by TW Iain
It was possible to become accustomed to death. Ryann’s medical training had taught her that. Death was a part of life, a part of a cycle. And sometimes, death was a release. She’d held the hands of patients, both old and young, as they’d slipped away, and she’d felt their passing. Even without the enhancements the company would give her later, she was attuned to others, and she knew that, sometimes, letting go could be a comfort.
But what if it was not possible to let go? What if someone were trapped in the endless agony of their condition?
She thought of the black emotions that rolled off those creatures, and she wondered how much of that was from the pain they felt inside.
Her tone shifted, becoming stronger, but also distant. This was Arela the chief.
Ryann felt the slight hesitation in that last sentence, and the urgency behind it. Yes, they would talk, but it couldn’t be a friendly chat. They would talk of creatures and lattices, and of the horrors Kaiahive had unleashed.
The mud wrapped around Brice, like slow hands dragging him down. He shut his eyes, and clamped his lips tight, but the cloying smell still hit the back of his throat. He felt the ooze under his jacket, against his flesh.
He pushed his hands out, and when one broke the surface he forced his body round, pushing with his legs. The mud provided enough resistance, and when he felt rain pummelling the top of his head, he tilted his neck back and opened his mouth, gulping in air.
Brice coughed as he swallowed mud, and his stomach convulsed. He pushed with his arms and legs, forcing his head higher. The mud pulled him down, but he fought it. He kicked and grabbed, and then he found a branch, or a root. Something that remained firm in his hand, anyway.
Slowly he dragged himself from the mud. Slime crawled from his ears, and the mud sucked at the hole his body had left.
He found a tree trunk and turned himself around, bringing his knees up to his chest. His body convulsed. The mud slithering down his body was warm, but it left a coldness in its wake.
His back pressed firmly against the tree, and that told him something important. The two torches were no longer there. The torch on his chest hung to one side, the tape flapping uselessly, and it wouldn’t stick when he tried to push it back in place. And only then did he realise that the glass was broken, and that it gave off no light. He thumbed the controls uselessly.
One torch still hung from his right wrist. He could feel its weight, but he could see no light. He didn’t try the controls, because he didn’t want to know if it was broken.
His left wrist was bare.
Brice sat in the dark, his chest rising and falling. He pulled air into his lungs until he felt light-headed. He concentrated on his body, and the numbness slowly gave way to patches of throbbing pain. His shoulder felt twice the size it should have been, and it resisted when he tried to roll it forward. His head burnt with a sharp pain, over an eye but spreading wide.
The rest of his body wasn’t much better, but he knew he couldn’t stay like this. He had to move.
Brice sat in the dark, listening to the sounds of the forest.
Rain fell and wind blew. The storm continued. The mud gurgled past his feet, and branches shuddered all around.
Brice stood, using the tree for support. His eyes must have become accustomed to the dark now, because he could make out the undulating ground that was the river of mud. Everything else was trees and branches and leaves.
Brice grabbed a branch and pulled himself round, away from the mud. Then he moved to the next tree, then the one just past that. Slowly, carefully, Brice worked his way through the forest. As far as he could tell, back the way he’d come. Back to where he’d fallen into the mud.
Where they’d both fallen.
Brice forced himself onwards. Rain fell and wind blew. He could hear the mud gurgling, just to his left. Branches rubbed and shuddered all around. And something cried out.
Brice stopped, unsure if he’d heard that last sound. Or what it was. Then it came again, a yell, sharp and angry. It came from ahead. Brice stared, and thought he saw a light flickering.
He didn’t run, because his legs wouldn’t move that fast, but he grabbed branch after branch and thrust his boots through the undergrowth. Tris shouted again, and the light jerked about in the shadows.
“Hold on!” Brice yelled, but the words fell at his feet with a cough, and he stumbled. His legs gave way. Sharp thorns ripped into his hand. But he gripped the branch, the pain clearing his mind. He grunted as he kicked forward, keeping his balance. And now he did run.
The light was up ahead, dancing in the trees, and Tris screamed and yelled. Through the shadows, Brice saw shapes moving.
“I’m coming,” he managed to shout, and maybe Tris answered. A crash of thunder echoed through the trees, and the flash of lightning illuminated Tris.
And the creatures.
Tris stood in a wide path, his arms outstretched, a torch in each hand. But all around him were the dark, leathery creatures. They leaned in, and through the rain Brice could hear their guttural hisses. Their arms were wide, and their claws flashed in the light from Tris.
But the light was wrong. It was dim, and instead of yellow the glow was green, or maybe brown. And the creatures were not afraid of it.
Brice could smell them now, their rancid stench cutting through the stink of the mud. He felt it pushing into his mouth, and he wanted to vomit, his chest heaving. But he forced himself forward.
