by Gary Gibson
‘Enough,’ DeWitt replied. ‘Honestly, I’m looking forward to it. Better than hanging around here waiting for something to happen.’
‘By the way,’ Joshua said to Sam, ‘I gather Kevin intends to take the truck out to that mesa and see if there’s any way up there.’
‘When?’ asked Sam.
‘First light tomorrow,’ said Joshua. He nodded at Traynor and DeWitt beside him. ‘He’ll be heading east while myself and these gentlemen are going west.’
‘Is anyone going along with Kevin?’ asked Sam.
‘Just me so far,’ said Irish, stepping towards him.
Sam turned to face her. ‘Mind if I join you?’
She looked at him in surprise. ‘You should ask Kevin. Do you think you’re up to it?’
Sam saw Ethan coming down the ramp and gestured to him. ‘Hey, Ethan. Think I’ll survive riding along in the truck while Kevin and Irish go exploring?’
Ethan gave him a look as if to say it’s your funeral. ‘As long as somebody else does the driving,’ he said, ‘I don’t see why not.’
* * *
The rest of their fifth evening on Aranyani passed without event. Sam checked in with Kevin about his planned trip out to the mesa. Wardell and Karl volunteered to risk the trip upstream to fetch more water and returned within the hour with a full barrel—enough for everyone to have a cup each, with the rest reserved for those taking part in the next day’s expeditions.
On their journey upstream, the two men had also managed to find a few more of the tubers identified as safe by Kim and Amit. Most of these were also kept aside for the three men heading for the building.
Then at last came nightfall and with it the Howlers.
* * *
‘They’re back,’ said Jess, looking up from where she sat cross-legged by the fire.
She had been carving up logs and placing them into the fire to keep it smouldering through the night. The rain had gone, but she’d left the shelter in place.
‘Think they’re ever going to go away?’ muttered Wardell.
Sam stood carefully from where he’d been talking with Irish. ‘Let’s just get inside.’
‘Kevin?’ asked Joshua. ‘You got that camera ready?’
Kevin nodded. ‘I fixed it to a tree across from the landing.’
Jess frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I dismantled one of the lander’s external cameras,’ Kevin explained to her. ‘I got the idea to mount it on a tree, same as that one you found. It’s motion-triggered, so if whatever’s making all that noise comes into our clearing we’ll get a clear view of them.’
‘I already got a good enough look from too damn close,’ said Sam. ‘It’s not something to look forward to, believe me.’
Kevin looked unconvinced. ‘Well, if there’s something out there that wants to kill me, I’d be a lot happier at least knowing what it looks like.’
‘What about the other camera?’ asked Jess, ‘the one I found. You figure anything out about it?’
‘Nope.’ Kevin shook his head. ‘But I decided to put it back where you found it.’
She stared at him. ‘Why?’
‘Well,’ said Kevin, ‘I figure if somebody really is watching us, then it might be better if they don’t know that we know it’s there.’
Jess gave him a blank look, then shrugged before finishing her work.
* * *
A few minutes later, they had all ascended the ramp. Sam cast a last, regretful look at the prefabricated shelters still standing beneath one wing of the lander.
Karl, who stood manning the ramp controls, looked around as the last of them boarded. ‘Is that everyone inside?’
Sam nodded. ‘Who’s taking the first watch?’
‘Me and Kim,’ Karl replied. ‘Amit and Jess’ll take the second watch in a couple of hours. Go catch some sleep—you’ve got a long day tomorrow.’
Sam stepped past him, and the ramp lifted into place with a muffled clang. The sound of distant howling became muffled, but never went away entirely. He went to find a corner or nook where he could curl up until morning that hadn’t already been claimed.
* * *
He’d hardly got more than another few hours of sleep when a hand roughly shoved him awake again. Sam looked up from where he’d been lying on hard decking to see Kim standing over him, his face taut with worry.
‘Something’s happening out there,’ Kim said in a harsh half-whisper. ‘Best you come and see.’
