Synthesis

by Rexx Deane

  ‘Seen what?’

  ‘One of the bits near the start I skimmed over. “2207-07-17 … A few days after arriving, we were attacked by a large swarm of vicious insects. Duggan was able to rig up ultrasonic generators that seem to repel them. We have installed several of the generators around the perimeter of the ship, and he’s planning on making more that can be put into the plant machinery and at various points around the planned town to keep them away.” ’

  ‘I wish you’d spotted that sooner, too. Speaking of which, you’d best go down and let our friends out.’

  ***

  Aryx tentatively approached the airlock. The insects didn’t deserve to die – they were only doing what was in their nature, after all. He pressed his face to the long vertical slit of the window and the buzzing black creatures bombarded the glass with renewed vigour. The sight of the black carapaced creatures stabbing at the glass with their vicious mouthparts made Aryx’s stomach turn and he remembered the nasty wound on Sebastian’s arm.

  ‘Bye bye, you little bastards!’ he shouted, and punched the control to open the outer door.

  With a muffled hiss, the buzzing stopped and the shiny black bodies froze as they tumbled out into space, glittering briefly in the sunlight before getting lost amongst the stars. With a shudder, he turned and made his way back to the cockpit.

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ Sebastian said. ‘It sounded like you enjoyed that.’

  ‘I had my reservations about spacing them, but after what one of them did to your arm, I couldn’t think of them kindly.’

  Aryx’s inner ear went a little strange as a light illuminated on the console, indicating the change in gravity as the ship left Tradescantia’s grip and entered the larger body’s influence. The gas giant lay ahead, immense and inhospitable.

  ‘I hate these gravity changes,’ Sebastian said. ‘They make me feel a bit sick.’

  Aryx shook his head. ‘Everything makes you feel sick.’

  The ship descended from orbit and the hull creaked and groaned from the strain as it encountered the upper atmosphere. The coolant compressors whined in sympathy, struggling to cope with the temperature rise.

  ‘I pray to the Gods the diary is accurate and we aren’t making the last mistake of our lives.’

  The interior of the cabin took on an orange tint from the luminous ochre haze obscuring the view and the ship started to shake. Aryx clamped down his chair.

  ‘This is odd,’ Sebastian said. ‘The sensor readings don’t match what’s outside the windows.’

  Aryx checked the console. ‘The outside pressure’s not going up quick enough for a gas giant. I’ve done hydrogen scoops before, and it always shot up as soon as I hit denser gas. There’s no way we can trust the sensors.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Sebastian said, ‘the air resistance is too low. The atmosphere’s too thin. We should have slowed down more by now. I don’t know what’s going on!’

  ‘Just hang in there,’ Aryx said, gripping the console.

  Having brought the temperature differential under control, the coolant pumps ceased their complaint, but several minutes into the flight a tremendous bout of turbulence began. The ship shook violently as it hurtled through the swirling gases and the artificial gravity plating, unable to compensate, released its grip on the inhabitants. Still the gases clouded the windows, and the sensors continued to malfunction.

  The turbulence ceased and the continuous gas cover broke to reveal a layer of white cumulus clouds below and a deep blue sky above.

  ‘Where’s the orange gone—’ Aryx said.

  The ship plummeted into the cloud and the turbulence began again in earnest.

  ‘The sensor readings don’t make sense for a gas giant,’ Sebastian said, ‘but for a planet like Earth, they would be ideal—’

  The white cloud cleared and for one long, zen-like moment of serenity Aryx could take in the entire scene below.

  Golden, grassy seas rippled in the wind, separated from each other by vast green forested areas and belts of trees. Wide rivers lazily snaked their way through the landscape and tumbled down waterfalls. Rock formations, hills, plateaus and cliffs projected out of the terrain as far as the eye could see. From this altitude, it could be mistaken for the Amazon jungle on Earth.

  The scene vanished as the ship headed into another bank of cloud.

  Wheeep! Wheeep!

  Adrenaline surged through Aryx’s veins as collision alarms sounded and displays flashed warning messages. The clouds parted again. A huge mountain sat directly in their path.

