FSF, August-September 2009

by Spilogale, Inc

  Long-Eyes raised a three-fingered fist, a sign of affirmation. “The first one is already inside the village wall."

  Cara stretched her wounded leg and climbed from the bed of dried grass and matted leaves. Her ankle twinged as it took her weight, flexing stiffly.

  Long-Eyes turned a dilated ear toward the door. “She is riding faster than the others.” He paused, listening. “Almost here."

  Cara heard it now, the hum of an engine racing toward the hut, the splash of a single wheel braking outside the door.

  "It is the tall one,” Long-Eyes said. “She is carrying something heavy.” He lowered his face, listened carefully, then added: “She is carrying you to it."

  "Carrying me?” Cara asked. “Carrying me to what?"

  Long-Eyes sometimes spoke in riddles. Was this one of them, or had she misunderstood?

  "Not you to it,” he said, speaking more slowly, letting her hear the glottal tones that trumped word order. “I said that the tall one is bringing something to you. I do not know what it is. But you will see for yourself in a moment. She is almost—"

  The damp cloth swung back, sending a misty spray into the hut as Epsilon stepped into view. She carried a full load on her back, a bundle of field supplies that included a spare uniwheel rover in latch-down position. The rover weighed nine kilos. The pack added another two. But Epsilon stood tall, assuming the straight-backed posture that always made her appear larger than she was. “You're up,” she said, lowering her hood. Her face was identical to Cara's: square jaw, narrow cheeks, wide-set eyes. But Cara barely noticed such things. It was the differences that put her on edge.

  Epsilon gestured toward Long-Eyes. “Is he still taking care of you?"

  "More or less,” Cara said. “Mostly he just keeps me company."

  Epsilon stepped away from the door. “I was afraid you might be sleeping."

  "Can't sleep,” Cara said.

  "Pain keeping you awake? Is it your leg?"

  "No. Not really.” Cara stepped into the light, trying to appear strong.

  "Your arm, then? Those bandages look loose.” Epsilon rounded the fire, dragging her rover by its control shaft, its single wheel leaving a muddy streak on the clay floor.

  Long-Eyes stepped aside, making room.

  "I thought I'd wrapped those bandages tighter than that."

  "Too tight,” Cara said. “I had to take them off, reapply them on my own. I think—"

  Epsilon raised a finger. “One moment.” She cupped her ear and turned away. “Go ahead, Alpha. I'm listening."

  Three days earlier, Cara would have listened as well. Now, with her cybernetics down, she waited in silence.

  "All right,” Epsilon said. “I'll ask her.” She turned to Cara. “Alpha wants to know if you think the wound's infected."

  "No. I gave the burns a good look before replacing the bandages. The scabs appear healthy. No abnormal discharge. And I don't feel warm. I think I'm fine.” She realized that such observations were less reliable than a full-system diagnostic, but they were all she had.

  Epsilon nodded. “Guess we'll have to take your word for it.” She unslung the pack from her shoulders, dropped it and the spare rover onto the floor at Cara's feet. “This gear is for you."

  Cara frowned. “The rover, too?"

  "Yes. Provided you're strong enough to ride it."

  "And the pack?"

  "It's standard issue: rations, meds, field suit. Alpha transmitted it an hour ago. You need to get out of that native tunic, come back into service."

  "But I'm off-line."

  "Right, but it's your experience that matters ... provided you can ride."

  Two more rovers splashed outside the door.

  "Where are we going?” Cara asked.

  "I'll tell you, just as soon as—"

  The door cover slapped back, making way for Delta and Zeta, each identical to Epsilon in form but different in manner.

  Delta's gait conveyed tension as she rounded the fire, turning her head just enough to make eye contact with Cara. We need to talk, the eyes said. But not here. She glanced at Epsilon, then Zeta. Not around them.

  Zeta was less guarded. She drew up next to Epsilon, standing close enough to be her shadow. “Everything okay?"

  "Yes,” Epsilon said. “She says she can ride. I guess you could have stayed at the base after all."

