[Author’s note: This story takes place fifteen years after the evening described in Somewhen and three years after Justin’s Rebellion. It is now early spring on Titan and the children have grown, moved off the farm where they had been created, and now have homesteads of their own.]
The struggling sheep was outlined against the yellow egg-shape of Full Saturn. Had it not been for that, Brenn would have given up and headed for home. As it was, he could see it atop the bluff over Wolfden Creek. The question now was what to do about it.
He hadn’t gone too far beyond the creek in the past, but he remembered that there was a spot where it narrowed enough to cross on the rocks. He pulled his light jacket close against the rising evening wind and walked north to find it. It was about fifty yards away, just as he remembered it, but the daily freeze-thaw cycle had broken up more and more of the dirt and the stream had begun to carve a trough in the ground.
He crossed there, taking care on the slippery rocks, since they were beginning to show the first signs of frost on their surfaces. The ground rose gradually on the far side, and he occasionally cast a glace toward the edge to make sure that he was far enough from the edge to be safe as he moved upward toward the last of his charges.
“Guffie, what are you doing up here?” he said softly as he approached the ewe. It looked as if the sheep had wandered into a soft spot on the edge of the cliff in search of a particularly attractive clump of bluegrass and its front two legs had fallen into a hole. The sheep shook a few times, bleated plaintively, and tried to pull its legs out of the hole, to no avail whatsoever.
Brenn didn’t like the looks of that at all. She was too close to the edge, by far, to be safe, and they needed the rest of their herd intact, having lost too many to Justin’s wolves already. Carefully, he moved alongside her on the side opposite the cliff edge, watching every step to keep from slipping on the damp grass. He wrapped his arms around her middle, dug his heels in and lifted.
He felt the ground give beneath the two of them before he saw anything else really happening. He released the sheep and desperately tried for a few seconds to grab something, anything, as the entire patch of ground began to slide down the side of the bluff. In just moments, the two of them had passed the edge and were on their way down towards the creek below.
Thirty feet is not a long drop on Titan, but is still far enough to be dangerous. Brenn had two seconds to calculate the result of his fall. He grabbed the sheep, which was wildly beating at the air with its hooves. In the last second, he arched his back trying to use the side of the cliff next to him to slow himself enough to get his legs under him for the landing.
It was a bad one. He felt blinding, white-hot pain in his right leg that made him sure that it was broken, probably in a couple of places. He heard the sheep’s neck crack when he fell on her because of the rocks beneath the two of them. One good thing, however, in this situation—they were on dry land.
There was a small, small bank on this side of the creek that they had fallen onto. It was just a bit over two feet wide, but dry. His leg was caught between two rocks that looked as if they had toppled from the edge above on an earlier day. Not for the first time in the last hour, Brenn realized that it was getting colder, fast. He shoved the sheep aside, into the creek, and tried to sit up, reaching for the rocks. His leg was firmly wedged between them, and he had already lost feeling in his toes. He noticed the sandy dirt below the rocks and began digging beneath the smaller one.
It was slow going. Each time that he pulled a handful of soil back, the pain would cause him nearly to black out. The bank was in the shade of the bluff, so he could only make out his progress by starlight. Finally, an hour or so after he began working, his leg was free. He began to slide his body along the side of the cliff wall—until he hit the water.
It wasn’t a full bank that he was on, but merely a ledge at the water’s edge. He was trapped on the far side of the creek with no way to get across. He shook off the encroaching cold and tried to lift himself enough to slide his phone out of his pocket to call the house. He inched it out, but by the time it had cleared his pocket, he realized that he had landed on it. It was not only crushed, which the nannies could have repaired, it was broken completely in half. Gail would have no idea where to look for him and there was no way to get in touch with her, now.
He slipped his pocketknife out of his shirt pocket and cut away the cloth around his injured leg. It was noticeably swollen and the skin was showing signs of stretching–internal bleeding, most likely. The icy wind lifted the edges of his pants leg for a moment or two. He was in a really serious position, it was obvious.
