by D L Frizzell
How did this happen? I thought to myself. Was Arion’s magnetic field getting stronger? At the university, every lecture on the subject promised that the molten core would eventually reach some kind of equilibrium, and we could then redevelop the technology that brought us to this sideways planet. But were these storms now worse than the ones that destroyed our technology when the Founders landed five hundred years ago? If aerobike technology was now susceptible to failure, we’d be in a world of hurt. Ten thousand light-years from Earth and knocked back to the Stone Age. Not a happy prospect.
I lay quietly for a while longer, listening to the world around me. Other than a breeze that had picked up, there were no sounds at all. Nothing. No rustling leaves, no animals. Well, I was kind of glad I couldn’t hear any animals, but I would expect at least a few rodents to be scampering through the darkness beneath the palms. I stayed quiet as I thought about my next move. If the shooter was my escaped prisoner – very unlikely, but possible - he’d still be nearby. Fortunately, I’d come down a good distance from the aerobike and hadn’t broken through the canopy. If that bastard wanted to find me, he’d go to the crash site first.
I pulled the wanted poster out of my vest pocket and unfolded the leathery parchment. The name ‘Oliver Jarnum’ was scrawled across the top in big, sloppy letters. The sketch was low quality, made by some guard at Ovalsheer Prison where Jarnum had been incarcerated for over a decade. The rudimentary drawing provided no distinctive features, except that Jarnum’s eyes were all black. When I first saw the poster weeks earlier, I assumed that the guard had dribbled too much ink on the paper in an effort to make the convict look scary, but Warden Teraczyk had insisted this wasn’t artistic license. Jarnum’s eyes were truly black as sin, with no white surrounding the irises whatsoever. That wasn’t too unusual, I supposed. The kitharan radiation in the northern latitudes had caused some unfortunate genetic side effects over the centuries, and some populations showed it differently. If all Jarnum had to worry about was a creepy stare, then he was one of the lucky ones. Anyway, his other features were ordinary. Average height and build, olive skin, and of course, the heavy titanium shackle that encased his entire right forearm. Now that he’d managed to break out of prison, every marshal in the Alliance Territories would be watching for him, looking to carry out the automatic death sentence that escapees earned. What the poster didn’t explain was how he escaped, only that the bounty was doubled.
I put the map away and pulled a leather necklace out of my shirt. A small glass ball hung at the end. Inside, a pinch of iron dust jumped around like it was alive, first making little black spikes, and then puffing out into a miniature cloud. That told me the magnetic storm hadn’t subsided yet. The sky was still clear, so there wasn’t much chance of a guster, and I couldn’t feel any tremors coming through the shadow palm under me. Thinking the worst might be over, I tucked the ball back into my shirt and started formulating a plan.
Big Hand and Little Hand neared one another in their high orbits overhead, no longer spinning from my perspective. Their electronic beacons still strobing red and green, they were immune from the magnetic anomalies that churned within the planet. If the Founders were up there watching - as legend had it – they had gotten quite a show today. Then again, I thought it would be better if the moons were abandoned. I don’t like audiences.
The shadow palm I was sitting on, which essentially looked like a giant lily pad, began to sag under my weight. Gaps appeared around the edges, revealing slimy, sinewy tendrils. Those tendrils began to snap. Moments later, I was dumped unceremoniously onto the ground two meters below.
I had hoped that I could stay on top of the canopy for a while and force my attacker to make a move that would reveal his location. Now I’d have to make the next move on my own. I reloaded my revolver as I listened for movement in the darkness, thinking my idea to attract local predators might very well backfire.
Around me, the fresh patch of daylight revealed no underbrush at all, just dirt. There wouldn’t be anything growing on the ground, I realized. Plants needed sunlight to grow, and the shadow palms blocked it out completely. I stood up and moved into the surrounding darkness, keeping my hand on the comforting hilt of my pistol. When I was far enough away from the sunlit hole for my vision to improve, I knelt down and scanned the area.
