Pursuit

by Val St. Crowe

  So, there wouldn’t be any blowing anything out of the sky. By anyone.

  He still didn’t want to see anything. He thought about the moments—the interminable moments—that would come between his calling James and waiting for James to show up and evaluate the situation. During that time, he was supposed to hold position and continue to observe.

  But what if whatever it was out there saw him during that time? What if it came for him?

  There were dangers out here. The biggest danger, of course, was the Xerkabah. If they found this outpost, they’d destroy everyone in it, because humans weren’t supposed to be out on these planets.

  But there was also the possibility of something else living on the planet, something besides those birdlike things they always saw, something they didn’t know about yet. After all, when they’d first colonized Ceymia 4, they hadn’t known about the Xerkabah, and they’d been able to scan the whole planet. The outpost here was a cobbled-together thing, done quickly without proper exploration. Something else might show up. Anything.

  Bass wouldn’t even know what it might look like.

  Luckily, so far, he hadn’t seen a damned thing. That was how he liked it, even if he did want to gnaw his own arm off because of the sheer repetitive nothingness of the job sometimes.

  The lookout post was at the top of the fence. It was a small, circular room, open to the air above. It didn’t get too cold here, so there wasn’t need for anything other than a light jacket at night. Bass had a chair in the middle, and the chair swiveled so that he could look in all directions. To get down, he would climb off the chair, walk around a small platform and then take a set of very steep metal steps down to the ground. The steps were easy to come up, but they were hell to go down. He always clutched the railing tight on the trip down.

  From below, Bass heard a noise.

  “Psst.”

  He jumped out of his chair, letting out a little cry of surprise.

  Oh, no, that’s below me, he thought. Not out there. It’s someone talking.

  “Bass?” called a female voice softly. “That you up there?”

  “Who is that?” he said.

  “It’s Gane,” came the whisper. “Is it you, Bass?”

  Gane Sigma? What the hell was she doing here? Gane was friends with Sinthia. She wasn’t the prettiest girl he’d ever seen, but she wasn’t exactly ugly either. He’d never spoken to her before. Of course, she was always with Sinthia, and he was always looking like an idiot when he saw her. “It’s me.”

  “Can I come up?”

  “Why?” He was very confused by this.

  “It’s a dare,” she said. “I have to come up there and bring something back or I have to send a message to the boy I like and tell him I like him.” As she was talking, her voice was getting closer.

  “You have to what?” He swiveled to look at the place the platform gave way to stairs.

  Her head appeared. “That’s the consequence for denying a dare,” she said. She climbed up into the lookout post. She smiled at him. “Hey.”

  “Who dared you to do this?”

  “Vivica,” said Gane. “She always comes up with the worst stuff. Sinthia’s nowhere near as mean.”

  “You’re with Sinthia?” But of course she was. They were always together.

  She smiled. “Yeah. And I gotta get back. So give me something to take with me.”

  He looked around the lookout post. “There’s nothing here.”

  “So give me something of yours.” Her eyes grazed his body.

  He felt self-conscious. “I don’t have anything to give you.”

  “Sun and stars,” she said. “I’m going to have to call Deeker, and I’m going to die of embarrassment.”

  “Wait, you like Deeker Ross?”

  “You can’t tell anyone.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “Who does Sinthia like?”

  Her eyes widened. “Sun and stars. You like Sinthia, don’t you?”

  “No,” he said, turning away from her and shaking his head.

  “You do so. I can’t believe it. If she knew that—”

  “Shut up,” he said in a tight voice. Because, when he’d turned away from her, something was there. He could only make out the shadow of it, but it was at the bottom of the fence. How could he have missed it? It must have moved fast. But it was big.

  And it was no bird. It walked upright, like a man, only its arms were too long, so long that they almost dragged on the ground. Except now, it wasn’t walking. It had dug claw-like hands into the fence, and it was climbing.

