Chapter 5
The morning sun twinkled off the lake. Kyan set Natalie down and disappeared into the trees to get Melanie. Natalie soaked in the beautiful scene with a satisfied sigh. Then she stiffened when she noticed the lake shore deserted. Her friends were gone.
She restrained herself from rushing down to the shore to search for any sign of them until Kyan and Melanie stood at her side. Then she pointed. “They’re gone. Where do you think they could be?”
Before anyone could answer, Amber strolled out of the woods. She grinned at the party. “Good morning. Where have you guys been all night?”
“I could ask you the same question,” returned Natalie. “I thought you were going to build a shelter out of logs from the forest. Did you hide it in the trees?”
At that moment, Arno broke through the underbrush. His burly shoulders snapped low-hanging branches, and he ducked to protect his face. He carried Tina in his arms, and he set her down on a rock at the water’s edge. She didn’t acknowledge any of her friends. She went back to staring out across the lake.
Then another figure stepped out of the forest, but he stopped just inside the treeline. He didn’t come out to join the group. Natalie recognized him from the village. It was the young observer, the one they called Wink.
Natalie stared at him, but Melanie narrowed her eyes. “What’s he doing here?”
Amber beckoned him forward, but he didn’t move. “I met him in the woods while I was cutting logs for the shelter. He told me a few things about how his people build their houses, and he convinced me to do it differently. Then he took all of us to a shelter the observers use here in the woods. We spent the night there.”
Melanie turned on her. “You spent the night there….with him? How could you do that?”
A scarlet blush spread over Amber’s cheeks. Even Natalie noticed it. She spent the night there with him, all right. They couldn’t have done anything serious with Arno and Tina around, but she read the evidence of attraction on Amber’s face as plain as day.
Amber waved her hand toward Wink. “He’s a really nice guy. You should get to know him. He really wants to help us settle here, and he’s going to show me all over the forest. Arno will stay here with Tina, and we're going off together right after we have something to eat. He's going to show me how they build their houses in the trees, and then he's going to introduce me to his mother and his brother. Isn't that great?”
“Don’t you know he wants to drive us out of here?” Melanie snapped.
Amber’s eyes flew open. “No, he doesn’t. He’s the nicest guy I’ve ever met and he...”
“He and his brother interrupted a very pleasant meeting between us and the village elders,” Melanie interrupted. “He said the Eblians should isolate us from the rest of the population and forbid us from mating with any Eblian males. He said you were destroying the forest, and we wouldn’t stop until we took this planet for ourselves. He’s the one person on this planet who doesn't want us here. And you had to go and spend the night with him!”
“That’s not true!” Amber cried. “He doesn’t want that at all. You don’t understand!”
Natalie sighed. “She’s right, Amber. He and his brother said all that and more when we went to the village. It was only through the kindness of Kyan’s father that the elders welcomed us.”
Amber squared her shoulders and faced her friends. “He might have thought that when he met you at the village, but he changed his mind when we started talking. He said he wasn’t expecting us to change our ways to accommodate the Eblians. But when I agreed to put away my axe and learn their way of building, he changed his mind about us. He’s willing to accept us, and he's going to talk to his brother about me, too… I mean, about all of us.”
“And you believe him?” Melanie asked.
Amber waved to Wink again, more forcefully this time. “You can ask him yourselves, if you don’t believe me. He’ll tell you.”
Wink watched her waving, but he still didn’t move. Natalie regarded the young Eblian with a sinking heart. “He doesn’t look all that enthusiastic about talking to us.”
“That’s just the way they are,” Kyan explained. “They’re shy. They keep to themselves. If he did tell Amber all those things, and he did change his mind about accepting us, he wouldn’t charge right up to shake our hands. He has to keep his distance. He'll come to us in time if we don't push him.”
Natalie softened. “Okay. We’ll play it his way.”
Melanie turned away. “It sounds to me like he spun you a nice little yarn, Amber. Maybe he told you what he knew you wanted to hear, just so he could cozy up to you in his nice warm shelter last night.”
Amber shook her head. “You’ve got him all wrong, Melanie. He never made a move on me last night. We stayed up all night long, talking about everything under the sun. We talked about Earth, and he told me all about his people. I can’t wait to get to know them, and to learn their way of life.” She beamed at Natalie. “I can't thank you enough for bringing me here, Natalie. This is going to be the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Natalie smiled at her, but Melanie pursed her lips and turned away. “Every single one of the Eblians we’ve met has been kind and considerate and welcoming—except those two. I don’t care what he told you in the dark last night. I don't want to have anything to do with him.”
She walked away to the lake shore and started talking to Arno. Then she squatted down and said something to Tina. Natalie gazed after her. “You may have had a wonderful time last night, Amber, but I can’t blame Melanie. Those two young men couldn’t have come at a worst time, and they said some really hurtful things about us to the elders.”
Amber watched Melanie with a cool expression. “I understand she’s upset, but I won’t give up my happiness for anybody. I love you, and I hope we can all find happiness here. I'm going with Wink now. I'll see you guys later, I hope you have a good day.”
Without another word, she set off toward the trees, and in an instant, she and Wink vanished behind a curtain of green. Natalie let out another deep sigh. Just when everything was going great, this had to go and throw a wrench in their plans. The last thing they needed was any strife between their party and the Eblians. An instant connection between Wink and Amber was just what the doctor ordered, but any hostility between them and Melanie could spell doom for their whole project.
