The Pioneer

by BRIDGET TYLER

  “Beth,” I groan, checking my flex for the time. “It’ll be night soon, and then Dr. Brown will find us.”

  “This can’t wait,” she insists. “I need to speak to Dr. Brown now. Jay, can you take me to the second cabin? That seems like her most likely location.” Jay nods, already climbing to his feet. As she follows him to the door, she whispers, “Go back to sleep, Joanna.”

  Jay chuckles softly as I scramble after them, “Not Hotshot’s style, B. You know that.”

  My sister shoots me a quick look. “Indeed. In fact, I count on it.”

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  We slip out of the cabin quietly, so that we don’t wake the others.

  “Left, four o’clock,” Jay says, taking the lead as we strike out into the dark expanse.

  “Beth, what’s going on?” I ask. “Why are you so freaked?”

  My sister almost growls in frustration. “The redactions in the Planetary Survey Report have resulted in an error in our terraforming strategy. It may lead to ecological collapse if we don’t prevent it.”

  “Ecological collapse?” Jay says. “As in . . .”

  “As in we destroy our new planet before the first town is even built.” Beth cuts him off, hurling out the words. “How far away is this cabin?”

  Before Jay can answer, our lights haul a gray geodesic dome out of the darkness a few dozen meters ahead of us.

  Beth bolts to the door. She knocks once, then shoves it open without bothering to wait for a response.

  Jay and I follow her in.

  Dr. Brown isn’t there.

  “Damn it,” Beth snaps, glaring around the cabin as though she can make the Ranger materialize through sheer force of will. But the cabin’s single room is completely empty. There’s no furniture, just a flat cushion at the center of the floor.

  A three-sixty video is paused on the wall screens. It’s frozen on a shot of Tau’s turquoise sky crisscrossed by solace tree branches. The angle is strange. Unintentional. Something about it makes me nervous. Like someone I can’t see is standing right behind me.

  “Maybe we should just sit tight,” Jay says. “Dr. Brown said she’d come back for us.”

  Beth shakes her head. “This can’t wait. We’ll have to go back to the Sorrow city. Ord or one of his people will know how to find Dr. Brown.”

  I’m only half listening to their conversation. I can’t stop thinking about the paused three-sixty on the wall screens.

  “You really think going in there on our own is a good idea?” Jay says, dubious.

  “No,” Beth says, heading for the door. “It’s a terrible idea. But we don’t have a choice.”

  I give in to my instincts and call out, “Computer, can you play this three-sixty from the beginning, please?”

  “Joanna!” Beth almost sobs my name. “We don’t have time for this!”

  “I know,” I say. But I don’t move.

  The cabin comes alive. With no furniture to interrupt the three-sixty, it feels like we’ve been transported into a sunny day up in the Diamond Range. I think this is the same valley from the video of Dr. Pasha’s attempt to communicate with the phytoraptor he called Bob. It looks kind of like Jannah, but bigger and with fewer parrot palms.

  Dr. Pasha steps into the shot.

  “We’ve got a new visitor today,” he says. “I’m designating it Chorulux phytoraptor 352. But I think we’ll call it Sunflower.”

  I can hear Dr. Brown’s amused snort as she pans to a huge phytoraptor with a ruff of what looks like yellow wildflowers running down its spine.

  “Subject is larger than the others who have approached us,” Pasha continues. “I can only speculate as to whether this is a gender-based anatomical difference. Phytoraptors don’t display exterior genitalia, so for the moment, it is impossible to classify them.”

  A low hum swells from the wall screen. Static, I think, until Pasha says, “Do you hear that? Is someone humming?”

  That sound isn’t static. It’s part of the recording.

  “I don’t know, babe,” Dr. Brown says from behind the flex. “Wind in the trees, maybe?”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” Pasha says. “I swear, there’s something . . .” The hum snaps to silence. Like someone flicked a switch. Pasha grimaces, looking around him like he’s confused. “It’s gone.”

  “’Cause it was a figment of your imagination?” a voice I recognize as Amahle’s calls from the somewhere left of camera.

