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Everything is there.Whew,I think. If someone was in my pack, I guess they didn’t find what they were looking for. I quickly take down the tent and pack up everything. I shoulder my pack and reach for my navigation system. It’s not there.
“No!”
The electronic compass hangs on a clip – well, it’s supposed to hang on a clip – and has a retractable cord. That makes it easy to pull out and glance at. Sometimes you don’t need it, as in yesterday, when you’re walking across the only bridge over a seemingly bottomless chasm. Otherwise, it’s the most important thing I have. I consult it countless times a day automatically.
Slowly I take my pack off and carefully inspect the outside. It’s not caught on something. I grit my teeth as I painstakingly take everything out. My sense of dread grows as I search every item, hoping somehow the navigator got detached and lodged in… something.
It’s not there. It’s nowhere. And I know I had it when we walked into camp. I logged the location with a quick couple of taps. I’ve done that at every camp. It makes it easy to return if I should run into a problem and have to turn back.
“Fuck!”
I’m not only screaming at the sky, I’m shaking my fist. When I was a kid, there was an old woman in our settlement who kept quite an impressive collection. She was, essentially, a museum of old human artifacts.
One of her items was called a compass. It worked off something called ‘Poles.’ She had explained that the magnetic force on Earth was much stronger.
I pull out the one paper map we’re allowed and open it up. It takes me a while to find where I am, approximately. My confidence rises when I see how far I’ve come but quickly deflates as I examine today’s journey more carefully.
As is to be expected, there are far fewer trails the higher up you go. As I pack up all my stuff again, I remind myself to be even more careful today. Without navigation tools, I can’t even just bushwhack a straight line back to this camp if I get into trouble.
I check that the fire is out and it’s not only dead, it’s cold. Renxel must have left pretty early.Ugh,I think as I realize I wish he’d waited for me or at least woken me up. It is a competition, though. He’d already done me a favor with that nice dinner he shared with me.
“Son of bitch.”
I slap my head as I realize what happened. Valerian is what happened. The meal had an unusual flavor. Not unpleasant, just different. I couldn’t quite place it. My mother used to make a draught of it for sleeping sometimes. The smell would fill the kitchen. She didn’t use the herb for cooking, but we always had some around.
Maybe he didn’t know,I think. Plus, wouldn’t it have affected him as well? Maybe not. He’s way bigger than I am, so even if it did, he might not have fallen asleep as fast or slept as soundly.
“Did he know?”
I say it out loud, and part of me wonders if talking to myself is a side effect of the potent plant. I think back to our pre-race orientation. There was literature on different plants we could study, but we had to commit it to memory.
I can’t remember if Valerian was on the list but what I do remember was that each plant had a column for Human and Kiphian uses and dangers. Our bodies are just different enough to process chemical compounds – and plants are just basically really amazing chemical combinations – differently.
But he was helping me,I think. I groan as I realize just how stupid and gullible I was. He was just trying to gain my trust. And it worked.
I realize I’m not paying attention to where I’m going. Panic rises up in my throat, but I’m still on the path. I have to focus. If I lose the path, I’ll have to consider using the emergency comm. And I’ll be disqualified.
Better disqualified than dead.
The voice I hear in my head isn’t my own, it’s Rylan. Careful, reasonable, Rylan. I wouldn’t be in this mess if we were still working together.
Renxel probably noticed we were together and then apart. Now that I see him in his true light, it makes sense that he was scheming all along. That’s why he decided to help me.
I am not some poor heartbroken, silly girl,I think furiously. Yes, Rylan and I had fun together. Competition fun and… extra-curricular fun. And having an experienced mountain guide as your ally in the toughest mountain competition on the planet is definitely an advantage.
“He wasn’t the one for you.”
My mom’s words pop into my mind. They were first spoken to me when I was devastated when my crush started hanging out with my best friend, back in my childhood days. It took me way too long to realize that they both wanted me to give them some, well,a lot, more time alone.
But Rylan and I made sense. We worked well together, on the trail and off.
I shake my head. It’s not my imagination, I’m definitely feeling groggy. And now I’m sure it’s the Valerian I consumed last night.
“Fucking Renxel,” I grumble. I just need to get through today. If he’s at the next camp, I might just give him a very loud piece of my mind. And demand my navigator back.
It’s not just me,I realize. I think all the way back to the first day of the competition. Rylan gave that female Kiphian his extra climbing belt. Did he ever get it back? God damn it, I need to focus. Seems like we haven’t gone a day without hearing about somebody being… Well, I might as well say it. Sabotaged. Could that have all been Renxel?
“Yes, it could have,” I decide, announcing my answer to the air.