One of the creatures lunged towards Tris, and claws slashed down. Tris staggered, his cry sharp and high-pitched, and his right arm dropped. Something red sprayed from his shoulder.
Brice pushed forward, his fist clenched and his arm pumped. He aimed for the back of the closest creature, and his knuckles drove into the thing’s head. There was a crack, and he didn’t know if that was his bones or not, but the burst of pain drove him on.
He spun, swinging for another creature. He caught this one with his other hand, his torch colliding with its neck. The creature staggered, or maybe that was Brice.
And then a black shape flew through the air, and Brice crashed to one side, his boots sliding from under him. His head jerked back, and he hit the ground.
Everything slowed. But Brice couldn’t move.
Tris’ cries grew more intense, losing any semblance of words, and the yells were mixed with sobs now. The shadows swarmed round him, consuming the dim light. And then they fell on him.
Brice heard something shatter as the light disappeared. The shadows merged, but the blackness undulated. There was a sharp crack, and an animalistic scream that burst through Brice’s head. And then Tris’ cry stopped.
There was a rusting, rubbing sound that told Brice the creatures were moving against one another, but he caught another noise beneath this. A slurping, or maybe a sucking. It stopped for a moment, then continued.
The shapes moved. Brice couldn’t see them clearly, but they pulled away from Tris. The sucking sound stopped, and then they moved away, fading into the trees. Their hisses dissolved into the rain, and then only their stench remained.
Brice rose to his feet, one hand grabbing a tree for balance. What little vision he had swam violently, and he was forced to close his eyes for a moment. He breathed, through his nose but he could still taste the creatures. And something else. Something coppery and sharp.
Brice gripped his one remaining torch in his hand, and he thought of the pale light coming from Tris. He remembered how the mud had coated his torch’s lenses.
Brice cleaned his own torch as best he could. He spat, using the mucus to clean more of the mud off. The glass still felt gritty, and he knew it wasn’t perfect, but it was the best he could do.
And then he thumbed the controls.
The light was weak, but the comforting yellow glow was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
Brice shone it around the path. The undergrowth had been flattened, and something glinted in the light. One of Tris’ torches, smashed and useless. The other torch lay a little further off, and that too was broken.
But there was no sign of Tris.
Brice played his light through the trees, following the path of trampled foliage. He didn’t understand why the creatures would take Tris, but that was what had happened. They had attacked him, then abducted him. And Brice was on his own.
He thumbed the torch controls, extinguishing the light. Darkness surrounded him. He breathed deep, letting his thoughts settle. He needed to concentrate. He needed to look at things objectively. Like Ryann or Cathal would. He needed to recall, then analyse.
The creatures had taken Tris, and he could see the path they had taken. He could follow.
That was an absurd idea. Brice would never get through the creatures. He’d already tried, and he’d failed. The creatures had flung him to one side like they were swatting a fly. They’d focused solely on Tris. Brice was nothing more than an annoyance.
He couldn’t go after Tris. But he couldn’t stay here either. Brice put his hands on his hips and imagined how Cathal might think, the situation running through his head.
Tris was gone, and Brice was alone. But the others were at the hold-out, and with the relay and boosters they must have contacted Haven.
Help was on its way. All Brice had to do was walk back to the hold-out.
Trees surrounded him. There was no map in his head, and they were far from the path they’d taken earlier. But they had walked uphill to reach the landing pad. That meant the hold-out was lower down. And water—and the mud it carried—always flowed downstream.
Grabbing branches for support, Brice returned to the mud-filled trench and started to walk.
“They’re on their way,” Keelin said.
Ryann covered Cathal with the blanket again, and flicked the lantern back to sol. Cathal’s condition was deteriorating.
“A Proteus,” Keelin continued, moving into Ryann’s line of sight. “Should be here in about ten minutes.”
“That’s fast.” Almost impossible, Ryann thought, especially with the storm. Maybe she should have monitored communications rather than leaving that up to Keelin. But the girl needed something to take her out of the hold-out. She needed a focus.
“It’s not coming from Haven. You remember Nyle and Osker?”
Ryann did, although she hadn’t given them a thought. They were in a hold-out not too far away—ten minutes flying time, apparently—on some reduced-crew training mission. But that meant they were in the forest.
“Any of these creatures near them?” Ryann asked.
“Didn’t ask, but I don’t think so.”
So it was only her crew that were being targeted. She didn’t know if that was good or bad.
“They know about sol, though?”
“Haven told them. I reiterated. Think Nyle was a bit annoyed at being told twice. I told him it was important.”
