by Craig Allen
“It’s like they’re impatient,” Anne said. “They’re pacing back and forth.”
“Pacing over a kilometer,” Sonja said. “That’s pretty damn impatient.”
Over the next rise, they discovered an open field dotted with red shrubbery. About three hundred meters away lay a creature large enough to be a behemoth, and from the stillness of the body, there was no question that it was dead. As they approached, a tiny cloud emerged and hovered over the corpse, oblivious to the wind blowing across the plain. As Cody drew closer, the cloud became more distinct. It wasn’t a cloud at all, but a collection of tiny white insects—or at least what passed for insects on that world. They halted for a moment, as if pondering the new arrivals, then darted into the sky.
The corpse itself was a behemoth, much larger than any of the ones he had seen earlier. Red shrubs sat around the carcass. The five-pointed leaves formed into mouths and pulled away pieces of rotten meat. Small slug creatures crossed the massive beast, leaving a trail of torn and chewed flesh behind them.
“What happened?” Anne asked.
“Looks like he keeled over and died,” Bodin said. “Wonder how.”
“Whatever it was, it was bad,” Sonja said. “Look.”
The beast’s underside bore a large, open wound, where slugs crawled in and out. Cody wasn’t an expert, but he was certain that something had burst out.
“Christ,” Deveau said. “Not the way I want to go.”
“Parasites, perhaps?” Cody said. “Maybe something nested in him and fed on him.”
“Not a pleasant thought, Doc.” Sonja glanced over her shoulder. “Nothing about this place is pleasant.”
“Shit.” Bodin tapped his helmet, accessing his HUD. “Gunny, I got movement. Bearing northeast.”
“Same direction as the signal.” Deveau spun around and tilted his head upward. “It’s—Jesus, the signal’s in the air.”
Cody’s suit picked up the signal as it spiraled over their heads. After another moment, something emerged from the clouds. Five creatures circled the carcass like a gathering of vultures. The large black shapes were just familiar enough to make Cody reach for his pistol.
“Fuck, it’s those bat things.” Bodin lifted his weapon, taking aim.
The beetles surrounded Bodin, crawling over his boots. Bodin stared at them as they formed words.
Friend Friend
“Stand down, Sergeant.” Sonja kept her own weapon lowered. “Look, they’re different.”
Bodin lowered his weapon, but both he and Deveau held it ready. Anne did the same, breathing heavily over the comm speaker.
As the creatures grew closer, it became obvious that they weren’t the same creatures they had encountered before. The shape of their wings reminded Cody of pterodactyls. The wings stretched a good four meters from tip to tip, ending in three-fingered claws. They sailed down like gliders, landing on two feet that didn’t seem strong enough to carry them. Thin reddish hair-like fibers covered the tops of their bodies. Their underside had a lighter coloring, similar to the hue of the sky. When the last of them landed, they folded their massive wings and hobbled forward.
Bodin lowered his weapon, raising his eyebrows. “It’s a bunch of buzzards.”
“A venue of vultures, is the proper term,” Cody said. “That is, if they were actually vultures.”
The beetles scurried toward the flying creatures, meeting them about halfway. The flying creatures regarded the beetles with large yellow eyes. They too seemed to have metallic plates growing from their bodies. Most of the plates spread across their undersides in patches, but the largest one sat about where their foreheads would be. For a moment, the fliers—Cody liked that better than “buzzard”—and the beetles sat quietly. Magnetic waves lit up Cody’s HUD. Periodically, the flying creatures twisted their heads back and forth.
“Wonder what they’re saying,” Anne said.
Cody simply shook his head. After a moment, the beetles let out a collective squeal. They scurried toward the massive corpse and covered the body, crawling inside the open wound and through an orifice that might have been a mouth. They began to tear at the rotting thing, moving in and around the slugs without pushing them aside. The slugs, in turn, stayed out of their way. Neither species impeded the other.
