The Fila Epiphany

by J. J. Green

  Cariad heaved a sigh. Her time in the Gestation Room wasn’t having its usual soothing effect. She felt more melancholy and anxious about the future than she had before she’d come in. It was strange. Whenever she remembered the family she’d left behind, it always made her more fearful about the failure of the colony. It was as if it would only be if the colony succeeded that she would finally be able to banish the guilt that plagued her. Although her family were long dead, she somehow needed the colony to thrive for their sake. She wanted to be able to assure herself that the sacrifice she’d forced her family to make had been worth it.

  Cariad left the Gestation Room and took off the sterile garments before returning to the Fertilization Lab. Florian had ceased horsing around and both he and Cassie were working on creating embryos. She joined them and began to carry out checks on the fertilized eggs from her techs’ earlier work.

  She worked with her team for a few more hours until they were all tired and decided to call it a day. Before going to eat in the refectory, Cariad went to her cabin. She wanted some time alone. When she arrived, she sat on her bunk and turned on her interface to see if Montfort had sent any updates to his list of people with lesions that might be a removed tattoo. When she saw four extra names, she groaned. Was the doctor being overly cautious? It didn’t seem credible that so many people would have abrasions in seldom-seen areas of the body.

  Just as she was wondering what she was going to do about the potential Natural Movement members, another comm arrived. It was from Osias. A man and a young child had gone missing down by the lake.

  Chapter Eight

  All Ethan had was his weapon, his recorder, and the clothes he was wearing. As he stood on the sandy riverbank, staring at the place where the flitter had disappeared into the water, he got angry at himself. He’d been stupid to walk away from his only means of transport, and all his food, water, and other vital equipment. Yet who could have guessed that such a thing would happen? And what could have taken his vehicle? It wasn’t like the flitter was edible. Why would anything want to drag it into the river, assuming that was what had happened?

  Maybe an aquatic creature had been able to smell his food, but it seemed hardly possible. Could an animal in the water smell food on land that was inside tightly sealed packages? He didn’t know. He hadn’t learned about Earth animals with that kind of ability when he was at school. Then Ethan remembered the thread creatures in the lake near his farm that had grabbed Cherry. He was far from the lake, but the organisms could live in waterways all over the continent or even the entire planet.

  He took a few steps backward. If a thread animal had taken the flitter, it could rise out of the river and try to add him to its haul for the day.

  The light brown water flowed swiftly past, not giving any sign of what might lie within it. The edge of the sun was brushing the horizon. If sluglimpets inhabited the area, they would be out in an hour or so. Ethan contemplated going into the water and trying to retrieve his vehicle. The flitter’s roof might lie only just beneath the surface. If that was the case, he might be able to drag it out again. The vehicle wasn’t heavy. But the river was so muddy he couldn’t see below the surface. Also, whatever had taken the flitter was probably hanging around. If he went near the water, it could very well try to grab him too.

  Should he risk capture to retrieve his vehicle? As it was, he had no shelter and no protection from predators, and he would find it just about impossible to return to the settlement without a flitter. The colony stronghold was many kilometers away and he had no navigation device. Even if, by a miracle, he made the journey without any food or protection from hostile life forms, he could travel within a short distance of the place and still miss it.

  The conclusion was obvious. He had to try to retrieve his vehicle, even if it meant risking death. Without the flitter, he was as good as dead anyway.

  Ethan gazed at the murky water washing up on the river bank. He couldn’t swim. Like all Gens, he’d never learned how. Water had been far too precious a commodity on the Nova Fortuna to waste on a swimming pool. Ethan had seen the artificial pools in vids from Earth, but he hadn’t been able to imagine what it might feel like to go into one. The idea of submerging his entire body in water and moving through it had seemed weird.

  The sun was already halfway below the horizon, and still Ethan hesitated. He was remembering Cherry’s screams of terror as she’d fought being dragged into the lake by the long threads wrapped around her legs. If he hadn’t been able to cut through them with the plow, she wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  The memory of the threads reminded him of the thin branches of the plants that bordered the river and an idea occurred to him. Perhaps he could use them to reduce his risk of capture. He strode over the sand to the arch-rooted plants and walked through them until he found one that had extra-long branches sweeping down. He stepped up onto a root, gripping the central stem to keep his balance. The root was slippery with slime. Where one of the branches joined the stem, he grabbed it and twisted. The tissue was fibrous and pliable. He twisted the branch all the way around several times until it finally broke off.

  Ethan jumped down from the root and returned to the river. Standing as far away as he could while still being able to reach the water, he poked the end of the branch under the surface next to the spot where the flitter had been. He held the branch loosely, ready to release it if something tugged at the other end. He felt no resistance. Edging a little closer, he tried again. Again, the branch sank effortlessly into the water.

  Either there was a steep drop off just beyond the river’s edge, or the flitter had been dragged out farther than Ethan had hoped. He moved nearer to the river until he was closer than Cherry had been to the lake when she’d been grabbed.