  "No problem,” Zeta said. “I wanted to come.” She peeled back her hood to reveal a fresh abrasion on her forehead: a wide, scabby streak that might have come from a swinging branch, as if at some point she had been following Epsilon too closely through the forest. “Did you tell her what we're doing?"

  "Not yet,” Epsilon said, keeping her eyes on Cara. “I want her to start suiting up first."

  Cara glanced at the others, reading their expressions, intuiting the reason for their predawn return to the village. “You've found it, haven't you?” she said. “It's the nesting site, isn't it? You've found it."

  Delta nodded.

  Cara turned away. “Long-Eyes!” She called his name in the native tongue, looking back to where he had been squatting by the fire. “My sisters have—"

  Long-Eyes was no longer in the room.

  Cara looked toward Delta. “Did he leave?"

  Delta shrugged. “I wasn't watching him."

  Cara looked toward the door, the cloth cover swaying in the predawn wind.

  "Maybe he went to wake the Elders,” Epsilon said. “He probably wants them to know we've come back."

  "But I have to tell him—"

  "What you have to do is get ready. Alpha's predicting a break in the weather, clear skies at dawn. If you're going to help us, it has to be this morning."

  Cara glanced once more at the door, then knelt beside the fresh gear, favoring her wounded leg as she lifted the new rover from its harness. She set it aside and broke the seal on the field pack. The contents were all newly integrated, form-fitted into a near-solid mass of plastic shells and folded fabric. She lifted out one of the latter, a compressed cybernetic unitard. “What I need is information.” She set the unitard on the floor and removed her tunic. Her skin, imprinted with cybernetic conductors, flashed in the firelight. “Tell me about the nests. Where are they?"

  "Eastern shore,” Epsilon said. “There's a ledge overhanging the sea. The wall beneath it is honeycombed with caves. Access is through a pit that opens near the edge of the forest. I climbed down it yesterday morning. The fang-claws are there. Hundred of them. When the young hatch they'll be thousands."

  "X-eeÑa,” Cara muttered, using the native name for the animals. Pronounced as a glottal click followed by a nasalized whistle, the name could be tonally inflected to be either singular or plural. Roughly translated, it meant fang-claw. Like most native words and names, it was aptly descriptive. “Thousands of X-eeÑa?"

  "They'll decimate the island,” Epsilon said. “It'll set the mission back a year if we don't do something."

  Cara unfolded the unitard, opened its dorsal seam to reveal a lining embroidered with microcircuitry. “You've got a plan for dealing with thousands of those things?"

  "I do.” Epsilon turned to Delta. “Show her the markers."

  Delta unslung a field pack from her shoulders, reached inside, and pulled out four transmitters, each mounted to a spring-loaded rock anchor.

  "Delta's going to mark the target with those,” Epsilon said. “Then the two of you are going to stay on site, making sure the target stays marked until Zeta takes out the nests."

  Delta returned the transmitters to her pack. “You get the picture?"

  Cara's mind raced, putting the details together, filling in the blanks as she slipped her arms and legs into the unitard. “You're talking about using the lander, aren't you?” The unitard's lining tingled as it slid along her skin. For a moment she thought she felt the rush of cybernetic current, the heat of her personal system powering on, but it was only the residual warmth of the fabric, still fresh from integration. Her circuits remained de
ad. The unitard would keep her warm and dry, but her senses would remain off-line. “You're going to crash the lander into the nests?"

  Delta grinned at Epsilon. “I told you she'd figure it out. She might be off-line, but she's still one of us."

  Cara frowned. “Let me get this straight—"

  "You're getting it just fine,” Zeta said, furrows forming behind the scratches on her brow. “We've moved the lander's remaining fuel into the forward tanks and primed it to ignite after I power-dive into the nests. The collapsing fuselage will seal the opening, forcing the energy down into the caves.” She spoke softly but forcefully, with the stoicism of a disposable fieldworker, someone trained to serve a brief term on the planet before yielding to a freshly integrated copy from the orbiter's digital files. That was the way things were supposed to work: one fieldworker at a time. “When it's all over,” Zeta said, “the mission goes back to following protocol."

  "You're saying all but one of us will be retiring this morning?"