Worst of all, his body was beginning to work against him. The Titanian nights were a week long, so that he was created to sleep through them. Anytime that there was a combination of cold and dark, his liver began producing ethylene glycol and a soporific. If nothing intervened, he’d be asleep in a half hour, even with the adrenaline pouring into him from the pain. A sleep, he realized, from which it was unlikely that he was going to wake.
Gail was disgusted when she realized that she was yawning. It was six hours after sundown and Brenn still was not back from his search for the last sheep. She had cleaned the kitchen twice already, and she threw the sponge against the wall as hard as she could. Janice peeked out from her bedroom. “Mommy, what’s the matter?”
“Darling, nothing, it’s all right, go to sleep. Daddy’s just a little late, I’m sure it’s all right.” If only she felt that way inside, she growled to herself. Something had to have happened. If it was more of those wolves, she was going to personally shove something really long and sharp right up Justin’s ass and wiggle it around for a while.
There was no doubt left in her mind—she was going to have to go looking for him. This was not going to be easy—it snowed every night, even during the summer. Even now, she was fighting her instincts, which told her that it was bedtime and that arguing about it would be futile. She had been calling Brenn for over two hours, eight times now, and each time, the machine voice would say, “this unit is not in service, please record message for such time as it is re-established.” Frantic wasn’t going to cut it. She had to think, and think deeply about how to deal with all of this.
First things first—she had called around to everyone within ten miles and they had already gone to sleep. The children needed to be kept safe. She stepped into their bedroom, noticing that Janice had quickly hidden the book she had been reading under her pillow. Henry had his thumb in his mouth and was snoring away. Their cats had each picked a bed and were curled at the foot.
Gail knelt by Janice’s bed. “Darling, I’m going to go look for daddy. I’m going to turn down the thermostat in your room so you’ll sleep better. I’ll have the front door closed so nothing will bother you. You sleep well, we’ll be back before you wake up.” Janice opened one eye and said, “Kiss?” Gail kissed her gently on the cheek, fighting a tear that threatened to blur her vision. “Kiss, my precious one.”
Gail lowered the room temperature to below freezing. They’d all be out like a light within minutes and wouldn’t need anything until she returned. Now, she had to figure out how to find Brenn. She moved through the house, grabbing handfuls of items that might prove useful. She had the flashlight out already, since she had secured the barn a couple of hours ago. Layers of clothing would be useful, and something warm for him, too, since he had to be asleep already—he had been wearing only his shirt and light jacket when he had left before sunset. She opened the medicine cabinet and found the bottle of stimulants that they had used on prior occasions when it had been necessary to stay awake. She took two with water and waited for them to kick in—the more clearly she thinks now, she figured, the greater the chance of pulling this off.
She covered her legs with wool knee stockings and slid on boots with cleats. Over her shift, she put first a warm sweatshirt, then an insulated, hooded coat. Gloves over hands, hood up, and she was ready to go. She opened the front door against the wind and stepped out into the night.
“Polly, come on, Polly, wake up!” Gail shook the sheepdog gently. Polly jumped a bit, but stood up for her mistress. Gail fed her a pill wrapped in fish meal, and Polly lapped at the water in her dish afterwards. “Polly, we have to find Brenn. Can you do that? Where’s Brenn?”
The dog sniffed the glove that Gail held out, then put her nose on the ground and headed off toward the east. Gail looked over the farm one last time and began to follow in her wake. Gail couldn’t see Polly well—the light from Saturn and the Galactic Center lobes were almost blinding in the direction she was going. She could, however, hear her snuffling and, when Gail fell too far behind, Polly would run back to her to make sure she was still coming.
No stars were visible in the far west. There was a solid wall of darkness there. Obviously, there was going to be some storms later—it could easily get down to forty below on an early spring night. The first hint of mares’ tails ahead of the storm paralleled the Milky Way above her.
