Solomon's Arrow

by J. Dalton Jennings

  •

  Katherine stood near the rim of the crater, watching the excavator lower extraction equipment into the brightly-lit hole. The crew would be spending the next hour extracting meteor ore from the impacted soil and storing it for the return trip home. Spotlights shone on the small, brutish-looking men doing the difficult, dangerous work.

  The mission was interesting, but Katherine would have rather accompanied Solomon to the forest instead of across a lonely sheet of ice in search of a damned rock. However, after reading the third file, it became necessary to examine the icy wasteland in person. As a bonus, she would be spending time with the chancellor. The first rule of battle is to know thy enemy … if Lorna Threman was the enemy. She was pleasant enough, but Katherine had not yet decided if the chancellor was friend or foe.

  The two were discussing the lack of metallic ore on the planet when the chancellor suggested going to the excavator control room for a hot cup of coffee.

  “Would you like to join me, Admiral?” she asked.

  “Perhaps in a minute, thank you,” Katherine replied. “But first I’ll like to speak with my first officer about a—”

  Her words were cut off by a wrenching punch to the gut. Staggering backward, Katherine stared in bewilderment at the cylindrical piece of ice sticking from her stomach. She collapsed to the ground, vision swimming. The chancellor was screaming for help and pointing toward the surrounding darkness. Two spotlights swung around and lit up the spot where she was pointing. A number of hairy, humanoid-looking creatures were seen diving for cover, seemingly into the very ice itself … but not before unleashing a final flurry of ice missiles at the excavation team.

  Gasping for breath, Katherine clutched at the piece of ice protruding from her stomach. She heard the chancellor yelling orders to her security force, calling for defensive cover. Firing their stun-batons, the Minders opened up with a volley that kicked up a twenty-foot wide swath of ice, but the strange creatures were already gone.

  Richard Allison was rushing toward her. Most of the others were still dodging the last of the ice missiles. One of the men rappelling down to the meteor was struck by a missile and toppled backward, hanging limp from his rope.

  Katherine started coughing up blood. Flecks of crimson flew from her mouth, staining the ice in front of her. Horrendous pain blazed through her torso. She reached out in a desperate attempt to grasp Lorna’s hand, but instead toppled sideways into a black pool of unconsciousness. In the split-second before she passed out, Katherine arrived at one unmistakable conclusion: the third file was true.

  17

  After journeying three miles from the harvesting operation, the skimmer hovered over a relatively thick stand of trees, similar to the ancient redwoods of Earth, only smaller in diameter and with less foliage.

  Solomon complained, “This is all very interesting, but I don’t understand why we can’t fly closer to the ground.”

  Ezral Magliss tried to explain. “I’d like to accommodate you, Dr. Chavez, but it’s just too dangerous. I’ll lower the robotic arm and take as many samples as you like, but as far as—”

  A multicolored insect, with a two-foot wingspan, bounced off the forward window, causing the commissioner to jump.

  “What do those things eat?” Bram asked. “I haven’t seen any flowers up here.”

  “Rodents the size of your thumb,” she replied. “They’re the main source of food for these and other insects that live up here in the canopy. Pilot, program the computer to search for and display a clutch of mardets on our view-screens.”

  The pilot’s thin fingers flew across his control panel, and a few seconds later an image of six scurrying, hairless creatures with huge, bulging eyes appeared on the passenger view-screens. The mardets were mammalian in appearance, which Solomon Chavez immediately pointed out. As they watched the tiny rodents scurry along a tree branch, one of the dragonfly-like insects swooped down and snatched up the last one in line. After a fleeting panic by the others, the remaining mardets fell back in line and continued on their merry way.

  “I don’t understand,” Bram grumbled. “Why do those little rascals live here in the trees where predators can grab them, instead of on the ground where it’s safer?”

  “Ground level is more dangerous,” sighed the commissioner. “Remember, Mr. Waters, the fungus is predatory. It doesn’t survive entirely on dead wood.”

  Nodding, Bram sensed that Solomon was becoming increasingly frustrated over not being allowed to get his hands dirty. The trillionaire philanthropist was accustomed to getting his way.

