11. Treachery and Payback - The Work Camp Earth-boy

The Work Camp Earth-boy

By Earth-boy

Comments are welcome at earth-boy-2755@proton.me, and constructive criticism as well. As I’ve mentioned before, this story is complete (12 chapters in all.) But as of the date I’ve posted this, I can entertain suggestions as long as they don’t break the established plot or have a serious impact on the remaining chapters.

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Quick disclaimers:

• This story contains descriptions of sex between teen and pre-teen males. Do not read if you’re under 18 or it is illegal where you’re living.
• Copyright by the author. Do not upload to pay-to-view sites.
• This story is fiction; references to individuals are coincidental.
• No children or teenagers were harmed in the creation of this story.

Chapter 11. Treachery and Payback

Riley, Martin, and Jared were in the main hut earlier than normal Tuesday morning, eager to start work on hauling the gold from the creek into the camp. Now that everyone knew what was happening, Riley invited both me and Savros to help if we wanted to. We did a quick cleanup from breakfast and headed to the north field.

The others had already made three trips. Riley and Jared had brought only one can on each trip up the hill, but strong Martin was able to carry two. Six trips more and the five of us brought up thirty-six cans. That left only four by the creek, which Riley, Martin and Jared retrieved.

Under Riley’s watchful eye we repeated the move, this time from the north field to a space in front of the storage shed. For now we’d keep them outside; Riley was concerned that the great weight of the gold would warp the shed’s floor.

“Why are the cans in such good shape?” Jared asked. “I’d think after all that time in the ground they’d all be rusted away.”

“They’re galvanized,” said Riley. “That means there’s a layer of zinc on top of the steel. It’s lucky for us Dumolin did that, otherwise we’d be handling all the ingots one by one.”

Egan and Larry returned at noon with everything on the shopping list. Savros and I made lunch. After lunch, they brought a generator from the north field to power the pressure washer. We all took turns blasting the cans with high pressure water to remove the soil. It took a while, but by mid-afternoon they were clear of the worst effects of their long interment.

Then it was on to opening the cans and recording their contents. Some lids came off with relative ease while others required considerable persuasion. Four refused to come loose at all and we resorted to cutting them open.

Every can had eight ingots: four hundred and twenty-four in total. But we were left with a mystery. As Riley had predicted, every ingot had its own number and they were sequential. But the numbers started at 15. There appeared to be fourteen ingots missing.

“Do you think maybe he buried them somewhere else?” Martin asked.

“Maybe, although it doesn’t make much sense,” said Riley. “They’d be too easy to lose. Are you sure you got them all?”

“We’re sure,” said Martin. “We did a sweep with the metal detectors as far around as we could. Got nothing.”

“Perhaps have the boy check out the area again?” asked Larry.

“I can do that, sure,” I said.

Not willing to leave the haul unattended, only Riley and I returned to the hill. I spent a few minutes doing pathfinding, but didn’t see anything that indicated there was any more metal buried in the hill.

When we returned, Larry said, “We’ve been discussing this. We think the missing ingots are the ones Dumolin deposited into the bank when he arrived.”

“Hey, that makes sense!” said Riley.

Larry explained. “Maybe he converted only ten ingots to start plus whatever he had left over that he made into a small ingot. Then he started making the cans, or more likely had someone make them for him. When he noticed he had six ingots left over after he’d filled them, instead of putting only six into a can, he just put them into the bank as well. Then he re-packed all the cans starting with number 15.”

Egan added, “And he wouldn’t give, say, number 428 to the bank; that would tip them off as to how much gold he had. Maybe after he gave them number fourteen they thought it was all of them. Until the will came out, that is.”

We started repacking the cans. After running a single band of masking tape around them and writing each can’s number on it on all four faces, we put in eight ingots. Riley watched as every one was labelled and filled, keeping track of the cans and ingots on a sheet of paper.

