Darkness was falling by the time he had a passable rope. John looked at the fading light, wishing it would come back. Trying this stunt at night would be asking to fail, but he was anxious to be on his way. There was something out there. He was sure of it. He didn’t know what it might be, but he wanted to see for himself.
At the same time, the thought of venturing up the cliff a third time filled him with fear. He hated being afraid, but he couldn’t shake the feeling. A fall from the height of the tree would probably kill him. John didn’t want to die.
There wasn’t anyone to put him into the ground. He’d just lay there, broken, at the bottom of the wall forever. Staring up at the sky.
The image was so vivid that he couldn’t help shivering at the thought.
“Not tonight. Tomorrow, though,” John said.
He went back to his fire, which had died to embers, and blew them back into a flame. He cooked his dinner in silence, aware that the deer was nearby, watching him. It had been watching him all day. It seemed curious about his activity, but it never came closer than a half-dozen steps. Instead, it stood there, his ever-present shadow.
“Want some?” John said. He took one of the roots from the fire, blowing on it to cool it off. Then he rolled the thing across the soft grass. It came to rest at the deer’s feet. “Tastes better warm. Get it while it’s hot!”
The deer locked gazes with him. John wondered what it was thinking. He wondered where it had come from, and what it had seen. He wondered if it would be all right after he left. There certainly wasn’t any way to bring it with him over the wall, but there ought to be enough food here for it to survive. After all, it had shown him the roots, right? It has to be all right.
Were there more deer out there somewhere? More humans?
“Tomorrow, maybe I’ll find out,” John said.
Sixteen
“Come on, John, you can do this,” he mumbled.
Hanging on to the bough, a spindly thing this high up in the tree, he struggled to get just a little higher. This climb was much more difficult than his last one. The rope felt like it was made of rocks, trying to drag him back down to the dirt below. Worse yet, it kept catching on branches. Twice, he’d almost fallen because a loop of the rope had become hung up on the tree.
One slip and he’d be done.
John sucked in a deep breath and reached for the next branch. He’d come too far, done too much work. He couldn’t back down now. He pulled himself up and lifted a foot to climb a bit more. That hauled him free from the main branches, and he was looking out over his world.
It was breathtaking. From this vantage point, he could see clear to the ravine. The clouds still swirled there, spinning lazily as a breeze blew through them. John could see the river where it broke between the remaining trees and gurgled over rock and sand. A strong gust swept past his tree, and he grabbed hold as the branches shook, the trunk itself swaying. He waited several seconds after the wind stopped before releasing his fingers, each one aching from having held on so tightly.
“I’m here. Time to get this done,” John said.
He wasn’t thrilled with the subtle tremble he heard in his own voice. It wasn’t wrong to admit that he was afraid. Between the height and the enormity of what he was about to attempt, terror felt rational.
John gently laid the rope across two branches, setting it in a coil so that it wouldn’t tangle with itself or him. He’d already tied the hook to the end. Everything was as ready as it was going to be. He picked up the hook and held it just like he had the stone the day before. He swung his arm back, then cast the hook forward and upward as hard as he could. It sailed through the air.
But it fell short of the wall, never even touching the rocky cliff face before swishing down among the branches below.
“Damn,” John said. “Now what?”
He hauled the rope back upward, but the hook caught on a branch. It took several minutes of careful adjusting to free the thing. Once it grabbed on to something it didn’t seem to want to let go.
“At least I know it works. If it’ll grab these branches, it should hook on to something else,” he said.
He hauled the hook up and examined it. The contraption didn’t seem damaged by the experience. He tested the ties and found them all still secure. The hook hadn’t gone high enough. Maybe throwing underhand would help?
John tried, letting a length of the rope fall, and then swinging the hook into a wide, upward arc. But it didn’t go fast enough. He managed to throw it far enough to clatter against the wall, but it was still nowhere near the top.
Another hauling upward of the hook, another check to ensure it hadn’t broken, and another try that barely made it higher than the last. John growled in frustration.
“It just needs to swing faster,” he said. But how?
He hauled the rope back and decided to try something different. He swung out a short loop of rope and spun the hook around. He had just enough space around the branches to get it swinging in a complete circle. The circle seemed faster than the underhand throw. He spun it again, trying to see how fast he could make it complete the turn. Definitely faster. He set his arm moving the thing around and around, and it seemed to pick up speed with each rotation, building faster and faster.
Finally, when it was going as fast as it would go, he sent it arcing toward the cliff face.
It sailed through the air and clattered over the top, vanishing from view.
“Yes!” John whooped, throwing both hands up in the air.
He’d forgotten where he was for just a moment, and almost tumbled from the tree because of his impromptu celebration. He grabbed the trunk again and held on a few moments, getting his feet properly underneath him. He’d come too far to fall now!
There was still the matter of determining whether or not the hook had actually caught on something. If the hook hadn’t caught, he’d need to haul it back up and keep trying. John tugged on the rope, but it stopped almost immediately.
