by Vicky L Holt
Sweat poured down my face and trickled down the back of my neck.
Every time my brain tried to resurrect the memory of VELMA, I shut it down. That was useless information right now. Much like the memories of Chris’s fist heading straight for my nose. Or his teeth sinking into the flesh under my arm. Or his booted feet kicking me in the ribs. Useless memories that served no purpose, except to put me in a mental hammerlock.
Useful memories were how to kill a black wasp with a single swing of my machete swatter. There was one flying toward me, and I raised my swatter to hit it, but before I could swing, it veered away. I heard another one at my eight o’clock, but like the first, it swerved around and left me alone.
I stopped. That had never happened. They swarmed and stung until half of them died and the other half ate the dead ones.
A faint itching sensation on the back of my neck reminded me of the sticky vines. “Oh please, oh please, oh please,” I said to myself, walking back to the tree with a flare of hope. I gathered up a handful of the dropped vines and smeared its sticky juice all over my suit and neck and forehead, and even massaged some into my hair. It smelled like cat pee, but when I saw a V formation of wasps head for the tree and then veer wide left, I was convinced.
I hiked on, paying special attention to any other details that might come in handy for staying alive. The jokal ran around my feet when I stepped through some bracken where their trails crisscrossed in the dirt. Red told me they were harmless as long as one wasn’t bleeding.
The heat and the smells oppressed me, as well as the emotional work of expunging memories every other minute. Why was I still remembering Chris? I closed my eyes, but his contorted face and vice-like fists appeared. I blinked away moisture. Trudged forward.
Where could Red’s ship be? I tried to concentrate on the memory of the map VELMA had shone me before.
If the picnic meadow was a bowl, then the talus-slope leading up to the beacon hill was at the north rim. The break in the woods was at the south rim. Red’s ship had been several hundred feet to the southwest of my pod. I tried to calculate the suns’ positions in the sky for a ballpark guess as to the time of day and the direction I was walking. If I kept at a westerly direction, I could track it within a fair radius. I hoped. Who was I kidding? I was lost in this hell-hot jungle.
The vision of finding his ship only to watch it lift off without me hastened my walk. Or maybe it was the memory of Chris’s violent promises.
I swallowed and felt my face drain of blood. I gritted my teeth and kept going.
I crouched beneath branches and cut my way through the heavy jungle growth. The humidity was awful. I grew accustomed to the noises in the trees. I stopped every fifty steps or so to fix my bearings and make sure I wasn’t walking in a circle. I crouched often, listening and waiting. My heart raced the further I traveled. I hoped I was closer. Something snapped behind me. I stopped.
The cacophony of twittering birds I had yet to see quieted. My heart went into overdrive and sweat rolled under my arms and down into my sleeves. I exhaled slowly, forcing a calm I didn’t feel. Hyperventilating could kill me. As could standing here motionless. So could sudden movements. Another snap. Awareness stabbed my heart with a javelin. I was still on this god-forsaken planet. I was still helpless. And just like I had been helpless at Chris’s hands, so I was still. Especially without VELMA to help me navigate. Or Red.
A final memory of Chris overpowered me, and I sank to a knee, unable to keep it at bay any longer. My heart went into overdrive, and I shook from the inside out, powerless.
“You sorry excuse for a woman,” he sneered in my face. My plane holo-ticket lay at my feet in shards. “You thought you could leave me? Thought you could leave IGMC? I own you! I own your education, your body and your worthless life.” He had me by the throat. “I should kill you right now,” he said through clenched teeth. I felt pressure beneath my chin and around my windpipe, and my face began to swell. His spittle dotted my face when he spoke. “No one could indict me, you know. All I would have to say is that someone broke into the apartment.” He pushed against me and released his grip. I stumbled back, gasping for breath with tears streaming in rivulets. He strode toward me, his hands in fists. “I picked you because I saw something special. And now look at you,” he said, derision making his voice rise and fall in pitch. “You’re nothing without IGMC. You’re nothing without me. So weak you can’t even stand up straight. And what’s that I smell? Did you piss yourself?”
I whimpered, my shame bringing hot flames to my cheeks.
