by Merry Farmer
“Danny, you’ve got to come quick,” Jonah panted when they reached his small group.
“I’m a trifle busy at the moment,” he said, nodding to Heather.
Jonah shook his head and caught his breath. “There’s smoke over the tree-line. Coming from the north, in the direction where Kutrosky was last seen.”
“Don’t distract him,” Sean warned Jonah. “Carrie needs him. Now!”
“I know.” Danny frowned in answer to both men. He started across the pavilion with long strides toward the exit that would take him to Sean and Carrie’s cabin. Sean, Stacey, Jonah, and Heather all followed him, drawing curious looks from the handful of others who had come to the pavilion for breakfast. “I saw the smoke a few minutes ago.”
“Someone is sending signals.” Jonah lunged to catch up to his side.
Danny stopped, turning to him with a frown. “Signals?”
“Yeah, smoke signals.” Heather shifted, glancing from Jonah to Danny. “Like the ancient sentinels used to do back on Earth to communicate across distances, you know?”
“I know.” He blinked at her, surprised she’d stuck to her studies. He glanced back to Jonah. “How do you know they’re signals?”
“They were coming in regular intervals, starting at daybreak. I didn’t think much of it but it didn’t stop. The same pattern was repeated over and over.”
“Was it Morse Code?”
Jonah’s face pinched in doubt. “I don’t think so. It was deliberate but not standard, if that makes sense. Like someone who knows how to signal but not what. Theory without an alphabet.”
Danny’s whole body tensed. Grace. She would do something like that in a heartbeat. It made no logical sense. Reason told him the last place she would be right now was out in the snow on their side of the river. His heart wouldn’t let go of the wild idea. He looked to the door leading to the path that headed north. She could be out there, closer than he imagined.
“The only thing up that way is Kutrosky’s camp.” Heather swallowed, shuffling into Danny’s line of sight to meet his eyes. “Do you…do you think it’s him? Signaling to that rescue ship you guys talk about? Vengeance?”
Danny hesitated. His pulse pounded with possibility, but he wasn’t ready to share his mad idea, his spark of hope, that it could be Grace out there trying to reach them, with anyone. Not even Heather.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” he told her. “If it was Vengeance, smoke signals would be the last way they would communicate with it. Plus, we would have seen and heard it coming.”
“Oh.” She lowered her head and bit her lip. Danny couldn’t tell if she was disappointed or relieved.
Aside from what Danny knew it meant for him, few of the others had been able to decide whether the arrival of Vengeance was something to look forward to or to fear. Kutrosky had held it over their heads, threatened and carried on about it. He’d suggested that for some it would be rescue from lifelong exile. But he hadn’t told them when the ship would arrive. So far, no ship had come. Not in the immediate days after the confrontation and not in the drawn-out months since. Kutrosky’s people had disappeared and the rest of them had gotten on with the business of settling.
“What do we do?” Jonah waited for his orders.
“Danny.” Sean glared at him as if he was about to be abandoned. “Time is running out.”
It was. He needed to move.
“Put together a reconnaissance team to learn as much as you can about the smoke,” he told Jonah, continuing on toward the flap that led out to the path to Carrie and Sean’s cabin. “If it’s possible to get closer to the signals then send a scout. But don’t be seen. If it’s any farther than a few hours trek, then don’t go. I want a full report by mid-afternoon.”
“Right,” Jonah nodded. He took Heather’s arm when she continued to stare at Danny, biting her lip with a plaintive lift of her brow. Danny could only spare a nod for her. There would be time to comfort whatever fears she had later.
Maybe.
Danny, Sean, and Stacey burst out into the blinding white morning, hurrying up the long path to Carrie and Sean’s cabin. Snow soaked the bottom of his pants and seeped down into his boots, chilling his toes. The metal of his glasses chilled against the skin of his face. He could hardly remember the last time he felt warm.
He could hear Carrie’s cries of pain as they approached the cabin. A shock of adrenaline quickened his steps and he pushed the mountain of other concerns aside. Grace’s friend was in trouble. Sean jumped in front of him, throwing open the door. Inside, they found Carrie on the crude hide-covered bed in the far corner, a rough, hand-woven blanket covering her. Danny threw off his parka and gloves and rushed to her side.
