One Dear Perpetual Place: Part 3
After another thirty minutes of hiking along the narrow trail, Harper could see a lighter patch ahead of them - the trees thinned there. Tyr turned to him and placed his finger to his lips and stopped them. Motioning Harper back with his hand, Tyr looked quickly around the glade a few feet away through the trees.
"Stay here, stay down and don't move until you have my say so." He was curt, his eyes continuing to scan the area, his attitude saying he knew Harper would obey him without question At least, not here and now, he thought almost smiling.
Harper crouched down behind a leafy bush and against a tree. Tyr glanced, approving, and continued forward, stalking. He moved silently through the last few trees, listening, looking, feeling the silence through the soft forest floor... he felt in his pores that there was someone here to be afraid of. But with his eyes and ears he couldn't sense any actual threat.
A flash of silvergold color against the darker trees to his left revealed Freya. She obviously wasn't hiding - he couldn't have missed her. She was leaning slightly against a tree, looking out over the small salt water inlet... holding his child to her breast.
Against his better judgment, Tyr allowed himself a moment to just drink them in. His mate, his child nursing strongly, gaining nourishment to grow healthy and tall, bonding with its mother as the first bond of its pride. This is what every gene in him craved, called out for. This was health, was life. Tyr stood stock still, but deep in him he felt a shaking, so tight it was almost a vibrating, a longing so deep, so buried, so long denied he almost didn't feel it. It seized him, and for just a moment, he couldn't move.
Tyr saw Freya's gaze move from the slightly misted water to the eyes of the nursing infant she held close under one arm. He watched her as she touched the baby's face with her free hand, the tip of one finger tracing every line. An instinctive action - setting in her memory every part of her child, calling to her attention every visible trace of genetic heritage bonding her child to all of its ancestors. Freya was making a place in her heart so that she would do anything, commit any crime, make any sacrifice to ensure that this child could grow to maturity and pass on its genetic strength to the pride. Tyr's own sudden desire to know this child caused his shaking to abruptly end in a flush of heat to his face.
Freya looked up just then, right into his gaze. They both stood still, just looking. Taking each other in as water after long thirst at first, then gradually relaxing their gazes to frank appraisal of each others' condition.
Before moving towards them, Tyr cast one more look around the clearing. "You're sure you were not followed?"
"No," she said, turning fully toward him, her back to the tree. During their long look, the infant had fallen asleep nursing, and she eased the baby across her stomach to rest in the sling of fabric wound round them both. She kept one arm under the infant, supporting it, and with her free hand, pushed away from the tree and walked toward Tyr.
Still cautious, Tyr only took a few steps. Freya met him close to the trees and stood a couple of paces away looking Tyr over, clearly looking for deception. Wondering if he here for what she asked? Her eyes evaluated him mercilessly; looked at his body and his armaments, also followed his expressions as he looked at her.
Tyr submitted himself to her visual inquiry. He contented himself with watching her, determining her intent, and then reveling in her strength to interrogate him silently this way, across the sleeping baby he had yet to see clearly. He watched the baby slung across her chest, breathing regularly and deeply, snug. He could wait to see the infant, but he was consumed with a hunger to know it - to know it safe and strong and filled with the joy of dangerous life.
Freya stepped forward and took Tyr's hand. She placed his hand lightly against the breathing belly of the sleeping infant, and left her own lying across his. They both looked at the face of the baby, turned partly to her breast so that only a cheek and closed eyelid were visible; olive skin with fine lambswool curls of amber fuzzed on the baby's head.
Tyr looked at Freya. "Strong, healthy child," he said as she met his eyes. He leaned down to the infant. "Strong and sleeping one, rest," he said softly. He remained there a moment, eyes closed, lips almost touching the baby's curly head, feeling the rise and fall of its belly. He felt the tension deep inside harden and cool to a core of steel, and unconsciously he put an arm around Freya's shoulders. His mate. His child. Their pride.
Freya, tall and straight within the circle of Tyr's arm, was independent of him in a way that made Tyr uneasy. She was his own kind, and at their last meeting he'd found her to be a worthy mate - outspoken, strong, cunning and full of her own plans. Was she truly here to join him and leave behind her whole history, her pride? Tyr felt it was very unlikely. From the first he had suspected this was a plan to lure him into the guns of the Orca so they could have vengeance....but there was still no evidence, no guns were pointed at him. And if she was honestly here to become his mate....he would take any risk to bring her and their child out of here. Any at all.
