by Scott Rhine
When she felt the warm, wet trickle on her knife hand, she prayed it wasn’t blood. Examining her surroundings, she deduced that she was in the bottom of pit. The floor was uneven, and the incredible torque had caused the shooting pains in her ankle and knee. She had to reach up with both hands to adjust her helmet because it had turned slightly.
Oleander shouted questions, but Yvette didn’t dare answer.
Through her fingers, she could see L Pacino staring down into the seemingly empty trap, scratching his head. The photos never conveyed how incredibly massive these creatures were. She stopped breathing for a moment. Pacino’s arms were thicker than her thighs and could crush the life from her in a heartbeat. He mumbled something, and moments later, Mercy’s perky voice whispered in her earbud. “Thicker branches needed.” The translator program had her best friend’s voice. The trader then proceeded to cover her gravesite with alien palm leaves.
In spite of the tears pouring out of her eyes, she chuckled. For the sake of listeners, she whispered, “It’s a Stone Age booby trap, and I fell for it.”
“How are you?” asked two or three voices at once.
As Yvette attempted to stand, even her good leg protested from the abuse. Liquid drizzled down her side—water. Her camel waterskin had ruptured from the fall. The sharp rocks littering the bottom of the pit had also bruised her legs. If she had fallen forward or sideways, she might have died. On the wrist computer, she typed, “After sunsdown, I might be able to get out of here using my spear and knife, but I won’t get far.”
Toby said, “Then you’ll have to get help from the native.”
“She can’t be seen,” said Herk. From the slight echo, he was probably in the same room as the scouts.
“But she can be heard,” countered Toby. “Oleander, send Pacino’s recent recordings through translation and find out what he’s been doing the last few days. Maybe we can use it to fool him into obeying.”
“I can’t authorize this,” Herk said.
Over the radio, Toby roared as a locker door slammed again and again. His breathing was reduced to a pained squeak.
Oleander said, “Careful. You’ll hurt him.”
Yvette lifted her helmet visor to wipe the sweat and tears off her face. She was the one stuck in the pit. Why was she so worried about Toby?
When his breathing calmed, Toby said, “I’ll tell you something you need if you let me save her.”
Yvette wanted to shout ‘no’ but couldn’t risk being heard.
“I’m here with you, girl,” Oleander said in her ear over the private channel. “The boys just stepped out for some air. Stay calm, and I’ll get you out of this. How easy is the dirt to dig in?”
To remain silent, she replied on the wrist keypad. “Loose. Why?”
“When the panda goes back to his nap, scoop up as much dirt as you can from the deep end and pile it in the shallow end. It will make your escape easier later, but do it softly. I have eyes on him for another seventeen minutes.”
She pulled out the trenching tool Toby had packed for her, unfolded it, and tightened the tool into place. Oleander cheered her on.
As Yvette rolled over to dig in the desired area, she let loose another involuntary scream.
“Shh! He picked up his ears at that. Keep this up, and he’s going to find you. If you’re in pain, use the med kit.”
Yvette didn’t hesitate, but injected herself with a minimal dose of the strongest painkiller available. She didn’t have any branches long enough to splint the leg. Instead, she removed the armor, pulled up the wetsuit legging, and wrapped the injuries with her spare shirt. That should give me just enough support to crawl out of this hole. Replacing her armor over the bandage, she dug, scraping furrows in the ground with the tool. Soon, she reached a layer of sandy soil and shoveled like mad. When the hiss of the metal shovel was too loud, she used her hands. She had to stop when water filled the trench.
Dizzy from the effort, she could hear her own breathing echo in the helmet. The drugs were kicking in, making it difficult for her to focus.
“Quiet. Rest up,” Oleander said. “The panda is up and moving. Nice. A bear does go thplut in the woods. I’m reading the transcript. Pacino came to sell chew-leaf, but his buyers are nowhere to be found. His last trade was three days ago, where they told him pelts are the hot item this season. A week ago, he used a different name when bargaining, and I think the other guy taught Pacino how to dye his elbow ruffs blacker to disguise himself. We think Pacino’s real name is Shuulagar. Hold on. Herk’s trying to get my attention.”
