by Tanya Huff
“We are not being Krai, still being living in trees, but my people are being arboreal not so long ago in the evolutionary scheme of things.” Less prehensile than the Krai, Katrien toes had the advantage of claws. “As I are understanding it, your people are having been arboreal too, way back.” Presit waved a small, black hand, the humidity plastering her fur around her wrist. “I hear it are like seekindying dae hurricna; you are never forgetting.”
“Yeah, I heard that, too.” She’d look up a translation later. Weapon secured across her back, Torin centered the signal from the shuttle and jumped for the nearest low-hanging branch. At the edge of her peripheral vision, she saw the eyeless snake drop to the ground and reminded herself not to grab any vines.
“Look at it this way, you’re contributing valuable anecdotal research.” Grateful for the chance to rest, Arniz slowly pulled an insect out of a bleeding scrape on Trembley’s arm, maintaining a constant pressure so as not to leave the head and mandibles in the wound. “The pre-destruction inhabitants must have tasted Human; they’re ignoring the rest of us.”
“Yeah.” Trembley winced as she closed the tweezers carefully around the narrow body of another insect. “I noticed and . . . Fukking hell! That hurts!”
“I thought Marines were tough.” She smacked him on the thigh with her free hand. “Hold still. You enjoyed it a lot less when I had to cut pieces out.” The insects smelled of copper when crushed although, Arniz allowed, the scent could have come from the bulging blood sacs distorting the shape of the rearmost legs. “If I survive this . . .”
“Survive what?”
She blinked at him, a slow slide of her inner lids, and his skin darkened as blood rushed to his face. The little she knew of hairless mammals suggested shame. Good. “If I survive this,” she repeated, “I’ll petition to take a specimen or two back to the university and have the entomologists our budget wouldn’t extend to include, find out what, exactly, they’re feeding on.”
“Me. They’re feeding on me.”
“In a less general sense.” Gripping Trembley’s wrist, she turned his arm from side to side, tongue tasting the air as she leaned in close. “I think that’s got them all.”
“You think?”
“I also think that next time you’re bitten by an organism you haven’t previously been exposed to, you should do more than scratch.” Maintaining her grip, she applied a generous layer of sealant. “I’m sure Marine training must have covered what to do when killing people on a world new to your species.”
“We didn’t just kill people,” he muttered sulkily, examining his arm.
The edges of the scrape were pink and puffy, and Arniz hoped it was from trauma. Alternately, she hoped the broad-spectrum antibiotics in the sealant could deal with it. Every member of the expedition had had emergency medical training, but that training had been focused on getting the injured to the autodoc alive. “We have Human parameters loaded, thanks to the presence of Dr. Ganes. If Yurrisk had allowed me to take you to the infirmary . . .”
“Yeah, right.” Trembley flexed his hand and rolled the muscles of his arm under the seal. “If you’re in the anchor, you could send for help.”
“From the infirmary? With you right there? Swelling, but functional? That makes as little sense as the rest of this,” she sighed, reassembling the first aid kit.
“What part of wanting a weapon to defeat the plastic doesn’t make sense? Look, we’re going to find the weapon and then we’re boots up. The commander already has a buyer. He’ll sell it, pay Sergeant Martin, who’ll pay us. You can raise the alarm or keep doing whatever you were doing. I don’t get what’s so hard to understand.”
Arniz sat back, bracing herself on her tail. “And if there isn’t a weapon?”
“But the plastic residue . . .”
She should never have sent that message. Should have buried it in the day’s report as an unexplained anomaly. Dzar and Mygar would still be alive if she had. She wasn’t responsible for their deaths, she carried too many years to carry unnecessary guilt as well, but she had put the circumstances leading to their death in motion. She watched Salitwisi scan the area around a stone corner protruding from the undergrowth, Mirish standing guard, weapon aimed, as though Salitwisi with a scanner was dangerous. The di’Taykan’s deep blue hair flicked back and forth, two of the gossamer-winged insects riding the air currents above it. Ignoring the extremely high probability that the absence of underground chambers out on the plateau meant there’d be no underground chambers in the jungle—both locations part of the same city, on the same shallow soil, the jungle arriving at this point thousands of years after the city had fallen—Yurrisk had decided the ruins along the path were to be scanned.
