Long in the Land by Laura Montgomery

Author:Laura Montgomery [Montgomery, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-11-13T22:00:00+00:00

Peter struggled against the pain. He had never felt anything in his horns before. He now believed that there were nerves and maybe something else in there. One thing was clear—there were pain receptors. His eyes hurt. His horns hurt, and his head felt as if it would split in three, which might have been for the best.

When something hurt he wanted to push on it. Pushing on the hard shell of his horns did no good. Pushing on his eyes made everything worse. He couldn’t scream. He didn’t want to frighten Zak.

He knew he was stumbling, circling, twirling like a crazy man, and somewhere in the distance he could hear Silas saying his name, like that would help anything. The pain rode him higher, and he gasped aloud. He didn’t want to scream. He couldn’t. But he was screaming, a high, uncontrolled yodel of pain, and he was on his knees, and it was strange he couldn’t breathe when he could scream.

And then it ended. It just stopped, and he opened his eyes, feeling empty, light, and free. Everything was clear. The sky was a blue filtered by lime. Green earth grasses spread away from the plane on one side, with little globes of yellow and spreading fingers of pink forming meadow flowers he didn’t recognize. Elian still lay at the base of the rock outcrop, and, turning, behind him the cypress were a dark, furry green, tall and arrogant, proud of the heights they had achieved on this alien world.

The plane itself looked fine except for a dark patch over the leading edge of its port wing. Silas stood with his hands on it, his eyes crinkled in worry, but not so much that he’d let go. The man had his priorities and Peter didn’t blame him. Letting go would have helped no one.

Peter tried to speak, but no sound came out at first. He hadn’t screamed long. His throat shouldn’t be so raw. When he spoke on the second attempt, his voice was brusque. “I’m fine now. I can see.”

Silas’ eyes widened briefly, and then he smiled. “Well, then. Get back here and hand me the tape.”

Peter saw a roll of something on the ground near Silas’ feet. He went over and picked it up, and still felt none of the searing agony that had shredded him earlier.

“Put your hands back, would you?” Silas said.

Peter gave him the tape and took Silas’ place holding the fabric. Silas unrolled a narrow strip of something sticky from the roll, and placed it around all the edges. He should have done that first, Peter thought.

As if hearing his thoughts, Silas said, “I had to brush the edges first.”

Peter considered asking him if he could read minds but decided not to. He’d watch and figure it out on his own. Whatever the scientists on Earth had done to create the pan, maybe they’d done other things to other people. If Silas, however, was reading his thoughts now, he said nothing.

When Silas finished taping, he waved Peter off and began brushing more resin over the fabric.

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