Chapter Three
Chapter Three
In no time at all Jake’’s feet touched bottom. He looked down, eying the various underwater plant life with a wary eye as a school of small orange and blue striped fish scurried away from him. The water was incredibly clear and I detected a few larger animals, snake like but with fins, slithering off in the near distance. Then something quite a bit larger with jaws and fins loomed and took down one of the slithery smaller fish.
Tha was all Jake needed to up his tempo up the incline that he was fairly certain would lead to the surface and the Island not far away.
His condition was still relatively weak, even compared to a normal human, and though he literally breathed in the nutrients and life-giving force of the sea water around himself, it was a struggle.
In a few moments his head broke the surface, and he felt the gentle push of surf on his still frail body pushing him further ashore.
He was still weak, and as he waded up onto the land, his legs felt wobbly. Twice an errant wave caught him tumbling him onto his back, but he struggled on.
Even with that struggle, life was suddenly exhilarating. The sensation of real planetary atmosphere, the breeze on his body, his face, his nipples and cock, nearly made him faint with pleasure. Tp breath real planetary air again, not the stale sometimes antiseptic air of a spaceship, was shockingly wonderful. Looking around at the sky, he saw clouds rising up in multi layers above the sea, tinged with the light of a late afternoon sun. Glorious in itself the blue green sea sparkled in sunlight, and he just stood there, breathing it in, his arms outstretched.
A mix of fern like plants, palms of various kinds to judge by the fronds, all clustered densely with some sort of tall pine tree that towered over the more typically tropical foliage, greeted his eyes as if to welcome a new friend, and Jake couldn’t help beaming with a ridiculously wide smile, and even jiggled a bit in a skin and bones version of a cookie dance.
Looking out to sea again after a long moment, he saw the speck of a sail, still quite far away, but close enough would be upon him shortly.
Looking down at himself, he realized they could not see him like this. He was still too thin, abnormally so, and even without the signs of extensive burns not fully healed over, he appeared as if a victim of a prison camp of many months of starvation.
“Mind you need to get some meat on these bones and quickly.” Jake said outload to himself.
“Your body needs nutrients. Strongly advise returning to the water, to catcg a fish, Master Par.”
Jake had scolded Mind when the AIA had begun referring to him as “My Lord, and My Lord Par,” even though that was who he now, technically, was. The AIA thought now in Cerulean accents, and his internal voice had taken on a clipped sort of sound with the vowels very vertical, rather like the accent in some ancient earth British movie.
Jake hurried back into the water and continued until he was well under the surface. Obligingly, a rather plump silvery blue fish that reminded him of some sort old Terran Grouper fish, swam close. Jake grinned, and with a sudden move grabbed the fish, nearly losing it because of the nature of its slippery skin. Guided by the AIA, he retreated to shore, holding the fisn in both hands.
There was no time to cook it. He had to eat it raw, first taking it to a flat rock and banging it down as hard as he could to kill it, and then, well, lifting to to his mouth and chomping down on the soft under belly.
“Ugh, not bad. What about the guts and…”
“Eat quickly, Master. Your body can metabolize anything, including deadly poisons.”
Jake took note of that, filing it away even as he chewed voraciously, chomping right through fish bone and crunching away. He could almost feel his new golem body filling with strength, sinews forming. "Be better cooked, I think."
Twice more, he returned to the sea to catch more fish. He was just finishing the last of the third, sitting on that same rock, when he heard a hail.
But I turned around to look at the sea, noting other small beach Islands, some of them floating weirdly on the surface, partially submerged. Others barely broke the surface of a nest of shoals. And into the midst of all this sailed a small ship. Jake heard another yell, and taking his nerves in hand, raised his arm and waved, standing to wave with both hands at the ship that glided closer, weaving its way along. A man at the bow lowered a long pole every dozen meters or so, as if to check for waters too shallow.
A beautiful little ship, it had a noticeable sheer, with two masts and appeared to be a mix of fore and aft and with a single square sail atop the main mast. ship of about twenty meters in length, maybe sixty feet, no larger really then a sporty sailing yacht on ancient earth.
“I don’t see any armaments.” Jake said to himself but “Mind” answered him. “Four cranked projectile weapons, like catapults, two per side Master..”
And that observation, looked more closely he could now make out the contraptions the AIA had observed. But he could also see that the men aboard the ship were variously armed, and from their movements and stances, they appeared anxious to him. Were they friend or foe?
“Any clue to who they are? Not on Zorath’s side, I hope.”
As usual Mind’s answer added more data than he had asked for, but he wasn’t complaining. “The Zorath Imperial banner is black and purple with a gold staff topped by a large purplish red stone with rays that suggest it glows. Over the staff is depicted a three tiered golden crown.”
