by David Coy
He obviously hadn’t seen the color of the light that radiated from her particular moral light source. He’d gotten an Administrator in financial distress all right, but one with a set of ethics he hadn’t counted on.
Big mistake.
“I have no problems I can’t resolve quite comfortably in time,” she said coolly.
Smith finally saw the light and scowled.
“I wish this meeting had taken place under happier circumstances,” he said. “Would you stay for lunch? My chef is very good.”
“I really have to get back. I have patients waiting.”
“I understand.”
They stood there for an uncomfortable beat.
“Well, this is a surprise,” he said.
“I’m sorry. But it’s the right thing to do.”
“Of course. It’s just that I don’t like surprises.”
“James?” he said at the intercom.
“Sir?”
“Can you escort Donna back to the shuttle, please.”
“Right away.”
Mr. Too-clean was there before she could turn around, his pleasant face beaming.
He led her out of Smith’s office, but Smith called him back inside, leaving her to bask in the insipid expression on Afshin’s face.
“I hope your meeting went well,” he said.
“Yes. Very well. Thank you,” she smiled back. “And thank you for getting me the audience so quickly.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said stiffly.
James reappeared looking even more pleasant than he had earlier. He touched her arm gently and led her out.
It was the touch that did it. The hair on her neck grew springs.
They walked through the orbiter without speaking. James glanced over his shoulder a few times to make sure she was keeping up, his pleasant expression holding onto his face like a mask. She was relieved to get to the shuttle.
“Here we are,” he said and stepped aside to let her enter.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said and stepped on board behind her.
“Oh . . . ” she said. “You’re coming with us?”
“Yes. I have an errand for Mr. Smith. No rest for the wicked.”
“Ah . . . ”
She took her seat and strapped herself in. When James sat down behind her silently, she had the impulse to move to another seat. The close proximity made her skin crawl.
She replayed the entire conversation she’d had with Smith. He was a louse. As she mulled it over, more pieces began to drift into place; but no clear picture took form. Something was wrong with the project. It was snake-bitten. Something was very, very out of whack; that much she knew for sure. She contemplated breaking her contract and going back home, perhaps mentioning the bribe to someone in Health under separate cover or in her report itself. If she broke her contract, they’d put her in jail. If she continued on with Smith at the helm, she might end up in jail anyway.
There was a brief period of weightlessness as the shuttle fell toward the planet. Donna’s purse drifted up off the seat next to her only to be snagged by James and offered back to her.
“Oh, thanks,” she said.
“Is that real leather?” he asked.
“Yes. One of the few. A gift from some years ago.”
“Very nice.”
“Thank you.”
The sudden pull of gravity as the shuttle fell through the upper atmosphere caused a momentary blanch of nausea as it always did. The exchange with Smith had been tense, and she was feeling a delayed reaction to it. She felt herself gripping the arms of the seat so tightly her knuckles were showing white.
Settle down!
She looked out the window and watched as the little cut-out of the installation grew in size. Minutes later, she could make out individual structures along the eastern edge. As they descended even further, she tried to pick out the clinic, but wasn’t sure she could.
When she realized they had overflown the installation she felt a wrenching in her guts that had nothing to do with gravity.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
James looked out the window and acted confused—too confused. She knew he was screwing with her.
“My, we’re over the jungle again. What the heck . . . ”
Donna went stiff in her seat and stared straight ahead.
They wouldn’t dare.
“We must be taking a short cut . . . ” he said.
She thought she heard a slight chuckle coming from behind her. She swallowed. Her mind raced in no direction at all.
She ventured a look out the window and had to crane her neck around to see the cleared patch of jungle behind her. When she looked straight down, she could make out the tops of trees drifting past and then the long, straight stripe of a wide swamp.
She had to get out of her chair. The safety straps felt like an executioner’s restraints. She had them off in a flash and got up, fear tightening her chest.
“Where are you going?” James asked.
“To talk to the pilot,” she said almost gasping.
“He’s busy,” he said with a smirk.
She had to do something. Anything. She put the strap of her purse over her shoulder and approached the forward door just like any concerned passenger might do who had noticed that the craft was suddenly way off course.
She knocked.
When she heard James laugh, the rush of fear almost made her faint.
No. This isn’t happening.
She noticed that the shuttle had stopped and now drifted high above the green.
“What’s going on? Why have we stopped here?”
She knew the answer. She turned at the sound of the cockpit’s opening door.
Another Too-Clean had replaced the pilot. Actually, he looked nasty. “Can you fly?” he asked.
She wanted to faint.
“No, can-you?” she asked as one word.
James chuckled.
“Well, I’d suggest you grow wings really fast.”
“Why’s that?”
“Cause you’re gonna need 'em, really fast.”
She heard the shuttle’s exterior door open and looked over. A thick patch of cloud hovered just a few hundred meters from the open door. She could see the green mat of the jungle stretching forever.
“You’ll never get away with this,” she said with sudden resolve.