Amplified howling echoed across the command deck as Sam entered. He saw Karl seated before a triptych of monitors that, together, displayed a single hundred and eighty-degree view of the lander from across the clearing. Infra-red filters reduced the still-burning campfire to a bright smudge. Sam noted a faint sparkle in the visible depths of the forest, which he at first took to be some artefact of the image-filtering process.
Something shot past the lens, there and gone with such speed that Sam wondered for a moment if he had in fact seen anything at all. Then came another blur, and then another.
Karl touched the keyboard. ‘If I just make a small adjustment…’
In an instant, the images on the screen snapped into greater focus, and Sam realised the sparkle was in reality the glitter of countless eyes, like an army of ghosts flowing in and around the edge of the clearing.
Sam felt something shift deep in his bowels. He’d hardly caught more than a fleeting glimpse of the Howler that had chased them through the forest, and he took no pleasure from seeing so many of its brethren. Many of the creatures gripped long spears in surprisingly human-like hands.
‘How many?’
‘To be honest,’ said Karl, ‘we gave up trying to count after the first couple of minutes.’
A tight knot of perhaps half a dozen Howlers raced across the clearing before coming to a halt directly beneath the lander’s closed ramp. He watched as they reached up towards the ramp, precisely as if they were trying to find some way to prise it open.
‘You did the right thing waking me,’ said Sam, full of a terrible sense of foreboding. ‘Can they get in?’
‘Not a chance,’ said Karl. ‘Except now they’re just standing around under there,’ he muttered, furrowing his brow. ‘I feel like they’re up to something, but I don’t know what.’
‘Is this the only view of them we’ve got?’ asked Sam.
‘Hang on,’ said Karl. ‘I’ll check the other cameras.’
The clearing, the entirety of which had occupied all three screens, now shrank to occupy a single corner of just one screen. More windows appeared, filling up the remaining space, each showing a different view of the ground from different points on the lander’s hull.
‘It looks to me,’ said Sam, ‘like they’re having some kind of discussion.’
Which made sense, since according to Kim they were probably as smart as they were—and watching them, Sam had little doubt that was the case. But if it was a discussion, it took a form quite different from one that might occur amongst humans: the Howlers butted their heads against each other, scratching at the not-grass with their paws and twisting their long, black-furred necks and shoulders in what almost looked like a kind of dance. A few made complicated gestures with their upper set of limbs that might in themselves be a kind of sign language.
Suddenly, as if obeying some unspoken command, the Howlers sprang away from the lander, racing in different directions towards the edge of the clearing and back out of sight.
‘What the hell are they doing now?’ Karl demanded with growing consternation.
‘I greatly suspect,’ said Kim, ‘they’re planning something.’
‘How sure are you they’re smart?’ asked Karl. He directed his question at Kim. ‘They just look like animals to me.’
‘We’re animals, too,’ Kim reminded him. ‘It’s ridiculous to think bipeds like us are the only viable form intelligent life could take.’ He stabbed a finger towards the screen. ‘What you’re seeing out there
is an adaptation that, together with their intelligence, probably gives them a superior advantage over every other living thing on Aranyani.’
‘Not to mention,’ Sam said grimly, ‘they can outrun any of us with ease.’
Several minutes passed, just long enough for Sam to dare to entertain the hope that the Howlers had departed for the night. Then they all heard a distinct, if muffled thump from somewhere above their heads.
Sam stared up at the ceiling of the command deck. ‘What,’ he asked, his innards roiling, ‘was that?’
‘They’ve found a way on top of the lander,’ said Kim, staring up as well. ‘The outer shell of the hull is right above us.’
Karl swallowed. ‘Do we have cameras up there?’
Kim shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter. Look at the screen—they’re coming back.’
Several Howlers came racing into the clearing before making their way back under the closed ramp. Whether they were the same ones as before, Sam couldn’t tell, but they were all carrying heavy-looking bundles of wood in their arms. They dropped their loads directly beneath the ramp before hurrying back out of sight.
Soon, more Howlers joined in the task, rushing into the clearing and creating a steadily growing pile beneath the ramp.
