by Marc Secchia
She had time to think, Huh?
Psssht! The flowers fired in concert. Hot, sweet nectar gushed into her half-opened mouth with uncanny aim. Nectar! Exactly what she had asked for. By the barrel-full. Not caring if the stuff might be poisonous, she slaked her thirst and hunger until her stomach hurt. Then, she settled back for the strangest of rides.
* * * *
Special delivery by flower lasted three days and three nights. In that time, at least at night, she saw a gorgeous glow, clear and luminous and beautiful, developing on the horizon ahead. The pace of travel was unrelenting, tumultuous and as sweet as nectar.
Alodeé slept as she had rarely slept in her life. Deep and dreamless. The nights were so clear, the stars and nebulae above seemed cut of crystal, etched upon a sable ceiling almost close enough to touch, but not quite. The nectar diet made her feel queerly abuzz. Stuffed with this mad overload of sweet calories, she felt she could run across an ocean after all.
When in the secret hours of deepest night her conveyance developed a deeper, more throbbing pitch, she woke with a start. “What – Dad, are you snoring again?”
Oops. Not Dad … but, is that a waterfall at the end of the world? What’s out there –
Veils of light shimmered before her. Incredible, heaven-reaching veils of the thinnest, grass-green gossamer, starlight spun into being. Again, she had learned about aurora borealis, but never seen it. These light, insubstantial veils played slowly across the sky, waving like cloth. Despite their thinness, she could see nothing of the world beyond.
Without ceremony, the flowers spat her over the edge of their ocean. The massive wave subsided, settling back into featureless nothingness as if no flower creatures had ever disturbed the surface.
Alodeé cracked open her parachute. The bright yellow aerofoil flapped above her before gaining its shape. Glancing back, all beneath the flower ocean was darkness. Ahead, nothing but gossamer veils. The way forward was obvious – more so, since a fresh curiosity nagged around the edges of her mind. Something must be out here. Something worth finding. She could not shake the bizarre feeling. Curling her fingers about the handgrips, she steered in a long, shallow glide for an area of the veils that looked no different to any other. Here went nothing.
At least she might die of awe and wonder out here. So stunning.
As dawn brightened, the veils vanished before her eyes, leaving a sight so glorious, she touched her eyes to wipe clear an attack of moisture.
Beyond the starry veils, a land of golden crystal mountains greeted the weary traveller.
At last, these more familiar island patterns suggested habitable realms. A mighty island lay before her, a flying wedge set upon golden columns tapering to a base far, far beneath her feet. Atop? Golden mountains reflected off a mirror-perfect teal lake, fringed by light purple forests – crystal forests, if she was not mistaken. Ropes or chains of flexible crystal appeared to connect this island to others farther in the distance, above, behind and below this first island. One could climb from place to place, moving with care. Here too, she saw many more signs of life – avians circling the mountaintop, swarms of insects and eager creatures swooping about, munching said insects.
In survival class, Maruski had once sent her classmates into stitches. How did one recognise an island where food might be found, the instructor asked? A furry paw shot up.
“Maruski?”
The feline purred, “Where munchers munch the munchable, something is sure to be lunchable.”
Class plus instructor split their sides laughing.
True, that. Hard to argue with Cat wisdom, wasn’t it?
On a different and more important note, Alodeé reminded herself, she must assume she was on the menu until proved otherwise. This was Resurrection Dawn. Not everything was as friendly as its flower oceans. She could do with a ranged weapon, a hideout and a great deal of protein, in that order. Yep. Out there, up one of those bobbled chains that appeared to hold crystal platforms at different levels, she spied the unmistakable hunched-forward silhouettes of carnoraptors.
Really? Narrowing her eyes, she squinted against the brilliant light. Yep. Her favourite insatiable predator. These lethal beauties were twice as large as the versions she was used to and a brilliant, sickly orange colour that fairly much screamed their lethality.
