by Luke Norris
“There's no way anybody saw smoke from the crash site,” Jerome said. “We've walked a hundred and fifty kilometers before seeing this first sign of human activity...there is no way he could see that far from a tree. He was right about the direction though,” he paused, “he must’ve had knowledge about the continent. It’s the only way Cougar.”
Oliver looked at Jerome's menacing form. He is an intelligent man too, must have been a formidable driver. “You might be right about Costa,” Oliver said, “but he also could just be a driver. It’s a theory, not certain. Be careful not to act too hastily there big boy. Two of our troops have died in as many days. I’ve been observing carefully, but haven’t been able to decisively identify any others yet.”
Oliver hadn’t told Jerome everything. He left out that he’d been woken on the mothership and he’d spent every waking moment slowly identifying the pirates in their midst. He wasn’t sure what lingering drugs Jerome might be subject to. Would the man act rashly if Oliver shared his other suspicions? “At least the rain has stopped,” Oliver continued, “I think we might actually make it off the side of this death trap.”
“Yes you are right, we have to be cautious,” Jerome said, ignoring the change of subject, “and I don’t know who did it, but that Cass had it coming, he was one of them!” He looked down the track, confirming they were still out of earshot. “Also I don't like that Ponsy, he keeps speaking to himself in that strange language of his...it's nothing from our planet.”
Oliver stopped and hunched over steadying himself on the wall.
Jerome looked at his pale face. “Man you might make it to the bottom of this cliff, but you aren't going to make it two more days!”
“Ha! Well, you still have the compassion of a driver.” Oliver’s laugh became a heaving cough.
Jerome smiled grimly realizing how callous he sounded. “Don't feel bad,” he compensated, “we won’t be far behind if we don't reach those farms and get some food.”
They were interrupted by some commotion back up the trail from where they had come. An agonizing cry from one of the women could be heard. Men yelling frantically.
“Somebody’s fallen?” Jerome said. “I am surprised we made it this close to the base without it happening sooner. I'll take a look.” He left Oliver and hurried back up toward the confusion.
A few moments later, the lean figure of Riff hurried passed Oliver in the same direction.
He came up behind the group, but the narrowness of the path meant he couldn't see what was happening. There were two people struggling on the ground. It sounded like one was a woman.
“What's happening?” Jerome asked.
“Something has attacked Shira!” Costa turned and did a quick double take at seeing the large form of Jerome behind him. “It’s wrapped around her.”
Oliver could see Yarn swinging a rock against a grey armored creature. It had encircled the middle of the Shira in a chainmail ball and was impervious to Yarn’s attacks.
“Get underneath it, to its belly!” Ponsy yelled.
Costa turned to Jerome “Do you still have your utility knife? Quick man, give it here!”
Jerome pulled out the blade, hesitating. Costa's penetrating blue eyes stared back under a thick expressionless brow.
Careful Jerome! Oliver thought, Costa could be one of them. He seems extra protective of the woman. Best hold onto that knife.
“I need it back,” Jerome said as another shriek of pain came from Shira.
“Of course. Now give it to me!" Costa snatched the knife from the outstretched hand of Jerome and dashed over to the writhing tangle on the ground.
Yarn stood with a look of helplessness. “It's skin is too hard! The rock does nothing!”
Ponsy took hold of the creature's head, which had wrapped around Shira’s body to link with its tail at her back. He pulled with all his might to pry it away but managed to only raise a small portion of its body from the woman. A milky white belly could be seen with small wriggling legs desperately trying to reattach itself to its prey. Costa was quick. He darted in with the small knife he had and started stabbing and hacking at legs. It had an instant effect and the prehistoric arthropod began to unwrap and release the woman. They rolled her onto her back, so the creature covered only her stomach. Costa stabbed relentlessly as Yarn and Ponsy took each end to pull it away. Shira let out an agonized wail. Jerome and Riff were helpless bystanders watching the scene unravel.
