The Spine Collector

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When Osten reached the final leg of his exodus, he saw an object on which eyes of his kind had never seen;  a large, opaque diamond floating silently above a tar lake.  His curiosity was piqued, his eyes widened with interest, and he reared up on his hind legs.  However, his thirst for knowledge must remain unquenched, otherwise, he risked drowning in a lake of tar or becoming prey to tar-worms.  

 

Irritated by the diamond, he grabbed his musket and his knapsack and set off towards his camp. The walk was long and uneventful, as traveling through lakes of fire and mists of mercury lost its thrill after he reached adulthood.  The wonders in life had simply been washed away by his industrious attitude towards his trade of spine collecting.  He hunts the bear-squids of the mold forests for both sport and their spines, which are used by shamans in medical rituals.  His quota would not be met on this trip, he’s five spines short.  His disease would remain uncured.

 

 On the way back, one of his kind crossed into his field of view. It was a young male of a rival tribe, eight feet tall and running at forty miles per hour on his four grasshopper-like legs. His body was long and thin, with two large, crested heads suspended on one muscular neck. From the center of his torso dangled two triple-jointed arms, ending in large, clumsy hands.

 

The sight of the man had not inspired emotion in Osten, not many things do.  He had been made stoic and callous by a world that has it out for him.  Ever since birth, he’d been star-crossed with misfortune.  He had lost one of his crests to a bear-squid in his early days of hunting, and lost one of his four eyes to shrapnel from when a petroleum vane burst.  Recently he had been cursed with a fungal infection in a scar on his neck, one that pierced through to his right windpipe. He’d been worn away by the sands of time, just like many others.  But on this planet, the planet Old Mother, the will to live is all that keeps one from an untimely death.  

 

Osten searched his mouth with his tongues for his sores, praying they have disappeared.  They’re still there, the fungus was still eating away at his windpipe.  Breathing was becoming a chore, so much so he couldn’t  run anymore.  He’d been reduced to a slow lope on his two perpendicular legs, and at the most a quick walk.  He hobbled over to his nest; a small cave made by a gas eruption.  The petroleum in the cave had long since seeped into the porous ground. Lying on a colony of harmless mold, Osten was lulled to sleep by the screams of asteroids and the pounding of gas lakes igniting.

 

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Awoken by a momentary cease of noise, Osten sat up, concerned.  His kind is used to the constant crackles and hisses coming from their burning world.  He decides to take a walk to calm himself down, silence puts him on edge.  He’s greeted to a dark world, void of flaming lakes and smog clouds.  Instead, he sees a green wasteland of strange plants, and a sky of bright stars.

 

 

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Osten awoke when a bright light shone through the cave opening.  As his secondary eyelids unfurled over his sensitive eyes, he began to see the infrared signature of the light.  It was the octahedron, lying slightly off the beaten path to the cave.  The octahedron began flashing, the time between flashes becoming longer and longer as it closed in on Osten.

 

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Forty-nine stitches and three skin grafts later, Osten awoke to find himself back a familiar tribe’s care.  He’s visited this tribe on his trade routes, so not everything is entirely new.  Osten’s jaw unfurled as he asked his caretaker, “Who are you?”

The man responded by flushing his crests in such a manner that conveyed that he is the town shaman, and proceeded to tell Osten that he was found clutching his musket inside a slime mold in the forest.  The slime mold seemed to have been feeding on a scar around his heart, the source of which was unknown to the shaman.  Consequently, the mold embedded itself in Osten’s skin, which called for skin grafts.

 

Osten instinctively tongued the inside of his mouth, in subconscious search for his fungal infection.  He finds nothing.  

 

“Did.. Did you fix up more than the scar?” Osten asked the shaman.

He replied, “No, you were perfectly healthy other than that scar and the mold-burns.”

 

Osten flushed his crests, shyly telling the shaman that he can’t pay for the operation.  The shaman replied with a series of clicks and whistles, and ended with a soft grunt of understanding.  He was found only with his musket, and the shaman performed the surgery by his own volition.  

 

“I don’t expect you to pay.  You’re the spine collector, right?  You’ve already got enough problems.”

Osten nodded in understanding.

“You may go.” The shaman says.

 

Osten grabbed his musket and headed out of the shaman’s tent.  He’s astonished with the sudden disappearance of his infection; both thrilled and perplexed.  

 

He thought, “Was it the diamond?”  

 

Osten once had an inclination to believe that mysterious forces did good deeds, but he’s since grown out of that phase.  Being a secularist on Old Mother is a dangerous thing, given the numerous fundamentalist tribes.  He had seen a lack of good natured gods to be the explanation for his tumultuous life.  God wouldn’t have given him a debilitating fungal infection, but apparently he had taken it away.  Osten was filled with doubt and confusion.  His mind is filled to the brim with questions.  “Was that... Thing god?” “Did it cure me?” “Why would god be concerned with a life such as mine?” were among the heavier questions.

 

Osten never had a crisis of faith before, and he certainly didn’t need to have more to deal with.

 

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Unsure of whether or not he should have begun the day with a prayer, Osten sat in a ditch outside of the camp.  Smoking on a pipe he bought with labor, he watched the distant thunderstorms and lake eruptions.  He’s simply enjoying his time here on Old Mother; health is a gift not meant to be taken lightly on this planet.  The stars are shining on him, literally and figuratively.  For fleeting seconds, the stars peeked out from behind the dense clouds, then disappeared behind the ring.  Stars are a rare sight on this volatile world.

 

He’d ran out of spores to smoke.  After standing up and giving a small stretch, he walked relaxedly over the to the shaman.

 

“Wanderer, watch the stars...” the shaman croaked.

 

Trustingly, Osten turned one of his heads towards the night sky.  He saw a bright yellow star shining in the clouds.  It began to flicker and bob as it slowly floated in their direction.

 

Passing over the settlement, the diamond began to flicker and blink.