A dozen or so carnoraptors patiently hunted down a very large, winged grey avian out there. Good for her, bad luck for the avian – because any distraction must be appreciated. Hmm. The avian took out a few raptors. Impressive. Less impressive was that it became lunch immediately after. The carnoraptors scrapped over their meal, landing on a vertical white crystal cliff to consume the bounty.
Tugging her controls, she sped up.
* * * *
Yep. Something large, winged and aggressive had just spotted her. This noxious brute had six butterfly wings and a mouth of unfortunately capacious size and toothiness. She swept toward the land as quickly as the parachute allowed. Not quick enough, right? The grey-and-green mottled creature took its leisure in closing the gap, giving her the beady-eyed predatory stare from deep-set green eyes. Who was this creature invading its airspace? What did it want?
So fixated was she upon the terrifying creature, all of 20 or 25 mets in length, that she missed its friend hurtling in from above, out of the sun. Talons rending her parachute were the first warning she had of danger. Snagged somehow, her cords tightened and flung her upward in an arc that tangled around the base of one of the wings. The new, similarly-coloured creature’s massive forepaw took a huge swipe at her mid-swing, missing shaving her head off her shoulders by a whisker. Alodeé hung on instinctively, rattling up and down as this new threat voiced its displeasure with a thunderous groan.
The other clearly took that as a challenge to a duel.
Thundering its own rage, the beast upended somehow with a swirling motion of its six wings, latching its massive, hooked paws into the opponent’s neck. Gnashing, biting and roaring, the tangled beasts tumbled toward the island below. She kicked up her legs as talons stabbed toward her. Narrow miss! The serrated fangs champed about in a wrestling lock. Cut loose the parachute? She had to, or face being tied to this creature when it plummeted to the ground. Just as she fumbled for her nanodagger, however, the aerofoil tore loose from its paw. Alodeé hauled it in, hissing between her teeth as the material snagged on its rough carapace.
Green insect ichor sprayed out of increasingly severe wounds as the creatures grappled furiously, clearly having forgotten all about the original cause of their disagreement. Saved – only because the predator had mistaken her parachute for a meal. Disentangling herself from the cords, she cried out as a flailing wing smashed her across the forehead. Climb onto the back? The creatures separated and clashed again as she clambered up the ridged, sharp-edged carapace, clinging on with her fingers and toes. The island swayed and danced around her as the creatures rolled. Might they end up above the lake?
A paw smashed down on her legs with monstrous strength. She kicked, but the paw only slipped away in time for a head to gnash its way between the thrashing wings, treating her to a view of a crazed eye and the finest set of crystal-sharp dentistry she had ever seen.
Crunch!
The creature attacking her screamed and threw back its head as her ride sank its teeth into the base of one of its wings, inflicting a terrible bite. Talons lanced across her legs, failing to penetrate her combat skin but making decent trenches through the flesh beneath as it dragged her bodily off the creature’s flank. These two were going to take each other down, no matter the cost.
Teeth flashed toward her arm!
Alodeé leaped as far as she could, catching the edge of a wing surface. No time to deploy the wrecked parachute. There, the lake! Judging her moment, she kicked free again and hurtled through the air, aiming for the smaller of two lakes, she saw now. A lake full of crystal spars.
At the last sec, she curled up, shielding her face and hands with the remains of the
tough parachute material.
CRUNCH!!
At the speed she fell, something approaching normal gravity for Resurrection Dawn – if such a concept existed – she imploded the delicate underwater crystal formations like a runaway AVACS. Light pink bubbles burbled around her body as she kicked toward the surface. Pink? Blood! Small, torpedo-shaped shadows flickered toward her, clearly attracted by the scent of food. Jolted into action, Alodeé breached fast and struck out so strongly, her arms and legs thrashed the water into white froth. Even fast fish could not make this speed, but the crystals sliced into her hands and head as she battered her way through, protected partly by the mess she was creating and shovelling along, she realised belatedly.
