Trilogy of Dhana and the Earth. Book two. War with reptilians

Chapter 3. Terra and Bess

“Take care of Terra!”

“I do not want to leave you!”

“Terra must grow free! You will be safe in my mother’s forest if you do not decide to look for me mentally.”

“Darling, but how did it happen, why did you open, after all, everything was so wonderful.”

“Well, I could not stand my joy when my daughter was born … I am guilty! Now I can’t avoid the saucers. And you go! They shouldn’t find you! Goodbye, I feel they are close! Take care of Terra!”

“Goodbye, beloved!”

Three years passed

“Valentina Sergeevna, I cannot live here anymore, I’m leaving to look for Masha. I want Terra to live with you!”

“My girl, how can it be … And are you not afraid of saucers?”

“They won’t do anything to us! But we will be together.”

“But what about Terra?”

“I want her grow free. When she becomes an adult let her decide her own destiny. Maybe one day we will meet again. I hope, she will forgive us!”

Terra

I said goodbye to my mom as I was three. In the heart of a thick forest, in which my grandma forbade me go, we remained with her in a tiny hut. We have a garden where my grandma and I are planting various greens. In the autumn we gather the harvest. Then the lengthy days of winter are coming. My grandma is nice. In the evenings, she tells me fairy tales. The extraterrestrial generator rumbles silently, heating our cabin. The cat Murka got settled on the generator. My grandma and I are sailing to far-off worlds, the ancient worlds of fairy kingdoms of the Ancient Earth. It’s all in a different way now. The land belongs to the saucers. They fly on their own saucers and take anyone who thinks out loud. So they took dad and mom. Both my grandmother and I also know how to think out loud, but we never do this, so because of that we are not taken away.

And then spring came again. I’m already big, I’m four and I can walk along the edge of the forest. How good it is here! The forest is whistling, singing, rustling. I sit down on a log and listen, listen, listen … I sit still … Then the hedgehog jumped out of a bush and quickly-quickly went about his business. And a butterfly sat on my hand and began to clean its antennae with a paw…

Hot days have come and my grandma has removed my dress and my shoes and instructed me, because it is helpful, to run naked and sunbathe! I went around the edge of the woods from that day on, grass pricked at first, but I became accustomed to that. And I saw a girl, very little and also naked, once in the forest thicket. When I stared at her, she stood and checked me closely. We looked at each other and didn’t move for a long time, and then I decided to approach the girl.

“Who are you?” I asked. But the girl did not answer. I ran into the forest and back, and the girl ran with me. We had a lot of fun.

“Bless me,” I shouted in admiration. “And now back.”

“Terra, where are you?” – called my grandmother.

“I’m here, playing with a girl!”

“What girl?”

“Girl, what’s your name?”

“Bess” my friend answered quietly.

“Her name is Bess,” I cried to my grandmother.

“Take her here.”

“Let’s go,” I called my friend, and we, holding hands went to grandmother.

Grandmother was very surprised to see a naked baby who came to us from the forest.

“Poor little soul, you must be hungry?” grandmother bustled about, offering the girl a pie. But the girl did not take the pie, and first of all she rushed to the bucket of water, put her whole head in it – and drank, drank, drank… Grandmother even worried that the baby would drown herself in it.

“I am not surprised,” said grandmother, “there are neither rivers nor lakes near us. And if we did not have a pump that draws water out of the ground, we wouldn’t have anything to drink either. Where did you come from? And how far have you gone from your family! She must be lost! There is nothing to do with that, you will have to live with us! What’s your name?”

“Bess” she said.

“I see, so you will live with us, Bess.”

The little girl just blinked.

“Poor thing, you even haven’t learnt how to speak yet. What happened to your parents? Oh, I understand, of course, they were taken by platers! They probably wanted to hide here, in my forest, but could not escape from the villains? They hid you in the bushes…”

The little girl blinked again.

