The Rivening

Friend or Foe

Connie pedalled steadily for a couple of hours, making a few brief stops for water and food. She encountered only two other travellers, both on bikes. Neither tried to stop and question her, and they seemed satisfied with her mumbled greeting. For the last many miles, she saw no one and hoped that her escape wouldn't be noticed until they came with her breakfast tray in the morning.

As she pedalled along, amusing herself by thinking about the pile of clothes she left under the bedcover to mimic her sleeping body, the road abruptly turned rutted and uneven. The front wheel jerked awkwardly, and the bike tipped over. Shakily assessing her injuries, she crawled out from under the bike, pulling it upright, and gingerly began walking. She was more shaken than hurt, but the bike moved oddly. It was too dark to see what was going on, and there was no way she could ride further.

Prior to this excursion, Connie's movements in Dahria had been quite limited. It hadn't sunk into her how vast the unsettled areas of Dahria might be with a population only 1/100th the size of Earthside's. The cone of illumination projecting from the front bike light hadn't revealed any noticeable lanes or trails connecting to the road for a while. As much as she could discern, it seemed mainly dense forests loomed on either side.

Connie hefted the bike into the woods. Far enough to be well hidden, but not straying too far from the road. The front light helped her locate a small, open area. She untied the panniers and opened them in front of the light, pulling out the blanket and tent roll. When she released the straps on the tight roll, it launched out of her hands with a pop.

Connie yelped, then laughed. When Tessa said pop tent, she really did mean pop and not pup tent as Connie thought. The tent made a hissing sound. Connie turned the bike light toward it and saw that it had fully formed into a small, single person tent. She felt into the opening and realized the hissing was a self-inflating sleeping pad, built into the bottom. Clever, those Dahrians.

The day's events and hours of peddling were catching up. She shoved the panniers and backpack into the tent, climbed in, and zipped up the opening. She'd hardly wrapped the blanket around her before falling soundly asleep.

The dawn bird song didn't wake her, but her parched mouth finally did. She still had some water left but would need a lot more before she reached Yawlag. In this Dahrian version of Ireland, surely she could find a stream nearby and trust that in Dahria it wasn't polluted.

She packed up, leaving the tent for last. It took considerable effort, but she finally managed to get it rolled up tight enough to secure the straps around the roll at their widest extension. After carrying the bike back on the road, she saw that the brakes had become misaligned when she tipped over, which kept one side rubbing against the tire. She was able to square them up, fixing the problem.

Looking back down the trail in the direction leading to Ladore, she saw that a clear line demarcated the end of the smoothly maintained road and the beginning of the rutted road. This was probably the boundary between the Crustic and Misgy domains.

Then she noticed wooden signs on either side. Each had a cluster of the Dahrian pictographs which made her think about Peter, wishing desperately that he was with her, and praying that he was all right. He might be able to tell her what the signs were saying about each of the domains.

From what Rennish said about the people from Misgy, and what Connie had observed at the Brodurne program, she could imagine that maintaining a rigorous schedule of road repairs might not be a high Misgyian priority. Though with so few travelers in this section, it probably hardly mattered.

Connie put on the glasses from Tessa. If she did run into anyone, it might not be wise to be identified as a signaler right off.

As long as she paid close attention, it was not difficult navigating the road in the daylight. But she nearly toppled over again when she glanced farther up and saw an enormous deer with a massive set of antlers leisurely trotting toward her.