Third Rock

by S E T Ferguson

  “What the hell is that?” Wolf had said, seeing the Bird on the ground when they had first landed. They had all been there that first moment, eager to get moving and find Whit before the Columbinians could.

  “It’s the Columbinian’s Bird,” Ellis’s voice rang out from the speakers of the Bird. The Ellis speaking then had never had a physical form, though they had gone to great lengths to ensure the Columbinians would not find that fact out.

  “I can fucking see that. Why didn’t you tell me we would find it there?”

  “I told you, I’ve been having some issues with our communications here in the last few minutes. It’s like they’re jammed. I couldn’t see or tell anything about the compound as we came into it. I can’t even tap into my long-term storage.”

  Wolf sighed like a disappointed man.

  Ellis had brought the Bird in for a landing then, parking it near that belonging to the Columbinians. As soon as they landed, they had all formed groups of two and searched the compound, looking for any sign of the Columbinians or Whit, or even anything useful.

  When no one found any sign, Wolf grew livid.

  Even worse, it seemed that Ellis could not communicate with them outside of the Bird.

  Whatever was jamming their communications was going to cause them no end of trouble.

  “Nothing? None of you good for nothing pieces of shit found even so much as a footprint?” He had screamed at them, as they gathered back at their Bird, hoping to get some insight from Ellis. “And Ellis, I don’t suppose you had any luck with your scans?”

  “No,” he had calmly replied to their shouting leader, “it seems their Bird is equipped with some sort of biometric identification system, which prevents anyone but a select group from not just flying it, but from even entering it.”

  “Non-trusting bastards,” Wolf said, seeming to find no irony in the fact that they were willing, if it became necessary, to kill the Columbinians.

  “Perhaps they just landed here and went into the woods. If they did that, we could definitely follow them and find them. Hell, they might even have Whit with them, or lead us to wherever it is that he is hiding,” suggested Finch, one of the younger members of the group. He may have been young, but they all knew he was the ambitious sort who would one day challenge Wolf for leadership of the group if given the chance.

  Unlike the rest of them, it seemed that Finch had no sense of when to keep his mouth shut, though. His ambition and desire to prove himself to not just Wolf, but the rest of them, made him unable to help himself from talking at times when he should have just been quiet.

  It was about to prove a very unfortunate habit.

  “How fucking dumb do you think I am?” Wolf asked Finch, focusing his anger about the larger situation on the man who he could not help but know would one day be gunning for his position, if he wasn’t already.

  The proper move here, Birch knew, would have been for Finch to keep his mouth shut.

  That was not what Finch did.

  “It was just a suggestion,” Finch replied.

  “Do you think I don’t know what happened? Do you see anywhere else the Columbinians could have gone here other than the woods? Or did I miss that big highway headed off to wherever Whit is?”

  “I’m just saying. You don’t have to bite my head off over it.”

  “I don’t have to bite your head off over it? Do you realize who the leader is here?”

  Birch saw it was time for Finch to stop talking, but it seemed to Birch that Finch couldn’t help himself. He had whispered something under his breath then.

  “What did you just say?” Wolf asked, having heard as clearly as the rest of them that Finch had said something, even if none of them quite knew what it could have been.

  “Nothing.” Finch looked up and straight at Wolf, almost as if he was challenging the leader of their group.

  “What the fuck did you just say?” Wolf repeated. “Don’t make me ask you again.”

  The last statement by Wolf seemed to drive Finch past his breaking point. “I said, ‘If Wolf’s so keen on being the leader, perhaps he should act a little more like one.’”

  Wolf glared at Finch. They stared at each other like that for what could not have been more than a few seconds, but seemed like an uncomfortable eon to Birch.

  Then, a strange calm seemed to descend upon Wolf.

  “Oly,” he said then, his voice normal, or even quieter than normal. “Could you take care of this issue?”

  “Sure,” the lone woman in their group had said. She smiled, then drew her weapon and fired it before Birch could tell what had happened.

  Finch took three stumbling steps backward, then collapsed to the ground. By the time his back hit the dirt, the vacant look in his eyes made it clear he was already dead.

  “Let that be a lesson to all of you,” Wolf said as the blood pooled around Finch’s body. “Do not question what I say here.”

  Since Wolf had spoken those words, Birch had not so much questioned anything Wolf said.

  He had, however, lost whatever trust he had in the man.

  In that moment, Wolf had become something less than he had been before.

  The old Wolf never would have appeared something less than his best. Birch wouldn’t be here now, wondering more about the ways he could die in the woods than anything else, if the old Wolf had been there. The old Wolf would have been the sort of leader who made you believe nothing in the woods would kill you. Or that you were strong and fearless enough not to worry about what could kill you in there. By the end of whatever he had told you about the woods, you would be eager to get into them and to take on whatever they could throw at you, confident you were going to be victorious in your quest.

  Even worse, Wolf surely never would have let Quince get away with not following his orders. Wolf had a soft spot for the large man. They all knew that. And they all knew why. Quince had saved Wolf’s life years earlier. Whatever had happened that day, it had left Quince the way he was, even though he had once been a smart, normal child before then.

