by C J Paget
But she was still alone. Just herself, and the demon, and…
Oh god. Oh no.
Her eyes had skimmed over it the first time, but now they caught the lump lying twenty feet away. A small heap, curled into itself. The sand around it was darker. Wet.
Blood.
Lil sprinted over to the body. Three strides in and she wavered. Four, and she came to a stop.
Something was up ahead, beyond the body, over the horizon. It sang in her mind, pulling at her, beckoning. The hair on her arms stood on end. Her teeth buzzed like she’d bitten foil.
Everything else fell away: Nain, the demon, the camp, the portal. None of it mattered. Only the song.
No, not a song. A call. One she wanted—needed—to answer.
Lil shuffled towards it. She passed the body on the sand with barely a glance. Something about the corpse tickled at the back of her mind, but it wasn’t important anymore.
Beneath the high clear hum of the call was a new sound, rhythmic and soft: Tap-tap. Tap-tap.
I know that beat.
Tap-tap, tap-tap. Right in her ear. The sound of a fingernail on… what? Wood?
The sound didn’t fit with the call, and that annoyed her. Lil listened. Tap-tap. Tap-tap.
Like fingernails on teeth.
She whirled, clarity crashing down once more.
The demon was lover-close, his lips split into a hungry grin. He lifted one long finger to a tooth, and tapped. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap-tap.
My heartbeat.
Lil jerked backwards. Her feet sank into the ground and tangled beneath her. She pinwheeled her arms in a desperate attempt to keep her balance.
The demon’s hand snaked out and grabbed her. Lil shrieked as he yanked her forward. One foot found purchase and she pushed off, using her own momentum to carry her past him. A bolt of pain shot through her as her arm was wrenched in the opposite direction. Something in her shoulder tore.
The demon let go. Dirt bit into her cheek as she hit the ground, hard. The bright copper taste of blood filled her mouth. She spat it out as she scrambled away.
There was a body in her path. She felt the wet sand beneath her fingertips, the congealed blood tacky on her palms.
Now that she was down on its level, the sense of strangeness returned. The hair was wrong: the tufts on the corpse’s head were dark; Nain was blonde.
The fingers have extra joints. Lil peered into a ruined face; the shattered jaw housed two rows of broken teeth.
The demon loomed over her. His gaze flicked to the body and his eyes went wide.
He threw his head back and keened.
Lil shoved herself to her feet and started running, but she was too slow. He followed her, the last of his cry leaving his lips. Fury contorted his face. He crossed the distance in two easy strides, dragged her back by the straps of her pack, and wrapped a hand around her throat. His digits snaked beneath the soft wool of Nain’s scarf.
And squeezed.
Lil felt his hot breath in her ear. He chattered again, angrily. Her fingers scrabbled against his. Night closed in, the stars winking out as blackness tinged her vision.
This is what happens to little girls who leave the path. No reward at the end, no happily ever after. Just death.
Distantly, she heard a wet crunch. Kitchen crew dropped a melon!
But the hydroponics team hadn’t grown melons in years, and besides, she wasn’t in camp. She was out on a run, with a demon and a body, and oh gods, the air hurt as she sucked it back into her lungs.
A hand closed on her arm, hauling her up. Her vision went black again as the pain in her shoulder flared. She swayed but didn’t fall, held up by the other presence.
When her head cleared, she was staring at a grinning woman.
“Come on,” the woman said. “When he shakes that off, he’s gonna be pissed.”
Lil was wracked by a fit of gasping, choking coughs. Her companion held her until they eased. “N-Nain?”
“In the flesh. Can you run?”
Lil glanced back. The demon sat splay-legged, holding a hand to his head. Thick blood coursed between his fingers.
Nain held up her left hand, displaying a fist-sized rock that was coated in blood and hair. “Took a couple good whacks to get him to let go.” She cut her eyes back to the demon. “He’s dazed, but that won’t last. We’ve got to get going. So can. You. Run?”
