by Luke Norris
He realized what had been bugging him about Verity as he’d been watching her yesterday. There are no women drivers.
12. Followed
Shira ate what remaining dried meat they had for breakfast. The diet of water and meat was giving her stomach cramps. She reluctantly took a portion of the horrid stuff. Decades in deep space meant very limited solid food. Her stomach was simply not accustomed to working. This food, well that was the other extreme. If she was eating it, then the girl sure as hell could too.
“Eat!” She cut a slice and shoved it under Verity’s face on the edge of her utility blade. “I know it’s hell, but you haven’t got a choice girly!” She is not even meant to be here, Shira thought. Too damn young. Probably two years younger than the engineer. Why did Yarn even allow it? If it wasn't for that damn man, I wouldn’t be here either. She scanned the men looking for the captain. She knew she would follow Yarn to the ends of the galaxy.
They all looked so similar, sitting around eating, with their shaved heads. My goodness, these first-stagers could almost be mistaken for one of us...No! She cast the thought from her mind, the idea making what they do seem too unthinkable. They are first-stage, second-rate, humans, and that is their place. What her crew did was illegal, she knew that, Damn it, woman! Others do it too, we are not the only ones! Besides, what we do is an integral part of the second-stage economy. Those blazing bureaucrats on Teras had no idea how the real galaxy worked.
It was the thrill of the race that excited Yarn. The go-lucky antics of her husband, were something she could understand. But this young girl confused her. She couldn’t read the girl like the others. Cass was here for the money, plain and simple. Socially awkward Riff found a sense of family. Costa’s long-running friendship and loyalty to Yarn were his motivations. But Verity’s reason for coming to this ship didn’t sit right with her. Something about the way Verity held herself. Pretty young thing that she was. Even shaving her head hadn't taken away from her natural beauty. She had the suppleness and pertness of youth. It didn't make Shira envious, or feel threatened around Yarn. Shira knew Yarn’s secret desires, and young beauty wouldn’t appeal to his appetites. But there was a question mark around the girl.
“Verity!” Shira said. “We have to look out for each other! We are the only two women.” It annoyed her that the girl didn’t answer. Their predicament didn't seem to scare the younger girl as much as it did her.
Come to think of it Verity never really said a whole lot, even when Riff had come dragging this pretty innocent girl to the captain on Jade 2.0.3. with his tongue hanging out. Couldn’t even construct a proper sentence, idiot of a man he was. The supposed genius, or in Yarn’s words ‘best engineer this side of the galaxy’ when it came to physics. The way he drooled over Verity, clearly his intelligence didn’t extend past the workings of machinery.
She was the daughter of some ‘black traders,’and claimed she was looking for fast money. If that were true then how the girl had managed to retain such a polished demeanor was a mystery. She’d known enough black traders to know that this girl did not belong in that world. They were a slimy lot. At least Shira was honest about her work. It was pure.
It still made Shira bitter to think how much they had received for the payload on Jade. Shira knew what the items would fetch once they hit mainstream circulation. It was becoming harder and harder to offload goods, so there hadn’t been a great deal of choice in the matter. Yarn just took it in his stride, his infuriating nonchalant way. Shira felt like their line of work was slowly being squeezed out. Now rumors of crews being tried and even executed by the U.W.F. Hell, that was unheard of. Goddam Terras hypocrites. Well, less competition for her crew. She smiled at the thought, but as she looked at the surrounding jungle, her expression became stern. Perhaps we are the next crew to be squeezed out, right here on this forsaken rock.
She watched Verity chewing silently with those haunted brown eyes. Yes, Earth had been a dirty job. It was a turf war by the time they arrived. The battles had left only slim pickings, most of which had been marred by the fighting. This was her first taste, perhaps that was the reason for her keeping her distance from us, Shira considered, she hasn't seen the wonderful treasures to be had and tasted the spoils of an easy planet.
