“We’re here as refugees,” Gavin said. “It makes no sense that a group of people would attack us for simply showing up on their land, especially since it’s not our fault. I’m sure they’ll understand. Besides, if they really intend harm, they’ll bring guns. How are these primitive sticks going to—”
“We don’t have all the answers!” Desmond interrupted.
Good for him.
“But we’re going on the information we have,” he continued. “We’ve been told the locals won’t be armed.”
“Then why do we need these?” Gavin asked, nodding toward the weapons.
Desmond started to answer, but Infinity cut him off. “Let us do our goddamn job! We’re preparing you for the worst. After we’re gone, do whatever you want.” She glared at him until he looked down at the ground.
She held out the three-pronged spear. “If the locals become aggressive, you may have to defend yourselves. Unless you’re confident you’d be effective in a close-quarters fight, your goal is to stay out of reach of any attacker. Your gut reaction will be to run away. But if you do that and get lost alone and naked in these woods, it won’t end well for you. But with these weapons”—she thrust the spear forward—“you should be able to hold an unarmed attacker at bay. But keep the weapon moving.” She jabbed twice more, quickly pulling the spear back each time. “Don’t allow your attacker to grab it.”
“Please pardon my interruption,” said the warbling voice of Abel, the musk monkey. The creature came around from the side of the mongrel bubble, still holding the venomcrook in its upper right hand. Its two lower hands were cupped together, holding a glob of glowing violet gel. “I act in service of the mongrels,” it said. “The mongrels do not fancy human-made contrivances, particularly tools for conflict.” The creature stepped over to the pile of pronged spears and flung the blob of gel, splattering luminescent droplets all over the weapons.
The musk monkey then turned and walked on its now-empty lower hands and hind feet to the outer membrane of the mongrel’s bubble. The creature raised itself up again and thrust its lower hands into the bubble, extracting another glob of the gel. It ambled over to the pile of shorter stabbing spikes and splattered them with the gel.
“What are you doing?” Infinity demanded.
“I act in service of the mongrels,” the creature replied as it went for a third glob of gel.
“Infinity,” Desmond said.
She glanced at him and then followed his gaze to the pile of pronged spears. She blinked. The spears were moving. She stepped closer. No, they weren’t moving. They were melting—sagging and dripping into a dark mass of useless goo. She snapped her head to look at the pile of spikes. They, too, were beginning to melt.
“You come to this land and say you ain’t looking for trouble,” Abel said, carrying the third handful of goo toward the last pile. “Yet you speak, and you make tools for conflict. My goodness gracious, such contradiction.”
Infinity shook away her shock at what she was seeing and rushed at the musk monkey, blocking the creature’s path. At that moment, Gavin appeared beside her, apparently determined to help her stop Abel.
“We’ve spent hours making these!” Gavin shouted. “You have no right to do this.”
Infinity held out her pronged spear, forcing the musk monkey to stop.
Pffitt. The sound came from the direction of the looming violet bubble. Almost instantly something hit the spear in Infinity’s hands—she felt the impact resonate through the wooden shaft. She stared at the spear as it abruptly folded in half, separating in the middle as the pronged end dropped to the ground. The remaining portion began melting, sagging at the end, and she threw the shaft to the ground before the destruction reached her hands.
Gavin stepped forward and got in the musk monkey’s face. “We may be new here, but we have rights! Please back away from—”
The musk monkey flicked its upper right hand, lightly striking Gavin’s shoulder with the venomcrook.
Gavin slapped at his shoulder. “Ow!”
“Prepare yourself for rapture,” Abel said. “You’d be wise to lay yourself upon the ground.”
“What do you mean, rapture?” Gavin asked. But then he moaned and dropped to his knees. His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed onto his face.
Abel sidestepped Gavin’s body, skirted around Infinity, and flung the glob of gel, splattering the last pile of spears.
Gavin moaned again, his face pressed into the dirt and leaves of the forest floor. He rolled to his side and moaned even louder, eyes still rolled back. He began convulsing and twitching as if having a seizure.