  Still, Wolf would not have let Quince get away with what he had, despite their history, when he had truly been a leader. Their leader.

  And yet, Wolf was the one leading them through the woods. No one else was going to do that. Especially Oly, still back at the Bird with Quince. She was ruthless and eager to please, a combination that had led to at least two people he knew of losing their lives back on Civitas. Neither of those deaths had been necessary. And, of course, Finch. Birch had no illusions about what they were doing, and how wrong many or most people thought it was, but he still didn’t see any point in needlessly wasting lives. It only took a few people angry enough with something like that to cause a lot of trouble for them. Enough trouble that they might not be there on Libertas now.

  “Are you guys ever going to catch up to me, or what?” The voice of Iris rang through the woods, egging them on.

  A sound like a growl came out of Wolf’s throat, and he turned from his place in the lead of their group to face the rest of them. “All of you, let’s speed it up. The sooner we’re done with her, the sooner we can get back to the whole purpose of us being on this Godforsaken planet.”

  Wolf turned back to the path and started plowing through the woods with little care for the branches and leaves that were hitting not just him but those behind him.

  Another sound rang out a long way behind them. It sounded like a gunshot to Birch, but no one else seemed concerned about it, so he put the sound out of his mind. The only good explanation for it was that Oly had decided to take a shot at something or someone, which would surprise none of them.

  The only surprise would be finding out which of the Columbinians she had shot when they returned to the Bird.

  If Birch had to guess, he would guess it was either Vlad or Beryl who had been shot. Although he hadn’t said anything, Birch suspected much of Wolf’s motivation in leaving Oly at the Bird with the two Columbinians had been to deal with one or bo
th of them. Oly wasn’t one to let much stand in her way of killing another person.

  It was something she had proved to all of them more than once.

  They hadn’t made it another hundred feet through the woods when Birch heard a sound like a whip behind him. He turned around in time to see one of his companions, his foot being held by a tree, fly into the air, where he eventually came to rest dangling well above their heads, screaming about being eaten by the tree, even though it just appeared the tree was holding him above them.

  “Damn it! It’s a trap. And an unsophisticated one at that.” Wolf said. “Leave him. Keep going. We’ll come untie the moron as soon as we find the rest of them.”

  Birch looked at the man dangling above their heads. He looked panicked, like he thought he was going to die at any moment by being eaten by a tree. Birch knew the right thing to do was to stop, to try to help his companion, but Wolf was insisting. Reluctantly, Birch and the rest of them turned from their companion to follow their leader.

  The hanging man screamed at them, telling them to stop and help him. As he disappeared behind the jungle’s leaves, his cries grew more and more anguished.

  Suddenly, Birch heard the same sound of a whip again, and this time, the only man still behind him in line went flying into the air, suspended from a tree just as the other man behind him had been suspended.

  This time, Wolf didn’t even bother to stop, he just kept plowing through the woods.

  It took every ounce of effort for Birch not to turn around and run back to the safety of the Bird. But he was here to do a job, he reminded himself, and continued on down the path.

  Wolf growled another few words under his breath. Then, Birch heard a cracking sound, and one of them, walking behind Wolf, seemed to fall off of a cliff.

  For that, Wolf turned around.

  “What the hell?” Wolf took a step backwards and nearly lost his balance. He was peering down at the ground where the man had seemed to disappear. It was not just Birch and Wolf. Wolf carefully stepped toward the area where the man had just disappeared. Birch followed his lead, and he could see as he got close that there was a large hole dug into the path. At the bottom stood the man, his feet in a pool of water and his arms not tall enough to reach the top of the hole.

  “Damn it, what happened?” Wolf asked the man.

  “Clearly, I fell down a hole,” he said, as if none of them could see that for themselves. “You need to get me out of here.”

  “What in the world could have done this? It sure as hell doesn’t seem natural,” Wolf said. The man looked up at Wolf as if he was the least intelligent person he had ever talked to.

  “It’s not natural, you moron. The Columbinians did this. And those weren’t man-eating trees back there,” he added, as if he had just realized it for himself. “Those were human snares.”

  Wolf stood up, the words seeming to hit home and make him realize something.

  “It’s a trap,” the leader of the Civitians said. He looked around, as if that would help him determine where the next problem was coming from. Wolf took two steps backward, away from the hole and further down the path, as if he was worried he could fall down there with the man.

  On the second step, something pulled up around him.

  Birch saw it was a net.

  It was a booby trap like an old movie.

  The net wrapped up Wolf. Instead of pulling the large man into a tree, though it pulled him to the ground, tightly wrapping him so he couldn’t move or reach for something that could help him, like his knife.

  “Damn it, Birch, come over here and cut me out,” Wolf snapped.

  Birch looked at Wolf. He knew what he had to do.

  Birch took off running through the woods, back to where he had come from and where the Bird offered a safe haven.

  Birch reached the hanging men quickly. Seeing their companion run by, the hanging men begged for help, but Birch didn’t stop.

  Birch followed the path back to the Bird as fast as he dared. It wasn’t much of a path, but he could make it out. He kept his head down, looking for the footprints in the mud and dirt of the forest floor and the broken branches and leaves indicating where they had been broken or cut off.