If only she’d been on the previous raid, they had arrived well before the others and had first pickings. They were already leaving as the others ships arrived and the battles began. They had been able to get out of dodge with the spoils, and not even have to deploy a single driver to the planet. Shira hated waking them from status sleep. They were programmed megalomaniacal military geniuses, the chemicals that kept them obedient seemed about safe as a leash on a Cator fighting lizard.
Earth, had been a different story. The planet had been sending all kinds of signals and waves out into space. The planet wasn't just singing, it was a choir, an unbearable scent drawing all ships on this spiral arm in for the kill. The plunder to be had. Earth was ripe for the picking.
It was inevitable that the other ships arrived about the same time. There had been no discretion or civility, it was a race, and all the crews knew the I.G.P wouldn't be far behind. Nobody wanted to be there when they arrived, blazing hydrons that was for sure!
By the time Shira’s crew arrived Bonobo’s ship had already claimed a continent. His drivers were deployed on the planet, the drinking water already laced with chemicals to control the territory.
She looked around the group at the drivers, gnawing on the tough meat. Most of them had probably fought on Earth, hell some of them may even be fresh meat from Earth.
*
Oliver stood on the river bank with the others trying to gauge the distance to the far bank. A morning mist hovered on the water’s surface. The small islands scattered before them rose out of the white fog, eerily floating as if mystically supported. For a split second, he was transported back to Dusky sound in Fiordland New Zealand.
“Four hundred meters,” Yarn Estimated. His hand was above his brow to stop the glare from the morning sun as he scrutinized. “We will have to link together!”
“Four hundred meters at the least! Jerome lumbered forward. His soft voice was a stark contrast to his massive frame. His large flat face paled as he looked at the depth of the water. He had none of the bravado he had displayed on the first stretch. “That's too deep!” he said. “I can't swim!”
“I told you this big meatball was dead weight!” Cass laughed, and his lip pulled at the ugly scar. He shoved past the pale-faced Jerome. “It was just a matter of time before that one dropped off.”
“Say that when you're not holding that blaster gun you son of a bitch,” Jerome muttered under his breath.
Oliver swiveled to look at the mountain man. His eyes squinted in recognition. That wasn’t the driver command language. It was English. Jerome was from Earth! Oliver felt a rush of elation. This was someone he could confide in. An ally. He would have to approach Jerome when the opportunity arose, but he’d need to do it carefully not to alert the others.
Yarn ignored Cass’s comment and looked to the others. “Ideas?”
Verity’s voice surprised Oliver.
“Trap air in the jumpsuits!” she said.
Until now she had only ever spoken quietly to Shira, and never addressed the group. She waded into the river a short way to test the depth. Wet jumpsuit clinging to her body.
Oliver watched her appraisingly. Was that a nervous glance in his direction?
After his revelation that Verity and Shira were not drivers, he deduced the women weren't acting alone. It was simply not possible for that slim girl and the older woman to have dragged all these grown men to the river bank at the landing site. No. They had help from other men in the group. Men who were clearly trying to conceal their true identities. Oliver just had to be patient and observe. Verity or Shira would slip eventually and reveal the identities of men who were not drivers. But it wasn’t easy, driver behavior was full of bravado, making it hard to know whic
h men were acting. He had already caught Verity watching him on several occasions. Yes, he needed to be more careful! If they discovered he was on to them, he would become a target.
“The material is waterproof.” she continued in a strong voice. “You could tie the arms off. Two jumpsuits would provide enough floatation.” Water dripped from her chin. Fine features framed her intense dark eyes while she spoke. She was actually acting passionate about helping Jerome. You won’t fool, me you fraud!
Drake, a tall, dark driver with ebony features, pulled Shira in front of himself. “You go before me, woman!” He slapped her bottom cheek so hard it propelled her forward a few steps.
She rounded on the driver, fury in her cold eyes. “You second-rate piece of trash!” She spat.
