“Would you be quiet?” Hariyadi snapped. The Indonesian soldier had been in a foul mood since morning. He gritted his teeth and stared east, where the valley of the Deep Sky Country was visible, but still at least two days’ hike away.
“Where’s the other one?” Nurul asked, dropping an armload of foamy vegetation on top of the boiling carcass.
“Why do that?” demanded Misha. “Firewood goes under food. Put next armful to side.”
“Why?” Nurul said. “I don’t need to get more.”
“We will need more firewood for more animals. I will go hunting.”
Hariyadi harrumphed. “It is a bad idea to go off alone. Daisuke. Go with him.”
Anne grumbled something about not hearing a ‘please’, but Daisuke could hardly refuse. “I will rest first, please,” Daisuke said, sinking to his knees. It felt good to fold his tired legs, and the blazing fire felt even better.
“Aha,” Anne said, in a different kind of pleasure. She was holding up one of the claws Daisuke had yanked off the tortoise-hog. “It’s not exactly like a crab claw. True, the upper and lower parts of the limb are covered in hard armor, but see how it’s fused together out of smaller elements? More like the carapace of a turtle than the shell of a crab.”
“Oh good,” said Misha, standing. “Lecture. I go see how Sing is doing. Daisuke, do not go hunting without me.”
“I thought I was supposed to vocalize when I theorize,” Anne said. “Right, Daisuke?”
Daisuke gave her a thumbs-up.
“Right. See how the little elements get smaller toward the joints and come uncoupled from each other? They turn into little scales.” She flexed the arm, watching as the hide under the scales stretched and compressed in accordion folds.
“Are you going to cook that?” Nurul asked. “Or do you plan to just bite into it?”
“I don’t think I could,” said Anne, then seemed to register the sarcasm. “Hey, I’m just trying to get a feel for the anatomy.”
She handed the limb to Nurul, who peered down at its length in surprise. “Oh,” said the journalist. “There’s no bone. It’s meat all the way through.”
“Of course,” Anne said. “No internal skeleton. Since these banana-flavored beasties have broken their exoskeletons up into scales, they don’t have to worry about molting and losing all their muscle attachments. They must shed bit by bit, like birds shed their feathers. And grow much bigger than Terran arthropods ever managed. The question is, what do their muscles anchor to? And we see….”
Anne recovered the limb and took a handful of meat. She pulled and claws clacked together. Nurul jerked back, eyes wide.
“There we go,” Anne said. “What we have here is an armored tentacle. The limb of something very much like an insect trying to be a reptile.”
“I see,” said Nurul. “So this biome’s life forms are originally from Earth.”
“What?” Anne blinked at her. “No. At least, I don’t think so. I said ‘insect’, but this thing isn’t related to real insects from Earth any more than toymakers or shmoos. Insects have copper-based hemolymph for one thing, but this tortoise-hog has red blood like a vertebrate. Hemoglobin or something similar….”
“This is all irrelevant,” Hariyadi grumbled. “The only matter of importance is if we can eat it for the long term.”
Anne flexed her fists open and closed. “I don’t know. I’m telling you everything I do know.”
“Long term, sir?” asked Nurul.
Hariyadi’s eyes shifted. Some species of confusion fluttered behind his blank expression.
Nurul inquired something in the tones of ‘sir, what’s wrong?’ and Hariyadi waved her concern away. “We must stay here,” he said in English. “I have decided we must rest and resupply.”
Nurul threw the claw into the flames, where it clenched like a dying snake. She said something to Hariyadi, who responded sharply. Rahman asked Nurul something, which she shrugged off. Uncharacteristically angry, Rahman shouted at Hariyadi and stood, only to be coaxed back to his seat by Nurul. He and his wife glared at Hariyadi, who glared at the fire like it had betrayed his homeland.
“What’s wrong?” Daisuke asked.
“Do you think we should only speak English for your benefit?” snapped Nurul.
Hariyadi spoke slowly, as if exhausted. “I said that we shall remain here.”
“But, sir,” she said something in Indonesian, to which Hariyadi replied in English.
“No, I will not go scouting down the valley. I will not let you or Rahman go, either. It isn’t safe. It is pointless.”
