by Gary Gibson
‘Aranyani,’ Amit repeated, smiling hesitantly despite his bruises. ‘We need a name for this world, surely?’
‘Sure we do,’ Sam butted in, ‘but what does it mean?’
‘Aranyani is an Indian Goddess,’ Amit explained. ‘She rules over the forests and glades.’
Maybe there’s a poet buried in there somewhere, thought Sam, regarding the Indian.
‘Aranyani,’ said Sun, her hands sticky from fat and grease. ‘I like it.’
Ethan stood and waved one hand until the various conversations around the campfire subsided. ‘Amit says he wants to call this shithole of a planet, or whatever the hell this is, Aranyani. So since we’re trying to be democratic about these things, let’s vote. All in favour of Aranyani, say aye.’
A chorus of ayes went up, including most of those on Traynor’s side of the campfire.
‘This planet is duly named Aranyani,’ Ethan declared, before sitting back down to a smattering of applause.
As the rest of them fell back into conversation, Sam saw DeWitt stand, a puzzled expression on his face, then walk towards the edge of the clearing. He stood there, looking this way and that for several minutes. Then Angel got up and joined him. They stood together, heads close as they conversed quietly, all the while staring into the shadowy darkness beyond the clearing.
‘Hey,’ Traynor called over to them. ‘What’s up? You saw something?’
DeWitt glanced back and blinked like he’d forgotten the rest of them were there.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Can’t you hear it?’
I can’t hear anything, Sam nearly replied, then paused as the rest of the camp fell silent.
And then he heard it, above the rush of the wind through the trees and the snap and pop of burning wood—something very much like the howl of a wolf, from very far away. At first, there was only that single cry, but then a second joined it, and then another—then more and more until they blended into a chorus that seemed to come from all directions.
13
THE HOWLING
One by one, they all stood to listen.
‘What in Hades,’ asked Traynor, his voice for the first time betraying a hint of fear, ‘is that?’
Sam looked around at the quiet, pinched faces lit orange by the flames. The forest itself seemed to take on the aspect of some wild beast, carved from shadows, waiting to swallow them up in its darkness.
‘If I didn’t know better,’ said Ethan, ‘I’d say it sounded like wolves. But that’s…’ He shook his head, his words trailing off.
Sam nodded. Impossible, Ethan had meant to say. But that knowledge didn’t prevent a cold, bright chill from spreading through Sam’s blood. Nor did it prevent him from imagining dark, lupine shapes rushing through the undergrowth, drawn by the light of their campfire and the scent of cooking meat.
‘I think,’ he said, his throat suddenly dry, ‘we should sleep inside the ship tonight. Or at least until we have a better idea what’s making that racket.’
Murmurs spread around the campfire, but it was clear no one had any objections.
‘Is there a way we can raise the ramp?’ asked DeWitt.
‘There is,’ said Jess. ‘There’s a control inside the bay, to the right of the ramp.’
Sam went to help Amit stand back up and wondered if it was only his imagination that the howls sounded closer than they had just moments before.
‘Can’t be wolves,’ Joshua muttered. ‘Maybe something that sounds like wolves, but not actual wolves. Not light-years from home.’
‘After everything else I’ve seen in that forest,’ Irish muttered to him, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if we found a gingerbread house with a witch living in it somewhere out there.’
Jess quickly tamped down the campfire, covering it over with fresh branches before moving towards the lander. The rest of them hurried towards the light shining out from the interior of the cargo bay.
Sam stopped at the top of the ramp and took one last glance back. His eye caught something, black on black, over by the farthest edge of the clearing.
He stared, full of the uncanny sense that he had seen something moving there, bare metres from the campfire. He waited there for another moment, cold steel tightening around his chest as the last few stragglers made their way past him and into the ship’s interior.
He kept looking, but saw nothing more. Perhaps, then, it had just been his imagination.
Jess motioned to him to step back, then operated the controls next to the ramp. It lifted, clanging into place against the hull and sealing them inside the lander.
