Hunter's Moon by Richard Tongue

Author:Richard Tongue [Tongue, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-08-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

In the distance, Dietz could hear the beating of drums and the playing of horns, the sound coming from all around her, from every direction in the endless forest. She could smell woodsmoke in the air, but could see no fire, knowing that it meant that the Screamers were out there, somewhere, waiting for the moment to strike.

McBride moved to sit next to her, passing her a bowl filled with some sort of indeterminate stew, and she took it with a smile, looking back at the wilderness, trying to soak in the wonders that she was seeing.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it,” McBride said. “For everything we’ve had to go through, it’s still a lovely world, and one that I would never want to leave. It’s ours every bit as much as the Screamers now. Six generations have been born, lived, and died here. Six generations of settlers.”

“Earth’s nothing like this,” Dietz replied. “Nowhere is really wild these days, the whole world tamed. Had to be, I guess, to repair all of the damage that was done in the Twenty-First. Though right now they’re repeating all of the same, tired mistakes once again back there.” She turned to McBride, and added, “Your ancestors thought they were fleeing the Final War. I think they might have just got a bigger head-start than they’d expected.”

“It’s that bad?”

“That bad and worse, from the reports we’ve had out here.” Shaking her head, she added, “Do you realize just how lucky your ancestors were? After almost two centuries, we’ve only found a dozen worlds where humanity can live without equipment, and only a couple anything like this. That you found this place on the first try, through a blind leap in the dark…”

“There’s a theory that we didn’t,” McBride replied. “Some of the first settlers thought that there had been some sort of a conspiracy, that we were brought here deliberately, but I can’t see how that could have happened. Back then this world was unknown.”

“We certainly didn’t know anything about it. Though you’re a long, long way outside explored space, even now.” She shrugged, then added, “With twenty years of war, and ten years of increasing tension before it, I guess it didn’t leave much time for exploration and research. Our loss. It might have made a hell of a difference if we’d known that worlds like this were out here to explore and colonize.”

“Or we might have been dragged into your war.”

“You might at that,” she replied.

He paused, then asked, “Do you think that might happen anyway?”

“Our wars are coming to an end,” she replied. “Right now we’re getting set up for the last one. Either the Confederation will win, or the Guild will win, or we might work out some sort of compromise that satisfies them both. There might be at least a chance of that. I know that’s what the Commander has in mind, and I’d like very much to think that it might be possible.”

“Do you think that it is?” he asked.

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