“Hold still,” he told her, a gentleness to his voice that hadn’t been there since Grace left.
“Danny!” Carrie shouted, eyes wide as she recognized him. “It hurts. Oh God, it hurts.” She grabbed his hand and squeezed it as if that would take the pain away.
Danny brushed his fingers over her sweaty forehead, pushing her damp hair back. She was feverish. Fear sharpened his senses. “Try to hold still,” he repeated, pushing her shoulders down and throwing the blanket aside to look between her legs.
The furs serving as sheets were splattered with blood around her hips. When Sean saw, he stumbled back with a muffled groan.
“Shit.” Stacey pushed a hand through her hair, her face losing its color. “I’ll go get some bandages or something.” She turned to run out.
“Get my herb box while you’re at it,” Danny called after her.
He turned back to Carrie. “Let me get a better look.”
Panting, mewling with pain, she did her best to lie still and keep her shaking legs apart. Danny shifted to get a better look. The baby was crowning, but seemed stuck. He knew enough about childbirth to know the situation was dire, but not enough to know what to do about it. Every other birth the women under his responsibility had gone through had been tough but normal. He’d been little more than an observer, ready to mop up placenta and cut cords afterwards. This was different.
He put a hand on Carrie’s abdomen, searching for clues, heart racing. Carrie’s muscles had gone rock hard with a contraction. Without a knowledge of obstetrics, that was all he could tell. He checked between her legs again, sweat trickling down his back. Panic kept his face expressionless. He needed to think. The baby’s head was trying to move. If something was holding it in he had to speed things along. Somehow.
What would Grace do?
She wouldn’t give up in a panic.
He drew in a breath and rolled up his shirtsleeves. Swallowing, he reached for the baby, wedging aside hot, blood-slicked flesh. Carrie screamed. He had no room to work, nothing to guide him other than a faint hunch. His fingertips barely gripped the sides of the baby’s head. It wanted to come forward. The little thing was a fighter. He caught hold of something, the tip of an ear, and pulled. The surge of Carrie pushing through a contraction helped his efforts. The head slid further into his hands. He clenched his jaw and reached for it, pulling, praying.
With a jolt the head was out. The rest of the baby’s body followed in a burst of blood and placenta. Carrie cried out. Danny let out the breath he’d been holding as the baby slipped into his arms. There was no cord around her neck but she wasn’t breathing. She was bluish and dusky, a lifeless lump. He stared with wide eyes at the baby, scrambling to know what to do. Instinct was the only thing he had to fall back on. He tipped the baby over and thumped her back.
A sharp wail cut the tension in the room and a flush of pink began to spread through the girl. She came to life in his arms.
He let out his breath and turned the girl over. She was furious, scared, shaking and flailing and covered with blood and gore, as if blaming him for taking her from the comfort of her mother’s womb. His confidence in her chance of living blossomed. He’d never seen anything so amazing. In spite of his turmoil, he smiled. Grace would be overjoyed.
A s
econd later, reality caught up to him. The baby was covered with more blood than she should be. Carrie’s blood.
He cut and tied the cord as quickly as he could with the supplies Sean had on hand, then passed the girl and all her gore to Sean. His adrenaline spiked anew as he focused on Carrie. She had passed out. She was still bleeding heavily, sticky redness pooling under her along with placenta. He cleaned away as much as he could, and when he was certain the afterbirth was complete, he grabbed anything within his reach, furs, the blanket, and packed them between her legs. He had no idea if it would help or bring death faster.
The door to the cabin flew open with an icy blast and Stacey rushed in.
“This is all I could find,” she told Danny, piling a bundle of white bandages onto the bed beside him. She plunked his large herb box on the foot of the bed. “Shit,” she cursed when he pulled the blankets and furs away to staunch bandages in their place. “That is not good.”
“Open the box and hand me some of the leaves that I’ve marked as ‘crown weed.’”
“Crown weed. Right.”
