by Guy Haley
Corrigan shrugged. “It’s got to be a bit too much. I’m just glad I’m alive. I try not to think about the dead, just trying to help the living, ma’am.”
“You’re not an Alt?” said Marina.
“No,” said Corrigan. “But some of my colleagues are,” he added pointedly, for Kościelniak’s benefit, Dariusz thought.
“How many are we?” said Dariusz.
Kościelniak’s air of bonhomie slipped. He became glum, steepled his fingers, tapping their tips against one another, and looked at them as he spoke. “A goodly portion of our people died in transit. Around a third. Currently, there are six thousand survivors at First Landing. A number of them were on the ground when we lost control of the Mickiewicz. Others were fortunate enough to have their decks lock on to the beacon there and land close by. But the decks were scattered, and we’ve recovered precious few of the escape pods. We do not expect the total to grow much. Over half the colonists and ship’s personnel have perished, either during the prolonged voyage or during the crash. How many are dying in the desert as we speak...”
Someone whispered, “My God.” Dariusz did not register who; Artur’s eyes caught his. The shine had gone from them, and he stared at Dariusz with an intensity that discomfited him. “All as the direct result of sabotage. Someone did this to us on purpose, sent us haring off hundreds of light years from home, then had the ship drive itself into the ground.”
Artur kept staring, and Dariusz felt sure he must know something. The floor tipped away under his feet. He sat stock still, terrified he would follow the sway of the world around him and reveal his role in the disaster. He felt sick. He awaited judgment. They all knew it had been him, they must. An overwhelming urge to escape assailed him. He came close to confession.
Kościelniak shifted, breaking the spell. “Still,” he said, “we’re all here, and for that I thank God. You’re all to be taken to First Landing later today. The shuttle is to make one more run before this storm worsens, after which we’re battening down the hatches until it’s over. Until the shuttle comes back, perhaps you would like to rest? You have suffered a great deal.”
The group nodded gratefully. “Administrator,” said Dariusz, as the others thanked Kościelniak and filed out. “I have something I need to ask. In private.”
Kościelniak, half out of his chair, halted, then sank back down. “Very well,” he said.
Dariusz waited as the 14A survivors were led out. Marina cast a glance back at him, her brow furrowed. He answered her frown with a thin smile.
As the door closed. Dariusz clasped his hands together on the table in front of him.
“I must ask that I be allowed to stay. I can’t go to First Landing.”
“Why?”
“I have to go back out into the desert.”
Kościelniak glanced at Corrigan, who shrugged. “I will have to clear it with First Landing, and I am sure they would like to make use of your geoengineering skills, so I can safely say that we will not be allowed to let you leave.”
“Please. I have a son. He was on deck 46A. I want you to let me go back into the desert and find it.”
“We have not been able to find 46A. Its beacon has not been detected, and most of our efforts have been directed to recovering those elements whose beacons we have found. I am sorry. You must understand, we are conducting a triage of nations here –”
“Then tell me where it isn’t, and I’ll look elsewhere.”
Kościelniak sighed deeply and pursed his lips. He sat in thought for an interminable moment. “I have two children myself; daughters, both safely at First Landing,” he said eventually. “Were I in your position, I would consider doing what you are thinking of doing, even if it is almost certainly suicide. I am afraid I cannot allow it.
“I cannot allow you to exit from the rear of this base, nor to make use of the environmental smartgear stored there, and definitely not any of the ATVs we have parked outside. I certainly would not wish you to risk your life checking the area between 220 degrees southwest and 300 degrees northwest, a zone we have been unable to quarter as yet. I have to inform you that I will have a member of personnel passing your door, to make sure you are all right. Only a single man, and he will pass by a couple of times in the night. If I could spare more personnel to ensure your comfort and safety, I would, but we are in a tenuous position. Now, was that all? Do you understand me, Pan Szczeciński?”
“Artur,” said Corrigan warningly.
