The Pioneer

by BRIDGET TYLER

  “What about this?” Chris says, holding out the knife that Ord gave him.

  Tarn keens softly. The sound feels like repressed tears, pricking at the corners of my eyes.

  “A fine weapon,” Tarn says, “capable of cutting through Beast hide. Unfortunately, we’d never get close enough to use it.”

  “But your people do know how to kill them,” Leela says.

  “Yes,” Tarn says. “We hunt and kill the Beasts. But as my pouch mate told you, this requires great sacrifice. We cannot take their lives without giving our own. I do not recommend approaching a Beast.”

  “I don’t think we have a choice,” I say. “We need that flex if we’re going to stop the Landing from initiating Stage Three.”

  “What is Stage Three?” Tarn asks.

  I watch his face as Beth explains. His expression doesn’t change. Not that I would know what it meant if it did. My stomach is flip-flopping like a hooked fish. I know it isn’t our fault that Stage Three might cause a catastrophic environmental collapse, but our species is endangering his world. It would be hard not to see that as a betrayal. I like Tarn. I don’t want him to feel that way about us.

  “So this Stage Three will kill the Beasts?” Tarn says.

  “Yes,” Beth says. “But it would do a lot more than that. My preliminary simulations indicate a near certainty that the Stage Three bacteria will jump to other species. One of the most vulnerable are the solace trees that light your city.”

  “And if we can’t kill that thing, we’ll never get Jay’s flex back,” Chris says. “Then we won’t be able to stop it.”

  Tarn looks up at the wall screen, where the pulsing light of Jay’s flex reveals the phytoraptor’s presence in the grass. “There might be a way, if we can find its nest.”

  “Nest?” I say.

  “They return to their nests at dawn and dusk to rest,” Tarn says. “That is the only time they are vulnerable.”

  “You want to take a single knife into a whole nest of those things and try to kill one of them?” Jay says.

  “I don’t think we’d need to kill it,” Beth says. “I read most of Dr. Brown’s file on the phytoraptors last night. According to Dr. Pasha’s notes, the whole nest enters a catatonic state for short periods at dawn and dusk. Pasha frequently used that time to run tests and take blood and tissue samples. There’s no reason we can’t use it to steal back Jay’s flex.”

  “If we find the nest,” Tarn says. “Which is uncertain. The Beasts build their nests in hidden places. We can attempt to follow this one back to its home, but it will be a challenge.”

  Beth pulls Dr. Brown’s flex from her utility harness and unfolds it. She swipes up the map of the Diamond Range. “Computer, please overlay phytoraptor nesting and hunting data.”

  Half a dozen red dots appear on the map. Each has a shaded area around it.

  “The Rangers found and recorded six different phytoraptor nests and accompanying hunting grounds,” Beth says.

  “I wonder why Lucille never spoke of this to my pouch mate,” Tarn says, studying the glowing dots.

  So do I.

  Beth puts her fingers on one of the red dots and pushes outward, zooming the map in to show the shaded area around it. This valley and its winged waterfall are right in the middle. “If Dr. Pasha’s data is correct, I suspect that any predator we encounter in this valley belongs to this nest.”

  “Weird,” Chris says. “It’s right next to the Ranger hot spot.” He’s right. There’s a green plus sign on the map right next to the red dot that marks the nest.

  “Not weird,” Beth says. “Expected, given the likelihood that these hot spots were built to facilitate Dr. Pasha’s study of the phytoraptors.”

  “We can make this work,” I say. I’m actually starting to believe it. “If we steal Jay’s flex back while the phytoraptors are sleeping at dawn, that gives us two hours to get in touch with the Landing and stop Stage Three.”

  “You’re crazy,” Chris says, pointing at the wall screens, where the strobing light from Jay’s flex has settled in the branches of a solace tree on the edge of the woods. “It’s right there. Alone. If we go to its nest, we’ll be outnumbered. And if those things wake up . . .” He shakes his head. “We should figure out how to kill it now. There has to be a way. I’m not scared.”

  But he is. I can feel the fear vibrating through his words. Maybe I’m imagining it. Or maybe being around the Sorrow is making me listen to human voices differently.

  “I’m scared,” I say. “All of our options right now are terrifying. It seems like every choice we make is scarier than the last one. But maybe, I don’t know . . . Maybe it’s good to be afraid.” I shake my head. This isn’t coming out right. But I keep going anyway, as much for myself as for the others.