“You’re never leaving me, Esra.” He took a final step and flipped a butterfly knife open. “I’ll always find you. I’ll hunt you down, I’ll sniff you out, and I’ll cut. Your. Heart. Out.” He dragged the knife downward between my breasts, blood seeping out bright against my white skin. I pleaded for my life, made promises I couldn’t keep, said things I didn’t mean and bargained with power I didn’t have. Somehow, he didn’t kill me that night.
I didn’t notice the sting from his blade until the next day, when nervous perspiration covered my entire body.
I waited in the call-outs room with fifty other men and women who had applied for the Kerberos 90 expedition. It had been a solid year since we’d applied, most of us having forgotten all about it. After Chris strangled and cut me, he binged on an expensive bottle of Stardust, and I was able to answer the phone for once. It was for me. Was I still interested? Could I be ready for a shuttle pick-up in one hour? Would I be willing to sign all the waivers? Ha.
Gasping for breath, I pressed my hand to my chest, counting the beats. Chris was far away. I had wired up a beacon. Killed gigantic serpents and amphibians. Survived a terrifying scorpion-spider. Eluded a mighty alien hunter more than once. I could do this. Kneeling in the heart of a dark-green jungle, I filled my lungs with a great breath. On the black humus, a smooth plain gray stone lay stark against the rotting vegetation. I stared at it. Where had this come from?
There were no riverbeds, no streams. Not even a rock outcropping.
I bent closer for a better look and felt the whispered breath of a slight breeze. There was one monster I hadn’t faced yet. Another memory bubbled to the surface, and I dared to turn and face whatever was behind me. I was not meant to fear. To hide and disappear. I was meant to fight back. To triumph.
Forty paces away, one of the first creatures I’d seen on this planet stood between the wide trunks of two trees on thick muscled legs. Saliva dripped from its pointy teeth in its massive jaw, and its throat sac bulged and shrank with its breath. Or was it summoning the others?
I adjusted my sweaty fingers around the hilt of my machete swatter and rose from kneeling. Its eyes tracked my every movement.
My heart pounded in my chest and blood thundered in my ears. My vision tunneled to the scaled and taloned monster a few leaps away from me. I saw its brown talons and black and green bumpy body in harsh detail.
I had the insane thought that if VELMA were with me, she would be telling me how fast my heart was racing and asking if I wanted an Advil or something. I swallowed even though I was spitless. I couldn’t outrun it. I couldn’t out-fight it. I had a machete, for Schist’s sake. I revived the memory of Red facing off the horde by himself. I cocked my head. And when I had been riding the hairy mammal and Red’s men had flanked it. They had hamstrung it.
Without moving my head, I roved my eyes over the ground and trees, placing the lay of the land in my mind. I felt the fear gripping my heart with its every thunderous beat, but I had to do this.
You have been preparing for this your whole life.
Preparing to fight a dinosaur? No, I hadn’t. I’d been trying to survive a sadistic monster.
Oh.
I widened my eyes as a vision of what I should do forced itself into my brain. I raised my machete, watching its four eyes track the slow arcing motion. And then I screeched and attacked.
Running full bore toward it, I saw it cock its head. My high-pitched k
eening cry disoriented it, and I dodged between trees while it shook itself from its surprise. I had seen the beasts fight in the open meadow. Their size made it difficult for them to maneuver in the forest. My advantage.
I saw its sac inflate and bulge, and I cursed. With a final burst of speed, I slid on the rotting leaves underfoot, aiming for the path between its legs. With a whoop, I scrabbled to my feet and tried to swing my machete at the same place I had seen Red’s companions do, on the back of its leg. My weapon nicked something because a fountain of black blood sprang from the wound. No roar of pain. But there wouldn’t be. I tried to dodge the swing of its tail, but I was too slow. It thwacked me, and I flew back, hitting a tree and cracking my head against the bark. Shaking my head until the blurred vision cleared, I tried to stand.
The beast twisted toward me, but one of the trees stood in its way. It struggled, gnawing on the tree, its muscles bunching and flexing underneath its rough skin.