So Bess lived with us. During the first year she said nothing except her name. Bess ate little, but drank a lot. And she often ran away from home at night, and stared towards the forest, where she lost her parents. She didn’t learn to speak until the second year, but she couldn’t tell us much. No matter how much we asked her about her parents, she didn’t remember anything.

“The girl experienced shock,” my grandmother said to me the unfamiliar word. “Do not ask her anymore. One day, if she wants, she will remember! The main thing is that she is alive and healthy, everything else does not matter.”

Bess

I’m Bess, the girl from the forest. They ask me what I remember, and but I do not remember a lot. The worst thing is thirst! I want to drink stronger and stronger… Then darkness. These nightmares often torment me. I also remember the first time I saw Terra, and then I realized that I was a girl like her, and that she was my future sister… the first time we ran together. “Bless me!” The little sister shouted, and I repeated to her: “Bess”. I could not speak the letter “L” then. After that I drank water in their house! From that time thirst became a thing of the past. It’s such a pleasure to dip your head in a bucket and drink, drink in big gulps! And then run out into the yard without clothes with arms outstretched, and stare at the yellow sun…

“You’re running naked again! I will teach you!” screams grandma. “You’ll catch a cold, hot days are gone! Autumn is coming!”

Grandmother teaches me that somewhere far away live people, and one cannot run naked among them.

“It’s indecent! When you go to the people, remember that!”

I do not care of other people; my grandma and my little sister Terra are enough for me. And we both love the stories that grandma tells us in the evenings. I imagine Terra and I are princesses who one day will fell in love with handsome princes. And we live in palaces, and the grandmother will come to visit us in turn, one day to me and the other to Terra. Yes, but when will we play together? I should think it over, because something is wrong … And what about princes, what games do they like to play? In fairy tales they all have some battles, some dragons. Their games are so boring. The dragons … they had better not fight the dragons, but tame them! Yes, grandma, grandma! I understand! Terra and I will tame dragons! And then fly them far, far away! To see everything! We will take you with us if you want. And see from above our father and mother! And take them away on dragons, and bring them to you!

“Oh, my dear” cried the grandmother. “What an imaginative girl you are! Look, daughters, do not think loudly, because platers will take you away!”

“What are they like, grandmother? Are they scary? Do they eat people?!”

“No, kids, they don’t,” grandma says. “They breed people like we breed tomatoes.”

I can just imagine my father and mother growing up in the beds, far away, at platers’ place … and how bored they are to sit in the beds, and do not be allowed to go anywhere when they are bred … Our poor fathers and mothers. “When we grow up, we will definitely save them!” I say. “And we will plant that harmful plates on the beds and let them breed themselves.”

Grandma laughs through her tears:

“Oh, my child! Indeed, let them breed themselves!”

In such a way passed my happy childhood. The most joyful days were the days when we all went together to gather mushrooms in the forest. Grandmother was afraid of getting lost, especially when the sun was hiding behind the clouds. Terra was afraid too, but I was not, as I always knew the direction to the house. And I discovered that grandma, and Terra does not see well at night… But during the day they could distinguish more colors than I do. I always confused blue and green, red and orange.

Here is the other memory. Terra and I are twelve years; we stand near a large mirror in my grandmother’s room and analyze the changes of our bodies.

“Oh, shameless girls!” grandma comes in. “What are you doing here?”

“Grandma, don’t you think that Terra and I look alike?”

“Yes, it is true, you are like twins,” grandma says, “but Terra is white, and you, Bess, are brown.”

Years passed and now we are sixteen… Two days ago died our cat Murka. And then our grandma became ill…

One day she called us to her and said “It’s time for you girls to go out and look for your own destiny.”

“What about you, grandmother?”

“My life seems to be over.” I will die soon. Bury me and leave. I contacted mentally with your parents, granddaughter, they are alive, healthy and miss you very much, they had your little brother, but platers took him away. They don’t advise you to be caught by platers. Platers will not arrive for me, because they realized that I am going to die.