“Do you understand me, Pan Szczeciński?” he repeated in Polish.
Dariusz stood. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Corrigan here will escort you to your quarters. Please.” He held up his hand.
Corrigan looked at Kościelniak and raised his eyebrows.
“You are one of the good ones, aren’t you, Corrigan?” said the base manager.
Corrigan’s mouth lifted at one corner. He was unhappy. “Yeah,” he said after some deliberation. “I am one of the good ones. Come on.”
“You understand,” said Kościelniak in Polish to Dariusz. He switched back to English. “Goodnight, and God speed.”
DARIUSZ WAS BROUGHT to a room where the others lay sleeping on foam mattresses. Marina waited up for him. The rest were insensible, wrung out by their ordeal; Marina spoke quietly, so as not to disturb them.
“You asked if you could go to find your son?” she whispered.
“Yes, and they could not let me.”
“I am not surprised. You are valuable.” She was relieved.
“My son is more valuable to me than my skills are to them,” he said. “I am leaving.”
“You’ll die!” she said. Her voice hissed harshly. She looked upward. The wind moaned outside. “The storm is getting worse.”
“That’s what Kościelniak said,” said Dariusz. He opened the door to the corridor a fraction. With the shutters down, the room was dark, the first true darkness he’d experienced for over a fortnight, and part of him wanted more than anything to embrace it. “He also told me that there is a full set of desert-programmed environmental clothing in the lockers by the rear exit to this place.”
Marina frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Darius turned to look at her, one eye in light, the other in dark. “He said he could not let me go, but he allowed me to infer that he wouldn’t stop me, so I am going.”
“You’ll die, Dariusz.”
“I might die, but I might find my son. I can’t live without knowing, Marina. I will live my life wondering if he perished in the desert.”
“Think, Dariusz! He could have come off the ship. He could be at First Landing.”
“He could, but I doubt it. This is deck segment 46B, my son is on segment 46A. That Englishman, Corrigan, told me some of the hibernation decks, those with key personnel aboard, underwent emergency revivification processes when the ship approached Nychthemeron. While on the ship, their systems were linked. 46B did not activate its ERP, so nor did 46A. Even if, by some small chance, he did awaken, the state of the segment will tell me that, and I will then know that he stood a good chance of getting out. I have to know, Marina. He is my son, my only son.”
“What about your wife? She will lose both of you.”
“My wife is dead. She killed herself when we were accepted onto the mission.” His voice caught. “She was deemed psychologically unfit to come. I knew it would happen, I knew as soon as she was turned down that she would kill herself.”
“Yet you still came.”
“She insisted I come, I agreed. I have enough on my conscience.” How much, he did not elaborate upon.
“You are not alone. Not everyone is doing this, throwing themselves onto the mercy of this terrible place.”
“I am not everyone. Tell me, do you have children of your own?”
She shook her head.
“Then one day, when you do, and I pray that you will, you will understand.”
He leaned back and twisted the door handle so he could push it to without the tell-tale cli
ck of the bolt. Footsteps padded past outside.
“That’s it. He told me there would be one base member patrolling past every so often to make sure we’re okay. I suppose so he can say he did his part to keep us all here when I am reported missing.”
“Why is he doing this? He’ll be disciplined if he loses you. They’re going to need your skills.”
“They will,” he said with certainty.
“Then why is he allowing you to go?”
He looked at her, a darker silhouette in the near-pitch dark, a glint of light reflected in his eyes. “Kościelniak has his own family. Two children, both at First Landing.” He opened the door. “Goodbye. Marina. Take care of yourself.”
“You too. Thank you, I do not think we would have survived were it not for you.”
He paused. Guilt twisted his heart. “Marina... There’s something I should say...” He trailed off.
“What?”
“It’s nothing,” he said, changing his mind. “Nothing at all. Get some sleep. Life is going to be hard for us all now.”
He slipped out of the door.