He turned to see Joshua standing by the inner door. ‘Did you see something out there?’ Joshua asked him. ‘You looked like you did.’
‘No.’ Sam shook his head. ‘I thought I did, but…’
He smiled tightly, then brushed past Joshua, not wanting to admit it felt more like something had been watching him.
* * *
The lander had been designed with transportation in mind, not as a living quarter. There were few places to bed down comfortably for the night, despite their now having access to the entire craft. Amit and Kim did the best they could with the chairs on the command deck, while the rest either stretched out on the floor of the lower cargo bay or squeezed into nooks and crannies in the few undamaged bays.
Traynor came to find Sam in the fabrication bay, where he was getting ready to sleep by Ethan’s side. ‘I’d like to talk to you alone for a moment, Sam.’
Sam glanced at Ethan, who let out a sigh before getting back up and exiting the bay. He shot Traynor a look as he squeezed past.
‘All right,’ said Sam, sitting up with his back to the wall, ‘what is it?’
Traynor stepped further into the bay and ran a hand along the transparent lid of an auxiliary hopper. ‘I’m sorry about what happened with Amit. It was a miscalculation on my part, although to be frank with you, I’m still not convinced he doesn’t know more than he says he does.’
‘It’s him you should apologise to, not me. And I think it was more than just a “miscalculation”.’
Traynor nodded to concede the point. ‘The first day we woke up here, you asked me if a particular date meant anything to me. I said it didn’t, but that’s not true.’
Sam became very still. He had to remind himself yet again that however young the lean-faced kid before him appeared to be, he was anything but. ‘Then why did you lie?’
‘I had no idea who you were, or why you might be asking, not to mention the fact I didn’t know where I was or why.’
Sam regarded him for several long seconds, then nodded. ‘All right, then. Abdullah Jahaar was murdered at nearly the same time as a journalist named Sarah Munro. He was going to give her evidence that the whole Asian Bloom Crisis was the result of a cover-up. A biotech experiment gone wrong.’
‘I thought you were a relief camp administrator, not a private detective.’
‘I…knew Sarah well,’ Sam replied. ‘Finding out what happened to her was important to me. Jahaar had ties to a whole slew of private biotech research firms operating in Malaysia and all across South-East Asia that were under threat of investigation. Most of the evidence he’d collected disappeared the moment he died. But before he died, he mentioned a name to Sarah.’
Traynor gave him an appraising look. ‘I see.’
‘Your name, Vic.’
‘I think I made it clear, Mr Newman, that I’d rather be open with you.’
Sam stood and stepped closer to the other man. ‘Did you kill them?’ he asked softly.
‘No.’ Traynor shook his head fractionally, without breaking eye contact. ‘The only time I ever killed anyone was in Korea when I was running convoys across the 38th Parallel. Seoul was still a mess after the nuke near-miss, and the North was sending guerrillas across the border…’ For a moment his eyes darted away from Sam’s as if processing some suppressed memory. ‘But that’s not the same as saying I had nothing to do with it.’
A beat pass
ed before Sam lunged at him. Traynor, who had clearly expected such a reaction, dodged him with ease, grabbing Sam from behind by the elbows and pushing him up against a hopper.
Sam let out a roar of frustration as Traynor twisted his arms up behind his back.
‘Easy,’ Traynor grunted, holding Sam firm as he struggled to break loose. ‘My job was to arrange details. To put certain people in certain places at certain times. What they did after that wasn’t any of my business. I was paid not to know certain things.’
‘Don’t try,’ Sam rasped, ‘to pretend that makes you any less responsible.’
‘I’d never claim otherwise.’ Traynor lessened the pressure slightly. ‘But we both know you must have worked with people like me when you were running those camps outside Jakarta. You gave them support when you were ordered to, and there’s no way in Hell you couldn’t know who they were or the kind of things they did.’