  "It makes sense,” Epsilon said. “There'll be no need for multiples once we take out the nests."

  "So it'll be you, then?” Cara said, speaking to Epsilon. “The rest of us retire. You continue the mission. May I ask who made that decision?"

  "No one.” Epsilon extended a hand to help Cara to her feet. “We drew lots back at base camp."

  "The luck of the draw?"

  "No. Not luck. Duty. This mission was never about a single worker.” She squeezed Cara's hand, but the pressure was anything but reassuring. “We're all in this together ... and we're all expendable. You know that, Gamma."

  Cara winced. Gamma. She wasn't used to hearing that name spoken aloud, but there it was, her sequential designation, the label that identified her as one in a series of identical fieldworkers, each transmitted from the orbiter to the base camp's integration chamber.

  "Something wrong?” Epsilon asked.

  Before the additional fieldworkers had arrived, Cara had found it easy to think of herself as unique. But now—in the presence of Caras Delta, Epsilon, and Zeta—everything was changing.

  "You look tense,” Epsilon said.

  "It's nothing.” Cara reached down with her good arm and lifted the field pack from the floor. “Just a little stiff, is all. I'll be fine.” She didn't dare say otherwise. Among the field-pack's standard-issue supplies was a retirement kit containing a lethal dose of morphine sulfate. Any fieldworker who found herself unable to advance the mission was expected to inject that dose, retire herself, and make room for a replacement.

  Epsilon was right about one thing. Retiring in action would be better than overdosing on a bed of matted leaves.

  "So you want me and Delta to stay on site, make sure nothing comes along to dislodge those markers?"

  "That's right,” Epsilon said. “But the local wildlife tends to steer clear of the nests, and most of the fang-claws will already be underground after sunrise. At most, you'll only have to worry about a straggler or two."

  "In which case, you'll want me to distract them."

  Epsilon shrugged. “Nothing you haven't done before.” She grinned. “You know their moves. You wrangled one and lived to tell about it.” Her grin broadened. “But this time staying alive isn't a concern. The stragglers can catch you once Zeta locks in on the signal."

  Cara nodded, turned away, and reached into the pack once again, this time lifting out a field jacket and a pair of lightweight boots. She put them on, then realized she might be needing one more thing before the morning ended.

  The pack's medical compartment held a mix of supplies—some chemical based, others cybernetic. Among the latter was a piece of hardware known innocuously as a dorsal plug. Sealed in a hard-shell container and emblazoned with a code-red label, the plug was as potentially lethal as a dose of morphine. “I might need this,” Cara said, slipping the case into her pocket.

  Epsilon frowned. “I thought you said you were feeling better."

  "I am.” She lifted the field pack over her shoulders. “Better than I was.” She tightened the straps and picked up the rover. It was still in latch-down position: riding shaft collapsed into the chassis, wheel locked on its gyro-balanced hub. She held the handgrip, extending the shaft and freeing the wheel with a swing of her arm. “I'm ready.” She turned to the door, realizing as she did that she no longer heard the patter of rain. The room seemed oddly still. “Maybe we should find Long-Eyes, tell him the plan."

  Epsilon glanced left, checking her in-eye clock. “No time,” she said. “You need to go."

  "But the Elders will want to—"

  "I'll take care of the Elders,” Epsilon said. “This is my post now.” She stepped toward the fire, making a show of warming her hands over the flames. “The database will prompt me with the language. Alpha will advise me on the customs.” She spoke with the authority of one who had already claimed the field as her own.

  Not like me, Cara thought. My face, my body, my training—but the arrogance is all hers.

  "Something wrong?” Epsilon asked.

  Delta rounded the fire, stepping toward Cara. “We need to go,” she said, her eyes once again conveying the dark weight of things unsaid. “The nests won't keep. We do this now or not at all."

  Epsilon grinned. “You need to trust me.” The flames played across her face, pooling in the hollows of her cheeks. “Trust me, Gamma.” She turned away. “It should be as easy as trusting yourself."