“Pointless?” Daisuke repeated. “We can be in the Deep Sky Country the day after tomorrow. Then maybe only a day back to the wormhole. We can tell the world—”
“What?” Hariyadi barked. “What can we tell them? That we have discovered a useless plain of glass and a forest of tiny monsters?” He bared his teeth at the fire. “And let us not forget the lizard-bugs. No, there will be no welcome for us back in civilization. Better we stay here.”
“For how long?” Nurul asked the question in English, but Hariyadi’s response was in Indonesian. He sounded as if he had lost all hope.
Why is it you are suddenly so eager to slow down, Hariyadi? Afraid of being held accountable?
Hariyadi glared at Daisuke as if the old soldier could read his thoughts. “Do not imagine you will escape the blame.” He snorted with bitter humor. “And even if they do not find us all guilty of murder, they will imprison us for the secrets we know.”
“Sir?” Nurul looked terrified.
“It’s all right,” Hariyadi said. “We can stop here now. Enjoy this day. We are alive. Isn’t it enough just to be grateful for that? We survive.”
“Learn more about what?” asked Anne.
Hariyadi looked at her like she was a tick on his sleeve, and cold fear bubbled up inside Daisuke’s skull. “Anne,” he said carefully, still smiling. “Let’s eat. No more questions now.”
“Oh, so the spirit of inquiry is all well and good when I’m exploring a telegenic alien environment or the front of your jocks, but when I’m trying to determine where we should go and how fast we should get there—”
“Not now please.” Daisuke held up a hand.
“Don’t you dare silence me, Daisuke.”
“I’m going to bed.” Nurul stood up and stomped off. Hariyadi watched her go, eyes narrowed. The sun was sinking, flushing the south-western sky the color of an angry shmoo.
Anne didn’t seem to notice the deadly subtext flowing around them. “All right. And Daisuke, weren’t you going to go away for a while? Chase down a critter for your dinner?”
Daisuke quashed his impulse to argue. Or to invite Anne to come with him. That might alert Hariyadi. What could the colonel be up to? And did his plans endanger Anne?
“I will go find Misha.” Daisuke stood. “Then I will bring more meat.”
He would ponder these questions away from the fire, where the air was clearer.
* * *
The tortoise-hog tripped and rolled to a stop.
“Wait!” Misha gasped. “Daisuke!”
Daisuke was gasping too, kneeling over the animal. His head was swimming, and his skin prickled. It had gotten cold awfully fast. There must have been a sudden change of pressure as they’d run down the mountain. That would explain his sudden headache.
Misha’s silhouette moved in the rising mist. “Stay now, Daisuke. I coming to you!”
Daisuke was content to sit here and breathe until Misha closed on him. “I got the tortoise-hog,” he said.
“You foolish Japanese,” said Misha. “I tell you is not worth to chase one animal all way here. More live up by wormhole. Now we have to carry this one all way back up— Who is that?”
“Who?” Daisuke straightened and aimed his pounding head in the dir
ection Misha was pointing. Yes, there did seem to be someone standing there in the mist downslope. Someone tall and thin.
“Rahman?” shouted Daisuke, and the figure moved. Leaned forward. Extended a pair of slender crab pincers to support itself.
“Oh,” Misha said.
“Misha,” Daisuke said, “please be calm….”
“We run away now,” said Misha, backing up the hill. The animal loped forward to close the distance, as graceful as a crane, as grim as an undertaker.
Daisuke wobbled on his feet, trying to catch his breath. His heart raced. The creature was close enough now that nobody could mistake it for human. Its head was long and tubular like those of the tortoise-hogs, but bulged out at the top into a bulbous-eyed shape like a cartoon heart. Four pointed legs supported a round, spiny body. A third pair of limbs stretched up past the head, not pincers or praying mantis claws, but something more like baby fern fronds – tightly coiled tentacles, armored, articulated, and wickedly barbed. It stopped less than two meters away from him.
“Calm,” Daisuke panted at Misha. “Don’t look at its eyes. No sudden movements. Just back slowly away.”