It was impossible to deny. Sam had indeed worked with people like Traynor—men and women with dry, warm handshakes, who carried business cards reading Security Advisor or Counter-Terrorism Specialist—all of them equally at home peering through the sights of a sniper rifle in some dusty African fiefdom as they were propping up the bar in the nearest Hilton.
‘I came to Taipei to look for you,’ Sam grunted. ‘I wanted to know why she died.’
Traynor let go of him, and Sam stumbled forward, grabbing hold of the hopper with both hands.
‘And then what—kill me, is that it?’ Traynor’s eyebrows lifted as Sam turned to face him again. ‘You’re welcome to try.’
Sam stared at him, his hands flexing at his sides, but did nothing.
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Traynor. ‘You’re no killer. But if you want answers, ask away. I can’t promise I have all the answers, but there’s no more reason to hide.’
‘Why Jahaar?’
The other man nodded. ‘That much I do know. Abdullah Jahaar was a deeply corrupt man who sold his influence as Minister for the Environment to anyone who could afford him before he suddenly developed a conscience much, much too late in the game. Once certain people realised he was going to rat them out, his fate was sealed.’
‘Which people?’
Traynor hesitated, then said: ‘GeneX Industries.’
Sam tried not to show his surprise. GeneX were a vast company, with countless global subsidiaries and valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars. ‘Weren’t they the ones trying to fix the toxic bloom problem?’
‘They were,’ said Traynor, ‘by bioengineering the toxic organisms that caused the blooms in order to render them harmless. Jahaar helped to make sure they won the bid to develop a solution, mostly by greasing palms. Except GeneX screwed up and made things worse, not better.’
‘So they started killing people like Jahaar to cover it up,’ said Sam. ‘You killed people to cover it all up.’
‘Under the current circumstances,’ said Traynor, ‘that’s more of a matter of perspective.’
Sam frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I didn’t just come here to give you closure, Sam, or to get you off my back—although I’m hoping I can. I came here because I realised something.’ He leaned back against a wall and folded his arms. ‘Say Amit is right after all, and we’re nothing more than a bunch of clones grown in some orbital lab. If that’s the case, then I’m not the same Vic Traynor you went looking for in Taipei—and neither are you the same Sam Newman. We’re nothing more than copies of long-dead people that only think they have continuity with their original selves. That other Vic and that other Sam Newman could have died centuries ago, for all we know. Just because we share their memories doesn’t mean we carry responsibility for their actions.’
‘I thought your position was that this was all some elaborate stunt,’ Sam sneered.
‘It seemed like the most obvious explanation. Or it did.’
‘Changed your mind already?’
Traynor smiled tightly. ‘DeWitt knows more about virtual interrogations than I do. He told me they were always carried out in carefully controlled surroundings, not out in the middle of nowhere where you can roam around the way we do. So yes, I admit I was wrong. And I badly overreacted and I owe Amit a proper apology. But surely what’s equally as important is that we, in turn, owe nothing to the people who chose to upload their memories to the ship that brought us here. And by the same logic, you never met a woman called Sarah Munro, because your memory of her belongs to someone else.’
It made a horrible kind of sense, Sam realised. ‘Let’s say you’re right,’ he said after a pause. ‘It still doesn’t make me want to trust you.’
‘Then lets at least call it a truce,’ said Traynor, ‘and work on finding out where the hell that camera did come from.’
‘As long as it means you aren’t going to attack anyone else without warning.’
Traynor nodded stiffly. ‘Then it’s agreed.’ He stepped past Sam and exited the bay.
Ethan appeared again shortly after, a quizzical look on his face. But all Sam could think about was that limousine, tumbling and burning, endlessly.
* * *
‘You believe him?’ Ethan asked after Sam filled him in on the conversation.
‘He wants me off his back,’ Sam replied. He felt tired, run down not only by the necessities of staying alive but from the weight of knowledge. ‘That’s what I think.’
Kevin appeared at the entrance of the bay, looking about as exhausted as Sam felt. ‘Figured I ought to let you know. We found out how to see the clearing from inside the lander.’
‘How?’