“Oh, sweet lord,” Oliver exclaimed as they slowly succeeded in pulling the heavy creature away.
He could see now the cause of pain for Shira. As the creature was being pulled away a thin needle-like tube from its belly was withdrawing from an entry wound in the woman's lower abdomen. Even as this was happening, he saw two small round bulges the size of large cherries, traveling down the creature’s translucent tube, like the digesting meal of a snake, and entering Shira's gut. She let out another howl.
As soon as they pulled the beast free of the woman it abruptly constricted itself into a tight ball, protecting its vulnerable underbelly, leaving only impenetrable grey armor. Costa thrust the knife onto the shell, but it deflected harmlessly aside. Ponsy bashed rocks over it to the same useless effect. Eventually, the two men slid the thing to the edge of the trail until it toppled off the side.
Shira's face was ashen from the trauma, and she lay several minutes without attempting to rise. The color slowly returned to her face, and the shock wore off she groaned in pain. After several minutes she was able to stand under the guidance of Ponsy and Yarn. Unbelievably the wound on her stomach was not bleeding, a clear mucus substance from the creature had sealed the skin closed like glue.
“It doesn't hurt so bad now.” Shira’s speech was slurred. “It's only a small cut. I'm ok.” She shrugged herself free from her helpers.
They started making the final descent when Ponsy's deep voice brought his attention back.
“I'll be damned.”
Oliver looked back to see the slater glide back up over the edge of the path. As soon as Costa and Ponsy approached it however it instantly closed into an armored ball. When they started walking it would follow ten meters behind. When they stopped, it stopped. If they approached it the slater snapped into its impervious shell.
“This is the devil, we can't kill it, and it won't leave,” Costa said, sliding Jerome's knife into his belt.
In the chaos Jerome’s forgotten to ask for it back. Oliver noticed
“We have to keep going!” Yarn said. The creature had stopped and would not continue until the men did, only its feelers were constantly moving. “It's not attacking! We have to keep looking over our shoulders!”
“Then we are taking turns at the back!” Riff said, who suddenly found himself at the rear, closest to the creature. His beady eyes were darting even more nervously than normal. As the day wore on the creature didn't come any closer, it just kept the same ten meter following distance, until slowly the threat seemed to diminish in their minds.
17. Sleepless
Ponsy felt a sense of nostalgia upon reaching the base of the cliffs. Being up high had reminded him of home. The years he’d spent living alone on the heights, carving his dwelling into the living stone. He had dared to climb where even other Sakrees would not. Maybe it was this foolhardiness that had been his curse, and made the visitors choose him to be a driver. He’d been the youngest to complete the trial at age twelve. Parents forbade their children to begin so young. Ponsy had no parents. Every day since the trial he had made the death-defying climb, with his masonry tools to hew the stone, and sculpt the architraves, as was his right. He had cultivated a modest dwelling. Modest only in size, but palatial to behold, and boasting views to make even the elders jealous. Elders who had spent many decades fashioning their impressive homes in the cliff face, had called Ponsy’s facade work ostentatious, and unnecessary. Yet Ponsy would often catch them regarding his handy work in wonder.
Being up high on the cliff face had awoken old emot
ions. Emotions he thought had died with his home. He wasn’t sure if there were tears on his face or it was wet from the rain. But those streets and homes had burned and crumbled in the end hadn’t they? The city at war. He would rebuild, it was what he did.
It was somehow lonely among these men. They were all hard men, and the women kept to themselves. He had tried to engage with the injured driver Cougar, but the man didn’t say much, and he seemed suspicious of Ponsy. It came as no surprise, Ponsy had been dismissed by others his entire life, including his mother from before he could remember. It didn’t bother him, on the contrary, it drove him onward. He’d made it his mission to prove the other Sakrees wrong, and he would do the same with these people, he always did in the end.