One of the massive insectoid predators crash-landed barely 2 mets from her left hand, tossing her through the water. Once again, the combat skin and armour saved her blushes, or she would have been shredded, but this encounter was about to leave her another memorable set of bruises and contusions. Nothing for it. Keep smashing a path.
At last, she saw the bottom. The crystal spars did not grow in the shallows, thankfully. Large freshwater crabs did – she thought momentarily about dinner, before realising that she had a crystal shard stuck right through the palm of her left hand.
Stinking carnoraptors, didn’t this go well?
Yep. Standing out here in the shallows was also a great idea. Without a doubt, the scavengers would be all over this beach within mins. Picking up her feet, Alodeé cast about for the nearest cover. Time to get out of the open.
Yesterday.
Chapter 14
Standard 1301.06.10 Estimated – on the move.
TO HER SURPRISE, ALODEÉ still managed to find herself alive a week later. Having taken refuge in a cave, she discovered that was a bad choice – already occupied by a family of bad-tempered, snappish lizards. She slew two and absconded to a tree nest instead. This turned out even worse. Blood-sucking bat-like swarm insects made merry with her flesh, so she built a ground level bivouac of crystal spars, logs cut with her nanodagger and rocks. This became home base while she patched herself up, healed up and learned about her environment.
Observation was a key survival skill.
Fortunately, the large crabs in the lake were neither observant nor very fast, so they became her primary source of meat. She experimented with different nuts, fruits and tubers, narrowing down on those that did not give her the most ferocious stomachache in history. Guess the bio-gloop back at Settlement Central had its uses after all.
I’ll never complain about yoghurt again. Shake of the head. If I’m to be honest, maybe I’ll just complain a lot less.
Principles. It amused her how she wanted to keep being principled out here, likely the only Humanoid in a 15 kilo-klom radius. Not that she knew for certain. This realisation was also how she knew she would not be staying here on this island. The chances of a rescue party finding her were already astronomically small, the mathematical equivalent of tossing a rock randomly into space and hitting a target the size of her thumb a few million light years away.
Dymand had certainly taught her one thing. She was not about to be some damsel in distress waiting for rescue. No. She would find her own way, or die trying. Dad had survived some pretty messy situations out there amongst the inhabited planets. She planned to do the same. There might be a severe lack of equipment or transportation, but she had her physical gifts and a few tools to work with. Plus, a halfway decent brain. Hopefully this moon orbited the parental planets closely. She’d need to be a motherly firewalker and a fluky fatherly rogue rolled together and more, to see this through.
Preparation time. She spent four days planning to be on the move. Alodeé observed the movements and habits of all the predators she knew of, especially the carnoraptors, but also the larger six-winged grey-green creatures she had dubbed hexaraptors. Any number of variants upon these two-winged and six-winged patterns appeared to exist, but every time she thought, ‘Dragon,’ it was some other vicious insectoid predator.
I’ll know a real Dragon when I find one. I’m sure of it.
One curious fact stood out. None of these major aerial predators hunted at night. She rubbed her left ear, deep in thought. Usually, predators ruled the night. It made the hours of darkness – relative darkness, given as so many of the crystal formations including the golden mountains were photoluminescent – the obvious time to travel. Caution must rule. Could there be something else out there, something that made even a carnoraptor fear the dark?
She shivered. Holy freaking Resurrection Dawn!
For several days, Alodeé felt so low it became a dire struggle to drag herself out of her bivouac. Her major preoccupation was how Dymand must feel, having lost first his wife and now his only daughter. That measure of loss must break a man. What was he doing right now? What was he thinking? These thoughts grieved her in ways she could not put into words. Nothing like loss to frame how deeply one loved a person; how they had relied upon one another. She had been his Nav computer, his compass after Mom’s death, she realised now. Did he feel the same way?
Only, she refused to stay lost. No way, not even if she had to travel as far as those planetary rings to find her way home. If this was the course destiny had plotted for her stars, she wanted nothing of it.
Dad, I’m out here. Wait for me and don’t do anything stupid, alright? This is not the end.