Its turreted chameleon eyes scanned back and forth, up and down, sometimes in synchrony, sometimes separately. Twin tongues flicked from its complicated mouth, tasted the air. The animal’s fern-frond limbs curled tighter, rose, cocked with an audible click.
“Run!” Daisuke stumbled back, his legs nightmarishly numb and useless. He couldn’t seem to find his balance. The creature darted toward him.
Horned ropes lashed the mist over Daisuke’s head, flailed, coiled again for another strike. The animal reared onto its hind legs while its middle pincers stabbed at Daisuke. Bone-armored claws closed on his thigh, yanked, twisted. It hurt hardly at all. Like the work of a dentist after the anesthesia has kicked in. Daisuke was very cold.
“Help me,” he whispered. It was getting hard to see. The creature wheezed and clacked above him, spittle flying from its insectile mouth. It was shivering. Its long, tubular head drooped. It sank onto its armored knees as if overcome with weariness, abdomen pulsing in grating, labored…breaths?
Daisuke was having trouble breathing too. His heart was beating even faster now, banging against his rib cage as if struggling to escape. His hands and toes had gone numb. We are being poisoned.
“Misha,” he said. “Poison. My head hurts.”
“What?” someone grumbled from upslope of him. “Speak English. Come on. Get up.” A hand took hold of Daisuke’s shoulder. “What happened to that monster? What’s wrong? Ow! My head hurts.”
Daisuke looked up at Misha’s face, which was pale, though with hectic red staining his cheeks and lips.
“Shit!” Misha said. “You’re poisoned.”
The predator let go of Daisuke’s leg. It fell heavily, wheezing in the dirt beside Daisuke.
“Something’s wrong,” he said, and realized he was speaking Japanese again. “Help me.”
“Shit,” Misha said again. “Come on.” He dropped Daisuke. Grabbed him again. The Russian was wheezing too now. “Come on, I said. Damn it!”
Daisuke was dragged upright, stumbled on numb feet, fell. He hardly felt the impact with Junction.
How could he have been so stupid? So weak? Daisuke crawled. It was just a little farther. The peak of the mountain was there above him. He just had to keep pulling. He dragged himself another meter, vision a gray blur. Was he even going uphill anymore? He could no longer feel anything past his knees and elbows.
He was only very tired. Pleasantly warm. If he just stopped, stopped and breathed, Daisuke would not feel anything.
But Anne would go on feeling. She would never let herself stop surviving, and neither would Daisuke. I must try harder. He clenched his tingling teeth and forced himself up another centimeter.
* * *
Anne heard the cry from under the blanket of fog.
“It’s Misha,” she told Sing. “Come on!” But the other woman grabbed Anne’s arm and tugged her back uphill.
“What?” Anne ripped her arm free. “He’s in trouble, he’s your bloody boyfriend, and Daisuke’s down there!”
“No!” Sing snatched at her sleeve again. “Death wind.” She pointed at the ground, where, Anne realized, a line of little corpses lay. Dead lizard-bugs like sea wrack on a beach. A high-tide line.
“A boundary between biotic zones?” Anne asked.
Of course Sing didn’t know those words. “Ah!” she said, and darted to a clump of squat, tubular plants. “Death wind no. Plant, yes. Anne, plant yes!”
She wrestled a barrel-like growth from the ground and fumbled in her utility belt for Misha’s knife.
“We don’t have time for this,” Anne said. “He could be being eaten by a – I mean poisoned by – and Daisuke isn’t making any sound at all. Sing!”
“Sh sh sh,” their guide hissed through her teeth as she sliced through the plant, making a wide hollow tube. This she forced over her head until it covered her nose and mouth.
“Mmmph!” she said, and thrust the remainder of the plant at Anne.
Anne shoved her panic aside, focusing on details. Plant over mouth. Plant makes breathable air. Plant evolved to store up oxygen. Evolved on the edge of boundary. Boundary where a temperature inversion traps a bubble of gas that’s light, colorless, odorless, toxic to anything with red blood. Carbon monoxide.
The last thought slotted into place as the spongy plant material scratched down Anne’s face. She breathed, gave the thumbs-up to Sing….
Who dove into the deadly swirling fog.