Oliver felt cold satisfaction watching. Drake’s behavior he would have found disdainful in his old life, but it took him a split second to remind himself what Shira had done, and who she really was.
Costa caught Shira's hand as she held it ready to strike the man, and pulled her roughly over to the oVerity. “Woman in the middle!” he said evenly. His blue eyes were impassive and disinterested, as she turned her anger to him and struggled against his grip.
“Let me go damn you!” Shira ripped her arm free of Costa, shooting him a reprimanding glance. “Let's make this happen fast. We need to get across and get dry.” Her jaw was chattering from the cold. The windchill was dropping her temperature fast. Shira was by far the leanest of the group.
She stood only feet away from Oliver. He had to use all his self-control not to launch himself at the woman and strangle her where she stood. Her air of superiority seemed obvious to him now, even though she was trying to downplay it.
Oliver stripped off his jumpsuit revealing a pale, flat torso, marred with scars. He was naked apart from his boots, which he left on to protect his feet against the stones. Others did the same. Drivers had no shame about being naked. Oliver’s body had been exploited, probed, and augmented. It seemed trivial to be concerned about modesty. Funny, the other men didn’t seem to notice that the women retained their jumpsuits.
Finally, after tying the arms on two jumpsuits and filling them with air, they wrapped the simple floatation device around Jerome's big chest and then embarked on the crossing.
The water ended up being chest level most of the way, and they held their footing on the algae covered rocks by staying together. The final fifteen meters was too deep, and they had to swim for it. Jerome floundered, slapping the water with his hands but eventually reached the bank thirty yards downstream.
Oliver had to drag the despondent Crow behind at the rear. Crow hadn't spoken for days, his empty eyes and forlorn expression didn't stir in the deathly cold temperatures of the water. The short, stocky driver had woken on the first day at the crash site in a blaze of bravado, killing another driver in a scuffle for leadership. As the drugs wore off and he sobered, his memory returned. He hadn't adjusted like the other drivers. He had plunged into some dark place in his mind, Oliver knew that place, he’d almost lost himself to despair when Lego had revealed the true horror of Oliver’s plight. Sometimes Crow mumbled incoherent words, a lost language, his language, from a world that had been pillaged and destroyed.
*
Both Oliver and Crow didn't notice as something slipped out of the undergrowth on the riverbank they were leaving behind. It kept it’s two-meter body low to the ground. Hundreds of short legs writhed underneath to give it the appearance of gliding inches above the earth. It slithered over the ground to where the group had spent the night. The creature relied almost entirely on its sensitive odor detection to guide it. It worked like a radar, making up for the absence of eyes, as it moved back and forwards probing the deserted campsite on the riverbank.
Only two days earlier many of these scents were new and strange to the creature, but now they were familiar. The sweet musty smell of man’s sweat, the reek of burnt animal flesh on the smoldering embers of a fire. But those smells were of no interest. It sought the odor that had first drawn it to this alien troop. The peculiar yet familiar smell drove the creature’s instincts, which had kept its species alive for millennia.
The creature's impervious, armor-plated back, had millions of infinitesimal pockmarks that gave it a light absorbent quality, a sort of camouflage, the effect was an indistinguishable shadowy grey. The hundreds of spiny milky white legs and creamy translucent underbelly was hidden by the low profile of the creature.
It frantically searched among the now familiar human smells for the one thing it hunted. Suddenly the unique scent filled its senses like a drug. It stopped abruptly, arced its small head back to taste the air with its feelers. Yes! It was there. It was faint, but it had been here, the smell of a female mammal. Deep instincts guided the creature, and it latched onto the scent like a homing beacon, then slid silently into the water about fifty meters behind the human chain battling through the freezing current, leaving only a small disturbance on the surface, which quickly disappeared in the current.
