Exigency

by Michael Siemsen

  Ishtab addressed a conscious birther. “Greaters?”

  The mother peered up at her, offered respects, and rolled her eyes down the jagged aisle.

  Halfway down the row, Ishtab found what she sought. A Lesser birther, asleep, with a Greater infant.

  She turned to the Lesser carrying the baby, and motioned to the dozing mother. “Give. Take.”

  The babies were swapped, then the newborn Greater was carried to the Greaters’ shades, to the distraught mother outside. With a look of confusion, the mother inspected the baby from head to toes, sniffing the distinct scent of Lesser, and then proceeded to cleanse the new delivery with saliva and gray milk.

  The mother eyed the observing Ishtab and said, “Good.”

  * * *

  Ish closed her game, flung aside the sheet and fuzzy blanket, wedged her feet into her slips, and stepped to the sink. She leaned close to the mirror. A puffy bag under one eye received a resentful poke. She stepped back, tilted her head into the refresher nook, and her foot found the peddle. Microjets sprayed hot mist on her face as warm air and renewer blasted through her hair. The facials cooled to warm and then cold, finishing with a ten-second rush of enriched air. She ran a brush through her hair, worked into a fresh tank, shorts, and top, and traded her slips for runners.

  “Morning,” Angela said as they both entered the corridor. “After you.”

  In the lab, Tom was sitting on Minnie’s side, gnawing on a chewstick, engrossed with whatever was displayed on one of the screens. His music ticked and thumped from the sides of his headphones.

  Ish unbolted one of her own stools and slid it to the farthest screen in the opposite corner of the lab. She sat down, linked in her fone, and navigated into the supply pod tracking system. 133 hours before the next pod’s arrival. It had already decelerated to half its cruising speed.

  A glance to Tom, focus unchanged.

  The trajectory map expanded before her, solid red pipe leading from the pod to the target docking bay. Indicating velocity, the pipe was thickest at the incoming pod’s end, tapering to a thin dashed line for the final docking approach. She brushed her finger over a hidden icon in the middle of open space and a new blue pipe appeared, eclipsing the red on the pod side, but then arcing slightly upward, targeting the center of the Backup Habitat. Its speed tapered somewhat, but never slowed enough to prompt a dashed line. The blue trajectory would impact the Backup Habitat at precisely 135 km/h.

  Ish copied the pod’s most recent position and stats into her simulation and re-hid the alternate course. She closed the app.

  Accessing her surface probe catalogue, she filtered down to visuals, and bumped four units onto the large, movable screen to her right. She pinched the panel’s edge, angling the screen toward her. Her eyes locked in on the upper-right quarter where a probe lay on the ground outside a tall hut, pointed into a dark doorway. She tapped the black area inside the hut. The camera’s exposure corrected. Inside, now visible, a clan chieftain lay atop a bed of stacked Hynka skins. Ish leaned closer to the screen, bumped away the three other quarters so the doorway filled the display, and zoomed the camera until the hut’s outer walls disappeared.

  She moved her face nearer still, her fone auto-compensating for focus, and watched for a while as the chieftain nibbled on a tiny bone.

  * * *

  John and Aether stepped out of the CO, quietly chatting. Only “Minnie” and “insisting” were audible. John noticed Ish coming up the hall and touched Aether’s elbow.

  “Hi, Ish,” he said. “I just started going over your most recent report. You mind if I get back to you Wednesday? If that’s not enough time, you can absolutely add it to Thursday’s package as is. You know I trust you.”

  “It’s fine,” she replied, stopping in front of them. “You caught that missing reference vid last time. I always appreciate your help.”

  John returned a smile and modest shrug. He turned to Aether. “After group?”

  Aether nodded and faced Ish as John slipped behind her, into the common room. She put her hands on Ish’s shoulders, lowered her chin, explored her eyes, a warm smile. “Talk to me.”

  “What about? All is well.”

  Aether wasn’t buying it, but she didn’t press. “You know we haven’t hung out in forever, just us? Besides one-on-ones, you know? If it’s my quarters—if it’s Minnie—you know I can come to you. Or,” she raised a conspiratorial eyebrow, “I could always kick her out of our room.”