Why kidnap experts and not use them? Arniz wondered. Guns did not supersede education. “Fine. Yes. There’s plastic residue, but your conclusions are unsupported. What if there isn’t a weapon?”
He shrugged. “Well, we have to be sure, don’t we?”
It sounded as though it made sense. In a crazy let’s extrapolate from nothing at all kind of a way. She sighed. It wasn’t an argument she could win. “Evidence suggests the insects are attracted to open wounds.”
Trembley nodded. “Standard operating procedure: if physical integrity is breached, leaks are to be sealed immediately.”
She blinked.
He poked her leg. “That was like a joke.”
“I see.” She didn’t. He reminded her more and more of her firsters. Young and uninformed, needing guidance to meet his potential, guidance he wouldn’t get from the violent . . .
“What the fukking hell!”
Martin. Coffee delivered too hot or an absence of ginger biscuits deserved an extended burst of profanity at high volume—although he’d killed two people without raising his voice.
“Fukking fuk fuk, God fukking damn it!”
He’d was raising it now.
And flailing.
Bits of broken bracken filled the air around him.
And tearing off his clothing.
Humans looked unfinished without scales or fur.
“They’re in my fukking dick!”
Dick?
Oh. Penis.
Even in the dim light under the canopy, that looked painful. With luck, it was actually excruciating.
She could taste his fear on the air. Even better.
A whimper drew Arniz’s attention back to Trembley. He surged up onto his feet, whites showing all around his eyes, a Human feature she hadn’t previously been aware of, and stood on first one foot, then the other. She reached out and swept an insect off his lower leg. “It appears they’re drawn to openings, not only open wounds. I suggest you seal your clothing.”
“How?” Still shifting from foot to foot, he plucked at his trousers. “These aren’t combats!”
“There’s tape in the anchor.” When he stared at her, not understanding, she sighed. “Specifically for this. The Ministry didn’t tell us what flavor the locals would prefer. This isn’t our first dig and tape doesn’t malfunc . . .” She sighed as Trembley raced past, back along the cleared road toward the anchor.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Trembley didn’t slow at Yurrisk’s question. “Penis bugs! Need tape!”
“You don’t . . .” Before he could raise his voice, Qurn touched his shoulder and pointed at Martin. With her gloves off, her long ivory fingers looked like bone.
Arniz froze as Yurrisk strode past her toward Martin. When he ignored her, she relaxed, stiffening again as Qurn shot her a suspicious glare. She shot one back.
“You’re not being paid to play with yourself.” Yurrisk’s voice had dropped to a low growl.
The crack of a crushed insect between thumb and forefinger sounded before Martin raised his head.
“And,” Yurrisk added, arms folded, “you don
’t get paid at all if we don’t find that weapon.”
Martin’s expression dropped Arniz’s tail tip to the ground. Did Yurrisk not recognize how close he stood to death or did he not care? Was this something the military trained away?
“I think he needs a moment.” Glove back on, Qurn touched Yurrisk’s shoulder. She saw the danger, even if Yurrisk didn’t. “The faster Sergeant Martin deals with his infestation, the faster he can go back to work.”
“Infestation. Of course.” Yurrisk’s shoulders rose and fell as he drew in a deep breath. He swayed right, then right again as he drew in another. Arniz hoped he’d choke on an insect, but no such luck. “Then deal with it.”
“Ganes!”
Arniz twitched at the aggressive bark. Tossing aside an armload of cut bracken, Ganes met Martin’s gaze, apparently unaffected. He raised an eyebrow as Martin stomped naked toward him.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and watched. From the road, from the ruins . . .
“Why haven’t the little fukkers gone for you? You have some kind of science anti-bug charge in your clothes?”
