by Vicky L Holt
Excitement flared in her eyes for a second, then dimmed to hatred. Without leaving my gaze, she shouted for her guards.
They flanked me. I stood tall, staring at her.
“Naraxthel Roika,” she said, her slow smile revealing her sharp teeth. “I desire you will go on an expedition to the Mountains of Shegoshel.”
The rumble of conversation in the room lulled. Several hunters turned to listen to the Ikma.
“Every name drawn tonight will join in the expedition. Ready yourselves to leave before the younger sister sun sets.”
The occupants of the room gasped. Elder Sister strode from the room, her dark-green skirts and cloak flying behind her.
Phrases such as “unprecedented” and “preposterous” were thrown about, as well as many whispered “kathes.”
The queen had just sentenced the five Lottery winners to death before they even had the chance to further their lineage.
I looked around the room, finding the faces of the four other hunters. Did they suspect I refused her advances? The celebrating died off. One of the females threw the contents of her goblet in the face of Hivelt Matheza before walking out of the room.
Inwardly, I cringed.
Had I not taken the righteous path? The holy path? For hundreds of courses, these had been the ways of Theraxl.
The Ikma was not who I thought she was.
Younger Sister, BoKama, stood to the side. She did not look at me, but rather stared at the gleaming molten images of the Goddesses that adorned the great hall. Her lips moved as if in a silent prayer. My brow creased.
I looked around the room again. This time my eyes met those of the Ikma Scabmal Kama’s Consort. I steeled myself for his censure, yet instead, he bowed his head so slightly I might not have noticed had I looked away. His mouth was a grim line. He knew. And with his begrudging respect, I feared I was the first and only to tell the Elder Sister no. In spite of this awful turn of events, I felt a gentle thrumming in my chest. Realization caused my heart-home to nudge my heart. I was returning to Ikthe.
I passed through the great hall, my fellows and sisters parting before me. Anxiety for the soft traveler hastened my steps to the ship hangar. I heard scuffling behind me, and just as I crossed the threshold, the sharp tang of anger filled my nostrils. I spun in time to get hit in the face with a huge fist.
Blood dripped from the cut on my cheekbone. I swiped it away with my knuckle but stared at Hivelt until he looked away. “Tell me you would have accepted her proposal,” I asked him.
Hivelt growled and looked over at the three other Theraxl. We stood in the housing where our ships waited, scowling at one another.
“You would have?” My voice rose, and my burning eyes met those of my companions. “Every one of you would have?”
I took a step back and spat on the floor.
“It is the way of the Court,” Raxthezana grumbled. “It has been for many cycles.”
Raxkarax spoke up. “You would have known such, had your name been called cycles ago.”
I turned my back on them all. Heaved a breath. Felt a fire low in my belly. Shame. Disgust. Embarrassment. I couldn’t puzzle out my feelings.
“You were honorable to tell us the reason she did this to us,” Hivelt muttered. “The suns have set on this day.”
I turned back again.
“We will survive this quest,” I told them. “All of us. Then we will end the corruption of our ways.”
Their eyes grew large, but they said nothing.
I was returning to Ikthe, as I had wanted, but now I had an audience. A duty to return them to Ikshe alive. A mission to preserve the rituals of my people. Preserve the ways of Theraxl? Which included killing defenseless females if discovered in unexpected places? There was no room to worry about some unknown female, but I did. I could never reveal her presence to them. If she had lived through the night, she wouldn’t survive Theraxl warriors.
I smashed my fist into a wall then stalked to my ship.
A headache pounded inside my skull. “My ship is ready,” I said. “I had my Tech-Slave prepare to leave.”
“You didn’t expect your name to be drawn, did you?” Raxkarax questioned. “You truly know nothing.”
“Naraxthel is a hunter with honor,” Natheka broke his silence. “I hunted with him on his first trek to Ikthe.” He took a step near me. “He saved my life, when he could have saved his own and received great glory.”
I absently rubbed my shoulder, a long-ago wound forgotten until now.
