by David Mack
Flames crackled and danced around a tiny, gutted rodent carcass, which was impaled on a scrap-metal spit mounted on a pair of Y-shaped branches. Evaporating water inside the firewood hissed as it escaped, and one of the logs fissured along its length with a sharp pop. The aroma of cooking flesh had Pembleton’s stomach craving sustenance, but it wasn’t his turn to eat. Every other meal was reserved for Kiona Thayer, who needed to maintain her strength to fend off infection and promote the healing of her wounded foot, which would soon be strong enough for her to walk.
Mazzetti, who had become the group’s de facto cook, gave the broiled rodent another quarter-turn on the spit. “Almost done,” he said to Thayer, who nodded.
A chilling gust made the taut ropes of their shelter sing with vibration. Graylock eyed the ramshackle mass of metal, fabric, and microfiber rope. Then he turned with a glum expression back toward the fire and scratched at his stubbled face. “We need to reinforce before we get more snow,” he said.
The three MACO privates groaned, and Steinhauer hung his head in denial. The chief engineer had sent them on daily hikes back up the slope, to salvage everything they could carry back down from the debris of Mantilis. Between the thin air and the strain of fighting this planet’s gravity, it would have been a miserable assignment even in good weather.
Crichlow sighed, frowned, and shook his head. “Right, lads. Time for another trip up Junk Mountain.”
“Steinhauer, make sure you check the traps before we go,” Pembleton said. To the two officers, he said, “It’ll be faster work if I go with them to lend a hand. Will you two be all right here on your own for a few hours?”
Thayer harrumphed. “Sure,” she said. “We’ll have a grand ol’ time. Maybe we’ll go ice fishing.”
Through chattering teeth, Mazzetti replied, “For what? More poisonous seaweed?”
“I think she was kidding, Nicky,” Crichlow said.
Pembleton summoned all his willpower to stand and step away from the comfort of the fire. “On your feet, men, we need to move. We’ll only have about nine hours of daylight today. Let’s not waste them.” Watching the privates lag and dawdle, he coaxed them. “Up, gents. With a purpose, let’s go.”
Getting his men in motion was always the hardest part of the day. Once they were walking, even uphill, they were fine. It was a simple matter of overcoming their inertia.
* * *
Two hours later, they had settled into a rhythm, trudging single-file up the easiest face of Junk Mountain. Their boots crunched through the thin, icy crust and sank almost knee-deep into the wet, heavy snow underneath. “We need snowshoes,” said Pembleton. “Any of you know how to make snowshoes?”
Steinhauer replied, “I do, Sergeant.”
“Consider yourself volunteered when we get back to camp.”
“Jawohl, Sergeant.”
Crichlow, walking point, lifted his fist and halted the squad. He looked back at Pembleton, made a V sign with two fingers under his eyes, and pointed to something several meters away, to the right of their position. Pembleton strained to pick out textural details in the vast swath of white.
Then he saw them: fresh footprints. Animal tracks.
Something big. Maybe even edible.
Graylock’s infusion of parts and materials would have to wait. Their shelter wasn’t perfect, but it would hold for another night. Food was a far more pressing concern, one that needed to be dealt with as soon as possible.
Pembleton eased his phase rifle off his shoulder and into his hands. The three privates unshouldered their weapons and mimicked Pembleton as he released his rifle’s safety. With a series of quick gestures, he gave the order to move out and follow the animal tracks in the snow.
Crichlow remained on point, and the four MACOs remained in single-file formation as they stalked their prey. The trail led uphill, along a more treacherous section of the mountain’s face. Within an hour, it was clear that the animal had taken refuge in a massive formation of jagged, coal-black crags.
“Steinhauer,” whispered Pembleton. “Scanner.”
The private, whose formerly severe crew cut had started to grow out into ragged shocks of fair hair, retrieved and activated his hand scanner. On Graylock’s orders, the survivors had been sparing in their use of the devices, and also their weapons, because recharging them in the weak arctic sunlight was problematic. The team was supposed to resort to the powered equipment only as an emergency measure.
Starvation counts as an emergency, Pembleton decided.
