The Need to Fly (Caveman Chronicles)

The Index -|-

“What do you want, Xir?”

Kpleeb knew that he was being grumpy. He rubbed his eyes and looked up from his workbench. He tried not to scowl, but knew that he was not entirely successful.

Xir stood there on the balls of his feet, at ease but still reminiscent of a tundra-lion ready to pounce.

“Jial say, you eat.” Xir did not flinch or seem awkward at all that a cavewoman had dared to instruct Kpleeb as to what he must do.

Kpleeb leaned back and stared at Xir for a moment while he thought. [These cavewomen should respect me… or at least who I was to Thoka.] He sighed loudly and rolled his eyes.

“I am the husband of the Pale One. Doesn’t that afford me some leeway? I have to find Zara!” The ache in his chest bloomed again as it always did when he remembered how he had failed his little girl.

Xir lifted his chin slightly. “If Jial not care, Jial let die without food.”

Kpleeb blinked and then slowly cracked his knuckles and stood. “I am just a caveman,” he grumbled. “Are the cavewomen in charge of the Ganix?” He eyed Xir for a long moment. ” Never mind. I don’t need an answer. I will eat, only to make her leave me alone.”

Xir did not speak, but Kpleeb thought that he saw a twinkle in his eye.

[Poppycock! The Ganix eye never twinkles and the Ganix mouth never smiles.]

“Lead the way,” Kpleeb said with a sour grunt.

A few moments later, Xir and Kpleeb darkened the door of Jial’s hut, and the smell of roast rat wafted lightly onto Kpleeb’s nosebuds. Though Kpleeb was frustrated, he was mature enough to know that a phrase loaded with sweet-berries would ease Jial’s mind, so he did what he had to do.

“Ahh, Jial, thank you. That smells amazing!” In truth, it did smell amazing.

Jial looked at him while continuing to rotate the turnspit that hung over the small stone fireplace. On the shelf inside the heat tube, was a stone pot of something bubbling. Kpleeb was proud that he had invented the indoor fireplace, and he smiled widely at Jial.

“Hungry now?”

Kpleeb nodded without shame. “I was hungry before; I just didn’t know it. Thank you for reminding me.”

“You eat, maybe bring back Zara.” Jial’s face was stoic, but her eyes told a different story. She had been Zara’s nurse and keeper. “I feed. You build.”

The depth of the tribe’s love for Zara was easy to forget in the midst of their emotionless culture. Nevertheless, Kpleeb was sobered by the fierce look in Jial’s eyes, and he felt as if she could rip his head out through his armpit if she wanted to. She was that strong. He remembered that Jial had tended Zara faithfully and had been like a second mother to her. Though it had not come to mind before, he imagined that her pain at the loss of Zara was as real as his own.

Kpleeb motioned to Xir to sit, and then he nodded at Jial. “I am building what I can. I will get her back, even if I die doing it.”

Jial handed Xir a sizzling rat on a small stick while Kpleeb sank into a cross-legged position on the floor. When she handed Kpleeb a rat, he took it and paused to let the fat stop bubbling.

“As you know, Xir, I have made some amazing weapons.” Kpleeb said. “I have more in mind. The big problem I have not been able to solve yet is… flying.” He looked at Xir, who had been by his side since Zara had disappeared.

Xir slowly tore meat from the small bones.

“Wouldn’t you like to fly, Xir?”

Xir tilted his head but continued chewing. After a few long moments, he lifted his chin. “Yes.”

Kpleeb waited for more, but Xir just ate silently and alternated his gaze between his roasted rat-on-a-stick, the open door, and Kpleeb.

Eventually, Kpleeb nodded. “Well, okay. Good to know. I will figure it out.”

So far, Kpleeb had spent most of his research time focusing on flight. There were many ways to fly, at least so he had thought. The birds flew, some of them awkwardly, some of them gracefully. A few were jerky and sporadic. He thought that there was something to the shape of their wings that made the air push them upward when they should have fallen to the ground. He was perplexed by the Xi lutu though. The ships flew without at all appearing to be shaped like a bird’s wing.

Thoka had described the lutu’s technology when they first saw it in person, and she had compared it to Zara’s floating carriage. It hovered above the ground using the invisible forces. Kpleeb could not see the forces, nor could he control them, yet he knew they were there. The lutu was imbued with that power, and he could not discover how to reproduce it.

The lutu flew. They could rise straight up when they wanted to. Sometimes they also swooped like a bird of prey reaching out to snatch a pika from the tundra. There was no calculation Kpleeb could make that related the two types of movements. He had studied the underside of the lutu and saw the tri-clusters of bumps that Thoka had pointed out to him. She had even said that she believed the lutu could fly higher than the sky. Kiipo had proven Thoka right.

[The Xi are above the sky. They are in the expanse between the orbs. I have to reach them there, where they live. If I cannot, they will always escape]

Kpleeb sighed and gnawed the last bit of meat from his rat-stick. He set the stick on the stone next to the fireplace and rose. “Thank you, Jial.” He nodded at her and smiled generously. “I will continue to work. We must find Zara.”

Jial looked at him sincerely. “How?”

“I do not know for sure. She may have been taken away to a secret place. She may have been taken away in a lutu.” Kpleeb pointed upward. “The Xi are able to fly between orbs.”

Jial looked skeptical but did not speak.

“I can only say for certain that the distance is great, and we must fly in order to find Zara.”

“Weapons needed,” said Xir. He set down his rat-stick.

“You know that I built many weapons. There will be more, but what good are those if we cannot fly?”

“Xi come back.” Xir looked at him with a certainty in his eyes.

“Perhaps. It could be.” Kpleeb shrugged and waved for Xir to follow him.

Together, Kpleeb and Xir walked out of Jial’s hut and past the yellow stone wall that protected the village. They crossed the meadows and reached the tree line where the foothills of the mountain began to slope upward in ever increasing altitudes.

After a short time, they reached the clearing near the entrance of Kpleeb’s cave. There, Kpleeb stopped and turned to face the down slope. With his hand he motioned toward the ridge on their right.

“We will kill many Xi with my weapons… They are nothing without access to the enemy.”

The far ridge was burned and shredded. Its ground was pocked with deep craters. Enormous shards of stone bedrock stuck upward from the soil. The remains of a few blackened trees, devoid of any greenery, clawed at the sky like a dead and dried out carcass. There was no smoke. That had died out days ago. A slight breeze picked up, and when it reached the ridge, it stirred a puff of grey dust that swirled gently over the wreckage of the land.

Xir gazed at the familiar sight and nodded with all of his typical solemnity.

Kpleeb turned and walked toward the cave. “I have to get back to work.”