Good. Still far enough away.
“They’re coming. A whole bunch of them are coming your way. And you have to stop them. No matter what you say, you have to turn them away.”
“Who’s coming?”
“Survivors. You can’t let them in, though. You can’t let them near you. You can’t let them in your camp, or you’ll all die.”
The leader’s face twisted in shock. “They armed?”
“Yeah, but they’re not here to fight. They just want to join your people, but you can’t let them. You’ll die.”
The shock melted away and was replaced by confusion as the three men exchanged glances. “How are they gonna kill us if they ain’t here to fight?”
Connor opened his mouth to explain the terrible truth, but before he could utter a word, he was knocked off his feet by a powerful wave, crashing into the spit with irresistible, raw energy. Time seemed to slow as he fell, and Connor wondered if the men from Captain Kimura’s village would heed his warning, even as he failed to explain the situation. His shoulder impacted the rocky breakwater a moment before the current dragged him out into the open water.
* * *
Nicholas Petrovsky
About 30 minutes later
“Jesus,” Nick cursed, still unable to comprehend what had unfolded before his eyes. The tips of his fingers tingled, and his feet were rooted firmly in the sand despite his urge to pace about.
Martin just swore, as he had since the tide had pulled the young stranger out to sea. The steady stream of expletives was broken only long enough for him to cycle new breaths. Mike sat on the soft, wet sand as soon as they had made their way off the rocky spit.
Only a few minutes earlier, the supertide had swallowed up the entire beach, leaving them stranded on a high point, surrounded completely by water. It had been just barely large enough for Nick and his companions to ride out the rapidly rising and retreating tide.
“Jesus, Martin, why the hell’d you drag us out there?” Nick blurted. “We could have been killed, just like that kid.”
“I didn’t think it’d go that far.” Martin pulled his graying hair back from his forehead, flattening the wrinkles on his sun-scorched brow. “What the hell was his problem?”
Nick shook his head. He looked down at his fingers, which were trembling. This was the second time he had watched someone die. But with Lon Carney, it was different. Carney was a murderer, a desperado. This stranger was desperate alright, but he had done no wrong. The wild look in his eyes haunted Nick, even after his body had been dragged to its watery grave.
“He was going on about something, but I couldn’t hear. Did you understand any of it?”
Martin grumbled and shrugged. “No. The kid was just some fucked up lunatic. Saying he was going to kill me if I touched him, that we’re all dead anyway, some other nonsense shit like that. I’ve heard that kind of shit before. Sounded a bit like Carney to me. Or Stillmark, just before he ate his own bullet.”
“Dude,” Nick interrupted, cringing with shame for his vulgar companion’s disregard of the dead. “Go easy on him. Yeah, he was disturbed, but he didn’t need to go out there. We could have helped him.”
“Like your dad helped Maria?” Martin sneered. He snorted deeply through his nose and spat the resulting glob of mucous on the ground. “I ain’t waiting for that little situation to get better. No, your daddy ain’t no shrink, Nick. If that boy was rattled enough to go out there and try and kill himself, he’s better off.”
Nick felt his temper flare. He narrowed his eyes as he brought his caustic gaze to bear on Martin. The older man’s callousness was one of the reasons that Nick couldn’t wait for the completion of his own fishing canoe. For almost a year he had been paired with Martin. Most days Nick was able to ignore or tolerate the man. Others he was unbearable or even abusive.
“Martin’s right,” Mike added quietly.
Nick glanced over at the third member of the crew, who now stared almost blankly out at the ocean horizon. He had been assigned to their canoe for three months now. Mike was a likeable, albeit quiet, man. At nineteen, he was a little younger than Nick. Normally he had an optimistic view on things, so his agreement with Martin took Nick by surprise.
“What?” he gasped.
“Think about it. The supertide’s coming in. He sees us and bolts onto the rocks. He keeps going even when we tell him to stop. I mean, if he just didn’t want us to get near him, why run onto the rocks? Why not just run out into the jungle?”