Finally we secured the lot. While Savros, Jared and I set up the tent beside the storage shed, Riley, Martin, Larry and Egan pulled the heavy gun safe out of the truck and carried it to us. It was obvious the safe was too tall to stand up in the tent, so we laid it on its back. Once again we moved the cans. They stored into an impressively small space. Egan and Larry had bought the largest safe they could find, and it looked almost empty when we’d finished loading it.

Together Riley and Egan went through the safe’s manual. It had an electronic lock, and from what I could hear of their discussion they each set their own combination. Larry suggested they set it so both combinations had to be entered to open it, but it appeared the lock couldn’t do that.

✵   ✵   ✵

“Now what?” asked Riley when we had secured the gold in the safe. “I’ve been caught a little off-guard. I wasn’t expecting to be so lucky so early in the season. Now I’ve got the better part of seventy million dollars worth of gold and no real way to secure it.”

“And I didn’t make any plans either,” said Egan. “In fact, I was really surprised you found it!”

“Would a bank vault work?” Martin asked.

“I don’t know,” said Riley. “I’ve never called a bank out of the blue to ask them, ‘Hey, I’ve got seventy million dollars in gold I want to put into your vault for a few days. Can you accommodate me?’“

“A private residence, perhaps?” asked Larry. “Security through obscurity is a thing. Just an anonymous house on an anonymous street.”

“Perhaps,” Riley mused. “But I think this is going to be big news, especially around these parts. Neighbours might notice an unknown truck showing up at a house and half a dozen people furtively carrying small heavy boxes into it. Then the news breaks that Dumolin’s gold has been found. They just might put two and two together.”

Martin suggested, “How about self-storage? Some of ’em are pretty secure. I know; I used to work for one in Alberta. You don’t have to tell the place what you’re storing. And you saw when we put the cans into the safe they take up hardly any space at all. As long as we’re careful when we move the cans in very few people will suspect it’s there. Not even the employees.”

“That’s an idea,” said Riley. “If it’s secure, we can probably be assured no one will go after it.”

Now Jared made an off-the-wall suggestion. “How about the earth-boy’s grove?”

Everyone turned to look at us.

“Can we trust the earth-boys to give it back to us?” asked Riley.

“I’m sure you can,” I replied. “Usually we don’t take too much interest in the affairs of humans unless you guys threaten us. To us it would just be a bunch of cans that showed up one day, and the council asked everyone else to leave them alone. Sure, we’ll be curious and maybe someone will open up a can to see what’s in it, but then he’ll close it up again and leave it alone.”

“But it’s worth seventy million dollars!” Riley exclaimed.

“True—to humans. To us, not so much.”

Larry backed me up. “Earth-boys really aren’t interested in money. Ask the boy here: very few even understand it. As far as I’m concerned, the gold will be as safe in a grove as in a super-high secure facility.”

“So how would this work?” asked Riley.

“Easy,” I replied. “We take the gold to any modern grove that has a gate. I chat with the councillors and say these humans have something they want to store securely in the meadow. We unload it from the truck and carry it to the meadow.”

“Never to be seen again, probably,” said Egan. “I’d no more trust earth-boys to keep the gold safe than a bank with a Japanese manager.”

“Egan!” Riley shouted. “Cut it out already! Maybe for some reason you don’t like the Japanese, but I will not have you spouting racist crap here, especially in front of Jared!”

I gave Jared a small hug, looked up at him, and sent him a mild calm. His scowl disappeared.

I added, “In fact, a risk is the grove might forget about it. So when you go back, there will be some confusion while they remember where they put it. That can be solved by giving you a receipt in our language and English.”

Martin added, “Want to make sure you get back what you left with them? Take a picture of every can as it leaves the truck. Fifty-three cans weighing forty pounds each go out, and fifty-three come back.”

“And it’s not like it will be there for years,” I said. “What, maybe the rest of the week, or two while you work out what to do with it?”

“Probably that,” said Riley.

Egan raised another objection. “What’s to stop one of you guys from just going to the grove, saying you’re Riley, and asking them to load it up into your truck?”