Infinity realized the other refugees were backing away, some of them gasping and cursing, but she focused her attention on Abel. As jarring as his attack on Gavin had been, she sensed that the real threat was the glowing bubble and the creatures within it. She took a step toward Abel, contemplating how best to kill the creature with her bare hands while avoiding the venomcrook. But she paused. The musk monkey was watching her warily. Its face was completely alien but somehow managed to look frightened and remorseful.
“Will he die?” she asked, nodding toward Gavin’s shuddering body.
“No,” the creature replied. “I have no hankering for killing. But the mongrels….”
For several long seconds, she faced off with the creature, staring into its eyes as it stared back at her. Was it trying to start a conflict or trying to prevent one?
Abruptly, Gavin’s moaning and shuddering stopped. Seconds later he sat up, tears streaming down his face. At first he seemed confused, but then he spotted the musk monkey staring down at him. “Please do it again,” Gavin said.
Abel took a step back. “The first dose has served its purpose. A second dose would be unwise.”
Gavin’s eyes widened. “Please, do it again!”
Abel took another step back. “I act only in service of the mongrels.”
Gavin got to his feet. “Please! Do it again!” He lunged toward the musk monkey, trying to grab the venomcrook.
The creature launched itself upward and grabbing the lowest branch of a tree, moving faster than Infinity had previously thought it could. It scrabbled about for a moment and ended up with its tail wrapped around a limb, hanging there out of reach, watching Gavin.
“Please!” Gavin begged. Now his voice sounded truly desperate.
Desmond approached Gavin and put a hand on his shoulder. “Get ahold of yourself. It said it would be unwise.”
Gavin wheeled around and shoved Desmond. “What the hell do you know?” Gavin then fixed his eyes on the huge glowing bubble. Ignoring everything else, he headed straight for it.
“Such brazen effrontery is unwise,” Abel said from the tree.
Gavin didn’t stop until he was inches from the membrane. “Hey, are you in there? Please, I need more. I’m begging you!”
Infinity saw movement within the bubble. Something barely visible moved closer to Gavin, flowing gently through the fluid. Infinity stepped up to Gavin, ready to put him in a chokehold if he turned on her. “Move away from it, Gavin.”
Gavin thrust out a hand without warning and pushed against the membrane. “Please! I’ll do anything. Do it again!”
“Gavin, stop!” Infinity took him by the neck and pulled, but he shook her off and pushed his arm through the membrane all the way to his elbow. Infinity saw his hand within the fluid grasping desperately at the ghostly creatures only a few feet beyond his fingers.
And then Gavin froze. “Yes! Thank you, yes!” He pulled his hand out and turned, a stupid, mindless grin on his face. But seconds later his grin faded. “This isn’t it,” he said. He raised his hand and stared at it. “This isn’t right. What is this?”
His arm was changing shape. His fingers shortened until his hand was no more than a stump.
“This isn’t right!” he screamed. “This isn’t right!” He lowered his stump and looked at Infinity. “Something’s happening!”
Infinity stared at
him, instinctively keeping her distance.
He opened his mouth to speak again, but no sound came out. And then he crumpled to the ground, his limbs convulsing.
“What the hell?” Desmond said, but to Infinity his voice seemed distant, like it was coming from inside a tunnel.
She took another step back from Gavin. But it wasn’t actually Gavin anymore. His body was changing shape, curling up on itself. Bones cracked as his limbs bent in unnatural ways. As his body morphed, his pale skin became darker. Suddenly he began thrashing, making it hard to tell what was happening to him. Pieces of dirt and leaf debris flipped into the air, thrown by his wildly whipping extremities.
And then the thing was upright, standing on four legs. It blinked its bulging black eyes as it swung its head around. Panicked, it bolted. Everyone remained silent as it crashed through the brush. Its sounds gradually became quieter until it was too distant to hear.
