by David Coy
These boots are old, anyways.
He started across the puddle, stepping high and trying not to splash too much.
It took him just a second to figure out how to open the top on the barrel. He had to lean way in, snag the bag with two fingers and pull it up.
Something began to bother him about it all. This was wrong somehow. He almost put the bag back, but thought again about Eddie and how it would piss him off to come back without them.
He opened the floppy plastic bag and began to fill the pockets of his coveralls with the little bottles. He worked quickly; he couldn’t wait to get out of there. When he had exactly twenty, he stopped, folded the bag up and put it back in the bottom of the barrel.
He climbed out of the cave, set the locator on channel one and found the direction home.
He’d gone just a few meters when he felt an itch on the top of his right foot.
14
She could see a good distance in either direction. The ravine was long, stretching for kilometers either way, blocking her path. Donna stood on the brink and looked down. She thought about trying to go around it, but decided the added hike wasn’t worth it. The ravine was deep but not very wide. The sides were steep, but she thought she could climb down, if with difficulty. Her bones and muscles still ached from the fall and the thought of stretching and straining in a downhill climb made her groan. She had no choice.
She’d been moving all day. Fatigue hung on her like wet wool. She wanted desperately to sleep; to soak in warm water and sleep between clean sheets. She hoped she’d been traveling in the right direction, but until the moons came up, she had no way of knowing for sure.
She tried to replay the flight over the installation; picturing every detail she could recall, looking for some geographical feature in the ragged tapestry of her memory that she might recognize as the one before her. She hoped to see in those images some slash in the terrain, a gouge in the green landscape, which could be this ravine and so confirm that her direction was taking her back. But translating what she saw from the lofty height of two thousand meters into the claustrophobic view down into the green was impossible. She could have been anywhere.
The idea of tumbling down the slope end over end sent a queasy flush through her midsection. She’d have to be careful going down. She hurt all over. The thought of another fall or tumble made her palms sweat even more.
The sun was getting low. She looked around and down into the tops of the trees in the ravine, as she tried to locate another grove of the huge trees that provided cover for her the night before. There were none.
Plowing and stomping her way through the jungle, one foot at a time, had consumed her energy and her thoughts, blinding her to the dreadful certainty of spending another endless night in the green.
She was standing on high ground, at least as high as anything she’d been on all day. Compared to the dark and wet-looking ravine below her, this spot was a bright and clean, screened-in porch of a place.
But it wouldn’t do.
She had to have something around her, to keep the things off her when the sun sank into the green mire, and her world was awash in swirling, crawling blackness.
* * *
She looked around like a frightened animal, not knowing what to do, wanting sanctuary, but not knowing where to find it. Suddenly a thought came to her, an image of what was needed; a perfectly sensible answer in the form of a spontaneous vision.
I’ll build it. A tent. A yurt thing.
She scanned the vicinity and took inventory of the needed components for the yurt. She found a piece of vine that was just the right thickness and yanked and yanked until she pulled down a long enough piece of it. That was a start. She found two tall, thin-stalked plants that were about the right distance apart. She bent one over and tied it off to a thick branch close to the ground and then arched the other over it to form a crude and crooked tent-like frame. She tied the second one off. The enclosure would be small, but that could work to her advantage. Working around the frame, she uprooted most of the short plants and stomped the ground as flat as she could inside what would be the yurt’s frame. She then looped the vine around the frame starting at the top and making three complete loops around before she ran out. She then had a frame, which she could easily fill with broad, flat leaves. She found several of the broadleaf plants nearby, stripped off the leaves and started her pile of organic roofing next to the framework.
She spent some time dressing the skeleton, by removing smaller branches and straightening the framework as best she could. Starting at the top, she laid the first leaf and bent it over the arch where the two arches met. She stood back and considered it. The leaf flopped around on its own, turned and slid down the side.
That was wrong. She would have to start at the base and work around, laying each one over the one below as she worked up. That way, the structure might be rain—and bug-resistant—providing no root-digging, mandible-grinding monsters sniffed her out.
As a test, she leaned the leaf against the base, folded it against the ground and tried to press it into place. It flopped away like it was alive. Holding the leaf against the frame, she looked around for some way to secure it.
How can I do this?
She needed more vines; the jungle’s stitching. She stripped them from the branches and from around tree trunks until she had a tangled pile as high as her knees. Working as fast as she could, she began to weave the fine vines around the frame as evenly as she could. That done, she tucked the first leaf into the viney framework and left enough of the covering on the ground to fold over. She worked the next leaf in beside the last, then the next. She didn’t realize she hadn’t left an opening in the structure to crawl through until she’d made one complete revolution. Working carefully, she spread the vines apart until she had a crawl hole. She’d worry about closing the door later.
It was dusk, and the first small insects began to buzz past her. The sight of them caused her heart to race. She looked around for bigger, more ominous pests.
Working even faster, she tucked in each leaf, overlapping the one below until she had the whole frame covered. She’d saved the largest leaf for last and folded it over the very top and strapped it down with two pieces of vine. Using the remaining vine, she wrapped the structure twice more, making sure the vine pressed against, and closed up, the worst of the gaps.
