The Fila Epiphany

by J. J. Green

  “Yes, I was very fortunate. Do you mind if I ask you something personal?”

  “That depends what it is.”

  “Well, I wanted to ask if you were friends with the pilot who died.”

  “Walston? Yeah, of course. We all know each other. I wasn’t really close to him, you know, but he seemed like a good guy. His wife is pregnant. She found out a week or so before he died. Did you know?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Cariad’s hatred for the Natural Movement saboteurs moved a notch higher. Still, the fact made her conjecture less likely.

  “Was that all you wanted to ask me?” Zhang said.

  “No, it isn’t. I was wondering… Do you think it’s possible that it was Walston who brought the bomb onto the shuttle?”

  “Huh? And kill himself along with everyone else aboard? Do you honestly think that’s a possibility?”

  “I agree it’s a stretch,” Cariad said. “I didn’t think of it at all until after Twyla killed herself. Then it occurred to me that fanatics often have a death wish, only they want to take as many people out with them as they can. I wondered if the stadium bomber had died in that explosion, and if someone aboard the shuttle had detonated the bomb.”

  “If the saboteur was aboard,” Zhang replied, “that’s good news for us. It means there are fewer of them to worry about. But from what I know of Walston, I doubt he wanted to die. He had too much to live for. Who gets his wife pregnant then kills himself? Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”

  She was probably right, Cariad reasoned. Still, Zhang hadn’t experienced the growing excesses of the Natural Movement on Earth. The pilot hadn’t lived at a time of festivals for deliberately exposing children to infectious diseases and “back to nature” communes on remote islands that resulted in people starving to death. To Zhang, if she knew anything about such events, they were dry facts of a disconnected past. Cariad had been around while such events were taking place. When she thought about it, there was nothing she couldn’t imagine a Natural Movement follower doing to further their cause.

  After disembarking the shuttle, Cariad walked directly to the settlement hospital, where Dr. Montfort was carrying out the examination of every colonist for signs of the Natural Movement tattoo. There were too many colonists to make everyone line up for their examination. Instead, they had been given an appointment to attend. Cariad waited outside the examination room until the doctor was free to speak to her.

  “I won’t take up too much of your time,” Cariad said as she went into the examination room. “I only wanted to find out how everything was going.”

  Montfort said to his medic, “Alasdair, would you mind waiting outside?”

  After Alasdair left, Cariad asked, “Did you find anything yet?”

  “As is to be expected, not anything definite,” Montfort replied. “If it had been possible to immediately examine everyone the moment the suicide’s tattoo was discovered, we might have stood a chance. Now, unless any remaining saboteurs are very stupid, the best we can hope for is the remains of a botched attempt to remove the ink.”

  “What’s the story you gave to explain the reason for the examination?”

  “I said we suspect that Concordian bacteria might be causing an infectious skin disease, but of course Natural Movement members will know what I’m looking for. I haven’t found anything except some grazes and scrapes in areas similar to where Twyla’s tattoo was positioned.”

  “And the injured claim the lesions are due to accidents that occurred when the caves were flooded,” Cariad said.

  “Obviously. And undoubtedly some of them are. We’ve also been dealing with broken bones, concussions, internal bleeding, sprains, and plenty of other traumas.”

  “Of course you have,” Cariad said, suddenly guilty. “I’m sorry, I should have done more to help. It’s been a long time since my training but I could have done something.”

  “That’s okay. We all have a lot on our plate. The Gen doctors are doing an excellent job. Erm, as you’re here now…?”

  “Sure. Where do I wash up and find clean scrubs?”

  “Sorry, I meant we need to get your own examination out of the way,” Montfort said.

  “My examination? But I… ” Cariad had spent the last several months trying to help catch the Natural Movement saboteurs. She’d nearly died at their hands twice. Yet the doctor had a point. No one could exempt themselves from examination. She sighed. “Okay. Where do I get ready?”

