The Sea of Grass

Although Checkers had done her best to prepare for the journey, she found out that there was much that she did not know. Her original plan, to keep away from the thinking prey, forced her into the high grasslands. Nuts and berries did not exist on the grasslands, and she quickly exhausted her supply of food. The vegetation would not sustain an animal larger than a jackrabbit, so she turned to hunting those.

She would fly low over the top of the grass. Once she spotted a rabbit, she would ascend, and then dive to her target. In a maneuver that she had practiced many times near Electric Pass, she threw her head back, releasing the spear. She would then turn and roll slightly, and slow down in relation to the spear. The inertia of the spear carried it out of the quiver, and separated it from Checkers. She would then flap her wings and start to circle around the jackrabbit. She would descend to pick up her spear, and she had hit her target, would prepare a meal. Checkers would use the iron spearpoint as a knife to cut the grass, and to dig a shallow hole in the ground. She would then start a fire using the flint and steel. The grass burned too quickly to sustain a fire, but the fire stayed hot long enough to cook the rabbit and a side-dish of grasshoppers and grubs, which, at least were more plentiful, if not very filling. This was not normal Glider fare, but it was enough to sustain her for a time.

She really wanted some trees for a steady fire and for shelter, but the only trees in this region were cottonwoods and willows near the creeks and rivers, and there was always dangerous prey there. As the summer advanced, she lost weight, and her body and mind became less and less responsive. She wanted to preserve the coffee beans for trade when she reached civilized lands, so she did not eat them, tempting as it was from time to time to do so in order to temporarily boost her sagging energy. Finding water was a challenge, although not as much of one as the food, at first. Throughout the plains were small and shallow sloughs with enough water to fill the water bladder that she carried with her. It appeared to her that the sloughs were drying up with the progress of summer.

She flew and hunted by day, and slept by night, most often going to sleep hungry. The misfortune of not having large animals to hunt was in some respects relieved by the fact that there were no large animals to endanger her while she slept, sometimes near a slough, but most often in the bug-infested tall grass.

One day she woke up from one of those spots in the grass, tried to take off, and she could not do it. Fatigue and hunger had weakened her, and now she could not fly. She would have to walk to a creek that she had seen from the air the previous day. Because of the lack of landmarks, it was difficult for her to judge the distance - she guessed that it was around ten kilometers. It would have been an easy flight, but in the tall grass, it would be difficult to walk to it. There was a small colony of men, the most common of the thinking prey, there, and they had some livestock and some unknown plants that appeared to be some sort of food. She hoped that she could glean some food from the land without being discovered, so that she would have the stength to fly again. Her weakness overcame her fear. She needed something to eat.

The journey to the river was painful. She felt flushed, and her head ached. She felt as if she were swimming in a sea of grass. And then she saw what she was looking for. Trees, and a Glider village, off in the distance! Her spirits soared. Food, water, shelter, and most important, civilization. She would be accepted here.

She started to run, and as she got close, she saw it was all an illusion. It had simply been the wind billowing through the grass, and she imagined the waves in the grass to be trees, and a very low swell in the ground as a Glider dwelling. She kept going forward, knowing that the creek, at least, was somewhere there. She kept walking through the grass, walking away from the sun to where the water had to be. She staggered. Her imagination started to play a cruel game with her. Through the interminable grass, she would see a Glider house, just out of reach, and then when she looked more closely, it was not there. She knew well what was happening. She was seeing what she wanted to see, and not what was there. It was known that lost Gliders suffering from fatigue and hunger would hallucinate, their minds engaging in wishful thinking. It was not magic. Checkers continued westward, the sun now overhead. She consumed her last little bit of insect food and water. She now felt that she had to arrive at the creek before sundown with its food or water, or she would not have the strength to continue. She was now racing with the sun, and losing.

The phantoms of wishful thinking continued to plague her. Even knowing what they were, they seemed so real! She knew that it was a sign of her decreasing energy and they were no longer a source of transient comfort. She could feel the lining of her throat drying. She could not see well; she saw through a light, shimmering field of vision, as her eyes were also drying out. "Where were the sloughs?" she asked herself. Maybe they had all dried out in the heat of summer. Without the advantage of surprise, the jackrabbits were too quick for her. She began talking to herself, not heeding the risk of being captured by the dangerous prey. Her progress slowed, but she refused to stop walking, thinking that she if she sat down to rest that she would never get up. The sun now loomed over the west, an orange ball through its low angle on the horizon. Checkers felt that now she was hearing things - the sound of the babbling of a small creek was in the distance. This sound persisted as she progressed west, and then she saw it. A little stream of clear water cut through the grass. She bowed down, and lapped up the cool water directly from the creek, relieving her overpowering thirst. She had made it. There was a strand of cottonwoods nearby, but she felt that she would just lie here for a while, refreshed by the water. She shivered as she lay on the ground, and then blacked out, sprawled across the ground, with her face down.

The point of the spade against the back of her neck jolted her out of her stupor. A large shadow stood over her. She heard the voice of a woman nearby, and saw another long shadow that suggested someone carrying a basket. The woman spoke.

1. "I don't care what they say, Benjamin. She looks like a scared young woman, and not a dangerous pest."

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