The Fila Epiphany

by J. J. Green

The ship’s corridor wasn’t the ideal place to accuse a friend of being a murderer and a terrorist, thought Cariad, but it would do for a preliminary conversation. “Yeah, that would be good.” Rene followed her out of the lab. The corridor was mercifully empty, yet the fact didn’t seem to improve Cariad’s feelings of awkwardness. “So, how are you doing?”

  When Cariad had come out of cryonic suspension she’d shared a room with Rene. Cariad thought they’d gotten to know each other well. Looking at her friend at that moment, she seemed the same amiable, intelligent, sweet-tempered person Cariad had thought she’d always been.

  “I’m good,” Rene replied. “Hey, are you hungry? It’s nearly dinner time. What do you say to us going to grab something to eat while we talk about this private business you want to discuss?”

  “No,” Cariad replied, “it’s better if we talk out here.” She had to be professional about her investigation, even if Rene was a friend—because Rene was a friend. Cariad couldn’t allow her personal feelings to blind her to the truth if Rene was affiliated with the Natural Movement.

  “Oh, okay.” Rene’s friendly expression turned to concern. “What’s wrong, Cariad? You look like someone died.”

  “No one’s died, or at least not in the last day or so.”

  “Is this about that attack at the lake? I heard about it. Just awful. It was a father and his little daughter, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it was. But this isn’t about that.”

  “What is it, then?” asked Rene. “Come on, spit it out. What’s wrong?”

  Cariad took a breath. “When Dr. Montfort was checking everyone in case they’d contracted the skin disease he’s worried about, he found a lesion on you. I have to ask you how you got it.” As far as she knew, no one yet suspected the cover story Montfort had made up.

  “What the hell?” Rene spluttered. “Whatever happened to patient confidentiality?”

  “We aren’t on Earth,” Cariad said. “There aren’t any rules or laws here except the ones we make. Can you tell me how you hurt yourself?”

  “Well, that abrasion is pretty hard to explain. I can’t explain it myself. But is that any reason for Montfort to tell you about it? And why are you asking me about it now? Why is it your business that I hurt myself?”

  “I can’t tell you that. So you’re saying you don’t know what you did that resulted in the injury?”

  “I don’t know why it should matter to you, but that’s right. I got the surprise of my life when Alasdair held up a mirror so I could see it. When I knew it was there, I began to feel sore. Montfort applied a healing gel and sent me on my way. It was weird, but after a while I gave up trying to figure out how I’d done it. It’s all healed up now. But why did Montfort tell you about it, and why are you interested?”

  Cariad said, “So as far as you know, you received the injury just hours before you were examined? Do you think you would have noticed it if you’d received it earlier than that?”

  “The wound looked quite fresh. I’d say as recently as the evening before, but as to how—”

  “Maybe it was an accident that you somehow forgot about, like slipping in the shower,” Cariad said.

  “I guess that’s the only explanation. It’s strange that I didn’t remember, though. And I didn’t have any other bruises or scrapes.”

  “It seems very strange. You’re sure you can’t remember hurting yourself?”

  “I’m certain.”

  Cariad didn’t count herself as very good at being able to tell when people were lying, but Rene seemed completely honest in her story. “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Are you going to tell me why you’re asking me now?”

  “No. I can’t.”

  “Hmm… Right. Okay. So, do you want to come and eat dinner with me?”

  “I can’t do that either, sorry.” Cariad realized she would have to keep a distance between them until her investigation was concluded and Rene was no longer a suspect. “Thanks for answering my questions. I have to go now. I’m going to catch the last shuttle planetside.”

  “You’re going to sleep at the settlement tonight?”

  “Yes. I want to be up bright and early.”

  ***

  Cariad missed the shuttle by about a minute. As she stood at the closed portal to the shuttle bay, tiredness plucking at her eyes, she realized it was probably a good thing that she would have to spend the night aboard the ship.