  The doctor indicated a curtained cubicle. Cariad walked over to it and parted the curtains. The sight of the narrow examination bed covered in sanipaper caused knots in her stomach. She had a particular dislike of being prodded and poked. After quickly stripping off her clothes and piling them on a chair, she put on the medical gown and lay down on the bed.

  Dr. Montfort asked if she was ready before he entered the cubicle. The first thing he did was wipe inside her mouth with a probe. He removed the detachable end and popped it into a DNA reader.

  “Not sure it’s me?” Cariad asked, joking to ease her tension.

  “That’s right,” Montfort replied. “You sure look like Cariad, but, who knows, maybe you’re an insane cultist in disguise.” His light-hearted tone relaxed her a little, but when it came time for the examination, she tensed up again. The doctor thoroughly examined her skin, recording a vid as he went along. He even examined the skin of her scalp under her hair. “Okay,” he said finally. “You’re done. It looks like you aren’t planning to kill everyone after all.”

  Cariad adjusted her gown to cover herself. “Not today anyway.”

  Montfort smiled. “I’ll leave you to get dressed. Take your time. You’re my last victim this morning.”

  As soon as he left, Cariad put on her clothes just as quickly as she’d removed them, anxious to leave the cubicle. Montfort was at his desk recording his notes. Alasdair hadn’t returned.

  “You have notes on everyone who shows signs they might have had a tattoo before they got rid of it?” she asked.

  “I have a list of them here for you,” he replied. “I don’t like recording their names because I’m probably casting suspicion on innocent people. But I don’t see a way around it.”

  “So this list includes everyone who has a lesion in an unusual place?”

  “Exactly. All the ones I’ve seen so far. I still have around half of the colonists to examine. Normally injuries from physical accidents are located on knees, elbows, hands, heads, and backs. And often the feet too if the accident is a fall of some kind. All the areas of the body where you might expect impact injuries if the person is conscious and trying to save themselves from harm. If someone has a mysterious lesion in an odd place like the inside of the thigh, for example, they make it onto the list.”

  “Are there many of them?”

  “More than makes me comfortable. Do you want to see it now?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Montfort turned around his interface screen to show Cariad six names. She didn’t recognize five of them, but one was a big surprise. “One of these is a Woken,” she exclaimed.

  “Rene?” said Montfort. “Yes, she’s on it. I was very surprised to see a lesion on her.”

  “She wasn’t at the caves,” Cariad said.

  “I know.” Montfort’s usually amenable expression turned grave. “Of course, it doesn’t have to mean anything.”

  Cariad paused as her surprise settled down. Rene was one of the few people who had shown her support when Cariad had been the only Woken who was prepared to stand up to the leadership-usurper, Anahi. Also, Cariad hadn’t considered that any of the Woken might be a Natural Movement saboteur. After the discovery that the cult had probably passed down its teaching from one generation to the next over the course of the voyage, Cariad had assumed that if any saboteurs remained, they were Gens. The revelation that a Woken could be one of the traitors threw a whole new light onto her investigation.

  “Did you ask her what happened?” Cariad asked. “How she
hurt herself?”

  “Yes, of course. I asked all of the people on the list where they sustained their injury, and they all had some kind of an explanation. Except for Rene. She said she didn’t know.”

  “She didn’t know?” Cariad echoed. “How could she not know? I take it this wasn’t a bruise or something slight like that?”

  “No. She’d lost quite a bit of skin. She said she didn’t even know the abrasion was there until I showed her. The lesion is at the top of her thigh, just under her buttock. Not many nerve endings there, but still, the injury wasn’t slight. She should definitely have been able to feel it.”

  “Can you think of any reason she might not have known about it?”

  Montfort looked down. “Nothing’s jumping out at me at the moment.”

  Cariad said, heavily, “Well, could you send me the list?”

  “I will.” Montfort asked, “So you’re taking charge of the investigation now the Guardians are out of the picture?”

  “Yes. I wanted to be involved right from the start after the stadium bombing but the Guardians seemed to hold all the information. Someone has to do it so it might as well be me.”