  That’s when Sunflower jumps on Pasha’s back and rips out most of his throat with its teeth.

  The image tumbles as Dr. Brown drops the flex. The three-sixty panorama is mostly sky now. Someone in the background screams. Dr. Brown runs into the frame, stun gun out and firing. Sunflower casually reaches out, snags her around the waist with a claw, and flings her out of the frame again.

  Sunflower goes back to eating Dr. Pasha. He’s still alive.

  There’s more screaming. Another Ranger runs past. There’s a roar and crunch, and then he gets dragged back through the off-kilter frame. His intestines are bubbling out of a gash in his stomach and stretching out behind him in the dirt. He isn’t screaming anymore.

  The vid cuts out. The wall screens return to flat gray.

  “Worse than I imagined it would be,” Jay says quietly.

  The squishy warmth of Chief Penny’s insides sliding through my fingers oozes up from my memory. I clench my hands into fists, trying to drive it out of my brain. “I guess we shouldn’t be surprised,” I say. “We knew they were killed by phytoraptors.”

  “Human arrogance killed my crew,” Dr. Brown says from the cabin doorway. Her black robe is hanging open, and the black tank top underneath does nothing to hide the trails of scar tissue that run up her chest and over her left shoulder. Claw marks. “As a species, we have a bad tendency to assume we can go anywhere we please without consequences.”

  She isn’t talking about her crew. She’s talking about us.

  “We didn’t mean to intrude on your . . .” What is this? It isn’t a living space. It’s clearly designed for watching three-sixties. For watching that three-sixty, I’m guessing. This is a shrine to her guilt.

  “We don’t have time for social niceties,” Beth says, jumping in. “Tau Ceti e is facing a possible extinction-level event. If we want to prevent it, we must communicate with Pioneer’s Landing in the next thirteen hours and”—she checks the time on her flex—“twenty minutes.”

  Dr. Brown’s face shifts from surprise to skepticism.

  “You must learn to follow, juvenile,” Dr. Brown says. “If you have detected this threat, surely your mother has as well.”

  “My mother doesn’t have the information stored in your backup files,” Beth fires back.

  The disapproving look on Dr. Brown’s face dissolves into horrified recognition as Beth continues, “I ran a comprehensive analysis of Chorulux phytoraptor, based on Dr. Pasha’s records. That analysis included a genetic interaction projection with our Stage Three terraforming bacteria, which I designed to alter Tau soil for Earth crops. The phytoraptors have a unique genetic structure that makes them vulnerable to the bacteria. Once cross-infection occurs, it is impossible to predict how the Stage Three bacteria will mutate, but they will mutate. Those mutated strains will infect and destroy other Tau species. It’s just a question of how many.”

  “I thought you genetically engineered Stage Three not to interact with the indigenous ecosystem,” I say.

  “Correct,” Beth says. “But I didn’t factor the phytoraptors in, because they weren’t included in the data set I was given. I had no way to predict this.”

  “You accidentally created a pathogen that will wipe out the Beasts?” Dr. Brown says. The look on her face is not exactly excited. It’s something darker than that.

  “Yes.” Beth grinds the word out between her teeth. “And many other species. Our hosts could be among them. Stage Three could easily wipe out the whole Chorulux genus, including the so-c
alled ‘solace trees,’ which would effectively destroy the Sorrow’s primary habitat.”

  In my mind’s eye, I can see the glowing root garden at the heart of Sorrow’s Solace withering and rotting. The cathedral dome collapsing. The great city disappearing into darkness. The mental image makes my skin crawl. But it doesn’t change the look of bleak calculation in Dr. Brown’s eyes.

  “You’re speculating,” she says thoughtfully. “The bacteria could just as easily die out with the Beasts.”

  “Or they could turn this whole continent into a rotting wasteland,” Beth snaps. “This is not something we can control, Dr. Brown. If Stage Three is released, Tau’s ecosystem will never recover. We need to return to the Landing now and stop the deployment.”

  Dr. Brown turns and stares up at the blank gray wall screens. I can almost see the gory three-sixty playing out behind her eyes. Remembered pain and fear warring with logic and science. Then she flips her hood back over her head and says, “Come with me.”