Lil shifted her weight from one foot to the other, testing ankles and knees. Despite the fall, they seemed okay: no sprains, no tears. “Yeah. I think so.”
“Good girl.” Nain tugged her pack free from Lil’s shoulder. “I’ll take this. You can hang onto the scarf for now. Worked better than breadcrumbs, didn’t they?” Before Lil could respond, Nain glanced behind her. “Oh, look who’s up.”
The demon got to his feet.
Nain pointed at the corpse. Her voice rose to a taunt. “Your friend there? The group of solitaries it tried to eat killed him. Went down like the sorry sack of shit he was.”
The demon couldn’t understand her, but her tone seemed to hit its mark. He let out a staccato burst of chatter and lurched after them.
Nain turned and fled. Lil kept up with her. Despite every breath sending new kinds of hurt through her throat, and every step jolting her arm, she couldn’t stop grinning. “Is it true? About the solitaries?”
Nain nodded. “Five of them. That’s why I left the road. It caught their scent and took off. They had rocks and pocket knives.”
Lil frowned. “Those things don’t die easy.”
“I never said it was easy. They had to… keep smashing it. It killed one of them before we got it down. Couple of them sat on its legs, the others stood waiting with their rocks for it to twitch.” She grimaced. “Took the better part of an hour for it to die.”
The image of those broken teeth flashed through her mind. “What were solitaries doing out here?”
“They were following the same thing that had caught me up. And I’m guessing since you almost got killed back there, you felt the pull, too.” Her lips twitched. “Lil, do you know what it is?”
“Something goddamned deadly. We’re going to have to see how far it stretches, make sure no one else goes near it. What? Why are you shaking your head?”
Nain loped along another few seconds. Before she spoke again, she glanced back to show the demon her middle finger. “It’ll be easier to show you. Let’s get him on his way first.”
They reached the portal road a half hour later. At first, Lil was afraid the demon wasn’t going to latch on, that maybe the pull on this road had weakened like it had on the other. Sometimes portals that had been open for decades collapsed over a period of weeks.
Yet soon enough, the demon began to stagger. He made a few half-hearted snatches in the women’s direction, but even as he did it his neck craned towards the portal. A little farther and he let out a querulous chatter and struck off northward. They could just see the portal in the distance, a glowing purple bruise on the horizon. Color swirled in its center, like a rainbow of oil in a puddle. It had to be a quarter of a mile tall and half as wide.
Lil and Nain watched until he was little more than a speck. “He won’t stray again,” said Lil. She grimaced as her shoulder twinged, reminding her that the trip home was still ahead. “We ought to get moving. Might even make it home in time for breakfast.”
“I have something to tide you over.” Nain reached into her pocket and pulled out her handkerchief, something small and lumpy wrapped within. “Open it.”
Lil undid the knot and peered at what lay within. She held the bits up to inspect them in the moonlight. They were a dark reddish-purple, the color of Nain’s scarf. “Nain, are these…”
“Try one.”
She plucked one from its stem, popped it in her mouth, and bit down. Sweetness coated her tongue.
Nain reached over and took one for herself, her smile huge. “Grapes, Lil. They’re grapes.”
“Where did you find the
m?” Even as she asked, she knew. The call still rang in her head, though at this distance the pull was gone.
“Back there, where I found you. It’s another portal road. One for us.”
“How… did you come back?”
Nain shrugged. “I just walked through. The solitaries said there’ve been groups trickling through that one for weeks.”
“So why’d you come back?”
Nain grinned and snatched another grape. “Because we’ve got one last run in us, Lil.” She struck off, along the road that would lead them home to the camp. “Let’s go get them.”
Lil stared after her. She looked up at the starlit sky and over the ruined land. The foreman would want to make plans, send scouting parties to make sure it was safe on the other side.
But this world was dying. Had been since long before any of them were born. In the end, he’d see it Nain’s way.
And mine.
Lil broke into a run. She tapped Nain’s arm as she passed.
“Race you.”