“Because of the jaguars, maybe?”
Mike shook his head. “Jaguar might get him. But going out there with the water coming in like that? It’s like he wanted to die.”
“Fuckin’ nutjob,” Martin muttered.
Nick sighed, resigning himself to the fact that they were probably right. The spit was dangerous on a good day, which is why most fishermen avoided it. They were lucky to get out with their own lives. Nick walked away from his companions and headed for their canoe. The bow line was slack, resting in the sand. The tide had flowed out far enough that their boat was completely beached. They would have to carry the boat down to the water to shove off and make way for home.
“You going to be ok?” Mike asked as Nick busied himself with untying their line.
“Yeah,” he shrugged.
“C’mon, you two,” Martin growled. “We ain’t got time to cry over this kid. We’re behind now, and I don’t want to go home empty handed today.”
Nope. Only empty hearted.
* * *
Karen Daniels
Late in the afternoon
Jack was sprinting down the beach at full speed. This was unusual, Karen noted. In the year that she had known him, she had only seen him run once, and then he had a long-tusked boar hot on his heels. In this case he was not being pursued, and his pistol rested in its holster. He clearly had something important to report, and this time that something didn’t have a desire to tear him to shreds.
Karen gathered her two closest lieutenants—an honorific title, rather than the actual rank, last held by the late Matt Marsolek—and waited for Jack’s return.
Mina passed the time by going through a series of poses. Before life on Demeter, Mina had a career as a yoga instructor. While that particular career was not useful on Demeter, she had proven to have energy, strength, and determination to spare. Karen relied on the young, slender woman for her ability to keep the column of survivors in line and on task, and she had a knack for finding edible plants out in the jungle.
Jacob, the other lieutenant, whittled away at a small stick. He loved to carve native vegetation in his spare time, but had only truly mastered one item: sharpened stakes. Besides making hazardous kindling, he had his uses. Most notably, this came in the form of pest control. It just happened that the majority of fauna that fell into this category were dangerous enough to kill humans. Jacob’s keen eye, when paired with a rifle, meant sure death to predators like the jaguar. As the survivors were essentially a column of fresh meat, Jacob was often quite busy.
Jack was Karen’s right hand man. Nearly killed in the wreck of pod four, he battled his way back to health, only to fall ill with the jungle plague. He, like Karen, nearly died of the ailment. But in the words of the late Brett Wu, “He just willed himself back to health.” Jack was the rock that the survivors clung to. He was what kept them from slipping back into the despair and chaos that had nearly torn apart the Lake Raphael encampment. And it was his approval of this mission that swayed the people, bringing them to abandon Lake Raphael and follow Karen along the coast. They needed help, and if the settlement even still existed, they would be the only ones that could help.
Suddenly Karen realized that Jack wasn’t alone on the glittering white strand. Two more men lagged behind him, though their pace was more of a brisk jog than Jack’s headlong sprint. He easily closed the gap and presented himself to Karen for his report. He smiled, though he panted from being out of breath. Jack saluted; Karen had learned months
earlier to ignore the childish dig. She was the only one of Raphael’s crew members left among the ragged band. Command structure had long ago been washed away. People still listened to and respected Karen, but her Air Force rank was now a forgotten, meaningless fact.
“It’s here?” she asked hopefully.
Jack nodded. He managed enough breath to gasp, “A little over a mile from here.”
“You met with them? Can they help us?”
He nodded again.
The two strangers caught up and came to a stop only a few feet away. Their eyes were wide, and one’s jaw almost hit the floor. The leader appeared to be a rather short, slender man with unkempt hair and a wild beard. He wore an M9 on his hip, though it was oddly disproportionate on him. Karen was surprised to see a familiar face in the other man, though it took a moment to recognize him through the beard.
“Seth? Seth Leight?” she said, mouth agape. “You’re still alive?”