  “Sure, that sounds nice.”

  Unassuaged concern weighed on Aether’s face. “You know I love you, beti.”

  “You, too.”

  Aether clearly wished to embrace her, but others had entered the hall from both ends. Aether waved Ish into the common room where group would soon begin.

  John and Zisa sat at opposite sides of the big round table, while Minnie filled a cup of water from the dispensary. John and Zisa both had the telling, zoned-out faces of fone rapture. Ish sat down as others streamed in, talking too loud for the quiet room.

  Suddenly, Zisa blurted out, “What the pip?” silencing the room.

  Minnie snorted. “Pip? Is that what people are saying?” Minnie liked to mock Zisa’s obsession with Earth pop culture. “Or rather, what they were saying?” Everything they received was nearly two decades old, and likely obsolete, but Zisa loved it all and tried not to be bothered by the slights.

  “Shut up,” Zisa said, her gaze still fixed on a blank wall. “The pod!”

  Ish’s focus snapped from the table to Zisa.

  “What about it?” Qin said as he mounted a stool.

  “I’ve been going over the manifest,” Zisa replied. “There’s a song—a number-one hit—called Rape Dance.”

  Gasps and laughs.

  Minnie plunked down beside Zisa. “That’s amazing. Who’s the artist?”

  “Um … oh, well, it matches … The Tampon Fuses.”

  Everyone cackled, even John, but Zisa didn’t appear so amused. “Guys, how is this funny? Think about what this means. Think about what it says about Earth culture if the majority of people were into a song like this.”

  “Come on, Zees,” Tom said. “It could be satirical. You have no idea.”

  “Yeah,” Pablo said. “Plus it’s twenty years old. We’ll just have to wait for the pod to get here and all listen to it. Hey, let’s open next week’s group with it. But nobody gets to listen to it before that! It’ll be a bonding experience.”

  Zisa’s gripes and the others’ chuckles slowly faded from Ish’s ears as the game loaded in her fone. She focused her eyes on the bare wall between Tom and Zisa, and enabled her avatar.

  Flinging aside the weighty fur blanket, she rose from the bed.

  * * *

  Ish set down the helmet beside the utility belt on the supply boxes, and pulled her hair out the back of her suit. She slid off the hairband and shook her head, fluffing away the oppressively taut ponytail she’d worn for so long. Her curly locks drank in the humidity and would soon swell into a striking headdress.

  As she hiked through the underbrush toward the great city of Er Khosh, she severed her gloves from the suit, pitching them into bushes without a backward glance. She unzipped the top of her survival suit down to the waist, leaving only her halter bra above the waist. Cool air grazed her bare midriff, shoulders, and arms.

  Set to autoglide, her optics transitioned through spectrums. Foliage shifted from white to orange, from purple to black, red-outlined, translucent, entirely invisible. Still strolling at a leisurely pace, she flipped back to biotherm, having caught sight of a distance lifeform. 10 o’clock, 33m ahead … a false alarm. A large carnivorous plant. Her pace quickened.

  Mapping guided her along a route she’d planned weeks ago, circumnavigating the bone-laden shrine of Hwahxo, two kilometers along the sundrenched crest of a hidden pass, and then a half-K down to an unobstructed overlook of Er Khosh.

  As she sauntered to the overlook’s tip, a growing panorama broadened before
her. Hundreds of strident Greaters and timid Lessers hustled about the barren field, unaware of her presence. At the cliff’s edge, she slid her palms up her sweat-glazed forehead into her frizzed hair, filled her lungs as she hurled her arms out before her, and called to them.

  “Greaters!”

  Those nearest halted first, scanning about for the strange voice’s source. Just as their gazes found her, the next farthest cluster froze, and then the next, until time had appeared to stop across the entire expanse. She looked out at the hushed masses, hearing only the sigh of a gentle breeze.

  “Know all! Fear all! Here Shroosh!”

  The congregation dropped to their backsides in succession, like dominoes. Muted chatter bustled through the electrified horde.

  “All change! Er Khosh change!”

  Submissive heads sneaked upward glances at the Goddess of Floods incarnate, no doubt pondering whether the deity they so feared would choose to bless them, or choose to damn.