These are the last days in the house of our childhood. Behind the house appeared a mound with a cross on it, as our beloved grandmother wanted. Tomorrow we are ready to go! But where?!

The path near the house runs from North to South. But which way should we go? Out of habit, I go to my favorite place on the edge of the forest; bare feet are especially sensitive to our native land. I raise my hands to the sun.

“The sun, show us the way!”

Its light pours from above, penetrating me through and through, and it seems that something is happening…

Then I realize that we have to go the West. We never went with grandmother in that direction, as there was marshy lowland, overgrown with impassable bushes.

Terra is silent and does not object, she is all in her grief. So I will decide! I wipe the solar dish on the roof for the last time and do not switch off the generator. Let those who come here find a warm hut. I do not take a lot of food, because Terra and I are able to eat everything that grows in the forest. They say that in ancient times people did not know how to do that, and because of that there was starvation. I hope that we will find water at the bottom of lowlands, so I just take a small water-bottle. And, of course, a long rope, it can always come in handy!

For four days we make our way through the bushes on marshy lowland, but ahead, on the high hills, long pines invitingly stand. They are very close, but ahead is the river, though not wide but violent. Terra and I can’t swim! We go along the low bank, sinking to the waist in the mud. Here is bending, water with force is striking in the opposite high bank.

One end of the rope I tie to a bush, the other around Terra, and push her into the water. With a squeal she disappears under the water, but a minute later the stream carries her straight to the opposite shore. There she ties one end of the rope to a tree, and I tie myself to my end and throw myself into the water. I cannot get to the shore as Terra did. I am brought to the surface and carried at the center of the stream. The rope tightens, and Terra begins to pull me toward the shore. So we crossed the river, and at the same time washed from the mud.

We continue our way. There’s a path ahead in the right direction. After a few steps we see the light and hear someone’s voices. There are creatures unknown to us, men-princes our grandmother told us about. Or maybe they are not princes? They sit by the fire. The fire was new to us, too, because my grandmother never put it. The men look at us, both in dirty gray robes and pants, the older one with a mustache and beard, the other a young boy.

“Chicks came to us,” says the older one, “take off your dresses and let’s have some fun.”

I obediently take off my dress, but Terra won’t. A bearded man comes toward me with a knife in his right hand. Good knife, I would like to take it with me!

“Well done, chick” he says to me, putting his hand between my breasts. He puts the knife to my stomach. The second guy tries to knock Terra to the ground and tear off her dress. Terra fights back…

“No, they are not princes!” I compress the fingers of my boyfriend with my breasts, at first he smiles, then, when his fingers begin to crackle and break down, screams… and suddenly sticks his knife in my stomach. That’s what I need, my stomach muscles pinch the blade so he can’t take it out again. The knife is mine!

“They’re not people!” he yells, tearing and ripping out his skin, trying to take his hand away of my breasts.

“Pasha run away!” and he disappears around the bend of the path.

I pull the knife out of my stomach, outstretched my arm and poke it into Pasha’s hip, which was sprawled on my sister.

Pasha looks at my outstretched hand with horror and rushes away with a scream.

“That is all” I say to Terra “get up”. At the same time I put on a dress. In comparison to Terra’s dress mine is not even crumpled. My sister gets up and rushes to me crying.

“Bess, are men really so disgusting?! They are not like that in fairy tales.”

“Oh, Koschey the Immortal is also ugly enough… Let’s put the fire out! The grandmother said that the fires are dangerous, but I’m afraid to come closer to it. Do it, Terra!”

Meat is fried at the stake on metal sticks, the smell is disgusting! But Terra really adores it. Taking a metal bowl from the ground, she throws fire with the ground takes meat sticks with her and starts eating!

“Do you want to taste it, Bess? It is so delicious!”