About a half mile west of the farmhouse, there was a long slope that headed toward the creek. The melt from the winter snows had run down that slope and the grasses at the bottom were the first to flourish in the spring. The herd had discovered the tender young shoots six months or so back and each morning had rushed down this hillside. Before sunset, Brenn had brought the rest home from this area. Now, there was no sign of either sheep or shepherd. Gail navigated the path down the slope, which shifted from right to left to avoid rocks protruding from the new soil.
The flat flood plain beyond was pocked with tiny potholes where the sheep sank into the ground while eating. Small piles of sheep droppings littered the landscape. As Polly continued her search, Gail could hear the sound of Wolfden Creek in the distance. At the edge of the creek, Polly began barking frantically and running from side to side.
Gail realized in horror what was going to happen next. “No Polly, NO!!!” The sheepdog plunged into the icy creek and began swimming the sixty feet to the small bank on the other side. About halfway there, her legs began to slow, then, fifteen seconds later, they came to a complete halt as the chill of the freezing-cold water caused the onset of her hibernation. Her muzzle was beneath the surface of the water, and Gail could only watch as the dog slowly drowned in eight feet of water. The body rotated for ten or fifteen minutes, then sank to the bottom of the creek.
Without realizing how she had gotten there, Gail was sitting alongside the stream crying. She had made Polly herself, as a child, with just a touch of help from the Diamond. Since then, the two of them had been inseparable. She shook, and kept shaking for a long, long time. Finally, she realized that she was getting nowhere, and that she had ignored the real reason that she was out here in the first place. She pulled the flashlight from her pocket and directed it across the stream.
Brenn. He was unconscious, sleeping, perhaps? No. It was obvious, from the way that he was positioned, that there’d been some kind of accident. All that she needed was to get over there, and she could wake him up and get him home. She ran downstream quickly and crossed at the set of rocks, as her husband had done hours before. She inched along the bank at the bottom of the rise, but found that it disappeared long before she could get anywhere near him. She crossed back and ran to the south, upstream. There was nothing—no place to cross, no way to get to Brenn.
There had to be a way. She began running down lists of options in her head. If he was already hibernating, he was operating at a very slow rate. This meant that as long as he was breathing air and not bleeding too badly, any damage to his body was slowed a great deal. However, sooner or later, his body would give out under the stress of a severe injury. She had to get him home somehow.
She tried to kick a rock in frustration, but slid and landed, spread-eagled on the ground. She cursed for a second or two, but was padded everywhere enough that she wouldn’t even get a bruise later. She looked at the rocks, now covered with frost and realized something—she might not be able to get to Brenn now, but she could wait and the stream would freeze over. The problem, though, was that she had no idea how long this would take.
She turned and dashed for the farmhouse. She was going to need a lot of supplies. The little potholes that she crossed made slight cracking sounds as her toes touched them. She went up the hillside with a bit too much speed, once slipping and realized that she was going to do no one any good if she sprained her ankle, too.
Once at the farmhouse, she opened the children’s door and stepped inside. They were breathing normally, once per minute. She pulled the covers up to their chins and backed out, spending just a moment to gaze at them.
She put together a large backpack—fire-making equipment, some fuel, food, another bottle of stimulants (just in case,) a first-aid kit, plenty of rope would be needed, too. She went to the utility room where the spiders were spinning structural members for their new shed. She found what she was looking for—spun-aluminum angles. She drilled holes in six-foot and two-foot pieces, pocketed some bolts, and tied six of them together in a stack. They’d make a decent staff until she got them to the side of the creek.
She stopped to prepare herself a quick meal of fish and beans. She’d never been awake this late into the night since Janice was born. It could be quite a while for the stream to freeze, so she went over the list of necessities again and again. She couldn’t forget anything this time—and, what’s worst of all, she thought, how long do those wolves stay awake after dark, anyway?
She took another pair of stimulant pills and began the trip back to the creek. By now, the darkness of the approaching storm had reached the zenith and the first flurries of snow went sailing behind her from the west. She used the flashlight to point out uneven patches of ground ahead of her and walked down the now-familiar route to her husband.