  Shroosh lowered her arms to her sides and stepped back from the precipice. With regal strides she returned to the slope, descending the foothill’s gravelly base, boots sinking in the scree as she slid. On firm soil, she continued on toward her docile subjects. With heads still hung close to the ground, their uneasy eyes glinted from the shadows while tracking her progress.

  She paused a stone’s throw from the first line, sizing up the nearest Greaters. A young adult male caught her eye. Unlike the others, he wouldn’t dare behold the visage before him. His focus gripped the ground as Shroosh sauntered his way. Without hesitation, she stepped right up to him, wiry shoulder hairs prickling her bare abdomen. The young Greater flinched as Shroosh laid a hand on his back. She inhaled a deep, intoxicating breath, caressing her subject’s skin, his hairs gathering between her fingers and brushing beneath her palm like sapling pine needles. Her eyes wandered down his back to the intact cloacal pouch.

  “Move no,” she commanded as she leaned forward, her hand sliding toward the virginal slit.

  “Shroosh you?” the male quietly asked as Shroosh’s fingers explored the pouch’s shallow crevice, in search of a weak spot to breach.

  “Yes.”

  The sky streaked forward and she was on her back, biostats alerts flashing and buzzing. Her boot had been crushed into her foot and ankle, and each second—as fast as it could update—new damage sites appended the list.

  ALERTS: BIOSTAT – Tibial shaft fracture

  ALERTS: BIOSTAT – Multiple fractures

  ALERTS: BIOSTAT – Severe musculoskeletal trauma

  ALERTS: BIOSTAT – Circulatory

  ALERTS: BIOSTAT – Circulatory Critical

  ALERTS: BIOSTAT – Pulmonary contusion

  ALERTS: BIOSTAT – Critical

  ALERTS: BIOSTAT – Cardiopulmonary Arrest

  Ish’s body rolled, flipped, twisted, and crushed—her face, for an instant, pressed into the small of her own back. Greaters’ faces and bodies flashed by in a never-ending blur until one hand pulled her from the frenzied swarm, lifted her high overhead, twirling the mangled body in the air as it was sprinted from the scene.

  3.3

  Wiping her sweaty face on a dusty sleeve, Minerva burst into the cave. “We have to leave. Now.”

  Startled, John sat up too fast. Ribs, neck, shoulder. He gasped and cringed. “What’s happened?”

  Minerva unclipped the string of bunnies dangling from her waist and tossed them in a supply bin. “Ran into some roving hunters ...” She scuttled about, grabbing strewn gear and throwing it into bins. “Spread out over a few kilometers. Thought there were only three. Kept an eye out, making sure I wouldn’t be corralled in. But there was a fourth. The instant it came into optic range, they started closing—all four. Like they knew where I was. Like they were in communication—coordinated!” She began stuffing her sleeping bag into its sack.

  John began easing out of his bag, eyes trained on the cave opening. “Are they … are they coming? Were you followed?”

  “Coming, yes. Followed, no. I killed three of them. Tried to get the last one, but it fled. Couldn’t catch up enough for a shot. Not even close. I fully expect he’s fetching some friends at this very second. I also suspect they can smell us from a long way out.” Minerva hefted a bin and turned to go load it on the skimmer. “Ugh, always paid attention to wind before!”

  John began stuffing his bag, catching a potent whiff as she breezed by, like ammonia and fresh cat urine. “I can smell you from here, actually.” She paused at the entrance, peering back—only a silhouette, but he could imagine her expression. “No really, it’s sharp … biting. Have you had any attacks? Presymptoms? Your profile indicated that hormonal—”

  “Not now.” She resumed to the skimmer, murmuring. “‘Presymptoms hormonal bleh bleh’ … damned things practically on our doorstep …”

  John sighed. Never now. She refused to discuss it. Better to pretend it didn’t exist! And it’d remain her biggest liability, worse even than his burdensome, ruined body. He’d wanted to make her leave without him, had rehearsed the words and bolstered his resolve, no matter what she argued (if she argued—he was fairly certain she would) or bargained. She’d believed his story about a return vehicle, but now he wasn’t so sure it’d make a difference, even if she didn’t have him slowing her down and exhausting resources.