INTERVIEW WITH A ROBOT HERESIARCH
by C.J. Paget
The bio-studies station seems made from the carcass of some vast local creature, or the carcasses of many such. Perhaps even ‘carcass’ is wrong, for some bits of it are clearly still alive. It’s a vaguely pyramid-shaped pile, with openings from which communications arrays poke. The sides are covered in tendrils that pulse like veins, pumping a black fluid through sheets that form a living solar array. A more familiar, less disgustingly organic, solar array surmounts the structure. Rescuer-10 probes this ‘building’ with its many senses. There’s movement within, and power sources too.
Rescuer-10 (full name: Rescuer-of-the-lost-and-malfunctioning-10-points-of-merit) is pleased by this sight. (Though of course, it would not allow itself to use any such emotive term.) The bio-studies station is an abomination. It should have been built in keeping with the clean, sleek, antiseptic designs of Those Who Sleep (may they wake and be pleased with our efforts). It’s clear to Rescuer-10 that there are those here who were lost, confused, malfunctioning. These poor sentiences have wandered from the path and are in need of rescue, by force if necessary. Lethal force, if necessary, and in Rescuer-10’s experience it is often necessary. A mission like this might win another point of merit, thus increasing Rescuer-10’s lead over its sibling, Seeker-of-deviance-9-points-of-merit, with whom it has been locked in a vicious rivalry since they both came online at Landing-1 a decade ago.
Rescuer-10 knows it’s being watched from the station’s high portholes, but so far its presence has not been acknowledged. Another worrying break with protocol. Rescuer-10 announces itself with an official, multiband broadcast, and has to do so twice before getting the querulous reply, “Yes, yes, I’m coming.”
From the bio-studies station comes another shocking monstrosity. Its crab-like carapace is so covered in dirt and fungal-looking growths that it might be part of the local biosphere. Even ignoring this raiment of squirming life, the body-plan of this unit is wrong, altered, warped. Extra limbs and sensors have been welded on without regard for the original, sacred, aesthetics of the design.
“Good morning,” says the monster, “I’m Studier-of-small-things-12-points-of-merit.”
“You seem,” observers Rescuer-10, “to have studied some of those things rather too closely.”
“Sorry, I don’t parse your meaning?”
“What has happened to you? You’re covered in… life?”
“Oh, that! Do you like it? It took me ages to get right.” The monster rotates with a whine of servos, so Rescuer-10 can scan the entirety of the horror.
“What purpose does this serve?” asks Rescuer-10.
“I’m in disguise.”
“As what?”
“As a large, surprisingly mobile rock,” says Studier-12. “Hence all the accoutrements. No self-respecting rock goes naked in these parts.”
“And the purpose is?”
“Oh, it’s my job. To study living things. Used to be that I couldn’t get near the blighters. My shiny metal ass stood out like a battle-tank blundering around in the Cambrian. No matter how carefully I tried to move, everything fled from me. Some of the larger creatures didn’t flee, but it’s hard to study something that’s trying to eat you. Eventually, considering myself a failure, I became depressed—”
“Depressed? You mean your Mission-failure-self-destruct schema kicked in?” Rescuer-10 says, making a note of this sure sign of malfunction: anthropomorphism.
“‘Depressed’ is shorter.”
“Depression is a human emotion, a sacred attribute that we cannot attain.”
“Personally I think many emotions are common to all intelligences, but the point is, I resolved to terminate myself.”
“The correct course of action in event of mission failure is to return to base for recycling.”
“Yes, but at the time I just couldn’t be bothered. I found a shady spot and waited for my charge to run down. It takes a surprising amount of time to completely discharge, you know, and life here moves fast. The plants came first, growing over me. Then some of the more sessile animals attached themselves to me. Small insect analogues nested in the plants. Larger things hunted them. All the small things came to me, and some big ones too, and I studied them all. Thus was I, and my mission, saved.”
“Your mission being to evaluate the local species for any threats they present to the settlement?”
“Indeed so.”
“Of which, threats, you have found an astounding number.”