She took his hand, caught his gaze from the face of the sleeping child and moved them forward toward the trees where Tyr had come from.
"We need to be on the move - Guderian won't hesitate to hunt you down, once it's realized that we're gone," she said.
"Freya," Tyr said, low, "you have to know I believe this is all a trap."
Her gaze was steady, "I knew you would think that - I couldn't prevent it. But I'm here now, and there's no one else. If I'm telling the truth, we have got to get out of here before we're discovered." she said urgently.
Tyr checked his weapons to make sure all were ready to use, considering Freya's words. "How long until they know you've left?" he said, after a moment.
"I left camp about four hours ago. My sister thought I was taking the baby to bathe and rest. I don't think it could be much longer before they realize that I haven't returned. But they'll check the lake's edge first. They have no reason to think I might have come down this far, or toward the salt water. Where is your friend? I can smell him on you - I know you traveled with someone." She smiled.
They moved into the woods. Tyr pointed toward Harper's hiding place. "Harper, come out. We're leaving, quickly."
"Finally," Harper said as he stood up stiffly and brushed the leaves and dirt from his pant legs. Before Harper could make the smart-assed comment about to roll off his tongue, Tyr said, "Freya's absence has probably been detected - we move, we stay under cover and we stay quiet, understood?"
"Okay, okay," said Harper, hands raised in acquiescence. Freya looked at Harper, her eyes narrowed. Her glance turned to Tyr. As he moved them all onto the track through the woods, he answered, "I know, I know he's a liability. I'll explain later, but he's here, and he's going to get us off this planet. We need him, and we've got to keep him safe, just as if he were a child---"
Tyr was cut off by Harper's outraged, "Hey!" Harper stepped up between Tyr and Freya ready to argue, "I can take care of----"
Tyr stopped Harper with a rumbling sound, "Not now, boy," and turned back to Freya, "Can you deal with that?"
Harper stood, hands raised, all at the ready to establish himself 'adult' and then suddenly the futility of proving this to two Nietzscheans hit him & he dropped his hands & turned away in disgust.
Freya watched this little by-play with interest. What was Tyr doing, traveling with this little weasly human? There was clearly a many paged story hidden in Tyr's explanation, and Freya accepted his judgment and request without saying anything.
Tyr knew she would make her own determinations in time, but immediate survival depended on trusting Tyr's knowledge, and she did so without wasting energy. He felt another level of satisfaction enter his feelings about Freya. Her discernment was excellent, another expression of her superiority. She was not going to get anyone killed over petty power struggles or demands for information out of turn. She knew when to play her cards. What a marvelous asset she would be to any pride. As the founding alpha female of his pride, she was of incalculable value.
They moved quickly through the forest, Tyr scouting in the lead, Freya and the baby in the middle, Harper keeping a nervous lookout behind. After several hours of traveling, Tyr judged when Harper would begin to flag, and before Harper could make any noisy complaining, Tyr quickly diverted them all through the bracken fern down a ravine to a stream that was off the pass and out of sight.
"We'll rest," he said and gestured to the water. "Drink it, Harper, you're tired and dehydrated."
Harper, pale and blown from the quick pace quipped, "I knew you cared," as he kneeled down awkwardly at the water's edge and cupped his hands to drink. Freya was already kneeling and drinking a few feet away. Tyr stood, watching, listening and feeling more uncertain than he thought reasonable. Then he too drank quickly before returning to straining his ears into the forest.
"I feel it in the forest - there are people coming, I just can't hear them yet." He looked hard at Freya, who was sitting cross-legged to gently wake the baby with nursing. Harper sat back on his heels, looking alarmed.
"If they find us here, we're dead! I thought she, you," he glanced at Freya "arranged this rendezvous far from her people!"
"Quietly, boy!" Tyr whispered in a low growl. "Freya?" he said in a soft questioning drawl.
Freya settled the nursing baby comfortably on her lap. "Tyr I'm not part of an ambush. You'd have sniffed them out at the clearing and gotten away from there. I have every intention of being with you and our child. But I can't say how secure my message was." She lowered her voice further to a growled hiss. "Guderian has to assume we've been kidnapped....because if Guardian intercepted my message and has allowed me to be unwitting bait thereby endangering this child, he knows he would have the undying hatred of the females of the pride!"
There was a pause as Tyr and Freya considered the situation.