He was sure the hook had only gone a couple of feet past the lip of the cliff, but it had caught on something anyway. How was that possible? He’d assumed there was another world like his up there, that perhaps his cliff was someone else’s ravine. But what if it was just a wall, and a cliff on the other side, too? That would explain how the hook had caught so easily.
John shifted his weight on the branches beneath his feet, slowly easing himself around until he was standing with the trunk between himself and the wall. Bracing his chest against the trunk, he pulled hard on the rope. He needed to be certain it would hold his entire weight before he went through with the next step.
It held. He yanked harder, putting everything he had into the pull, but it didn’t budge. The hook was supporting his weight, and the rope wasn’t breaking. It looked like it might work after all. If he could find the courage to take the last step.
John looped the rope around his waist three times and tied it off. He didn’t want to lose his grip and fall. Then he stepped back from behind the tree trunk and grabbed hold of the rope with both hands.
The distance from the tree to the wall had seemed so short from the ground. Up here, it was a gulf that felt like it stretched forever. The ground was so far away that a fall might take forever, but the sudden stop at the end would be the end. For good.
John saw a flicker of motion, the deer, looking up at him and watching.
“You really sure you want to do this?” John asked himself. Once he took that last step, there was no turning back.
Yes, he was sure. Not because he hated his world, but because he had to know what else there was. He felt he knew there were other worlds beyond the one he’d lived in, his world felt less like a home and more like a cage. John took a deep breath and stepped off the branch.
He swung through the air, wind whipping wildly through his hair, taking his breath away. For an agonizing period of time he thought the hook had failed and he was falling all the way to the ground. But the cliff face was soaring to
ward him, looming larger in his vision. Everything seemed to slow down. John bent his knees and braced himself for the rough impact he knew was coming.
It still wasn’t enough. His legs smashed into stone, feet scraping against rocks as they tried and failed to soak up his momentum. John’s right foot slid sideways and let his shoulder crash into the rock. Stars filled his vision, and the impact took his breath away. He lost his grip on the vine, the loops tied around his waist the only thing stopping him from making the long drop to the ground.
He shook himself and, panting hard, restored his grip on the rope. His feet were cut by the rock. It looked like he’d lost half the skin from his shoulder. But he’d made it! He pulled his feet up against the rock face, pushing his body away.
Then John reached up with one hand to take a grip of the rope a little higher. Climbing was the only way to reach safety now. The faster he could finish this ascent, the sooner he could be secure on solid ground again. He grabbed another fistful of rope, stepping up with his feet as he climbed hand over hand.
He was going to make it. The top wasn’t far now. John was slick with exertion, his body covered with painful injuries, but he was going to make the top. At last, he was going to see whatever there was to see out there.
There was a loud crack. John could feel it run down the length of his rope, which went slack an instant later. He knew what it meant. Something had given out. Whether it was the hook or the rope, something had broken.
Nothing was holding him up anymore.
As the ground rushed up to meet him, all John could think was that it had been worth it. Trying was its own success, and even if the fall killed him, at least he won that much. Then everything went black.
Seventeen
Experiment 42 Log
Subject in stable condition. Anti-grav units were able to catch specimen and administer a fast-acting sedative to render it unconscious. Minimal harm done to subject. Scientific team debating further courses of action at this time.
While the nudges to improve subject initiative seem to have been successful, it is possible close proximity with a higher life form has increased its agitation more than we might have assumed possible. Specimen has moved from attempting relatively safe means to escape its pen to an extremely risky one more rapidly than we believed possible.
Further contact with the alien might be hazardous to its health.
Kantrobil sighed and looked away from the words his thoughts transmitted onto the screen. He felt horrible. There was no denying it. His actions had helped cause this near-catastrophe. He’d suspected that intervening as much as they were in the subject’s day to day life might have consequences, but he’d never imagined the animal would go so far in risking its life as a result.
Not that he was above putting an animal down if the work required it. He’d done it many times over the years. But it was one thing to euthanize a subject intentionally when its participation in the experimental process was over. It was another thing entirely to lose a key subject at a crucial juncture. Worse yet to accidentally cause the loss!
Or near loss. He reminded himself that they’d stepped in to save the animal before it fell to its death. It was none the worse for wear, and that of course was a problem in its own right.
“We’re going to have to injure it,” Kantrobil said.
“Why would we want to do that?” Felizian asked. Neither of them had any question which subject they were talking about. They had many cages with a wide variety of specimens in various stages and states, but Experiment 42 was taking up a lot more of their time and thought than any of the others.
“We need to discourage a repeat performance. If it wakes and has suffered no damage, the animal will likely assume it can try again with impunity,” Kantrobil replied.
“If it tries again, we can just stop it from dying again,” Felizian reminded him.