Thrusting and slashing with his arm, Steinhauer directed the squad through a narrow pass in the crags. The men braced their weapons against their shoulders and hovered their fingers over the feather-touch triggers. Every step of the way, Steinhauer directed them toward the animal’s life sign.
Then he held up a fist. The group halted.
He checked the scanner again. Looked up and around. Held up two fingers and pointed in one direction, then another. Two signals, diverging. Retreating deeper into the crags.
Pembleton gave the signal to advance in pairs, with each covering the other. Steinhauer and Mazzetti pushed ahead, while Crichlow remained at Pembleton’s side.
The pass grew narrow as the four men worked their way past several irregular switchbacks, trading the point position at each one. Inching around another corner, Pembleton saw the narrow trail open into a small clearing. It was somewhere in the middle of the towering rock formation, which jutted up on all sides toward the ashen sky.
In the middle of the clearing was a mound of gnawed-rough bones, half buried in the bloodstained snow. It took him only a fraction of a second to realize that he and his team were not hunters here in this frozen wasteland but prey.
He turned to give the order to fall back. Then he heard Mazzetti scream. The crags filled with the shrill echoes of a phase rifle firing on automatic. He sprinted back through the pass, his muscles burning with fatigue as they fought the gravity, his lungs screaming for oxygen in the thin mountain air. Stumbling through a hairpin turn, he found Steinhauer standing with his back to a slab of rock, snapping off short bursts of charged plasma into random gaps between the sawtooth stones. The man’s entire body was shaking with the effects of adrenaline overload.
A few meters farther down the pass, all around Mazzetti’s dropped rifle, there were massive splatters of blood on the snow. Red chunks of viscera dangled from rough edges between the crags, along a steady crimson smear on the rocks—the kind of stain that would be made by dragging a mauled man over them.
“Cease-fire!” said Pembleton. He laid a hand on top of Steinhauer’s rifle, and the private relented in his pointless barrage. “Lead us out of here, Private.”
Steinhauer regarded him with a horrified stare. “We can’t just leave Niccolo to those … those things,” he said.
Pembleton took the hand scanner from Steinhauer’s belt, powered it up, and made a quick sweep for life readings. Then he turned it off and handed it back to the private. “Mazzetti’s dead,” he said. “Move out, back to camp. That’s an order.”
With a keen awareness of now being the hunted, Pembleton retrieved the dead man’s dropped rifle and herded his two shocked-silent enlisted men back the way they had come, out of the pass, and back down the mountainside. One man short, the squad retreated into the coming night.
Graylock will have to make do without any more spare parts, Pembleton decided. Because if the predators on this planet are anything like the ones on Earth, this isn’t over.
He feared it wouldn’t be long before he faced these creatures again. It would be dark soon.
* * *
The line between existence and oblivion had become faded and permeable for the Caeliar exiles. Robbed of mass, Lerxst now recalled physical sensations only as abstractions. Texture and temperature were no longer comprehensible to him since he had given up his frame of reference in the material realm. Motion was all but imperceptible. Pressure had given way to an almost unbearable dispersion of his es
sential being.
All that remained real to him was the emotional landscape of the gestalt, his communion with the other eleven Caeliar.
“Time seems to move faster now,” said Sedín, her thoughts instantly shared with the others.
Agreement resonated among them without words.
Ghyllac added, “I no longer sense a distinction between light and darkness. Everything has turned to twilight.”
Assent came from Felef, Meddex, and Ashlok.
“I can’t remember twilight,” countered Denblas, drawing concurrence from Celank and Liaudi.
Ripples of concern came from their youngest, least resolute members—Dyrrem, Narus, and the trio’s speaker, Yneth. “We three cannot remain coherent for much longer without an influx of new energy,” she said. “Our thoughts are …” She submerged into a long pause. “Disordered,” she added at last. “Entropic.”
“Without the anchor of mass, we cannot risk traveling this world,” Lerxst told her. “Outside Mantilis, we could become dispersed by natural phenomena such as wind or tides.”