All the while, Raxthezana never said a word. He stared at me as we ran the ship through its protocols.
Of them all, perhaps he deserved to hate me the most. His own father had died on a woaiquovelt expedition. Theraxl lineage requires a single male member to make an expedition every one-hundred cycles. He should have been spared the ordeal.
I spoke no more, choosing instead the stony silence of our forced camaraderie. With the green jewel of Ikthe in the view screen, we fired our engines and left the housing that orbited Ikshe. Many such journeys were made, a well-worn path between the stars, as the sister planets continuously joined in paths that intersected with death.
21
“VELMA, what time is it?”
I rubbed sleep from my eyes and felt mild achiness when I took a big breath. Three cheers for modern medicine.
“Which unit of time measurement would you like me to use? Interplanetary General Time, Earth’s Greenwich Mean Time, or Class B Planet Modified Time?”
“Uh.” It was too early for this nonsense. “Using general Earth terms, when did the suns rise on this planet?”
“The second sunrise was completed twenty minutes ago. The ambient light from this sunrise alerted the melanopsin photopigments in your eyes to begin the awakening sequence.”
That was VELMA. Better than coffee.
“I’m awake, alright. Good ol’ melanopsin,” I grumbled while I unfastened everything. “VELMA, mark the last ping you received from the beacon. I’m going to find it today and set that damn thing up.”
“Last known location marked and saved to your files.”
“Thank you.”
I had a big day ahead of me. Survive. Fix and plant the beacon. Survive some more. Return to my homey little EEP. Punctuated by several more bouts of fighting for my survival. Speaking of survival, I squatted on the ground outside my pod using heavy-duty tape to attach a plate-sized mesh screen to the opposite end of an IGMC-issued machete. It looked like a fly swatter. Er, wasp swatter? Now I could whack them away from me like tennis balls, and if they came back for extra helpings, I’d introduce them to the blade end.
As I trudged through the meadow hefting my weapon, I cussed. My life had come to this.
I left a wake of dead wasps and a blubbery, brown lump. There wasn’t even something on Earth to compare it to. Nevertheless, it stopped blubbing after I was through with it.
“It is inadvisable you kill every form of life you come in contact with.”
“Yeah, well VELMA, it sucked itself to my foot and wouldn’t let go,” I said. “You clearly never saw the movie The Blob.”
“The Blob, a cult hit out of the twentieth century featuring a slow-moving red mass that collected unsuspecting humans as it made its way through town.”
“That’s the one,” I said. “Thanks for the reference.”
“The last known location is found to your right; please avoid falling down the …”
“Gaaaahhhhhh!”
I used my fly-swatter to stop my wild careen down the mud-slide. I remembered it was there. I did.
Hanging by the swatter, I found purchase with my boots on some brown branches. I steered clear of the green roots. I recalled they had minds of their own.
“VELMA,” I gasped out. “How close am I to the beacon?”
“Eight point eight five feet to your right.”
“So, like, at my ten o’clock, or what?”
“O’clock refers to the Earth time construct�
�”
“Stop! Just, never mind. Show me on the map.”
The readout popped up in my visor. I climbed hand over hand and a bit sideways to reach my destination. As expected, the beacon was not there. But it should be in the vicinity …
I combed the area, using my big fly-swatter like a rake.
I was about to give up and go take a dip with my favorite HipCow when my swatter hit something.
I crawled and peeled layers of greenery away and found one half of my beacon.
“Yes!” I bashed it against my helmet when I tried to kiss it. “Oops.”
I inflated my magnetized pouch and stuffed the part inside. After another hour, I found the second half. Inspecting the wires, I could see my good friend Mr. AngryPants had simply ripped them all in half. Ha. Joke was on him. All I had to do was solder them all back together again.
I earned an A in my electronic components class.
With my parts stowed away, I grappled my way back to the top of the hill.
Okay, I could check some stuff off my list. Surviving. Found the beacon.
