At mid-morning the skycutter Nakhevaqum moved again. It swayed as the huge behemosaur tugged it over the estuary. The huge beast trudged through the shallows, over sand bars. After skirting a marsh that stank of sulphur and rot they were pulled up onto the wide gravel of the braided river. A hour passed as the braided waters twined and knotted itself across the grey-white expanse of gravel, rocks, and boulders in the wide riverbed. A constant breeze blew from ahead. In the air the scent of forest and a sweetness overlaid a dustiness that contrasted with the iodine smell of sea and shore. All this time Jupiter remained free to move around the ship, but all crew had kept their distance.

Jupiter saw Dahk in the bridge, but the Captain Nakhevaqum Vishvasalana paid him no attention, and so he returned the favor. No matter where Dahk’s loyalties truly lay, he would do no one any favors by approaching him. And Jupiter had come to think that the officer had somehow been turned to the Empire again. That the events in the Narushkam had been a fleeting aberration.

‘Strange though. If Dahk had now become loyal to the Empire he would have called me out. Somehow.’ Jupiter shrugged and turned away. As he did so he noted a manisaur staring at him. A young and uncertain officer. Jupiter studied him then turned away not wanting to draw attention. He needed to keep to himself, it was always better to be ignored, and so he ignored others in turn.

Still. Something about the young officer nagged at him.

‘All manisaurs look alike. Mostly.’ Jupiter said under his breath. ‘I means, they’re aliens.’

If not for the Tulanvarqa sense perhaps he would have never recognized any of them. Something in the subtle shift of aura, the movement of their bodies, as well as the coloration, made their individualities clear to him. That young manisaur for instance…

And it struck him. He had seen them before. He had been with Gan. No. Before that, he had collected Maggie and him from the water court, dragged The Jupiter protesting on the cart. It was he that had brought the moasaurs.

‘Ashe.’ Jupiter turned, but the manisaur had stepped out of sight. If Ashe was onboard then somehow he had been caught up in Dahk’s raid on the Vanukam and the stealing of the skycutter.

‘Or had come across in the raid last night.’ Jupiter’s heart pounded. A rescue attempt?

A horn blew along with the stamping of feet. Jupiter started, and turned to study a new sight. A squad of manisaurs had formed up, and behind them the lion-beasts confined in cages.

The Air Lord strode to the bridge.

‘Signal the Gharumal to halt after the first turn of the river.’

Jupiter knew then what the name of the behemosaur meant. Gharumal — massive-slow-creature. That made sense. But learning it did him no good. He had little time to escape. The hunt had begun. He eyed the lion-beasts with a thudding heart. His hands grew sweaty, and he rubbed them on his wet suit legs.

Then guards seized him up and bound his hands.

‘You agreed. Unbound,’ Jupiter shouted.

‘Come now. Humans lie. We Quevantaqi do not. I will not brake my word. You will be released when we get to the Naru’qhayuvakdha — sixth-sentinel-path.’

‘And what is that?’

‘The path? It is the way to the sentinel.’ The Air Lord said. When Jupiter shrugged the manisaur continued. ‘The sentinel tow-path leads alongside the river, and in the river. We use it to access the sentinels, and the route inland to Naruham.’

Jupiter knew that Qhayuvaka meant a place you watched from. It reminded him of Qhawana — witness, someone who watched.

‘And the sentinels are linked into the heart of the Empire by Qhawadha — The Way.’ The Air Lord turned away then.

Jupiter got a sense that the manisaur had surprised himself for even bothering to answer. A proud and serious manisaur, the Air Lord held himself above others. For them to bother with Jupiter, the hunted, seemed to have bewildered him.

And what sort of explanation had that been? Qhawadha — The Way. He had no idea what that meant. But they were now on Qhayuvakdha — Sentinel path? Naru — The sixth path. So that meant there were more of these routes from the coast to the interior. And The Way leads to Naruham. That’s where he wanted to go. The university was there.

His captors slung Jupiter over the side of the railing along with the former captain. A rope, looped hard under his arms, dug into his back, and squeezed his chest. The two captives dangled under the skycutter and twisted in the air. Jupiter saw far below, between his swinging feet, the slow pacing of the Gharumal. The huge creature kicked up dust from the stony riverbed. White birds disturbed by its passing wheeled about crying in anger, as if the huge beasts had walked through their nests. Perhaps they had. Tall trees lined the river banks. Smaller trees were cone shaped, while tall giants spread wide branches high into the blue sky from stocky trunks. Huge trees, big enough that they had stood for centuries.

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The captain fell to the ground with a sudden screech. Its rope a streamer behind them until, with a small puff of dust from the impact. The rope spiraled down and disappeared into the dust cloud.

Jupiter looked up, but no hand cut at his rope. His heart leapt as his rope dropped, but then the movement steadied and the rope lowered him towards the ground.

The dust blew away and revealed the crumpled and broken remains of the skyfort captain. Jupiter spun on the end of the rope and sneezed in the dry dusty air that got up his nose. His feet touched to Eoth.

