John’s blaze of glory wouldn’t be as blazing as he’d hoped, but maybe he could persuade himself to die with a purpose—something more than as a convalescing heap in a tent. He had a good idea.
Forty minutes later, despite the frigid air of sunset, John sat sweating on one of the skimmer pads, his back against the panel wall. In his lap, the PCU confirmed signal establishment as the fluttering laser emitter beside him froze, casting the lime-green bar of light to a single point in the darkening sky. The pod’s homepage replaced the PCU’s control interface, and Minerva’s message filled the screen. But it wasn’t Minerva’s message.
Msg rec’d. Rally Camp est. by survivors Zisa Grafa, Pablo Birala, Thomas Meier, Aether Quintana, and Qin Shubao. 1st contact with native pop, friendly coop rel est. Recovery team AQ/PB/native team OB to HyCo WC 50N, ETA 95hrs. Confirm.
Chills pulsed from his very bones.
Alive.
It was posted six days ago. 95 hours … yesterday. They’d expected to arrive yesterday.
Dazed, John looked around the site. Even if Minerva were here, they were still days from reaching the coast. Absent anyone to rescue, would Aether and Pablo venture inland? John couldn’t allow it. Absolutely not. They’d made it down safe! The whole damned—
His eyes skimmed over the names again. No Angela. Couldn’t be an oversight.
Oh, Tom … Aether.
Their pain drilled into his sternum.
He reread the message. A little smile. The Threck people were actually helping his team. That was some kind of history right there! He flicked the message upward to verify there wasn’t more off-screen, and indeed, more appeared. But not from the team. Minerva’s message was essentially what he remembered Minerva telling him. He was surprised to see she’d only called Ish a “suspect” at the time.
The tips of still more letters dotted the bottom of the screen. John scrolled to find yet another unexpected note.
Zisa: You are so quick, so brilliant, and with so much heart …
John wasn’t supposed to see these words, addressed to him but intended for no one. A gaping window into a well-fortified heart. He’d never written anything so personal, not even in an offline journal.
He looked up from the screen. His bio eye began adjusting to the darkness while optics displayed a crisp, enhanced world. Orange points rose from the white plain like giant carrots stabbed through paper. Still-foreign constellations patterned the sky. A charcoal cloud wall loomed above the plains to the east. Heavy snowfall would surely come with it. It was already -2 C. Minerva was out there somewhere. Aether would scour this land until she found them, or until their fates were certain.
John pushed the PCU from his lap and slumped over on his side, reaching for the medkit. His wounded ribs stretched. Raw, budding new flesh split apart. With the destructive crawl from the tent and now this, Minerva would be furious. He slid the pack across the skimmer pad as he sat back up and rifled through the meds. In his fone, he scanned through treatments for the most severe trauma, unresponsive patients, and stopped hearts, then searched for misdiagnoses and misadministration.
The three bulb injectors sat on his palm, each sealed within its own cautionary red casing. He stuffed two into a breast pocket, trading them for one of the diclomorph tabs.
Pill down the hatch, three gulps from his suit, and he unsealed the injector case. More fearful of wasting the meds than inadvertently killing himself, John found the pulse in his neck. It was critical to stick the jugular—not the carotid. A mirror would’ve been helpful. A medical team would’ve been more helpful. A fully functional body.
He pierced his skin, believing he was on target, and squeezed the bulb.
Wow, that was quick.
His mind and body came to life. Heat ripples rolled out to the ends of his extremities, bouncing back like sound waves.
Somehow he’d expected that he would head out with one of the skimmers to find Minerva, pick her up, bring her back to the site, and promptly drop dead. Now he realized he could not only rescue Minerva, but endure on—returning to re-pair with the second skimmer, load up all their gear, and go streaking through the air, all the way to the damned coast, where Aether and Pablo would take things from there.
He gripped the bar above him, pulled himself to his feet, and powered on one skimmer. This was going to work!
Wait … the suit. She’d need her suit.
No problem. He locked in on the clothes heap, stepped down from the pad with a dull tug in his thigh, and limped to the pile, undaunted. Bend, clutch, lift, turn. Back to the pad.