He moved confidently down the corridor; sneaking around would only make him appear suspicious. The complex of prefabs was small, but there was a skeleton crew of twelve on the base, the rest having returned to First Landing as the sandstorm threatened. He was certain he could depart undetected.
The equipment was exactly where Kościelniak said it would be. Dariusz slipped into the heavy smartsuit quickly but with care, knowing that he risked fumbling the activation and delaying his departure. The seals closed themselves. The cloth rearranged itself to suit his body, hardening in response to the conditions outside. The suit held a pocket with a tablet in it, and when he pulled the mask on, the goggles interfaced with the functions of his inChip and tablet, bringing with it his first taste of full virtual interface since he awoke. His networking functions remained offline. It would be some time before the planet – Nychthemeron – had a functioning internet.
He felt better prepared. He pulled out a camel pak, heavy with that damnable all-in-one nutrient drink. He took some dry ration bars, and filled a holdall with more bottles he found stacked in a corner. It was quite a load, but it would lighten all too quickly. He looked around himself constantly as he worked, but he remained undisturbed.
He keyed open the airlock. Air cycling was disabled. They were using the airlock as a porch to keep the sand out, was all, and he did not have to wait. A moment later, he was outside.
The storm enveloped him as tightly as a winding sheet. Dariusz could see nothing but sand on the air. The suit’s headpiece came with a variety of functions, including a short-range radar, which projected an outline of the topography into his inChip. It was a ghostly, ephemeral vision of this bellowing world, and the sheer physicality of the sandstorm overwhelmed him. He staggered against its force until he located the ATVs, five of them huddled together like livestock, tubular bodies rocking in the wind.
He chose one at random. The suit provided the access coding. The controls were simple enough to fathom, and with help from his inChip interface, he was driving surely before he’d passed the downed deck segment half-buried in the sand.
He climbed to the ridge of the massive dune to the west of the camp, and headed directly out from there, thinking to transect the area not yet covered by the base personnel until he picked up a signal.
HE DROVE FOR hours. The storm was pushed back one remove by the ATV, but was no less threatening. Between his inChip, the ATV’s windscreen heads-up and the suit headpiece, he had a reasonable virtual view of where he was going. The real world remained obscure, and he was forced to trust the machine’s interpretation of what was there and what was not.
All the while, the temperature outside was dropping, down to twenty degrees now. The wind direction was coming in from the east-north-east, and he theorised that this was how the planet regulated its temperature; periodic storms exchanging hot dayside air with the colder nightside of the planet. If that was the case, then the liminal, twilight zone between day and night should prove comfortable enough for mankind.
He pondered on this. By most measures, Nychthemeron was a reasonably hospitable world. Had Browning planned for this to occur all along? If so, had the rest of the fleet been infected by his sabotage, and sent out to worlds other than those they had aimed for, or was the Mickiewicz alone, and the rest of the fleet gone on to their intended destinations? Or were they all wrecked, and their passengers dead? Żadernowski had said the aim had been simply to wrest control of the colonies from the Pointers by subverting the Syscores. Either he had lied, or had been lied to himself. Dariusz should have been more suspicious, but he had been blinded by concern for his son as much as he was blinded by the sand blasting his vehicle now.
One thing bothered him more than anything else. If they were so far out from Earth, where had the data for this world come from? The change in course, the emergency awakening, the crash, it was all too convenient. Why? Why was that part of Browning’s plan? Had Browning been insane? He couldn’t rule it out. He mulled it over, but could not concentrate for long. His role in so many deaths gnawed at him.
Something rippled on the screen’s topography display, breaking his introspection. Targeting lines in red zoomed in on an object. Biological matter.
He slammed the brakes on and leaned forward, peering through the windscreen. About ten metres forward, picked out in the vehicle’s headlights, something dark lay on the sand. He tried to make sense of it through the sandstorm, but could not. He sat a moment, then decided to get out and take a look.
The storm blew into the cabin as he slid back the driver’s door. He slammed it shut, then climbed the side ladder in between the first and second wheelsets, jumping the last three rungs.