  “Isn’t there some sort of protective suit one can wear?” he asked.

  The commissioner crossed her arms. “Yes, the skimmer’s maintenance closet contains two emergency suits in case we’re forced to land in the forest.” She looked exasperated. “I suppose I could let you take one out for a few minutes to study the flora. But there aren’t enough suits for everyone.”

  “Fair enough,” Solomon said.

  The commissioner gave the order, and the skimmer started its descent. As the vehicle dropped below the canopy, Bram saw an uneven landscape covered in bushes, smaller trees, fallen trees, brambles, and patchy areas that looked ravaged by blight. There didn’t appear to be any animal or insect life, yet he sensed something highly intelligent. He was about to whisper this impression to Gloria, when he noticed movement behind a fallen tree.

  “Did you see that?”

  The others looked where he was pointing.

  “What was it, Mr. Waters?” the commissioner asked.

  “It looked like—” Bram paused, a frown forming on his face. “I know this sounds crazy, but it looked like a person ducking behind that fallen tree.”

  “What are you blathering about, Bram?” Gloria eyed him suspiciously. “There can’t be a person out—Wait! I saw something, too!” she gasped. “It looked like a young boy.”

  Bram jerked his head around. “A boy? But I saw a—”

  “Be quiet!” snapped the commissioner. “The Lord is informing me of an emergency with the meteor site expedition. They’ve been attacked. The admiral has been critically injured. We must return at once!”

  Bram and the others stared, not knowing how to respond to her out-of-the-blue assertion.

  The commissioner barked an order to the pilot, who immediately programmed the skimmer to return to the harvesters at top speed.

  The craft darted upward, inertia pressing its occupants firmly into their seats. The skimmer streaked toward a narrow opening between two trees. As it cleared the canopy, it intersected a large swarm of colorful insects. The creatures thumped and splattered loudly against the front window. The startled pilot banked the skimmer, but a number of the large creatures were sucked violently into the air intakes, shattering the craft’s hydrogen-fueled engines. Ceramic shards flew in every direction. Fuel lines severed. Bram saw flames, and then heard a series of detonations. The skimmer bucked and pitched to one side, then stalled and plummeted from the sky.

  Gripping his armrests for dear life, Bram looked on in horror as the pilot slumped forward: part of the engine had torn through the skimmer’s cabin and into the man’s skull.

  Karen Albans screamed. Bram’s head snapped in her direction. She was clutching the side of her neck. Blood was pumping from between her fingers. She must have been hit by shrapnel. Bram instinctively reached for his seat belt in a determined effort to free himself, his only thought being to help an injured shipmate.

  He never got the chance.

  The skimmer slammed to the ground and tumbled twenty feet before smashing into the trunk of a tree. Bram was thrown forward in his seat. If he’d succeeded in loosening his seat belt, he’d have perished in the crash. Instead, the force of impact was so intense that he blacked out—but not before seeing a jagged piece of glass impale Ezral Magliss through the chest.

  •

  The female voice, which sounded vaguely familiar, was persistent.

  “Bram … goddamn it,
Bram. Wake the fuck up!”

  The sharp sting of a slapped cheek finally brought Bram to his senses. The moment his eyes flew open, he remembered where he was—in a wrecked skimmer, in the middle of a hostile alien environment. Gloria Muldoon was standing over him, a look of concern on her face.

  “If I’d known you liked it rough, I would’ve—”

  “Don’t get cute,” she snapped. “Unbuckle yourself; we need to get out of here.”

  Bram fumbled with his restraints. Solomon Chavez was hovering over the pilot, checking his wounds. Half the man’s skull was gone. Bram looked away—he saw Ezral Magliss, head lolled back, eyes wide and staring.

  “How’s Albans?” he asked, fearing the worst. She lay on the floor of the skimmer, her upper half concealed by her chair and a row of equipment.

  Gloria, who was rummaging through a storage locker, paused to answer. “Karen … bled out a few minutes ago,” she whispered, voice quavering. “There was nothing we could do.”