By the time that she returned to the creek’s side, the edge of the darkness had reached the top of Saturn. The water of the creek looked cold, but was still running. The first fractal threads of ice were poking out from the bank beside her. She moved a bit away from the edge, and found a spot in a dry tributary’s ditch that was somewhat sheltered from the wind, started a fire and waited.
Hours and hours passed. The storm began in earnest, the winds blowing waves of snow across the flood-plain’s meadow. It was very dark now, and the only thing keeping Gail from sinking into her natural night-time state was the light of the fire and the pills that she was taking at alarmingly shorter intervals. She counted the hours, which began in the single digits, then by twos and finally by fives. Each time her count was completed, she would move to the edge of the stream and check its condition.
Finally, fifty hours after her return, the creek was solidly covered with ice. She pulled apart the aluminum pieces and began to assemble them. Her upper-body strength would not be sufficient for her to carry her much larger husband the distance home, but she’d do what she had read about in the Diamond’s Western novels—she’d make a travois. She placed the aluminum angles into an H-shape, long and wide enough to carry Brenn. The small pieces would serve as braces to hold the shape of the stretcher-like construction. She padded the surface with blankets and slid ropes through the holes on the ends. She placed the backpack on the end and pushed the entire assembly to the edge of the frozen stream.
She slid across the ice with it, keeping her weight as well-distributed as possible. Her heart beat madly as she finally reached the side of her husband. He was breathing—shallowly, it was true, but evenly. She examined his body and recoiled at how huge and bruised his ankle was. She lifted him, as gingerly as possible, and secured him on the stretcher. She used the remaining rope to tie him on the travois firmly and set the backpack with the remaining supplies on the bottom of the assembly. She put her arms through the rope loops attached to the end of the extrusions and began re-crossing the stream.
She had made it about a third of the way when she heard the ice cracking even over the howl of the wind. She pulled her arms from the loops and dove flat instantly, spreading herself across the surface of the ice. The initial sound was accompanied by the splash of the pack falling off the back end of the stretcher into the creek. She yanked the rope cords with all of her strength and the rest of the construction slid across the ice away from the new hole. She wrapped her arms around her husband’s neck and kissed him over and over again. Then, she began slowly inching her way backwards on her belly on the ice, pulling her husband along as she went. She’d move then listen as closely as she could for even the hint of another crack. Occasionally, she would imagine one, and halt. Other times, she would hear real ones and reduce each move to a few inches.
At last, she made it to the bank and pulled him up onto it. The blasts of snow were like needles hitting her face. She reached into her pocket to take more stimulant tablets and, shaking the bottle, realized that she had only two left. It was fine, though, she thought, I’ve got another bottle….in the backpack….that fell into the creek….
She swallowed the two of them that she had left—no sense waiting around to see if she fell asleep first, she figured. She stood tall and looped the ends around her arms and slid them up to her shoulders and began the long walk home.
She was walking directly into the wind, now. It was a mile to the hillside and a half-mile beyond that to the house. If she fell asleep now, she was sure that Brenn would die during the night. She needed to make as much time as she could while the pills were still working. The good thing was that the little potholes were covered, now, so the sled would move easily.
[Who could find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies] Gail looked into Brenn’s eyes as the Diamond spoke the words to them at their wedding. She had loved him for years, watching him as he worked with the sheep. During lambing time, he would sing to the ewes as they gave birth. She shared her love of music with him, playing bits of piano works for him that had been old when the sun was still yellow. A few of the other women had had their snares set for him, but she was always a clever one—she had decided from the start that he was going to be hers.
Gail realized that her eyelashes were covered with rime. She shook her head to clear it and wiped her gloves over her eyes. There could be no stopping now—if she did, it would be well after dawn before anyone found them. The wind was abating a bit, which meant that they were getting closer and closer to the hillside. She leaned forward and began to pull in earnest.
