No Man's Sky [SMR8]

[Kannon]

As the had finally landed into a rocky gorge that was emptying into a cliff somewhere in the midst of it, they found themselves in a night like no other. Against the canvass of emptiness, there was life nestling in the hidden spaces - bats and other small rodents, insects and their avian vores, grasses and shrubs hugging the sides of the canyon. If the water flowed (or had ever flowed) there, it would empty (or have emptied) into the flatness below in a spectacular waterfall. For now, there was the vista, and the waiting.

They hadn't seen any indication of Harkonnen patrols following them. Would that their flight route thoroughly misguided their potential pursuers? Just as they were seeking a place across this endless landscape, they were now perhaps also sought - with similar chances of success.

Mapes had set up a stilltent for those who wanted to rest; herself, she went with her bat to where the canyon broke out into the cliff, with the expanse of the Habbanya Erg unbroken till the horizon illuminated by both moons.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

Bomilcar was, after the harsh lessons from Chatt and the depression, far more acclimated than he expected to be at this point. Coupled with what had already been a resilient body and spirit, keeping up with Mapes was not even in question. He had always had the body and will capable of living on this world. It was the knowledge he lacked, but that was rapidly growing.

He remained solemnly quiet. His mind was alight, but h did not interfere or impose.

[The Shadout Mapes]

He saw her holding out a rather docile bat in her hands. She was speaking into some small device, but it was in a language he didn't understand. It sounded ancient. The device then did something to the bat, it became agitated, squirming, but not hostile. There was no physical contact between the bat and the device, so it must have been remote. Radio waves? Or sound waves at frequencies inaccessible to his ear? The slight headache he noticed might have indicated the latter. Then Mapes pulled some water from her catch tube and spat carefully into the bat's open mouth, before letting it fly. The creature darted off immediately, toward the southeast, across the erg.

"We have to wait now." She said to Bom with her thin, creaky voice. "You'd be wise to rest, master." She hesitated for a moment there, as if looking for a name to call him that would make sense to her, but in the end she went with blanket deference she must have learnt at the Residency.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

"Not master. Bomilcar Thorvald. Bom," he says. "No persons master."

[The Shadout Mapes]

Mapes considered it. "Those names tell me little. I sense you want to be closer to us, I noticed when you followed my prayer. And now you have followed me here. But I don't know for what reason. If I hadn't been asked, I wouldn't be helping you and the others."

She looked at him with her blue-within-blue eyes, more pride than subservience in them now. "If I were your naib, I'd suggest you take the name Buzmali." She didn't explain her choice.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

"You understand Dune," he admits. "Want to understand.". He didn't elaborate, but she could sense that he wanted it for a purpose. He certainly had not arrived with anything connecting him to the planet. But there was something now. He had the intensity of a man committed to a purpose, but that purpose was truthfully split and confused and potentially at odds with itself.


"Buzmali?" he asks. Not necessarily for clarification. Perhaps confirmation?

[The Shadout Mapes]

"Harkonnen want to know more about it too." She challenged, implying that pursuit of knowledge in itself wasn't enough of a moral reason. "Buzmali." She confirmed, perhaps daring him to find the answer himself. The Fremen had their own language, a private one few outsiders apparently knew, and spoke Galach only out of necessity, and with thick accents.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

He shakes his head at that. "Information and understanding different."

"The worms. Not just dangerous. Keep Dune alive."

[The Shadout Mapes]

Mapes shot him a glittering gaze of both wonder and suspicion.

"The Maker brings life and death alike!"

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

It was as he thought might be the case earlier. They were The Maker. He allows a slight smile of appreciation for her enthusiasm and fervor. Then he remember Hebe's description of the worms moving through Alam al-Mithal. Was it similar to his experience with Zenzi? Were they affected by spice? The spice blow was not from any major rock formation, so it needn't be mined from stone to be found. So, were they a part of this eco-system of shared consciousness that was available through the spice melange? Would it be possible for him to know The Maker in a similar way that he had known Zenzi? To feel their feelings if he were to get close enough without being killed?

"They... use... spice? Can be seen by some? Connected."

[The Shadout Mapes]

Mapes tsk'ed, but there was a sense of horror in her gaze at what his words might have implied. Her hand went toward the hem of her robe. Did he touch some taboo?