“Not a problem,” said Larry. “First, only Riley, Egan, and the boy have to visit the grove. So we won’t know exactly which grove it’s at.”

“But aren’t there like only three or four? It would take less than a day to check each one out.”

“Well, there’s identification too,” said Larry. “All the grove has to do is record driver’s license numbers and maybe agree to a code phrase. And earth-boys are pretty good at finding out if people are lying. It’s one of their gifts.”

I added, “And we can write the code phrase on the receipt in our language, in leaf-script. That way the grove knows the code phrase. Most humans don’t know our language and can’t read leaf-script, so it would be secure from the rest of you. And … suppose Jared or Savros here conspire with me to go to the grove and steal the gold. I might know the code phrase, but I won’t have the receipt and their driver’s licences won’t match.”

“That will work!” said Riley. “We’ll load up the truck tomorrow, then me, Egan, and the boy will visit a grove. I’ll rest a lot easier knowing the gold’s secure.”

✵   ✵   ✵

Savros and I made dinner. The seating arrangements hadn’t changed, so I was on one side of the table with Savros and Jared flanking me. They were still playing with me through the meals, which I enjoyed. After dinner was the customary board game, which I joined in and, as usual, lost.

The mood was more subdued now. The gold now found, there was a real sense our time together was coming to an end. Once the treasure was safely in storage at a grove, the work at the camp would be over. We’d probably spend a day packing our possessions and loading them into the truck, then there would be a final drive to the city where we’d be dropped off and returned to normal life.

I was due to be in Egan’s hut tonight. It would have been yesterday but for him being in town overnight with Larry to purchase the pressure washer and safe. We hadn’t done anything together since the beating he’d given me on Thursday, but the Earth had showed me a way forward. It’s simply not in our nature to carry grudges. Now that I knew how to keep the worst of his misogyny under control, I decided I could give him one last time with me.

This time I used two calms, a small amount of eren, and a good workout of my amorial muscles to make Egan come hard and fast. In under two minutes we were done and I left his hut for the last time.

I immediately went to Jared’s. He was still awake and his face lit up when I entered.

“I have a gift for you,” I told him.

“Really? What?”

“An agor nut. I produced one this afternoon.”

He accepted it with a big smile. “Wow, thanks! I’m going to keep it. It will be something to remember you by.”

We had a passionate round of sex and fell asleep together. In the night I left his hut and went to sleep with Savros.

✵   ✵   ✵

We decided to load the truck first thing after lunch and drive to a grove to make arrangements for temporary storage. Unless something unexpected happened, Riley, Egan, and me would be back in time for supper.

“Can we get pictures of us with the gold?” asked Martin after everyone was awake that morning. “Once it’s in the grove that’s the last most of us will ever see of it.”

“I don’t see why not,” Riley replied. “Just remember the NDA you signed. Don’t upload them to the internet. Of course, when the news breaks there won’t be as much of a need to keep them secret. You’ll get a letter from my lawyer in a couple of weeks releasing you from the NDA, after which you’ll be free to share the pictures and your stories.”

“What’s an NDA?” I quietly asked Jared.

“Non-disclosure agreement. We signed something saying we won’t talk to anyone about what we did here for five years.”

“Why not?”

Savros explained. “If we’d found nothing, Riley didn’t want others figuring out what he was looking for, and then a whole bunch of people swarming this area and maybe finding it before he could.”

Riley opened the safe. We removed the cans and set them up in a long row in front of the main hut, and brought a chair outside we could use for holding the phones. Unexpectedly, Riley opened one of the cans and handed us an ingot each to hold for the pictures.

There were seven of us all in a line behind the cans: Larry, Martin, Egan, Riley, Jared, me, and Savros, each smiling and holding an ingot. Taking the pictures was actually a bit tedious, with the phone’s owner having to set a timer and scurrying back into line to wait it out. We took three pictures each on our phones, and checked them for quality before moving on to the next phone. We were at it for over half an hour.