I flinch in disgust,

“No, eat it yourself! And let’s leave the path; otherwise these fake princes will bring here their friends …”

And again we are walking through our native endless forest. Terra is chewing meat, and I am viewing my trophy – a brilliant knife, blade is two my palms long, the handle is comfortable, leather, with a support for the fingers. The wonderful knife. Gap from it in my stomach is already tightened, only a drop of transparent tar is on the surface…

Terra

I follow my little sister and remember our past life. The adventure with those men woke me up. Everything became special. And especially Bess, such a familiar, my sister. We are so alike and different at the same time, for example, I could get scratched in the forest, could prick my led, but she…

It had never happened to her. Once a month my grandmother cut my hair to keep it out of the bushes, but she never cut Bess’s hair, because it was already short and slightly curly. “It’s probably from your African ancestors, like your dark skin” my grandmother used to say. And when I got sick once a month, Bess didn’t, but my grandmother was sorry for her and not for me. Bess had never been afraid of anything neither of the forest, nor of the rushing river. The only thing she was afraid of was fire and nothing else, even those nasty men… And now she is walking and mentally greeting trees, and those even respond. “Wait! How do they do that? Can I hear them?! So I can talk to trees! Can I also talk to Bess that way? And no platers can hear me because they will take my thoughts for those of a tree?!”

“Bess, do you hear me?! Bess, we can talk to each other mentally without fear, but not as people talk, but as trees do! And no platers will catch us. They’ll think we’re trees!”

“Indeed! How could I not have guessed?” rejoiced she. “Now we can always talk, even at a distance, and never lose each other!”

Chapter 4. Rin and Bess

Rin

Today is a holiday, ours came back from war with Homos.

I am sitting on a log near the grandfather and looking at the blazing fire around which are dancing the returned fighters.

“Grandpa, so ours won?”

“No, grandson, to win Homos is not for us! The matter is that platers are near them.”

“Why are we fighting Homos, but not platers?”

“You’re funny! After all platers do not treat us as people at all!”

“Can they beat us easily?”

“Of course! They just do not want to! Our wars are just an entertainment for them. Even Homos are not easy to be defeated, because they are better armed than our people. Today they again drove us away from the field…”

“Have we ever chased them away?”

“Once. But platers interfered… and we lost again.”

“So they fought ours?”

“Not exactly! They turned on brainwash on their saucers and drove ours through the forest almost to the village. Then everyone has a headache during the whole day … That’s how we live. Look! Mute came out! This is no accidentally!”

“Grandfather, and who is he, this Mute?”

“This, grandson, is a great immortal! He knows everything, understands everything, and therefore does not speak. Go and bring him a jug of milk! He loves milk. Always welcome him, and you will be happy! So the old people said.”

“How old is he?”

“Don’t even ask! He is immortal. He always lived here. And strangely, he never left his place. You know, once one hundred years ago, people wanted to drive him away.”

“And what?”

“He just looked at the attackers… and all of them immediately fled in terror. Such was the case! This Mute is a real sorcerer! Look, look, he’s pointing at something! Hey, people!!!”

The dancing crowd stopped in mid-stride. One even dropped into the fire and jumped back with a curse.

“What are you doing, grandpa?”

“Look! Mute!”

“The Mute was indeed pointing stubbornly at the sunrise.”

“We should go! Mute will not point at something for nothing!”

“Come on, grandpa” the burned man growled.

“Calm down, Fedya, Mute does not show in vain! Come on!”

“Grandfather, may I come with them?”

“Yes, you may, Rin, you are almost an adult. Take just in case our bow with you. You are not still ready to fight like a real man!”

The men grabbed their clubs and trotted through the forest.

I ran ahead of everyone. Eastern part of forests was forbidden. Women did not go there to gather berries and mushrooms, and did not let their children to play there too. There, in the East, lived the meridichi. They always bullied ours and were always ready to steal the lost woman.

I got far ahead and was the first who heard a woman’s scream.