She cast one last glance toward the place where Wink and Amber slipped away. She’d never seen Amber so happy. A pure golden light shone out from her heart, through her eyes, and lit up the world around her. Natalie would have been jealous if she didn’t feel the same way about Kyan. Could Melanie be hiding her jealousy over Amber's happiness behind her tough exterior?
Melanie stood with Arno near their luggage. Natalie couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer. She joined her friends. “If you show us where this shelter is,” Melanie was saying, “we can store our gear there until we get a chance to bring it to the village.
Natalie’s misgiving melted away, and she smiled up at Arno. “That’s why we came back. We came to take you to the village. You don’t have to stay here anymore.”
Arno shook his head. “The shelter was perfectly comfortable. I slept like a rock.” He chuckled, and the sound rumbled out of his barrel chest. “I think I’m the only one who did.”
“Tell us about this shelter,” Natalie told him. “What was it made of?”
“It’s a hole in a hollow tree,” he replied.
Melanie gasped. “You spent the night in a hollow tree? Didn’t you get cold?”
“You don’t understand,” Arno replied. “The trees in this forest are huge. This tree must have been almost as big as the Mixtidelin. The hollow was bigger than my quarters back on board ship. A dozen people could have spent the night there without ever bumping elbows with one another. Amber stayed up all night with that Eblian, but I never heard a word they said. They sat near the opening and watched the stars. I stayed with Tina in the back, out of the night air.”
Natalie nodded. “It got pretty cold last night.”
“That shelter was the warmest place I’ve spent the night in years,” Arno told her. “The walls must be twenty feet thick, and the entrance was curved so the interior traps heat. It was much better insulated than the ship.”
Melanie and Natalie stared at him. “It sounds amazing.”
He waved toward the trees. “I’ll show it to you. We can easily store our stuff there and leave plenty of room for the observers.”
Melanie froze. “The observers?”
“They use it as an outpost when they patrol this part of the planet,” Arno told her.
Melanie turned away. “Never mind. We’ll find somewhere else to store our stuff.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Natalie asked. “Why don’t we use the shelter? Arno says it’s big enough for our stuff and then some.”
“I don’t want to use it,” Melanie replied. “I don’t want to run into any observers.”
“Amber thinks they’re nice guys,” Natalie murmured.
Melanie turned on her. “And you believe that? You saw them yourself at the village, Natalie. You know they aren’t nice guys. Amber’s deluding herself.”
Natalie shifted from one foot the other. “I admit I didn’t think much of them when they confronted us at the village. But maybe Amber’s right. They're only trying to protect their people and their world. They didn't like Amber chopping the trees, but after Wink talked to her about it and came up with an acceptable compromise, they made friends. Maybe Wit and Wink aren't as bad as we thought.”
Melanie chopped the air with her hand. “No. We’re not using the shelter.”
Natalie stared at her. Then she shook her head and sighed. “All right. If that’s the way you want to do it, where should we put our stuff instead?”
Melanie looked around, but only the flat lake stared back at her. “I don’t know. Maybe we should just take it to the village now.”
Arno snorted. “Maybe we shouldn’t. As long as Tina’s out here, one of us has to stay with her, and that person will need their gear.”
“Tina shouldn’t stay out here,” Natalie told him. “We came back here this morning to bring you three to the village. We can’t go on camping by the lake forever. You might as well get to the village as soon as you can, gear and all. Then we can all relax and get to work making a home for ourselves.”
“And how exactly is Tina going to get to the village?” Arno asked. “She won’t walk there.”
“You carried her here from the shelter,” Natalie pointed out. “Why don’t you carry here to the village?”
“How am I going to carry her into the treetops?” Arno asked.
Kyan rubbed his chin. “Arno is right. The creepers won’t hold him.”
Melanie pursed her lips. “It’s a whole lot of fuss over Tina. Why can’t she just stay here until she wakes up enough to travel?”
“That doesn’t solve the problem of how Arno will be able to get to the village,” Natalie replied. “This could be a long-term problem for him—and for us.”
Melanie spun away on her heel. “Well, you all stay here and work on our long-term problem. I’m going….”
“Where are you going?” Natalie asked. “You can’t walk back to the village. It’s too far.”
Melanie didn’t answer. She walked away without looking back, and in a moment, the trees swallowed her up.
“Don’t worry,” Kyan told Natalie. “She can’t get far.”
Natalie squinted after her. “I wish she wasn’t so hostile toward Tina. She might be in trouble, but Tina’s part of our team. We have to take her needs into account.”
“Don’t be too hard on Melanie,” Arno replied. “This project will take all our resources, and we need everyone functioning at their peak. I don’t blame Melanie for resenting Tina.”
Natalie faced him. “You don’t resent Tina, do you?”
“Of course not,” Arno replied. “But I understand how Melanie feels. All of you suffered at the hands of the Toom, and none of you is sitting catatonic by the lake. You’re working and moving and planning. I can see why she would get annoyed that Tina isn’t contributing something to our future.”
Natalie stared at the blank curtain of forest. “Yeah, I know. But hostility towards each other is the last thing we need right now.”