“That was a deer,” Desmond said, barely above a whisper. “A white-tailed deer.”
“Such effrontery was most assuredly unwise,” the musk monkey said. It then released its grip with its tail and dropped gracefully to the ground. “Gavin’s new condition is good. But not for Gavin. You fine folks must be pleased that you are still you.”
9
The Herd
September 2 - 6:45 AM
The first rays of the rising sun pierced the late-summer foliage, illuminating clouds of water vapor hanging in the forest air. Desmond paced around the circular formation of sixty-one men and women who had volunteered to form a defensive perimeter surrounding the other seventy-six refugees and the bridge-in site. A few refugees had created rudimentary clothing by weaving together grasses and weeds, but most were still naked. Nobody in the group was armed because, apparently, the mongrels didn’t allow weapons.
Desmond had no idea how the mongrels had so quickly destroyed the weapons, or how they had transformed Gavin into a deer. Clearly these creatures had entire categories of technology humans hadn’t even dreamed of. Unfortunately, the mongrels’ abilities were not paired with a sense of compassion. Nobody had seen the deer that Gavin had become since it had run off. Desmond was pretty sure Gavin could now be considered dead. The mongrels were dangerous, and their presence here cast significant doubts on the human colony’s prospects for success. But he wasn’t about to share this thought with the refugees.
Desmond approached Arty Heath, who was circling the formation in the opposite direction. Arty had organized the thwarted efforts to build weapons, and he was now proving to be useful in calming and orienting the new refugees arriving hourly, as well as keeping them occupied with useful tasks, such as gathering plant fibers for making clothes. Arty had been a U.S. Army Ranger before going into politics and becoming a New York State Senator. He was a lean, muscled hulk several inches taller than Desmond, which helped him command respect from the other colonists.
Arty stopped beside Desmond. “Considering the circumstances, I think we’re reasonably prepared,” he said with confidence.
Desmond glanced over at Infinity. She was sitting cross-legged at the base of a tree, meditating or somehow sleeping. “According to Abel,” he said, “about fifty will show up here to feed. I have no idea what that really means, but if there are only fifty, and they’re unarmed, they’ll think twice about making trouble.”
Desmond scanned the area. Still no sign of Abel. The creature had disappeared into the forest soon after the incident with Gavin. Somehow, Abel’s absence was disconcerting to Desmond. Abel had served as a kind of liaison—a moderator, or even a buffer—between Desmond and the mongrels. Without Abel’s help, understanding the mongrels’ intentions seemed impossible.
Without a word of explanation, Arty grabbed Desmond’s elbow and led him away from the refugees. When they were out of earshot, he stopped and said, “These folks are scared shitless. Hell, I am too. I have to hope that once all our people are here, we can migrate away from this area, get far away from this fucking alien bubble and whoever is in this local herd. But as far as I can tell, there’s no civilization here. You’ve done this before. If I’m right—if there’s nothing here but wilderness in every direction—do you think we’ll have any chance in hell of surviving? The weather will start turning cold in a few months.” The man was still holding Desmond’s elbow, and he finally let go.
Desmond gazed at him, trying to formulate an honest answer. “I’ve done this before, but each time is different. This place is unlike any of the worlds I’ve seen. If there’s really nothing here but wilderness, it’s going to be tough. But there must be cities. The divergence point was only—”
“Desmond!”
He turned to Infinity. She was now on her feet, approaching him but staring into the forest behind him. He followed her gaze. At first he saw nothing but trees and shafts of morning sunlight, but then there was movement. He blinked and squinted. It was a woman, staring back through the haze. Her tan hair was cropped short, less than an inch long. Desmond would have mistaken her for a man if it weren’t for the fact that she was completely naked. Most of her body was painted with symmetrical orange and brown patterns. Only her face, hands, and feet were their original pale color.
Something moved to the woman’s left. Another woman, naked and painted with alternating stripes, like a tiger’s but green and black. Another movement—a bearded man, painted solid green from chin to feet.
