Tangled Planet

by Kate Blair

  I reach the edge of the huts and head out over the fields in what I hope is the right direction. The planet is almost unrecognizable in the night. I know it’s just because of the way the rods and cones in my eyes react to low light, but it turns Beta into a dif-ferent place.

  Some plants are already growing in the fields surrounding our small town. They’re ankle high, the green stalks looking gray in the starlight. The galaxy is spread out above me. Familiar constellations of light in the blackness of the heavens. The stars extend around me on all sides, like an inverted blanket. They twinkle here. The effect of the atmosphere: stellar scintillation. The only sound is the tramp of my feet on the soil and the pant of my breath. I try to look purposeful, in case anyone is watching.

  I reach the dark edge of the forest and pause, trying to remember where I went with Sabik. I’m pretty sure I turned left, so I head that way, keeping close enough to the woods that my figure should fade into the darkness of the trees. At least that’s what I hope. The glowferns could be outlining my silhouette.

  I try not to think about the creature. Remind myself it was on the other side of the village. Far away from here. But I still pull the blowtorch from my bag and slide out the pulse gun, feeling the sharp edge of the chipped casing in my palm. Clutching it tightly, I walk up and down along the tree line a few times. No path. What if I can’t find it in time? What if I’m searching all night? I move further along, into the next field, and I’m starting to think I’m heading in the wrong direction when I spot it.

  It’s just another gap between the trees, slightly wider than the usual. A dark tunnel. The relief of finding the path evaporates as I realize what that means.

  I have to go into the woods. Alone. At night.

  I check back over the fields, wondering if I sensed a movement. Nothing. Barely even the sway of the plants on this still night. Deep breath. Gun gripped in my hand, I step between the trees.

  The first few meters are the hardest. My heart pounds. The cold I felt in the fields morphs into a clammy sweat. I don’t want to turn on my linkcom’s light until I’m well into the woods, out of sight of the village. Thin branches are invisible in the dark, and they whip into my face, scratching my cheek. It’s easy to imagine them as claws. I bite my tongue so I don’t cry out. Roots trip my feet. But soon I’ve blundered enough into the darkness for my light to be hidden by the thick trees. And anyway, I can’t take this anymore, so I flip my linkcom’s light on.

  The glare makes every branch and needle stand out, and for a second I blink in the light before forcing myself to continue. I swallow down the acid of panic in my mouth, aware that I’m illuminating myself as much as the path and that there’s a killer down here on the planet, somewhere.

  An alien.

  No. That’s impossible. And anyway, I know if there’s a creature it’s probably far away, the other side of the village. But rational thought is hard as the shadows of the trees jump and move in my linkcom’s glare. It was about an hour into the walk that I noticed the path last time; I set an alert on my linkcom to go off just short of that. I check the red light on my gun. It’s a high enough pulse to kill a human, but will that be enough against a monster in the forest? I run my thumb over the chip. What if I broke it when the wrench blow rebounded in the engineering lab, and it doesn’t fire at all?

  I keep peering behind me. But there’s only the hiss of a gentle breeze stirring the branches, like an invisible body moving between them. Time passes too slowly as I slog through the forest, twitchy and tense. Why did I agree to this? Why did I insist upon it? I check my linkcom several times, worried I’ve missed the alert, but each time, only minutes have passed.

  I think of Maia. Her body rotting in the cold ground of Beta. All that potential energy locked up in her corpse. She always came with me on adventures. What if she comes this time? I can almost hear her dead feet dragging behind me.

  No. That’s the wind. I’m being irrational. I need to focus. But I can’t shake her from my thoughts.

  I push on. I can only see a few meters into the tangled trees either side of me, and my mind is quick to project horrors on the dark, so I stop looking. Concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other.

  I want to talk to Maia, but I’m scared she’ll answer.

  I nearly scream when the alert pings in my hand.

  One hour. I wait for my thumping heart to calm before I carry on walking, looking around more carefully now. What if there is no path, and Sabik was telling the truth? What if it was just a trick of the trees?

