Jillian vs Parasite Planet

by Nicole Kornher-Stace

  She ripped open the two mystery packages. Food, she thought. Please be food.

  One was a spare set of the slithery blue jumpsuits, vacuum-packed into a brick. The other was . . . bathroom stuff. Toothbrushes. Soap. Toilet paper. Dry shampoo. A little collapsible cup. She almost threw it off the boulder in frustration.

  Instead, Jillian looked at her sad little pile. Then she looked at her parents. With the full-body SABRINA bandages off, they somehow looked worse. She couldn’t see the acid burns the worms had given them, but she could see all the holes in their podsuits, and knew it would be hard to keep them warm when the suns went down. She could see all the whitish dots and patches of stuff on their bodies, where SABRINA had covered the worst of the wounds as instructed, and knew there weren’t anywhere near enough smart bandages in her pile to fix them.

  The water container was half full at best. There was no food at all. The pod—their home for a week—was lost. And she had two dozen smart bandages for easily eight dozen wounds. And, as SABRINA had so helpfully pointed out, no medbot. No portal. No way to get home for five days.

  SABRINA wasn’t a medbot. And Jillian definitely wasn’t. But her parents were hurt. Badly hurt. And nobody was here to save them except her.

  Not that she had the first idea how. Even looking at the wounds was making her a little queasy. Her parents were more helpless than she’d ever seen them. What if she messed up?

  She must have thought this last part out loud, because SABRINA answered.

  “Oh, you probably will,” it said. “But they’re going to be a lot worse off if you don’t try.”

  Jillian thought about this for a moment. Then she took a deep breath, counted to ten, exhaled slowly. Then she peeled off her gloves and stowed them carefully in her podsuit pocket. First thing a doctor does, she remembered, is wash their hands.

  “Okay,” she said to SABRINA, or to herself. “Let’s do this.”

  Chapter 6

  Two agonizing hours later (by SABRINA’s very accurate and very irrelevant tracking of Earth time), Jillian sat on the edge of the boulder, kicking her legs over the drop. Glaring out at the place where in four days, twenty-one hours, nineteen minutes, and twelve seconds, a portal would zap into existence and bring them all home.

  Her parents were patched up to the best of Jillian’s ability, with a bunch of SABRINA’s help. Not a medbot was right. She remembered meeting the medbots who took out her tonsils and fixed her broken arm, and SABRINA was definitely not anything like them. A medbot would have had laser cauterizers. Injectors of a half-dozen kinds of antibiotic built into its fingers. Speedheal patches, which she could stick on her parents’ necks for a slow feed of steroids and nutrients into their systems. Intravenous hydration packs. But SABRINA—and Jillian—had none of these things.

  What she’d had was a spray tube of no-rinse foam soap and a busted container of water. Nowhere near enough antibiotic cream. A quarter as many smart bandages as she really needed. The insta-stitches—one of the least-ruined things in the crate—had been pretty much useless for the specific kind of wounds her parents had. She’d done her best, but there was no way to tell whether it was good enough. Only time would give her that answer. Watching and waiting, not knowing what to expect. Basically the exact opposite of what she was good at.

  The best find had also posed the hardest decision—the blister pack of mystery pills. All the useful labeling and dosage information must have been on the box, because there was nothing on the pack itself except a string of numbers.

  In the end she’d taken one pill out and examined it, hoping it would look familiar. That hadn’t gotten her anywhere, but then SABRINA had plucked the pill out of her hand and held it for three seconds without looking at it before announcing: “Painkiller and sedative. Dosage: one pill per person every twelve hours.”

  Painkiller sounded like a great idea, but sedative was scary. Her parents were already pretty out of it. Jillian racked her brain for more movie vocabulary. Was this what a concussion looked like? Was she even supposed to let them go to sleep? How much longer could she hold this whole mess together without them?

  The countdown clock shone down helpfully: four days, twenty-one hours, seventeen minutes, three seconds.

