a few present around her roots, but Char resisted the urge to use them. Her bark tensed as she thought about how the others would react when this pampered, softened citizen returned to her people. She'd be the object of ridicule. It would be couched in politeness and courtesy, but it would still be there.

That was the least of her problems, unfortunately. What in the Void was she going to do about Moss? She couldn't just leave him here. The machinery in the area couldn't be removed or disassembled, which meant that eventually the trejuns would notice this place. They'd come here and kill him. She couldn't take him with her either! That would also mean his death. Once again, she railed against herself for coming back for him. He would have been fine if she'd just let him think she was dead!

Regardless, choice was imperative. His corrupt Union might not believe that, but she still did. He had to at least have the choice for himself. "All right. We're ready to go. You can't stay here, but I can drop you off somewhere in the wilderness. Near a waterway. You'll be able to grow roots as deep as you want, in perfect safety."

"Oh, yeah. I'll be safe all right. And completely alone for the rest of my life. How is that any different than excommunication? I'll pass, thanks."

"You'll like the alternative even less," she put some foreboding into the link. "If you come with me the rest of the way, you'll almost certainly die at the end of it. I won't be able to protect you anymore." Even trying to might put her at risk. In fact it probably would.

"What would you do in my place, Char? You've been alone most of your life, or so I thought. For all I know, you're actually a chatty socialite under that disguise of yours. Would you really want to be totally alone, even if it meant you could live another two hundred years or more? Unless you want to tell me exactly how my life will be in danger, I'm choosing to go with you."

"I… can't tell you any more than I already have."

"You haven't told me anything! All I have is guesswork here. Based on that guesswork, I'm coming with you. Understood?"

His roots had barely started to come out, so he couldn't control any of the articulators or the frames. He couldn't compel her to do anything at all. It would have been amusing if he wasn't being so serious. He had zero power in this situation, and yet somehow… he had all of it. A treqar could have left him behind, and a trejun would have just killed him, but she had to honor his wishes.

"I hope you stored enough water and energy, because you might not be allowed to root at our destination," she said brusquely, and got to work hoisting him.

The cart's frame had been adjusted with sliding mechanical limbs which could latch onto an unrooted treqar and pull it up. It also wasn't easy without her letting her qars help, but at least this time she wasn't doing it while surrounded by the bodies of her dead friends. It would have been quite impossible without radios, as well. Aysa had provided the citizens with the gift that kept giving. By sending out those rootless signals, Char was then able to hoist herself up into the bed of the cart, right next to him.

She recorded a quick message, and sent one of her qars to deliver it to him. It was basically just telling him that she had only one radio control, and therefore communication would be limited during the trip. She felt bad about him having to travel in blind silence again, but also grateful that he couldn't talk. He'd just keep asking her questions she couldn't answer.

New Releases / Drive Part 28 added, 12/9/22

« Last post by Daen on December 09, 2022, 01:01:53 AM »

Drive Part 28 added, 12/9/22