"You helped it?" Merim in an angry, knowing and slightly respectful voice asked the almost two meter tall man in front of her. Domnik in his unimpressed look was in no hurry to answer.
"You do not deny it?" she pressed
"Hardly necessary" in his usual low voice he expressed.
"That thing killed my brother," she took a deep breath before continuing, "you are a confirmed accomplice and a traitor to humanity. You will have to answer for this" empty words and they know it, probably even Merim herself.
Her family was important, not that important. A probability manipulator, even one at Domnik s only third level, was not someone to be easily discarded. Now especially, off world , Domnik was too crucial. It would sound stupid to make a judgment threat to someone you need to get home but right now they all need each other.
Merim stared out at the massive display in the cockpit where they stood by before continuing, "Even though your reasons do not matter, you owe us an explanation ... You owe me one,"
Domnik turned away from the display, hands behind his back he faced her side, "Everything has its drawback, you've grown too dependent on April's mental calming for your constant jumps. Your emotional balance is on a precipice and has affected your rationality ... "
"We were sent off course to a strange planet, one of our crew's body is taken over yet I am the irrational one for trying to eliminate a possible threat?" She interrupted him annoyance in her voice, "Your indulgence has cost us, you and that naive girl. Tell me now, what is the difference if it dies out there other than costing us April as well"
Domnik did not look surprised, he took an unnoticeable deep breath before turning back to face the display, "If a stray cat comes to my house one day and I feed it only for it to never return, do you think its fate would be on my conscience?"
***
It was a strange instant disorienting experience. Ian, Merim no longer holding him by the locks, fell forward and supported himself with his arms before hitting the ground. It had some slight similarities, the "teleportation", to the distortion that had brought him here. He didn't feel like the one who had been teleported rather like the space all around him had overlapped with a new one, there was some wrongness to it. For that instance he had almost felt like there was a separation of self.
It would take forever to analyze how it felt, right now he was more concerned with what had and will happen. Merim was now an imprinted terror on him, her face, her strength, his life in her hands! Apart from how he had felt in the darkness before he woke up in that river, that was his worst experience yet.
His head still spinning, he lifted his upper body with his arms to look around. Sand had collected onto the blood on his face, it was an uncomfortable feeling on top of the pain he currently felt. He would have thought to be met with the night darkness but the beautiful night sky and reddish tint of the 'moonlight' he assumed was enough for him to see nearly perfectly.
The topography of the land, even back at the river, did not look that much different from earth. Not that he got to see much of earth before, he spent most of his life in concrete steel cities and concrete apartments. The vegetation, however, did have alien attributes but seemingly played the same character roles of trees, plants and grass. The strong cool wind blew and made them dance in the strange silence of the night.
Ian wiped his bloody eyes with the back of his left hand, it did little to help. Apart from his head and face that had been put through Merim's bashing, the rest of his body had only suffered slightly from Kijan's throw. Standing up he continued looking around, he was looking for the house sized craft that was his current hope and goal. The terrain was rough and rocky, unfitting for the amount of vegetation as there was.
A full spin around, a sense of dread was taking shape in his chest. The eerie night atmosphere, red moonlight, whistling wind and the fact that he was standing alone in the middle of it all was not sitting right with him. His visual sense was playing tricks on him, sometimes the "trees" and rock formations would seemingly move in animal-like manners. Making it worse, the craft was not in his sight anywhere.
An abject sigh left his mouth, 'I can't just stand here' . Really, every direction he looked was just as bad as any. Eventually he decided to get some height and climb the rock formations that were cascading from some meters above. They were not far, some ten steps and he'd already made it to the foot of one. Placing his hand to start the climb, his mouth slowly opened. It felt fleshy, not at all what it looked like.
Immediately Ian raised his hand and the fleshy rock surface reacted the same way a cat would when petting. The entirety of it began moving and shifting accompanied with a vibrating sound. Ian did not wait until he immediately turned and began running in the opposite direction, his bloodied front locks constantly disturbing his vision.
At first he most certainly felt a gaze on his back, then the sound of charging but he did not turn around to look. The look on his face was sharp, his heart racing but his lips tight and breathing surprisingly controlled. He ran for about forty seconds the charging sound behind him becoming louder, surprised it had not yet caught up to him.
Slowing himself down he came to a stop as he realized where he was, slope, it was a mountain slope and he was generously high. The vast and would be beautiful landscape, complimented by the night sky and red moonlight met his gaze. He could not take it in at all, he already knew whatever it was he could not outrun it, he could not even outrun a chicken. He decided to look down at the thought of jumping that had crossed his mind, that's when he saw it. Some fifteen meters below him was the massive pod like Hova.
He could hear it and turned back to see the thing was already over him, it was huge, it must have been three meters wide. He could not tell much of what he saw, no "facial" features only limb like appendages and the massive body raising itself above him. It must have been mindless too, as it raised its front most limb it hit Ian with what must have been the back of it causing him to stumble over the edge and down.
Even though he'd already made the decision to jump this still made his heart skip a beat and his throat tighten, a yelp escaped his mouth as he fell. Luckily falling didn't provide him too much time to spend on speculating what would happen. Obviously the Hova had a too wide surface to miss, the impact hurt as hell though and a grunt was forced out of Ian. His momentum also caused the craft to tilt slightly on its fragile balance.
On the heels of that, he turned to look at the thing staring at him over the edge. They seemingly stared at each other for a moment before it got off the edge and started climbing down the cliff like a mountain goat. 'Of course!' Ian sighed and cursed something inwardly. Watching the massive rock looking thing unreasonably being able to come down, albeit slowly, a thought crossed his mind, ' Jonah '
'What would this do to help me though? I am on top of the damn thing ... screw it what other choice do I have?"
"Jonah!" Ian shouted, it's the first thing he'd said and it almost felt awkward. Nothing happened! The thing was already closer now, too close. Ian started panicking, shouting Jonah while hitting the surface of the craft with his right palm hoping somehow that would make it cooperate. It did not!
The thing, already over the craft and Ian took its leap to the surface of the Hova. Its momentum and size caused the Hova to completely lose its balance and topple over the side of the slope. The thing slid over leading the path down for the craft. Ian, lucky with his primate hands and thumbs, held on for dear life gritting his teeth. The momentum began picking up and Ian could not help but let out a scream.
He'd already experienced facing death but it did not make it easier the third time. Just as his screaming voice was dying down and after falling for what must have been thirty seconds, the Hova hummed. Its hollow massive donut-like side wings got a ring of dull blue light. Ian still holding on, the craft tilted to its right so its position was fixed and its "bell" faced down. It did not slow down, or as far as Ian could tell, it's fall however was no longer straight down but followed a wide curvature led by its "nose"
The dive led it and Ian along the slope, the already strong wind with now the strong resistance threatening to swat Ian off the top like a fly but he held on for all he could. His eyes closed, he could not see them passing the mountain. The continuous vastness of the land and a great rift that scarred it. The Hova eventually stabilized, in a controlled manner it came down some a hundred meters from the foot of the mountain.
When he felt the stop on the ground, his now spaghetti hands let go of the metallic rib-like part. His entire body felt weak, his teeth in pain from the cold wind that had assaulted him, the blood on his face completely dried and his locks blown back. He crawled to the side till he fell over the pain on hitting the ground just compounded to his previous experiences.
With an initial hiss sound and a soft sliding the Hova's door opened. Ian looked without averting his eyes as a figure with tussled black hair and blood trails from her nostrils walked out, April!