To save us having to return all the cans to the safe, Riley stayed outside after the pictures were complete to keep a constant watch on them. For lunch we moved the collapsible table outside and ate there. Savros and I did a quick cleanup in the kitchen while the others started moving the gold to the truck.

“Can the truck handle the weight?” Martin asked as the work started.

“Of course!” said Egan. “We took Dumolin at his word that he had thirty thousand ounces of gold. Once we figured out the conversion from troy ounces to pounds, I made sure to get a truck that could handle the weight. That’s the main reason it’s so big.”

Riley and Egan made certain to distribute the cans all over the truck bed to even out the load, using blankets and bins to ensure they didn’t move much on the trip out.

Everyone gathered by the truck to see the gold off. Both Riley and Egan went for the driver’s door.

“I’m driving today,” said Riley.

“I’d prefer to,” said Egan.

Riley shook his head. “Sorry, the gold’s mostly mine, and I want to be the one to drive it to the grove.”

“Alright,” said Egan. “But there’s something I need to get out of the pocket on this door first.”

“What’s that?” Riley asked.

Egan pushed Riley aside and in seconds found what he was looking for.

Now, as an earth-boy I know very little about guns, but I’d watched enough human media to recognize one. Fortunately I out of Egan’s view with the forest barely two metres away. I made a quick dash for it and camouflaged myself.

“Alright!” said Egan, slowly moving the gun to cover various members of the crew, “everyone, start slowly walking toward the main hut. Keep your hands where I can see them! Oh, Jared, slowly step out front.”

“What? Why?”

“Now’s not the time to be asking stupid questions!” Egan snapped. “Step to the front!”

Jared did so, and in seconds Egan had one of Jared’s arms twisted behind his back and the gun to his head.

“Okay, everyone, hands on your heads and start walking slowly toward the main hut!”

“Don’t be a damned fool!” said Martin. “I’m sure Riley can afford to give you a can or two.”

“And I can drive out of here with all of them! It will be days before you can contact anyone because you’ll have to walk out to the highway! By the time you’re talking to the police, I’ll be three thousand kilometres away.”

He looked around. “Hey, where’d the boy go?”

Larry answered in the knowledgeable tone he usually used when talking about us. “He’s long gone. Earth-boys are terrified of guns. You didn’t see the way his eyes bugged out when you got it out of the truck. He bolted for the woods and he’s probably still running. If he ever comes back, we won’t see him until some time tomorrow.”

“Besides, what can he do?” asked Savros, obviously scared but trying to stay calm. “Hide in the woods and ambush you when you come back to the truck?” His eyes kept flicking from Egan to where he’d seen me run for the woods. “They’re pacifists. And they don’t care about the gold. So right now he’s just as useless where ever he is as if he was still with us.”

With Jared held hostage, the rest of the crew followed Egan’s instructions to walk toward the main hut. Egan ordered Savros to go into the storage shed and retrieve a rope and give it to Martin.

Carefully I moved within the forest to watch what was happening.

“Alright, Martin, tie one of your legs together with Savros. And make sure it’s tight! No silly slip-knots! Good, now tie your other leg with Riley’s.”

He carried down the line, ordering each man in turn to tie one of his legs to a man beside him. Finally he ordered Jared to tie one of his legs to Larry’s.

Knowing Egan was almost finished, I returned to the truck. Fortunately it was sitting nose first in its parking spot, so the forest was very close to the front of the truck. Taking a risk, I stopped camouflaging myself for a bit to pull as much eren from the earth as I could store, then hid again.

“Alright!” I heard Egan say. “I guess all I need is thirty seconds to get into the truck and start it. Then you can start untying yourselves. But not a moment before, or—“

I heard a gunshot.

“That one went over the Jap’s head!” said Egan. “The next one will be his crotch! And I’m out of here! Hasta la vista, suckers!”

I prepared to intercept Egan if he came in at a run. But he didn’t; he was walking, but glancing back to the main hut to be certain the crew was still obeying his orders. To my surprise, he wasn’t even holding the gun; he’d put it into his belt.