He used the bandage in his hand to clean the area as much as he could. It was slow and messy. Carrie was still bleeding, but it might not be as bad as it seemed. ‘Might’ didn’t give him much hope. Tossing the bloody bandage on the floor, he took another clean one and pressed it against Carrie’s flesh.
“Oh God.” Sean peeked over his shoulder then instantly turned away when he saw the bloody bandages on the floor. “She’s going to die isn’t she?” He paced away across the room, holding his daughter to his chest, streaking blood across her forehead as he stroked her head to calm her.
Danny ignored him. Stacey thrust a handful of leaves at him. He took them, crushing them in his fist for a second before removing the bandage and pressing them into Carrie’s birth canal. His experiments with plants had indicated this one was some sort of antiseptic, good for closing cuts, but he’d only begun to do research with it. He was working in the dark, no idea whether he was helping or hurting. They’d put far more trust in him than he deserved.
Carrie stirred, groaning back to consciousness. The tension in the room spiked. Sean and Stacey both rushed to lean over the bed.
“Grace,” Carrie muttered. She struggled to move, too weak to get up, but too delirious to realize it. “Grace!”
“Don’t talk,” Danny ordered her. “Keep still.” He grabbed her ankles and moved her legs down to hold his makeshift bandage in place.
Carrie moaned and grabbed for him. He scooted up the bed. She opened her eyes wide, staring wildly at him.
“Danny!” She grabbed his bloodstained shirt with sweaty hands. “Where’s Grace?”
“She’s not here.” He pried one of her hands off his shirt and held it.
“No! She has to be.” Her shallow sobs were weak. “Find her. Bring her here.”
“I can’t, Carrie.” Calm as his voice sounded, the emotions pounding at his ribcage and ripping his heart from the inside were almost too much for him to bear. His throat constricted with more sorrow than he thought he had left.
“No, you have to go get her. The ship. I have to tell her about….” She swooned, grip loosening.
“You need to rest, Carrie.” He squeezed her hand tighter. “You’ve just had a difficult birth and you need all your strength to heal.”
She was still for only a moment before trying to struggle again. Her face twisted in pain.
“Kutrosky,” she whispered, trying to open her eyes. “He was wrong.”
Danny’s heart stopped. His hands tensed around hers. “What was he wrong about?”
She shook her head, thrashing. “I…I knew…the beacon.” She gave up trying to move.
“What did you know?”
Her lips moved, but she didn’t answer.
“Carrie,” he prompted her.
“Let her rest.” Stacey sank to sit on the edge of the bed, frightened tears in her eyes as she stroked Carrie’s head.
“But….”
“Just let her rest, Danny.”
Danny let out a breath, praying for more. Stacey continued to stroke Carrie’s forehead. Sean stared at her, dumb with shock. For too many aching moments all they could do was watch her struggle in vain to speak.
Brian Kutrosky. It all came back to him, from the trouble on the Argo to the conflict on the moon. Every loss, every setback, every death. Every ounce of blood was on that man’s hands. He deserved the pain Carrie felt now and so much more.
“All right. Sleep.” Danny swallowed to stop his voice from cracking with defeat. “That’s all behind us.”
His words upset her. She tried to shake her head no. “The beacon. Grace. I have to…. He was wrong. Kutrosky….Vengeance.” Her words stopped, her eyelids fluttered shut. Her hand went limp in his.
“No!” Sean shouted. He pushed his baby into Stacey’s arms and lunged for the bed. Danny tumbled to the floor as Sean shoved him out of the way. “No, Carrie, no. Stay with me. You’re gonna make it. Stay here with me.” He took up her hand and pressed it to his mouth, face red and streaming with tears.
Danny stood, body aching, and wiped his filthy hands on his pants. Rage bubbled through the void in his chest. He watched, powerless. Carrie had gone from red and feverish to pale. A pitiful end to the drama that had cost them all so much. His limbs were heavy with helplessness as he walked around the bed to retrieve his herb box. There was nothing left for him to do.