  I’m starting to think I’ve made a huge mistake when I trip over a raised lump in the land. I assume it’s another root until I look down at my feet. It’s a mound of earth around the trunk of a tree, protruding slightly onto the path.

  That’s odd.

  It reminds me of something. I shine the linkcom’s light on the tree. It’s not like the others around it. It’s shorter, and its needles are drier. They fall off at my touch.

  I realize what the mound reminds me of. Next to some of the huts, people have moved plants from the forest, ones that are meant to produce flowers. They’re trying to mimic gardens on Alpha. Each of those plants has a little mound around its base where the soil was heaped after they were put in the dirt. Most of them are growing well, but a few are dying, turning brown. They didn’t survive the move.

  Like this tree. It was replanted here.

  I step back and peer behind it. Darkness between trunks. I aim my linkcom’s light at the ground. The undergrowth behind the mound is trodden down.

  It’s the hidden path.

  This tree was planted to hide the trail. Probably because of the questions I asked. I swallow. There’s no doubt now. Sabik was lying to me. But what was he hiding? I’m about to squeeze by the new tree when a noise catches my attention.

  Was that the crack of a twig?

  I pause. Just the gentle rustle of the trees. The creak of bending branches. But still I lift my light, peer back down the path. Why do I feel like something is following me?

  Because I’m paranoid. Or because there is something there, just out of sight. Perhaps it’s whoever killed Cassius and Orion. Or the corpse of my best friend, dragging her dead limbs through the forest. Or a bloodthirsty alien. Or the big bad wolf.

  I used to be so rational. What happened to me? Why can’t I stop thinking like this?

  I wait for a long time, my heart in my throat, but only the trees move with the wind.

  Okay then, down the secret path.

  I push by the new tree. The path is narrower than the one left behind by the landclearer before it broke down. But it’s more recently made, following the natural gaps between trees. If I look carefully I can spot the red stumps where branches have been cut back to make the way through easier. The red sap of the tree has dried in trickles, like blood running down the black trunks. I hope I’ll find whatever it is quickly. Hope there won’t be anyone, or anything, there. Hope I can upload evidence to Jovan and get out of here.

  The branches above thin out a little, so I catch glimpses of the sky. I wonder why, until my linkcom light highlights the red of severed trunks in the undergrowth, scattered among the still-standing trunks. Someone cut down these trees. What for? I’m staring down at the rings of the last stump, so I almost walk into it.

  A cottage, hidden in the deep, dark wood.

  It’s more primitive than the huts in our village. The timber isn’t cut into planks or finished. The logs intersect at the corners, like a cabin out of a history vidstream.

  I walk around it, the unreal feeling of the night compounding. I almost expect it to be made of gingerbread. There are no windows breaking up the crude walls. What is this?

  I head to the door. Try to push it open. But it’s jammed. I shove at it, harder. No joy. I step back and am about to kick it when my linkcom light catches the gleam of metal in the gap between
the door and the frame. I’d never have noticed in daylight.

  I get down on my knees and put my eye to the gap. The corner of a remote sensor shines between the door and the frame. It’s clever. A remotely controlled lock. Perhaps calibrated to someone’s linkcom. A binary circuit, just like the bomb. Open or closed.

  And I know how to open it.

  I pull out the pulse gun, press it to the millimeter of metal I spy through the gap, and hit the button. There’s a spark and a quiet zap as I blow out the sensor. Then I give the door a shove, and it swings open. I tiptoe in, glad the ground is just dirt. There are no floorboards to creak. No feeling that someone is following me around the room. But still, I check over my shoulder.

  There’s one chest in the center of the room, and others pushed against the walls around the edges. I head for the chest in the center, and I heave open the heavy wooden lid. I shine my linkcom’s beam inside and see the fuzzy shapes of clothes.