  “Dammit,” Bram groaned. The shy, retiring science-officer had treated him kindly, not caring about his celebrity status or his psychic abilities … unlike some people. “How you holding up, Dr. Chavez?”

  Solomon was full of apprehension. “I think I’ve discovered why the New Terrans are immune to your powers, Waters.”

  Bram leapt to his feet. “What? What do you mean?”

  Solomon waved him over. Bram was hesitant, dreading what Solomon wanted to show him, since it obviously involved the dead pilot’s mutilated body. After a few uncomfortable seconds, he strengthened the nerve to step forward on his shaky legs.

  “Come here where you can see better, Waters.”

  Solomon was holding the pilot’s head to one side, letting the light from the shattered window illuminate the man’s exposed brain matter. Bram tried to focus on the injury, but his stomach kept lurching. A fountain of gorge rose in his throat, forcing him to look away.

  “What am I supposed to be seeing, Dr. Chavez?” he asked, glancing at the wound.

  Solomon had not yet noticed Bram’s discomfort. “If you look closely, you can see a fine wire mesh covering the surface of the man’s brain.” He picked up a pointed piece of ceramic and peeled back a small section of the pilot’s brain. “It’s as I suspected. The mesh is connected to a micro-circuitry embedded in the brain.” Hearing this news, Bram set aside his squeamishness and focused his attention on the brain matter. “If I’m not mistaken, the mesh acts as a psychic shield, the way some electrical wiring is shielded to prevent stray signals from causing interference.”

  “How did it get there?” Bram asked.

  “That’s the twenty-four million dollar question,” Solomon replied, massaging his neck.

  Gloria appeared, carrying two protective suits. “You’ll have to finish your show-and-tell project another time, Dr. Chavez.” She faced Bram with a no-nonsense look on her face. “The skimmer’s communication equipment was damaged in the crash, and our PIDs are on the fritz. The craft might be emitting a distress signal, but I don’t advise sticking around long enough to find out. We’re vulnerable to attack and need to remove ourselves to the forest’s edge so as to avoid the deadly fungus the commissioner warned us about.”

  She handed a protective suit to both men.

  “Where’s yours?” Solomon asked.

  “There are only two, and you need them more than I do.”

  Bram tried to hand his back.

  An angry scowl clouded Gloria’s features. “Don’t hand me that chivalrous crap, Bram. With Karen dead, I’m in charge, which means you’ll do as I say. Now put on those damned suits, ’cause we’re heading out in two minutes.”

  In her present mood, Bram knew there was no point in arguing. He hurriedly slipped into the white, loose-fitting environment suit and adjusted the filter. After anxiously pushing against a momentarily stuck exit door, the three were headed east away from the sunlight.

  They were less than ten feet from the skimmer when Gloria gasped in surprise. She pointed at the trunk of a fallen tree. “Did you s-see …” Trailing off, her voice sounded tremulous, fearful.

  “See what, Gloria?” Bram asked, looking in the direction she pointed. “Was it fungus?”

  “Is everything all right, Lieutenant?” inquired Solomon Chavez.

  Gloria lowered her arm and shook her head. “It was nothing,” she mumbled. “Must’ve been a shadow. It couldn’t have been … because that’s impossible … it had to be something else.”

  “You’re probably right,” Bram said, feeling his skin crawl. “Shadows can play tricks on the eyes. Let’s keep moving.”

  Without answering, she tore her gaze from the fallen tree and continued eastward.

  Despite Gloria’s attempt to affect a stoic attitude, Bram could sense her fear; it radiated from her in waves, like ripples from a stone thrown in a quiet pond—no, not a quiet pond: an agitated pond—a pond with something lurking beneath the surface.

  Bram’s unease was steadily building, becoming almost palpable. He felt watched from all sides, the feeling so strong that he fought against looking behind him every few seconds. His eyes darted back and forth, searching every shadow for signs of the aggressive fungi that waited to sink their tendrils into vulnerable human flesh.

  “Here’s an idea, Waters,” remarked Solomon Chavez, disrupting his increasingly obsessive thoughts. “Why don’t you use your psychic powers like a distress beacon, and let someone know we’re in trouble?”

