Orvis by H M Hoover

Author:H M Hoover
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Published: 1987-03-26T05:00:00+00:00

NINE

She woke and moaned softly, realizing where she was. She was hungry, stiff, and sore, and itching from mosquito bites. The sun was up. Birds sang with blithe disregard for her misery.

“You forget things when you sleep.” Thaddeus was sitting on the bench seat watching her, patiently waiting for her to waken and keep him company. “The first couple months after I came to Earth I hated to wake up. In my dreams I was still home, on the ship, and everything was like it should be. Sometimes I . . .” He gave a self-deprecating shrug and smiled, as if to deny how much he still wanted his past life.

“If I ever have a child I’m going to keep it with me until it wants to go,” vowed Toby. “No matter how old it gets or where I go.”

“Me, too.” He scratched a mosquito bite on his left cheek, sniffed the ribbed cuff of his jacket, and announced, “I stink! Let’s go outside and air ourselves.”

“Where’s Orvis?” She picked up two empty beer cans to use for water. As an afterthought Thaddeus picked up his club.

“Off in the woods somewhere. His screeching leg’s what woke me.”

“He stayed in front of the door all night.”

“I saw.”

Thoughts of the big cat and the memory of that scream in the night made them newly cautious. Embarrassed but desperate, they took turns standing guard with the club while the other went behind the bushes. In an attempt at basic cleanliness they washed in one cold little pond and drank from the next. Toby’s teeth felt furry and she broke a green twig off a wild cherry tree and used the splintered end as a toothbrush. The raw wood’s bitter flavor was a definite improvement over the taste in her mouth.

“I’m so hungry I could eat raw oysters.” It was the most disgusting thing Thaddeus could imagine.

“There’s frogs,” said Toby. “People eat frogs’ legs in the colonies. They’re very expensive—like cultured dandelion greens for salads.”

Thaddeus made a face. “We’d have to catch them—and kill them—and cook them . . .” When she nodded at each step, he asked, “Could you?”

“I dissected frogs in biology. I guess I could. Can you?”

“Maybe we’ll hear an aircar soon and I won’t have to find out.”

Both scanned the morning sky. Small puffy clouds drifted from horizon to horizon. Six crows and a blue jay chased a hawk that seemed indifferent to the harassment. A pair of starlings passed over. But they saw no aircraft.

“Do you get the feeling that wherever they’re hunting for us, it’s not in the right place?” she said, hating to admit her fear.

“It’s still early in the morning.”

“They should have found us yesterday.”

“Mr. Sanders didn’t escape. Or they killed him.”

“Or he didn’t know where he left us.”

Thaddeus ruffled his hand through his hair to conceal his distress. “Okay,” he said, but with no great enthusiasm, “let’s catch some frogs. If we have to walk out, we’ll need the energy, and if we wait too long to eat we’ll get weak.

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