The Hooman Saga - Book Two, Part 1

Episode 08

(This book is available everywhere online. I'm working as I can to get this posted to Wattpad. If you can't wait to see how this turns out, see https://calm.li/HoomanSagaBk2Pt1 for more information and links.) 

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THEY TRAVELED FAST and hard. They had about a day and a half of travel. To cover in less than a day. There would be no stopping if night fell before they arrived. Neither for the ferals, who were now howling behind them. The small band of sentient hunters kept an even pace rather than a fast one. Soo-she's breath came in ragged gulps, but they were the same ragged gulps.

She learned to understand how to run and how to breathe. It wasn't like anything she'd been told. The training she had had on the ship, the constant use of the treadmill, made her understand that her legs would not go out and her lungs would keep up. Still the wolves kept up their inner-chant to keep the rhythm. It wasn't even ground, but it wasn't rocky like the slopes they'd come down. She was listening to the wolves and they learned to trust her sending. They had to act as a team. The approach was the same. Three in front. Sue and Tig in the middle. Three behind.

What Sue marveled at was their efficiency. They learned to think, to broad-send as one. Those in front were scouting the trail and sending the vision of what was coming. Nooks and crannies of the trails. The twists, the turns, the holes. Things to watch out for. Things to jump over. Those behind were sending from hearing backwards. Their focus was backwards. They were getting their sight from the forward wolves.

And all below this with a steady pace of their beat. Their paws on the ground and the beat in their heads from the song they sang to themselves. They kept the pace going.

There wasn't time to eat. There was barely time to drink. They had to keep running. But always, even when stopping to drink everyone else was on alert. Hearing and sending everything they sensed to the rest of the group. Only a few drank at a time. Barely enough to wet their tongues. Then they were off again.

When they first started, this seemed overwhelming to Sue.

Getting this massive information in a single moment. All these messages at once.

But soon it became second nature. She felt more aligned with this group, more part of its team than ever before. And they were listening for her footfalls which were louder than their paws. Tig encouraged her with positive thoughts, but knew she had to decide for herself what she would do.

So Sue kept up. After a while her ragged breaths became deeper, but more uniform, more regular. Not as painful. She had hardly time to think or decide. The focus was on running, not stumbling, and keeping up. The secret was being that moment itself. Each moment as it occurred. Time itself became one moment. The world changed around them. But the moment never did.

It was a unique experience for one who was taught on clocks and times and biorhythms. Logged charts and production goals. Comparing yesterday's last cycle with this cycle, interrupted by sleep periods.

But that wasn't here. Day and night were the same moment. The path changed, but the running was constant. The wind and clouds would move, but the air they breathed was endless. It was all one moment.

They were running. She was seeing through others' eyes. Hearing through their ears. The path was laid out in front to avoid trips, stumbles. There was only running in that moment. The breaths were regular. Her feet were regular. And a song sang in her head. The steady beat, all punctuated by the howls of the ferals.

Ferals were running as an arc behind them. Their howling told where they were. What they were about to do next.

Their fastest feral hunters were running on each end of that arc, trying to decrease the range between them and the sentients.