  After picking up a meal at the refectory, Cariad went to her room. She ate slowly, mulling over her conversation with Rene. Her friend’s explanation seemed implausible. How could she have hurt herself badly enough to require a healing gel but not even remember it? Yet it was the doubtfulness of her story that made Cariad inclined to believe her, even setting aside their friendship. An actual Natural Movement follower would have thought up a much more credible lie. They would know about Twyla’s tattoo and guess the real reason for Montfort’s examination of everyone, and they would have had time to fake an accident or think up something more plausible than I don’t know.

  But if Rene wasn’t lying, what did it mean?

  Cariad finished her meal, showered, and went to bed. However, as she lay in darkness, sleep didn’t come to her. As well as trying to figure out the implications of Rene’s story, she couldn’t stop worrying about Ethan. According to the signal the satellite was receiving, the flitter had stopped at the edge of the massive river that lay beyond the central mountain range. Horrible images formed in her mind. She saw Ethan’s body floating face-down in the water. She saw him trapped in the sunken flitter, struggling to get free, and finally drowning.

  She sat up and turned on the light. She needed a distraction of some kind—something she could do until she was so exhausted that sleep would finally overcome her worries. Cariad recalled the holo message from the Guardians’ creators that she’d begun to watch. It wouldn’t be pleasant to view more of the bitter Steen’s rants, but it would help take her mind off problems in the present.

  As she turned on the holo, Steen appeared above the display unit in her desk. He was frozen exactly as he’d been when she’d turned off the holo before, his face set in a sneer. Cariad sighed. He’d directed so much anger and hate toward the colony. If only Steen had known what the colonists lives were really like. If he’d known about the predatory life forms and sabotage attempts, he might have thought himself lucky that he gave up the chance to travel there. She started the holo.

  “I was going to tell you all about what you escaped when you flew away in your mega starship,” said Steen. “but words can’t accurately convey what humanity has been through since you left, so I’ll let these images speak for themselves.” He paused. “You know, I’ve seen the reports from the time the Nova Fortuna departed. People used to say that the First Generation were heroes. They said they were giving their lives so the rest of humanity could spread to the stars. How terrible it would be to live out the rest of your life aboard a starship, even prohibited from having your own children, people said. But you know what? The First Generation were lucky they didn’t have children. Their descendants didn’t have to live through this.”

  Steen was replaced by a scene of rioting protesters. Cariad recognized the context immediately. They were Natural Movement followers. The signs they carried were calling for an end to the interference of Big Pharma in government, including vaccination, contraception, and abortion services. After a few minutes of shouting, screaming, and surging crowds barely held back by riot police, the scene changed. In the next vid, the rioting was more violent. Police were using water cannons on the crowds. The camera pulled backward, opening the shot and displaying the extent of the protest, which spanned tens of blocks.

  More scenes followed, showing arguments on TV shows, attacks on medical clinics and research centers, and news sites reporting the banning of stem cell therapies, genetic modification, artificial fertilizer and pesticides, and science education in schools. Politicians followed the trend, giving speeches on the wis
dom of people living as they were “meant to” and of humanity returning to more natural ways of life.

  The scenes sickened Cariad. The Natural Movement’s way of thinking had always occupied a place in most human societies, but she didn’t understand how it had taken hold in large sections of the population. She began to skip the holo ahead through the montage. She didn’t feel the need to witness any more of it and was only interested in returning to Steen’s message. Then a glimpse of a scene piqued her interest. She paused the holo and reversed to the beginning of the scene.

  A woman lay in a hospital bed, surrounded by her family. She was skeletal, as if suffering from a wasting disease or cancer that had gone untreated. Her head was little more than a skull topped by wispy hair, and her arms as they lay on the blanket were almost nothing but bones.

  The camera zoomed in on the woman’s face. Her lips were moving. A voice said, “What, Mom? What did you say?” The woman tried to speak again but the recorder still failed to pick up the sound. The unseen speaker said, “We’re happy you’re dying naturally too, Mom. We’re proud of you.”