[The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil] He had better trust in her after this, she figured. That miserable son-of-a-bitch was getting heavier by the moment. Oh? She stopped, and looked behind her at the sled. There was well over a foot of snow on it. She threw the ropes down in disgust and began throwing the snow from stop Brenn, laughing hysterically. “Man, I was wondering how you could possibly have been getting fatter during THIS trip!” She looked ahead and stopped short, however. Above her stretched the side of the hill. It was covered with inches of snow, most of it slippery. She would be lucky if she could climb it herself, let alone with the sled behind her.
She let the sled where it was for the moment and walked to the foot of the slope. This wasn’t going to be an easy one, she figured. She began scouring the bottom of the hill for what she needed—there had to be some rocks down here. She found a pile that had broken from an outcropping on the side and fallen. She picked a pair of very sharp, pointed ones, pocketed them and got behind the sled. She pushed as hard as she could up, and managed to gain about eight feet on the slope. She rammed the sharp rocks in behind the end of the aluminum runners and stopped to catch her breath.
[She girdeth her loins with strength and strengtheneth her arms] Yeah, this’ll do that for sure, she thought. Each push was getting a bit smaller. First eight feet at a shot, then she could make seven. Her toes were a distant memory. Once, she didn’t get the rocks in fast enough and the sled almost ran back over her. The top had to be getting closer. She panted, angry that this had happened to her, and swore that if she managed to get him back to the house, she was never, ever going to leave him alone—not even for a moment.
[She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet] “The top, oh my children, my life, my love, the top, we’ve reached the top.” She could see the lights of the house occasionally through the blasts of snow. Her vision faded, and when she shook herself, she realized that she had been face down in a drift for some time. “No! Not now! This has to work, I can see it working. No!” She moved like a robot, rising, one leg flexing, then rising to a standing position, then the other. She slipped the loops around her once more and began, placing one foot in front of her and heading westward.
[Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land]
“Justin’s doing WHAT!? Brenn, that’s crazy. What do we need predators on our world for?”
“Gail, he thinks that we’re going to be too soft, that the Diamond’s wrong—he thinks that people need challenges to be people. We’re going to leave the Farm, next week—a whole bunch of us.”
“Darling you’re wrong, this is a crazy idea. We can’t live without the Diamond.”
“Will you leave me then, Gail? I need you, more than anything.”
“No, I’ll come with you. I may believe that you are wrong, but ultimately, we need to have our lives together. That’s more important than anything else that happens.”
Gail shook her head. She had stopped again, this time just inside the gate to the barnyard. There were just a few steps. Perhaps fifty, she had walked this distance in seconds when she was in a hurry just this morning. One foot in front of the other, pull. Once more, pull. Step for Brenn, step for Janice, step for Henry. The house is right ahead, move your arm, lift the handle, open the door.
She fell inside, into the light and the warmth. She shuddered and lay flat for a bit, opening her jacket to let the heat in. She pulled the ropes until the sled reached the edge of the threshold, then crawled over to release Brenn from the ropes holding him on it. She pulled him inside, closed the door, and began looking for what she would need next.
She grabbed some food from the storage bin and wolfed it down. She began removing the blankets from Brenn and examined his leg more closely. He began to react to the light and warmth and would be coming around soon and he’d be in a great deal of pain when he did, she figured. She entered the utility room and took a vial of programmable nannies from the shelf. Slipping them into the cradle of her computer, she opened the menu and set it for biological repairs. It would take a while to build them, and he needed to be comforted.
Brenn moaned, but smiled when he saw her face above him. “You got me home by yourself? It has to have been miles—how long was I out?”
“I have no idea”, Gail said. “It was hard to drag your fat ass all that distance, but I have to say that you’re worth it. I think that there’s a pain-killer or two left in the house. You’re going to need it once those bugs start working on you.”
“I love you, darling. You know, I lost the sheep, after all that.”
“Sweetheart, I was thinking about our wedding ceremony all the time I was out there with you. Do you remember much of it? You were pretty overwhelmed and clueless for most of it, if I remember correctly.”
“All I remember, darling (besides our vows, of course) was the last part of what the Diamond said. You remember, right? ‘Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband, too and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.’”
She kissed him.
Written for kitten, on the occasion of our 20th Wedding Anniversary