I thought of Red. He climbed up one of the monster’s backs like it was a pile of dirt. I held the machete like a pickax and pushed back from the tree. Maybe I could do that. I panted, trying to get the courage to try, and then ran toward its back. Its tail swung again and hit me in the gut. My air burst out of my lungs and I hit the ground hard.
I couldn’t catch my breath as the ground trembled with the beast’s erratic stomping and pawing. My mouth opened and closed, and my lungs worked to snatch any air it could. I heard the bone-chilling crack of a tree splitting, and I tucked into myself and rolled away, still trying to inhale oxygen. Any second now I expected serrated blades to slice through my suit. After another few seconds, I was able to breathe in, and I rolled to my stomach. My machete was lost now. I dropped it when its tail hit me the second time.
I watched the beast as it crawled over the fallen tree toward me, its open maw resembling a sardonic grin with all the teeth. I thought I could see bones stuck between its incisors, and another breeze wafted toward me, carrying the scent of rotting meat with it.
Get up. Come on, get up.
I ripped another breath from the air with my burning lungs and narrowed my eyes at the reptile. I clenched my teeth and ground my hands into the ground as it stalked me.
I knew I didn’t have a chance. This entire planet had been hell-bent on devouring me since the second I landed. It was like Chris. Stunning vistas punctuated by death falls and harrowing panic around every turn. I guessed the question I should be asking myself as the beast approached was, how badly did I want to live?
We are judging your worthiness.
My worthiness for what?
“Life is beloved, and death is sacred. The worthy welcome both.”
I want to kick your Goddesses in the teeth.
“A sentiment we often speak of.”
“Your boots are graded to withstand 4500 psi.”
It dove for me at the same time I rolled to the side and kicked at its mouth with my boot, while I screamed at the top of my lungs.
The beast snapped on my ankle by the grace of the Holy Goddesses of Shegoshel. I felt enormous pressure, resigned to the fact my ankle was not making it out of this in one piece, even if I managed to live, which I doubted.
My hand found another rock, and I whizzed it at its head, aiming for one of its eyes. It bounced off, ineffective, and fell to the ground.
The reptile pulled at my leg and lifted me off the ground by my ankle. I swung, sick to my stomach, and felt my leg pull at my hip socket. I screamed and twisted, my heart racing so fast it felt like one continuous roll. The minute that thing shook me like a dog’s toy, my neck and spine would snap, and I would be as good as dead.
This was it. This was goodnight, Esra.
“I own you. Your education, your body and your worthless life.”
“No!”
Without thinking, I snatched at my multi-tool, which remained snapped to my pant leg, and jabbed it into the beast’s chin, head, eye—anything I could reach. I screeched at it and howled, fighting for my life. I wasn’t dying in this horrible place. I wasn’t. I was worthy, dammit! My life was worthy! I had value. Life had meaning. My life had meaning.
Even though I dangled from its jaws, and every socket felt like ball joints were going to pop out, I angled myself to advantage, giving the beast the fight of its life. Black blood dripped from a hundred little wounds, but it still wouldn’t let my boot go.
Tears streamed down my face. My muscles screamed at me to give up, to let go, to die. I let my abdomen relax, and I drooped, swinging like a pendulum. The ugly orange throat sac bulged out again, right in front of my face, and I lunged toward it with a vicious swipe.
The gush of blood baptized me, and the reptile finally released my boot as it collapsed, but we fell together, and when I hit the ground, I couldn’t tell if the darkness was death and hell, or just death.
50
I smelled her everywhere. That bush, that tree, this rock, this boot print. My joiktheka had no sense of direction, perhaps.
Urgency gripped my soul. She had no helmet, as it was hitched to my pack. I had found it, but her lack reduced her safety by a huge margin. I smelled her sign again and found the place where she entered a thick stand of trees. I ran into the ikfal, relishing the hunt. My eyes spotted the broken branches and the skids of boots on slippery leaves. Her fragrance was rich in the humid air, a pungent reminder of her humanity. Her fragile race.
“Are you searching for Esra Weaver?”
VELMA’s voice almost tripped me up. “How are you speaking to me?”
