by Murray, Lee
“Don’t press down,” Mathilde warns. “It’ll foul up the results.” Rowan prays that the Taikarions will understand. He holds his breath while the scale tilts.
Oscillating.
Slowing.
Finally it stops, tilting downwards on Mathilde’s side. Rowan exhales heavily. Between them, Mathilde and their Taikarion allies share the heaviest total weight. Ari, Rowan and Tonya can step back. Now, Mathilde’s team splits up: Mathilde on one side and one Taikarion on the other. They place their weights on their respective platforms, the scales tipping toward the Taikarion. So now Mathilde steps back. For a moment, Rowan worries the aliens will think they’ve been stitched up, but even with his limited knowledge of Taikarion, they don’t seem perturbed. No doubt they understood the game from the outset; only with just two of them to play, they hadn’t liked their odds.
When the scale has been used three times, the taller Taikarion holds the heaviest weight in her hand.
“What about ours?” Tonya says, nodding towards her enlarged fist.
Ari gives his a little shake, but it stays firmly fixed to his hand. “We’re stuck with them for the moment.”
Touching her hand first to her companion and then to Mathilde, the Taikarion pushes open the gate that leads to the walkway. Mathilde, too, moves to step out onto the cherry picker platform, But Ari stops her, his free arm on her weighted one.
“Hang on, Mathilde. We should wait here in the box-cage until the bridge is extended. We don’t know the key will work for certain. What if the Vauxhons’ key has changed the mechanism somehow? I wouldn’t put it past the Phemeres to pull a stunt like that.”
“I’m going, Ari,” Mathilde says firmly. “The Taikarion is taking all the risk on our behalf. It’s important she knows that we’re with her.”
Ari pauses a second, then nods slowly. “Okay, but I’m the leader, so I’ll go.” Mathilde wants to argue—Rowan can tell—and next to him he can practically feel Tonya’s feminist hackles rising. But he understands Ari’s need to do this. So far, the girls have been awesome, getting the team out of more scrapes than Rowan can count. It isn’t a political thing, just his turn.
“Let him go,” he murmurs to Tonya and Mathilde.
It’s too late, anyway. Ari is already outside on the little platform where the Vauxhons’ key still sits in the keyhole, a tiny well in a stone structure at the front of the platform. Although they’re from different species, the two on the platform know instinctively what they must do. Using their free hands, they work collaboratively to prise the Vauxhons’ key from the keyhole, popping it out like an avocado stone and sending it plummeting over the side of the canyon.
But the platform objects, shuddering violently. Caught unaware, the Taikarion falters. She grabs at Ari with her free arm, hoping to stabilise herself, but her action unbalances Ari, who’s already struggling to maintain his footing on the narrow platform, the weighted arm throwing off his sense of equilibrium.
“Rowan, help!”
Ari’s falling.
The scene playing out in slow-mo before him, Rowan doesn’t stop to think. Curling his fused hand around the upright of the box-cage, he leans out over the canyon and snatches at Ari’s free hand. He grunts, his good arm almost yanked from its socket, tendons and sinew stretched to near breaking point, as the Taikarion, Ari and their respective weights threaten to drag him into the canyon. Around his waist, he feels the others grab at him, keeping him tethered to the spot. But the platform doesn’t drop away. It pitches and rolls as if struck by the trident of an angered god but, thankfully, it looks as if it will hold. After several long and agonising moments, the lurching slows and the platform comes to a stop.
The six stay frozen for a moment, everyone breathing hard. Then Mathilde gives an involuntary giggle of relief and lets go of Rowan’s belt. The Taikarion on the platform straightens, her legs still trembling.
“Oh my God, I thought we were going to lose them both,” Mathilde says. “Rowan, you were fantastic. I was sure that Ari would fall, our tall Taikarion friend, even you, Rowan. I was certain you’d all disappear over the edge. I had visions of you lying at the base of the cliff. It was awful…” Rowan recognises Mathilde’s need to fill the air with chatter. She’s delirious with shock, rabbiting on.