  Sebastian activated the manual override. The joystick rose from the console in slow motion and he wrestled with the stick. ‘Take your stuff and get into the escape pod!’

  Aryx dragged the mobipack and sack of vegetables to the rear and stopped, shaking his head. ‘I’m not going without you.’

  Sebastian’s face reddened. ‘Get in now! I’ll follow!’

  Aryx backed into the pod.

  Sebastian yanked the joystick to no avail; their speed too great to change course. ‘I’m sorry, Aryx, but at least you’ll live to hate me.’

  ‘What the—’ Aryx hammered on the door of the escape pod as it slammed shut. ‘Don’t you dare eject! Get your arse in here now!’

  The pod lurched and his wheelchair slammed against the back wall. Another lurch, upwards, and his face pulled down with the acceleration.

  ‘You bastard! You fucking bastard!’ he screamed, the veins in his neck swollen to bursting. How could Sebastian do that?

  The upward acceleration continued for several seconds before easing off; the wheelchair levitated in the middle of the pod and objects floated around him. The escape pod had begun to fall, and he was too far away from the fixtures to pull himself to safety. After only a few seconds, the chair drifted to the floor along with the other floating objects: the pod had hit terminal velocity, and it would only be a matter of moments before it hit the ground. He had to get to the safety harnesses. His breathing became ragged. If the pod tumbled … it didn’t bear thinking about.

  His wheels touched down. The tyres skidded as he attempted to push towards one of the seats on the wall. That wasn’t going to work. He reached underneath the chair and activated the magnetic clamp.

  Giant airbags inflated from the walls, squashing him in place and crushing the air from his lungs. He couldn’t move. Or breathe. The pod’s retro-thrusters kicked in and his insides sank into his pelvis.

  Another burst of deceleration drained the blood from his face. The parachute. He closed his eyes. At least he wasn’t going to die in a hospital bed, after all.

  Impact.

  Chapter 20

  Aryx woke, his face creased and pressing up against an airbag. He was upright – that much he could tell despite the white mass of balloons packing him in. His head hurt and the vision in one eye was stained red. Blinking only made it worse. How was he going to get out? His arms were pinned to his sides by the airbags, but … his right arm was a little freer than the left, and closer to his body. He crawled it down his trouser leg and fumbled for the pockets, where his fingers came across a bulge: the multi-tool. He eased his fingers upwards, unbuttoning the flap, and slipped them into the cramped space. The pressure on his head and face was becoming unbearable and he couldn’t take a breath. He had to hurry.

  He pulled out the multi-tool and hooked the edge of a blade with his thumbnail and extended it. With a twist of his wrist, the balloon to his right burst. Freedom at last!

  He un-clamped the chair and wheeled into the space left by the deflated balloon. The incline made it difficult as he approached the nearest accessible seat and pulled the cord hanging next to it. The balloons either side retracted into small compartments and he moved around the pod, clearing the others.

  The makeshift bag of vegetables, along with the other items stowed in the pod, lay against the wall on the lowest side. The box containing the cube was intact; thankfully, so was the mobipack. He picked up the cube and put
it in the mobipack’s storage compartment. Judging by the blood on the corner, it must have hit his head on the way down. He slung the mobipack harness over his shoulders and fastened it with the sack of vegetables still attached.

  Aryx pushed up the sloping floor towards the exit hatch, where a survival kit hung on the wall. He unclipped it from its mounting and opened it.

  The box contained an emergency medical kit; a foil sheet, folded into a tiny bundle; a ration pack with a micro-burner, self-sterilising water bottle and mess tin; and a small, rubbery wristcom-like device. He fastened the strap around his arm and placed the box in the pouch on the back of his wheelchair.

  The display on the wrist module showed a line pointing outward from the centre and nothing more. At least the ship was still broadcasting the transponder signal, wherever it was.

  He activated his wristcom. ‘Sebastian, are you there?’

  No response.