A few hundred meters away there was a wide swath of sunlight where the aerobike crashed. I had the feeling that something was out of place, but it took me a few moments to figure out what it was. There were only two patches of sunlight anywhere in sight, and both were created by me. If somebody had been trying to shoot me, then where was the hole they fired through? Had I gone farther from my starting point than I thought? No, I had landed fairly close to my field pack, which fell off the aerobike as I first woke up. Perhaps I had imagined the shooter, maybe been too groggy from my interrupted sleep, or confused while I tried to get the aerobike under control. I’m not the kind of person who imagines things like that, but it didn’t make any sense. If there was a shooter out here somewhere, he couldn’t have missed the fact that I crashed. I would’ve been an easy target now, but I didn’t hear the disquieting sound of gunfire. Neither was there heavy breathing or smacking lips that I would expect from lurking carnivores. I seemed to be truly alone.
Now that I was on my feet again, the palm frond I’d been sitting on returned to its original height. Its tendrils and those of its neighbors weaved back together on their own, moving like snakes, except with greater coordination. Nothing creepy about that at all, I thought, other than the fact that I never saw plants move before. I watched the hole in the canopy fold in on itself, and finally close after another minute. As I stood there in darkness, I remembered reading about a carnivorous Earth plant called a Venus Fly Trap. It would catch flies between its lacy fingers and suck the juices out of their bodies for nourishment. I’m not a fly, I told myself, but then again, the plants might not know that. As I turned and hurried toward the aerobike in the last remaining patch of sunlight, I realized the self-repairing plants had probably concealed my attacker’s original position as well. He could still be out here, I thought, not at all comfortable with the idea.
I turned my attention to the aerobike in the distance. I could make out its splintered remains in the wide circle of daylight, lying on a pile of shredded foliage. Its only remaining lifting disc still dangled upward against the force of gravity, rocking back and forth like a metronome at the end of its aluminum cable. I walked cautiously toward it, listening for movement in the darkness.
After a brief waiting period, I took a closer look at the aerobike and knew I’d be on foot from that point on. I’d come through the ordeal with no more lasting effects than a few stains on my clothes where I’d slid across the fronds. I had my field pack with all its contents. My weapons still hung from my belt; the falcata in its sheath on my left, and the forty-five caliber revolver on my right. They were good weapons, and my hands were well-practiced with both. I’d feel even better if I could find my rifle, a fifty caliber Longarm. Hopefully, it was still with the aerobike.
Entering the circle of warm sunlight by the bike, I dropped the field pack at my feet. The muffled sound of metallic objects rattled within the large outer pocket. That was the small collection of personal items I carried with me on my travels. Some of them were needed, while others carried more sentimental value. The object that came to mind at that moment was both necessary and evoked negative feelings at the same time. I reached down, opened the pocket, and pulled out a round metal disc with a six-pointed star stamped onto the front. It was my badge, a regular source of trouble in my life. It was scratched on both sides, as I was not the original owner, but was still as shiny as the day I took this job. It had spent most of the last six years inside my vest pocket. People got itchy around lawmen, so I didn’t wear it openly unless I had to. Something told me I should put it on at this moment. If nothing else, I told myself, my remains could be identified if anybody ever found my corpse.
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br /> Don’t be stupid, I chastised myself as I pinned it to the outside of my vest. No corpse would last long in this area.
That’s when I had another sudden feeling of being watched. I turned around, wrapping my fingers around the butt of my pistol as I scanned the darkness beneath the palms. Maybe I was being paranoid, which was perfectly understandable given the present circumstances. There was no sound of a charging animal, and no eyes glowed in the distance. My instincts for this kind of thing have always been keen, but perhaps my mind was playing tricks on me. After all, I’d gotten almost no sleep over the last few weeks. I took a deep breath and eased my hand off the pistol grip. I left it unclipped, though. Just in case.
I took my hat off and ran my fingers through my unkempt hair. When I snugged it back on, I felt the sting where the aluminum cable had clipped my ear a few minutes earlier. The wound wasn’t as bad as I expected, but it had bled enough to soak through my collar. The scent of blood would carry on the plains, so I pulled a spare necker and a canteen out of my field pack. I wetted the necker and cleaned myself as well as I could, though I knew any carnivore with a sense of smell would still be able to follow me.
Scratching noises came from behind me.
I snapped my revolver from its holster and spun around. Muscles tensed for action, I pulled the hammer back and listened. And waited. The barest hint of wind brushed my face from the right.