  “A lot of people made choices that brought us here. To this. Choices that we didn’t have any say in. Choices we didn’t even know about. The ISA, Mom, Dr. Brown . . .” My eyes find Tarn’s blindfolded ones on the other side of the flyer. “Ord. We followed their orders because we respect them and because that’s the way it’s supposed to work. We were supposed to be able to trust them. But their choices put us in danger. They got people we loved killed. And they might end up wrecking the whole planet, if we can’t get home in time to stop them. So maybe . . . I don’t know, I think I’d rather make my own choices and live with the fear.”

  The others are staring at me. I must sound like a sanctimonious idiot. They’re never going to let me live this down.

  “Well said,” Beth says quietly.

  Miguel bobs his head. “Agree. Two thumbs up.”

  “Sure,” Leela says. “It was a great speech, but that doesn’t make this a good plan. If we hike to that nest, we’ll be out in the open for at least an hour. Do we really think we can get all the way there without running into a phytoraptor and getting ourselves eaten?”

  “Our Growers and Gatherers come to the surface to tend our gardens and gather food during the night hours,” Tarn says. “They often survive.”

  “Often?” Leela says dubiously.

  “Hey, that’s better than rarely,” Jay says, “but this doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing thing. Jo and I can go alone. You guys can stay here.”

  “Don’t be dumb,” Leela says.

  “I think it’s a very reasonable offer,” Miguel says. “But I’m gonna pass anyway. This little field trip is exactly the kind of deal where you need a doctor along for the ride.”

  “Sorrow’s Solace is in danger. I must help you,” Tarn says.

  “We have less than an hour to sunrise,” Beth says, pointing to the east, where the stars are starting to fade. “And less than three before Stage Three will be deployed.”

  “No time like the present, then,” Jay says.

  “But procrastinating is so much fun,” Miguel quips as he swipes up the lock pad and opens the rear doors.

  The others troop down the ramp, Chris and I bring up the rear. He stops halfway down, looking out over the valley.

  “You can stay here,” I say. “We’ll come back for you when it’s over.”

  “What if you all die?” he says.

  I open my mouth to tell him that won’t happen, but then I close it again. We might. There’s no use pretending otherwise. “That would be pretty bad.”

  “Yeah,” he says. Then he walks down the ramp after the others. Watching his narrow form wade into the grass, I feel all those fears I was talking about congeal in my chest. They weigh so much that I can hardly put one foot in front of the other. But my friends believed me when I said we could do this. I guess that means I have to believe me too.

  “Joey?” Miguel calls back. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say, walking to the bottom of the ramp and tapping the lock screen to close it behind me. “I’m coming.”

  The stars continue to disappear as we slog through the grass. When we reach the cliffs at the southern end of the valley, Jay and Chris free climb to the top. They’re going t
o plant anchor spikes up there so the rest of us can tether in and rappel up the cliff. They’re almost to the top when I see a flicker of colored light out of the corner of my eye. Before I can react, the phytoraptor wearing Jay’s flex barrels right past me and leaps up the cliff. It’s so close I can hear the twang of its claws scraping over the crystal.

  Leela swears. “Did you see that?”

  I dart back from the cliff face and look up, holding my breath. I let it out again in a rush when I see Jay and Chris crawling over the top. They don’t seem to have even noticed the passing raptor.

  “Why didn’t it attack?” Miguel asks, craning to look up. “Not that I’m complaining.”

  My hands are still shaking. “Maybe it didn’t see us,” I say. “It is pretty dark.”

  “No,” Tarn says. “If the Beast was hungry, it would have taken us.”

  “If the Beast was hungry?” I say. “So they aren’t always dangerous?”

  Tarn raises his hands to cover his face, palms out. “They are not always hungry. This doesn’t make them less dangerous.”

  “They’re ready,” Beth says, pointing up to where Jay is waving at the top of the cliffs.

  “Yay,” Leela says dryly. She presses the autoconnect button on her harness. Her tether line shoots out, snaking up the cliff face to connect with one of the anchors. She plants her boots on the cliff and starts climbing, favoring her still-bruised hand. Miguel tandem-tethers with Tarn and I tandem with Beth, just in case my pacers freak out about the exertion and the altitude change. But I make it up just fine. We even beat Miguel and Tarn to the top.

  I walk a few meters into the woods at the top of the cliffs while we wait for them. Blue parrot palms arch over burly solace trees here, just like they did in Jannah.