He walked a few paces, sand rattling against the hardened environment suit. The shape became clear: one of the winged creatures that had taken Bo. Dariusz approached the lifeform cautiously, then relaxed. It was obviously dead, one leathery wing half-furled under its back, the other cast out wide onto the sand. Only the outline of the wing was visible; the rest was shadow under a shroud of sand. Five cruel claws, curled like fingers against a sleeper’s palm, edged the wing. Dariusz stopped. He had an impulse to nudge the wing with his boot, but he felt repulsed by it and he did not. He went closer to the body.
It was huge. Dariusz estimated the body measured five metres in length. The wingspan was over twenty.
The beast was finely boned, as one would expect of a flying creature, otherwise it was outlandish to his eyes, a bizarre hybrid of woodlouse and pterosaur. In some respects it reminded him of a manta ray, which in turn reminded him of the security drones. Its camouflaged, light blue belly was presented to the sky. The belly was slightly concave, a cluster of arthropod legs nested in the hollow, curled tightly inward in death. It had a stubby, forked tail at one end, tipped by two bulbous flukes set at forty degrees to one another. He could see no head. He thought it might be incomplete, but it was not. When he walked around to face it end on he saw a mouth set directly into the top of its shoulders, big enough to swallow a man.
A long pair of jointed appendages – palps or rakes, he supposed – tipped with spikes guarded the mouth, one curled, the other flung outwards, mirroring the position of the wings.
It was hard to tell how the creature had died, under its crust of sand, but it showed no overt wounds. He wondered what had killed it; old age, maybe, or disease. Sand skittered over it, covering it grain by grain. Soon it would be buried, the mysteries of its life and death with it. Like the deck at Desert One, and the other wreckage. If they all died here, soon there would be nothing on the surface to show man had set foot on Nychthemeron at all.
Dariusz stared at it a while. He supposed he should take a sample. He returned to the relative comfort of the buggy and climbed into the back, where two rows of three seats faced each other. He and the others had sat in seats like them on his journey to Desert One. He wondered if
he would see his companions again.
He found a biology fieldkit in the buggy’s supplies, including a sampling kit and a knife, and went back outside.
The creature’s hide was remarkably difficult to cut through, and under his gloves it had a rough texture, like sharkskin. He took samples of its skin, a shaving from the tougher, chitinous integument of its legs, and tried to take a blood sample, but either the creature’s circulatory system was radically different from an Earth organisms, or it had dried out in the desert. Two samples, then, he thought. He went around it, taking pictures on his inChip and mask visor.
While taking pictures, he noticed fibres in the palps by the mouth. He knelt and pulled off his mask, shielding his eyes from the sand, and took the fibres in his hand. Light grey, with a slight prismatic effect: smartcloth. He peered into the mouth. Rows of horny, recurved teeth lined the gullet. There were more of the fibres, and deeper in, a rag of material.
He looked at the thing’s belly, then at its mouth again.
He went back past the grouping of legs, and knelt on the animal’s belly, where he stabbed into the hide, and dragged the blade back as hard as he could. The hole he made was rough and ragged, but allowed him to peel the skin and muscle away from the abdominal cavity, making transverse cuts so that he could lay it open. Alien organs presented themselves to him. A bicameral stomach, one side bulging hugely. He slit it open and found the remains of a colonist within. The smartsuit was untouched by the animal’s juices, and held together the remains of the unfortunate meal. Only partly digested, skin mushy, bad enough to not be able tell what sex they had been. Their hands were clawed, the distal phalanges gleaming white through the mess of flesh. A moment of horrific realisation put the idea in Dariusz’s mind that the colonist was still alive as the creature’s digestive acids set to work.
He tried to take a reading of the inChip to ascertain the identity, but could not. He considered removing the head and returning it, but the thought made him retch. He took pictures instead, and logged the position as best he could. Let someone better equipped retrieve the remains.