A pair of grey scavenger birds, each with a wingspan of at least a meter, flew out of the shadows toward the opening in the canopy. I didn’t fire at them. Why risk revealing my location again? I dodged to the left as they flew past me into the sunlight.
Looks like I wasn’t the only one to get trapped under the canopy. You’re welcome, I thought to them as they disappeared into the sky. I paused for a minute, waiting for other sounds. Not hearing any, I put my pistol back in its holster.
I took the opportunity to examine the shadow palms closer, thinking I should become familiar with my surroundings. They weren’t proper trees as best I could tell. They were more like weeds with fibrous stalks that grew straight up from the soil. They split into multiple stems two meters above the ground and then subdivided into those creepy tendrils. Those tendrils coiled with the neighboring palms to create a mesh strong enough to support the liquid-filled fronds overhead. The mesh was so tightly packed that only a few points of sunlight penetrated the canopy outside the damaged area where I stood. Just like some of the stories I’d heard about the Rekeire Plain, it looked the way a nighttime sky might, with stars twinkling overhead. Along with the pleasant, grassy aroma and cool shade, the place hardly seemed like the deathtrap that legends spoke of.
That’s probably what all the other visitors thought, right up to the point where they were torn to shreds by monsters. I cleared my throat, feeling ill-at-ease. This is why I liked permanent daylight. I can see things. Get off the plains, I told myself. Find a town, preferably one with horses for sale. I wouldn’t mind finding a drinkery, either.
I looked at the wrecked aerobike lying on the shredded plants next to me. It had been a good vehicle. The lifting discs would be the biggest loss because nobody could duplicate the technology. Made from an amorphous blue metal with silvery threads running throughout, they were the only reliable technology left on this planet. Well, reliable until today, I thought. And they weren’t even made by men to begin with. They’d been constructed by some alien civilization that lived on Arion thousands of years ago. The aliens had given up on the planet when a giant asteroid hit the south pole and turned the planet sideways. At least, that’s the conclusion that archaeologists reached. The aliens – humanoid by everybody’s best guess - left broken pieces of their technology behind as they evacuated. So, here were some more bits of that abandoned technology being given back to Arion, maybe to be found again in another couple thousand years and put back into use.
I froze when I heard a sound under the bike. Hoping the pieces might still be settling, I knelt down to see. A vine had started coiling itself around the aerobike’s frame. A lighter shade of green than the other plants nearby, it looked as if it had just sprouted from the ground. It wormed its way around the aerobike’s components as I watched, threading between the cracks as if drawn toward the sun. As soon as it left the aerobike’s shadow, the tip swelled and blossomed into a purple flower. That reminded me of a magician’s trick where a wand would turn into a fancy bouquet. Only this was the freaking ugliest flower I’d ever seen, and it was still growing.
When I felt another vine slide around my boot, I jumped back and decided it was time to leave. In another few hours, nobody would be able to tell the palms had ever been disturbed, and there would be no evidence of a crash, either. With a careful eye on the vines, I approached the aerobike. There was no way it would ever fly again, but it did hold a few things I needed.
I found my Longarm rifle under the chassis, still in its scabbard. After hacking at a few slinking vines in the way, I got it free. The scope was broken, so I discarded it. Next, I opened the chamber and angled the barrel toward the sun. Satisfied it hadn’t gotten bent in the crash, I found my ammo supply and loaded a full magazine. I slid the bolt home to chamber the first round, flicked a twitching shred of vine off the front sight, and took a cleansing breath. I felt safer already.
Noticing a fragrant odor on the Longarm, I checked the barrel closer and saw that it was coated with a clear yellow liquid. Sap from the vines, I thought, and had an idea. I fished around in my field pack and pulled out a small tube. I removed the lid and withdrew a thin paper strip with multi-colored patches along its length. I touched the strip to the wet area on the rifle and watched the patches change colors. The results indicated the fluid wasn’t potable, but neither was it toxic. I put my gloves on anyway, grabbed a handful of dead vines, and smeared my duster with a healthy coating of the fluid. In a territory full of meat-eaters, it’s better to smell like a plant. Hopefully.