  “I can’t think of a better person.” Montfort smiled warmly, but his effort to cheer her up had little effect. The revelation that her friend could be a Natural Movement terrorist had left her feeling hollow inside.

  “If I can be of any more help to you, just let me know,” Montfort said.

  “Just let me know if you see any more suspicious injuries. Do you need me to help with the examinations?”

  “Thanks for the offer, but I think I can manage. You have your plate full as it is, and Alasdair is a wonderful help.”

  “Yes,” Cariad said. “He’s a good medic.” She stood to leave.

  “How’s the repopulation program coming along?” Montfort asked.

  “Okay so far, but it’s early days. Like you, I have great help, so that’s something to be thankful for.”

  “Uhuh,” said Montfort. His gaze strayed down to his interface. “Oh, the Leader election result’s just come in.”

  “Really? Who won?”

  “Someone called Osias.”

  “Osias?” Cariad repeated. “Should I know him?”

  “I think he was one of Garwin’s mechanics.”

  “They elected a friend of Garwin’s? I wouldn’t have predicted that.”

  “Maybe they aren’t friends,” Montfort replied. “They might only have worked together. I don’t know... Gen society is something of a closed book to me. We Woken grew distant from them during the disturbances.”

  “Yes, we did, and the two sides were never close from the beginning. I hope we can put that all behind us now.”

  “Me too,” Montfort said.

  As Cariad left, she mentally added paying a visit to the new Leader to her list of things to do. His cooperation while she carried out her investigation could be vital.

  Chapter Six

  Ethan was awake before the sun came up. A chill air had invaded the flitter overnight and he was shivering. Somehow, his blanket had fallen off. As he sat up stiffly, drawing his blanket over his shoulders, he saw that the flitter’s windows were covered in condensation. He wiped one clean with a corner of a blanket. Aside from pale stars in a lightening sky, all was dark outside. Lowering the window, he listened. The sounds of something shuffling around on the ground came from below.

  He stuck his head out the window and peered down, but he couldn’t make out anything in the blackness. Only the shadowy shapes of the surrounding foothills were visible in the starlight. Keeping his gaze on the spot where the noise seemed to be coming from, he turned on the flitters’ lights. A flurry of movement resulted. Whatever they were, the things moved too fast for Ethan to see them clearly. All he could make out were the hairy backs of animals about half the size of the sluglimpets.

  In a moment, the creatures were gone from the circle of light that beamed out from the flitter. Had the nocturnal life forms been only wandering around, or had they been attracted by his presence like the sluglimpets had? One thing was sure, they were another large life form that hadn’t been recorded by the probes sent from Earth to assess Concordia. Were the organisms dangerous? Another type of predator, perhaps? If they were, what was their prey? Whatever the sluglimpets ate had never been established. There was clearly a lot more information on the animals of the continent for Ethan to discover.

  He watched the lit-up area of ground for a while, but the creatures didn’t return. Lowering the flitter to a couple of meters above the patch, he saw the dry ground had been disturbed by small, many-toed feet. After recording a vid of the tracks, he raised the flitter to a safe height. The sun was coming up over the thin line of ocean just visible in the distance.

  Ethan made his breakfast, adding water to a cereal mix and then pushing the button that activated the heating function. He stirred the mixture as the chemical heat permeated it until steam rose. Ethan spooned down the porridge quickly, grateful for the warmth that helped banish the chill that had invaded him while he slept. When he’d finished eating, he recorded his thoughts.

  “The creatures that were moving beneath the flitter when I awoke were the fourth life form I’ve encountered so far on Concordia,” he said, “and the second nocturnal animal. I don’t know if these creatures are dangerous. It could be a coincidence they had congregated right below where the flitter was hovering and they weren’t trying to reach me. But after my experience with the flying creatures yesterday, it still clear that settling Concordia will probably be harder than we thought.”