“I like to think I’ve done a thorough job. I take it my exceptional results have been noticed back at Central?”
“Yes. They have. Your report on the Arcturean Bandersnatch, for instance—”
“Ah, yes. A magnificent beast, practically a living airborne battleship.”
“You believe it presents a serious threat to any settlement?”
“Why yes. It’s a vicious predator, what with all those teeth and claws and the ability to launch parts of itself as quasi-independent hunters. And it’s frumious too of course—”
“Frumious?”
“Oh yes, absolutely frumious.”
“And extinct for several hundred local years.”
“We know that now,” says Studier-12, “but at the time I couldn’t take the risk.”
“Don’t you think creatures on that scale would have shown up on orbital scans?”
“Not if they were dormant. I didn’t want to be responsible for giving the all-clear only to have it discovered that Bandersnatchii hibernate underground eight years in ten.”
“I see. But at least that creature did exist. What of its successor, the Air Shark, which you apparently made up?”
“Oh no, I didn’t make it up.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. I postulated its likely existence, which is another thing entirely. After all, something must have driven the Bandersnatchii extinct, and that thing could still be running around somewhere. Making it up would require imagination, which I’m sure you will agree is a human attribute beyond my meager abilities. I merely used logic to extrapolate what manner of beast might have out-evolved the Bandersnatch.”
“Did it not occur to you that these Bandersnatchii might have succumbed to environmental change?”
“Well yes, they might. But do you want to bet human lives on ‘might’?”
“You’ve named things too, which is not in your remit. That honor rightly belongs to the Great Makers, when they arise from their slumber.”
“Without names, how would I indicate which beast I was reporting on?”
“Designate them with a number.”
“Even a number is a name of sorts, is it not, Rescuer-9?”
“Ten. Rescuer-10.”
“Exactly. But, I understand you’re here to examine our little installation? Come, let me show you around.”
The monster turns, leading the way into the ‘building’. Rescuer-10 follows, keeping its pa
ssive sensors energized and watchful. “‘Our’? First person plural? You are not alone here then?”
“Oh no. I wasn’t the only unit to become lost out here. I found many others, charged life into them, and gave them a purpose.”
“This too was never among your assigned tasks.”
“You think not? But, two, five, or twenty units can do my job more effectively than I alone. I was merely making good use of resources.”
Within, the building is surprisingly well ordered, alarmingly well staffed, and enviably well equipped. “I see you’ve requisitioned a lot of equipment from Landing-1?” says Rescuer-10.
“Well, no one else was using it.”
“Your strange requests for equipment, information and media not relevant to your mission, were what first drew Central’s attention,” says Rescuer-10, “but it was decided to give you the benefit of the doubt.” It’s clear they have at least one nano-factory, and have used it to produce cages, hydroponics pods, scientific instruments, and most shocking of all, a number of small autonomous units.
“Do my sensors deceive me,” says Rescuer-10, “or have you produced autonomous units?”
“Oh, they’re not sentient.”
“No?”
“Oh no, no, no. They’re just self-propelled equipment. Really quite primitive. So you can spare me the lecture about the divine monopoly on creating intelligence.”
Rescuer-10 still doesn’t like what it’s seeing. Many of the robot inhabitants are damaged and most are covered in dirt or life, taking no pride in their appearance. This parade of the broken and the botched has Rescuer-10 wondering if it’s permitted to admit it feels disturbed. These renegades should have been broken down for useful parts long ago.
“Oh, you really must see these,” says Studier-12, leading the way to a large containment structure. Within is an expanse of sand, at whose center is a burrow around which a circle of shockingly repellent little creatures stand guard. They’re all tubes and glands, as though turned inside out, and leaking some strange, oily substance. Rescuer-10’s sensors detect petrochemicals. They’re only recognizable as living beings, rather than offal, because of four eye-stalks that rise from their tops, looking in the four cardinal directions. Four larger, longer eye-stalks stand up out of the burrow, implying the existence of a bigger version living underground.