“Yes, but did you watch the feeds? It was clearly frightened to take that jump,” Kantrobil said. Understandably so. Without technology beyond a crude rope and hook to support him, he couldn’t imagine making that leap himself. “The subject knew what it was doing was dangerous. It understood there was risk. If it wakes up and has no injuries…”
“Then it might begin to think something is off,” Felizian said. “I understand your thinking. What do you propose?”
“Simple fracture? Bruising and skin tears? We can have the nanites cause the injuries, and then heal them again afterward to get it back on its feet sooner. But it will remember the pain,” Kantrobil said.
Felizian made a face.
“I don’t like it either,” Kantrobil said. “Causing intentional unnecessary pain goes against everything we stand for. But I’d argue this is necessary. In fact, leaving the animal with no injury after a fall from that height might do much more harm in the long run. Pain is nature’s way of telling an animal not to do that again.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you. Just expressing my distaste for such crude methods,” Felizian said. “How did we come to this?”
Kantrobil thought that question made an excellent opening statement for his next suggestion. It was important he get Felizian on board or it wouldn’t work. They had to be of one mind on this.
“We came to this because we interfered directly with the specimen,” Kantrobil said. Felizian made to reply, but Kantrobil cut his fellow scientist off. “Wait. Hear me out.”
“All right,” Felizian said.
“You wanted to see how the subject would respond to companionship. Your hypothesis was that its unusual behavior was due to a lack of company, and it was valid to test that. I agreed to this,” Kantrobil said. “But then you showed it a root which could be used to build stronger tools.”
“It was already attempting to build such things,” Felizian said.
“Yes, but you accelerated the process. It could not have built the rope it used in this most recent escape attempt without those roots. Nor could it have built the hook in the first place,” Kantrobil said. “And if anything, I made it worse still by showing it the new food source. We’ve contaminated this subject significantly.”
Kantrobil sighed. “I have half a mind to suggest we terminate this one.”
“No! We have too few second generation subjects as it is…” Felizian started.
“I agree,” Kantrobil said. “That’s why I said half a mind. Losing this one right now could cost us years of work, so we need to avoid that. But that means we must be even more cautious than ever, moving forward. We must not allow ourselves to become involved. It’s just an animal, Felizian. It’s a subject. We can be humane and aloof, and we must be, if we are to succeed.”
Felizian looked away, and for a long moment, Kantrobil thought his partner would protest, would open new lines of debate. He readied his own counter-argument, more than willing to discuss the issue at whatever length was necessary to reach resolution. But then Felizian looked back at him and nodded. Kantrobil froze, startled.
“I agree,” Felizian said. “We will avoid contact with the subject and take special care to not further contaminate it with our presence. If you’ll excuse me, I need to look in on some of the other subjects.”
Felizian walked off, leaving Kantrobil to his thoughts. The nod, such a simple motion, but so profound! For the humans, it was a form of communication, showing assent. But that movement was meaningless for Kantrobil’s species. He would have to think long on this.
Who was contaminating whom?
Eighteen
The first thing John felt as he slowing regained consciousness was pain. It seemed like the sensation infused every fiber of his body. Every muscle, bone, and sinew screamed at him with intolerable agony.
The second thing he felt was surprise. When the vine broke, and he plummeted to the ground, he’d accepted his fate. He knew, intuitively, that there was no living through a fall from that height. He should have broken every bone in his body when he landed. But he was still breathing. His heart was beating. Somehow, imp
ossibly, he had survived.
His eyes fluttered open. John lay on his back, staring at the sky. Judging from the position of the sun, he’d been there for perhaps half a day. He tried to sit up and immediately regretted moving at all. The intense pain forced him to lie still, unable to breathe, even to cry out.
Slowly, as the sun shifted toward the horizon and evening began to fall over his world, John’s pain receded. It was no longer impossible to shift his hand, just excruciating. He managed to bring his fingers up where he could see them. They were coated with dried blood, the digits badly mangled, but they were all still there. John lifted his head next, and although everything swam in his vision he could see his legs. One looked fine, but the right one was twisted at an angle that looked wrong. He’d shattered something in the fall. His tortured ribs suggested he'd broken more than just his leg.
“I’m a mess,” he muttered, the first whisper he’d been able to make since falling. His lips were cracked, dry, bleeding. He was a mess, but he was alive. That was something.
It was full night before he was able to drag himself toward the river. The distance wasn’t far, but he barely managed it. His leg and ribs screamed with every foot he crawled. But John needed water more than anything. His throat was dry as dust, and he desperately wanted something to drink. The relief of being able to roll over and cup little handfuls of precious liquid into his mouth was more than compensation for the agony he went through to get there.
John slept in the open that night near the river. It was a restless sleep, full of bad dreams and sudden awakenings every time he tried to shift position. Each movement would bring him back fully awake from the intense pain. Then he would drift off again, only to repeat the process a short while later.
The Human Experiment Page 7