  As the sun rose, Ethan guided the flitter higher up the mountainside. He wanted to see what was up near the summits and also find a pass that led through the range. He wanted to go down to the river that lay on the other side.

  The sun was high in the sky and the mountains were flooded with light when he reached a spot near the top. The temperature had dropped considerably, so Ethan put on another layer of clothes, topping them off with a thick jacket. He hadn’t thought to bring a hat and so he had to protect his head as best he could by turning up the jacket collar to cover his ears.

  No animal life seemed to be around on the rocky slopes, which were littered with loose stones and pebbles. Ethan lowered the flitter to ground level when he reached a flattish spot, and, taking his weapon with him, he climbed out of his to investigate the surrounding area. The slope wasn’t very steep and he could walk it comfortably providing he took care not to slip on the scattered stones. It felt good to stretch his legs after days cooped up in the flitter.

  Ethan recorded everything he saw. Between the larger rocks, sinuous strands like extremely elongated leaves wound, creeping out over the loose flakes of stone. When he stepped closer he discovered that the surface of the ribbon plants was pitted and fissured and oozed a gelatinous material, though the plants didn’t seem to be injured. He forbore from touching the stuff but he recorded it close up.

  As he drew nearer to the edges of the slope, where the land rose too steeply to walk and the slope met a wall of rock, he saw holes gaping at intervals. The holes were wide and flat, and their impenetrable blackness indicated they were deep. Were they where yet another nocturnal creature lived? After recording a vid of one, Ethan backed up and stayed well away from them.

  He wandered for a while in a wide circle but remained within fifty meters or so of the flitter. He didn’t want to risk being cut off from the vehicle, which was his life line. He’d already traveled so far he would starve before he could walk back, assuming he would be able to find his way and avoid being eaten.

  After he’d seen and recorded as much as he could, Ethan decided that his next step would be to spend the afternoon taking the flitter down to the river. As far as he could, he’d established that the mountain regions might not be particularly safe. It was time to explore further afield.

  He flew the flitter into the air, searching for a gap between the mountain peaks that would avoid the necessit
y of traversing the high-altitude, snowy regions. Spotting a low pass, he flew toward it and through. In the country beyond the range a wide, brown ribbon divided the mountains from the land. Ethan oriented the flitter in the direction of the river, and began another long journey.

  The other side of the range was much more perpendicular, and Ethan found himself passing great walls of gray rock, similar to the cliffs of the cave settlement, though these walls were cracked in long, broken strips. He passed them in their shadow as they blocked the light from the sun. As he went, the rocks’ resemblance to the ocean cliffs reminded him of Cherry’s near-death, which also reminded him of all the people who had died at the caves, and in the shuttle explosion, and at the stadium bombing. Then, inevitably, his thoughts turned once again to the horrible deaths of Lauren and Dr. Crowley. A somber mood settled over him. His recorder hung unused around his neck.

  It was late afternoon by the time he arrived at the river. He hovered above the southern shore of the gigantic body of water, in the shadow of the mountain range. From his low elevation the northern shore wasn’t visible. Ethan had seen plenty of vids of large rivers on Earth but this seemed even larger than those. It was more like a sea.

  The sun was still some distance above the horizon. Ethan estimated that he had enough time to land and look around before any nocturnal animals like the sluglimpets would venture out for the night. He lowered the flitter to the sandy shore, though as he landed he saw that the sand was different from that by the ocean. It was dark gray and so fine it was almost like dust except that it was moist and gritty.

  Ethan was careful to take his weapon with him again when he left the flitter. He was also careful to close the doors firmly. He didn’t want to find something inside waiting for him when he returned.

  The plants that grew alongside the river had high roots that arched out from the central stem down to the ground, and they had long, thin branches that dangled among the roots. Ethan had to step high to walk between them. It was hard to tell where one plant ended and another began. As he walked away from the shore, the fine sand gave way to sandy earth and then a rich, black soil that he reached only five minutes’ walk from the river. In this rich earth, the plants grew tall. The ones Ethan soon found himself among were three times his own height.