Initially, Shira seemed to have recovered from the attack, but it slowly became apparent that she was not herself, and she was deteriorating. She was hardly talking, and her answers weren't making sense when she spoke. Her skin was sallow, sunken eyes framed by her drawn vacant expression. Ponsy and Yarn had to continually guide her to walk in the right direction. After a while of walking through the rolling foothills, Shira suddenly stopped, turned around and started walking toward the rear of the procession.
“Shira it’s this way! Shira, where are you going?” Ponsy went to gently coax her in the right direction but was meet with surprising strength from the lean woman, as she pushed him aside. She didn't look at him though. Her hollow expression faced forward. She reached the back of the group and continued. Yarn, Ponsy, and Riff ran to stop her.
“Shira what are you doing? That creature is back there!” Yarn said.
She pushed against the men in her zombie-like state.
“She wants to go to it!” Ponsy said. “Look! It's calling her.”
Indeed, the front of the slater's body was arched back off the ground, and it was sweeping its head from side to side.
“I can't hear anything,” Yarn said. “It must be using a smell...It's done something to her.”
The second time this happened Yarn gave the order, “Shira walks at the front of the group, as far from that thing as possible! When it calls her one of you rush at it and cause it to go into a ball! That seems to stop it sending a signal to her. What I would give to have that blaster now.”
Ponsy rushed at the creature yelling, causing it to snap closed defensively. Shira came out of her trance slightly, and they were able to coax her back in the opposite direction again.
This woman didn’t deserve this fate! Ponsy thought. She’s been pulled away from her world just like me.
The storm clouds had cleared before dark. Millions of beads of moisture on the grass and trees around the camp were aglow with the eerie light of the moon which hung low in the night sky above them. The peculiar green lights in the atmosphere was a phenomenon the drivers had become familiar with seeing most nights. They flickered and glowed against the shapeless black clouds that remained, like some electrical experiment of the gods.
The drivers that pretended to sleep on the damp, muddy ground could see the silhouettes of the men struggling to keep Shira held to the ground and stop her from going to the creature. It looked and sounded like the scene of an exorcist.
“Hold her down!” Ponsy's deep voice cut over Shira's screams of protest.
“Damn it, feel her head! She's on fire!” Riff said. Another fit of shivering consumed the woman followed by a low hoarse scream.
“Somebody charge that bloody creature!” Shouted Yarn.
“We can't see it in the dark.” Ponsy replied, “it could be anywhere around our camp.”
Shira's back arched off the ground then she sat with supernatural strength arms stretched forward, reaching for some invisible lover.
“There! In that direction!” Yarn yelled.
Ponsy dashed in the direction of the outstretched fingers from the possessed woman. “I've found it!” he said. He approached the thing, and it curled instantly into a ball to protect itself.
“It worked!” Yarn confirmed, supporting Shira as her depleted form slumped back down in instant relief, oblivious to the outburst that had possessed her. Yarn lay her body back onto the grass and she slid instantly into an exhausted slumber.
“It put something inside her body, and now she wants to go to it,” Riff said. “Whatever it is it’s overpowering her ability to think straight like she's an addict.” He looked at the featureless face of Yarn in the dark. “I think they were eggs it implanted in her. Maybe this is a mechanism for the creature to keep the host nearby until the eggs hatch.”
Both men sat there bewildered for several moments.
“That thing knows we are a threat,” Yarn broke the silence, “and whenever we get within ten meters, it closes up and rolls into that ball shape to protect its underside, it is vulnerable there.”Yarn thought for a moment. “Riff you stay here with Shira! Ponsy help me bring that devil creature closer to camp.”
“You want to bring that bloody dinosaur among the sleepers here?” Riff said
“It’s a case of keeping your enemies closer. Think about it! As long as we keep a watch and have that thing beside us, it will stay closed up in a ball and can't signal Shira. If it tries to open, we have a utility knife, rocks, a stick, we can prod it, and it will close again.”
Ponsy couldn’t help notice the way Riff and Yarn interacted. There was a familiarity to it. Even a hint of friendship. Some words they used didn’t even seem to be in his command language vocabulary. It frustrated him that some men seemed to be able to make connections so easily with others in the group, but he could not. Was it resentment or loneliness that niggled at him?