  Cariad was disgusted. She zoomed the holo forward, unable to stomach any more scenes from the willful return of humankind into ignorance. When Steen reappeared, she halted the holo and let it play on at normal speed.

  Steen seemed calmer. “Dear viewer, I want to ask you, are you a scientist? Me too. We’re all scientists and engineers, we who are saving your butts. Did you have a job before you left? Maybe in a university or a research lab? Or were you one of the scientists working on the project? It doesn’t matter.

  “Imagine being forced to do your experiments in secret. Can you even think how hard it would be to practice your passion in hiding, fearful of discovery? Can you imagine the need for a covert underground network of scientists, complete with passwords and secret signs? Does that sound insane to you? It is insane, isn’t it? But that’s what things came to in the end.

  “For centuries after the Enlightenment, scientists labored to find out the truth, and in doing that they made things better for people. Science freed people from disease, suffering, and never-ending toil and drudgery. We improved the lot of humanity, and gave our fellow human beings the opportunity to avoid their natural destinies, but… ” Steen chuckled ironically and his expression turned grim. “They. Didn’t. Want. It. Not any of it. It turns out that people would rather labor, suffer, and die like animals. They don’t want to rise up and live better, saner lives. They don’t want intellect to triumph over biological destiny. They don’t want civilization.” His face turned red with rage, and he shouted, gesticulating violently, “They want to snuffle for their food and eat and shit and fuck like pigs in mud. Because that’s what’s natural.”

  Steen hung his head and rubbed his eyes before returning his gaze to the camera. “What’s the point? This is ancient history to you, right? Hell, it’s history to us. I guess I should tell you what happened after and how we came to build the Mistral.”

  He’d arrived at the part that promised to be the most interesting from Cariad’s perspective, but fatigue was overwhelming her. She turned off the holo and fell asleep thinking about what had happened on Earth since she’d left, and also thinking of Ethan.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The previous night, Ethan had reached hilly ground—the beginnings of the foothills that led to the mountains he would have to cross. When he woke up from his daytime sleep, he saw the river was narrower. He could now see the green line of the farther bank. The vegetation in that part of the country had also changed, perhaps due to the thinner, rockier soil. This worried him. His only source of food was the fungus grown by the creatures that infested a certain type of plant. He’d been forced to search long and hard for the plant the last time he’d eaten. If it didn’t grow in the mountains, he would have to find another source of sustenance.

  Yet the fact that the topography of the land was changing was a good sign. The river was fed by tributaries from the mountains. The first one he came across, he planned to follow upstream and finally leave the river behind. If the stream was shallow and clear, it might be safe to drink directly from it, free from the worry of thread creatures pulling him in.

  Ethan stood up and stretched. His clothes were loose and baggy. He’d lost weight, but otherwise he didn’t feel too bad. The fungus kept hunger pangs away and he didn’t want for water, providing he had the patience to collect it from the river using the safe method he’d invented.

  When he’d first set out on his expedition, he hadn’t imagined he would ever be able to survive without the flitter and his supplies, but he’d managed it so far. Dr. Crowley would have been proud of him. She’d seemed to see something in him that he couldn’t see himself. Perhaps she’d been right after all. Ethan smiled to himself. Lauren would have been proud too.

  Ethan became aware of a rushing sound, like heavy rain falling, but the sky was clear. Then he remembered when he’d heard the same sound the first night after he’d lost the flitter. A wave was traveling up the river.

  He was already some distance away from it, but for safety’s sake Ethan walked farther into the low forest that bordered the river. Being swept into the tentacles of a thread creature would be a sad end after he’d worked so hard at staying alive.

  This time, he had a good view of the wave as it came. The crest was pale foam, the same brown hue as the river but much lighter in tone. Ethan guessed it was perhaps half his own height. The previous wave he’d seen had been taller, he thought, although it had been hard to tell in the dark. He waited until it passed and then returned to the river to see the after effects.

