Greensword by Donald Bingle

Author:Donald Bingle [Bingle, Donald J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781594147289
Google: nl9wPQAACAAJ
Amazon: B006T5JUKG
Publisher: 54-40' Orphyte, Inc. via Indie Author Project
Published: 2009-01-02T12:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

The sun was shining again by the time they reached Mount Rainier National Park. The day was crisp and clear, the dazzling white of the mountain’s glaciers was sharp against the blue sky. The dark green of the forest in the lower reaches of the mountain promised cooling shade from the glare of the bright sun.

If Milo wasn’t so bleary-eyed from having driven all night, he might have enjoyed the scenery. But he was too tired for that. Not counting their aborted start, going back to get the instruction manual, they were twenty-three hours into their trip. Driving under the speed limit sucked.

Milo had made no stops except to gas up, piss, and buy fast food. They’d talked very little during the ride. Brandon had been muttering to himself in Russian a good part of the way for one thing. The only excitement had occurred when Milo had to stop his idiot companions from using one of his trash bags to dispose of their fast-food wrappers. Other than that, it had just been the uneven hum of the tires and the wind shrieking through the various rust holes on the Minibus for the last day and night.

Of course, Brandon and Zeke had dozed a bit during the night, so they were relatively perky. Especially Brandon, who seemed to have gotten a bit of an adrenaline rush from their proximity to accomplishing their mission. His energy manifested itself in its usual, professorial way; he was attempting to teach Zeke Russian, or something.

“Yeah, it is a different alphabet, but you can write it cursively using our letters, if you want. It’s just that the same letters don’t mean the same thing.”

“Huh?” muttered Zeke, who was attempting to look at some maps.

Brandon apparently ignored the fact that he was being ignored.

“Take the word ‘student.’ It’s spelled the same way and pronounced basically the same way in Russian, but if you write it out cursively using our version of their alphabet, it comes out ‘c ... m ... y ... g ... e ... h ... m.’ ”

“Smygem?” said Zeke, looking up from his maps.

“No,” replied Brandon. “Studyent. See the c is an s, the m is a t, the y is a u, the g is a d ... ”

Milo decided to show Zeke some mercy by interrupting.

“We’re almost there. Which way do I go, boss?”

Zeke’s eyes flicked back to his map. “Follow the signs towards Sunrise. The info you got me says the caves are a mile off the road on the way to a campground up that direction.”

“There are caves at Rainier?” asked Brandon.

Zeke talked without taking his eyes from his cumbersome, folding map. “It’s mostly known for its ice caves, you know, up in the glaciers near the summit. But like most volcanoes, it has some caves caused by earthquakes and partially collapsed lava tubes. There’s a big one outside of the park, near Cliffdell. Called Boulder Cave. Goes a mile or so back from the entrance and has some huge western bats living in it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.