  He tried again. There was no beep of acknowledgement from the unit; it was either out of range of the ship and too far to relay communications, or was somehow broken. His left wrist was a little sore – perhaps the wristcom had hit against his chair during the impact.

  The button by the escape hatch showed a green light, indicating a habitable environment, so he pressed it. The door popped open and he wheeled out into the sunlight.

  The air was crisp, clean and fresh, not unlike that of Chopwood. Overhead, the sky was a pale blue that deepened towards the zenith, and large cumulus clouds scudded over the horizon, lit from beneath by the low angle of the morning sun. The escape pod had landed in a grassy plain, surrounded by trees far off in the distance. Except for the mounded scar left by the pod, the ground was relatively flat with short, gold-green grassy stubble. He leaned over to investigate the foliage; the blades of grass ended square and ragged.

  ‘Hmm,’ he grumbled. ‘Wildlife.’ He glanced down at the locator on his wrist.

  The line on the display pointed to the pod behind him. That couldn’t be right. The ground was flat enough to wheel along, so he made his way around it. The indicator still pointed in the same direction. He stared into the distance. Was the ship out there, somewhere?

  About a mile away, at the far end of the grassy region, a dark ridge jutted out of the landscape, running left and right as far as the eye could see, but there was no sign of the ship.

  ‘Great. Just marvellous. Don’t tell me I’ve got to climb a bloody cliff.’ He rubbed his groin – it was still sore from using the pack in Chopwood, and there was no way he was walking the plains wearing it. He sighed and put a hand to his head, and his fingers came away clean. At least that didn’t hurt as much.

  How was he going to scale the cliff safely? His military scavenging instincts kicked in and he wheelied up over the raised threshold back into the escape pod. It was a good job it had sunk into the ground enough to make getting in and out easy; the mobipack would have been useless on the sloping floor.

  ‘If I cut the seatbelts off, I should be able to make a rope in case I need one.’

  One by one, he moved around the seats, pulling the belts out to their limits and cutting them off with the multi-tool, and spent a few minutes tying them together to make one fifty-foot long strap, which he bundled up and tied to the back of his wheelchair. The punctured airbag gave him an idea, and he pulled the cord by one of the seats where the balloon was still intact. It gave a quiet puff as he cut it off at the base. He folded the deflated bag and stuffed it into the now-bulging pouch at the back of his seat.

  Scavenging urge satisfied, he left the pod and set off towards the base of the cliffs.

  ***

  Faint, delicate tones of birdsong drew Sebastian from inky black senselessness. Sunlight shone through his closed eyelids, warming his face, as he lay on his back. He stretched his fingers and something dry crunched and crackled under them. Leaves. He peeled open his eyes, but with vision blurred and watery, he could only make out the vaguest of shapes against the bright rays streaming into his face. Numinous shafts of light and shadow lanced down around him through the haze – shadows cast by some large being. Was he dead? Was this some great deity that had descended from the sun, colossal arms outstretched to shield him from the divine rays that had sent it forth?

  He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, clearing the encrusted sleep from his eyelashes. The brightness faded, and the momentary sense of awe subsided as the colossus revealed itself to be a large, jagged leafless tree, casting voluminous shadow through the misty morning air. Just a tree.

  He rolled onto his right side and pain shot through his arm as the weight of his body compressed his wound. He sat up and gently massaged the area through the bandages until the pain subsided. At least nothing felt broken.

  He sat in a clearing, fifteen metres in diameter, dominated by the large, dead tree that towered over him. It reminded him of pictures he’d seen of bristle-cone pines on Earth: great trees with thin, splitting bark and branches that twisted and bent as though in spasm. The still, hazy morning air gave a muted quality to the distant birdsong filtering through the surrounding trees. Nothing moved. A chill, prickling sensation crawled down the back of his neck as though he was being watched. He stood up and scanned the treeline, but there was no sign of movement.

  His old canvas rucksack lay nearby, but there was no sign of the ship. No wreckage. Come to think of it, how had he got out of the ship? How had he got here? There was no smoke above the limited horizon, so where the hell was the ship? He had been flying in the direction of the sunrise. If he had somehow been thrown out, maybe it had crashed somewhere ahead.