“Yes, we will. You won’t be missed.”
“You’re wrong. They’ll investigate. They’ll know I’ve been to the orbiter.”
One of them took hold of her arms. His hands clamping like a vise. She instinctively tried to drop to the floor and started to kick and flail.
“No! You fuckers! You bastards! No!”
James grabbed her by her shirt front, and together they wrestled her to within a few feet of the open door. The green below looked soft and cushiony like the cloud.
“See that?” James said. “That shit goes all around the planet. There are a zillion ways to disappear on this ball. They won’t find so much as a single little toe bone. No body, no crime.” Nasty leaned down close to her ear, but his voice was far away.
“It’ll be fun.”
She felt his hands cinch a little tighter. Her panic gave way to numbness.
He shoved her out.
She felt herself tumble, but she didn’t fall. She spun weightless in the shuttle’s suspensor field with nothing under her but air. She looked down at the soft cushiony treetops and felt her mind drifting, fading from reality.
“You didn’t push her far enough,” James said. “She’s stuck. I told you this was stupid. We should have just jettisoned her into space.”
“Oh, yeah?” the other said. “Watch this.”
Nasty reached up and held onto the railing above the door just as Donna tumbled back toward it. When she was in just the right position, he jumped, swung out and kicked her with both feet. She tumbled across the suspensor field and slid down the far side o
f it, then out into mid-air.
She gained speed quickly, and the rushing air tore at her clothes and hair, and its sound filled her ears. Her mind retreated further, she went limp, and let the arms of gravity pull her downward.
She rotated slowly, feeling the force of the air twist and bend her. Once or twice, she saw the stationary shuttle far above, getting smaller and smaller as she fell.
The treetops approached slowly at first, then faster and faster, filling her vision with green. She wanted to scream. What came out was a long groan—vanquished by the sound of rushing air.
She hit the treetop like a bullet and crashed through the upper branches in a mere half second. Spun and twisted violently by the impact, her world was a tumbling flash of green and light and crashing sound. Slowed by the top branches, she shot down through the woolly tree and hit the spongy ground at its base with a thump, square on her back, at a modest speed of ten meters per second.
She lay still.
Then her mind crawled up, slowly up, like a wounded animal, into the bright light of a sweet and certain reality.
* * *
I’m alive.
Her lungs nearly devoid of air, she gasped until she could force enough into them to breathe again.
She took inventory, trying to sense broken bones and burst organs; any injuries illuminated by flames of pain.
Her feet worked. That was a very good sign. She twisted them around slowly, just to feel them move. She felt a thing crawling on her neck and reached up to pluck it off. Another good sign, but the skin on her arm was red and welted, scratched and bleeding as if feral cats had attacked her. She could hear and see and a sweet scent reached her. She licked her lips and spat something twiggy from the tip of her tongue. Her face began to sting, and she realized her face must have suffered much like her arm had. She took a deep breath and felt some pain in her diaphragm, but nothing that overwhelmed her. She had no idea if she had any internal injuries. Those would show themselves soon enough.
She’d landed in a thick patch of ferns. When she looked up through the fronds, she could see the sky above as if looking through a ragged tube; her body had cut a trail through the branches on its way through the soft, bushy tree. It was the tallest, woolliest tree she’d ever seen.
“Thank God for you, tree,” she croaked at it.
She took another deep breath and, moving in slow motion, rose up. Everything hurt, but she managed to make it up on one knee. She coughed.
She was amazed when seeing the thing at her feet, recognized it as her purse. The strap was completely missing, probably hanging from a broken branch above.
Christ.
Standing stiffly, she looked up through the canopy to the sky above. Looking up made her stagger slightly to catch her balance. As the shock subsided, she began to feel as if she’d been beaten with a big stick.
“Stupid idea after all, you pricks,” she said weakly. “I’m still alive.”
She looked around at the thick, nearly impenetrable foliage and the thought occurred to her that maybe that was exactly what they’d planned.
She tried to sit but fell more than sat down on her rump, legs akimbo, and the shock of hitting the ground shot through her like a bolt.
A moment later, her eyes slowly closed and then she fell softly over onto her side.
A pulsing pain in her arm brought her back to awareness. She could tell by the fog over her brain that she’d slept awhile. She struggled up and got to her feet, each movement sending shock waves through her.
She sat back down on a moss-covered log and looked around. Nothing moved; not leaf or twig. Something small, a seed or nut, dropped from above and left a brief trail of sound along the leaves and branches as it fell. She lost it completely in the tangle.
Just like me.
She had no idea where she was; no idea which way to go.
Panic reared up like a beast, and she breathed deep to keep it at bay. She looked around, twisting painfully one way and the next, trying to gain some clue, some hint of which way to go.
If she could get up high enough, maybe she could see the installation.
She giggled, almost hysterically.
Which way?