  She turns and strides out into the dark without another word.

  “Can’t we just go back to the crash site, Dr. Brown?” I ask as we scramble after her. “Our flyer is still there—we can use it to get to the Landing. Ord would understand—”

  “No,” she says. “He would not.”

  “Do you really think he’d be angry that you did something to protect Tau from destruction without asking him for permission first?” I ask, stunned.

  “Ord is Followed,” she snarls. “We move as one, and he chooses the way.”

  “We? We don’t follow Ord,” I blurt out. “We are human.”

  “And if humanity had just stayed where it belongs, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” Dr. Brown fires back.

  “Let it go, Joanna,” Jay says. “Dr. Brown is an expert in Sorrow culture. We have to trust that she knows what she is doing.”

  He’s probably right. But I can’t shake the feeling that Dr. Brown’s respect for the Sorrow is about to doom their planet.

  “Do you really think the botany team will initiate Stage Three without you?” I ask my sister.

  “If they don’t, the bacteria will run out of nutrient and die,” Beth says. “It’s possible that the loss of the Wagon and our disappearance will disrupt the process, but I doubt it.”

  “So our team is going to poison this world and there’s nothing we can do to stop them,” I say, tasting sour bile at the back of my throat.

  “Humans will not harm our home,” a harmonic voice hisses. “Because I will not let you.”

  Pel’s scarred face slides out of the darkness as she pushes back the hood of her blackout robe. She’s holding a long-handled hammer made of a solid crystal shard that’s bigger than my head.

  She’s been there, this whole time. Following us. Listening.

  “I see you’ve learned English, Pel,” Dr. Brown says calmly. How can she be calm? I’m shaking like my whole body is going to come apart.

  “Ord’s inability to prevent your poisonous influence from spreading through our city is just one of his failures in leadership,” Pel replies. “I knew following Ord was the path to destruction. Now I can prove it.”

  “Nothing will be destroyed,” Beth says. “We can prevent this, if you’ll allow—”

  “I will allow you nothing, juvenile,” Pel snarls. “You are blinded by foolish human ambition, just as you are blinded by your foul, false light. You will not blind me as you’ve blinded Ord.” She moan-hisses, and three more heavily armed Sorrow reveal themselves around us. “Come with us, human poison. You follow me now.”

  Ten

  Pel doesn’t bother with the spiral road to Sorrow’s Solace. She cuts through the city and leads us straight into the root cathedral.

  Chris, Leela, and Miguel are already there, guarded by a pair of heavily armed Takers. As we approach, Leela takes off her flex and hands it to a Taker holding a long staff studded with the razor-sharp crystal. The Taker drops her flex on the ground and smashes it with the barbed end of their staff. The shards spark and flare in the Taker’s acid-green bioluminescence.

  My anxiety congeals into dread. Where is Ord? Why is he allowing his Takers to do this to us? We need to get out of here. With every passing second, our chances of getting to the Landing in time to save Tau are getting smaller.

  Dr. Brown must realize that too, but she has an expression of calm disinterest on her face. She could be waiting in line for chow, for all she seems to care what’s happening here.

  Pel growl-moans something loud and hot. Another pair of Takers hurries to her side. One glows bloodred and the other an icy blue.

  “Give them your flexes,” Pel hums to us, in English.

  She strides back into the root garden without waiting to see whether we comply.

  My hands are shaking so hard that it takes a couple of tries to get my flex off my wrist. I hand it to the blue Taker. Dr. Brown’s old flex is in my pocket. I leave it there. It’s a risk, but Blue doesn’t bother to search me. They just destroy my flex and move on to Jay.

  He holds out his bare wrists. “I don’t have a flex.”

  The green Taker stalks over to us, brandishing their barbed staff. They snarl at Jay. The Sorrow word feels like a slap.

  “I don’t have a flex,” Jay repeats, slower this time. “I lost it during our fight with the phytoraptors.”

  I bite back a scream as the green Taker swings their staff in a whistling arc that stops abruptly, centimeters from Jay’s head. They snarl the harsh Sorrow word again. The verbal impact makes my ears ring this time. They aren’t taking no for an answer.