I returned the tube to my pack. Norio had given me those test strips before I left Celestial City a few months earlier. If there was one thing that old Jovian exile was good at, it was botany. He was good at killing people, too. At least he used to be before all the skin got burned off his arms.
Thinking of Norio made me pause. I didn’t have a lot of friends, but he definitely counted as one of them. I wondered if he’d be home when I returned, or if he’d be off on one of his frequent walkabouts to who-knows-where. Maybe he’d come looking for me if I didn’t return in a month or two.
Another pod of flowers had sprung up next to the aerobike, which was now beginning to look more like a flower shop than a crash site, so I got back to work. It took some prying to get into the aerobike’s mangled cubby, and some hacking against more intruding vines, but it finally creaked and gave way. The polished wooden box inside was also damaged, but when I opened it my sextant lay there pristine as the day I bought it. I took the sextant and tossed the box away, certain that a grass stalk flinched at the impact.
I dug a map of the quartersphere out of my pants’ cargo pocket and laid it in the sunlight. Raising the sextant to the already narrowing patch of sky overhead and trying to ignore the rustling of vines around me, I moved the device’s mirrors and lenses into place. Once I got the two moons superimposed over the sun, I locked the arms in place. The latitude was easy to calculate from the X axis – I was at the twenty-fifth parallel because the sun was twenty-five degrees above the horizon. The perpendicular axis, which indicated longitude, required some math, but I could do that in my head. The moons followed their paths above Arion’s equator as the Founders designed them to five centuries ago, their orbital periods defined by their distances from the planet. Big Hand orbited once a week, which was eight days. Little Hand, being much further away, took four weeks to make a trip around Arion. Whenever they lined up over the Prime Meridian in Celestial City, another month began. At the moment, knowing the moons’ azimuths, plus the date and time from my brass pocket watch, I confirmed my location on the map. Th
e two closest settlements, Dogleg and Bogfield, were on opposite sides of the Rekeire Plain. I wound my pocket watch as I considered my options.
Bogfield was a commercial hub, one of only a few booming settlements in the Rekeire Province. Everybody called those who lived there Boggers, but it wasn’t a term of endearment by any stretch of the imagination. Because of the dirty nature of their work – extracting petroleum from swamplands that smelled like death and armpits - most ‘civilized’ people avoided the place. It was also a city where unsavory types could get almost anything they wanted. Bogfield was the perfect hideout, a transitory environment where malcontents and criminals could make some coin before moving on. Dogleg, on the other hand, was a small hub where merchants and caravaners traded goods along predefined routes. Those travelers lived and died on a regular schedule. Everybody knew everybody else. Strangers would stand out.
I had already been heading toward Bogfield when the magnetic storm hit, as that’s where I expected Jarnum to go. Whether he took the long way around or took the same shortcut across the Rekeire Plain that I did, he would still be heading that direction. My only choice was whether I would walk all the way to Bogfield, or detour to Dogleg first. I untangled an aggressive vine from my left boot as I considered my choices. Dogleg was closer to my current position. I could get a horse and make good time, but the journey would still take at least two weeks longer. The problem was that Jarnum could get to Bogfield and leave again before I got there. Worse, Boggers who were sympathetic to criminals could have access to an industrial grinder strong enough to remove his shackle.
“Bogfield,” I said to myself, “here I come. Too bad I don’t have nose plugs.”
As I walked away from the crash site, darkness enveloped me faster than I’d expected. I glanced over my shoulder and halted. The crash site was now completely overgrown with vegetation. Tendrils closed the gap between the fronds overhead and intertwined together, making an organic quilt. On the ground, the bulging flowers overcame gravity to stretch skyward. With unnatural grace, coiled tendrils stretched out and seized the neighboring plants. When they had a firm grip on the other plants, more tendrils intertwined and reinforced their supporting structure with an almost architectural precision. Surrounding plants leaned away, not to retreat from the intruding vines, but to pull them taut. As a result of this coordinated maneuver, the flowers which had ballooned in size took their place atop the canopy. I imagined some kind of biological pump living somewhere under the soil, gorging the newborn vine with fluid. With the last bits of daylight disappearing quickly, I decided I’d better get moving before other vines decided to use me as another climbing pole.