“K-Karen,” he stuttered. “I… I thought you were dead. The last time I heard from Marsolek on the radio, you…”
He took a step toward her, his eyes scrutinizing her from head to toe.
“I almost was. Barely pulled through. Marsolek wasn’t so lucky. The disease took him.”
Seth nodded. “How long ago?”
“Nine months.”
The shorter man cleared his throat. “I assume you’re in charge, then?”
Karen turned her attention to him and nodded. “Tech Sergeant Karen Daniels, USAF. Formerly of the sleeper ship Raphael. If you’ll pardon us, we don’t use my rank anymore.”
“Nor mine,” Seth interrupted.
Seth’s companion shot him a quick glance, then continued. “I’m Chief James Vandemark of Camp Eight.”
Karen paused, puzzled at the title he had used in reference to himself. “Chief?”
James nodded. “It’s a little humor. A play on being stranded on this island. It started one night during a village meeting and kind of snowballed from there.”
“Ah, I see. So what’s your real title then?”
“Chief,” he replied. His voice was dead serious, and she suddenly realized that what had started as a joke had morphed into their reality.
“Uh, alright.” Karen shifted uncomfortably and cleared her throat. “As you can see, we’ve all come a long way. I’m sure you’ve figured out this isn’t a social visit, either.”
“You need our help.”
“Yes.”
“Are you offering help in return?”
Karen looked behind her at the remaining colonists under her care. When Lake Raphael had formed as a collection point for crashed pods on the east side of the mountain range, almost six hundred people lived there. Now Karen had only a hundred fifty-two. Most were huddled in family or social cliques underneath the towering salt palms, though a few had ventured closer, hoping to catch a bit of the exchange between Karen and the leaders of the place they hoped to call home.
“We can only offer you ourselves. We have nothing else left. Need foragers or fishermen? We can help with that. Hands to build structures and hands to care for children, we have that as well.”
“Do you have any food?” James asked without any hesitation.
“Enough for today and tomorrow,” Mina replied. “But we can get to work earning our keep tomorrow.”
James looked carefully around at the gathered crowd. He paced slowly from one side to another, seeming to analyze each person he saw. When he finished analyzing an individual, he appeared to calculate and move on to another. Time ticked away as he did this, and Karen could sense the agitation of her lieutenants as the delay mounted.
“When can I speak with Captain Kimura?” she asked.
The chief stopped dead in his tracks, but did not give Karen any specific regard otherwise. “Captain Kimura is dead.”
Karen nodded as she swallowed hard. Her heart sank.
She was the one who made the offer to Lieutenant Marsolek. Shit, did she tell anyone else about the offer?
Karen looked at Seth, pleading with her eyes for some sort of help from him. He just nodded once, then returned to his cold observation of the chief’s antics.
“Do you have any ill among your group?” James finally asked, though his tone was almost inhumanly cold.
Don’t lie. You’ll make things worse when they find out.
“We have two people sick. They’re starting to get better at this point.”
“They stay on the beach, along with anyone else who has had close contact with them over the past week,” James spat back, cutting her off. “They’ll only be allowed in the village once our doctor clears them. Also, anyone who has not yet contracted this disease has to stay on the beach as well, again until our doctor clears them.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Two reasons. First, because I don’t want to put my people at any undue risk. And second, because I said so.”
“I… I…” Karen stammered. “Thank you, sir.”
“It’s chief,” James said as he turned away, whistling at Seth to follow him. “Welcome home, Sergeant.”
Fractis in Posterum, Act I
Gabrielle Serrano
17 Jul, 1 yal, early morning
Camp Eight
“Mama?” Gabi asked as she rubbed the sands of slumber from her eyes.
She could hear the faint rush of wind over the roof, and Diego let out a soft squeal next to her. Though mostly dark inside their tiny hut, light filtered through the cracks and gaps between logs where the mud used to seal the cracks had washed away. She watched as her tiny brother yawned and stretched his pale arms before settling back to sleep. She then scanned the room, but her mother was nowhere to be found. Nor was any sort of breakfast. Gabi’s stomach growled sternly, and she hugged her belly to calm it.