Sedín replied, “And if we remain in Mantilis, we will slide toward chaos without even trying to save ourselves.” Cradling the psionic presences of Yneth, Dyrrem, and Narus in her gestalt projection, she continued, “We must act to save our own.”
“There is nothing we can do,” Ghyllac said. “Our grounding in the physical is now too fragile to tap this world’s resources or to move toward stronger solar radiation at the equator.”
Felef replied, “That is not strictly true. In the most extreme circumstances, there is always consolidation.”
A mental shudder traveled through the gestalt.
Liaudi asked with pointed curiosity, “And how would we decide who was to surrender their energy to the gestalt? Would the strongest expire to sustain the weaker among us? Or would we claim the weakest to bolster the others?”
“It would be best if the selections were governed by dispassionate logic,” said Meddex, “employing a calculation of how to achieve the greatest degree and duration of good from the least amount of sacrifice.”
Ashlok said, “I have already made such an analysis. Despite the logic of it, the sacrifices it demands feel arbitrary. I think it might be best if we let ourselves be guided by our consciences rather than by a tyranny of numbers.”
“Might that be because you find the verdict of the numbers troubling?” asked Celank. “Do they call for your divestment?”
“No, not at first,” Ashlok said. “My concern is that, as Liaudi speculated, the physics of the situation suggest that the maximum survival rate is obtained by sacrificing the weakest for the benefit of those requiring the least aid.”
“Regardless of whether we consolidate according to logic or to our charitable impulses, it still amounts to a slow death by dissolution,” argued Dyrrem.
Narus added, “The humans sustain themselves by consuming the local fauna. Perhaps there is a biological solution to our dilemma as well. Symbiosis, perhaps, rather than consumption.”
“Doubtful,” Sedín said. “Except for trace molecules, we crossed the barrier from organic to synthetic aeons ago. It may not be possible to backtrack on the path of our evolution.”
“Even if it was possible,” Ghyllac said, “we would need a sentient life-form with which to bond, to guarantee sufficient neuroelectric activity to power our catoms. Such a fusion would be a delicate and dangerous undertaking. If it is mishandled, it might debase us or turn our hosts into automatons—or both.”
Lerxst made it clear that his was to be the last word on the matter. “We have neither the strength nor the facilities to perform the necessary research for such a task,” he said. “If we wish to propose it to the humans, we will need to have the ability to pursue it, and that will entail consolidation. If that is the consensus of the gestalt, then we should resolve now which few will donate their energy for the sake of the others.”
The hesitation was brief. Dyrrem, Narus, and Yneth projected their intention to release their catoms’ energy to the gestalt, condemning the last afterimages of their forms to chaos and expiration. Gratitude and sorrow came back to them threefold from those they were about to preserve.
It was a swift transition. Three minds withdrew from the gestalt, which diminished in richness but grew in strength as power flowed through it, restoring form to its remaining members. Dyrrem, Narus, and Yneth were gone.
Sedín asked, “Who will make our proposition to the humans?”
“I will,” Lerxst said.
Ever the cynic, Ghyllac asked, “And if they refuse?”
Lerxst replied, “Then we have just seen the fate that awaits us all.”
* * *
“Try bending it,” Graylock said, over an atonal howl of wind that fluttered and snapped the fabric of the shelter’s walls.
Kiona Thayer flexed her ankle backward and forward in slow, stiff movements. “It’s still fighting me,” she said, nodding at the motor-assist brace Graylock had fashioned to enable her to walk normally.
“I think it’s just the cold,” Graylock said. “Gumming up the lubricant. It’ll be fine once it’s been moving for a while.” He nodded toward the glowing rock in the middle of the enclosure. “Keep it close to the heat, and we’ll try it again in an hour.”
The weight of snow on top of the shelter had caused an unsupported section to droop inward. Graylock ducked under it as he circled around the heated rock to look over Private Steinhauer’s shoulder. The young German man worked with pale, calloused hands, twisting together lengths of separated wood fiber that had been soaked in hot water until they had become flexible enough to manipulate. Woven together into a tight grid, the fibers formed the walking surface of handmade snowshoes.
“Those are looking good, Thom,” Graylock said.