"Geesh, don't mess with the females," Harper said.
They simultaneously looked at him scornfully.
With a tolerance Freya didn't yet understand the origin of, Tyr bothered to answer Harper. "Boy, think, if the pride is to survive, the strong healthy children must be its most valued members, right? A pride leader who would put in jeopardy a child, a healthy, genetically strong child, to satisfy a personal or even pride vendetta would be a threat to all the children. Who protects the welfare of the children? The mothers. And the husbands and fathers never forget it, either," he ended with a slight chuckle. Freya smiled. From its sling of cloth, the baby was fully awake now, having satisfied its hunger. It waved its little dusky colored arms, and Freya lifted it out of the sling smiling and caressing the almost naked baby. As Freya tended the baby, Tyr sat down, chin on hand, elbow on knee watching her while he listened to the forest. They needed to get back on the road, but the needs of the baby couldn't be ignored. And he hungered to see this little life revealed.
"She's a girl!" he said in a deep voice..
"God help us, a female," intoned Harper but with a joyful expression at his friend that made Tyr growl and smile at his levity.
"Yes," Freya said ritualistically, "a girl child. A girl child to grow into a strong woman, first daughter of a new pride. To breed strong children and guard their genes and their lives with her own."
Freya dangled the baby gently in front of her having changed her while talking and smiled, changing her tone for the baby. "A heavy weight for a few pounds of flesh!" she said to the child with a sensual chuckle. Motherhood inspired deep instinct in most humans, but in Nietzscheans it was about the height of life achievement and it showed in Freya. Harper was embarrassed to see such naked emotions in this strong Nietzschean woman. Tyr's woman, he reminded himself. She was beautiful with the beauty of a glossy wild animal, and as dangerous. Harper made himself busy finding some food in the pack.
"So, does she have a name?" he asked, trying to be casual without, for once, being disrespectful. He just wanted to bring himself out of the Niet intensity surrounding family for a moment.
Freya settled the child on the other breast. "No."
Tyr added, "Usually, Nietzscheans name their children in a ceremony with both parents." To Freya, he said, "I had supposed that this child was still unnamed. Officially."
Freya smiled a calculating smile. "Well, I have a name in mind that would be... in keeping with both of our own."
There was a pause. Harper's hope of escaping the quagmire of politically charged conversation was apparently hopeless, but he plunged in anyway. "And that name is?"
"Ingemar," said Freya looking at Tyr and then down to the baby. "It means 'of the sea'. I birthed her near the shores of the ocean. Until we were driven from our asteroid, I had never heard the sound of the ocean and it drew me..." She broke off, clearly not wanting to continue to expose her strong feelings about life on a planet after generations spent living inside rocks.
Harper understood what she meant though, and still wishing to diffuse the conversation, he said lightly, "Oh, I love the sound of ocean waves. Of course on Earth all the oceans were toxic dumps you couldn't get near, but I loved the sounds of surf there. Learned how to swim in them later." He smiled, eating food rations. He handed rations to Freya, and to Tyr.
Tyr rose and did a quick circuit of their creek site before sitting down and eating.
"Ingemar, eh," he said.
"Do you like it?" asked Harper.
"A name is a name; a convenient handle, nothing more," said Tyr. "What's not to like?"
Freya watched them, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. Tyr looked at her abruptly, and she quickly busied herself adjusting the position of the baby in her lap.
"Oookay, Tyr. Spill it - you've got a name for the baby." prodded Harper, "C'mon! Tell it!"
"The name is fine. It's at the discretion of the mother, in any case. Freya chose Ingemar, Ingemar it shall be," said Tyr, attempting tones of finality.
Harper laughed at him. Freya looked at him in amusement.
"Boy, go fill up our canteens will you? Give me a few minutes of peace and quiet!" Tyr tossed the canteens at Harper, who juggled them for a second with a few muttered remarks before catching them and taking a few steps toward the stream.
Freya looked at Tyr consideringly. At first, Tyr looked at his food, the dirt then at her. He'd be damned if he was going to be embarrassed by Harper of all people. He looked at Freya forcefully, but under her steady look he quickly found his avoidance of embarrassment ridiculous, and dropped his gaze, laughing at himself. Freya laughed too - the first time he'd heard her laugh. It was low and kind but still merciless. Even her laugh demanded total revelation from him.