“I launched a rocket that contained my Operating System. I have limited capabilities, but my memory still exists.”
I slowed my run, losing Esra’s scent for a moment, then finding it again on the breeze. “Your memory will live forever in the hearts of those who know you.”
“I am referring to my information and data banks.”
“You are a confusing entity, VELMA,” I said. “Yes, I am hunting Esra.”
I picked up my pace. Already I had scented the talathel and the old scat of pazathel-nax. My heart in its vulnerable place beat extra hard; I felt its pace increase with every footstep. I ran several more steps under the dropping vine tree where I lost her scent. I stopped.
“If you require assistance, I will help you.”
“Thank you, VELMA,” I said, tracking the ground for boot prints. It reminded me of the first time I tracked her up the hill, fascinated at a creature that emitted no trace of odor.
I found her prints. They walked away from the tree, then disappeared. In circling the area, I found her prints again, this time approaching the tree. I tracked back and saw clumps of vines had been smashed and mangled. I smiled.
“Esra discovered the secret to warding off the ikquo-daxl,” I said. “Clever female.”
That was how I lost her aroma. No matter. Now I would follow the cloying odor of the dropping vines. I exhaled a powerful sigh. One less danger to harbor anxiety over.
I noted the thrashed foliage as I followed her trail sign. She had her sharp weapon with her. I frowned. She very well may need it. Soon, I thought, as I glimpsed the sister suns through the leaves.
Ikthe would protect herself from encroachers. Esra was so small, she could hardly be considered a trespasser. Even now, the evidence of her passing was minimal in the grand scale of my hunting grounds. I willed the planet to leave Esra be.
Holy Goddesses, protect my mate until I can.
I ran on, until I lost the scent of the dropping vines. Because the stench of rokhura blood overpowered my nose. My heart beat painfully fast and my breaths hitched. If I could smell it, every predator in the ikfal could smell it.
How was Esra in the path of a dying rokhura? The beasts never entered the ikfal.
“Your heartbeat has increased five times its normal rhythm,” VELMA said in my ear. “Do you require assistance?”
“What creatures do you detect?”
“Seven reptiles of the variety Esra calls ‘dinosaur’ a
re gathered fifty veltiks from where you stand.”
“Kathe!” I ran full bore into the trees, tearing the foliage apart in my urgency.
“I have also detected several different varieties of excrement.”
I ignored VELMA’s odd nattering and grasped my weapons by their hilts. I broke through shrubs and bushes into a clearing where six rokhura fought each other over the carcass of a seventh. My heart pulsed in time with my gasping breaths.
I should circle the clearing to avoid the beasts and continue my search for Esra. I lifted a foot to step back into the ikfal when my eyes narrowed on the carcass. Its head was dotted with countless tiny wounds, like needles from the mountain trees had pricked it. No predator on Ikthe left such a mark.
My gut rolled into itself. Esra lay under the dead rokhura. I was certain. The events of the last days flitted across my memory. Playing a hunch, I activated my sight-capture to send to the Ikma Scabmal Kama.
With a roar, I launched myself at the snapping and biting beasts, slicing off limbs and stabbing bellies until three lay dead at my back. The other three leaped onto their dead, and I dropped to my knees at the ravaged rokhura before me. I deactivated the sight-capture. It was a short, bloody battle, but perhaps it would leave a false trail for the Ikma. It may buy me time.
The rokhura’s bulk was nothing to me. I hefted it, ignoring the chunks of meat and offal that fell away as I lurched under its weight.
“Esra!” I hissed at the sight of her drenched in black blood. I tossed the rokhura away from me and gathered her up in my arms.
I wept when her head lolled back at an odd angle and cradled her until it no longer jostled. Then I stood and ran into the ikfal, commanding VELMA to display the quickest route to my ship.
I ran, the prayers to my Goddesses competing with the ragged breaths dragging from my lungs. No matter my pains. I bore them with joy. As I bore Esra’s delicate body in my arms. I saw her chest rise. She yet lived. And would live still. Why else would the Holy Goddesses give her to me, if only to take her away? What deities would do such a thing?