More people—natives of this world—continued to appear, cautiously approaching the refugees. They were naked and painted with various colors and patterns, some with natural greens, oranges, and browns, others with bright reds and blues. The natives were fanning out to the left and right, surrounding the bridge-in site. If this was the herd, then Abel had been right—there were about fifty.
The solid green man paused and picked up a fist-sized rock—clearly a hostile gesture.
“What do you want us to do?” said one of the men in the defensive formation.
“Don’t do anything yet!” Infinity commanded. She was now standing at Desmond’s side.
The painted natives stopped. Every one of them looked toward the looming mongrel bubble, apparently expecting something to happen. Now that the sun was up, the bubble no longer appeared purple. Instead, it simply looked like a shimmering, house-sized soap bubble filled with colorless fluid. Desmond could no longer see the bubble’s occupants.
The green man took several steps closer to the refugees, holding his rock ready to throw. He was frowning. “You speak,” he whispered, barely loud enough for Desmond to hear.
Desmond stepped forward. “Of course we speak. We’ve been told that we are in your territory. We apologize. We would like to—”
The man suddenly hurled his rock at Desmond’s face. Desmond instinctively flinched to the side. The rock flew by his ear and struck something behind him with a solid thunk. Several refugees cried out, and Desmond whipped his head around to look. One of the men in the perimeter formation was sprawled on his back, holding both hands against his bleeding face.
Desmond snapped forward again in time to see Infinity charge forward. She raised a fist like she was going to punch the green man but then ducked and flew into his stomach, taking him to the ground. The man grunted and struggled, but she was already on top of him, one hand gripping his throat, the other pummeling his face in a blur of punches. By the time Desmond had scrambled to her side, she had struck the man several dozen times and was already back on her feet. The man groaned, beaten too senseless to even put his hands to his pulverized face.
Infinity addressed the crowd of natives, holding up her blood-stained fist for all to see. “This man hurt one of our people! So I’ve hurt him. If anyone else tries something like that, we’ll either hurt you or kill you. I want to make sure that’s very clear.”
The natives stared at her, some of them with wide eyes, others with murderous scowls. A few were searching the ground for more rocks.
The situation was about to escalate into a full-blown bat
tle.
“Wait!” Desmond cried. “We don’t want trouble! We will leave your territory tomorrow at noon. That’s when the last of us will arrive. Once we’re all here, we’ll leave and go somewhere else. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
The painted people kept moving closer, one cautious step at a time, many of them now ready to throw the rocks they’d found.
“Why do you speak?” one of them hissed, keeping his voice low. This man had yellow limbs and a black torso.
“Return to the wild land!” another whispered.
Desmond shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean by that. We speak because we want you to know we are not looking for trouble. I don’t know what the wild land is. Can we please just talk about this? Please—we don’t want violence.”
The yellow and black man hesitated, glancing at several of the others. He then turned to the mongrel bubble before turning back to Desmond. He cupped his hand to the side of his mouth and whispered, “You took our food. You speak not a stone’s throw from the mongrels. You are fools, and we shan’t abide your trespass.”
Desmond realized the man was trying to conceal his voice from the mongrels. Perhaps these people worshipped the mongrels and didn’t speak in their presence out of respect? Desmond lowered his own voice. “We haven’t taken your food.” He waved his hand back toward the main mass of refugees. “We don’t have any food. We’ll be happy to leave the moment our last group arrives, at noon tomorrow.”
Cries of confusion suddenly filled the air. The yellow and black man widened his eyes and stepped back. “What in tarnation?” he said in a much louder voice.
Desmond looked behind him. Group eight had arrived. They tumbled over each other and began retching, their cries turning into anguished dry heaves. Arty and several others rushed to the bridge-in site to calm the new arrivals and begin orienting them.
Desmond turned back to the yellow and black man. “Those are our people. They arrive in groups of twenty. After they’ve all arrived, we’ll leave.”
Bridgers 3_The Voice of Reason Page 8