“Shhh…” Tonya’s voice trembles. “It’s okay. They’re okay.”
Now that Ari is safely on his knees on the platform, Rowan releases him, his own arm throbbing with exertion. He gives it a rub, circling it briefly, before extending it to Ari once more. The Taikarion waits for Ari to take hold, creating a human chain safety link in case the platform should shake a second time, then she places her key in the depression. Instantly, the fused weight on Rowan’s hand disintegrates—everyone’s weight disintegrates— frittering into sand. Then slowly, inexorably, the bridge extends, sliding across the chasm.
Her hands now free, Mathilde clasps them together and does a little jig on the spot as the walkway reaches the far side of the abyss. Ari turns, throwing Rowan a grin, and Tonya does the same. They say nothing. There’s nothing to say. Smiling, Rowan shakes his head in disbelief. Never in a million years would he have believed that one day he’d have half a mind to kiss an alien. Kiss an alien. Who would’ve thought? The group is assaulted with the celebratory aroma of fresh strawberries. Would that be Taikarion for joy? Or perhaps relief? It doesn’t matter, they’re all still alive and the walkway is open. Together, the six of them head over the bridge, the ruined bodies of their opponents dashed on the rocks below.
20
Rowan is the first to reach the marker they’d seen from the other side of the canyon. He taps a finger on the screen. Nothing happens, which doesn’t surprise him since it’s dull and flat. Made of perspex, it’s clearly a decoy. And Rowan had thought they were so close to getting out of this mess. Of course, it was too much to hope for. But why would the Conclave organisers do this? The taller of the Taikarion females—whom they’ve nicknamed Tall for convenience’s sake—is gesturing wildly to her companion and emitting the scent of sun-ripened blackberry, which must surely translate as the word for confusion, since it’s what Rowan is feeling right now. Mathilde’s shout makes them all turn.
What now?
Ari is rushing back the way they came, towards the canyon, and the Taikarions must have some instinct about his intent because they race off after him. Mathilde and Tonya glance at each other, then do the same. Quite frankly, Rowan would prefer never to see that canyon again—his shoulder is still aching—but since there seems to be nothing else to do, he heaves a sigh, then falls in behind the others. When he reaches the edge of the canyon, Ari is pacing back and forth, and mumbling. The walkway has already retracted, leaving the yawning empty expanse. On the far side, the box-cage looks abandoned.
Rowan pulls up, breathing hard.
“I can’t believe I’m such an idiot,” Ari chastises himself. “What if we were meant to look harder? What if the real marker was back on the other side? I saw the decoy and didn’t even look.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Ari,” Rowan replies. “Why mark this side, if they didn’t want us to attempt to get across? Why come up with the whole kettle bell workout in the box-cage?”
Ari shakes his head as if he were batting away a pesky fly. “But what if the fake marker was deliberately placed here to lead us astray?”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t put it past the Phemeres to create the canyon challenge as a way of eliminating a few teams,” Tonya huffs. Her eyes flash and she pulls her mouth into a hard line. “And their team wasn’t among the bodies at the bottom of the cliff,” she adds.
“I think the marker was there to tell us to come over the canyon, but not to indicate the end of the challenge,” says Mathilde. “For that, we still have to find the active screen. I reckon that it’s somewhere on this side.”
The Taikarions look to have come to the same conclusion. Their antennae swishing wildly, they’re gesturing back to the decoy screen.
Ari shrugs. “It doesn’t matter now anyway. Without the walkway, there’s no way to check out my theory.”
“What about them?” Tonya says under her breath, her eyes on the Taikarions.
“They come with us,” says Ari. “They’re part of our team now.”
Tonya’s head whips around. “Hang on, what about the rules? No more than four per team, remember. Look what happened to the Silici.”
“The rules say no more than four members of one species,” Mathilde says, smiling. “It doesn’t specify anything about alliances between teams of different species. Technically, we’re not in breach of the rules.”
“Well, let’s hope the Phemeres see it that way,” says Tonya as they turn.
Rowan’s mouth drops open.
What the heck!