Looking up to the top of the taller of the two masts Jake saw a white banner edged in blue with a bird like avian silhouette in blue with wings open across the middle. So not Zorath’s. I breathed a sigh of relief until “Mind” said. “Searching memories for the meaning of this ship’s banner.”
“Mind meant Par’s memories. “It could be the banner of an ally of Nor, or Nor itself. There is a memory.. I will display it. Caution, it is not a pleasant recollection.
Into Jake’s mind came a memory of pain. He was in the water, clutching a piece of rigging, looking on as a large banner floated nearby. It was white with a blue border, and the memory was clear, of looking upon it and thinking disappointment and overwhelming regret that he was going to die. It was the banner of Nor. The pain made me feel faint as he emerged from the flash-back into the present.
“I nad a head wound, preferably two weeks old, Mind. Par was lost at sea for many days before he perished.” Jake said out loud. It came to him, as that vessel drew nearer, inching its way toward the Islet where he stood, that he had not thought things through. He needed a head wound to have a reason to have trouble speaking and remembering. With that ship lowering a boat into the water, doubtless to come and fetch him from this beach, there were countless other things he hadn’t thought of. Well, it would have to come to him as he went along. “Ouch!” Ihe muttered as a lancing pain on the back of my head nearly blindedm him.
“You now have a head wound, Master, which shows signs of healing.” Mind pronounced without a jot of sympathy.
“Well thank you so ever much.” Jake said dryly, wincing in pain.
“Your welcome.” Jake’s eyes rolled as he watched the progress of the men from the ship. Six men had gone aboard the rowboat, all of them shirtless, hair worn either with a top knot or pony tail. All of them were fit, he could tell that even at a distance. A young man in a faded blue waist cut jacket hopped in last and took the tiller as the boat took off, the men rowing quickly. Mean while the ship, had not quite stopped, but swiveled slowly and turned to glide across Jake’s vision as if to pass the Island.
There was a yell and the man at the tiller was waving toward Jake, a come-on gesture. Well, there was no mistaking that, and Jake wasn’t about to stay on this beach. He headed into the water, moving out until it was up to his neck and began to swim.
He didn’t get far before he heard another yell and looked up. The men in the boat were pointing, their oars getting tangled up as they stopped rowing. Jake turned to look and saw a scaly glittery fin above the surface, turning and heading toward him. Oh crap. A quick calculation informed Jake that he would not make it to the boat in time.
Considering his options, Jake decided to chance the thought that this predator might be big but dumb, so he stopped swimming, going still in the water, filling my lungs with air to keep myself nominally afloat, he slowly sank until his eyes were underwater.
Jake burbled an audible “fuck”. The size of the thing and those jaws were no laughing matter, but he remained still as, jaws gaping the monster loomed upon him. “Well what harm could it do? After all he had survived being cooked to a slab of unrecognizable overdone meat in the planet’s atmosphere. How bad could this be?
As the monster reached him, Jake, confronted by a mouth filled with terrible nasty teeth, closed his eyes and waited. There was a shove, a rude sort of punch that pushed him sideways. He opened eyes to see the monster swimming past. Well Hallelujah, good to see some similarities to old Terra sharks, he thought, jubilantly.
However, he wasn’t going to stick around in case the beasty changed its mind. He swam onward toward the bottom of the boat I saw a few boat lengths away and saw ore blades invade the water. Emerging near the side of the boat, he heard shouts of surprise as he shook the water from his ears, looking up into more or less human faces.
Grinning with relief, he took hold of an oar blade pulled himself to the side and reached up for salvation.
After some hesitation they took his wrists and hauled. Jake let them do the work, truly not having much more, as yet, than an ounce of strength left in himself. They eyed him strangely but took hold of his arms, pulling him over and in. Jake rolled onto his back in the bottom of the boat and closed his eyes.
“Arrigh stop wi er starin and set too. Roh, roh, roh,
“Permission to put you to sleep to allow you to regain strength and full functionality, Master.” Mind urged
Jake felt the pull and urge of the boat under oars and consented, cautioning Mind not to improve his appearance too quickly. “Improve my hands so that this ring doesn’t keep trying to fall off.” He added at the last second.
As everything began to fade away, Jake heard one man say. “Ar a ring”. And another sailor said, “bloody ung loik a oarse.” The sailors rowing all laughed while the man at the tiller snapped at them to “stow it.”
Well the old British landing hundreds of years back on this world had clearly left behind it, a language and way of speaking that was still something like old English. Jake’s last thoughts as he drifted toward welcome sleep, was that he shouldn’t have too much trouble. Jake looked up at the young man at the tiller and noticed he was damn cute, and very young, brown haired with eyes gazing down at him with great curiosity. A young puppy, Jake thought, but very fit with dimples framing a very kissable mouth.
He might have gazed at the boy a bit longer but then "Mind " took over everything went blissfully dark.