While the panda was away performing his ablutions, Yvette jammed her spear in halfway up the sides of the pit and anchored it with all her strength. Then, she reclined against the wall and watched a dust mote spin through the one ray of light.
Minutes passed in this entertainment before Oleander said, “We just looked at the rover feed. I know you can’t answer right now, but what the hell were you and Toby playing with? Magi artifacts?”
Yvette typed, “Show me.”
Soon after, an aerial photo arrived on her wrist unit. Through a notch in the canyon wall, Yvette could see a crown-shaped island in the lake. It was missing two round chunks in a direct line like the sights of a gun. When the rover aligned perfectly in the next picture, she could see a massive crater in the deepest part of the lake, with scores of smaller explosions scattering outward like fingers.
Oleander announced, “We think someone else had a Magi ship just like ours, and it crashed.”
“Yes,” Yvette whispered over the throat microphone. Victory. It might cost her life, but she had found the enemy’s Achilles’ heel. “What can we salvage?”
“Are you crazy? We have to scrub all record of this from our base computers before Sanctuary links again, or Sensei will strand us here permanently.”
“We have to be able to use something.”
“Anything in the water would have been destroyed by the Icarus chain reaction,” Oleander explained. “Our only hope of finding something intact is on Crown Island, the impact point in the high desert, or locating a shuttle that ejected before the final impact.”
“Write a note to Z.”
“Quiet. Pacino is back.”
Yvette tried to sip from her camel pouch and came up with air. Water was now more of an issue than food. If she didn’t get out of this hole soon, she’d be buried in it.
Chapter 34 – First Contact
A buzzing in her ear woke Yvette. Her lips and eyelids were sticky. Insects flitted away from her when she stirred. Groggy, she checked her leg. This made her wince. The swelling, red skin was trying to squeeze through the gaps in the compression bandage. She considered kneeling in the puddle of cool water beside her in the pit, but moving hurt too much. Even her good leg tingled from sleeping on one cheek.
Her headset buzzed again, and she mumbled, “Chenonceau.”
Herk came on the line. He was trained for fire and water rescue, but no one had prepared for this screwup. “The suns are going down. We’ve located a suitable cave and marked the position on the map. Answer me in text: do you have a weapon?”
“Dagger. Flash-bang.”
“Right. Everything else is water logged or damaged from the fall. Anything else missing that’s not on the report?”
“Only drink from small filter bottle.” She had to remove her glove to type, and even then her coordination wasn’t good. Fever? Shock?
“Pacino is roasting dinner right now, so he’s distracted. We have a few options. One: you slip medicine into the panda’s dinner. When he falls asleep, make a crutch, and limp ten kilometers to the cave.”
“Might kill Pacino. Snowflake would not heal me. Can’t walk that far.”
“Right. Murder, suicide. Ethics won’t let you. Sorry. Option two: you sneak away when he falls asleep and crawl uphill toward the rover. It can stand guard over you until I arrive via the desert. I can reach you with food and medical supplies inside a day.”
Lookin
g at the map, she asked, “And three?”
“Risa thinks she can pilot the sled back here with no load. You stay in the pit and bury yourself with a layer of dirt until the flare is done. Then, disguised as a log, Oleander will come get you tomorrow night.”
“If someone saw her without shimmer armor, we’d be doomed. Option two it is,” Yvette decided.
“The satellite will be back in place in a couple hours. We’ll monitor Pacino’s activity on thermal from the rover until then,” Herk said.
She took a swig of water but didn’t dare use more painkiller. If she fell asleep again, the ear buzz might not wake her. The solitaire game on the wrist comp kept her lucid for a while. When she found herself staring at the screen for several minutes without action, she knew she needed help. “Talk to me,” she typed.
“Only forty minutes left,” Toby said in her ear.
“I’m afraid,” she admitted. “Don’t let me sleep.”