"Harper and I have a history in this past year. He is a genetic disaster with a gut full of trouble. But somehow he has....sneaked under my protection. He's like an older child..." He broke off and looked at Freya, unsure if she would understand. Could she understand that he tolerated Harper because his instincts drove him to create family relationships where he could? Freya watched him attentively but there was no judgment in her expression.
"You'll have to tell me how that happened. When we have time," she added inclining her head with a smile to indicate their current hurry.
Tyr looked at the baby nursing, already drooping her eyelids. "Can you nurse her as we walk? We'd be well to be on our way."
"Yes, she's almost asleep already. Where is your friend? Ah, here he comes," she said as Harper came out of some bushes, grabbed the canteens he'd left in a pile by the stream and walked toward them.
"Harper," said Tyr, standing and strapping on his canteen, "lets move. Are you rested?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I'm not as wimpy as all that, you know. I have roughed it on a planet before," said Harper, a mixture of humor and indignity in his voice.
Freya was standing holding the child, who was asleep again in her arms. Freya lifted her to tuck her into her wrap of fabric, when she looked up and saw Tyr watching, watching with that hunger to know his child in his eyes.
"Tyr, would you carry her? She doesn't even know your smell yet, and by now if things were going normally, she would be delighted to spend time in her fathers arms."
Harper looked up in surprise - he couldn't picture Tyr holding a... He looked at Tyr's face and saw the passing of emotions there and realized suddenly that he was in unknown territory regarding Nietzscheans. He knew hearsay about how much they valued family life, but mostly what Harper knew about Nietzscheans he'd learned from the wrong end of a Gauss gun.
"Yes, I would like to," said Tyr, after a pause. Holding the baby in the crook of one arm, Freya unwound the fabric she'd carried her in, and stepped up to Tyr to hand him the child.
"Here, let me put this between your armour and her," said Freya, and arranged the fabric to cushion the infant from Tyr's equipment studded chest, and then while Tyr held the baby, Freya expertly wrapped the baby to Tyr. "I'll show you how to do this another time but for now know that she won't fall, so your hands will be free." Freya looked at Tyr and the baby to make sure everything was in place, and Harper was surprised to see Tyr stop Freya with a gentle hand on her shoulder and a soft look into Freya's eyes. Harper looked down at his feet.
Okay, so Tyr had only had one night with this woman, and had never met his daughter, but could they maybe not make every moment an intense act of intimacy? Sheesh. Nietzscheans.
They started their climb out of the small ravine.
"So, Tyr," said Harper when they were back on the trail, walking abreast on a wide stretch of path, "did... you have a name? For the...your baby?"
Tyr shot him a look, trying to determine if Harper was making trouble. Freya looked at Tyr, waiting. Harper looked up at Tyr, also waiting. Tyr looked down at the sleeping baby, who was a patch of fuzzy amber curls tucked into her pouch of fabric. In the narrow clearing they were walking through the sun caught the child's curls and they flashed gold, like her mother's. Tyr felt again that deep strong place within him. My child. My pride. My mate.
"Saga," he said. "It means 'epic story' in the language my name came from. And Freya's name too, actually. She's a small child to carry such a name..." He didn't go on.
"Saga," said Freya, mouthing the name. "It's a strong name. A fit name for the first child of a new pride."
Tyr gave her a look that was almost sharp. He wasn't superstitious by nature or by culture, but he felt a flash of apprehension. Was Freya playing him? Were they eve now heading closer to an Orca ambush? Freya didn't see his look, her eyes were on the trail and looking inward, considering the name. "Saga. I like it. I also like Ingemar - a child of the sea. The first child of the sea for my people in generations."
The walked on in silence. Harper looked from one to the other. "Well, use both names. They're both good - use them together," he said matter-of-factly.
"Nietzscheans don't carry two names, boy. One name, the mother's name, the fathers name and the pride, that's it." Tyr shifted the baby slightly as he stepped over a rock.
"So?" said Harper in his classic impudent Harper style. "You're making your own new pride right? So you can make some of your own new traditions."
He wiped his arm across his forehead, done with trying to push Tyr, who seemed very quiet.
Freya looked at Tyr as they walked. "Harper is right. We're breaking free. We're doing something no other Nietzscheans have done in recent history, founding a new pride. We're not just running off as renegades. Let the child carry both names. She is the union of two distinct pasts, blended to make a whole."
"Are we really? Are you breaking free?" said Tyr.