He hung her suit over the main grip bar, took the controls in hand, and ascended into the brisk evening air.
3.6
Minnie’s wild flailing and screams sent Mama into a tizzy. She pinned Minnie’s arms to her body and pressed the ear against the bleeding wound, as if to reattach it. Minnie squealed with each movement as Mama delicately nudged the ear around with her snout.
“Owjt … toh … toh …”
LIVETRANS: Quiet. Fix. Fix.
Minnie focused on her own breath, tried to quell the panic, slow the hyperventilation. A mistake. Mama had made a mistake. She wasn’t being eaten. This didn’t have to be the end. Not yet.
The weight of Mama’s hand lightened and Minnie dared a peek. The toothy snout loomed right beside Minnie’s head; attentive, dilated eyes shone in the ambient light. Minnie could see the sandy texture of the iris all the way into the ocular cylinder’s dim inner wall. Like many organs with common roots across Epsy, the eye had evolved in its own unique manner. A fascinating topic, but Minnie was more interested in its sensitivity to damage. If unobstructed, could she thrust her fingers in there? Could she destroy both eyes in a swift attack? And most importantly, would a blinded Mama still come after her?
Minnie slowly slid an arm up from her side, timidly probing the side of her head. Her hair was wet with blood, but the wound wasn’t gushing. Mama had actually set the ear fairly close to right. With measured breaths, Minnie’s flat hand trembled near the ear—closer, contact, stinging, pressing—she rotated until it slid into its familiar orientation. Raw tissue burned, but she pushed harder and held there.
“Toh.” Mama repeated.
Yeah, fixed. Got a needle and thread?
As if all was now well, Mama scooped Minnie from her lap and set her in the dry nest bed. Minnie stiffened her body and was able to keep her hand pressed against her head. She didn’t know the likelihood of her ear simply healing without additional surgery, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to wrap her head in gauze. She considered her one remaining sock, but it seemed a tad too short, plus she’d been stuffing her other foot in there for warmth.
Mama busied herself with old critter bones, splintering them lengthwise and sucking out the dregs of marrow. It sounded like someone cracking nut shells or giant sunflower seeds, followed by gnawing, and then the desperate slurping of an all but clean soup bowl.
Keeping one hand on her ear, Minnie pulled an arm into her shirt, then back out over the top of her first tank strap. A careful handoff, and she followed with the other arm. She wriggled the tank down her body, Mama glancing over periodically with vague interest, until Minnie extracted her second foot, and the tank was free. Some fancy maneuvering, agony, and tears later, Minnie’s head was wrapped tight.
So what was it going to be? A perilous eyeball assault? A mad, futile dash out the door? Prior to the ingested and regurged gutful of exotic bodily fluids, and before she’d learned what it was like to lose a body part, she’d elected to wait it out—watch for escape opportunities. The approach hadn’t worked out so well.
Mama flung another bone shard and it slid down the wall to Minnie’s feet. Minnie eyed it, then peered up at Mama, still absorbed with extracting a calorie or two from every animal scrap in the burrow. The bone had a nice, dense knuckle at one end, tapering to an impressive point at the other. This was one of those auspicious decision moments. To grab or not to grab?
Minni
e knew her strength still wasn’t close to normal. How much damage could she realistically do with that thing? Then again, what if this was her one opportunity? What if Mama’s frustration swelled with each unsatisfying slurp of marrow? Hynka were cheerfully cannibalistic; at what point did hunger trump maternal instinct?
Minnie flexed her fingers. She pumped her fists to test her grip strength.
Without warning, Mama swung around with a grunt, pinching Minnie’s legs between fingers, and dragged her away from the wall, releasing her near the burrow’s center. Was this it? Where was the bone? Minnie grasped about where it’d been, blindly searching.
Mama huddled over her, staring for a long second, and then reached down with both arms, digging into the nest floor. Minnie slid into the depression and Mama shoveled two giant heaps of tree litter over top, burying her.
Clamping her mouth shut, unsure if she’d be able to breathe, Minnie held onto the air in her lungs. She switched optics and looked around through closed eyelid.