  But those burns looked really painful, and every time she’d been sick, her mom had told her to sleep so she’d heal faster. She’d opened a second pill, then handed both to SABRINA and nodded.

  Her parents now lay asleep, sandwiched between the two damaged tarps, dressed in two of the spare jumpsuits, breathing more steadily than before. The self-heating blanket was too small to cover them both, so she put it under them. The boulder was getting cold, and probably wasn’t too comfortable to lie on directly anyway.

  SABRINA was fussing over them, making pillows for their heads, lovingly dripping water into their mouths through funnels it had apparently just designed for the purpose. “There, there,” it was saying to them, over and over, in a singsongy tone it probably thought was reassuring but mostly came off as mildly creepy. “There, there.”

  At the same time, in a lower register, it was muttering to itself. Jillian wasn’t really listening, but bits of this monologue reached her anyway. It seemed to be about fifty percent concern for SABRINA’s patients, fifty percent trash-talking medbots and their general inability to morph into fluffy pillows at will.

  Just a few days, Jillian thought, double-checking the new countdown clock SABRINA had projected into the sky for her, as if staring at it would make it go faster. We just have to last that long, and then we’ll all be okay. I last longer than that at Aunt Alex’s house all the time.

  But she was already thirsty. She was getting hungry too, but she’d found literally not a crumb of edible food in the pod. It had all gone to the worms. And she was very, very reluctant to use up what little water they had. She’d already gone through some of it to clean her parents’ wounds. There was maybe a gallon left in the container. SABRINA wouldn’t need to drink any, of course, but three other people would have to figure out how to live off it for days yet.

  Even worse, it was getting colder. She’d pulled the third spare jumpsuit over the one she had on already, then zipped the podsuit back on over both. It helped, but just a little. One of 80 UMa c’s two suns was still fairly high in the sky, but the larger one was setting, darkening the greenish sky to purple all along the horizon. In other circumstances, it would have been really pretty. She would have been itching to draw it, or take a picture, so she had some memory of this place to bring home and keep forever. But now Jillian looked at that spreading darkness and saw nothing but doom.

  What was left of the pod looked like a giant foot had stomped on it. It was a shapeless mass now, barely recognizable as the shiny orange egg from the facility just that morning. She didn’t like to think what would happen when the worms finally ate everything in the pod and went looking for dessert.

  Had the sea of worms grown at all? She couldn’t tell for sure. It certainly hadn’t gotten any smaller. She squinted in the purpling light, looking for landmarks. There was the path she’d made, and there was the puddle where the water container had broken, and—

  Jillian squinted. Something looked wrong. Even more wrong than the rest of it, which was saying something. “SABRINA.”

  “You rang?”

  “Come take a look at this. Tell me what you see.”

  SABRINA aimed and deployed a shimmering gold paper airplane of itself. It glided to rest on Jillian’s shoulder. “Worms,” it said. “Some more worms. Oh—Wait—I think I see—no. Just worms.”

  Was it being deliberately obnoxious or just extremely literal-minded? Jillian wasn’t sure.

  “Look there.” Patiently, Jillian pointed at the puddle. Dead worms floated on its surface. Not ones that she’d squashed. They looked whole. And more worms were crowding into the puddle even as she watched.

  At
first she thought they were drinking her spilled water. Then she realized they were shoving their heads down into the water and keeping them there. She didn’t know a whole lot about alien worm anatomy, but it looked exactly like they were trying to drown themselves.

  “Dead worms,” SABRINA declared. Then it changed into a bubble gum-pink praying mantis and flew back to Jillian’s parents.

  But my bunk landed in mud, Jillian was thinking. Right by the water. And there were no worms down there. Not even dead ones. I think I would have noticed if there—

  Wait.

  Her bunk.

  Her bunk, crammed with food bars and water purification tabs and soup mix. The worms had gotten to her parents’ bunks already, but they might not have found hers.

  She was halfway off the boulder before she even noticed she’d gotten up.

  “Afternoon stroll?” SABRINA tilted the triangle of its mantis-head at the two suns. “Or is it evening?”