Each day, Alodeé trained relentlessly. She sprinted around the island from cover to cover, exploring every nook and cranny. She practised standing jumps as high as she could, using a crystal-infused conifer to measure her best efforts and lugged rocks from place to place to build core strength. She healed. During the hot afternoons, she spread out the parachute aerofoil and made repairs with her survival kit’s nanoneedle, cutting away a few bits to make the rest of it work, then doubling up every place where the cord fastened to the material. When she finished, her insurance was stronger than ever.
Drying crab meat simply did not work. Either the predators ate it, or it went off before it dried completely. Right. She’d pack fruit and veg. Travel light.
To gaze east was to marvel at the hundreds of islands that hovered out there, waiting to be explored. Thousands! What should her priority be? Distance, height, width? Chattering aloud to herself again, she said, “It’s a whole world, girlie. Let’s go for height, then eastward progress. See what we can see. Keep going until I touch the sun.”
Out here, a person grew lonely for the sound of even her own voice.
One could try to trace the linking ropes and chain-like crystal formations into the distance, but the tangle quickly became impossible to follow. Small, achievable goals. Each second day, she’d move on as many islands she deemed safe. Each evening’s travel, she decided, should be followed by a day to rest, recoup and explore.
“Onward and upward.”
Yep, because talking to myself is such a great sign of mental health.
Or, was it a way to remain healthy? To hope was to live; to live was to hope.
That was why, as evening turned to night, she placed her hands upon the slopes of the golden crystal mountain in the centre of her island and began the tricky climb. Her palm had healed already, leaving only a fine scar by which to remember her disastrous water landing. Other fine green scars must adorn her neck and left cheek. She climbed the steep slope on all fours – slippery, rather than tricky. Parachute pack on her back. Nanoswords and nanodagger at the ready. Old school. Her tech was less than useless here.
Up ahead, a thick rope of organic crystal strands twisted up into the sky, first stringing together several larger nodes about half a klom up, before anchoring itself to the steep flank of an island 850 mets overhead, she estimated. That one linked to four others; those to others again. How many linkages? Despite night’s falling, the white sides, gleaming golden peaks and luminous foliage covering some of the islands gave her plenty of light to see. Reaching the rope part, she found it thick and rough. Easy to climb. Just don�
�t think about the drop, or anything that might be trying to sneak up below her.
Fall and she’d simply deploy her yellow aerofoil and fly to another island.
She joined a column of nonaggressive white ants, the workers about the length of her hand, the warriors double that, for the climb. “Alright boys, let’s do this. All together now.”
The musky floral scents of the first island receded as Alodeé pushed to climb quickly, but not with dangerous haste. Her heart throbbed more from anticipated danger than from the physical exertion of the climb. No night predators. How perfectly bizarre. With easy handholds twisting around the green and pink rock crystal inclusions in the rope, she made good time and only slipped once, a poor choice of foothold. Rest halfway. She touched the rope curiously. Some kind of organic-crystal compound, a fusion of the crystal and flora kingdoms? The main strand was as thick as her torso, the subsidiary strands comparable to her calf. Every so often, light pulsed through upward or downward, much as she imagined a nerve impulse might work. That phenomenon caused her fingers and toes to tingle very slightly. Curious.
After a couple of hours, she reached the white cliffs of the island above. Here, she faced a more difficult, technical climb to a crack which spouted a small waterfall. She scrambled up the gulley above to the main surface. Disappointing. This island was barren.
Oh, charming. A carnoraptor roost.
In other words, time for flavoursome green nibbles on legs to be moving smartly along. Picking a second rope, Alodeé ghosted over and made her second, longer climb of the evening. Much better result. Casting herself down in the lee of a large set of boulders beside another turquoise interior lake, Alodeé used her nanodagger to shave a fallen log and built herself a rough shelter. After that, she pillowed her head on her parachute pack and slept.
* * * *
“Dad. Get off – my foot …”