So Toby asked her questions. He started with alien plant composition but transitioned into dating questions: how her residency went, who her friends were, and what her favorite tourist site was.
The time passed pleasantly until she heard Herk say, “Now.”
Ice filled her stomach as she readied the dagger and the flash grenade at her hip. She crawled onto the sideways spear and could feel the wood straining under her weight. If she didn’t reach the top soon, it would snap, leaving her trapped. With monumental effort, Yvette lurched upward. Her hands cleared the top of the pit, making the thin branches rustle. Her helmet could transmit sounds, but not the smell of game roasting. Her stomach rumbled at the thought of roast chicken.
Slowly, kicking a foothold into the loose soil, she anchored her good foot as high as it would go. Then she pushed. She had a mental image of childbirth as she breathed through the pain with an exercise she taught pregnant clients. Drugs would have been better, but she needed the few wits she had remaining. When Yvette finally flopped onto the ground, the trader stood by his fire with his own spear ready.
Pacino moved his head from side to side, trying to spot the threat. Someone projected an overlay inside her visor of places her dagger could actually harm the wide monster from this vantage: eye, ear, and the base of the skull.
Yvette tried to crawl into the underbrush but didn’t have the energy left. Slowly, she covered her facemask with her left hand to hide the visor reflection.
Mercy’s voice in her ear said, “Who there? Show you.”
Piping the translation feed through the speaker on her wrist comp, Yvette rose to her knees and raised the wrist with the comp as high as she could. “Peace.”
The speaker gleeped, and her headset said, “Homonym error. Cannot determine context.”
Pacino threw the spear, grazing her forearm where the sound emanated from. Fortunately, the armor prevented more than another bruise in her vast collection.
She heard the sounds of a scuffle and Herk yelling. “Damn it, Baatjies.”
Yvette tossed the flash-bang immediately in front of the native. The noise and the blinding flash made the primitive wail and fall to the grass of the clearing.
With barely constrained rage, Herk said, “I’m dragging this asshole outside for a few words. Oleander, find out what he did to the rover. It just rolled down the side of the cliff.”
Yvette wriggled to the nearest tree and crouched behind it.
“He’s programmed the rover to ram the aborigine,” Oleander said, frantically hitting keys. “Run, girl. When the rover gets close, it’s going to blow itself up. I’m trying to cancel the orders. Risa, help!” Then the operator fumbled with a button that cut off all sound from base.
Run? The short distance to the tree exhausted her, and while Pacino recovered, she did too.
“Do not kill. I beg,” the translator said.
“Fear not,” Yvette said. “Raise no weapon toward me.” Her helmet reflected firelight back at him like a will-o’-the-wisp.
Pacino squinted, raised a paw, and uttered another stream of expletives. They were just going to have to slap a censor on this guy. “Why you hurt like sun bradahuuk?” The translator repeated the unknown word verbatim, displaying it on her screen.
Putting the unit in learn mode, she tapped the new word and said, “Glare?”
Switching back to external broadcast mode, she replied, “Look not at my face, and we can deal.”
“Boss speak strange. Sky granith, river tribe, or parent of the old old?”
Weighing her options, she replied, “I am from the sky.” That wasn’t a lie. Pulling up the new word, she dictated the definition “spirit.” She didn’t correct the assumption because this conversation would need to proceed in metaphors he could understand.
When Pacino bowed, she told him not to. Interleaved, she heard Mercy’s voice echo, “Not serve any. Here help you.” The translator took her English and translated to Pandanese. Then it converted her panda words back to pidgin English. The term ‘help’ became ‘lift other end of your load.’ She couldn’t shut the feature off without taking off her glove and using decent light. Damn interface. “I mean make mutual profit.”
“You find me to trade?”
“Yes.” Yvette peeked around the tree to see the male panda stand with confidence. This was something he could manage.
“For good pelts?”
“For strong back. You carry my . . . pack items and clothes to my safety cave.”
“How far?” asked Pacino.
She did the math in her head: seven hours for a human, or ten for a panda. Glancing at the astronomy chart, she said, “By red moon rise.”
“We trade more in cave?”