  “Damn, damn, damn.” He fumbled for his cator. “You need to leave.” His voice came out like a squeak.

  “Why?” said Gane. “Do you see something?” Now, she was peering over his shoulder.

  The thing was coming up the fence quickly. Too quickly.

  He needed to punch in numbers on the cator, but his mind had gone completely blank, and he couldn’t even remember what number called James. He didn’t even know how many numbers he needed to press. He stared at the cator, and it was this worthless piece of plastic, and he felt his pulse begin to thump under the thin skin of his wrist. It thumped at his temple too.

  Think, he screamed at himself. Call James.

  The thing was up the fence now. It was climbing over the outside of the lookout post.

  “What is that?” said Gane, backing away from him.

  His hand holding the cator was shaking. His whole body was shaking.

  The thing out there leaped over the outside wall of the post, and now it was inside with them. It had wide-set, beady eyes and a huge hole of a mouth. It was a vidya.

  He choked.

  Gane screamed.

  The vidya reached out an impossibly long arm and thrust its claws into Gane’s throat.

  Blood spattered the wall. It spattered the floor. It spattered Bass’s face.

  Bass’s jaw worked.

  The vidya slowly turned its head to face him.

  The cator slipped out of Bass’s fingers to clatter against the floor.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Hey,” said Eve.

  “How’d you know where my bunk was?” said Pippa, who was on the other side of the door, yawning. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt that seemed to serve as a nightgown, and she had obviously been sleeping.

  “I didn’t,” said Eve. “I’ve just been trying bunks until I found you.” She’d been worried she was going to get the captain’s by accident, and that he would stop her from warning Pippa. Eve had spent hours with the doctor, answering questions about her “condition,” which the doctor thought was some kind of epilepsy. He wouldn’t believe her about the visions, and when she’d gotten angry, he’d given her some injection to calm her down, but it had put her to sleep. She’d only woken up a short time ago.

  “Okay,” said Pippa. She yawned again. “Something wrong?”

  “Yes,” said Eve. “Can you alter the course to the planet Durga?”

  “Uh, technically speaking, yes, but I’m not going to, because the captain wants to go there, and I can’t go around disobeying him or else I’ll lose my job.”

  “You believe in my visions, right?”

  “Sure,” said Pippa. “The Xerkabah have them too. It’s from the electric storms on Ceymia 4.”

  “I had one about you,” said Eve.

  “Me?”

  “I don’t want to freak you out, but it was bad,” said Eve. “We can’t go to that planet. If we do, you’re going to die.”

  Pippa’s eyes widened.

  “So, please, just alter the course.”

  Pippa’s lips parted.

  “Please.”

  Pippa pushed past Eve into the hallway and started down it.

  “Are you going to go alter the course now?” said Eve, going after her.

  “No, I’m going to the captain,” said Pippa. She rounded a corner and climbed up a ladder to another level.

  “I already told him,” said Eve. �
��He doesn’t believe me.”

  Pippa looked down the ladder at Eve. “Well, the captain is a bit wary of superstitions.” She hesitated.

  “Just change the course.”

  Pippa didn’t move. “Well, what if we don’t go there now, but we go later? Will the danger be gone then?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t be completely sure when the vision was from. You looked like you look now. You hadn’t aged or anything.”

  “So, I can’t go there for a few years?” said Pippa.

  “I don’t know.”

  “We have to go there,” said Pippa. “We’re one of the few ships who do. They rely on us for trade.”

  Eve shook her head at Pippa. “What part of what I’m saying isn’t making sense to you? If you go there, you will die.”

  Pippa chewed on her lip. She hit the query button on the captain’s door.

  “He’s not going to help,” said Eve.

  The captain’s door slid open and the captain appeared. He was only wearing a pair of flannel pants and no shirt. There were scars twisting over his muscled arms and chest. Eve found herself unable to look away from his bare skin.

  “What?” said the captain.

