Five hundred miles

One of the things I’d asked the girls back on the caldera rim was, how they intended to find their hidden supply camps in these endless ice expanses, where the view in every direction looked exactly the same - to me at least. Lily had shrugged and pointed in a very specific direction to the south, and Illyára and Al’Reeza also assured me that finding the supply would be the least of our problems.

How they did it was a mystery to me (it wasn’t magic, that would’ve alerted the dragons!) but all of them had such an accurate sense of direction that they effortlessly managed to avoid us to drive in circles. Their often minimal corrections of my steering seemed completely random to me, but I decided to trust them.

My theory was that they could sense the magnetic field of the planet - a little bit like pigeons in my homeworld - and therefore always knew where north (or south) was located. When I asked them, they shrugged and said, they just knew. Still I was curious what would await us at our first destination…

For the time being we pedaled and pedaled and pedaled to gain as much distance to the caldera and the dragons - heavily cloaked, which I also couldn't sense or notice. When I looked out of the window there was no light dimming or visual distortion of any kind that’d have indicated invisibility or something similar.

The girls generated so much force that the electrical assistance could be kept to a minimum and the battery charge - fed by the solar roof from what little the sun provided - dropped very slowly. Despite that we had to make a stop after a few hours, because Al’Reeza couldn’t keep up with her digitigrade hoofs. She had to take two pieces of wood and make them into a resemblance of shoes, which could hold a grip on the pedals and also take in her hoofs. But that only took about ten minutes and afterwards we were back on the move again.

What made this first section of our trip especially hard was the fact that we started in the evening without any rest. It was clear, we couldn’t lose any time and had to cover as much distance as possible. So we skipped a night's sleep and started immediately after Al’Reeza had charged the batteries full on the caldera rim.

It was long after ‘midnight’ that we stopped again for a short, cold meal (you guessed it: rice and overgrown chicken meat!) and immediately set off again, even though a lead-like tiredness increasingly weighed down on us. The girls were much more hardened than me in that regard, although the constant sunlight helped. So high in the north, there was no “night” at that time of year. The sun just revolved in a giant circle around us, being at its highest in the south and at its lowest in the north.

The ice and snow (and the weight of the iceboat in the back) didn’t allow us to drive much faster than around thirty (liyúrean) miles per hour, but we were able to maintain this speed quite steadily. Pedaling wasn’t very hard (and for Al’Reeza it improved greatly after her adjustion!), but it was very monotonous. At the beginning I compensated that through my endless questioning, but as I tired, so did my ability to think, to reflect and to communicate. Lily's already short patience grew even shorter and in the end I didn’t even dare to make a sound at all. You can imagine how that improved my mood!

Furthermore it was not possible for me to tell if we made any progress in reaching our first destination, even if the miles ticked by on the tachometer. The eye needs something to hold on to judge any progress, but the scenery around us just didn’t change. There was simply nothing else than this giant, frozen plate of white emptiness I slowly grew to hate more and more. To me the only changing thing seemed to be the sun, which slowly rolled around us, moving gently up from and down towards the horizon. But my world shrank more and more, as I concentrated on just one thing: pedaling, pedaling, pedaling…

The sun was already some time on the rise to our left, when we made a second break to eat (and drink) again. The meal consisted (you guessed it!) of cold rice and overgrown chicken meat. Yay! The batteries were still holding on tremendously, so Al’Reeza didn’t need to repeat her trick from the caldera rim. Still I unfolded the solar roof fully and tilted it to capture as much sunlight as possible.

We were all dead tired and decided unanimously to slip in a short nap of no more than …well, they said one candle, but how long that actually was… Wait! I set my timer and went to sleep satisfied, knowing that if I was woken in time, I would finally know how long one of their blasted time units lasted!

I felt brutally ripped from sleep through Illyára’s slender, strangely shaped hand on my shoulder, seemingly the moment after I closed my eyes. All the girls looked incredibly refreshed, only I was still half unconscious with sticky, sandy eyes. Thankfully I remembered to immediately stop my timer which showed around sixty three minutes. At least now I knew how long one of their candles approximately lasted!

My watch still showed Icelandic time, and I realized it was now forty eight hours after I mysteriously appeared on Liyúra. I wondered if my master and my brother already realized I was missing. I wasn’t regularly updating them and they knew I needed some time for myself, so they usually didn’t press me for contact. How long would it take them to report me as missing? I felt bad that I couldn’t send them a message that I was well - just heavily sleep-deprived!

Fascinating, how earth life already seemed far, far away, almost like decades ago! Well, I think that happens, when you arrive in a wholly new and unprecedented situation. Your senses capture everything with so much more clarity and detail, which in turn distorts your usual perception for time.

Useless thoughts, but they crept onto me when we resumed our journey…

Up to now we had covered around four hundred miles and the batteries were nearly full again! Incredible, how all four of us pedaling together saved a lot of energy. Well, the girls certainly did most of the work! When we rested, I noticed how their appetite’d shot up! It’s clear, the energy had to come from somewhere!

We managed to maintain our speed during the following hours (candles, whatever!) but my state started to deteriorate rapidly. There was still no change of scenery and I was now up about thirty hours with just a little nap in between. So when we surpassed the threshold of five hundred miles from the caldera oasis with no sign of any dragons I begged to stop and change vehicles. I was in a near delirious state now and just couldn’t hold my eyes open anymore.

Reluctantly the girls agreed - Lily again grumbled something about me being a wimp - but I could’ve been mistaken, as I registered everything only like from far, far away. Literally the same second we stopped moving I fell asleep in my seat. I didn't notice anymore how the girls carried me into the cabin of the ‘Ice Wallow’ and secured the Munchie to the front deck of the iceboat. I didn’t notice how the girls set sail and we started moving again, cloaked, but not as safe as before. One of the girls now had to direct the constantly blowing wind into the sail to propel us forward.

I didn’t notice anything and slept like a baby (without waking up crying almost every hour of course!) until I was woken again by frantic shaking. Still tired I cracked open my bleary eyes and was met with the red skinned, alarmed face and the golden, slitted eyes of Al’Reeza full of panic, who whispered in a hushed tone:

“Wake up, we have been detected!”