Chapter 46: The Encounters on Our Travels
Denise, Louis, Freddy, and Daily had successfully defrosted Linap from Locations 8 and 4. They were now defrosting the final Linap at Location 10.
‘Looks like this one is almost thawed,’ said Daily as he confidently turned to face Denise.
‘Do you think it would be possible to stop this one falling on his face?’ asked Denise as she placed her hands on her hips.
‘Would be easier if I had a bit of help,’ replied Daily. ‘You’re, well, small, and Louis keeps nipping out because of the “air quality”. That just leaves me with Freddy.’
‘Louis is always overreacting about air quality,’ said Denise. ‘He’s been gone a while. I better check on him.’
‘Sure, you better be quick,’ replied Daily. ‘This one is going to go “timber” in around ten minutes.’
Denise climbed up to the roof of the chamber. The flying vehicles were parked up on the next ridge. Denise continued to climb. When she reached the ridge, she could hear talking. She recognised Louis’ voice. She slowly approached the flying vehicle that Louis was in. Louis stopped talking before she got close enough to understand what he was saying. She opened the flying vehicle’s door. Louis was sitting in the front seat. He looked content.
‘Is everything okay, Louis?’ asked Denise.
‘I’m feeling much better now,’ replied Louis. ‘The air in these chambers doesn’t agree with me.’
‘I’m glad about that,’ said Denise. ‘Does talking help you?’
‘Oh, why do you ask?’ asked Louis.
‘I heard you talking to someone,’ said Denise. ‘Just wondered who that might be.’
‘You’ll have to keep wondering, then,’ replied Louis sternly. ‘My personal life is none of your business.’
‘Denise, we need you back here,’ shouted Daily as he poked his head out of the chamber.
‘We’re coming,’ shouted Denise. She turned to Louis and said, ‘I assume he needs you too.’
‘Of course he does,’ replied Louis in a cocky tone.
Denise shook her head in annoyance as she made her way back to the chamber. Louis closely followed.
As they climbed into the chamber, Freddy called out to them enthusiastically, ‘We’ve made friends.’
There were six short Linap-like creatures standing in front of a secret entrance into a tunnel. Their skin tone was pale yellow, and they were completely hairless.
‘Hello,’ said Denise. ‘Do you understand us?’
‘We understand you, surface dweller,’ said the male standing in the middle of the group. ‘We would like to know why you are taking our ancestors.’
‘My name is Denise. I’m a Sapien, not a surface dweller. However, I do spend most of my time living on the surface,’ said Denise in a calm, slow voice.
‘My name is Flint Alset, deputy leader of the West tribes,’ said Flint. ‘Are you descendants of the new Linap?’
‘The Linap made us subservient to them,’ replied Denise. ‘They are, apart from a few crossbreeds, extinct.’
‘So their cruelty lasted a millennium,’ said Flint in a sad tone. ‘I’m sorry you had to endure it. At least now, we might have a chance for a new beginning.’
‘It would be great if we could work together,’ said Denise, sounding optimistic.
‘I still want to know why you are defrosting and taking our ancestors,’ said Flint in a more serious tone. ‘They are our responsibility, not yours.’
‘That wasn’t our intention,’ replied Denise. ‘We only began taking them when the one at Location 6 went missing. We believed them to be in danger, so we took them back to our region to protect them.’
‘We noticed that you had generators powering something more than these pods,’ added Louis. ‘We were very careful not to interrupt the power flow.’
The pod suddenly opened, and L10 Linap flopped forward and landed on his face.
‘It happens every time,’ chuckled Daily. ‘Don’t worry, he’ll be fine.’
‘He will be if we get him into a pod now,’ said Louis. ‘We have one in our flying vehicle.’
‘Yes, do that,’ said Flint. ‘He is very important. He invented these amazing pods.’
They all worked together to haul him up to the flying vehicle with the medical capsule.
‘He’ll be fine now,’ said Louis.
‘Thank you for saving his life,’ replied Flint. ‘Once he has stabilised, we would like for him to remain with us.’
‘We have seven others in our region and two more in one of our flying vehicles,’ said Denise. ‘I think it would be better if we reunited them all first. Then we can return all of them to you if that is what they want.’
‘Let me clarify my position,’ said Flint in a stern tone. ‘You will not be taking them with you.’
‘We can give them proper medical attention,’ said Denise as she walked closer to Flint. ‘I doubt you could do the same.’
‘Do not presume anything,’ said Flint angrily. ‘You know nothing about us.’
There was a sudden whirring sound from the engines of the flying vehicle containing the Linap from Locations 4 and 8. Louis had gotten into the flying vehicle while the others were talking. The flying vehicle rapidly ascended and then sped off. Those on the ground could only stand and watch.
‘This is unacceptable,’ shouted Flint. ‘Now none of you will be allowed to leave until all our ancestors are returned safely to us.’
‘Looks like Eugene was right about him,’ said Denise, shaking her head in disbelief.
‘Eugene is a great judge of character, friend,’ said Freddy with a smile as a Linap bound his hands behind his back.