She stood back and considered it. She shook it; it wobbled.
She was hungry, but there wasn’t enough time to look for food. She double-timed it a few meters away and relieved herself; she’d be in there until sunup. She stuffed the last of the leaves inside to cover the floor. Then she crawled through the door, and working from the inside, pulled the vines down over the opening and tucked leaves in, sealing it as best she could. By the time she got her cuffs and collar tightly closed, the first heavy beetle had bashed, as though it had been thrown, through a loose-fitting leaf into the yurt. She smashed it with her foot.
Sitting cross-legged and turning on her butt as she worked, she tucked here and snugged up there until only the very last remnants of pale light seeped through the ragged seams of her hurried shelter.
She sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, staring blankly into the darkness, listening to the insects plopping and banging and buzzing against the yurt’s thin covering. From time to time, she tested the integrity of the walls with a gentle push of her fingertips.
Finally, she lay on her side in a half-sleep, batting the small insects that buzzed at her face and ears.
It was an eternity before the moons came up. When they finally did, they announced themselves by casting their pale white light through the dozens of holes in the tent. She rose up and spread the leaves above her head just enough to see out. There were the moons, the small one pointing the way home. She was right on track. Maybe tomorrow she would reach the clearing.
She lay back down and drew up tight, hoping sleep would take her and end the night by spiriting her away toward daybr
eak. Slowly, surely, exhaustion crept, like a thick fog, over her. Then, without knowing when, or how or anything of it, she dropped like a stone into the dark pool of sleep.
She thought it was her own snoring that awakened her; the sound was very much like that. She opened her eyes and breathed evenly in case it had been her, and she listened. There was the sound again, a snort, horse-like, deep and nasal. It was just outside. There was another sound, too. It was a sound of tearing leaves and the pop of broken stems, then a grinding—the sound of grazing.
Rising so slowly she barely moved, Donna leaned close to the wall and parted the leaves with a single finger. Heart racing, she put her eye to the slit and looked out.
The creature’s head was thin, and narrow and equine. The eyes were large and round, suited to the dark and placed wide, to maximize side vision. The muzzle bloomed out slightly into a thin, wide cut of a mouth that chewed and ground in a circular movement of the lower jaw, just like any other ungulate she’d ever seen. Large pear-shaped ears sat high on the thin head and flicked and swiveled, independently, checking nervously for danger. The animal’s skin looked tough and leathery, perhaps a defense against the insects. Just larger than a foal, it turned, and she could see that its body, too, was long and narrow, supported by thin, deer-like legs. Its tail was long and serpentine, ending in a whisk of thick bristles that whipped and slapped incessantly at the annoying insects that buzzed around it.
When it turned around completely, she could make out something foreign attached to its flank. It looked at first like some strange growth, but when it came more into the light, she could see that it was actually a plate-sized parasite firmly attached to the creature’s flesh. From time to time, the creature vibrated its flank and clawed the air near it with a back foot in a casual attempt to dislodge it.
When the beast turned back toward the yurt, she feared it would tear the leaves off and eat them. But, just as quickly as it had moved toward the shelter, it stepped backwards, turned around the other way and moved slowly off, ears twitching, tail slapping.
It was the first non-insectoid species she had seen; and although it looked harmless enough, she watched it with a wary eye until the foliage swallowed it. You couldn’t be sure anything on this planet was truly harmless.
She pulled her peep-hole closed and lay back down. Moments later, she felt sleep drape itself like a veil over her senses. Before she slept, she smiled a very brief smile.
Horsius Applegati.
She didn’t feel the little disk-shaped tick-thing crawl up her boot and up her leg. Nor did she feel it when it crawled across her waist and up the back of her arm, its forelegs waving and making the lightest contact. It found her bare neck and lightened its touch even more. Then, light as a wisp, it moved onto the warm flesh to a point just under her chin and flattened itself against that moist, sweet spot. From a tiny orifice on its underside, the tick protruded a minute knife-like tongue and began to lick rhythmically at the thin skin under it, slicing painlessly through to the promise of fluid and blood. Once the cut was sufficiently deep, the tick extruded a tube-like plug into the slit, sealing it completely. Next, the bloodsucker regurgitated a tissue-softening fluid from its gut into the wound. The fluid contained an agent that deadened pain in the vicinity of the feedhole; and when the enzymes had softened the tissue into broth, the tick sucked the mixture back up through the tube. It repeated this process for the next two hours, creating a deep and soft lesion. While it fed, the tick secreted an adhesive that cemented it firmly to the good, warm, delicious spot of neck.
* * *
The pale green light was so welcome she nearly sprang up and out of the yurt for the sheer joy of it. Prudence and cramped limbs stopped her. She peeked out in three directions before practically ripping her way out of the flimsy structure. She stood up, stretched, yawned, and brushed off her clothes. Her jaw and neck ached.
She unzipped the pocket of her coveralls, pulled out the mirror and looked at her face. Just as she thought, it was scratched and scraped red in patches and smeared with sweaty dirt. In a moment of vanity, she plucked and dabbed and brushed at the tangled mess of her hair with her fingers and smiled at the silliness of it.
