61 The Ambush (1/2)
”You're sure about this?” asked Olaf Berg.
Sven Holm threw Olaf an irritated glance. He was getting really tired of people asking him if he was sure everything in the New World - except for the size of the planet and its lands - was ten times smaller than back on Earth.
”Olaf,” he said. ”I have to tell you something. If people don't stop asking me if I'm sure, I'll start doing lobotomies with an ax.”
”Sorry. I'm sorry, Sven. I couldn't help it. I mean, this is just incredible. I can't get my head around it.”
”You will, soon. I'm appointing you the leader of the next expedition to find the Lula river.”
”Thank you. It's a great honor. But didn't you say you wanted to lead it yourself?”
”I wanted to. I still want to. But I can't. There's a lot of things that need to get done here, and done fast. And it's going to take a while to reach the river. It's over two hundred kilometers away instead of twenty.”
”If we are ten times smaller,” Olaf Berg said judiciously, ”Then it's still twenty kilometers. It just feels like two hundred.”
Sven let out his breath with a hiss through his clenched teeth.
”Okay, okay. I'm sorry, Sven. And thank you again for appointing me the expedition leader. I promise you we'll find the river.”
”Good,” Sven said, and walked away. He intended to take a stroll to the lake shore. He wanted to have some time to himself, to relax and enjoy the spring weather.
Fifty two days had passed from that fateful day on which the glowing cube had appeared in his farmyard. Five hundred and twenty New World days! It was his second spring in the New World.
He reached the lake and saw that the last of ice was gone. A family of ducks was swimming a stone's throw from where he stood, the little ducklings following the mother in a near-perfect V formation. Other birds wheeled overhead, filling the air with excited cries. Spring was back! Life was beginning anew! He stood and looked at the greening land, listening to the birds. He cleared his mind of all thoughts and was about to smile when someone said:
”Sven?”
He whirled round, his incipient smile changing into a snarl. It was Vidar, one of the team he'd sent out a fortnight earlier to look for gold and silver ore. Vidar's face was covered in bruises and cuts, and one of his arms was in a sling.
”Vidar! What happened?”
”We were attacked,” said Vidar. ”They had slingshots. We couldn't get at them. They were hidden behind rocks halfway up the slope and - ”
”Vidar! Get a grip! When? Who? Where?”
”Day before yesterday. We were on our way back from the copper mine. I don't know who they were, but there were at least a dozen of them. We were more than halfway home. That spot between two hills where Jens found pyrite last year. They were hidden behind rocks and trees on the slopes. They had slingshots. We tried to charge them, but there were just four of us and we couldn't - we didn't - we had to drop everything and run.”
”Drop everything? What do you mean?”
”We had three sacks full of gold and silver ore. They were too heavy. We had to drop them to get away. We left the shovels, too. But we kept the picks. Well, Lennart lost his when he fell over, but we brought the remaining two back. I remembered you said picks were precious. I even thought about going back for Lennart's, but they'd have stoned us to death, Sven. They were pretty good with those slingshots. And we hadn't taken any weapons, on account of all the stuff we had to carry. We just had a couple of axes and knives. That route, that whole area had always been safe. We'd never encountered anyone there.”
”What about the others? Are they okay?”
”Henrik has a broken hand. It looks pretty awful and it hurts a lot, he says. And Martin nearly lost an eye. He'll be okay, though. I don't know about Henrik.”
”Where is he now?”
”Ulla's looking at him.”
”Okay, let's go,” said Sven, and they started walking back to the settlement. Sven had intended to give Lennart a proper dressing down: three sacks of precious ore and a pick lost! And the infamy of being beaten by a bunch of stone-throwing jerks too cowardly to fight hand-to-hand! But when he saw that Vidar was limping badly, he relented.
”What happened to your leg?” he asked.
”A stone hit my knee. Nothing serious. It will pass.”
”You were lucky to escape those guys with a bad knee,” Sven said, somewhat suspiciously.
”Oh, they didn't chase us. They'd probably spied on us all along, and just wanted the sacks.”
”You really have no idea where they could have come from?”
Vidar shook his head.
”None,” he said.
When they reached the settlement, Sven told Vidar to go and get some rest, and directed his steps to Ulla's hut. She wasn't there. Frowning, he turned around and went to the hall.