  Birch was so caught up in looking down that he didn’t see the figure emerge on the path ahead of him until he ran straight into it.

  Birch screamed as loudly as he ever had as the creature grabbed his arm and twirled him toward the other direction, binding Birch’s arms behind him and tying his hands together. Almost as quickly, the creature pulled the gun from Birch’s holster, then patted him down and found two knives Birch kept on him for protection—an obvious one on his waistband and a less obvious one on his upper thigh.

  “Jesus, man, how many knives does one person need?” The voice sounded familiar to Birch, and when the man who it belonged to spun him around, Birch saw it was one of the Columbinians—Heming, he thought. That was his name. Like Ernest Hemingway, the writer.

  Birch decided not to answer the question, even though the obvious answer was that he had clearly not brought enough knives to get out of this situation. He didn’t think that was the answer the Columbinians wanted to hear. And right now, Birch was going to say whatever it took to keep himself alive.

  Heming began to march Birch back toward the now-obvious traps, pushing him ahead of himself and the dog with him as a shield against the jungle.

  They quickly came across the men dangling from their feet over the jungle floor. As they saw Heming, a few of the Civitians attempted to reach for their guns. Heming pointed his own at them and their actions stopped. One by one, Heming had each of them drop their weapons to the ground. It only took a few threats of shooting them and talking about sending various creatures after them to get them to comply.

  Soon, Heming was marching his group of three Civitians deeper into the woods, back to where the hole and net had trapped Wolf and the man who had fallen in the hole.

  They found the two of them tied up and sitting on the path near Iris, who stood looking at her nails in a clearly planned act of boredom.

  “What took you so long?” She spoke to Heming, who smiled.

  “Considering I have three here and you only have two, I think that should answer your question,” Heming replied.

  “Whatever. Quality over quantity.” Iris didn’t elaborate on her statement. “Aren’t you going to say anything about how well everything worked?”

  Birch looked at what had happened. Despite outnumbering the Civitians, the two Columbinians had easily bested them.

  Even worse, the looks on the faces of the Columbinians suggested they had not believed their plan would work.

  The Columbinians began to march the Civitans back toward the Bird in silence. Heming eventually couldn’t help himself and had to get the last word in.

  “Iris, I have to say,” Heming said, “I am pleasantly surprised. There was no way that should have worked.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Beryl checked Oly’s foot and arm restraints for at least the third time since Vlad had tied them, not trusting that they were tight or that the woman hadn’t found a way to wriggle out of them.

  “If I couldn’t kill you, at least I got a shot off that marred your pretty little face,” Oly muttered. Beryl put her hand up to the bloody trickle on her cheek. It had stopped bleeding and, somehow, didn’t seem as deep as it had when it first happened.

  Iris had a lot of explaining to do regarding a whole lot that was going on.

  “Whatever. It’s not the first time I’ve been shot.” Beryl checked the ties on Oly again. The Civitian woman was not one Beryl trusted to stay tied up. “And a little scar never hurt anyone. I only wish I had a better story to go with it.”

  Oly snorted. Beryl wished they had something they could use to keep her mouth shut. She was tired of listening to the woman. “What in the world?”

  As Oly spoke, her eyes looked toward something behind Beryl. Beryl turned around in time to see an ob
ject come running out of the woods toward her, coming from the path down which it had gone only a few minutes earlier.

  Beryl’s first instinct was to reach for her weapon, but the creature was too fast for her and it was on her before she could even begin to pull the gun.

  The creature went straight for her face, whining and attempting to lick her to death.

  “Camp!” Beryl half-shouted and half-cried. The dog who had been her companion since childhood knocked her to the ground with his enthusiastic greeting, and Beryl scooted a few feet from Oly before giving in to her desire to hug and pet the dog she had thought was dead. For his part, Camp seemed even happier to see Beryl than she was to see him, rolling on the ground next to her and trying to get her to pet him everywhere all at once. “I thought you were dead.”

  Next to her, Oly grumbled about something under her breath, so quiet even Beryl couldn’t hear it next to her. Camp, though, seemed to take offense at it and stopped his ecstatic petting session long enough to growl at the woman.

  Beryl kissed the soft fur of her dog’s forehead, and he stopped growling. As she kissed him, another something coming down the path from the woods caught her eye. This something was much larger and slower-moving than her dog had been.

  As it fully emerged from the woods, Beryl saw it was one of the Civitians. Her natural reaction was to pull the gun she had retrieved from where it had been thrown toward the river from her side and aim it at him.

  At just that moment, Vlad emerged from the Bird.

  “What in the world?” Vlad pulled a gun he must have found on the ship from his side.

  Then, Beryl saw that he had seen the same thing she had—the Civitian wasn’t alone. Behind him, a line of Civitians was coming down the path, tied together with their hands behind them. And none of them were armed.

  In the back of the group came Heming and Iris, singing some sort of a song with nonsense-sounding lyrics that Beryl still thought sounded familiar. It sounded something like “nub nub” or “yub yub”—Beryl couldn’t quite tell. And she definitely didn’t care.