The two men managed to roll and slide the huge arthropod to where they were sleeping. With men taking turns at watch the creature sat there like a large boulder and did not try and open. Finally, with Shira subdued, a relative silence enshrouded the drivers, Ponsy slipped into his own temporary respite.
*
Verity winced as Shira moaned in her sleep. The captain kicked the creature instinctively, making it close upon itself again. Verity relaxed slightly, but she still felt like there was a knot in her stomach. She was hiding her identity as a crew member to these drivers, each of whom would kill her in a heartbeat if they found out. On top of this, she was hiding her true identity to her own crew, this crew of pirates. What had she gotten herself into? And now this nightmarish situation with Lieutenant Shira! She couldn’t take her groans anymore, they were wearing on her nerves and her sanity. Verity’s stomach tightened.
“That thing really did a number on the lieutenant, right captain!” The engineer said quietly, his nervous eyes gleaming in the green fluorescence of the night sky. “I don’t want to be out of place in saying this, I know she is your woman and all, captain. But that slater is releasing a hormone that is drawing her back to it! And, it got me thinking..”
“You have a cure in mind?” Verity whispered excitedly. “Please tell me you’ve got some idea for some kind of antivenom or medicine. The poor woman. I just can’t bear to see her like this.”
“No, that’s not what Riff had in mind,” Yarn said, looking back to the engineer. “I’ve been thinking the same thing! If we could somehow harvest the hormone or drug that the creature is using this would be the most powerful love potion on the market!”
Sergeant Costa was listening in silence, but let out a grunt of approval.
“Captain, this would fetch a fortune!” Riff said, his eyes gleamed.
“We would fetch a fortune, my boy.” Captain Yarn paused thoughtfully. “There are a lot of dirty men in the upper tiers of society who would use this for their games,” he chuckled, “I can think of a few on Terras.”
“Hell, I would use it!” The engineer laughed.
“No surprises there Riff!” Sergeant Costa grunted.
Verity’s mouth was open in horror. The men could not see her reaction in the dark. Were the crew members really discussed monetizing this, this horrific thing that was happening to Shira? What’s mo
re, this was the captain’s own wife, or whatever strange relationship they had. How could they be so callous, so heartless? This was someone they knew and loved. Shira let out another stifled cry. The engineer threw a rock at the creature in response.
If these two brutes can talk so detached and clinically about somebody they supposedly care about, Verity thought, Then they would discard me in a heartbeat. If they get any inkling of who I really am, I won’t last five minutes.
The knot in Verity’s stomach tightened.
*
Slowly, out of the pure white haze, smudges of pink began to emerge and come into focus around him. Oliver was cold. Deathly cold.
“Hello!” He called.
Why was this place familiar? The question tickled the back of his mind. Where am I? he thought. He peered into the misty white haze, there were no edges, no walls or roof. He rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on the dabbles of color. He started walking towards one of them. I've been here before. I know this place. He walked and walked. The pink form nearest to him began to take shape. It was a body. The body of a dead man, the eyes twitched under the eyelids. Not dead, sleeping.
Oliver looked at the man, uncanny familiarity pinched at him. It's me. He realized. Suddenly the other forms came to stark focus. They were all bodies of naked men lying on the same white gurneys. He turned around and saw them stretching away into the distance, thousands, millions of sleepers in every direction.
He looked back down at his own body sleeping before him. There were tubes in his arms, head, and body.
“Hey!” He called out. “Hey! Somebody help.”
He turned to search for somebody. It gave him a start to see two doctors standing beside him, appearing as if from nowhere. One was in a red lab coat the other wore white. They had friendly expressions, tinged with sadness.
“You have to help me!” Oliver said pointing to himself lying on the gurney. The doctor in red looked at Oliver but didn't respond. Instead reached out and pointed to Oliver's arm.