Sam’s gaze moved to a window on the screen that showed Jess’s campfire still smouldering, undisturbed beneath its shelter. ‘I wonder if they know how to make fire?’
‘I’m afraid we’re about to find out,’ said Kim, looking pale.
The mound grew rapidly bigger, and soon the Howlers also began to deposit bundles of pale leaves on top of the twigs and branches they had already collected. After another twenty minutes, the mound of debris was big enough to brush the underside of the ramp, and with every passing minute, something cold pooled in the pit of Sam’s stomach.
Then, precisely as Sam had dreaded they would, some of the Howlers turned their attention to the campfire. They pushed the ends of long branches deep into the flickering flames.
‘They’ve got something covering over their mouths,’ said Kim. ‘Like masks.’
Karl let out a shaky laugh. ‘They can’t be that smart if they think they can burn us out of here. If this thing flew down from orbit, I figure it can handle higher temperatures than a fucking bonfire.’
‘Good point,’ said Sam, his stomach muscles unclenching a little. ‘Maybe they’ll give up once they see it won’t work.’
The Howlers returned to the lander, each carrying a branch that had been transformed into a brightly blazing torch. They pushed them deep into their rapidly improvised bonfire, and all three screens suddenly flared white.
‘I’ll reduce the filters,’ said Karl, tapping at the keyboard. The picture became clearer again, and they saw that the whole of the bonfire was alight.
Across the command deck, another console lit up, new data scrolling rapidly down its screen.
‘If they keep this shit up,’ Karl muttered, ‘we’re going to have to do something about the sons of bitches.’
Sam glanced at Kim. The exobiologist had said nothing, but there was a glimmer of contempt in his eyes when he looked across at Karl.
The Howlers meanwhile continued to run back and forth between the forest and the lander, depositing yet more of the pale yellow leaves on top of the flames that now licked against the lander’s underside. Dark clouds of smoke billowed up and around the craft, obscuring the view through some of the cameras.
Karl stood and walked over to the console that had suddenly come to life and stared down at the data still scrolling across its screen. ‘Still can’t figure out half of this shit,’ he muttered.
‘What about the other half?’ asked Sam.
‘Far as I can tell,’ Karl said over his shoulder, ‘it’s registering the change in temperature.’ He frowned at it. ‘It says everything’s still well inside normal parameters, but—’ He sniffed the air and glanced back at Sam. ‘Hey, do you smell something?’
It was Sam’s turn to sniff the air. ‘It smells like…’
Like burnt toffee, he thought. And almonds. He coughed, feeling a curious tickle at the back of his throat. ‘Is there any way that smell could be coming from the bonfire?’
‘Oh, come on,’ Karl scoffed. ‘That’s impossible. A ship like this is hermetically sealed. It has to be, for spaceflight. Otherwise…’ He glanced over at Kim, whose expression had become distinctly bug-eyed. ‘What’s up with you?’
Sam realised Kim had been muttering something under his breath. He looked up at them both as if he’d forgotten they were there, his eyes wide.
‘One moment,’ he said in a strangled voice, then turned and raced over to the access shaft. He quickly climbed down and out of sight, his feet clanging on the rungs as he descended to the next lower deck.
Karl sniffed the air again. ‘That smell’s getting stronger, whatever it is.’
Sam nodded. The itch at the back of his throat got worse every time he tried to swallow it away.
Kim reappeared a minute or two later, trailed by a sleepy-eyed Amit, his hair sticking out in random tufts.
‘Let me see,’ Amit mumbled, pushing past Sam and coming to stand before the three screens. He stared at the brightly blazing bonfire in silence.
‘We’re still safe in here,’ said Karl, giving Sam a worried look. ‘Aren’t we?’
Amit still said nothing, stepping past Karl to study the console that had suddenly become active. ‘Probably,’ he said under his breath, his attention focused on the scrolling output.
‘“Probably?”’ Karl echoed.