Diego startled at her movement. He opened his eyes, and immediately his lip curled into a pout and he began to cry. Gabi offered her finger to him, which he gripped tenaciously. She tried to soothe him by singing, but his wail only escalated.
“Are you hungry, Diego?” she asked softly.
Waiting for an answer would be pointless. Gabi knew that Diego couldn’t talk at all, and he wouldn’t be able to for a few years, from what Emilia had told her. Instead she gently scooped him up and cradled him in her arms the way that the adults had taught her. She then carefully stood up and paced around the hut a few times, gently rocking him and admiring his cool, blue eyes.
Gabi loved Diego’s eyes. She was a little jealous of them, and every now and then wished that she could trade her brown eyes for blue ones just like his. She never did understand why her mother hated Diego’s eyes, or why her mother said they made her cry when she looked into them.
At the same time, Gabi was thankful that she had almond skin, unlike her brother. She had seen enough of the white-skinned colonists come home with painful sunburns to know that, though it set her apart somewhat, Bravo’s effects were not going to be as harsh on her. She also felt sorry that her brother would have to deal with sunburns when he was older.
Her stomach grumbled again, reminding her that food would have to come sooner than later. She turned to leave the hut when the storm curtain pulled back.
“Mama?” she asked the dark silhouette ringed by blinding daylight.
“Morning, Gabi.” The soft female voice was not her mother’s. Jeanette stepped inside the hut, much to Gabi’s surprise and excitement. It had been some time since any of the Vandemarks had visited. Or anyone else, for that matter.
Two months earlier, over a hundred new people had come to Camp Eight from far off, and the people of the village had been working extra hard to welcome them and make them feel at home. Gabi had wanted to meet these strangers, but she had to help her mother care for Diego, and she had been warned by her mother that she’d just get in the way and cause trouble. Only on the rare occasion that Gabi’s mother let her go to school did she see anyone, and even then she found it impossible to make friends with the new
kids, as Marya had beaten her to it.
As Gabi’s eyes adjusted to the shift in light she could see a soft, somber smile on Jeanette’s face. It was a look that she wore when her mind was far away. Jeanette’s pants were streaked with caked mud, and her shirt had picked up a dusty brown sheen. It didn’t look like she had washed them in a couple days. “How’s Diego?” she asked as she stepped closer.
“He’s a cranky pants. I think he’s hungry.”
Jeanette bit her lip and nodded. “C’mon, let’s get you guys something to eat.”
“Alright,” Gabi chirped cheerfully. “Can you carry him? He makes my arms tired.”
“Of course, sweetie.”
Jeanette took Diego from her. Gabi felt at once as if she could leap over the buildings in the village. She began to skip about, quickly pulling aside the storm curtain as they left, cheering about her impending breakfast. She asked Jeanette if there were eggs this morning, and bragged about how many pepperines she could eat. After jabbering nonstop for almost four minutes, asking a half dozen questions without answer, Gabi began to wonder if Jeanette was upset.
As they queued in line for breakfast at the village square, she timidly whispered, “Are you mad at me?”
“Huh?” Jeanette’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion for a moment. “No, no, not at all, honey.”
Gabi looked around for her mother, certain that she would be around for Diego’s feeding. She couldn’t find her in the crowd, but she did see a lot of the adults turn away as soon as her eyes caught theirs.
“Where’s Mama?”
“Don’t worry about that, dear. Have some breakfast.”
“What about Diego? He doesn’t have any teeth yet!”
“I know. Don’t worry.”
Gabi scrunched her nose and faced forward again, and she felt a hint of disappointment at Jeanette’s deflection. She quickly forgot as the line moved forward and she could catch a glimpse of what was available this morning.
Project Columbus: Omnibus Page 91
