The Ambush at Kuala Laredo
Toward midday, on a desert world in the Hydra Complex encrusted with sandy hills and dusty plains, a chevron of three red, black, and white hover-cycles flew in route formation over a golden-brown landscape dotted with dark green, faux mesquite and ocotillo and their black fractal shadows. Each hover-cycle was wrapped in a weak invisible force field, a “wind-shield” field, that tapered to a slender tail and made the speeding aircraft as aerodynamic as a raindrop falling from a cloud, or a bullet shot from a gun.
The Ranger led the triangular formation of low-flying aircraft and their hunkering riders. The riders were dressed in mufti for this journey. Instead of their usual red scrubs, black habit, or white gown, they wore sleek crimson, ebony, or chalk helmets and leathers.
“I remember those landmarks,” said the Ranger over the communication link he shared with his two wingmen. “That twisted arroyo bearing left. That sheared peak straight ahead. We’re near Kuala Laredo. Now that I see them, I remember our squad passing them on the way from our drop ship’s landing zone to our rendezvous with Fr. Francis.”
Dr. Cyril replied, “We’re making good time. It’s nearly high noon. We’re due to meet the Walking Stick who found you, and Caleb Anderson, the old prospector he works for, at Fr. Francis’ old camp near the scene of the ambush.” An annotated map of the terrain and the riders’ progress scrolled across the inside of the augmented reality visor of each rider’s helmet.
“One last thing, everyone,” the Doctor said cautiously. “I talked only briefly with the prospector to schedule our meeting, but in my professional opinion he’s spent far too much time wandering these hills with only a Walking Stick for company.”
“You mean he’s eccentric?” chuckled Sr. Mary Margaret.
“I mean he’s crazy as a coot,” said Dr. Cyril, using the human idiom for emphasis. “Watch your step.”
“Noted,” said the Ranger without further comment. He appreciated the Doctor’s warning, but he had gone through too much to be put off now.
“Follow me,” the Ranger said, “I know the way from here.” Then he banked the formation north toward their rendezvous, while their hover-cycles belched ozone crackling with lightning and rumbled like a distant thunderstorm just over the horizon.
Dr. Cyril led the way up a rocky incline to a plateau where a well-worn, secondhand airship was parked. Following behind the doctor was Sr. Nemesis, who was watchful and wary, and an anxious man who purposely wore the face of Will Rogers. The anxious man chose Rogers’ face because it was the friendliest, least threatening face of anyone the man knew.
Behind the parked airship was the abandoned campsite where the late Fr. Francis had conducted his archaeological research. A year’s worth of harsh sun, unremitting wind, and old gunfire had left the campsite in ruins. Beyond the camp, at the foot of Mt. Kuala Laredo, slanted layers of golden-brown sandstone pitched up like a layer cake that had collapsed and slumped to one side. At the junction of the sandstone incline and level ground was the jet-black maw of a mineshaft that stretched deep into the mountain.
When the visitors reached the plateau, they found a scarecrow-like Walking Stick working outdoors, repairing one of the well-worn excavation robots Caleb Anderson used for mining. The Walking Stick was obviously a skilled engineer, whom Anderson desperately needed to keep his down-at-the-heels operation going. The Walking Stick noticed the trio approaching the airship, stopped what he was doing, and stepped forward with the awkward grace of his kind. He spoke briefly to the Doctor, then boldly strode past him and Sr. Nemesis, and headed straight toward the trailing member of the trio. The Walking Stick stopped in front of the man who looked like Will Rogers, leaned forward, and stared the man square in the face.
The three visitors felt eternities pass while the Walking Stick’s glowing white eyes scrutinized the seemingly middle-aged Oklahoma raconteur. Instead of blinding the scarecrow, the white glow of his eyes provided a wide-spectrum floodlight for a vision system that ranged beyond visible light. Suddenly, the Walking Stick leaned back and said, “You’re that young man I saved a year ago. I’d recognize you anywhere.” The Walking Stick had apparently seen through the Ranger’s disguise with the same special awareness that helped it tell one of its kind from another. “But why the funny face?” the Walking Stick asked innocently. “Are you going to a costume party?”
The trio of visitors couldn’t help but laugh, and with that, the awkward tension that the Ranger didn’t realize he was carrying, vanished. “There’s no party,” the Ranger said, “I was just nervous about meeting you. The last time you saw me I was a bloody mess, with a different face, and all but dead—I remember that much now that I see you. I was nervous about how you’d react if we met again and you saw what passes for my new face.” Upon saying that, the Ranger screwed up his courage and let Will Roger’s visage morph back into his default face with its bland features and black band across his eyes. “But in spite of any fears I might have had,” he said, “I wanted to thank you for saving me.”