  His throat tight, his gaze scoured the moving water for a sign of anything beneath it. Each slightly anomalous ripple made his heart leap, but he had to get the flitter back. He just had to. If he didn’t, he might as well walk right into the water. It would be a quicker and probably less painful end than losing his life to a sluglimpet or dying of starvation.

  Once more, he shuffled closer. The river wet the toes of his boots. Yet still the branch met no resistance. In an agony of despair, Ethan took a large step forward, heedless of the cold water that soaked his feet and calves.

  He felt the branch touch something solid! He pushed it deeper. Had he found the flitter’s roof? If he had, the vehicle was very deep in the water. Another problem occurred to him. Would the vehicle be irreversibly damaged from being submerged? If he did manage to retrieve it, would it still fly?

  Ethan probed with the branch. The resistance he felt didn’t seem to be what he would expect from the flitter roof. He pushed the branch down hard. It sank in softly and at the same time Ethan’s heart sank too. He’d guessed what was happening. He pulled the branch out the water and lifted it up to inspect the end in the quickly waning light. The tip was coated in thick, black, smelly mud. He hadn’t found the flitter, only the riverbed. If his vehicle was anywhere nearby in the water, it was out so far he would have to swim to it to retrieve it.

  He flung the branch toward the river and watched it spin in the air until it landed and the current swiftly carried it out of sight. Ethan sat on the soft sand, not caring as its moisture soaked his pants. If he did venture into the water, he would be pulled off his feet by the current too. He’d seen how powerful moving water could be during the cave disaster, when water pouring from a burst aquifer had washed people into the ocean. The river’s current would be far too strong for him to resist. The thought he’d had earlier popped into his mind again: At least it would be quick.

  The sun had set and the wind blowing from over the water was turning chilly. Ethan gazed out over the gigantic river. When he’d left the settlement and set out on his ambitious journey, he’d known how dangerous it would be. He’d known he might never return. Now that he seemed on the verge of his probable demise, he wondered if the short journey he’d made
had been worth it.

  It had, he concluded. He didn’t regret his decision. It had been the right thing for him to do. But it wasn’t enough. He wasn’t ready to give up. If his experiences of recent days had taught him anything, it was to appreciate what he had. He was going to cling onto his life to the last second and do his best to return to the settlement. And he wouldn’t give up hope. During the First Night Attack, he’d come within a hair’s breadth of dying but he’d been spared at the final moment. Something equally unpredictable might come his way and save him.

  Ethan stood up and shouldered his weapon. If sluglimpets inhabited that region, the approaching night would be the most dangerous time for him. But if he was careful and kept moving, they might not be able to catch him. He would walk during the night and sleep by day. He didn’t know yet what he would do for food. The device that tested for chemicals that were toxic to humans was with the rest of the equipment in the flitter. But perhaps he could try to eat small amounts of plants that he came across. He could wait a day to find out if they made him ill. Maybe he would find something edible.

  Ethan brought to mind his memories of the continent’s topography. To return to the settlement, he would have to cross the mountain range. The river sprung from its foothills, so he only had to head upstream to find a way into them. With trepidation he recalled the creatures that had gathered beneath the flitter and the deep, dark holes he’d found in the upper slopes. He would face the mountain animals and the cold of the high altitude when the time came.

  His first goal was to survive the night, and to do that, he had to walk. He would have to remain within sight or sound of the river to avoid becoming lost, but he would also avoid straying too close to it if he could.

  Ethan turned to face the opposite direction of the river’s current and began to walk. He had one thing in his favor, he realized. He was on the correct side of the river for returning to the settlement. If he’d chosen to fly the flitter over to the opposite bank, he would have had to travel much farther. He would have had to go around it because he couldn’t ever have crossed it.

  Smoky wreaths began to rise from the river, almost glowing in the dusk. Ethan had never seen such a sight before. He guessed that the white, drifting clouds were water vapor rising from the surface. The effect mesmerized him as he walked, stepping though the vegetation while keeping an eye on the now nearly black water. The mists looked almost alive as they curved and glided out onto the bank.

  As darkness quickly fell, Ethan found the white vapors eerie and unsettling. For some reason, they reminded him of the flitter in its watery grave. He imagined the food packages becoming sodden and contaminated with mud, bursting apart as the water soaked the dried food and it swelled up.

  Realizing that his thoughts were turning gloomy and that dwelling on negative subjects wouldn’t help him in his quest to survive, he tried to think of something more cheerful. However, everything that sprang to mind sent him down a black whirlpool. If he thought of his time on the Nova Fortuna, he was reminded of Lauren and Dr. Crowley. If he recalled the period he was at the settlement, he remembered bombings, attacks, and the Gens being oppressed by the Woken and Guardians. In the overall darkness of his recollections, his memories of the few times he’d spent with Cariad were the only bright sparks. Yet when he dwelt on them, he missed her and his mood lowered again.

  Frustrated, Ethan shook his head, trying to clear it. The stars were coming out and he had a long night of walking ahead of him. He needed to improve his state of mind to stand a chance of surviving the difficult journey that lay ahead.