  My hand closes around Dr. Brown’s flex, still hidden in my pocket. Would it satisfy the Taker’s demands if I handed it over? If I do, we’ll lose a lot of priceless information about Tau. And I’m not even sure it would work. But if I don’t do something, they might kill Jay. I can’t just stand here and let that happen.

  Just as I start to pull it out, a knife blade presses into my throat, and a many-jointed hand traced with blue light grips my waist.

  Oh.

  They aren’t going to kill Jay for his flex. They’re going to kill me.

  Jay holds up his hands. “Steady. There’s no need for that.”

  The blue Taker presses their blade harder against my jugular and hums something at Jay that feels like bleeding.

  These Takers clearly don’t speak English. Jay can’t talk them out of this. I’m going to have to give them Dr. Brown’s flex. I don’t have a choice.

  “Steady,” Jay says again, his eyes still locked with mine. He’s talking to me, I realize, not to the Taker holding me hostage. He keeps his left hand out to the side and slowly reaches for his stun gun, which is still holstered on his utility harness.

  My heart skitters, tripping over itself in terror. Does he really think he can draw fast enough to stun this Taker before they cut my throat?

  Instead of drawing his weapon, Jay unsnaps the holster from his belt and tosses the stun gun to the ground.

  “There,” he says. “It’s a weapon, not a tablet, but it’s all I have.”

  The blue Taker keeps their knife planted against my skin as Green scoops up the stun gun and studies it. Then Green leans in and shrills something in Jay’s face that makes him flinch.

  They aren’t going for it.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see my captor’s biolight flare. I stiffen, bracing myself for the bite of the knife.

  Then the green Taker drops the stun gun and smashes it repeatedly with the barbed end of their staff.

  The knife at my throat drops and the blue Taker shoves me, hard.

  Jay catches me before I go sprawling to the rock floor of the cave, steadying me against him. We cling to each other.

  “Is it too much to hope you’ve got a brilliant idea?” he murmurs into my hair.

  “Definitely,” I breathe, pressing my face into his shoulder, trying to stop shaking.

  Now that they have our flexes, the Takers herd us all into one corne
r of the root cathedral. “What the hell is going on?” Leela whispers.

  Beth quickly explains what she discovered about Stage Three and how Pel and her Takers were following us and overheard it all.

  “Question is,” Jay says, “what is Pel planning to do about it?”

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  Pel strides back into the courtyard, her crystal hammer in one hand and a slender black knife in the other. Her robe is gone. She’s wearing a tight garment that looks like the body stockings we wear under our spacesuits, but thicker and segmented like armor.

  She slams her hammer against the cave floor.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  The other Takers herd us back toward Dr. Brown. She’s standing where they left her, hands tucked into her robe. Her eyes are closed, like she’s meditating.

  Boom! Pel slams her hammer into the cave floor again. Boom! Boom!

  The noise reverberates into echoes that consume all other sound.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  “I accept your challenge,” Ord calls out in English as he strides into the courtyard.

  Ord is clad in the same sort of molded body armor that Pel is wearing, and he’s carrying a crystal-spiked staff in one hand and a knife with a nasty-looking pronged tip in the other. Hot white light is pulsing rapidly through his blue-violet bioluminescence. That’s his heart beating, I realize. Pounding.

  Ord shouts something in Sorrow that blasts over my skin like a hurricane wind. Pel responds in a lower tone that smacks into me with just as much velocity. Her voice is hotter than his and sharper edged, but just as resonant.

  Pel swings her hammer at Ord’s head. He blocks it with his staff and lunges at her, pronged knife flashing. She drops her hammer and dives under Ord’s knife arm just in time to catch it as she rolls out of his reach.

  Ord and Pel circle each other in poisonous silence. It’s like you can see the anger flowing through their bodies as their bioluminescent blood flares and sparks under their transparent skin.

  Pel darts in again. She and Ord exchange a lightning-fast series of blows before falling back once more. They’re evenly matched. Quick, ruthless, and brutally strong.