She looked up. The sun was directly behind the cloud cover that had drifted over her position. She scowled. It wouldn’t help her even if she could see it. She had no idea where the sun rose or set relative to the installation. That hadn’t been on her list of things to check in the first two days on the project.
The purse was a problem. She wouldn’t be carrying it without a strap. She opened it and scratched through the contents, taking inventory. She put the compact with the mirror in her shirt pocket then added the penknife and a half package of chewing gum. The little flashlight was a sure bet, and in it went. She’d carried the little sewing kit for years, its package worn dull by the numerous pockets it had ridden in. She put it in her pocket. She took her ID card. There were two foil-wrapped doses of aspirin in the bottom. She tore a pack open and munched, then swallowed the tablets and put the other pack in the pocket. She scratched through the remaining stuff to make sure there was nothing else worth keeping.
Satisfied, she tossed the purse away with a sigh. She’d been very fond of it.
Which way?
After thinking about it, she decided on what to do and tore another straight twig off the tree. She cleaned it off as best she could, decided which end would be the arrow-end.
“Here goes.”
She twirled it up into the still air. It landed a meter from her feet. She traced the direction from the arrow-end into the green. It was as good as any.
She started to walk. Every step hurt—more so because, for all she knew, she could be heading in the dead wrong direction.
She walked for about a half hour before the pain in her chest caused her to stop and rest. She wasn’t sure, but she realized it was getting darker, and the sudden thought of being out in the jungle at night sent a shudder of dread through her guts like some forgotten horror, newly remembered. She needed shelter, any kind of shelter, if she were going to make it through the night.
She got her breath and continued on, keeping her eye out for anything that might shelter her; any hole or depression—or screened in room.
As dusk approached, the oppressive green cast to the air got thicker and more sinister.
She entered a grove of enormous trees, even taller than the one she’d fallen through. But unlike that one, which had been similar to a feathery conifer, these were oak-like monsters of gigantic girth, with roots twisted and gnarled, branching out into the ground from huge trunks. The massive arms sprawled out into huge umbrellas that blocked out the light from above. The areas under their canopy were relatively barren of plant growth. She reasoned that where there was less foliage, there would be fewer insects and other unpleasant fauna at night. There were at least a dozen trees in the grove, and the shelters formed by the branching roots, she figured, were about as good as she’d find.
She approached one tangle, and peered in. It looked buggy and too tight, and she thought she could see strange droppings on the floor inside it. She sniffed the air—then promptly went on to the next one.
This one had a much bigger space between the roots and looked a little cleaner. It passed the sniff test. She eyeballed the space up under the arch of roots then cautiously slipped inside. It was tight but not too bad. She spent a few minutes inside just to get used to it, trying from time to time to see up into the dark crevices and channels formed by the thick roots above her head. She scooted around on her butt and found a spot for her back that wasn’t too painful.
Satisfied that no immediate danger existed that she could see, she climbed back out through the narrow space.
She’d passed several clusters of flowering vines that had clumps of what might have been fruit hanging from them. There was an especially large cluster just at the perimeter of the grove, and she headed toward it.
The vine was covered with bright yel
low flowers similar to orchids. She leaned in and breathed the scent of one. The scent was faint but sweet and rich, compelling her to breathe it in again. The fruit looked not too unlike bunches of grapes, but each individual grape was egg-shaped and longish and a reddish-orange color. The color put her off, but if she were going to make it back, she’d have to have nourishment and water. The fruit in front of her held the potential for both. She reached out to pick a bunch.
A mean little hiss came out at her. She snatched her hand back.
She tried to find the offending organism, peering around and squinting into the vines around the fruit—but saw nothing. Whatever it was had good camouflage.
She chose another bunch and slowly brought her hand toward it. The same hiss greeted her when her hand reached the same distance from the bunch.
She drew back and looked.
Nothing.
She tried again.
A hiss came back.
Once more. This time, she kept her open hand close to the bunch. The hiss continued unabated for a full minute until she withdrew her hand.
Nothing has that much air.
She reached up and plucked the fruit from the vine. The plant hissed briefly then stopped as the bunch separated from
the vine. She grinned. The plant itself had made the noise.
Hissimus Applegati, she thought.
She separated one of the grapes from the bunch and sniffed it. It had no scent she could detect. She mashed it in her fingers and juice and meat squeezed out as it split open. She touched her tongue to the juice that ran down her thumb. It tasted sweet. She considered it a moment longer, then pinched off a piece of the pulpy meat with her teeth and munched it around. The piece was almost too small to taste, so she got a bigger one and nipped around at it. It was extremely sweet and fruity with a slight citric taste, a hint like orange. She spat it out and waited for some after-taste that would warn her off it. No weird flavor or sensation developed. She swallowed.
She plucked another from the bunch, wrestled the tough stem off with her teeth, put the whole thing in her mouth and slowly bit down on it. The little globe burst open and a gush of sweet fruity juice spurted over her tongue. She chewed. There was a small hard seed in there and she worked it forward and spat it out. She swallowed.