  I move across the room to the first chest against the wall. This one is filled with dried beans. I lower the lid and move to the next trunk. The familiar shapes of tools in that one. I work my way around, open all the chests, but they’re the same: dried soya noodles and kelp, chickpeas and more tools. What is going on here?

  I’m about to give up when I turn back to the chest in the middle of the room. I stare at it for a while, wondering about its placement. Why is it there? It can’t be in use as a table — there are no chairs around it. And there’s room for it against the walls with the other chests. Think, Ursa. What’s different about it?

  It’s the only one filled with clothes, not heavy tools or dried food. It would be easy to move. Hmm. I give it a heave, and yes, the dirt looks different underneath. A shade lighter. Like it’s been disturbed. I stomp on it, and there’s a hollow noise.

  I crouch down and dig my fingers into the ground. Immediately they hit something hard. I sweep away the layer with the side of my arm, and there it is. Another trunk, buried under a thin covering of dirt. Unlike the others, the lid of this one is nailed shut.

  Like that’s going to stop me.

  I turn back to one of the tool chests and rummage until I find a crowbar. I pry the lid off, and my linkcom’s light reveals the shine of neon green. Pulse guns. Four of them. And below them axes, hammers, and explosives. There’s wire too, and casings from the printers. Everything you need to make the bomb I saw on the ship. To make several bombs.

  This is an arsenal. Enough for war.

  I swallow down the bile that rises. I need to focus. I’ve found what I was looking for: hard evidence. I pull up the display on my linkcom. Take photos and upload them to the ship’s engineering databanks, along with the coordinates, in the file I’ve already agreed upon with Jovan. I save them in the format we use for the maintenance logs, and label it only with the date and time. If anyone’s checking on the systems, it’ll look like a routine engineering file.

  But that’s not enough. I can’t wait until I’m back on the ship, not since I’ve seen this. I doubt I’ll be able to rebury this neatly enough. They’ll know someone was here. I have to tell someone now. But who? And what can I say? Someone could be monitoring the pings.

  And then I know. Astra. I’ve found the evidence. She’s Head of Protection. It’s time for her to get involved. I type a quick ping to her. Jovan wants to show you something in the databanks. Now. That should sound innocent, in case anyone is listening in, and Jovan will understand when she asks.

  The adrenaline is draining from my system. I stare down into the chest, chilled by the horror of it. Someone put all these here. Someone who planned to murder their fellow crew members. I was wrong. It’s not cracks opening between the crew. It’s chasms.

  Astra’s reply comes in quicker than I’d have expected.

  You should have spoken to me earlier. Sending people to help with the issue now. Don’t go anywhere.

  I am in so much trouble when I get back on the ship.

  If I get back on the ship.

  But I’ve done it. I’ve found the evidence. My joints ache with weariness and the bruises from my descent. I sit down on the cold of the hut’s dirt floor. My head is pounding. I lean against the chest, but the edges of the wood dig into my back. I pull some of the clothes out and put them on the ground and against the chest, cushioning it.

  I settle into my new seat and wait. Make sure my pulse gun is in my hand, my focus on the open door. But my grip is growing weaker. The dizziness of exhaustion is creeping in. And I close my eyes. Just for a moment.

  I don’t know how much later it is when I open them again. I just know a noise wakes me. Twigs snapping outside. It’ll be the people Astra sent. People she trusts, no doubt. Thank Beta.

  I push myself up and hurry out of the hut to greet them. Then I freeze.

  It’s not people at all.

  It’s only one person, standing in the shadow of a tree, face in darkness.

  I lift the pulse gun.

  “Who’s there?”

  The figure steps forward, into the starlight, pushing his floppy hair from his eyes with a bandaged hand. Sabik.

  Astra would not have sent Sabik.

  “It’s me. What are you doing here, Ursa?”

  I keep the gun raised, but my hand is shaking.

  “Don’t come any closer.”

  He takes another step. “What?”

  “You heard me! Stay there! I will shoot!”

  He raises his arms. “Is that thing on red? Put it down, Ursa. It’s me.”

  “Don’t play innocent. I saw your arsenal.”