“Let me go!..”

Jumping out on a glade, I saw five healthy men, who were knitting a little white girl. The sixth guy tried to grab the other one, the dark one, but she deftly waved him away with a large knife. He didn’t try very hard, though. Then his partners finished knitting a white one and headed out to his aid. I fired and hit the man in the shoulder. The dark one did not yawn and stabbed him in the other hand, so the dazed man fell to the ground and rolled away. The remaining five split up. Two of them ran to the dark one, and three of them began to walk around me. I am not stupid and did not shoot at them because it was impossible to hit a target. I shot the one who was running toward the dark one, and I hit him in his ass. He screamed and stopped. But the second swooped at the girl. I couldn’t help her, and I ran.

Behind me, three of my enemies were crashing and cursing. We were heard a mile away, which I was counting on. All three ran to the place where were ours, and then they got it. And I turned back. The dark one and a man laid motionless on the ground, hugging each other, and a pool of blood was spreading beneath them.

Screams were heard behind the bushes, there three trapped meridichi were flogged.

“Do not go in our direction! Do not go!” Ilya said, he always flogged the guilty.

I came to the swarthy one.

“What is your name?”

“Bess, and you?”

“I’m Rin. Come to us, meet my grandfather. We have no mistress; you can live in our hut. And, I feel, Petrya will not let your friend go, she will live in his hut.”

“Will she feel good there?”

“Do not be afraid! Petrya is kind to the women. Never offends anyone! Yes, the main thing is to thank the Mute, if not for him, the meridichi would have dragged you to themselves. It’s bad to live with them, they are all angry! They even beat their women!”

“Why?”

“I do not know. Probably because of their anger…”

So, talking, we slowly reached the village. At first everyone came to the fence of the Mute and bowed low. The Mute stood, so tall and stern. He was looking somewhere above our heads.

“Bow down!” I whispered to Bess.

“Wait,” she whispered back, “let me talk to him.”

“He’s Mute, he never speaks!”

“Don’t interfere,” Bess went to the fence and gave a hand to him, and he gave his own in response.

Everyone looked at it in amazement. Both seemed to be petrified, and then the incredible thing happened. Mute came up and opened the wicket-door; the swarthy girl slipped into it and went to the house with him.

The crowd gave a sigh simultaneously. Something unusual was happening. Mute never let anyone into his area, and moreover, never invited.

Bess

Terra and I were wrong not having taking care before. We needed to run away immediately after that bad meeting. And we walked slowly, talking with all the trees we met, and only then, when it was too late, we noticed the silhouettes of pursuers behind.

My cry, “Help!” on a wavelength of the trees could be heard only by the trees, but nevertheless someone answered.

My sister and I were fleeing as best we could, but, of course, they caught up with us. Terra didn’t try to resist, she just shouted plaintively: “Let me go!”

They knocked her down and began to tie her up, but I took out my knife. The owner of this knife, who recently ran away from me, approached me, but he was in no hurry to attack.

“Now your sister will be tied up, then I’ll take care of you,” he said, coming closer to me.

“And what are you afraid of?” and I waved a blade towards him.

Suddenly, he jumped up screaming in the place where he stood. An arrow appeared in his right shoulder. And I poked him with a knife in the other hand, and, strangely enough, hit. Then he will know how to attack defenseless girls! He rolled down the grass with a scream.

The other five finished to tie Terra up. Two rushed straight to me, and the rest to the forest, from where the arrow flew. However, one of these two immediately got an arrow in the ass and immediately lost his enthusiasm, but the last, hefty man with a knife in his right hand, clearly decided to finish with me. He overturned me with his huge body, while trying to knock a knife out of my hand. He was late. My knife was stuck directly into his chest, and, falling on me, he pushed it to the hilt. His knife also appeared under my left breast, it was very ticklish, but I could not do anything – the man was too heavy. Tickling became unbearable, and moving my chest, I slowly squeezed his knife out and covered the cut with tar.