“Yes. Tell you secrets of sky spirits that you can trade to many others.”
“Very much good. Place your pack on top of my pelts as we go now.”
Hidden behind the tree, Yvette pulled the pack off her back so it could be seen, and shouldered it again over her still-invisible arm. “This pack and what hangs off it are too heavy. You must leave the cat pelts here.”
Pacino leaned protectively over the pelts. “Much value. Quality pelts. Week of work and good killing.”
“Bury them in the pit. They will be safe until your return.”
“No. Leaf in hand better than promise tomorrow.” The panda waved his broad paw.
How do you communicate a revolutionary idea? It was like a game to use only words she knew. “Not leaf in hand to wipe. Leaf on stalk. Use again and again. Worth many wipes for children’s children. I give you head-bloom-brightly.”
He scrunched his forehead. “What kind of bloom?”
Desperate, she found the obsidian-tipped spear in the brush and rolled it back across the clearing. The edge was chipped, but it could be sharpened again. “You liked the spear my man-mate gave you well enough.”
Picking up the weapon, Pacino said, “I found spear.”
“He made it himself and left it in your path in the center of the ring of mushrooms so it would stand out.”
The panda took a step back and looked all around. “I told no one.”
“He sees you.”
Pointing to the spear, he said, “Prove to me your man-mate is lah-zay.”
Yvette looked up the word on her wrist unit. Lou had only one reference to the term, but by context, it might mean clever or handy with tools. She removed the bracelet of spear points and tossed it over to the trader. “Will this pay for your pelts?”
“For a season’s worth,” he said, pocketing the treasure. “I will drag your belongings now. You are she-mate of mighty lah-zay.” After ‘she-mate’, Mercy’s translation added a brief giggle.
Yvette thought it was hilarious that knowing the god of grave robbers opened doors that the secrets of mankind wouldn’t.
Without delay, Pacino tossed the furs into the pit and covered the hole with leaves again. While he did this, she strapped her visible bag and her transparent body to the travois. “Turn your head and do not look at my belongings, o
r my husband will smite you.”
When Pacino picked up the handles of the travois, he grunted another brief profanity. “What is in bag?”
Though she was lying on the rack, she stretched her arm with the speaker out to sound like she was walking beside it, Yvette replied, “Things Toby, my man-mate, gave me to keep me safe on my journey.” The name didn’t translate. In fact, the ‘ee’ sound at the end generated errors. “Walk upriver and turn right at the split. I will tell you when to turn toward canyon wall for the cave of secrets.”
The panda repeated the name, mangling it in the process, but he didn’t turn his head to look back. “Will I meet great spirit Tohb?”
“No. Other spirits will not allow him contact tribes,” she said before she could stop herself—the damned Ethics page honesty got away from her when she was sick or tired. “They call him . . .” Criminal didn’t translate, so she picked scout, which came out, “Lurker in dark.” Oops. She was already painting him as Hades. Lord of all things buried: the dead, treasure, thorny plants, and secrets.
“You messenger, Tohb-mate?”
“No. Normally, I stand by women in childbirth.”
“Decide which one die?”
“No. I will that all mothers and children live.”
Pacino grunted. “This lah-zay, too.”
“I suppose so.” She couldn’t keep babbling like this. How could she end the rampant contamination? She settled on, “Silence or others on the road may hear us.”
“I learn at your feet.”
****
As Pacino trudged onward implacably through the dimly lit night, she moved the panda translation mode on her watch to text only. It solved the echo problem and the weirdness of the sumo wrestler-sized alien speaking with Mercy’s voice.
Yvette had just started to drift off to sleep when Oleander spoke in her earbud. “Finally, Risa and I stopped the rover. Your husband is a sneaky bastard.”
“He was trying to protect me,” Yvette typed.
“Yeah. Herk chained him to a pipe and won’t let him near the equipment again. He’s pissed. The rover’s pretty dinged up. I’ve been watching your transponder, and saw you get away. Did you make a crutch?” Oleander asked, her voice becoming cheerful.
