22 Lawrence - Falling to My Death (1/2)

Time has a way of slowing down even while events are proceeding at a breakneck pace. The Duke's base had been built high on a mountain promontory overlooking a gorge, in which flowed an awesomely large river. I think that even the Amazon on Terra would have been hard-pressed to match the majesty of this river. There was nothing on Terra to compare with the giant trees that filled the landscape. I marveled that falling to my death as I was with, a mortal wound in my chest and heart, that I could think such thoughts.

I continued to drift down into the gorge. I had now reached terminal velocity, and I was in freefall position, spread eagle with my arms out, and my legs bent slightly. I dreamily noticed a huge vine-covered tree sticking out, at an abnormal angle, far from the wall of the gorge and with the sight a desperate plan was born. Angling my body, I was able to direct my fall so that I came closer to the tree. This was going to be close. I grasped the end of a vine that was about as thick as my wrist and held on for dear life. That vine went suddenly taunt and then started to stretch, the vine had stretched to more than five times its length, and the surface of the river was now very close.

I balled myself up into as small a circumference as I could just before I impacted. Luckily the river was deep, and I never hit bottom. Just when I was congratulating myself on surviving, I became aware of an interesting phenomenon, I was now going up at a rapidly increasing pace. I shot from the water bouncing back into the sky as the vine tried to resume its original length. At the top of my arc, I almost let go, until I noticed just how high above the river I was.

I had a few moments of free flight, so I wrapped the end of the vine under my arms and rapidly tied a bowline knot in the vine with one hand while holding on with other. I mentally said a brief prayer of thanks to my Boy Scout leader who had shown me this trick. Again, I plummeted into the water, and again I bounced high in the air, by now it was almost fun. Eventually, I quit bouncing. I was still higher than I liked above the river. Not too far downstream I could see white water just before the river disappeared off the edge of a precipice.

I started to pump my legs, and before long I was swinging back and forth, a huge pendulum with an agonizingly long period. I could only slowly work the swing. Imp by now had settled down. He had been figuratively screaming his head off during the fall, but I had only subconsciously heard him.

In fact, he had been screaming ever since I ignored his suggestion to stay and let that platoon of Marines pulverize me on the arena floor. I didn't care what was on the other side of the arena wall. All I knew for sure was that whatever it was, was better than facing platoon after platoon of trained killers. I checked my wound, not wanting to die of blood loss while still swinging. I found to my surprise that my injury was not as severe as I had thought. The star which a fallen out sometime while I had been bouncing on this huge vine had impacted dead center in my breastbone. All that I had was a massive contusion with a small puncture in the center—not at all what I expected from taking a star hard in the chest. My wound was not bleeding profusely, so I ignored it for now.

Eventually, I was able to swing close enough to a tree, on the side of the gorge's wall, that I was able to cling to its branches. I slowly worked my way to the core of the tree where the branches were several meters thick. I was just congratulating myself on a narrow escape when Imp piped up [Bandit twelve-o-clock high.]

I looked up, and there was the ghost image of what appeared to be a person lying on the branch above me—just enough of its head hanging over the side so that it could see me. I looked into startlingly brilliant and intelligent yellow eyes. Seeing that I was cognizant of its presence, it slipped over the edge and sort of fell many meters to my branch. Its hands and feet would catch momentarily at whatever branch or vine happened to be close—its feet pushing the branches out of its way and slowing its fall, the vines also helping to slow its descent. Thus, although it was never in free fall neither was it on anything solid. A giant of a man landed as lightly as thistledown on the same branch as I.

He was fully two-heads taller than I, and his muscles had muscles. He was wearing leather breaches with some sort of leather container on his back, which was held in place by a wide leather strap running across his chest. As he came closer, I could see designs worked in with what appeared to be seeds on the band, which ran across his chest. I had never seen such designs, they were very intricate and impossible of description, although primitive they were obviously skillfully made. His smell preceded him, and although strong and alien it was not repulsive.

Imp broke in on my thoughts [I've checked all the infobases that I can and nowhere is there any report of eye color like his, let alone a sample of that beadwork. Also, there are two more visitors above and slightly behind you.]

[Thanks Imp] I responded. [Let me know if they move will you.]