  She dashed back in, grabbed the comms unit, and filled her other hand with gear. John threw his packed bag on a pile.

  Before he could utter another syllable, Minerva cut him off. “I’m serious. Not now. Just sit tight for a few minutes and keep watch.”

  John bit his tongue but his mind raced on. She’d already slammed shut the medkit full of his pills. He could see exactly how this played out if he told her to leave him behind. She’d stay and argue, even as an army of Hynka stampeded up the hillside. It’d turn into a gory last stand, both of them torn to bits.

  And then there was Ish and her flops of Hynka data, language, vids, and maps, as yet untransferred to the EV or Minerva’s fone. She needed every possible resource to boost her chances of surviving a trek across this continent.

  Only garbage and a few empty cartons remained when Minerva stooped down on his better side. She looked in his eyes. “You ready?”

  John hung his left arm over her neck and pulled his feet in close. She gathered and clutched the material in the small of his back. A count of three, nodded in sync. White and red painted the insides of his eyelids as they rose. He wanted to pause there a moment, let the burning subside, but it wouldn’t make the march to the skimmer any easier, and Minerva wasn’t wasting a second. His feet skipped and shuffled as they went, contributing but a few pitiful steps along the way, Minerva’s little body bearing the bulk of his weight.

  On the pad, she crouched slowly and let him grip a handhold as they eased him down to a seated position. Her clammy face was centimeters from his. He could feel her heat radiating against his cheek. He wanted to thank her, to apologize for existing, to tell her something she’d like.

  “Minerva—”

  “They’re coming,” she mouthed, her gaze fixed on the panel over his shoulder—optics penetrating metal, plastic, wires, and trees, revealing an apparently disturbing scene John could only imagine. She took his hand from her back and placed it on a bar. “Hold tight.”

  She jumped away—a brief panic surging over his scalp as he thought she’d run off to confront the horde, but she’d simply hopped to a second skimmer. They had two skimmers. Had he known this?

  John curled one arm around a firmly strapped bin and clutched the grip bar with the other. The pad quaked beneath him, the skimmer’s pairing tones sounded, and the rumble intensified.

  A few meters away, Minerva’s mouth whispered pleading, encouraging words to her skimmer.

  John closed his eyes and waited for the ready tone, but never heard it. A chorus of cracking branches, thundering feet, and a single, commanding Hynka voice, roaring “Hwasso-AAAH!” eclipsed every other sound, but the abrupt c
rush of what felt like 10 g left no question as to whether the skimmer had been ready.

  The pressure tapered down quickly, John’s gut rising in his body cavity with nauseating force. He dared a peek below. Ish’s EV already suffered in their stead. They’d left the hatch open, so white fragments, large and small, filled the air above the amassing horde like harried seagulls over chummed water. Giant bodies fought to squeeze into the cave as innumerable others joined the dark crunch. A few individuals stood down the hill, away from the swelling crowd, tracking the skimmers across the sky with unnerving composure, as if their prey, as planned, had set out on a direct course to some cunning trap.

  * * *

  Five-and-a-half hours of northwesterly flight presented stunning new landscapes. The continent’s largest freshwater lake stretched off to the horizon before they followed its source, a glacier and river-cut chasm where sporadic herds of dalis fed and drank in blissful ignorance of the predatory nightmare to the south—an idyllic before pic of inevitable extinction. Hynka migration models had this species wiped out within a few short generations.

  A slight course deviation took the pair over one of Epsy’s renowned Wonders: The Great Bubble Bath. Eons of geothermal activity in the area had cooked fossilized organic material into a vast soup cauldron, feeding a lively population of hyperthermophiles. Foamy bubbles of saplike matter (the original matter combined with the organisms’ waste) trapped gases and frothed, rising from porous bedrock, gurgling out over previous layers, and solidified in the frosty air. The perpetual phenomena continued coating an area the size of a small city, re-melting vent walls and sinking in pockets, while adjacent lather hills remained 100m deep and growing. Gases released in the area were poisonous, and the smell was awful.

  John choked. “Beautiful, but can we go?”