‘Turns out there are external cameras built into the hull and linked into the guidance systems. It’s too dark to see much out there, but the microphones pick up all the howling no problem.’
‘Any sign of what’s making all that noise?’
‘Not that we’ve seen yet.’ Kevin grinned. ‘Probably it’s something’s mating season, and that’s why all the racket.’
Ethan shuddered. ‘Either way, that damn noise gave me the creeps.’
‘Try to get some sleep,’ said Sam, curling on his side with his back to a wall.
14
THE HERD
Sam woke some hours later, stiff and sore and tired, and saw Ethan still curled up in the far corner of the fabrication bay and sound asleep. He made his way down to the cargo bay and saw the ramp had been lowered again. Outside, he saw daylight.
The forest was silent now, apart from the usual cries of birds and small animals somewhere in the undergrowth. Judging by the low angle of the light cutting through the trees, it probably wasn’t long after dawn.
He made his way down the ramp and peered around, pressing a hand against one shoulder and massaging aching muscles. He saw Wardell and Angel past the edge of the clearing, gathering wood, while Jess knelt by the smouldering remains of the campfire, blowing on it and feeding fresh tinder into the flames.
Jess looked up just then and waved him over.
‘Here,’ she said when he approached, handing Sam a chunk of cold and blackened meat wrapped in a broad orange and yellow leaf the size of a dinner plate.
She seemed to be making an effort to be less hostile than before, although he still wouldn’t have described her manner as friendly. He wondered whether Traynor had told her about their talk in the fabrication bay, and decided he probably had.
‘Breakfast, courtesy of Wardell,’ she explained. ‘There was still some leftover from last night.’
Sam realised for the first time he’d gone a whole night without no ill effects. ‘Nobody got sick?’
‘Nope.’ Her eyes darted towards him, then away again. ‘Or not that I know of, at any rate,’ she added, ‘so at least now we won’t die of hunger.’
Sam sniffed at the meat, then chewed it carefully. It still tasted fine. ‘Well, that’s a relief.’ He nodded back towards the ramp. ‘Who lowered it?’
‘Me and Vic. He’s off with DeWitt and the barrel t
o get more water.’
‘You sure it’s safe to do that after last night?’
She scowled at him. ‘All that howling tailed off a good while before sunrise. There hasn’t been a peep since, so why not?’
She worked as she spoke, then sat back as the pile of fresh kindling she had pushed amidst the blackened logs finally caught. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Sam was far from sure dropping the ramp without warning the rest of them was a good idea, but decided now probably wasn’t the time to press the matter.
‘Up all night?’ he asked instead.
She shrugged. ‘Couldn’t sleep.’ She picked up another leaf from a pile beside her and wrapped another chunk of cold bug meat in it. ‘Went up to the command deck to relieve Kevin and so I could keep an eye on the clearing.’
He remembered that sense of being watched from the night before. ‘Any sign of movement in the clearing, like whatever was making all the noise?’
‘Not a damn thing.’ She hesitated, then looked at him. ‘Well, there’s one thing. I went to check the traps we laid soon as we dropped the ramp, and something had ripped every last one of them apart.’
A chill ran up Sam’s spine. ‘Think the things we heard last night did it?’
‘Beats me.’ She glanced towards the tree line. ‘But at least they’re gone.’
Sam held up the unfinished part of his breakfast. ‘How much more of this is there?’
* * *
Shortly after, Sam made his way back to the lander and roused everyone who was still asleep, sharing out the very last of the bug meat. Joshua volunteered to accompany him and Irish back to the river plain, where they’d spotted a herd a few days before. The bungee-bug, while good for a day or so, wouldn’t be enough in the long-term. They’d have to find something else they could eat, whether on the hoof or growing on the ground. Kevin told them he’d printed something they could use and led them all down to the fabrication bay.
‘Here,’ said Kevin, reaching into the fabricator’s primary hopper. ‘It’s not as good as a rifle, but I figure you’ll find them handy.’ He handed them each a sheathed metal knife.