  “Captain, I’m not interested in being killed,” said Pippa.

  The captain looked down the ladder and noticed Eve. He pointed at her. “You just can’t stop making trouble, can you, princess?”

  “I’m trying to protect Pippa,” said Eve.

  The captain turned to Pippa. “Down the ladder.”

  Pippa scurried down.

  The captain came down behind her. He seized Eve by the arm. This time, she noted, his grip wasn’t quite as painful as last time. “I’m confining you to your quarters.”

  “What?” said Eve.

  “It’s for your own good,” said the captain. He shot a glance at Pippa. “And for the good of my crew. Don’t you be talking to this one anymore, Pippa.”

  “But captain, about what she said?” called Pippa after him.

  Because the captain was already dragging Eve down the hallway, and so Pippa was at the other end of the corridor. The captain ignored Pippa.

  “Captain?” Pippa’s voice was getting further away.

  The captain led Eve around the corner, all the way down that corridor, and then to the door to her cabin. He stopped, blocking her path to the hallway so that she was trapped between the door and his body. His bare chest was very, very close.

  Eve had seen the captain without his shirt in her visions. Without his… anything, actually. But that had been from a different angle, and it had only been sight and sound, and now she could feel the heat radiating from his skin and smell him. He had a sort of earthy, woodsy scent. Eve felt strange sensations in her body, odd feelings that were tight and loose at the same time. It was hard to catch her breath.

  The captain looked down at her.

  She looked up at him.

  Something in his eyes shifted for a moment—softened. But then he clenched his jaw and hit the button on the outside of her door to open it.

  It slid open.

  Eve didn’t move.

  “Get in there,” said the captain, but his voice was quiet and a little scratchy, and it made those sensations Eve was feeling almost… throb.

  She licked her lips.

  He took a step toward her.

  She backed up.

  The door slid closed in front of her face.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be brought food,” the captain said from outside the door. “And once we’ve been to Durga and are back in space, you can come back out again.”

  Eve put her hand against the door. “Wait, captain. Please change course. Please? For Pippa.”

  But the captain must have gone, because there was no answer.

  * * *

  Gunner checked his plaspistol to see how much of the cartridge he had left. Only half full. He got out another cartridge and put it in the holster on his belt that was just the right size for spare cartridges. “I don’t see why you’re being like this. I told you, the girl’s got a medical condition.” He was in the cargo bay of the ship, arming to go out to trade with the outpost here on Durga. They’d landed twenty minutes ago.

  Pippa folded her arms over her chest. “She said that I died here, that’s why.”

  “Captain, how would you feel if it was your death that girl saw?” said Saffron, reaching over him to the weapons cache to get a cartridge of her own. But instead of putting it in her belt, she snapped it into her pistol.

  “She hallucinates,” said Gunner, slamming his plaspistol into its holster. “She’s not seeing the future.”

  “Pippa’s just being cautious,” said Breccan.

  Gunner glared out at the rest of his crew. “Don’t remember asking for everyone’s opinions.”

  “Someone’s in a foul mood,” said Calix, arching an eyebrow at him. “Not as excited about the taste of ration bars as you claim?”

  No, it’s that damned girl, Gunner thought. Can’t stop thinking she’s pretty. Can’t stop thinking about… Oh, sun and stars, he didn’t even quite know what he was thinking about, but he didn’t much like it. Since Silvi, he hadn’t given much thought to women, not in that way, anyhow. But that insane girl seemed to make things inside him stir abominably. As if he could even think about having his way with a mentally ill girl, no matter how pretty she was. He pointed at Pippa. “I’m ordering you off the ship. I need your help. You’ve got a talent for sniffing those ration bars out.”

  “No,” said Pippa, lifting her chin. “You’ll have to fire me.”

  “At which point you’ll have to get off the ship,” he snarled.

  “Captain,” said Saffron, giving him a look.

