Pavel found riding a horse to be nothing like the symphony of motion his friend had described so longingly. He was jostled and shifting constantly, and had to constantly hitch at his body to keep his balance. To complicate things, Jethro was clinging to his waist, and shifting in his own separate directions, and that added to the problem. Even the horse seemed unhappy with this uneven burden and snorted and fidgeted in a hundred small ways.
Yet their luck held. They made it over a rise in the land and put the fighting behind them. Nobody seemed to be following them. But this left them still in this uncomfortable mode of locomotion. Pavel let the horse slow, and they bounded along miserably.
Now that they were beyond the sounds of battle, Jethro apparently felt safe enough to talk. "What is going on here? Who are you?"
"My name is Pavel. Pavel Paskov." Pavel said. "My father is the man you and your friends kidnaped from my valley. That was a long time ago and things have changed a great deal."
"Where was I?"
"When you attacked Fortin...do you remember that?"
"Yeah." Jethro admitted. "I got my bonds loose and then got him to come close to me and I grabbed him. I was just going to tie him up and get away but he got hold of those damned pods. I got a whiff of that and...next thing I know, I was lying on my back and my dick was stuffed in your mouth."
"You were out of it for a long time. My family's been taking care of you. Fortin mostly, but I took over when he went on a vacation. A shame you can't meet and thank him, you owe him a lot. He took care of you night and day for many months."
"Months." Jethro said. "How many?"
"Seven or eight, I guess." Pavel said. "Anyway, Commander Sachsen came by with the cure developed in Connobar and gave it to you."
"Where the hell are we?" Jethro said. "This isn't Connobar or your valley, Facilitator."
"We're to the west of the mountain range. Our valleys lie beyond those mountains ahead of us." Pavel pointed. "My home's about there, and Connobar is about there."
"It's a long trip home." Jethro mused. "I need to know more, but I'll stop asking questions on that. Now who was Commander Sachsen fighting, and why?"
"It's a long story." Pavel said. "Maybe I'd better start by telling you the war with Connobar is over."
"Who won?"
"We both did, sort of." Pavel said. "Connobarans come to our valley and we help them have children. I've helped with eight so far, myself. See my chits?"
"Chits?" Jethro peered at the necklace Pavel wore, eight circular discs with a hole in the center that they were strung on. Knots in the string helped separate them.
"The agreement was that we each were required to help ten Connobarans, who would supply us in return with a chit. Once we earned ten chits, it became optional, though we still collect chits. Daddy Al has eighteen of them, now, and my Dad has twenty-two. Our home is right on the route the Connobarans take, and most of them don't want to travel much, so we're in high demand."
"A fair arrangement, assuming I believe you." Jethro said. "But if you were with Commander Sachsen, who was protecting you and told me to do the same, then I guess I do. So why did we come here? Especially if I was sick?"
"Commander Sachsen insisted on bringing you." Pavel said. "We had to make the trip and he didn't want you to wake up among strangers. We're here because the war destroyed the Tree of Children. No way to make more baby Facilitators. We can use your eggs, but the children turn out like you Connobarans. My younger brother is one of your kind. But these people have children themselves in their own way, and we came to find out how, to see if we can use it."
"Do we know yet?" Jethro asked. He seemed to be adjusting very well, Pavel felt.
"Only that it is at a sacred site of theirs. We're heading in that direction just this moment, but we have to go back."
"Back? Why?"
"Because those raiders were out to capture us. They've already got Jezreel and probably your Commander by now. We have to rescue them."
"Where is the rest of our force?"
"That's all of it, the four of us." Pavel said. "It was a peaceful mission, not an invasion."
"But there should have been a back-up plan." Jethro protested. "What if things go wrong, like they have?"
"The angels have instructions to come looking for us at the end of a week's time." Pavel said. "Six more days from now. We have to hold out for that long, and then figure out a way to signal them." Not as hard as it sounded, angels seemed to have an amazing knack for picking out details on the ground and in the sky.
"We are soldiers behind enemy lines, then." Jethro said. "I studied such things, but it was all theoretical. We had no enemies to practice on besides each other. I sort of wondered why our officers bothered with it. Mock battles and capturing flags and so on. A very entertaining game, but that was all it was to us."
"You're about to use that knowledge." Pavel said. "And I'm grateful you've got it. What do we do next?"
"I need to know more about the situation." Jethro said. "Do we have any allies here at all?"