Just before he made it to the truck’s front door, I sprinted from my hiding spot and crashed into him. He fell backward. I grabbed his right wrist with both hands, caught one of his eyes, and sent him the strongest calm I could muster from my body’s store of eren. When that ran out, I started drawing eren from the earth and continued pouring it into my calm.

After threatening Jared and even firing at him, I saw no need to hold back. I had no idea what the consequences might be for Egan. I might short out his brain and put him into a coma, make him pass out, or merely confuse the hell out of him. I didn’t care; I just wanted him out of commission for as long as I needed to get the truck keys and the gun.

In less than a minute the flow of eren dropped dramatically when there was nothing more for it to do. The keys were in Egan’s right hand, and I snatched them. For once in my life I mused being naked wasn’t such a good thing: I had no place to put them.

When I looked back at Egan he was wearing a huge smile and his face was delirious with joy. “We’re rich!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Seventy fucking million bucks!” He jumped up, pulling me up with him, and starting dancing wildly with me.

“Oh man, we got it all!” he screamed while whirling me around. I clutched the keys tightly to prevent them flying away. “We can go places! Buy the fastest car in the world! Money! Money! Money! We’ve got gold, baby! We can do anything!”

With Egan dancing, jumping, and hollering so much it was difficult getting close enough to grab the gun. I was spared the challenge when he tried and failed a handspring that turned into an ungainly somersault. The gun came loose from his belt and fell to the ground. Egan didn’t even notice.

I grabbed the gun and headed for the same tree from which I’d rescued Jared’s Frisbee. It wasn’t easy climbing with keys in one hand and a gun in the other that I was all too aware could shoot me. Still I managed to make it five metres (fifteen feet) off the ground. Finding a suitable broken branch, I hung the gun and the keys on it, then climbed down and ran to see my friends.

“It’s okay!” I cried. “We’re safe! The gun and the truck keys are up a tree where Egan can’t get them!”

“Just what did you do?” asked Riley.

“What Savros suggested—I used camouflage to hide by the truck, and when Egan went to get in I gave him the biggest calm I’ve ever done. Right now he’s acting like he’s incredibly high on something.”

Knowing there was no longer a threat, they started untying themselves. Egan was still shouting deliriously by the truck.

“I guess he’ll have one hell of a crash when he comes down,” said Martin.

✵   ✵   ✵

Martin was right: after an hour Egan came back to his senses and was furious to see his plan to steal the gold had been thwarted. Hearing him scream with rage, Riley expressed concern he was still dangerous because there were lots of potential weapons around. I used use a strong calm to get him to a state where he was coherent again.

In the hour while Egan was high we met in the main hut.

“What do we do now?” asked Riley. “Egan’s committed several criminal offences and should be turned over to the police.”

Martin answered, “I used to work a security job. I have some training in this. You’re right, we have to get him to the police as soon as we can. We should unload the gold from the truck right now and drive him into town.”

“How many of us need to go?”

Martin thought. “You, so you can make the initial complaint. Me and Larry should ride with Egan in the back seat and the doors locked out to make it more difficult for him to escape. And Jared, too: you were held hostage and Egan even fired his gun in your direction. That was a damned stupid thing to do. Egan could be up on an attempted murder charge for that.”

“And the gun?” asked Riley.

“It’s evidence. In fact, let’s go get it now.”

We returned to the tree. At Martin’s suggestion I was given a plastic bag to put it into and a rope so I could lower it to the ground. I managed it and in a few minutes we were back in the main hut.

“Damn!” Martin exclaimed when he saw the weapon. “Egan’s even stupider than I thought!”

“Why do you say that?” asked Larry.

“There’s only two classes of handguns in Canada: restricted and prohibited. Restricted means you need a permit to buy it and there’s paperwork you need to fill out just to move it from one place to another. You need a special license if you use one as part of your job. I actually had one for a while, but it expired when I left the job. Prohibited usually means it’s damned near impossible to even hold or own the gun except under really special circumstances, like it being historical.”