“My clothes are impregnated with a species nonspecific repellent. And . . .” Ganes raised a hand, a broad band of familiar gray tape around wrist and cuff. “Insects are a given on most planets. I’m not impressed by your preparation for this mission, Serg . . .” He rocked back, lessening the impact. Straightened, wiped blood off his mouth, sweat off his forehead, and smiled, teeth a defiant red-stained slash across his face. “There’s tape in the anchor. You wouldn’t fit into my clothes.”
Arniz had never liked him so much.
“I would,” Zhang snapped. “Let’s go!”
“No. I . . .”
“You got them in your dick, Sarge, you want to consider where me and Malinowski will get them?” She grabbed Ganes by the wrist and dragged him past Yurrisk, breaking into a run. “We’ll be back.”
“You can’t . . .” Yurrisk began, but Qurn shook her head. “Fine. Malinowski, you’ll . . .”
Malinowski crashed through the underbrush, running diagonally toward the road, leaving Lows unguarded.
Martin opened his mouth, closed it again, gathered his clothes, and walked toward the anchor, clothes in one hand, KC swinging from the other. One of the Polint, Arniz thought it might have been Tehaven, barked out an observation the rest of them found very funny.
“New worlds, new life-forms,” Yurrisk muttered. “Steering clear of both was one of the reasons I joined the Navy.”
“Penis bugs are a frequent occurrence in the Confederation?” Yurrisk jerked around toward Qurn so quickly he lost his balance and had to grab for her with both hands even as she braced hers against his chest. “Okay?”
He wet his lips, swallowed, and nodded. Unaware, or uncaring of his audience, he leaned in, rested his forehead against Qurn’s and said, “Penis bugs?”
“A good reason to join the Navy.”
Arniz couldn’t see Qurn’s face, but what she could see of Yurrisk’s expression made her wonder how he could have hired the piece of trash that was Sergeant Martin.
“All right.” One hand still holding Qurn’s arm, Yurrisk turned toward the Polint and made a slashing motion with the other. “Keep cutting!”
Without Martin’s slate, they wouldn’t have understood the words, but they seemed to understand the motion and, after a short exchange, began swinging their heavy blades again.
“Mirish!”
The di’Taykan, now leaning against the slender trunk of young tree, raised her head. Mouth open, she seemed to be panting slightly, the ends of her deep blue hair stroking a lime-green coil on her shoulder. Clearly unhappy in the heat and humidity, her weapon hung by her side. Not that it mattered how she held her weapon; Magyr’s death had taught Arniz these people were weapons in and of themselves.
“. . . keep an eye on Dr. Lows as well as Harveer Salitwisi.”
“Sir.”
“The insects nest in the bracken.” Qurn held up her slate and, had Arniz the energy to spare, she’d have crept closer to try and get a look at it. “Keeping the Humans out of the bracken should solve most of the problem.”
“The road goes through the bracken,” Yurrisk replied. “And if we leave the road . . .”
“Commander!” Sareer dropped down from the canopy, weapon across her back. She’d seemed quieter since Magyr’s death. Arniz wanted to think it was because the adventure of pushing people around, of taking what was wanted, had consequences. Sareer hadn’t known Dzar, but Magyr had been more than an unfamiliar face in a crowd, and it had been Sareer’s weapon picked up from where it had been leaning on the tree. Arniz wanted to think shame had quieted her, but she didn’t know enough about the Krai. Trees were important to them; perhaps it was nothing more than Sareer having a spiritual moment in the canopy. “We’ve seen the ruins, Commander. They’re mostly low stone buildings, with narrow rectangular doors and triangular windows—like they couldn’t make up their minds. We saw two or three buildings with an intact second story and half a dozen more with broken walls and missing roofs.” When Yurrisk held out his hand, she passed over her slate. “I came back with pictures. Beyvek’s still mapping. Weird layout, though; a lot of empty spaces for a city.”