Steinhauer shrugged. “They’re all right.”
“How many pairs do you have finished?”
The private leaned forward and pulled open a folded blanket that protected his finished work. “Two and a half pairs,” he said. Holding up the unfinished, teardrop-shaped shoe frame in his hands, he added, “This will make three.”
“Good, good,” Graylock said with a satisfied nod.
He continued around the shelter’s perimeter and kneeled beside Crichlow, who lay almost on top of the heated rock. The young Liverpudlian was swaddled in blankets, sweating profusely, and shivering with enough force that he seemed to be suffering a seizure. Graylock removed the damp but fever-warmed cloth from Crichlow’s forehead and used it to mop some of the sweat from the sick man’s face and throat. Wringing it out over the dirt near the hot stone, he asked his patient, “Do you prefer it hot or cold, Eric?”
“Cold,” Crichlow said through chattering teeth.
Graylock stepped over to a bowl set near the outer wall. He used a tin cup beside it to scoop out a small amount of cold water and pour it with care over the cloth. Then he brought the cloth back to Crichlow, folded it in thirds, and set it gently across the man’s forehead. “Feel better,” he said to him.
As much as he was tempted to crawl inside his own bedroll and retreat into slumber, Graylock knew when he checked his chrono that sleep would have to wait. He pulled extra layers of Caeliar-made fabric over himself, and he was careful to wrap his face, cover his nose and mouth, and shield his eyes with lightweight goggles he’d borrowed from Crichlow. Before he parted the overlapping folds of the shelter’s entrance, he warned the others, “Bundle up, everyone. I’m heading out.” When the others had draped themselves under covers, he made his exit.
Stepping outside had become an act requiring great willpower. In the fortnight since Mazzetti had been killed, the days had grown noticeably shorter on daylight, and the average temperature had gone from the kind of cold that could give someone frostbite to the kind that could kill a careless person in a matter of minutes.
Graylock watched his breath condense in front of him, filtered through three layers of fabric. Underneath his scarves,
the moisture collected on his skin and chilled instantly, making his face feel clammy. He followed a narrow path that Steinhauer and Pembleton had excavated from the hip-deep snow that surrounded their camp. The footing was slick and icy, and the fact that he was trudging uphill to the lookout position made the short trip all the more difficult.
At the top of the rise, Pembleton paced in a circle around a stand of tall boulders. From there, in clear weather, a sentry could see anything that might approach within seventy to eighty meters of the shelter. Even at night, with only starlight for illumination, it was possible for one’s eyes to adjust and pierce the darkness to keep watch for predators.
The sergeant nodded to Graylock as they met at the mound’s peak. “Evening, Lieutenant,” Pembleton said.
“I’m here to relieve you, Sergeant.”
Pembleton replied, “I wanted Steinhauer to cover Crichlow’s shift, sir.”
“Too bad,” Graylock said. “Steinhauer’s making good progress on those snowshoes. I want him to rest and keep working. The sooner we have five pairs of shoes, the sooner we can move out.”
Nodding, Pembleton said, “I understand, sir. But you’re in command—we need to keep you safe in the shelter. Let me take the late watch.”
“You’ve stood two watches today already,” Graylock said. “It’s a wonder you aren’t frozen solid. Go inside. I can spot motion and shoot a rifle as well as anyone.”
A larger-than-usual plume of breath betrayed Pembleton’s frustrated sigh. “Yes, sir,” he said. He removed the rifle that was slung over his shoulder and handed it to Graylock. “How’s Crichlow doing?”
“Worse,” Graylock said. “I don’t know if it’s a medical issue, like a congenital disease, or a virus or a parasite.”
Pembleton asked, “Can’t the hand scanner tell you that?”
It was Graylock’s turn to sigh, this time in dismay. “The power cell ran out this morning.”
“Can we transfer power from one of the rifles?”
Graylock shrugged. “Not efficiently, and most of the rifles are getting low, too. A few more weeks, and we’re unarmed.” He looked up at the alpine peaks high above them. “Unless we want to make another trip up Junk Mountain and ask the Caeliar for more batteries.”