  “It’s both,” Jillian said. “Come on. We’re losing the light.”

  SABRINA flew up and alighted on Jillian’s shoulder. The weight of it there was like nothing at all.

  Jillian’s bunk was exactly as she’d left it: lying on its side at the edge of the swamp. She could see it clearly from the top of the ridge. Getting down to it safely was another matter. She couldn’t remember where she’d found that less-steep part of the crater. From here it looked like sprained ankle city the whole way down. And those rocks were sharp. Tearing her suit wouldn’t deprive her of oxygen—pretty much the one thing 80 UMa c had going for it so far was that the atmosphere wouldn’t kill her—but she was all out of smart bandages and fresh jumpsuits, and the night was going to be cold.

  SABRINA seemed to sense her hesitation. It spoke from behind her. “Want a lift?”

  Jillian turned. Part of SABRINA had stayed behind to keep an eye on her parents, but it must have borrowed some material from their fluffy pillows, because there next to Jillian was something that looked exactly like a sled, except that it was hovering three inches off the ground. SABRINA apparently couldn’t decide whether to decorate it with racing stripes, lightning bolts, or flames. So it had gone with all three.

  “It’s beautiful,” Jillian said, and meant it. “Thanks, SABRINA.”

  She climbed on. The edges of the sled cupped up around her and got cushiony. The front edge sprouted handles. “Hold on to your butt,” it suggested, and launched itself down the slope. It was a smooth ride, and fast, and exhilarating, and for a few seconds Jillian almost forgot the depth of the trouble she was in. She was just a kid on a hoversled, breathless, grinning, speeding toward a purple sunset with alien wind in her hair.

  The next thing she knew they were skidding to a halt at the edge of the swamp, parking themselves neatly in midair an inch above the mud.

  When Jillian stepped out, this was no longer the case. Gray-orange muck was sticky around her ankles. She pulled her boots out one by one and waddled to the bunk, fingers crossed that the worms hadn’t gotten there before her.

  They had—probably drawn by the weight of her bunk in the same way they were drawn to the pod—but the mud seemed to be confusing them. They were periodically sticking their heads in, pulling them back out, and looping in confused little circles, making their way toward the swamp.

  They’re looking for deeper water, Jillian realized with a chill. They’re trying to die.

  First the ones up on the ridge, drowning themselves in the puddle, and now this. Why would they drown themselves on purpose? It made no sense.

  But she didn’t have time to figure it out now. Already it was darker in the crater than up on the ridge, and noticeably colder. Jillian hustled to the open door of the pod, crouched down, and flicked on the podsuit headlamp. Thanks to the stored solar charge of two suns, the beam was strong.

  She was able to crawl in and haul the packages out from the foot of the bunk, no problem. Nothing heavy, not like the water container or the medical supply crate, so she just tossed each package over a shoulder for SABRINA to catch and lower gently to the ground.

  It was all intact. Eight small packages in all. It didn’t look like it would feed three people until the portal came back, but it was a whole lot better than nothing. Whatever fruit her dad had told her about back at the lab, it certainly wasn’t growing anywhere she could see. Maybe she could go look for it when this stuff ran out.

  That still left the water problem, though. She wasn’t too sure how the little packet of water purification tabs was going to stand up to alien planet swamp water, but there weren’t exactly a whole lot of other drinks on the menu. Was this mystery fruit full of water, like a melon, or more starchy, like a banana? She wished she could wake her dad up and ask. And where to find it, for that matter. Not that she was in a huge rush to go walking out into the worm-infested dark in search of it.

  Last package in hand, she straightened, playing the beam of her headlamp over the gray endlessness of the swamp.

  And nearly dropped the brick of food bars she was holding.

  The lumpy black glop on the surface wasn’t algae, like she’d thought earlier. Or alien water flowers. Or any kind of plant matter at all.

  It was bodies.

  Hundreds and hundreds of drowned bodies, rotting and overgrown with scum. Worms, yes. But other, larger things as well.