“There were empty spaces on the plateau as well,” Arniz said thoughtfully, forgetting she wasn’t part of the conversation. “We theorized the pre-destruction inhabitants might have produced food inside the wall. For themselves—or for livestock, given the distinct probability of them being carnivorous. Soil analysis will identify dedicated agricultural use and, with the soil this shallow, they could have used a rotation of manure, theirs and their livestock’s, as well as agriculture to build up organic matter.”
Off in the underbrush, Salitwisi snorted. Loudly. “Simpler theory; all structures made of wood have long rotted away, leaving gaps.”
Arniz waved a piece of cut bracken at him, the anger at Magyr’s death finally finding a safe outlet. Architecture blinded Salitwisi to smaller possibilities. “I’d planned on testing for that as well.”
“Not to mention that any clay structures,” Salitwisi continued, ignoring her, “would have eventually washed away in the rainy season.”
She whirled around to fully face him. “And where would they have found clay?”
“From the river basin. At the bottom of the cliff. There had to have been a reason they build the road pointing directly at it.”
“There may have been a hundred reasons. We’ll never know them all!”
“But next year, when our charter includes the river basin . . .”
“Are you hallucinating?”
“I know people at the Ministry, and I’ll be speaking to them in the off season.”
“Oh, you’ll be . . .”
“Be quiet!”
The whole jungle fell silent at Yurrisk’s roar. Insects, birds—even branches stopped rubbing together.
Heart pounding, she turned to see Yurrisk and Qurn and Sareer staring. Yurrisk’s nostril ridges were closed. Behind him, Sareer’s were open. Arniz wished she’d paid more attention at the xenopsychology workshop her department had been forced to attend. Xenoanthropology? She didn’t remember, she hadn’t been paying attention, but it looked as if the two Krai were experiencing opposing reactions.
“We are on a timetable here,” Yurrisk growled. He pivoted on the ball of his foot, and Sareer’s nostril ridges slammed shut as he faced her. “How much farther?”
“One point four seven kilometers, sir.”
Not by the path she’d taken, Arniz assumed. On the ground.
“When Martin and the rest of the Humans return, you’ll guide them around the bracken and then back on course.”
“Yes, sir.” She glanced around and frowned. “Where have they gone?”
“They’re back at the anchor taping up their genitals.
” This time when they turned to stare, Arniz shrugged.
“Snake.”
“I see it.”
It slid off the edge of the branch and just before gravity won, thin arms lifted out from its sides, spreading triangular wings.
“Flying snake.”
“Yep.” Werst watched it glide to a lower branch, admiring the way it used its tail as a rudder. Did snakes have tails? he wondered. How did anyone tell where the snake ended and the tail started? And shoulders—if it had arms, did it have shoulders? And how did it taste?
“Not the forests we’re used to.” Ressk capped his canteen and secured it, his shoulder a warm weight against Werst’s side.
“Definitely not what I’m used to.” The city around the spaceport had been an artificial forest on a good day. On a bad day, it had been a prison, a broken promise, a kick in the nuts.
“Yeah. Not going to your pity party.” Ressk’s hand closed around his wrist and squeezed. “You’ve been up a lot of trees since then, and this . . .” He waved his free hand. “. . . isn’t like any of them.”
Werst plucked a long, narrow leaf and chewed it thoughtfully. “Reminds me a bit of Dunjub. Took the squad out to find the Primacy camp, and had to figure out the best way to bring the company up through old-growth forest.”
“And has your experience told you the best way to get a Polint through that?” Ressk shifted his feet, tightened his grip, leaned out, and peered into the underbrush nearly three meters below.
“Yeah. Behind a flamethrower.” He rolled his shoulders and cracked his back. “Be a lot easier if we could land on the anchor again. Hostages complicate the shit out of things.”
“That’s why they sent the best.”
“Us and the other guys.” His nostril ridges flared. “Mammals moving on the ground.”
They looked together. If they hadn’t been tracking by scent, they wouldn’t have known anything was there.
“Light on their feet.”
Ressk drew in a deep breath. “Omnivore. Noting location.”
They tapped it into the map forming on their visors at the same time and Werst checked that the anchor’s beacon remained centered. “Running silent from here in. Stay close.”