  Oh, damn that woman. Damn all the women. He sighed. “Fine. You want to stay on the ship, Pippa, stay on the ship.”

  “I will,” said Pippa. “I ain’t setting foot on that planet.”

  * * *

  Eve was locked inside her quarters and had been there since the night before. She’d been brought one meal, by the captain himself, who’d made it impossible for her to escape, not that she’d tried. She’d pleaded with him not to go to Durga, but he was stone. He’d ignored her the whole time he was there, which hadn’t amounted to more than three minutes.

  At least he was making good use of the potatoes she’d paid her way with. Whoever he had in the kitchen cooking them up hadn’t made them the same way twice, and each time was delicious. This time, they’d been baked and smothered in some kind of cheesy sauce, probably out of a can or something, but still very good.

  She sat by the door, waiting to hear someone come by. She thought that when she did, she could bang on the door and try to convince them to change course.

  But no one came by.

  And then there was an announcement from the captain to strap in for landing, and she felt the ship settle down and stop moving.

  They were on Durga.

  And she was stuck inside her room. For all she knew, the vidya was already on board.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Gunner peered up at the top of the fence that surrounded the outpost. Usually, there was someone up in that lookout tower, but he didn’t see anyone there now. Maybe there was something in the tower, maybe, but he couldn’t make it out.

  “Captain.” Saffron’s voice was alarmed.

  Oh, wait, now he saw something. A hand, dangling out of the lookout tower, red rivulets running down it and dripping off the fingers. Gunner turned to look at the rest of the crew.

  “Something happened here,” said Saffron.

  “Maybe it’s still happening,” said Calix. “Maybe we can help.”

  “Yeah, and maybe we’ll get ourselves killed doing that,” said Gunner. Damn it. They’d wasted fuel coming to this place. He didn’t want to go back empty-handed.

  Calix was working on the gate, but the gate wasn’t latched. Something had broken the latch off from the inside.

  The gate, all seven feet tall
of it, swung slowly inward, revealing the interior of the outpost.

  The first thing they saw was a body. A woman, lying face down, hair over her face, blood in a puddle under her cheek.

  “Let’s get back to the ship,” said Gunner in a strained voice.

  But Calix was already running into the outpost. “Maybe some are alive, Gunner. Maybe we can stop this.”

  Saffron took out her plaspistol and ran after him.

  “Wait,” said Gunner.

  Breccan raised his eyebrows at him. “That an order, captain?”

  Damn it.

  Gunner drew his gun too. He went in behind them. Breccan brought up the rear.

  The place was littered with bodies. People had been dragged out of their homes and torn to shreds. Men, women, children, all of them dead.

  They stalked through the place. Calix said they should split up to cover more ground, so he and Saffron took the left side of the street, and Gunner and Breccan took the right. It was a lucky thing that the outpost wasn’t too big. Maybe ten buildings, including the main common building, where the people ate meals together, and where they were supposed to hunker down in case of an emergency. But they hadn’t even had a chance to get there. It looked as if some of them had been trying to make it inside when they’d been snatched up and clawed to death as they ran.

  There wasn’t a person left alive.

  Gunner and Breccan met up with Calix and Saffron at the open doors to the common building.

  “No one left,” said Calix, his expression stony.

  “Whatever did this might still be around,” said Gunner.

  “What’s it look like to you, captain?” said Saffron, gritting her teeth. “What’s it look like did this?”

  Gunner turned away from her and started toward the gate. “We got to get back to the ship.”

  “It looks a hell of a lot like the vidya, sir!” Saffron yelled at his back.

  * * *

  “I been all over,” said Jinnifer, shutting the door to Orion’s cabin behind her. “They all left the ship, just like the captain said they were going to. We’re alone.” She and Orion had been together for nearly four months in the ghetto on Ceymia 4, during which they slept in a tangle wherever they could find shelter. They were almost always touching, and he kissed her whenever he got the notion.