  “What arsenal?”

  “You know full well! You’re the one who tried to hide this place from me!”

  “Whoa.” He keeps his hands up. “Yes, I hid this place from you. But there is no arsenal here. This is a refuge.”

  “Some refuge! There’s enough explosive to blow up the ship. Enough weapons to kill half the crew.”

  His brow crinkles. “What?”

  “I found the hidden chest, Sabik.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I promise.”

  I almost believe him. That’s the dumb thing. It’s hard to read his expression in the dark, but his face, his stance, is so familiar, and I remember when I loved him. I use my other hand to steady the gun, keeping it trained on his chest. Could I shoot him? I must be ready to. He’s betrayed me. He’s betrayed us all.

  He puts a hand out. “Why don’t you show me, Ursa?”

  “I’m not falling for this.”

  “I would never hurt you, Ursa. You have to know that.” His hands are palm up now. “Please, show me what you’re talking about.”

  “This is a trick.”

  “It’s not. You have a pulse gun. My hands are empty. Just show me.”

  He steps forward, and I can see the plea in his eyes. A bit of my resolve crumbles.

  “If you make any sneaky moves I will kill you.”

  “I believe you, Ursa.” He looks sad when he says it.

  “See for yourself.” I keep the gun steady. “Walk inside. Slowly. The gun is pointed at your back. If you make a move for the weapons I will shoot.”

  He does what I say, following the light I cast on the dirt floor ahead of him. He’s only taken one step inside when he spots the excavated chest. He gasps, takes a step back.

  “I … I didn’t know about this. I promise, Ursa. You know me, I wouldn’t have had anything to do with this.” He turns around. I shine the light on his face. He blinks, but I see shock in his dark eyes.

  Is it possible Sabik didn’t know about the arsenal? He can’t be that naive. He couldn’t spend all this time with someone like Yuri and not know what he’s up to.

  “Then what on Beta is this hut for? You tried to hide it from me.”

  “It was a clubhouse at first, just a place to hang
out.”

  “What?”

  “Yuri, me, a few of the agricologists and builders. For fun. On the ship, there was never any privacy. Never a place of your own.” He looks at me. “You understand, right? You had the vents.”

  “You said it was a clubhouse at first. Then what?”

  Sabik drops his gaze to the dirt floor. “Yuri thought there were people on the ship preparing for war, so we stocked this place so we’d have somewhere safe to hide if we needed it.”

  “Yuri’s the one who wants to start a war.”

  Sabik’s gaze snaps back up to me. “We saw people smuggling stuff out of the engineering hut in the middle of the night. Just like the Venture 2. Weapons made out of engineering equipment, remember?”

  “There’s no engineering equipment missing.”

  Sabik stares. “What?”

  “I checked. Yuri made that up to justify his war.”

  “No. You don’t understand. It wasn’t Yuri who saw people smuggling equipment from the engineering hut. It was me.”

  I pause. “Then you got it wrong.”

  “No … I didn’t …” He stops talking and tilts his head, listening.

  Then I hear it too. More footsteps, coming through the forest.

  I’ve been stupid. I’ve let Sabik get between the weapons and me.

  “Get away from the chest!” I shout.

  Sabik jumps back, almost colliding with me. I stumble, then rush to get to the other side of him, nearer the chest. I switch off the linkcom’s light, but keep the pulse gun focused on Sabik, hand shaking.

  “Step outside. Lie down! Face down! Now!”

  I’m nearly incoherent, words slurring together in my panic. But Sabik does as I say, lying down on the dirt outside the hut’s door. I take a step back and position myself in the hut, behind the open door, heart racing. I’m hidden in the shadows. I can see anyone long before they get to the hut. Can shoot them before they can get me or the pulse guns.

  I watch the sliver of the forest I can see. Listen to the hiss of the trees. The tips of them bend and bow in the breeze like dark flames. Then two figures appear, stepping out of the black between the branches, staring at the hut, the tree stumps.