Gentle Giantesses

Actually it's mine, and writing it has occupied more than a year of my life. You can find it in paperback on Amazon. Go to Books, then look for "Allie: Lofini Preem" by Daphne Gilmore. I'm posting Chapter one here:


CHAPTER 1

It sometimes rains on Rion, in gargantuan drops each one of which would fill a bucket. One of the first hit Lucas squarely on top of the head, scrambling his thoughts and sending him fleeing, except there was nowhere to go. He had no underground protection, and the bombardment replaced his silly reverie about grapes with more important worries about drowning. It began to rain harder, turning Lucas the mighty adventurer into Lucas the soggy.

Anyone else would have seen the darkening cloud cover, but there were no clouds where he was from. Now he was in an open meadow without even a tree for shelter, as the drops, held together by Rionian surface tension until they were as thick as his thigh, burst as they stuck him and everything else in his little field of vision. His soaking-wet penance for defying the Gods of the Surface.

The water-torture did end, as warm-weather showers tend to do, in about 20 minutes. Lucas uncurled himself from the fetal ball which he wanted to believe had provided some protection. It had not, but no umbrella his size would have helped either.



1







The clearing sky gave Lucas both renewed energy and a desire to probe further into whatever was beyond the meadow. The sunshine would now dry him quickly and the water, instead of puddling, had already begun to soak into the ground, leaving the environment quite pleasant, even for a Sindri.

Different scents came through to replace those the falling water had blocked out for a time, a myriad of olfactory treats carried by a breeze that simply didn’t exist where Lucas had lived his entire life. He was sure he smelled grapes, even though there was no vineyard in sight.

He had been “up top” once before, and while heavy rain was a new experience to him -- it was something else that simply didn’t happen where he was from -- everything else was the same, and again he marveled at the sheer size of it all. A fallen twig from a tree was something he could swing like a club or use as a walking stick. The trees themselves were simply astounding, much too tall to be taken in with a single glance.

He knew that, to the people who lived in this place, it was an ordinary tree and he was grasping an insignificant scrap of it. How big must the Rionian giants be to live their lives without being struck by the sheer awesomeness of their world? He didn’t have to worry about that; someone his size would have to be exceptionally stupid to be seen, and he was not.

2
Of course the rain saw you without any trouble at all.

You know what? Shut up.

Lucas walked for another half-hour, arriving eventually at a thicket, part of a wooded area larger than the meadow. He was now well out of sight of the open area, treading carefully through the underbrush, when he saw the structure.

Only he, not any surface-dweller, would consider it a structure at all. It was dark-colored, cube-like and slightly taller than he was, nestled in a small clearing, set apart from the vines and leaves. That told Lucas it had been artificially constructed, and the size told him it must have been built by other Sindri. Rionians were just not known for this sort of thing.

In fact, the Sindri weren‘t known for it either, but that crucial revelation was not smacking him in the head nearly as hard as the raindrops were an hour earlier.





3

The box was open on one of the six sides, allowing walk-in access. Seeing nothing to cause concern, Lucas tossed his walking stick aside and stepped in, knowing he’d be fine if he was extremely careful and paid attention to everything, even the smallest detail. He looked, he touched, he slid his hands over everything, until he knew the inside of this…thing…as well as he knew himself, then silently congratulating himself for being so thorough. That’s why they were never seen, and never, ever caught.

The box was as barren inside as it looked from the outside, nothing to see, nothing to hear. But there was something…something…else. An odor, better described as an aroma, that Lucas found strangely intriguing. A satisfying smell, evoking thoughts of finishing a large meal, even though there was nothing edible in sight and no sign that there had been. In fact, Lucas had been hungry just a little while earlier, but just inside the opening he simply wasn’t anymore.

The aroma was strongest in the center of the cube, causing Lucas to pause and look around in wonder, trying to find its source. It was from everywhere and nowhere. It wasn’t the only thing affecting him, but after the panoply of smells he had just walked through, it was the only thing his nose was capable of noticing. What he could not notice was actually much more important: a hidden framework around the opening through which he had just passed, something that would never have been put together by any group of Sindri.

4
While one aroma reminded him of a fine meal, another, unperceived aroma caused Lucas to think of sleep. He was not tired in reality; his surface wandering last year had taken him farther and lasted much longer. But right now, inside the cube, everything was different. The floor was oddly inviting, almost calling him to lie down, get comfortable, and close his eyes. There was nothing here that could possibly hurt him. He had never been so sure of anything in his life.

As he lay down - just for a few moments he promised himself - he missed seeing the last item that might have saved him: a concealed handle on top of the cube that extended almost from one side to the other. A handle big enough to allow a Rionian to grasp the cube, lift it and carry it anywhere. Lucas was considering none of this as he lay down near the back of the box, shifting his weight to do so, which triggered a silent, slow process.

It took about two minutes for him to fall into a sound, drug-induced sleep. Now, his lack of motion engaged the rest of the process. As he slept, the open side through which Lucas had stepped minutes before was replaced by clear panels sliding from the top and bottom, turning the cube
into a cage for anything inside. Air was available through small openings in the back of the box. At the same time, an unseen white light began to flash from the top of the structure, revealing its exact location.

