Colonies of U'u'kata

Thenta suppressed a groan as the sound of someone falling into the dirt behind him brought him up short. He took a deep breath and turned around.

The little human female was pushing herself back to her feet, wincing as she dusted off the knees of her trousers.

Great, he thought. He was going to have to clean up her prints again.

He'd shown her how to keep to the stones and anything that wouldn't depress too far I to the ground so they couldn't be tracked. But this was the third time she'd fallen over.

She said something in her little voice, her cheeks coloring with pink.

She was embarrassed! It was hard to stay irritated with her when she was so cute.

Pointing to a larger stone, he said, "Stand there."

With a dejected sigh, she trudged to the rock and stepped up onto it. There, she waited while he cleaned up the evidence of her fall.

"It's okay," he said. "I'll shorten my steps, find stones closer together."

She hefted the pack over her shoulder and said a few words.

He was about to straighten when he caught her scent again. He was wearing the shirt she'd worn and her sweet smell was all over it. With a gulp, he turned to her and found himself staring. In the darkness of his hideout, her hair had appeared dark but in the light of the sun it was a breathtaking shade of deep red with golden highlights that sparkled in each sun ray that hit it through the canopy. Her eyes were a striking light brown and held a shadow of sadness and a spike of nervous fear.

After what she'd been through, he didn't blame her.

"Okay, now step here, then there," he said, finally coming out of the trance she put him in and pointing to a couple rocks.

They moved slowly through the day and though he could tell the trek was hard on her, she never complained. Though, he had stopped more than once, noticing she wasn't right behind him, only to find her watching some bug or another with childlike fascination. He just hoped she didn't start picking them up. When he'd washed her trousers he'd found her pockets stuffed with beatles. He hoped she hadn't been eating them. It wouldn't hurt her or anything but it would be disgusting. Those beetles released a foul stench when smashed and he hoped her kind didn't like to eat stinky things.

The sun was dipping low when he spotted the broken treetops. Something large had simply sheared them off and he tapped Cali on her narrow shoulder and pointed at them.

She followed his arm, frowning up. Finally, she shrugged and looked at him in question. She didn't see it? He sighed. Where could she possibly have lived that she didn't know what a broken tree looked like?

"The trees," he finally said. "The tops are broken. Something hit them."

She looked again and her eyebrows lifted, finally realizing what he was showing her.

"Come," he said. "There are some hills up here that we can camp in that should provide enough shelter for the night."

With that, he continued forward and she followed closely behind him.

***

Cali frowned down at the ground beneath her. Why did it feel like it was vibrating? She pressed her hand to the earth and sure enough, felt a slight vibration through her palm. Or was she just exhausted and discombobulated from hiking all day?

Thenta passed her a waterskin and she took several gulps before handing it back. Her feet were pounding and her calves burned and her lungs felt raw and she didn't understand why anyone would want to live on a planet if it did this to them. It had taken her months to be able to walk more than ten steps without feeling winded after they'd been plopped onto Uu'k'ata. Her entire body had felt constantly smashed and her kidneys had ached constantly. She was finally adjusting to the gravity but this was ridiculous. How much further was this ship?