Freedom Star

Chapter 15

The first light of the sun, shining in watery fashion through the humid air, brought him awake. He almost screamed when he tried to move—every muscle in his body felt as if it had been beaten enthusiastically by someone wielding an extremely heavy club. It took him three tries to swing his legs off the branch and a good five minutes to ease himself down to the ground. Once there, he tottered down to the stream for a drink that only made him realize again how hungry he was.

Sitting on a rock by the side of the stream, he took stock of his situation. For the moment, at least, he'd go with his assumption that the Soldiers weren't after him any more. That left him free to concentrate on basic needs. Water was no problem. Food would require some searching, but shouldn't be a problem, either. Clothes—not really a problem. Not an immediate one, anyway. The jungle was warm and modesty seemed the least of his concerns. His biggest problem would simply be finding his way to...where?

Where all the others went, he told himself. The city. Except they'd gone down the river to escape the Soldiers—and the city was upriver. Ellia would get them off the river and headed in the right direction, no doubt, but it left him with the question of whether he should head for the city directly or try to catch up to the others.

His first inclination was to try to catch up to them by following the stream to the river and then building his own raft, but a little cold reflection squelched the notion. He would have no way of telling where they had left the river and started toward the city, and every minute on the river would take him further from that ultimate destination. It would be better to follow the stream to the river—that much, at least, made sense—but then to head upstream toward the city. If the others got there before him, he was sure he could track them down, and if he got there first, he'd be able to help them when they arrived.

He got to his feet. With Dar out of the way—though he still didn't like to think about how it had happened—it was time he and Ellia got their original plan back on track. It was time to start thinking about Andrew Carlson.

But as he limped along, he glanced down at his scratched, scrawny and naked body, and thought ruefully that if Carlson could see him now, he wouldn't be losing much sleep over the threat of revolution.

The stream led him back to the river more quickly than he had expected. It also led him into trouble.

Four hours after he had set out, he heard the rumble of the river ahead of him. The gully through which the stream flowed had grown deeper and deeper as he limped along it, and when he heard the river, he stopped and took a good look around, debating whether it was better to climb out of the gully there and travel along the top of the river's ravine, or to go on down to the river and try to follow it at the bottom of the ravine, at least as long as he could. It would be slower going down there, and eventually he would have to climb back up—he remembered only too clearly the sheer cliffs that lined the river in many places—but for as long as he could stay in the ravine, he would have better cover from Skyforce or any soldiers still wandering about.

He hadn't made up his mind yet when he heard voices overhead. He took one startled look up at the lip of the gully, then plunged into the nearest bushes.

"Hey, Fark, you hear something?" a young male voice said clearly. Jon held his breath.

"What?" said another male.

"A rustling—something in the bushes—"

"This is a jungle, Zebus," said a new voice, a female one. "They do have wild animals here, you know."

"Don't remind me." A shower of dirt and rocks rolled down the gully's bank, followed by a young man in a sweat-stained, disheveled Soldier's uniform—Zebus, Jon presumed. Jon peered out at him from deep inside the bush and tried to hold as still as the rock digging painfully into his thigh.