Anne made a gagging noise as the tiny creatures fed. “Our rations don’t seem so bad now.”
The fliers moved closer to the carcass. They gently pushed aside some of the slugs covering the corpse, and the rest scurried out of the way. When the area was clear, a snout protruded from the fliers’ heads. They held their snouts over the body and sprayed a white substance. The liquid acted quickly, sizzling and boiling over the desiccated flesh. In seconds, the liquid turned the flesh into a sort of jelly. When enough had dissolved, the fliers inserted their snouts into the gelled meat. A loud slurp filled the air as they inhaled the dissolved flesh.
“Oh, man.” Bodin turned his head. “What the fuck?”
After several minutes of feeding, one of the fliers retracted its snout. It turned and ambled over to the group. Sonja gripped her rifle as it approached.
Cody put a hand on her arm. “They won’t hurt us.”
“You sure about that, Doc?” Sonja asked.
“They’re carrion eaters. What would they gain by hurting us?”
“Another meal,” Deveau said. “After we’ve ripened.”
“Did you see what they did to those slugs?” Cody asked. “They could have crushed them if they wanted.”
“Professional courtesy, maybe.” Deveau relaxed his grip on his weapon and lowered it. “Ah, hell, maybe he’s right.”
The creature, which stood half a meter taller than Sonja, stopped two meters from the group. It stared at them with large unblinking eyes. After a few seconds, a limb unfolded from its chest. The “hand” at the end had five digits, each spread equidistant around a fat stumpy joint. In its grip was a featureless orange sphere with a flashing light.
Deveau nodded. “That’s definitely the black box.” He shook his head. “So much for finding the Kali.”
“Can you reach the bridge-sat with that?” Cody asked.
Deveau shook his head. “No. This is just a recorder.”
The creature handed the sphere over to Deveau. It leaned over him as he connected the box to his suit. He winked at the flier, but it didn’t respond. When Deveau had the box in place, he activated it. His eyes grew wide. “Holy shit.” He whistled. “This is definitely from the Kali.” He scanned through files. “Hang on. This one’s highlighted.”
“By who?” Anne asked.
Deveau shook his head. “Let me send it.”
The file appeared on Cody’s HUD, and he opened it. It was a visual recording.
A view of the interior of a spaceship’s cargo bay appeared. The optic view shook. Emergency lights flashed, but there was no sound. A man and woman came into view, each helping the other as they stumbled through the violently rocking ship. The man helped the woman into a crash tube. They hugged, and then the man closed the tube. He then entered the crash tube nearby. The video cut out at that point.
“Jesus.” Sonja let her breath out. “Were there actually survivors?”
“It would explain how our friends understand English,” Cody said, pointing to the beetles at their feet.
“I wonder how long they lasted down here,” Anne said. “They couldn’t still be alive, could they?”
“Here’s another.” Deveau brought it up on his own HUD. He was quiet for a moment as he watched the recording. His shoulders slumped after a moment. “Christ, you guys have to see this one.”
Deveau sent the file, and Cody opened it. It was the same optic angle at the same location. Beams had fallen from the ceiling, and gaping holes marred the deck, but the two pods were still visible. Abruptly, a crate careened into view, sailing across the hold before crashing into the wall. From the edge of the screen, three creatures appeared.
“Oh, shit,” Bodin said. �
�You guys seeing this?”
Cody nodded absently as the creatures in the recording bounded across the cargo bay. They were the same toad-like creatures that had kidnapped the bulbous creatures earlier. One stopped at the crash tubes and hovered over the canopies for a few seconds, and then two others joined it. One toad creature raised its central claw and attempted to smash the canopy, but its claw bounced off the hard plasti-steel. The other toads did the same. The attempt to smash the tubes went on for a minute or so. Finally, one of the creatures ran its smaller arms along the side of the tube. With a single tug of its main arm, it ripped open the tube. Liquid from the tube spilled across the floor. The creatures reached inside and pulled out the occupant. It was the woman Cody had seen earlier.
