Sub Terra: Et Reditus

Twenty-Six

Devi

The next evening, we picked up our supplies from Connor's and dropped Gus off at Madame's. Together, Daniel and I went to receive the Lee's from the house they were staying in.

I knocked on their door as Daniel stood behind. Moments later, Nadia would open it.

"It's you two," she said with a fabricated smile. "Aries will be here in just a minute."

We sat tight there. Nadia and I engaged in small talk while Daniel simply looked up at the sky. Maybe he was thinking about how late it was getting as the light of the sun gradually became dimmer.

It wasn't long at all before Aries joined us.

"Sorry to keep you here waiting, pals," he said in his obnoxious, snobby voice. "Let's get going. Daniel, do you have a particular spot you want to go to?"

"We're gonna head as south as we can following the Ounila river until it meets with the Tidili." he said in a neutral tone.

"That's about four and half kilometres. You sure know this place, Sterling."

With that, we set off. The rugged terrain was harder than we thought it would be to walk in, and it ended up taking an hour to get to our spot. Once we did, Daniel started to pitch our tent. The sky was now completely dark. I offered to help him, but Aries got in my way.

"Let me help you, Sterling. Devi, go and get some rest. You must be tired." he said, as if I wasn't an Android who by default operated as if energy was a second thought. Daniel shot me a look that told me to let Aries help him, and I obliged.

"Sure. It's all yours Aries."

While the two worked on the tent, I decided to analyze Aries' behavior. He was working pretty fast. Fast enough that he was giving Daniel a run for his money, and anyone who'd ever seen him would say that Daniel got things done quickly. Even with this speed, he made sure he didn't make any mistakes on his side, and even asked Daniel if he was having any trouble. It seemed that he was an experienced camper, given the fact that his influence allowed him to get unlimited access up to the Surface. Not only that, his attitude was jovial and cheerful. I wasn't sure if it was because he was happy to go camping or for some other reason, although it just could've been his normally annoying personality flaring up.

Anyway, the tent was set up in 10 minutes, and Nadia and I helped move things into it.

"Good work, Aries. Thanks for giving me a hand with that." he said, praising the guy. Then, he did something I never thought he would do with Aries.

He gave him a pat on the back. Right there, I knew something was up. He never, ever would've done something like that to someone he didn't like. I had to continue observing the situation to find out why he did it. A short while later, I saw Daniel clean his hands using a wet wipe. I kept that in mind for later.

A few hours went by. We were telling each other funny and cool stories. Aries told about one time where he tried pranking some Uluruan official's son by looking like he was going to crash his car, then swerve at the last moment. He didn't swerve fast enough and ended up totaling it, but he bought him a new one straight from the factory. It was kind of funny, I admitted.

At the same time, he and Nadia were preparing food they brought with them. They made things like barbecued kangaroo and kelp sandwiches. Rich people stuff. At one point, Nadia brought out honey, pears and something that looked like a lemon.

"Hey, hey, don't tell me you're making... yuja-hwachae?" Aries asked his sister.

"You bet I am. It's Dad's old recipe."