Mama had left the burrow.
Minnie tried to move her arms beneath the load of particles. Surprisingly easy. She wasn’t all that deep. Without exhaling what she’d already reserved, she tested a sniff through her nose. Yes, plenty of air filtered into the loose pack. She could breathe. Could she sit up? Her hands worked their way down beside her as she shimmied and wormed her body. After another minute of work, she’d gotten her head and torso vertical, a foot planted on firm ground, and could see sprinkles of light overhead.
A quick countdown, the extension of sore leg muscles, and she breached the surface, her head, arms, and shoulders free.
Mama?
She found the lumbering figure southeast of her, glowing pink and yellow, and gaining distance. No other animals were in view.
With near-constant glances toward Mama’s shrinking glow, Minnie dug in with desperate gusto, scooping handfuls away from her chest. She placed her hands on either side of her and squirmed upward a few centimeters at a time, dug some more, pushed, until finally at thigh depth, she was able to kick herself completely free.
Her body was racked but her spirit renewed.
Beyond hundreds of overlapping gray-blue tree trunks and two low knolls, Mama was a featureless speck of yellow confetti. Minnie’s fone ranged the Hynka at 3.6K and still retreating. It was time to go.
Maintaining a steady (if slow) jog, Minnie headed due north. The camp was northeast of her, but distance from Mama still had priority over proximity to camp. And Minnie was fairly certain she was leaving behind a traceable scent trail.
The soil shifted from soft, saturated tree litter to dryer, pricklier bits. She cursed her dainty, callous-free station feet, and her absurd, defective glands.
Want to ditch your suit and boots? Pshh yeah. Who the hell needs all that crap?
She winced and paused, skipping on her drenched sock foot to pluck a sticker from its mate. Safety scan. Not even a blip of rootless life.
Unsure if it would make any difference for scent tracking, Minnie skittered up a leaning, semi-bare epsequoia trunk, hopped to a large snowcapped boulder, and slid down the other side. She continued on in this way, with random turns, and scaling unnecessary obstacles, until all of the skin below her shorts burned with the growing chill of sunset.
Three more kilometers behind her. No more snow-free soil patches to relieve her throbbing feet. Though her calves no longer seemed to offer heat, she stopped every twenty or so paces to alternate pressing the bottoms of her feet against them. Her jog had long since downgraded to a shabby hobble. On the bright side, the aching on the side of her head had subsided. Maybe the ear had frozen. Maybe it was now just acting as a pretty gross bandage.
No longer paying attention, route guidance surprised her with a ping.
She’d traveled to the same latitude as the camp. Less than 5K to go, due east. She might even be able to DC with John. Give him a heads up before she shambled into the site. Nope. Her looping DC request was still reaching out every ten seconds. He could be asleep. Hopefully he hadn’t sunk his paws into the med cookie jar again.
4K. Snow coming down from her left. Scary clouds overhead. Legs pattering along on autopilot. She’d probably move just as fast with long walking strides, but she was determined to keep her heart rate up. She fantasized about the heater. How outraged would John be if she brought it into her sleeping bag with her? “Fire hazard and rules and razzle frazzle grumple!” She smiled and felt her stiff cheeks tremble. A violent palm rub on the numb tip of her nose. She better not have frostbite on top of everything else. Man, her feet … how could they not be ruined forever?
2K. Safety scan. Still not even a blip of—
John?
No.
No life in thermal view. Gear was visible in mag. She could see the side of a skimmer. Cases. Her pace quickened.
There was zero sign of John. The outline of the tent was visible but no body inside, not even a dead one. As the distance closed, she noticed the missing skimmer. He’d left the site, gone out looking for her.
Dammit, John!
But how the hell had he managed that?
* * *
Two layers of fresh, dry clothes, envirocap, pairs of gloves and runners, and with a few teasing minutes of glorious heater time, Minnie hastily tore down the filled tent, stuffing the bundle between other gear on the second skimmer, and launching into a hostile sky. The blizzard had yet to reach its full fury, but visibility was already nil, and abrupt up- and downdrafts had the skimmer console insisting she immediately land.