  “That might work,” he mused. “When I concentrate hard enough, I can make a receptive person hear my thoughts. It’s harder when no one knows I’m trying to contact them, but it’s worth a try.”

  Gloria appeared skeptical. “I suppose we’ll need to stop for a while to try this experiment?” she asked, glancing around for potential threats.

  Bram nodded. “There’s no point in putting it off. I’ll first try to contact Commander Allison. If successful, he’ll convince the chancellor to send a rescue party. It would be quicker to contact a member of the harvester expedition, but that’s not an option. The shielding that prevents me from reading a New Terran’s mind also prevents them from receiving messages.”

  “Are you sure?” Solomon asked. “They certainly appear to be receiving messages from someone or something claiming to be God.”

  “Hmm, that’s true,” Bram said. “To play it safe, I’ll try to contact the harvesters first.”

  The three came to a halt near a large patch of bare ground. Bram closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and reached out with his mind.

  Nothing happened.

  That’s odd, he thought. Perhaps the crash affected him more than he realized.

  He tried again, but it felt like swimming in molasses. He strained and fought for every foot of ground but failed to make any headway.

  Something was wrong. This shouldn’t be so difficult.

  Experiencing a mounting sense of dread, Bram focused his attention on contacting Richard Allison, hoping to have better luck in that direction. Reaching out with his mind, he once again felt thwarted. He was getting nowhere. His brain was undamaged, so what was causing his probe to fail? Gritting his teeth and filling his lungs, Bram pushed with all his mental might.

  Sudden … extreme … pressure … psychic pushback. His mind thrust underwater. He gasped. The same pushback he experienced in the admiral’s ready room, only much stronger, palpable, like being smothered.

  “What’s wrong, Waters?”

  The voice belonged to Solomon Chavez. He wanted to respond with more than a groan. The pressure was getting worse. Bram fell to his knees and grasped both sides of his head. Something was trying to get … into … his mind. Pressing … twisting … burrowing into his brain, like an angry swarm of alien termites.

  Then suddenly, a scream!

  Was it his? No, the voice didn’t belong to him. The scream belonged to Gloria.

  In the next instant, the unrelenting pressure evaporated.

  He heard Solom
on exclaim, “What the hell?”

  Bram’s eyes flew open and he scrambled to his feet. “What? What’s going on?”

  Gloria was stumbling forward onto a large, bare patch of ground, in the middle of which lay the almost unrecognizable rotting vestiges of a fallen tree.

  “My, my brother,” she sputtered.

  Bram looked in the direction she was headed. A figure was standing near the tree. He could barely believe his eyes. The shock was so great that he almost fell once again to his knees.

  “Selena!” he heard Solomon bellow.

  Bram was confused. Both Gloria and Solomon were speaking nonsense. The person standing beside the fallen, rotting tree was not Gloria’s brother, nor was she anyone named Selena. The blonde-haired beauty was obviously his fiancée, Jennifer Parker.

  •

  How could this be? How could Selena be here? Solomon wondered.

  Completely oblivious to Gloria’s and Bram’s stunned reactions, Solomon staggered toward his daughter. Selena looked frightened, but why? He was wearing an environment suit. That’s it! She didn’t recognize him, not with his face covered by the suit’s protective filter.

  Slowing his pace, Solomon unzipped the suit, threw back the hood, removed the filter from his nose and mouth, and then shook free from the object of his daughter’s fear.

  “Sweetheart!” he said in Spanish, arms wide open. “Come to papa!”

  Selena smiled. She looked exactly the same. She was wearing her favorite blue dress, ruffles white as snow, her black, patent-leather shoes with white lace socks; a red ribbon adorned her shoulder-length, dark-brown hair … exactly the same.

  One part of Solomon’s mind knew he couldn’t be seeing his daughter alive on this God-forsaken planet, while another part—a more insistent part—wanted to believe the illusion, wanted to hold her in his arms, wanted to tell her how sorry he was for failing to save her so long ago on that terrible, oh so horrible, day.

  As he rushed toward Selena, he bumped into Gloria Muldoon and glanced her way.

  Why was that infuriating woman calling a man’s name?