Exhaustion clouded his mind. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes on his rolled-up sleeve. He didn’t put the glasses back on. He didn’t want to see the sight spread out in front of him, Carrie naked and bloody, Sean crumpled in devastation, clasping her hand. Grace would never forgive him. One more body to add to the count he was responsible for.
He turned, sliding his glasses back on and searching for something to cover Carrie’s body. He found a bearskin folded on a chest against the far wall. He took it and shook it out, spreading it over Carrie, taking his turn to nudge Sean out of the way. Sean stood and slumped back, weeping. Danny sat in his place, pulling the skin up to her neck, hesitating before covering her face. If he ever crossed paths with Brian Kutrosky again….
He paused. The faintest hint of movement came from Carrie’s body. He pressed his fingers to her neck. A weak pulse greeted him. He blinked.
“She’s not dead.” He spoke aloud to convince himself it was true.
“She’s not?” Stacey’s ragged voice rose in hope.
He shook his head, smoothing the damp hair away from Carrie’s face. “Not yet at least.”
“Well, what do we do?” Stacey rocked forward to look.
Sean charged back from the other side of the room, switching places with Danny. “Carrie?” he took up her hand. “Carrie. Stay with me, sweetheart. Stay with me.”
“We can’t do anything,” Danny told Stacey, knowing that nothing he said to Sean would be of any use.
“But we gotta—”
Danny shook his head and shrugged. “If she’s going to live, the only thing that will help is rest.”
“But all those herbs and things you’ve been testing since the summer—”
“Testing. That’s just it. I can make some guesses but that’s all.”
“But it’s something.”
“Yes, but not much. We lost centuries of medical knowledge when the Argo exploded. It will take generations to get it back.” He strode across the room to thrust his hands into a large bowl of water kept for washing. “Let her sleep. Give her as many fluids as she’ll take,” he ordered Sean, scrubbing his hands and forearms and drying them as best he could on a chamois hung over the bowl on a peg. “I’ll check the survival book to see if it has any advice. If we’re lucky, her body will heal itself.” He had no idea if Sean heard him.
He scooped his parka up off the floor and shrugged into it, emptiness returning as adrenaline wore out. “I can send someone up to help if you need me to.”
“No,” Sean whispered.
>
“What about the baby?” Stacey glanced between them. “She needs attention.”
“Give her to me.” Sean wrenched himself up from the bed and turned to pluck his daughter out of Stacey’s arms. “Go with him.” He nodded for her to leave as Danny put his gloves on.
Stacey looked like she would argue. She let out a breath and grabbed her parka off the table. “You need to clean her off,” she directed Sean. “And get her warm. Keep her warm and clean. And…and hold her.” She gulped back a sob.
Sean nodded, the steel in his eyes an order for them to leave. Danny didn’t need to be told twice. He collected his herb box and stepped to the door. Stacey followed him out into the cold. The door slapped shut behind them and they pushed their way through the snow to the pavilion in silence.
“She’s still going to die, isn’t she?” Stacey asked when they were safe inside the pavilion.
Danny shrugged, pushing back the hood of his parka, body aching. “I honestly have no idea. Everyone was picked for The Terra Project because of their health and stamina. She has genetics on her side. Maybe she will make it.” He headed across the room to his laboratory, adding in a whisper, “Maybe she won’t.”
“Danny.” Stacey tried to stop him, chasing after him when he pushed on. “What do you think she was talking about?”
“I have no idea.” He didn’t want to think about it.
“What was Kutrosky wrong about?”
“I don’t care.”
“She said something about the beacon,” Stacey persisted. “Was Kutrosky wrong about the beacon? About the other ship? Was he wrong about it coming for us?”
Danny didn’t want to think about anything but murdering Kutrosky with his bare hands to make him pay for everything he’d done, but Stacey’s suggestion grabbed hold of him. He stopped and turned to stare at her. She took a step back, anxiety mingled with hope in her expression.
What if there was no beacon, no Vengeance? What if there was no threat that everything they worked for would be in vain? What if he wasn’t doomed to be executed the second Kutrosky’s rescuers found them? Kutrosky had lied before and hundreds of people had died. If he was lying this time, they might survive after all.