The Walking Stick paused, angled toward Dr. Cyril, then said to him on the private communication network their kind shared, “He cared what a Walking Stick thought of him? He wanted to thank me? It is as I said, Doctor. This human is special.” But to the Ranger, the robot said in words, “You’re welcome young man. I am a Walking Stick; without a purpose, I am nothing. I was pleased to have been of service.
“Mr. Anderson calls me by a name humans find easy to pronounce,” the Walking Stick said. “He calls me ‘Edgar.’ ” All at once, the Walking Stick subtly changed in the human travelers’ minds from an “it” to a “he”. Then Edgar asked, “How shall I call you?”
“My name is…” the Ranger began to say, then hesitated. He still had partial amnesia and didn’t actually remember his real name. But given the host of historical figures he had studied during his yearlong recovery, it occurred to him that he could easily create a suitable alias inspired by the past. “Well…” the Ranger said a few heartbeats later, “I suppose you can call me… ‘Baz Reed.’ ”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Reed,” said the robot.
Then Edgar stood more erect, gestured toward the cargo hatch of the weather-beaten aircraft, and informed his guests, “Mr. Anderson should have finished his morning prospecting by now, so I’m sure he’ll be back soon. Until he returns, please enjoy what meager hospitality I can offer.” Edgar took a few steps toward the hatch, but stopped to turn back and add, “I think it would be good for you to know that when Mr. Anderson arrives, he might have difficulty answering your questions. He has not quite been… himself… lately.”
Suddenly, Edgar turned abruptly, scanned the surrounding rocky landscape with his glowing white eyes, and repeated, “Wait… Wait… Wait…,” in the same singsong cadence of a starship’s warning system advising its crew to drop whatever they were doing and await further orders.
At the same moment, the sensors in Sr. Nemesis’ body armor silently jangled her nervous system and told her someone was hiding behind a boulder to her right. Surreptitiously, she slipped her hand inside her jacket to grip her favorite weapon of destruction. But when her body armor reported its tactical analysis of the threat, she relaxed to standby alert.
Edgar looked at the same boulder Sr. Nemesis was watching, and then said to his visitors’ surprise, “Mr. Anderson?”
All of a sudden, a grizzled head popped up from hiding behind the boulder and roared, “Edgar, who the hell are they? Thieves? Claim jumpers? Well they ain’t stealin’ my claim. Now put yer hands up where I can see ‘em, or else I’ll blast the lot of you to kingdom come!”
The visitors suddenly faced a crazy old man with leathery, suntanned skin; scraggly dirty-white hair that was as tangled as tumbleweed; white stubble as sharp as cactus needles; one wild, watery blue eye that opened wider than the other; and who held in his gnarled hands, an enormous, high caliber, over/under-double-barrel energy rifle.
This is how the prospector, Caleb Rajesh Anderson, made his first impression on his guests. It was not an auspicious beginning.
Sr. Nemesis wasn’t too alarmed by the old man’s threat. She knew that she could disarm him in the blink of an eye, any time she wanted. But she had come to help the Ranger, not start a fight, so she decided to join her companions in raising her hands.
“Mr. Anderson, put down that weapon this instant!” Edgar exclaimed as he positioned himself between the trio and the ranting prospector. “These are our guests. The ones who said they were coming today? The ones you agreed to talk to about the massacre last year? Remember? Now put that gun down and say hello.”
The old man blinked his lopsided eyes twice and continued to stare warily at the strangers. Apparently he trusted his Walking Stick enough to lower his energy rifle, but not enough to put it away entirely.
“You the folks from the clinic?” the old man said slowly, as if the idea was some form of higher mathematics he was struggling to comprehend. From time to time, he glanced from side to side as if looking for a cue card that didn’t exist.
Anderson leaned toward his robot assistant and said in a covert voice everyone could hear, “What about that feller? He’s wearing a mask. Isn’t he a bandit?”
“No,” Edgar replied with equal confidentiality, “he’s not a bandit. At first I thought he was going to a costume party, but now I think the mask must be some sort of fashion statement. That’s just a guess; you know I’m not that good with human customs. Now stop staring and be polite.”
Finally, Anderson said, “Sorry about drawin’ down on you folks, but a feller can’t be too careful, nowadays. There’re claim jumpers skulkin’ around here all the time. I seen their tracks with my own two eyes.” Considering the dubious quality of his off-kilter gaze, Sr. Nemesis found the prospector’s statement unintentionally amusing. Dr. Cyril found the old prospector’s lucidity refreshing, although in his professional opinion it was surely fleeting.