“Oh, no,” Anne said.
The woman squirmed in the creature’s grasp while another toad ripped open the second tube. The man kicked and flailed at them. It was like kicking a tree. The toads bounded out of view of the optic, dragging the two people along. The recording continued, showing only the empty cargo bay and the broken crash tubes.
Cody closed the recording. Everyone remained silent for a long moment.
The flier made a soft fluting noise then produced something from under its wing. The thin, flat object was old and beat up, but it was definitely a handheld viewer, similar to the one Deveau used to contact the bridge-sat. The flying creature handed the device to Deveau. He stared at it for a moment, bewildered. Then he showed everyone else. Through the cracked screen, words were legible.
Help us. We see the giant flier. Find loud flier now silenced and find brothers. Home you go we help then Us with you. We find brothers.
“Does everybody here know English?” Bodin asked.
Cody shook his head as he read it over and over. The flier waited patiently for them to respond.
After a moment, Sonja broke the silence. “What does it mean?”
“I think I know.” Cody turned to the flier. “You know where the ship is? The giant flier?”
It bobbed its head once. It had to move its entire body to do so, but it was an unmistakable equivalent to a human nod.
“And you want our help?” Cody asked.
Again, it nodded.
“With what, exactly?” Anne asked.
It took the viewer from Deveau and laid it on the ground. Its claw tapped a message into the viewer expertly, as if it had done it a hundred times before. When it finished, the flier handed the viewer to Deveau.
Loud flier not far. Brothers on it go home. You can after brothers found and others and no more dying.
“Brothers?” Anne wrinkled her forehead as she stared at the fliers. “Your brothers?”
It nodded.
“Are they captives?” Cody asked.
Another nod.
“Who is holding them captive?” Deveau asked.
The flier ran its hand over the small viewer, and an image appeared. It was an image taken directly from the black-box recording of the toad creature ripping open the crash tubes.
“I was afraid of that,” Sonja said.
~~~
Cody sat quietly in the dark. The night had gotten terribly cold, but the suit kept him sufficiently warm.
The flying creatures had gone, promising to meet up with the group in the morning. They had found a camping point between two large outcroppings on a hill. The hill sloped down in two directions, and the other two directions were protected by the outcroppings. It looked like a giant notch on the top of a hill. Bodin called it a saddle. It rested close to a larger hill, which essentially hid their camp. Through the ever-present haze of the sky, the moon and the distant globular cluster hung close to one another. It made the night sky brighter than any night on Earth.
The beetles had camped out next to Deveau’s sleeping form. The beetles needed rest, but they didn’t seem to sleep. A handful of beetles patrolled the perimeter of the camp, though most stayed near Deveau. Even though the beetles were thorough in their patrols, Sonja insisted on someone always staying awake. Cody was first up.
He rubbed his hands together, though it was silly to do while fully covered in an enviro-suit. He kept infrared up on his HUD. Several creatures passed in the distance, but none came close to their position. The night was generally quiet, but every so often, a cry would erupt in the distance, only to be cut off just as quickly, as if something had been caught and consumed right away.
“Anything new, Doc?”
Cody nearly jumped out of his skin.
Sonja snickered, almost playfully. “Sorry, Doc. You should pay more attention.”
Cody chuckled. “Yeah, especially out here.”
“You should if you want to survive this.” She sat down next to him and looked out at the open expanse before them. “A whole lot of nothing out there. All the plants pulled their asses into the ground again.”
Cody winced before he could stop himself.
Sonja only laughed. “You really don’t like people swearing, do you?”
Cody shrugged. “It’s just so coarse and primitive. Like people who can’t express themselves.”
Sonja grinned. “Actually, cussing is great if you want to really fucking express yourself.”
Cody winced again.
“Seriously, Doc. We’re on an uncharted alien world in hostile conditions, and you’re worried about my language?”