  The ground was muddy and the plants were covered in sediment the wave had deposited. He wouldn’t find any fungus-growing creatures there, he guessed. He would have to roam farther afield.

  Ethan shouldered his weapon and resumed his long trudge toward the mountains. If he had to walk, he might as well walk in the direction he had to travel anyway. He walked on the edge of the zone affected by the wave, searching for the jagged-leaved plant. The weakness he’d felt after not eating for a few days hadn’t returned since he’d been consuming the fungus. If he could find plenty of it, he would try to walk for the rest of the day and all through the night.

  He was growing thirsty, however. It was time to take off his shirt and approach the river again. Ethan left the drier zone and entered the muddy ground where the wave had passed. His boots squelched and clung to the wet soil and he was forced to pull up each leg every time he took a step.

  He drew closer to the river. Ethan had grown to dislike it. Whenever he was forced to go near it, he was always reminded of his lost flitter and thread creatures that might lie only meters away from him.

  He had a problem. At the river’s edge the ground was too muddy to draw water from, either by hand or by dipping his shirt sleeve into it. The wave had degraded the river’s edge to a swamp-like consistency. Yet he had to drink. He was very thirsty, he realized. He hadn’t drunk since going to sleep that morning.

  How should he attempt to collect water? He moved one step closer. He would have to stretch to cast his shirt far to water, to hit the water but he believed he was at a safe distance.

  He flung out his shirt and hit it just right the first time. Thirstily, he sucked the cuff dry. Another cast resulted in another mouthful of water painstakingly extracted from the material. The process was laborious but it was the only one he had.

  Ethan threw out his shirt again. This time as the sleeve hit the water, a thread curled around it tightly. Before he had time to react, the thread gave a sharp tug. He was already unbalanced, leaning forward to reach the water and holding the shirt tightly. The tug on it tipped him forward. Ethan couldn’t save himself. He fell. His weapon slipped off his shoulder.

  As he hit the mud, more threads were already snaking out from the river, lightning fast. The thread that had tugged the shirt abandoned it and slithered over the mud. More threads wrapped themselves around Ethan’s fore
arms. He reared up, struggling against their insistent pull. Managing to rise to his knees, he dragged with all his strength against the insistent filaments. They were wet, rubbery, and powerful, biting into his muscles, which bulged with his efforts to free himself.

  Yet more threads were gliding from the water, their ends probing the mud like tongues, trying to find him. Ethan gasped with effort and pain. The threads were too strong for him. His knees were sliding along the mud as he was dragged toward the river.

  Ethan fought with every muscle he possessed. He was rigid with resistance as he fought the inexorable drag. A thread wound up his thigh, encircling it. He looked at his weapon lying just out of reach. Could he hook it with a toe? But a thread was already winding around his other leg.

  Panic overcame him. His death lay only seconds away, either by drowning or something else the threads would do to him once they had him in the water. Ethan jerked, twisted, and battled with all his might. The threads were cutting deep depressions into his flesh. The water of the river drew closer. It washed over his knees, then his thighs.

  No! Please! “Arghhhhhh!”

  This was it. Ethan’s time on Concordia was over. There was no one and nothing that could save him now. The water was up to his waist. Threads were encircling his torso and winding up to his neck. Ethan hoped it would be over quickly.

  The threads pulled him forward and then downward. Just before his head sank beneath the surface, though he knew his situation was hopeless, Ethan took a deep breath.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cariad had set up an office at the Leader’s planetside residence and sent out messages to the Gens on Montfort’s list of subjects, requesting their presence for an informal chat. She scheduled four people to come and see her that afternoon. She hadn’t specified the subject of the conversation, thinking that anything she said might influence what they would be willing to tell her. Also, if she made the reason for the request too specific, her intent to root out the remaining Natural Movement saboteurs would be clear. Cariad was aware she was treading a tightrope: she had to try to discover any remaining threats to the colony, but at the same time she was terrified of alerting the terrorists and triggering another devastating attack.