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

"No," he said with a nod, never to broach the idea again.

"Sietch shares minds? Experiences?"

[The Shadout Mapes]

"Kul wahad!" She cursed. He was probing too close! And he would know our customs as if he was born to them. Her gaze was a mixture of trepidation, hostility, and awe, perhaps even religious awe. Her small body stiffened, then stretched, as she pulled away, building distance. He had clearly frightened her, put on a path where she had been conditioned to respond with violence. But in her reaction, he could see a confirmation of his assertion. Fremen did have ways to share minds with others. That would explain the strong sense of community between them.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

Bomilcar stayed in place. "Speak with, suggest name... then flee."

He looks to the dunes in the distance. "Share life. Water. Minds. Hearts. Dreams. Everything."

"Don't want to take. Want to share."

[The Shadout Mapes]

And he would share your dream. Mapes was terrified! She clung with her back to the side of the canyon, her hand on her chest. She had to be concealing a knife there. "What do you know about our dream that you want to share it!" She challenged again. Those Fremen were mad! Every moment coated in religious subtext, ever balancing at the edge of violence. Every time he'd been facing them before, there was Ahmina near, and she had been buffering them in ways that hadn't been obvious, until now. Now, however, he was on his own.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

"Freedom from oppression. For your people," he says. "Helped others in the past. Not so many. But numbers don't matter, people do." And then, the aching and pain in his throat caught up. He coughed and checked his hand. No blood yet he was still fine.

"One life worth giving for all lives."

[The Shadout Mapes]

Mapes calmed down momentarily. Bomilcar wouldn't know it, but not because he said the right thing, but because he said the wrong thing. Noble, but not correct, that removed the necessity for Amtal. But the Shadout recognised his earnestness and didn't challenge him for assuming the Fremen couldn't do that themselves. Maybe the ilk of the Pan and the Graben needed a hero of this kind, but not the desert people. At least - it wasn't their exact dream. In some ways this man seemed to be the Voice from the Outer World, but in other ways he wasn't. The judgement was out, and no longer hers.

Still, she sighed and shook her head. Her hand dropped to the side without a blade.

"So you want to fight the Harkonnen for us? Are you a good fighter?"

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

"Can fight." He nods at that but pauses.

"But... Not just you. Not just fight," he says. "All people of Dune. I... need to find way. Want to bring more water. From my home."

[The Shadout Mapes]

Mapes couldn't help herself in coating her disbelief in a joke.

"There was this drylander who was asked which was more important, a literjon of water or a vast pool of water? The drylander thought a moment and then said: "The literjon is more important. No single person could own a great pool of water. But a literjon you could hide under your cloak and run away with it. No one would know."

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

He smirked at that. "Water held is most important."

"Need smuggler," he replied. "Have water and transport already. Plan for extracting."

It was true, there was only one more piece to the puzzle of the operation and it was the hardest part for him to grasp.

[The Shadout Mapes]

"Smugglers can sell you out." Mapes made a general remark, not any particular comment on his plan which her mind didn't comprehend. "They can be reached. The Count has special dealings with them. He told the Baron that they are 'his'. Tuek had visited him in Arrakeen before."

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

He nods at that. "Audit leaves no time. Stay after, figure out. Will bring water here," he says, apparently determined on this point. Had he made a promise to someone that he would do so? Probably, he seems the type that likely latches onto ideas and promises.

[The Shadout Mapes]

Mapes' scepticism was derived from her own experiences. Offworlders gave with one hand and took with another. Just like the Fenrings, they provided water for the poor, but not without asserting superiority and dispensing humiliation. All the while Lady Fenring maintained a whole garden in her keep that could provide water for hundreds if not thousands of people. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, Mapes could think if she had that piece of ancient knowledge. Or, she could say The gift of water is the blessing of the giver., if she knew the Orange Catholic Bible. But she was a Zensunni Fremen, and she knew that a promise of water from elsewhere should be treated with caution. She still remembered the harsh lesson of Bilar.

Presently, she nodded. "So you have said."

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

He nods at that. "You reacted. South pole," he says. "More Fremen than known."

[The Shadout Mapes]

"Nothing is known!" She hissed. The man was putting her at her limits. The moment she'd calmed down, he was prodding her for secrets again, secrets she was bound to keep as such. "Don't taunt me into defying Liet and killing you!"