I was down the hill and halfway to my sleek triangular pod when something tugged at my ankle and pulled me backward. I screamed on the way down, my swatter falling as I reached to catch my fall. My helmet hit the ground with a thud, knocking my head in the process. I saw stars for a second but shook my head and groped around for my weapon.
“VELMA, what is this?” I felt a tremendous squeeze around my right ankle and another tug on my left arm. A blur of brown slid beside and over me. It was scaly and long like a snake, but it had dozens of lizard-like legs all along its sides. I tried to clamber up, but its muscular body twisted around my arms and knocked me flat on my back. “VELMA?”
“Scanning. Two reptile-like creatures are within one meter.”
Frantic, I slapped the ground around me, wincing whenever my glove made contact with the creature. By the grace of God, I found my swatter and gripped it with all my strength. I brought it up beside me and sawed at the thick muscles holding me down over and over again, until the brown snake writhed and came to a rest. I hoped it was dead. Something still had a powerful grip of my ankle. I heaved and pushed my way out from under the dead thing only to see its bigger cousin trying to swallow my boot.
“Heartbeat approaching 135 beats per minute. Do you require assistance?”
“Yes,” I grated, trying to use my other boot to kick the snake’s mouth off. “This thing is trying to eat me.”
“The IGMC Explorer Suit X8 is graded up to 8.3 psi,” she replied. “The crocodile of your home world has 3700 pounds per square inch pressure in its bite.”
“Not,” I grunted while hacking at the “snake’s” head. “Helping.”
“However, your boots are graded to withstand 4500 psi,” she continued. “If you can prevent the reptile from reaching your calf, your suit will maintain its integrity.”
“Thanks,” I said and swung my erstwhile fly swatter at the beast. The machete-end flayed open its skin above the eye. Its length crept around itself, coiling and approaching my other leg. If it got a hold of my other leg or my waist, I was a goner. I hit it five times with my weapon and kicked at its jaws with my other boot. Huffing, I kicked it hard, and felt its jaws slacken. Again! I timed a kick and a hit at the same time, sweat pouring over every inch of skin inside my suit. The liquid cooling system couldn’t keep up with fight or die perspiration. I felt heat start to grow in my belly and flare up to my pounding head. Ringing in my ears and a rush of energy burst through me.
Its jaws tightened a bit, and I erupted. “Freaking piece of schist snake!” I roared at it and kicked both legs furiously. “I’ve had enough of this freaking stupid planet! Freaking stupid monsters!” I screamed and yanked at my leg and pulled it free. With all my limbs free, I attacked the giant millipede-salamander-snake with my weapon and boots, sparing not a single scale in my flurry of limbs. Its coiling stopped, and its head lolled to the side. A flash of drunk Chris pummeling me haunted my memory, but I shut it down.
My fury abated, and I stood over it, shoulders drooping and spit flecking the inside of my helmet.
I panted and shivered, staring at the blood and the wrinkled bag at its throat. It seemed like every horrific creature on this planet had that ugly throat sac. I shuddered.
A hand on my hip, I looked toward the pod. I was about fifty feet from my EEP. No more reptiles spotted. If I could just have a little rest. A low droning buzz sounded at my left.
“Oh, heck no,” I said, swinging my swatter in a roundhouse and making contact with the insect. Two more followed, but I knew their weakness now. Drain their venom. The injured one under my boot stung until it died, and the other two followed as I knocked them out of the air.
Gasping for breath, I realized I had tears coursing down my cheeks. I would be damned if I was going to let this planet get the best of me. If I wanted to die, I would have let Chris finish me off.
Glancing at the dead bugs, I was starting to feel capable. Other than the recurring chest pain from that beast spider. Fighting B-movie monsters to the death didn’t count as resting. VELMA would remind me of that any second now. I trudged toward the pod.
I gulped. I wondered if the armored fellow was going to come back. Chills ran up and down my spine. What a specimen of unimpeachable power. I had to admit it might be cool to meet him, I mean, if he didn’t kill me first.
Shivering, I limped the last feet to the EEP. Sealed myself inside.
“VELMA, activate counter-illuminative hDEDs. Also, we need to work on your reptile alert system.”