He pointed to the gun in its plastic bag on the table. “This gun’s prohibited because it has a short barrel. It has to be illegal; there’s no way he’s got a permit for it. He probably bought it in the States and somehow smuggled it across the border. So there’s a whole whack of other charges the police can throw at him!”

“Well, let’s get started then,” said Riley. “We have a long afternoon ahead of us.”

We quickly unloaded the gold and put the cans on the ground in order. Martin put the gun into a box which went into a carrying bin in the truck’s bed. The truck bed was covered, so there was no danger it would accidentally be ejected on the rough trail down to the gravel road.

Martin decided statements from him, Riley, Larry and Jared would be more than enough for the police to hold Egan and charge him, although he suspected they would want to interview Savros at one point and maybe even me.

By this time Egan had recovered from the huge calm I’d given him, and was now placid thanks to another one. Knowing his goose was well and thoroughly cooked, he meekly complied when Riley ordered him to sit between Larry and Martin in the truck’s back seat. Riley asked me and Savros to stay behind and put the gold into the safe again, and showed us how to lock it. Then he joined the others in the truck and drove out.

“Can I ask you something?” Savros asked as we moved the heavy cans yet again.

“Sure. What?”

“Do you have to go back to your grove when we pack up the camp? I mean, can you come live with me?”

I had to think. “Oh, boy. That’s a tough one. I love being with other earth-boys and living in the grove. Staying with you … sure, I know you really like me, but being in a house or an apartment all day would be tough.”

Savros looked downcast. “Yeah, I can see that, especially from what you’ve told me about earth-boys over the last three weeks. It’s just that I’ve really come to like you. If we split up after this is over, I’ll miss you.”

“And Jared will too, I’m sure,” I replied. “Fortunately he has a girlfriend to go back to. Hopefully they’ll stay together. Ever since I introduced him to the Earth he’s started to think he’s half earth-boy.”

“At least he has a girlfriend. Me and my last boyfriend broke up last year. I’ve been living by myself since.”

“Boyfriend? You’re gay?”

“You couldn’t tell? It’s why I loved being with you so much. But after what Egan said about Jared being Japanese, I didn’t want to antagonize him any more by letting him know I’m gay.”

“Oh, yeah, I can see that. Uh, is that why you want me to stay with you? As your boyfriend?”

He nodded.

“Tell you what,” I said. “We’ll find a place really close to a grove. I can stay there when you’re working and whenever I start missing my grove. I’ll try to spend as much time as I can with you, though.”

“You can do that?” he asked hopefully.

“I can. But I think you should get yourself a real boyfriend. A human one, that is. Earth-boys don’t really do long term relationships. A lot of the time two or three earth-boys will become favourites with each other, but if it lasts more than two years it’s really unusual.”

“But I’ll still have you for a year or two at least?”

I smiled. “Sure.”

We hugged and kissed. It looked like this was the start of something new for me.

✵   ✵   ✵

For dinner Savros and I made a casserole and a koy berry crumble that could be heated up for lunch the next day in case the others ate in town. It was a good idea. They didn’t return until after 8:30 that evening.

“How’d it go?” Savros asked.

“Pretty much as expected,” Riley replied. “There’s an RCMP detachment in town so we didn’t have to drive as far as the city. I left the others in the truck and went in to report some friends and I were the victim of a crime and had brought the suspect with us. That got the constable’s attention really fast. She came out with us to the truck and I pointed out Egan, then said the four of us were prepared to give statements.”

“It was a long afternoon,” said Larry. “She had to interview each of us separately and take notes. When we were done she asked if we had the gun and Riley told her we did. We showed her which box in the back of the truck it was in. She pulled it out herself and opened it. As Martin said, it was a prohibited weapon and we were right to transport it outside of the truck’s cabin.”

“What’s he charged with?” asked Savros.

“We don’t know yet,” replied Riley. “The constable placed him under arrest and put him into a holding cell. She said formal charges were pending while they reviewed our statements and checked out the gun.”