13. Crow
Shira's tall, lean body was convulsing in shivers. Her body’s mechanism to stave off hypothermia. Shira’s age, in Terras years, was about forty-four, but it became hard to keep track of exactly with all the traveling in stasis sleep. It was just the way second-stage life was, you spent most of your life with your body operating at low temperature in slow-time because society was spread across half of the galaxy. She estimated she had been alive around nine hundred years including cryogenic chamber time, but you never counted that. The skin seemed looser around the muscles than it did ten years ago, under the arms, on the thighs. It was providing her with no insulation right now. “Damn it. Come on! We need that fire now.”
Almost instinctively the drivers came together in a penguin huddle, letting their collective body heat warm them. All their battle instincts and knowledge was not forgotten, as the chemicals wore off. Yes, she’d seen this behavior from drivers in cold combat environments, using the serfs for warmth.
Shira did not want to get squashed between all these naked first-stagers. She noticed Verity was also hesitant, but then logic quickly overcame any reservations. It made perfect sense in their dangerously cold state. She reluctantly pressed up against the other naked bodies. They alternated, taking turns on the outside. None had to be told, the rotation was instinctual, like an Eltrit chick knowing what direction the nearest Tarn tree was. Programed in their first-stage brains. But she did feel much warmer after only ten minutes. The men dissipated and quickly gathered firewood.
“Come on! Come on, you piece of junk,” Cass had the blaster pointed at the pile of kindling and was pulling the trigger and shaking the firearm to no avail.
“Hurry up and start the fire,” Shira barked.
“Blaster’s finished,” Cass tapped the weapon to remove the water.
“What do you mean finished?”
He looked up at all the faces watching him intently. He thought for a moment, “must’ve been the water.”
Shira noticed the drivers didn’t seem so concerned by this crisis. The injured driver Cougar was standing directly above Cass watching him fiddle with the useless blaster. Piece of junk! Great deal of help that had brought them.
“The water?” Cougar asked suspiciously. “You’re saying it’s water damage?”
He was leaning heavily on his crutch. His infected leg causing him distress. She saw the small red veins splaying out from the leg wound and the way he lagged at the back, with that other brain dead driver. He won’t last! she decided.
“Yeah, I guess the water got into it,” Cass shook the weapon in front of the driver.
“Oh, that's just great!” Shira screamed. “No food! Nothing to shoot food with! No fire! This is a nightmare!”
*
Oliver was unable to engage Crow in conversation, so plodded along at the back in silence with him. They followed the river along the plateau the rest of the morning. It was slow going, they had no food and were al
l at exhaustion point after crossing the river. Each step sent pain shooting through Oliver’s body and was an agonizing battle.
By midday, the river had widened to nearly eight hundred meters across but had become as smooth as slick oil. The sun started setting behind the moon, and the shadow from the half eclipse swept across the land to shroud the travelers. They slumped to the ground, using the chance to rest their depleted bodies.
“Hey, Costa!” Jerome got the man’s attention. Piercing blue eyes looked back under a cocked eyebrow. “There never was any smoke!” Jerome said. “You never saw any civilization! Brick was right. You are full of shit.” Then Jerome changed from the command language they were using to his native tongue English. “This is going to end soon.”
Jerome was startled to hear Oliver’s quiet voice answering in English. “Hang in there. We're survivors.” Oliver reassured him.
Jerome spun around to see Oliver leaning over, with a pained expression on his face. Oliver kept his voice low. “Someone got us out of there you know? Some of these people here dragged us out of that landing craft. They’re the ones who are responsible for getting us into this.” He leaned in towards Jerome making sure what he said could not be overheard. “Somebody got us off, and it's some of the ones here. That was a spaceship we were on and, Jerome, we are not on Earth anymore. We've got to be careful.”
Jerome nodded looking around the group.
Before Oliver could explain further, they were interrupted by Riff yelling. He was pointing excitedly at something ahead in the dim light. “There is something in the air there.” He waited, watching the group with his beady nervous eyes.
“I see it! Some kind of haze,” Cass stood and strained his eyes in the same direction. “It’s too damn dark.”