Keelin’s tone was conversational, with none of the fearful shaking it had held earlier. But she shuffled about as she spoke, and used her hands to emphasise her words—not something she normally did. Ryann pushed gently, reaching for the girl’s lattice.
As she expected, Keelin’s heart beat fast, and her breathing was fast and shallow. She was still terrified. The relaxed manner was a front—no, a way of coping. Help was on its way, but it would be a long ten minutes. A lot could happen in that time.
“You speak to Osker?”
“Just Nyle. Osker was checking supplies or something.” She shrugged. “Guess he was leaving temp-command to Nyle anyway.”
Temp-command. Ryann hadn’t even considered that term, but it was what she was doing. But theirs was planned. They hadn’t lost a commander—no, had a commander incapacitated. Cathal was still with them. She was only in charge temporarily.
And that meant she should be the one to communicate with Nyle. But protocol would dictate she referred to him as Patera, and he would call her Harris. They would need to be formal, and stifled.
Better to let Keelin talk to him, pilot to pilot. That was her decision, as temp-command.
“Did he say anything about the weather?” Ryann asked, keeping things light.
“Said the storm’s getting worse. But he says it’s better to fly than to be cooped up in a concrete box.”
“They know about our power issues? They know they can’t come to the front door?”
“Told them. They didn’t seem too surprised. Seems everyone’s having glitches. Even Haven’s ready to switch to back-up systems.”
Ryann glanced at the blanket covering Cathal. Even on back-up, Haven would keep medical facilities running. All she had to do was get her crew back. When Nyle and Osker landed, they’d get Cathal on board, and they’d all get back to the base.
As long as Tris and Brice turned up on time.
She pushed, through the relay on the roof.
There was no reply.
Keelin’s voice joined in, and Ryann cursed herself for keeping communications wide.
Nothing.
Ryann pushed further, and there was something. It wasn’t tangible, but she caught a trace, so faint that it almost didn’t exist.
“How come we can’t reach them?” Keelin’s face was pale. Ryann shook her head and held up a hand. That wouldn’t comfort Keelin, but Ryann needed to concentrate.
She followed the phantom trace, and it had the flavour of decay. It reminded her of Cathal’s wound, and of…yes…the creatures. More than one trace, and she was only able to feel them because they were tight together. Like they had the same purpose.
And in their midst, a more familiar signal. But it was smothered. Either that, or it was guarding itself from detection.
Just like Cathal’s lattice actively repelled her.
She focused, and sussed as tightly as she could.
He wasn’t. And he didn’t respond. But the hidden signal flared up, a brilliant burst that died as soon as it erupted, and Ryann thought of a hand thrust out by a drowning man.
“Ryann?” The word was drawn out, and Keelin was shaking, her hands clenched tight against her chest. The smile was far from her face now.
Ryann opened her arms, and the girl flung herself into them. She trembled as Ryann held her.
“It’s going to be alright,” she said. “We can’t assume anything.”
“You reached him?” The voice was muffled, and was followed by a sniff.
“Enough to know that he’s still alive.” But saying those words gave no comfort. If he was alive but unresponsive, what did that mean?
Ryann looked over to Cathal. “We can’t assume anything,” she repeated. “We can’t jump to conclusions.”
But that was exactly what Keelin would be doing. Ryann knew, because she was doing the same.
Keelin’s body was warm, and Ryann squeezed. She didn’t want to let go. She couldn’t face losing anyone else.
Neither of them spoke. Keelin’s trembling slowed. There was an occasional sniff.
It was important to grab these moments of calm, Ryann to
ld herself.
Then Keelin pulled away, rubbing red eyes, and her warmth was replaced by a chill. Ryann didn’t want to let her go. But she did.
“Sorry,” the girl said, and looked down. She looked so young. And Ryann felt so old.
“Nothing to be sorry about.” Ryann felt the words almost choke in her throat. She hadn’t realised how close she’d been to tears, too. But that would be for later, in private. She had to stay strong. For Keelin.
The girl glanced up then, and her eyes were wide. But Ryann recognised the glazed look of someone sussing.
“Nyle,” she said in explanation. “Half-way here. You want to talk?”
Ryann wondered if that was Keelin’s suggestion, or Nyle’s request. “Sure.”
Keelin nodded, and Ryann felt the communication channel open, the trace of a new lattice fresh in her mind. The signal, like all Haven personnel, was in her records.
Ryann cut communication, and Keelin looked at her with a quizzical expression.
“We can’t go out there,” she said. “Brice and Tris…we can’t leave them. And we can’t carry Cathal. Not through the hatch. We need the main door.”
Ryann nodded slowly. They were fair points, and she had not ignored them. But she had to think about this logically. She had to consider what was right for the crew. Cathal’s crew. Her crew.