While their backs were turned, a pine forest has grown up behind them, the trees as high as the colossal residential skyscrapers of central India, built to accommodate the population blip of the sixth millennia. Rowan would expect the smell to be just as overpowering as those vertical ghettos, but oddly the forest is completely odourless. There’s not the slightest whiff of pine.
“Wow,” says Tonya. “I didn’t see that coming.”
Nor did Mathilde. Legs warping beneath her, she slumps to the ground, grasping at the grass, her face twisted into a rictus of fear. Rowan had forgotten about her hylophobia. What are they going to do now? They can hardly carry her through the pine forest. But Tall stoops to Mathilde, her antennae brushing the pulse at Mathilde’s neck.
Tonya nudges Ari. “What’s she doing? Should we stop her?” she whispers.
Ari doesn’t think so. “If she were going to hurt Mathilde,” he says, “she could’ve done it long before now. Perhaps she’s just trying to understand Mathilde’s reaction.” Rowan can definitely understand Tall being baffled. He’s still trying to understand Mathilde’s reaction himself. They’re only trees, for goodness sake.
“Maybe they can smell her fear,” Ari suggests.
The shorter Taikarion approaches Mathilde and touches a wrist to her face. Then, still holding Mathilde’s hand, she pulls a smiling Mathilde to her feet.
“What’s going on?” Tonya asks.
“Lavender has fixed my hylophobia.”
Tonya looks quizzical. “There’s no lavender here, Mathilde. It’s pine.”
“No, I’m talking about the Taikarion. Her name is Lavender.”
“Did she tell you that, then?” Tonya says sceptically.
“Not in so many words, but I need to give her a name, so I’m calling her Lavender because it’s the scent she gives off.”
“I can’t smell it.”
“Can’t you?”
“No.”
Mathilde holds up her hand, clasped in Lavender’s own. “I think she’s infusing me with it because the smell is stronger when we hold hands. Maybe it’s her version of talking softly. I don’t know. All I know is that it’s working. I still don’t like the idea of going into the forest, but while she’s holding my hand, the trees don’t seem so scary.”
Actually, it kind of makes sense to Rowan. When he was a little kid, his mum used to hold his hand when she dropped him off at school and it always made Rowan feel braver.
“So, you’re okay to go on, then?” asks Ari.
“I think so.”
“Good, let’s go.”
As soon as they step into the forest, Rowan feels the hairs on his arms prick up as the temperature drops by several degrees. Dark branches obscure the sky. It’s like something out of a kids’ fairy tale. Sleeping Beauty or Rapunzel. And the lack of smell is really weird. And something else. It’s as if they’re being watched. Still running, Rowan glances up again, but sees only dark boughs and roughened tree trunks. He strains his ears, but all he can detect is the rustle of pine needles. He tries to ignore it, but the feeling doesn’t want to go away.
“Ari.” Rowan jerks his head backwards to inform Ari of his intent, then peels off to circle around, weaving in and out of the trees, checking that the way behind them is clear. Finding only an eerie nothingness, he hurries back to the others. Ari has hung back a little.
“See anything?” he whispers.
Rowan’s brain aches as he tries to decipher the clues, which he’s sure are right there if only he could grasp them. It’s as if a field of wheat has bent its heads to the breeze, then lifted them again. Something has passed. “No, I didn’t see anything, but it doesn’t feel right.”
Ari’s eyes fix on Rowan’s and he nods. “I’ve had the same feeling. Like we’re being watched.”
Rowan doesn’t reply. They both know they’re being watched. The entire universe has been observing them for the past four days, or however long they’ve been pawns in this stupid game. But Rowan and Ari aren’t talking about those observers.
“It’s this wind,” Ari says under his breath, interrupting Rowan’s train of thought. “It’s creepy. It reminds me of those ancient haunted house holos, where the breeze gets up inside a creaky old house and it causes a door to slam somewhere, and you just know some shit is going to go down.”
“The shifting shadows don’t help; when the branches sway in the wind. I keep thinking I’ve seen someone, but when I look again, there’s nothing there.”