Meanwhile, something was happening in the clearing, someone’s voices were heard… Well, of course, everybody crowded Terra, who, I feel, was all right, but me, who was completely crushed, remained unnoticed. Finally, one saw me and took a dirty, sweaty body away from me, but then he decided to take the knife from me! It will not work! It’s my knife, I won’t give it back! I got up to the laughter of the whole company. I looked around – the same men, sweaty, dirty, but… funny! Not princes, of course, but it’s better to go together with them. The chief immediately went to Terrochka and took her in his arms. The rest were watching… And why does everyone like her so much? Only a young one, with a bow, came up to me. After all, it must be him to help me by shooting from a bow!

And so we went: Rin and I, for Rin was the name of this one with a bow, and others were around the chief with Terra in his hands.

I mentally contacted her:

“How are you?”

“Great, little sister! I like it so much!”

I calmed down. So, everything is fine. Maybe this is her suiter, as grandmother told us?

We came to the place where there were a lot of houses, a village; everything is as we know from grandmother’s tales. And here’s a special house, there a local sorcerer lives. It was him who heard me and sent all of them to help.

I stay and look in the stern face of the sorcerer, listen and hear nothing.

“He does not speak,” the companion whispers to me.

“Come to me,” I hear suddenly, and my legs themselves carry me to the fence. Our hands meet, and our thoughts as well.

“How old are you, girl?”

“I think about fifteen, like my little sister.”

“You are mistaken, baby, you are much older … I can’t even imagine how old you are. The last time I saw people like you, several thousand years ago … There was a terrible time, everywhere bonfires were burning…”

I flinched, imagining my mother writhed in flames.

“It was so … But it will never be so again!”

“Why does everyone call you Mute?”

“I cannot speak with them … How could I explain this to you? In a word, I am bewitched. And only people like you can remove a spell on me. You are my first hope in the last thousand years. Okay, let’s go to the house, there I will pick up clothes suitable for your status. Recently, I have been collecting different robes, just for the sake of entertainment, – and now it turned to be useful.

I chose a green dress and green beads, and also a belt with a scabbard for my knife. The sorcerer, meanwhile, was looking at my weapon…

“Yes … The time has come … So the knife of Granddad Plop, or the great warrior Yek-Gush, has returned. It is unusual knife. It will serve you faithfully. You should have shoes … oh, you don’t need shoes?!”

How he guessed! I hated any shoes since childhood.

“Well, come on, baby, it’s better for you to live in a hut with your friend Rin. And the men, I think, will quickly figure out and will not hammer at you!”

“But what about the suiters?” I just wanted to ask.

“The suiters will surely appear, but not here and not now …” said sorcerer, pushing me to the exit.

Rin was waiting for me and led me to his home. He introduced me to his grandfather. The three of us sat at the table, but I didn’t want to eat, I really wanted to drink. I scooped up water from a barrel and drank, drank, drank … I immediately remembered the first days of my childhood and an all-burning thirst … How good to drink, and then go to the edge of the woods and dip your feet in fallen leaves … And deeper, deeper … And hands higher, higher … Grace!

Rin came out with me, was staying and saying something, but I did not listen, reveling in the moment. The sun came to the edge of the forest, big and red … Here is the last ray.

“Let’s go home,” Rin called.

Near the house we saw Terra.

“I’m coming to you. There, at Petrya’s, everyone is so rude. Women are pushing, cursing… I decided to leave. Petrya did not want to let me go, but his father told him something, and he let me go…

“You’re on time, little sister! They have cooked a lot of dishes there, but I don’t want to eat. So sit down at the table and eat for the two of us. I will stand at the porch for a while, look at the stars.

So our fate was decided. Terra and I found a new home, new relatives and friends. Life goes on, and the stars are getting closer and closer… Here is one of them blinking… There! There is the one I need so much!