  * * * *

  A palisade wall surrounded the village. Within it stood a mass of densely packed huts interspersed with dirt trails and clay courtyards. At the center of everything, on a rounded hump of land, a great hall spewed smoke from dormer vents.

  "Something's going on,” Cara said. “They're lighting fires, getting ready for something."

  Zeta nodded. “So are we.” She mounted her rover and took off toward the palisade.

  Cara and Delta followed, their running lights cutting the predawn darkness.

  The villagers seldom left their huts before sunrise, especially during the cool, rainy mornings that followed the harvest. Still, Cara couldn't shake the impression that the hovels looked unoccupied: no billowing smoke, no faces peering from cloth-draped doors as the rovers raced by. She wondered if everyone had gone to the great hall, leaving their homes as abruptly as Long-Eyes had left his—the entire village responding to some unspoken cue to convene with the Elders. She shivered, realizing yet again how much there was to learn about these people....

  The path remained clear until they reached the palisade. Here they found the resident gatekeeper standing beneath a thatch awning. The villagers called him Always-Ready.

  Cara waved to him as they approached, giving him the formal greeting: a clenched fist with the thumb tucked beneath the fingers.

  He returned the gesture, hunched his neck, and walked out to where a sliding gate rested in wooden runners.

  "The huts are quiet this morning,” Cara said.

  Always-Ready lowered his fist and reached for the gate.

  "They're lighting fires in the great hall. Is something—” Her words gave way to the rasp of the gate sliding in its runners, moving back to reveal a narrow pass between overlapping sections of wall.

  Zeta and Delta rode through.

  Cara held back a moment. She considered asking Always-Ready for more information, but he seemed anxious for her to leave, as if he had something to do ... someplace to be. She raised her fist and leaned on her control shaft, speeding out onto the harvested field that stretched between the palisade and the tall, dark face of the surrounding forest.

  The rain had stopped, but low clouds still churned overhead, flickering with lightning, riding a stiff wind toward the eastern shore. And there was something else, a strange glow flashing above a familiar sheer-walled mountain to the northeast.

  The mission's base camp occupied a ledge near the top of that mountain, hidden in a clearing behind cliff-side trees and camouflage netting. Until three days ago, the camp had been Cara's
home. She had worked there alone, studying the village, eavesdropping with powerful microphones, learning the ways of the natives. Through it all, she had been careful to keep the camp dark. Evidently, her sisters no longer considered that a concern.

  "What's going on up there?” Cara asked.

  "Modifications to the lander,” Delta said. “Epsilon had Alpha send us another worker."

  "Eta?"

  "That's right. Integrated yesterday afternoon. She's up there now, getting things ready. When she's done, she'll serve as Zeta's copilot."

  "Two in the cockpit?” Cara tried picturing that. The lander, designed for the sole purpose of ferrying the mission's integration chamber from the orbiter, had a cockpit barely large enough for a single pilot.

  "We've modified the design,” Delta said. “Taken out some hardware, made room. Crashing the lander means flying with the higher functions disengaged. No fail-safes. No autopilot. Epsilon says that kind of flying is going to take two pilots."

  "Epsilon says a lot of things, doesn't she?"

  Delta leaned forward, speeding away as if she hadn't heard the comment, hurrying after Zeta who had already reached the wall of trees.

  * * * *

  The forest rang with invertebrate songs—the whistles of worms, squids, and carrion moths—all clearing the way as the uniwheels hurtled forward.

  The sisters rode together until Zeta's course veered toward base camp. After that, Cara and Delta continued on, finally slowing their pace near the remnants of a deserted village. Here the forest became a riot of creepers, vines, and weeds—all contending for dominance among a jumble of leaning poles. But something had recently cut through the site, leaving a wide swath of sheared-off stubble that glistened with the mucus of grazing pseudopods.

  Delta followed the stubble, wheeling along a curve of rising ground to pause beside the doorframe of a fallen hall. Cara pulled alongside her, looking east to where the trail widened along a stretch of level ground, finally ending at a stand of trees. And there, at trail's end, a line of grassy hillocks rose from a band of silver mist.

  "Snails?” Delta pointed toward the hillocks. “That's what they are, right? Giant snails."