  He checked his wristcom but the display was dark. If he started walking with no idea of time or latitude, he could head in completely the wrong direction. He tapped the screen. It didn’t respond.

  ‘Aryx!’

  The muffled, hazy air swallowed his voice.

  ‘This is useless. I need to find a hill or something.’ He picked up the bag, slung it over his shoulder, and skirted the barren tree.

  As he headed into the desolate woods, following the sun, he peered through the dead trees, searching for any change in ground level. He couldn’t get over the feeling of being watched, but other than the faintest twitter of birds ahead, the only sound was the soft crumpling of leaves underfoot.

  ‘Where are you, Aryx?’ he said, breaking the silence. His heart ached for company – anybody’s company.

  In contrast to the large twisted tree he had passed in the clearing, the others in the forest appeared uniform, and either leafless, or with a few dead leaves still hanging from their skeletal branches. The lowest branches started well above his head; climbing to get a better vantage point was out of the question.

  He licked his drying lips and pulled the straw from the N-suit’s collar. After a few gulps, the flow stopped. There had to be something in the pack to drink. Dropping into a crouch, he unhooked the pack and sifted through its contents. Miner’s lamp, lamp oil, medkit, infoslate, AR glasses, medic’s journal, empty nanobot injector. No water. It would be hours before the suit could fill its reserves from his lost body moisture. He couldn’t wait that long, and there was no guarantee that it would last long enough for him to find the ship. He needed direction.

  ‘Where there are birds, there must be water,’ he said and, spurred on by the increasing chatter, he picked up the pace.

  ***

  Aryx reached the base of the cliffs in under an hour. The terrain had been relatively smooth and, aside from occasionally catching the front casters of his wheelchair in the odd clump of grass, he’d made good progress. The long morning shadow cast by the ridge left the air cool, and the short grasses at its base glistened with dew. The low sun had blinded him for most of the journey across the open plain and it was good to finally be out of it. He sat in his wheelchair, looking up at the daunting edifice. The plain had been easy going, but this – this was something else.

  He activated the mobipack and stood up. The sack of vegetables hangi
ng from the harness was heavy but manageable, and he wasn’t about to leave those behind. Getting the chair up the cliff would be a problem. He took the long belt he’d fashioned and tied it to the mobipack harness, looping it through the wheelchair frame several times in the process, and leaving a couple of metres of slack so it could hang without hindrance.

  ‘Mobipack, rough terrain.’ It acknowledged with a beep.

  He approached the rock face and reached up. Rocks stuck out unevenly, at varying depths, but they’d provide plenty of handholds. His fingers found a crevice and he heaved himself upwards and brought his right leg up to find a foothold, but it scraped up and down, ineffectually. What the heck was happening? He tried again and the foot caught. The belt pulled taut as he shifted his weight, and he reached with his left hand to continue upwards. The right leg gave way.

  His head snapped back as he landed on the mobipack and he bit his tongue. Flailing about like an upturned turtle, he rocked from side to side until he managed to roll over.

  ‘Jeez, I can’t believe I didn’t think about the feet!’ He spat out a mouthful of blood. ‘What an idiot.’ Without feedback from the limbs, it would be impossible to continue; he couldn’t feel what was going on underfoot. With the cliff stretching for what seemed like miles in either direction, it was time for a different approach.

  He sat in the chair, deactivated the prosthetics, and started flicking through the patterns Sebastian had programmed into the mobipack’s infoslate. Neither of them had anticipated needing to climb a cliff. What he really wanted was a set of …

  ‘Climbing hooks!’

  He tapped commands into the infoslate, drawing out large, serrated hook shapes. The generators’ field resolution wouldn’t allow sharp edges, but it would do. Several taps later, he’d reassigned buttons on the leg sensors to lock and unlock the position of the fields relative to the pack. He took the sensor straps off his legs and fastened them tightly to his hands with the modules against his palms.

  ‘Mobipack, activate,’ he said, reaching up with both hands.