They hot foot it to catch the others, following Tall as she navigates through the trees. From time to time, she stops to place her palm to the ground, leaving an ant-like chemical trail so they won’t get lost in the pines. The scentless wind is really creeping Rowan out. Although, it occurs to him that it could come as a relief for their new friends. What must it be like for the Taikarions assailed by all the scents that normally circulate? Like trying to hear a conversation in a crowded nightclub, the boom of the music swamping the voice right next to you? But perhaps this forest isn’t scentless at all. Perhaps that’s just Rowan’s human perception. The Taikarions would detect every tiny whiff of scent: they’re like walking gas chromatographs with more evolved sensory organs than humans. Rowan probably should have done his homework and learned more about his competitors before coming to Conclave. Still, humans have some peculiar skills too. Their sixth sense of intuition, for example, the genetic inter-code isolated by Jillian Patterson back in the third millennium. Apart from a compulsory module they make you study in school, Rowan hasn’t bothered to learn much about intuition either, but it hasn’t stopped it from giving him goose bumps here in the forest.
There’s definitely something out there.
Rowan’s head whirls to the right, following yet another shadow. Ari swivels too. Perceiving the same movement? He moves closer to Rowan, their shoulders bumping in the narrow space as they run between the trees.
“What about that? Did you see something?”
“No,” Rowan says, still scanning the trees for movement, but there’s nothing. Just more trees and the rustle of the wind. “All I can see are these flippin’ trees.”
“But you can feel something, right?”
“Yes.”
“Me too. A couple of times, I thought I might’ve seen it, but whatever it is, it’s elusive. Have you noticed the forest getting denser?”
Rowan hadn’t noticed, but now Ari has mentioned it, he realises it’s true. “And there’s this damned wind,” Rowan says. “It’s unnerving.”
“I can’t work out where it’s coming from,” Ari says.
“I wondered about that,” Rowan puffs. “Probably being funnelled through the passages. Sucked from outside, then bounced around like a pinball…” He ducks his head to avoid a low hanging bough and something from his homework comes to him. Jill Patterson’s study on intuition had stemmed from the ancient Jedi religion, and the premise that its disciples see more when their eyes are closed. “Hang on,” he says to Ari. “I’ve had an idea. I want to try something.” Rowan slows to a stop, Ari following his lead. Then, fixing the tree in front of him, Rowan closes his eyes. After a few seconds, he flings them open. The tree has gone.
But that’s not possible.
A mistake? A hallucination? Neither are out of the question. Let’s face it, he’s exhausted. Apart from a few bananas, he hasn’t had anything to eat or drink in ages, and his fight or flight mechanisms have been on full throttle since they were thrown into this fiasco. Rowan takes some deep breaths to calm himself, then repeats his basic experiment, this time focussing on a tree with a bead of golden sap shaped like a Buddha right at his eye level. This time when he opens his eyes, he searches the nearby trees, finding the Buddha droplet several metres away.
“What is it?” Ari says.
“The trees are moving.”
The look on Ari’s face shows he doesn’t believe it either. “But, Rowan, the ground isn’t messed up. If the trees move, then the roots would have to move.”
Rowan shrugs. “Try it yourself. See this bit of sap shaped like a Buddha? Close your eyes, and watch what happens.”
Ari closes his eyes.
“Now do you see?” Rowan says when they’ve discovered the little golden Buddha several steps away. Ari hasn’t had a chance to respond when the sensation of movement to their left makes them both turn. “Ari, I don’t know how they’re doing it, but they are!” Rowan pleads. “The trees are closing in on us, and they’re doing it faster than we can distinguish. As fast as the beat of a dragonfly wing. I think we have limited time to get through this forest before the pines entomb us.”
“Tonya, Mathilde… Tall!” Ari shouts, his voice echoing in the pines.
“The trees move,” Ari explains to the group when they are all together again. He throws his arms about and steps from side to side to support his explanation. Then, he steeples his fingers and crushes them together cruelly to show the forest closing in on them.