“UNSAFE CONDITIONS! LAND WITHOUT DELAY!”
Repeated slaps failed to silence the obnoxious alerts. She tuned it out, instead training her thermag focus on the air all around her. The skimmer, too, maintained a constant watch for other active units, whether aloft or grounded.
The heater in the tent had been off but still warm. John couldn’t have been gone for long. Minnie’s main challenge was in not knowing the direction John had traveled. Her shoulders buttressed against the wind, deft snowflakes still slunk their way into her collar, trickling down her chest and back. Riding the skimmer like a surfjet over wild breakers, she oscillated her head and eyes for a near-360 view.
It didn’t take long to find a sign of John. He’d left a trail.
A mere half-K west of the camp, a stack of thin gold and salmon bands in an epsequoia revealed the scattered remains of their medkit—the case itself lying wide on a high pad, while its contents littered layers of lower pads below. They’d need all of it, but no time to land and gather it all now. Minnie placed a pin in her map and continued on, slower, following the line created by their campsite and the medkit location.
Not even 100m west, a splayed survival suit, half-buried in a snowdrift. It was Minnie’s suit with the boots still attached. Another pin.
Snow in her eyes. Incessant body shakes. She pressed her hips to the warm panel.
A sharp dodge around an especially tall, swaying tree.
“UNSAFE CONDITIONS! LAND WITHOUT DELAY!”
Her heart thumped. Three more glowing points quivered in thermag, laid out ahead in the swirling whiteout like landing lights on some remote runway. The farthest was the biggest. Accelerating, Minnie streaked past the first two without a glance.
She banked round with eyes fixed on the scene. One quarter through the circle, her life drew up into her throat, compressing and withering there all at once—an unrealized seedpod decaying atop rock.
John’s rugged skimmer had come out mostly unscathed, only splitting in two: pad and console assembly, still clinging to each other by outstretched cables and glistening fiber ribbons. Their pilot, however, lay twisted and broken, half covered by the skimmer pad. A dark crown of hair and a single gloved hand, draped on the overturned pad, were all that remained unburied by snow.
As she descended beside him, his remaining body heat dropped into single digits.
Her skimmer was pleased she’d finally complied. “NOW SEEK SHELTER!”
Slogging through deep snow to John’s side, she disabled enhanced optics for the grisly view beneath the surface it kept trying to show her. Now, there remained only a few orange knuckles and the back of his head, persistent flurries set to finish the job any minute.
She dropped to her knees and set a gloved hand on his head.
Tears freezing at her eye corners, she shouted over the wind. “You were right about my problem affecting us both. Can’t deny this is my fault.”
Minnie brushed loose snow off his shoulder and back, nudged her legs in beside his body, and set her cheek against the back of his icy suit. There was no warmth here, but she imagined there was. She slid her buried hand up to her chest, wedging it between them, then reached over him with her free arm to grab his stiff hand off the skimmer, pulling it in. A solid, unnatural tok sound she pretended she didn’t hear—a frozen finger or knuckle grazing the skimmer’s plastic corner bumper. No, none of that. This was all quite normal. She’d had a nightmare, crawled into Dad’s bed. He wouldn’t notice until morning. Eyes closed for bedtime.
tok
The haunting sound echoed in her head. A noise created by the impact of two inhuman things. No, an inhuman thing struck by flesh frozen so stiff it could pass for wood. It was how her own body would soon solidify.
tok
Tok? With a glove on?
Minnie moved her hand around John’s, probing the underside of his palm. Empty.
She opened her eyes, reactivated mag, and peered through his body. It materialized instantly in the wall of snow between John and the skimmer pad—all alone, as if hovering in the air. Minnie sat up enough to extend her reach, thrust her hand into the snow, and plucked John’s fone from where it’d fallen. She held it in front of her face.
He’d extracted it, had it under his hand on the skimmer for her to find. Something he wanted her to see. But what? Something leaderly, of course. An inspirational sermon about driving on, assurances that this wasn’t her fault … or ick, a full on I-told-you-so condemnation and orders to make it right by saving herself, returning to Earth to tell the whole tale.
Exigency Page 34