When she lifted her head and saw the miniature version of the thing she’d seen on the horse-thing glued to her neck, her mouth dropped open as if a string was tied to her chin. A shudder of disgust ran up her spine.
Watching in the mirror, she touched it gently with her fingers and saw the legs move just a little in response.
“You little bastard . . . ”
It was coming off. One way or another, it was coming off right then.
She sat down on the ground and dug the knife out of her pocket. Before she opened it to do the surgery, she reached up and took hold of the thing and pulled; just as a test. It stung a little, but nothing she couldn’t handle. She worked the organism around in a circle, raising a pinch of skin as she pulled at it.
I’ve had it with this shit.
“Sonofabitch bastard . . . come off you fuck . . . ”
She worked it around, swearing through clenched teeth. She worked and pulled until it came away with a pinch and a slight tearing sound. She looked at the flat underside with its little feeding mechanism showing, then she put it under her foot and hammered it into the soft soil with her heel of her boot.
“Oooo, you . . . prick . . . ”
Mirror trembling, she looked at the wound on her neck. The bastard had left a little brownish and sunken patch with a dark red center. She squeezed it, producing a drop of pink liquid. There was some swelling, but it didn’t look too serious. It might have been if she hadn’t found it when she did. If she didn’t get back to the clinic to treat it, she’d be dead anyway.
Hunger and thirst gnawed with a sudden and uncommon ferocity. She looked around for a grape vine to pillage. There were none in the vicinity. Breakfast would have to wait.
She moved up to the ravine and studied it. Extending the entire length of the ravine, a light mist hung like a soft, white sheet just over the treetops. Something flew through the mist, cutting a swirling swath, then vanished. This was as good a place to descend as any.
She started down the slope sideways, keeping her leading leg down and out far. She hoped the incline on the opposite side of the ravine was no steeper.
By the time she reached the bottom, she was soaked through with sweat, her usual condition during the day.
There was a stream about two meters wide in the bottom of the ravine. The water moved rapidly, gurgling quietly around the large polished stones that littered the streambed. The water looked crystal clean; and when she touched it, it was cool. She scooped a sample of it in her hand and examined it for weird particulates or wriggling any-things. She didn’t see anything, so she tried it two or three more times, holding the little puddle up close to her face and scowling at it.
She wanted to drink it in great mouthfuls, to stick her head right in the stream and suck, her thirst was so great.
Completely satisfied that nothing visible contaminated the water, she sampled it again, just to be sure.
Raising the water up to her mouth, she lapped it with the tip of her tongue. It was the sweetest water she’d ever tasted.
She knelt down and drank a whole scoop, feeling its cool wetness run off her chin and down her neck. Unable to contain herself, she stuck her face in the stream and sucked, indulging the very fantasy of the moment before. She washed her face and spewed and blew water until another, even better idea struck her. She stood up and stripped out of her clothes and boots. Taking a look around, as if she might get caught, she stepped naked into the stream. Feeling her way over the moss-covered rocks with her feet, she headed downstream until she found a deep channel and slowly, deliberately, sat down.
She splashed water over herself, feeling the coolness wash the sweat and grime, and a little of the last two’s trauma away. Feet downstream, she lay in the hollow of the streambed and let the water flow over her hair an
d face. The flow of water lifted her slightly and threatened to wash her away, but she anchored her feet and lay there, luxuriating in cool freshness, until the water began to chill her. She stood and moved to the bank, trying her best to keep her feet out of the mud.
Using her hands, she stripped the water from her arms and legs. When she took a swipe at her left calf, her hand slid over something stuck there—something cool, soft and long. She thought it was a water-softened twig or seedpod until she turned her leg and looked at it.
“You bastard . . . goddamn you too!”
The leech was long and the color of wet wheat. Its tapered tail was flattened, paddle-like and curled and twisted slowly. Its head bloomed out into a round sucker, fused to the smooth skin of her leg. She reached down, worked her fingers up close to the head, pinched and pulled. It came off easier than she thought it would, leaving a pale hickey and a thin trail of blood. She flung the leech into the foliage and heard its rubbery texture smack and spin against leaf and vine.
“Fuck this place . . . ”
She rinsed the wound off and tried to forget about the possibility of infection.
She thought about washing out her clothes, but worried that they would never dry in the jungle’s humid atmosphere. That’s all she needed—moldy clothes and a strange rash on top of everything else. She settled for a good shake before putting them back on.
The bath put an even sharper edge to her appetite. There were various fruits and pods, both large and small hanging from branches everywhere around the stream. She recognized most of them; she’d been walking past them for two days, avoiding them as just another risk. However, this time she saw none of her staple of grapes; and the time seemed right to add some variety to her diet. She plucked a large, green banana-shaped husk from a branch and using her knife, sawed it open lengthwise. She spread it the rest of the way open with her fingers and sniffed the pulpy, seedy contents. She wrinkled her nose. It smelled like dirty feet.