He sighed. “Point taken.” He nodded toward the barren plain that had been teeming reddish life. “Makes sense that the plants would retreat. No point in being out if the sun is down. A predator would just eat you.”
“It’s like everything is smart around here,” she said. “Those red reeds stay away from us, and those plants… I swear to God they’re eyeing us.”
“And the beetles and the… well, buzzards.” Cody frowned. “I think we need another name for them if they’re our allies now.”
“They’re not our allies,” Sonja said. “Well, not yet. We’re working together. We need their help to get to the Kali.”
“And they need our help to free their people,” Cody said. “Are we going to help them?”
Sonja nodded. “If we can. Getting the locals on our side may help us survive that much longer.”
“So we’re doing it to for ourselves?”
“And they are doing it for themselves. Call it a transaction.”
They sat quietly. A creature the size of a lion darted past at the far edge of the plain, covering ground at remarkable speeds in the high-gravity environment. It had five legs equidistant around its body, in a configuration that seemed unwieldy but obviously wasn’t. Cheetahs would’ve had trouble keeping up with the creature. It quickly disappeared into a ravine.
Sonja finally broke the silence. “Why are you here, Doc? I mean, I know you’re a Spican interpreter, and we figured we’d find Spicans here, but there’re other terps. We’re a couple hundred parsecs from civilization.”
“I was asked,” Cody said. “And I wanted to get off Earth. The farthest I’ve ever been from Earth is the moon, until now. I mean, I went to the orbital ring for drops, but that’s it.”
“Yeah, you used to do orbital drops, didn’t you?” Sonja’s eyes grew wide, and she pointed a finger at him. “Wait a minute. You’re that Cody Brenner?”
“Yep.” Cody sighed. “Droppin’ Cody. Long time ago. I thought everyone knew.”
“I’m always the last to know.” Sonja laughed. “Holy shit. You did the Honolulu drop within five meters. That was a record, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, but it’s been broken since. It was a tough drop, though.”
“Yeah, I bet. I’ve dropped in P-38 power armor before, but the suit did all the work. You just had your ass hanging out.”
Cody nodded. “I had a heat-resistant space suit and some positioning equipment, but that’s about it. That and my board. We just dropped from the orbital ring and maneuvered into position.” Cody held his hands to the side, as if stabilizing himself. “I had to keep the reentry board consistent. I
could maneuver it, but only by so much.” He lowered his hands. “Most of it happened in the free fall after reentry. For that Honolulu drop, if I’d angled it wrong, I would’ve dropped into the Pacific.”
“Well, Doc.” Sonja nudged him with her foot. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”
Cody shrugged it off then nodded at her. “How about you? Why are you here?”
“I was ordered to go. We don’t get to pick and choose our missions.”
“No, I mean how did you get into the marines? Was it during the war?”
Sonja bit her lip. She leaned back against the rock. “Yeah. It was during the war.”
Cody didn’t press her. When the war had begun fifteen years ago, a lot of people signed up. Most people joined the military because they’d lost families. Whole worlds were lost in that war. Everyone lost someone… everyone.
Sonja stared out across the plain, growing more somber.
Cody reached behind him and grabbed the viewer the fliers had left with them. “I think they’re trying to tell us too much at once.”
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “What do you mean?”
“These cryptic poems they leave us.” Cody held up the viewer. “Maybe when they communicate through magnetic waves, they tend to send entire ideas at once. They may be trying to do that here.”
“So they just regurgitate it all at once instead of spelling it out.” Sonja winced. “Bad analogy.”
Cody smiled, remembering how the fliers ate. “Essentially, I think that’s what they’re doing. I also think they want to come with us.”
“What?”
“Here.” Cody pointed to one of the messages. “‘Us with you.’ I think they mean they want to go with us.”
“They’re asking for asylum?”
“Looks that way.”
Sonja chuckled. “I guess they don’t like this place any better than we do.”