Martin added, “And she’d never heard of the Dumolin gold.”

“What?” asked Savros. “It’s quite the legend in these parts.”

Riley answered, “The RCMP likes to post new recruits out of province. She was rather guarded in what she said, but she told me she was from Saskatchewan and had been at the detachment for only six months. I got the impression this might have been the most serious complaint she’d handled.”

“They took our phone numbers and said they’d get back to us,” Larry said. “I think if they call anyone it will be Riley or Jared.”

“Did Egan say anything?” Savros asked.

“Yeah, stupid fool that he is,” Riley answered. “Apparently he’d been planning to drive off with the find as soon as we’d brought it into the camp. He couldn’t do that because I immediately sent him and Larry to town to get the safe. So his next plan was he’d do the driving when we moved the gold out. That’s when he put the gun into the truck. He’d go as far as the gravel road and force anyone who was in the truck out and drive off with it. But then I insisted on driving, so he just grabbed the gun. You all know the rest.”

Larry added, “And he would have succeeded, too, if it wasn’t for the meddling earth-boy!”

I confess I didn’t get the reference. But I asked, “Larry, where’d you get the idea we’re so terrified of guns?”

“Oh, I made that up. I saw you run to the forest and then just sort of fade out. I’d read you can camouflage yourselves like a chameleon and figured that’s what you’d done. But I needed to convince Egan you had fled in panic so he wouldn’t think you’d be able to help us.”

Savros added, “I saw it too, and knew what you had done. That’s why I suggested you should camouflage yourself by the truck and ambush him with a calm, the same way you mentioned you used to hunt.”

“One thing about Egan,” Riley said, “he’s so blinded by hatred for others that he doesn’t understand they can think and act, too. Today he learned it the hard way.”

He turned to me. “And, boy—I mean, Lorinár—I have no idea how to thank you for what you’ve done for us.”

“Oh, your name’s Lorinár?” asked Larry.

I smiled and nodded. “I told Riley my name the second day I was here. But by that time all of you were calling me ‘the boy’ or just Boy. I was sort of wondering how long it would be before anyone asked.”

“And when we’re together in the huts there’s no need for names,” said Savros. “But, uh, I’m embarrassed that I never once asked you.”

I shrugged. “It happens. For me it was a game to hide my name until I was asked for it.” I grinned. “And I think I won!”

We all had a laugh, and Riley said, “Right now the only thing I can think of is to give you a big hug! Come here, Lorinár!”

A big hug he gave me, as did all the others. I was planning to let Savros have the last one, but noticed Jared holding back. To now he hadn’t said anything and looked troubled. No surprise, given what he’d been through today.

I gave him a hug, and quietly invited him outside with me.

“Put your hands on the ground and feel the eren,” I told him. “The Earth is your friend now, and will help you through this.”

“What will happen?”

“I honestly don’t know. You’re only the second human I’ve introduced to the Earth, and the only one who’s responded the way you have. It’s just that I believe the Earth will provide.”

“I can feel it. It feels like … like the Earth’s holding me and telling me everything’s going to be alright. A lot’s happened today. I was, like, seriously scared Egan was gonna kill me. That sort of thing messes with your mind.”

“I guess it would,” I said. “I sort of understand. Egan beat me once and then threatened you and Savros. The Earth helped me through it. You’re sort of an earth-boy now, and it should be able to help you, too.”

“I think so, too. Will you stay with me tonight?”

“Of course I will. I’m just an earth-boy so I can’t do very much, but I can be with you until we leave the camp. But only until then. Savros has already asked me to stay with him.”

Jared even smiled. “Lucky guy! I have my girlfriend. I think between her and the Earth I’ll get through this.”

He gave me a close hug and kissed me.

Savros understood when I told him I’d be spending time with Jared for a day or two. Typical for an earth-boy, I didn’t think of asking; I just came out with it. He was surprised, of course, but after only a couple of questions he was assured I was going to live with him and my time with Jared was to help him with getting to know the Earth.