He had to run, but instead he staggered on the uneven stones of the riverbed. The Gharumal paced on. The body of the captain lay well behind them now. Black birds circled over the shadow on the bright stones, while the white birds still scolded the Gharumal.

His rope fell loose and Jupiter shrugged out of it and stopped his stumbling. His hands were free.

‘What about my food?’ Jupiter shouted at the skycutter. ‘And water?’ The belly of the skycutter shadowed him dark against the blue sky.

‘You have water enough.’ A manisaur strode towards him from the direction of the still pacing Gharumal. He indicated the river. ‘Food.’ They tossed Jupiter a bag with a shoulder strap. ‘Though you will not find time to eat it unless you wish to use your turn of the glass in eating. But you humans do like to eat so very often.’

Jupiter stared at him.

‘Well run. If you will. Give the Lord his sport. A good hunt to you.’ And they laughed the gurgling laugh he had come to hate in these rangy aliens.

Jupiter ran.

And he ran. Away from the Gharumal and its herder. Away from the unknown upper reaches of the river. Towards the estuary and the coast. As a captive he had watched the river — the twists and turns of the main flow as broke and reformed across the wide gravel bed. And the places where new streams in joined gushing flows from the forest.

But the trees, the shape, the color of them — dark greens over the bright stones of the riverbed. A sense grew in him — he had seen this forest before. And the strangeness of familiarity on this alien planet confused him. Not deja vu. But had he had been here before? Or somewhere like it?

A caterwauling cry came from behind. The Gharumal beast had stopped its tromping progress. His downstream run to return along the skyship’s path had taken them unawares. They did not know humans as well as they thought. Down river was not only something he had studied during the skyship’s passage upstream. Down river was the sea, where his friends might be. If he could join them he might have a chance. But with the wind at their stern the skycutter would have full sails to follow fast on his heels.

He ran on.

Dust billowed past him. Over his shoulder the skycutter’s Gharumal paced on. Up river. It seemed the captain did not want to delay their journey towards Qhawadha — The Way.

Jupiter had no plan except to get as far from them as he could, and towards the coast. Then into the trees to hide. Though the hunter-beasts might track him through the forest, he meant to make it as hard as possible by travelling up a water course. He had been disheartened when they had drifted past too few streams in the past half hour. That meant he had further to run than he had hoped. But he was fit. Though his battered wetsuit boots were not meant for running on stones, they were okay on gravel, so he tracked his way from dry sand bar to gravel bed and limited his running over small rounded rocks that made up most of the river bed.

He cut across to the inside of a bend. Large bounders the size of small cars were strewn along the river’s curve. He scrambled atop the first and leapt, in looping bounds, from boulder to boulder, hoping the way between would slow the hunter-beasts. He slipped and bounced down to a smaller boulder, but recovered his footing. He slowed a little to catch breath and ran onto a gravel bed where, in flood, the river cut through the corner of the forest.

Water pooled there but he did not stop to drink. He would not die of thirst before they caught him. He sprinted on, his bounding leaps had tired his muscles but he had his breath. Now the running stretched the cramp from his thighs and he caught his second wind. He tracked close to the forest and heard within calls and cries of forest birds startled by his pounding feet upon the sand and gravel.

He staggered as he hit some larger rounded stones on the edge of a turn of the river. It swung in a loop against a high back of gravel at the edge of the forest. Then Jupiter remembered his route. He took an angling run across this loop to a low island.

Island overstated it. The shifting course of the river divided and rejoined the course tens of times in a kilometer. The gravel bar just happened to be a little higher than the river, but a rainstorm would flush water across it, and gouge a new course. The island would break and split into two, or be erased in the wash of water.

Bergwash, Bamrushi. The old manisaur had been named for a river like this, or perhaps the upper reaches where the river ran wilder and bloomed in white rapids and waterfalls. Bamrushi — Blossoming Stream.

Jupiter slipped on an algae slick, recovered and ran on. A flock of bird rose up in alarm as he passed. Their clawed wings pulled at the air as they screeched and wheeled. Their tails flashed red underneath as if wounded by a bullet. They flicked their tails to one another as if signaling their anger at him.

He ran on. Dust rose from his passing and blew around him, then cleared. The hot breath of wind felt like a beast upon him and he gasped for breath. His lungs ached, dry, and hot, and he coughed. The bag of food banged against his back. The shoulder strap was too long, but if he looped it across his shoulders, and then pushed his arms through the loop the bag rode higher on his back like a pack. He adjusted it, and ran on.

The bag slowed him, but it seemed like a promise. If he carried it then it meant he would need it to live when he escaped. He knew this mixed hope and causality — that to carry it did not mean he would use it. The weight might slow him too much. But it meant something. Fate required him to need it. So he ran on.

He unzipped his wetsuit, the human smell of his sweat wafted on the breeze, but away from his pursuers. Were they after him yet? Had an hour passed? A turn of the glass? What did that mean? More or less time than he hoped for? Less than he expected. The Air Lord had no need to honour the agreement, thought it all a game.

But Jupiter played it. And ran on.