Amit glanced at him with deep irritation. ‘Our lander comes with only a basic air filtration system,’ he explained. ‘It’s designed solely for landing on Aranyani’s surface, so it doesn’t need anything more complicated. Most likely, apart from our pods, the interior was depressurized when it entered the atmosphere.’
‘So the air we’re breathing just now,’ asked Karl. ‘Where’s it coming from?’
‘From outside,’ said Amit, ‘through vents that opened automatically after we landed.’
The smell by now was undoubtedly growing stronger by the minute. Sam tried to breathe more shallowly to avoid the cloying scent.
Kim coughed explosively. ‘I’m sorry. I feel…dizzy.’ He fell into a seat.
Sam thought about the ragged masks the Howlers had tied over their snouts as if to avoid the fumes from the burning leaves…
‘These air vents,’ Sam gasped, his voice ragged. ‘Where are they?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Amit, poking feverishly at the console. ‘But I’m trying to find out.’
* * *
Sam threw himself down the shaft, red-hot hammers beating at the inside of his skull. The soft tissues at the back of his throat felt like they’d been scraped with sandpaper. He could see the smoke now, and heard someone retching as he stepped out into one of the lower corridors.
He found Irish inside a bay, kneeling over with her hands on her knees. ‘Sam,’ she croaked, her skin faintly green, ‘what is that? I can hardly breathe.’
‘It’s getting in through the air vents. We need to find them and block them.’
He left her there and continued on through the ship, the stink growing worse with each passing second and leaving him feeling increasingly disoriented. He didn’t need to wake anyone: they were all already awake, and he soon got them searching for the vents.
Once he reached it, he found the smoke in the lower cargo bay to be thick enough to make his eyes tear up. Ethan and Jess were there, their eyes and noses streaming. They were lifting a half-conscious Wardell from the deck. Sam guessed he must have been sleeping there when the creatures lit their bonfire.
Sam helped them carry Wardell up to the next highest deck, black dots floating at the edges of his vision. The whole time, he kept an eye out for eddies or currents in the air that might indicate the location of a vent. To his increasing alarm, none made themselves evident.
Traynor waylaid him e
n route to the command deck. ‘We found air vents,’ he said, his voice scratchy, ‘but they’re hidden behind metal grilles. There’s no obvious way to block them. We’re going to have to come up with something else.’
‘There is nothing else,’ said Sam.
‘If that smoke’s poisonous, it could kill us! We have to consider abandoning the lander.’
Sam stared at him. ‘Are you insane? We can’t go out there!’
‘If we stay in here, we could die anyway!’ Traynor yelled back. He started to say something else, then turned away, hacking out a harsh cough.
‘Even if we drop the ramp,’ Sam managed to say, ‘it’d land in the middle of a bonfire. There’s no other way out of here since the robots sealed up the tears in the hull.’
Vic turned back to him, his face twisted up in fury. ‘I am not going to die because of those damn animals! I’ll send them all to hell before I—!’
A sudden gust grabbed hold of them, a howling tornado that filled the air with a terrible shriek and sent them stumbling back against a bulkhead.
And then, almost as soon as it had begun, it was over, and Sam breathed fresh, clean air that tasted perversely sweet.
‘Amit,’ he gasped. ‘It’s got to be Amit. The bastard just saved our skins.’
19
THE AFTERMATH
The Howlers maintained their noisy vigil outside the lander for the rest of that night.
Amit, Sam soon learned, had discovered that the lander carried an emergency air supply good for several days. Unfortunately, he’d been forced to use most of it to flush the poisonous smoke out of the lander, leaving them with only enough air for another two nights at the most—assuming, as seemed increasingly likely, the Howlers continued their siege. The possibility that they might all die in the one place they’d believed to be safe weighed down on him like dirt piled onto a newly dug grave.
Sam went and found a corner of another bay to curl up in, fatigue once more taking its toll. Despite the pervasive aroma of smoke and vomit, he fell asleep almost as soon as he closed his eyes. He had no sense of the passing of time before he found himself shaken awake again, by Amit this time.