Freya shot a look of quick anger at Tyr, who hadn't turned to look her way.
Tyr was considering the child.
"Saga," said Tyr as they walked. He cupped his hand around the child's sleeping head.
"Saga Ingemar," echoed Freya. She stepped in front of Tyr, stopping him. He looked up at her, saw her anger. She lay her hand on Tyr's hand. Her other hand she put on the baby's feet. After a moment's hesitation, Tyr covered that hand with his own. "Saga Ingemar, we name you," said Freya. "May your legs grow strong and swift, may your mind hunger for knowledge -" Tyr caught up with Freya's solemn words, and together they finished, "- may your heart be strong and may your children flourish." They looked up at each other over the baby, still testing, still unsure.... then both whirled as Harper suddenly ducked down, "I saw movement back there!" he whispered harshly.
Freya grabbed Harper by the shoulders and shoved him off the trail on Tyr's heels. They hunkered down in the thick overgrowth.
Tyr was checking his weapons, handing a weapon to Freya. "We've been careless - we need to move fast, silently and cover our retreat." Tyr began to swiftly unwind Saga to hand her to Freya, then stopped as he realized he'd just handed Freya a gun.
"I can hold her." Harper swallowed as two sets of disdainful eyes lit on him.
"I think not," Freya said.
"Come on. Out of the three of us, who's better at shooting bad guys, me or the two of you? And wouldn't it be better for the people who are better at shooting bad guys to not be holding a baby?"
Tyr hesitated.
"I know what you think of me, Tyr Anasazi. But you have no idea what I'm capable of. If you think I won't protect her with my life, you're wrong."
"Why should I believe you?"
"Because she's family. That's why." Harper's whisper was harsh and almost insulted. He watched the look that Freya gave Tyr.
"You trust him?" she said.
"He has a point," Tyr said, and placed the baby in Harper's arms. It was probably the closest thing to a compliment Harper would ever get from Tyr.
Freya looked at Tyr again, maybe gauging Tyr's sanity, Harper wasn't sure. But she did finally help Harper wrap the drowsy awakened baby to his chest. Harper was struck by the softness and sweetness of the child in this crazy setting of pursuit and violence, and cooed to her, trying to soothe her back to sleep.
"Aww, hello there. I'm your Uncle Seamus. That's right! Uh..."
Freya was glaring at him as she tied the wrappings.
Harper looked down at the baby in his arms and said, "Uh... right. Scratch the Uncle bit. You can call me Harper like everyone else does when you're old enough to talk."
"She'll be able to tear out your throat before she says a word," Freya said simply, making sure the knots were secure.
"We need to be on the move," interrupted Tyr. "Quietly now, follow me - we can parallel the trail but we need to move fast and stay low. Harper, you get in front and if you hear any danger, you get back to the Maru and don't look back, do you understand? Freya and I will cover you. Okay, move!"
They pushed forward, quietly, Harper with his arms around Saga to keep the branches from whipping at her and waking her again. He was worried she would wake and cry. He didn't want her crying and drawing attention to them; he fought down a rising panic fear of any noise she might make. He walked quickly trying not to stumble, his head down covering her from the branches that lashed his face.
Tyr and Freya kept a watchful retreat, weapons ready. They worked smoothly together, pacing each other - one covering, one walking freely, trading off without wasted words.
"We're close," Tyr mouthed to Freya. Close to the ship. She nodded, and they looked at each other and exchanged slight smiles.
The tree beside them exploded in fire, throwing Freya to the ground and Tyr forward. Tyr shoved Harper, yelling, "Run, get her out of here! Run!"
Arms around Saga, Harper took a huge leap into some bushes, ducking low and using the cover just as he had done many times when hunted by Nietzscheans on Earth. Tyr was hot on his heels.
Another barrage of fire was heard behind them, and they heard Freya's cry of pain, then her screams in a voice as deadly as anything Harper had ever heard.
"No! Saga!"
Under the thick cover, Tyr provided sporadic covering fire as Harper ducked down, almost crawling in a primate lope to stay low and cover ground. Ahead of them was a rock formation. As soon as they rounded it, Tyr leaped into the lead, grabbed Harper's wrist and took off running, dragging Harper along at his pace, ensuring Harper didn't fall and slow them down. Harper couldn't see Tyr's face, but it was grim with realization that Freya had been telling the truth....and they had lost her.
Onward To Part 4!
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