  He decided to try a different tactic. Rather than occupying himself with random memories, he would focus on happy recollections. Aboard the Nova Fortuna one of the forms of entertainment had been music concerts in Main Park. A group of musicians had been very popular when Ethan was a teenager. He couldn’t remember the band’s name—it had been something like the Astro Novas or the Going Novas—but he could remember one of their songs.

  As he hummed the tune, the lyrics came back to him. He began to sing.

  Come into my arms, baby

  And I’ll never let you go

  I’ll take you all the way

  All the way to Arrival Day

  If you let me kiss you

  You’ll never regret it

  I’ll take you all the way

  All the way to Arrival Day

  Ethan smiled to himself. As a young adolescent, the subtext of I’ll take you all the way had been obscure to him. He continued to hum and tried to remember the rest of the song.

  After two or three hours of striding along beside the river—thankfully with no sign of sluglimpets—thirst began to trouble Ethan. The answer to his problem was obvious and lay only a handful of meters from him. Faint glints reflected from the recently risen moon gleamed from the water through the dark shapes of intervening vegetation.

  He dreaded going near the river again. It had swallowed his flitter, or rather, whatever was in it had taken the vehicle. Even if he had left that creature behind, the expanse of water could harbor other animals, possibly of huge dimensions.

  The moon was only a sliver in the starry sky. The night was so black he couldn’t see the water very well. If he ventured to the edge to drink, he would have to be very careful and very quick. But to the water’s edge he had to go. He wouldn’t survive for long without water.

  Pointing his weapon forward, Ethan stepped slowly over the arching roots in the sandy earth. The rushing, swishing sound of the river grew louder as he drew closer. The surface was oily and black.

  Tucking his weapon under his right arm, leaving his finger on the trigger, Ethan formed his left hand into a scoop, ready to quickly lift water to his lips. What he could see of the water seemed normal. Nothing was disturbing it beneath as far as he could tell.

  Ethan’s tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth. He bent down, reaching forward with his left hand while keeping his gaze fixed on the dark water. He lifted a handful of water to his lips. It tasted sweet and refreshing though gritty, but the amount he’d managed to scoop up barely wet the back of his throat. He reached forward again and scooped up another small amount of the delicious liquid.

  He could feel the cold, sweet fluid going down his throat into his stomach. He would risk one more mouthful then he would retreat to safety.

  But as he leaned forward for a third time, something tightened around his ankle. He leapt away, dropping his weapon in shock. The grip on his ankle tightened. It was a thread! A thread organism had a hold of him. Ethan lifted his weapon. The thread was tugging on his ankle, nearly unbalancing him. He couldn’t get away. He fired at the barely visible, thin, black line, narrowly avoiding shooting his own foot.

  He’d hit it. The pulse round severed the thread. Ethan tried to run, but his other leg was caught. While he’d been shooting at the first thread, another had snaked around his other ankle. This one was thicker and stronger. When it yanked, it almost pulled Ethan off his feet. He shot at it, half-severing the thick strand. The wound didn’t make the creature let go of him, though its strength was reduced.

  More threads were slithering from the water. Ethan fired at them at the same time as pulling with all his might against the thick thread holding onto him. He shot at it again. This time he hit it and cut right through it.

  He was finally free!

  Except he wasn’t. Three slim ribbons had fastened themselves around his calf. They were dragging him toward the swirling black waters of the river.

  Chapter Nine

  Cariad was just in time to catch the final shuttle flight to the planet surface before the beginning of the quiet shift. All the way down, she wondered what had happened to the child and man who had gone missing. Osias hadn’t replied to any comms since he’d sent her the message, but Cariad guessed he thought the disappearances had something to do with the Natural Movement and that was why he’d contacted her.

  It was the first time she’d arrived at the settlemen
t by shuttle after dark. Lights shone in a line around the shuttle field and at the landing stages, and the small town’s streets were also marked out by dim yellow solar lanterns, glowing softly with the energy they’d absorbed during the day. The only other sign of the impact of human civilization in its new home was a single string of illuminated spots that marked the road out to the farming district. Used to seeing the spread of buildings within the protective electric fence, Cariad was struck by how fragile and ephemeral the settlement appeared when only its lights were visible within a surrounding ocean of darkness.

  As soon as the shuttle landed, Cariad rushed past the line of Woken who were waiting to return to the ship after spending the day working planetside. Her comm chirruped, and she was relieved to see Osias wanted to speak to her.

  “Sorry, Cariad,” he said. “I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have contacted you. This isn’t anything to do with the Natural Movement.”

  “Are you sure? What’s happened?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I didn’t get the full story until I arrived at the site, but there’s no doubt about it. The victims were attacked by native wildlife. Sorry to waste your time. There’s no need for you to attend. We can handle it.”

  “Attacked by native wildlife? Was it sluglimpets?” Cariad was outside the shuttle field, wondering if she should turn around quickly to board the final flight to the ship that day. But even if the attack didn’t involve the Natural Movement, she still felt she might be able to help. She’d had close encounters with sluglimpets herself.

  “No, not sluglimpets. Aquatic creatures in the lake out at the farms.”

  “Huh? How did it happen?” There had already been one attack by organisms in the lake. As far as Cariad knew, the place was now entirely out of bounds.