Anne had the presence of mind to yank out her flashlight as she followed, turning the oppressive gloom under the fog into something navigable.
Even the plants down here looked unhealthy, their foam bleached like dying coral. The fungoid ground cover had rotted to gray slime, and strange new plants sprouted from the soil like clumps of lead-colored cotton candy. Skeins of steel wool gleamed dully in the beam of Anne’s flashlight, piles of metallic material the size of bushes. Some kind of plant?
Dead animals littered the ground as well as fuzzy rust-colored pellets. The breathing plant dug into Anne’s nose and cheeks like a damp loofa. She took in a gulp of moist air, wondering how much of it was carbon monoxide. Commandeering her hemoglobin, turning her blood cherry-red as her tissues starved for oxygen. Was that movement in the corner of her eye? Something slick and black uncoiling from the steel-wool bushes? Or just her vision tunneling?
A muffled cry from Sing. Anne turned to look, and there, collapsed a heartbreakingly short distance downhill, were Daisuke and Misha.
Anne made a beeline for Daisuke. Grabbed his hands. Tugged, pulled him up the hill like pulling a corpse through treacle. He was too heavy. She needed help. Where was Sing? Tugging on her own lover, of course, and making even less headway.
They had to co-operate. Sing couldn’t speak English. She wanted to save Misha.
The dismal calculus unspooled through Anne’s brain. She couldn’t pull Daisuke to safety by herself. She couldn’t ask Sing to help her without first taking care of Misha. But even working with Sing, it would take her time to pull the big Russian to safety. Time Daisuke might not have. And yet the only alternative was Daisuke’s certain asphyxiation. What was that Hariyadi had said about leadership and making tough decisions?
Anne let go of Daisuke, grabbed hold of Misha’s free hand, and pulled.
“I will kick you up this mountain myself,” she told him. “Get up, you dipshit!”
Misha’s eyes opened. He rolled over, making vague motions with his arms and legs that bore little relation to walking. Still, he was awake enough that when Anne and Sing got their shoulders under his armpits, he could stand. Together they hobbled up the hill.
Still agonizingly slow, though. By the time they’d gotten the huge Russian out of the Deat
h Wind biome, Nurul and Rahman were there waiting for them. Not Hariyadi, though. Never fucking Hariyadi.
But Anne didn’t have time to be angry. Sing was already shucking off the breathing plant. The Nun woman dashed off, not to comfort Misha, but to find fresh plants. Anne ripped her own mask off and took several deep breaths of fresh air.
“Carbon,” she gasped, “monoxide. Daisuke’s still. Down there. Come on. Put plants over. Mouth and nose.”
She wanted nothing more than to just take a deep breath and run back down there. Carbon monoxide poisoning was slow enough that she might just be able to get out again. Or else she’d collapse and turn herself into another victim to be rescued. More tough decisions.
After some dizzying, agonizing span of time, Sing rushed up with four pineapple-sized breathing plants. These she sliced into shape and forced over the heads of Nurul and Rahman before they all plunged back into the Death Wind biome.
Dark, chill mist. Her breath against the inside of the plant and her tainted blood pounding in her ears. Was that headache from stress or oxygen deprivation? Spiked black fractals spun in her peripheral vision. But she remembered where Daisuke was, and there was his face, swimming up from the murk. His arm, warm and firm in her hands as she lifted. The corpse-strewn ground flew under her, as if Anne tumbled uphill. As if she dove.
The mist parted, and she could see the stars.
Anne, Rahman, Nurul, and Sing heaved Daisuke up onto the ground cover of the Oasis biome. He thumped to the ground between them, his face copper-colored in the light of the Lighthouse biome across the valley.
Entirely unaware of what she was doing, Anne put her lips against his.
Felt his breath.
Broke down crying.
* * *
Hariyadi was pacing around the fire when they trudged back into camp.
“What now?” he said, glaring at the barely conscious Daisuke. “How did he nearly kill himself this time?”
“A poisonous cloud, sir,” Nurul said while Anne choked on her rage. “It fills the whole valley.”
“Damn,” said Hariyadi. “How are we going to get through it?”
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