5
Lucas opened his eyes more than an hour later, at first not noticing anything different other than an uncommonly lethargic feeling. He shook his head to clear it, realizing that was a mistake immediately. With a much slower turn of his head, all feelings were suddenly replaced by a fear that began in the pit of his abdomen and radiated outward.

What was this? He slid himself toward what used to be the front of the cube, now blocked by something he could see through but not move through. Shoving against it with all his strength changed nothing. On the other side, he saw the stick he could no longer reach. It would have been no use to him, but it would have given him something else to try. In truth, the cube was far stronger than any tree twig he might have been carrying.

He started pounding on the inside of it with tiny fists, then slamming the sides of his fists above, below and on the other sides. He kept trying for a
full ten minutes, panic growing inside him all the while. He wanted to cry out, to scream with all his might, but there was no one to hear him; he had not seen another Sindri mini, or Rionian giant, since before the rain came, and he had no desire to confront the latter category.



6
“So this is the end of me. A long walk, a fascinating find, a pleasant aroma and now a nightmare from which I can‘t wake up.” His hands hurt, and
his knuckles were bleeding. Lucas sat cross-legged in the middle of the cube, facing away from the clear side; there was no longer anything he wanted to see. Soon it would be dark, and it wouldn’t matter where he looked.

He spent a while waiting for a thought to invade his brain that would let him do something, anything, to change this situation. Come ON! THINK!

He saw the ventilation holes in the back of the cube, which told him only that someone did not want him dying from lack of air. What if, what if, he plugged those holes with his clothing? He might suffocate by morning, leaving his unseen captors with only a cyanotic corpse.

No good, no good. There were too many holes. Even if he stripped naked, he’d be guaranteed nothing but a cold, miserable night. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure he stayed put and unharmed until…until what? Until enough of his kind were collected to become a source of breeding stock? A subset of Sindri doomed to live in endless fear? Until their heads were twisted off for failing to please them?


7

Lucas fought the urge to throw up, for two reasons. If he vomited in his mouth, he’d never be rid of the horrid taste, and if he let the vomit fly free he’d be sharing the cube with his own sick, either until he died or something worse happened. Delightful.

One thing he could not deny: whoever built this and trapped him in it was one clever Rionian. It was off-the-scale crazy to think that any Sindri or group of them could have done this to one of their own.

What a fool he was to have come above ground to begin with! He hadn’t needed to, he just wanted to. And now look at this mess! As darkness began to fall, and with nothing left to consider that could possibly help him, his mind searched for anything he might use for comfort. There was that rhythmic clapping game the youngest children enjoyed. All together now, on the beat:

Where-is-the-Sin-dri-child-hap-py?
Un-der-ground-the-Sin-dri-child’s-hap-py!

Lucas could play that game now. He even had new words for this special occasion:


8

What-does-in-san-i-ty-feel-like?
THIS-is-what-in-san-i-ty-feels-like!

No help there, but what about that traditional song that all the kids learned? Might as well try it: strains of the chorus had been playing in his head as he strained to free himself. It celebrated a place he might never see again:


Remember Where You Came From,

And You’ll Know Just Who You Are.


Lucas knew just where he was: in big, big trouble. Childhood memories would not help him. Would he ever again see his family, or anyone he had come to know in his nearly 30 years on Rion? Did it hurt to starve? Could a mini die of sheer loneliness?

A silly thought. Some Sindri, free of accidents, made it to near 100, even beyond. But maybe dying young was the fate of the stupid. The fate of little Lucas.

Let me out! His panic rose again and so did his fists, swinging wildly, striking at anything, swearing at the rest of it:

HOVA-MANA FIRES OF SURLON!
9
LET ME OUT!!

He had managed to change one thing: more knuckles were bleeding now than before.

At last, his energy drained, Lucas slumped into a heap, panic finally giving way to a sense of utter hopelessness.

Darkness continued to gather, revealing something new as he looked again through the transparent side of the cube. The foliage changed from near blackness to a brilliant green hue, but only for an instant. It happened again, and again, and again, perhaps once every other second. At first, Lucas didn’t know what to think about that, until he remembered that Rionians, who had poor night vision, sometimes relied on something known as a “beacon” to find their way.

Sindri had no need for such a thing. There was plenty of light for them, when they were home where they should have stayed, you moron!

Lucas now realized that atop his small prison was one of those beacons, and it was not there to attract other minis.


10
Welcome back, my old friend panic. You’ve made yourself right at home in my gut, haven’t you? I guess you’re not going anywhere, either. The gut-ache began to synchronize itself with the flashes of light. Relentless flashes that were now showing any Rionian who cared to look the exact location of a tiny, helpless Sindri.

Just follow the flash. Flash. Flash. Flash. Giants. Flash. Coming. Flash. For. Flash. Me. Flash. Madness. Flash. Death. Flash. Endless. Flash. Waiting. Flash. STOP! Flash.

He had had better days.