“I am not familiar with that alert system.”
“I know.”
I stowed my helmet. I was staring down at my boots with distaste. “VELMA, where is the nearest fresh water?” I pounded on a panel that released a silvery pouch. I sucked down its contents.
“There is a large lake one hundred forty-seven point three feet to the east. However, it is inadvisable you visit the lake,” she said. “Compiled data of over six thousand inhabited planets in a hundred different galaxies suggests such a habitat to be prime hunting grounds for dangerous predators, including the large reptiles you classify as dinosaurs.”
I slumped into my seat. I needed that water.
It had been a few days, and I could feel my health depleting. Bio-vac shots notwithstanding, the human body was not meant to live on MREs and recycled water for any length of time. So, I also needed to skin and butcher those dead snakes.
I had a few hours before the two suns set.
“VELMA, scan for life-forms,” I said. Then I remembered being double-teamed by the snakes. Heat signatures didn’t work for them. Or for the spiders. Or for the wasps, now I thought about it. I thought about the gross wrinkled bags of flesh under all their jaws. They reminded me of turkey waddles. I wondered if they had a purpose beyond vestigial like in Earth animals. Maybe they inflated with air? Maybe this planet flooded in cycles, and they used their throat pouches to float? I shook my head and replaced my water pouch in its cubby. I needed a biologist to consult.
“No signs of animal life within thirty feet,” she said.
I grunted. It echoed deep in the tin can I was calling home. It gave me an idea.
“Scan for infrasonic and ultrasonic Hertz,” I told her.
VELMA illuminated several creatures denoted by a fuzzy blue shape overlaid on an image of the surrounding area.
“Bingo,” I said with a big smile. I stepped closer to the screen.
I studied the shapes. “Zoom in on that tree,” I said, touching the screen. VELMA zoomed in. “Holy schist, those are some big monkeys.”
I hadn’t seen these yet.
“The arboreal vertebrates do not match the scientific classification of simian.”
“Thank you, VELMA.” Smart ass. “Do they not give off an infrared signature?”
“Negative. Infrasound signature has revealed several more life-forms than previously recognized. The larger creatures o
f this planet use sounds below 20 Hz.”
I laughed. “You’re welcome.”
I watched the creatures in the tree. Using the augmented reality digitization tool, I calculated their size to be that of chimpanzees back home. I tapped a few buttons and dispatched one of the EEP’s drones. Within minutes, I had a clear video capture of the animals in the tree.
My heart jumped to my throat.
These were not monkeys. They were gigantic birds. They had the leathery wings of bats. Naked long necks attached to bald scaly heads with a ring of orange feathers sprouting from the back. They had two eyes on each side of their heads. Huge talons gripped the thick, smooth branches of the tree. A group of them surrounded some bloody mass and tore membranous pieces off. I controlled the camera to zoom in on their heads. Their throats had huge bulbous protrusions. The infrasound! They used those protrusions to rumble at each other and communicate.
I felt tingles of fear creep up the back of my neck. I would never hear one of these coming.
I retracted the drone. Its housing was outside the pod in a hatch that opened and shut automatically. My whole operation was solar powered, so on a planet with two suns, we were set. I was using the “royal we” rhetorically. You know, since I was alone.
I exited the EEP. It was time to forage.
A smear of bluish-purple smoke streaked across the sky trailing behind a red ship in the distance. I stopped cold. Was that—? Was it a rescue ship? But then I remembered the beacon sitting in pieces inside my pod. Chills shot down my spine.
“VELMA, did your sensors pick up that ship streak across the sky?”
“Nanosatellite array net was breached. Nano-drones deployed.”
I watched it disappear into a great bank of dark-green trees. It had to be over six hundred feet away.
“Sensors picking up electrical signals from the UFO. Possible life signs.”
“Human life?” Hope the size of a small balloon inflated.
“It is not probable.” My balloon made a fart noise.
“Oh my gosh. Aliens?”
“By definition, you are an alien,” VELMA reminded me.