Meanwhile, out in the ocean, Octavius and his robot team had made great progress. The storm caused some early inconvenience, but after that, the ocean was smooth. They were approaching the first island that might have the special seaweed.
‘Let’s hope this island has what we need,’ said Octavius as he rubbed his hands together.
Octavius jumped off the vessel and landed on some rocks. He walked around to the other side of the island. Finally, he found some seaweed. There were two types of seaweed. Octavius scrapped up as much as he could of both types.
‘One of these has to be it,’ Octavius chuckled to himself. He walked back to the ocean vessel. Once he reached it, he leapt back on board. ‘Hey, Rogers,’ he called out. ‘Test these samples of seaweed in the onboard lab. See if they match up with what we’re looking for.’
Ten minutes later, Roger One emerged from inside the vessel. He showed Octavius the results of the test he had run.
Octavius frowned and then said, ‘Right, off to our next location. Another day of cruising.’
Meanwhile, at Location 10, the underground Linap had moved the medical capsule to the chamber. They were now powering it with their own generator. They had also unbound Freddy, Denise, and Daily.
‘He’s doing well,’ said Daily to Flint. ‘It won’t be long before we will be able to take him out of the capsule.
‘You’ve done well taking care of him,’ said Flint. ‘We are grateful.’
‘I think we got off to a bad start,’ said Denise. ‘If you want to know more about us, I have written a document.
‘I placed it over there the last time I was here,’ she added as she pointed to a side table.
Flint gestured to a member of his team to pick it up.
‘We need to be able to communicate with our region,’ said Denise. ‘I fear that Louis might not reliably convey what has happened here.’
‘Maybe you should have chosen your colleagues for such a mission more carefully,’ said Flint in a slightly annoyed tone.
‘We are limited on expertise,’ replied Daily. ‘He has the most knowledge of these machines.’
‘You will be returned safely to your region once we get all our ancestors back,’ said Flint.
‘How exactly are we going to achieve that if we can’t talk to those in our region?’ asked Denise, sounding frustrated.
‘We’ll send a team to your region to negotiate,’ said Flint. ‘It might surprise you, but we have developed a good communication network down here.’
‘You know where our region is!’ said Denise, sounding a little concerned.
‘We will do soon,’ said Flint, sounding confident. ‘Your flying vehicles track each other. The one here is tracking the one that flew off.’
Around a day later, Octavius and his team of robots arrived at a cluster of islands.
‘I think our chances are really good this time,’ said Octavius as he turned to Belford, who just beeped in response.
‘Ha,’ responded Octavius as he jumped into the water. He only needed to swim a short distance to reach the beach.
Octavius walked up onto the beach. He began walking along the beach towards some rocks. He climbed on the rocks and began searching for seaweed. After searching for a few hours, he found three different types of seaweed. He collected as much as he could.
He swam back to the ocean vessel and climbed aboard. ‘Hey, Rogers,’ he called out as he shivered slightly from the cold water. ‘I have three types this time. Test them both. I’m sure we have hit the jackpot.’
Fifteen minutes later, Roger One emerged from inside the vessel. Octavius grabbed the results off him.
‘Seriously!’ exclaimed Octavius. ‘Fine, there are several more islands over there. I’ll have to keep searching.’
Twenty minutes later, Octavius was walking along the beach of another island. On this island, the rocks were more scattered. This made his search a little more tedious. By the time he had reached the other side of the island, the tide had gone further out. This exposed more rocks. On these rocks, Octavius found more seaweed. Octavius collected as much of it as he could. It looked a little different from the previous seaweed he had found. He was feeling optimistic again.
As it was now getting late, Octavius decided he would cut through the centre of the island to save time. He was almost through the vegetated centre when he encountered a Sentray.
The Sentray stood in front of him and roared. Octavius responded by roaring back at the Sentray. The Sentray walked closer to him while continuing to roar. Octavius held his ground and roared back again.
Octavius would have been considered a giant among Linap, but he was a little under half the height of the Sentray that stood before him. He knew he had very little chance in a physical confrontation, and he knew that he had no chance of outrunning the Sentray. Instead, he relied on his Sentray instincts, which were to match the creature vocally before him.
The two continued to roar at each other. Octavius somehow managed to muster an extremely loud, powerful roar. This startled his much larger opponent. The Sentray backed down and let Octavius pass. Octavius entered the water and swam back to the ocean vessel. He flopped down on the deck in exhaustion.
Roger One collected the seaweed sample from him as he lay on his back panting in exhaustion and partly in fear from his close encounter.
Ten minutes later, Roger One returned.
‘I don’t want to do this anymore,’ blubbered Octavius as he snatched the results off Roger One.
Octavius sat up sharply as he looked at the results. ‘It’s a match!’ he exclaimed in excitement. ‘Yours truly has done it.’
Around a dozen Sentray heads rose from the water. Octavius leapt to his feet and looked around at them. Then he began to frantically roar at them.
Sapien Loop: End of an Era
Sapien Loop: Frozen in Time is the sequel to the book Sapien Loop: End of an Era. Sapien Loop: End of an Era is available on Amazon, in collection series on my @spectrumecons account, and in individual chapters in my @captainhive account.
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