  Her dad’s voice echoed in her memory. There’re some things kind of like birds, but not. Some things kind of like salamanders, but really not. Something the tiniest little bit like a deer.

  “SABRINA?” Jillian whispered. Her voice shook. She needed her parents. She needed the portal. She needed to be off this planet. She wanted to turn and run, but that meant putting her back to the swamp. Just thinking about it made her skin crawl.

  Something thrashed in the distance, weakly, and sank out of view.

  SABRINA hovered up. “How may I be of serv— Eww.” It paused a beat. “I am suddenly really glad that drinking water is not a requirement of my continued existence.”

  “They all drowned,” Jillian murmured, like saying it out loud would force it to make sense. “All of them.”

  “Yep,” SABRINA said. “Look, there goes one now.” It pointed at one of the circling worms, which seemed to have sensed its nearness to the deeper water and put on a burst of speed. It was racing forward like the swamp was full of birthday presents instead of certain death. This struck Jillian as so wrong that she was sure she was about to puke.

  Meanwhile, SABRINA was staring at the worm in fascination. After a moment it gasped and sent up a literal cartoon light bulb over what passed for its head. “I’m going to poke it.”

  SABRINA extended a kind of too-long finger with too many joints and poked the worm. The worm recoiled, paused, then continued toward the swamp. SABRINA picked it up and turned it back toward safety. It nosed blindly in the mud for a second, got itself turned back around, and kept going.

  “Fine,” SABRINA told it. “Suit yourself.”

  “No,” Jillian heard herself say. Sure, these things had attacked her parents, and it was just a worm, and she’d killed plenty of them herself while trying to rescue the supplies, but she couldn’t stand here and watch anything try to die. “We can’t just let it drown.”

  “Whatever you say,” said SABRINA. The poky finger turned into a slotted soup spoon, and SABRINA scooped up the patch of water into which the worm was now diving headfirst. The water drained through and the worm remained, and the spoon turned into a cage to hold it. SABRINA held it out to Jillian. “Happy birthday. Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

  But Jillian was staring at SABRINA. Something else had just hit her. “I thought you checked out this whole area. Before we came through the portal. You didn’t notice this?”

  “There was nothing to indicate contamination,” SABRINA said. “All my readouts were in the green. Temperature. Atmosphere. N
o adverse biological agents in the water.”

  “There are hundreds of dead animals in the water. They went in there and drowned themselves on purpose.”

  “Exactly. The water didn’t poison them. It didn’t dissolve them. It didn’t boil them alive. It’s just water. Seventy-nine degrees Fahrenheit, by my reckoning. Quite pleasant. You could take a swim right now if you wanted to.”

  Jillian’s mouth opened to tell SABRINA exactly what she thought of that idea, but then she shut it. “Extremely literal-minded,” she muttered instead.

  “Hmm?”

  “Nothing.”

  SABRINA sighed melodically: a little five-note trill in three separate registers, in perfect harmony. “It’s unusual, I’ll grant you that. Organic life is so unpredictable.”

  “But why—”

  “I don’t think it even knows.” SABRINA lifted the caged worm, which was still trying to force its way out, wedging its head between the bars and bobbing it toward the swamp pitifully. “My chemical receptors indicate that this stupid little creature is signaling confusion.”

  “Chemical receptors?”

  “Sure. I can pick up on even trace amounts of serotonin, melatonin, adrenaline, oxytocin, endorphins—”

  “Okay, okay. And in the worm you’re picking up on, um, what exactly?”

  SABRINA shook the cage at Jillian a little. “It really wants to get in that water!”

  “Yeah,” Jillian said, swallowing hard. “I see that.”

  “But also it doesn’t.” SABRINA paused, hefting the cage up and down. “It wants to, but it doesn’t want to. Or it doesn’t know why it wants to.”

  Jillian stared at the worm. Then she shook her head once, hard, as if the weirdness of this place could be dislodged from her mind. It didn’t work.