  There’s a ripple of movement to my left. My head snaps around to scan the forest, but there’s nothing there. Am I imagining things? No. There it is again. And again. Now that I’m focusing on them, I can see flickers of motion whisper through the trees all around me. It looks kind of like a faulty wall screen warping a three-sixty. Except we aren’t in an entertainment center. We’re in the forest on Tau. And those flashes of movement are phytoraptors.

  It takes precious seconds to persuade my feet to move. Now that I’m looking for the creatures, I can see them all around us. I don’t know if I’ll even make it back to the others. With every step, I expect to feel claws sinking into my back or meaty fingers ripping me off my feet. But the attack never comes. The phytoraptors don’t even acknowledge my presence.

  When I get back to my friends, Jay and Leela are helping Tarn over the cliff’s edge while Chris and Beth dig our anchor points out of the rocks.

  “Stop,” I say. “We have to go back. Now.”

  “Joanna,” Beth says, “if we’re to have any hope of—”

  “The woods are full of phytoraptors,” I say. “They’re camouflaged. You can’t see them unless you’re looking. But if you’re looking—”

  “They’re everywhere,” Jay says, alarm sparking in his voice as his hand reflexively goes to his utility harness, where his stun gun used to be. He swears. “God damn it.”

  A thick, pulsing hum floods through the trees. The sound races over my body like the surge of adrenaline I used to feel when I put Grandpa’s Cessna into a controlled dive.

  What is that? And where is it coming from?

  Tarn whistles a minor chord in the Sorrow language. I can’t feel the sonar as clearly as I could in the caves, but the sound is still tangible. Like nausea, prickling over my skin.

  “What’s wrong, Tarn?” I ask.

  “I fear we have chosen poorly,” he says.

  Before I can ask what he means, a huge phytoraptor hurtles over the cliff and barrels straight between us, knocking Chris and Beth aside like bowling pins. Chris fumbles for Ord’s knife, but the Beast doesn’t attack—it just keeps running.

  “What the hell is going on?” Leela shouts.

  “I don’t know,” I say, as more phytoraptors charge past, headed in the same direction.

  “They are being called,” Tarn says. He hoots again in that melancholy tone that makes me feel like I’m going to vomit. Real anxiety layers over the sonar-induced emotional reaction as I see the rainbow-colored strobe of Jay’s flex racing through the trees. Our phytoraptor has reversed course, just like the others.

  “Did you see that?” I call.

  “Yeah.” Jay swears. “Come on! We’re going to lose it!”

  We follow the phytoraptors. There’s no point in trying to stay out of sight. They’re totally focused on that sticky, surging hum. It has to be a Sorrow song. No regular sound could make me feel so . . . itchy. But why would the Sorrow want to call phytoraptors to them?

  Whatever their reasons, it’s working. Phytoraptors are all around us, running past us and climbing through the branches overhead. They’re heading for an open space in the trees up ahead.

  Now that I can see where we’re going, I try to pick up the pace, but Tarn grabs my arm, holding me back.

  “No! Please!” he says. “We must not interrupt the hunt!”

  “Why not?” I ask, hushed.

  He whistle-moans something in Sorrow that makes me feel like my clothes are too tight. “Please, Joanna. Just do as I say.”

  “Sorry, Tarn,” Jay says. “But we need that flex.” He looks to the rest of us. “Stay back here, okay?”

  With that he slips ahead, cautiously weaving through the trees. I follow him. So does Tarn. He whistles in distress as we creep closer. He desperately doesn’t want us to go into that clearing. I understand why Jay is insisting, but ignoring Tarn this way feels wrong, and not just because it’s disrespectful. Tarn has always been so open—if he doesn’t want us here, there must be a good reason.

  Jay finds a dense cluster of parrot palms at the far side of the clearing. The narrow, flexible trunks are so close together we can barely squeeze between them, but they’re good cover. Tarn and I slide in behind him.

  This isn’t a natural clearing. It looks more like a huge arena cut out of the forest. A pair of Givers are standing back to back at its center, singing. Their layered voices make them sound like a whole host of beings, but they seem to be alone. Their translucent robes glow in the navy-blue predawn.

  Phytoraptors are oozing out of the trees from all directions, circling the Givers. They don’t seem to care. They don’t even react to the seething mass of muscles and teeth and hunger that’s swirling around them.

  The Givers’ song takes on a percussive quality—a tactile drumbeat so undeniable, my heart feels like it’s pounding in time. Pulsating. Throbbing. Growing louder and faster with every passing moment. The circling phytoraptors are moving faster too, closing in on the Givers. This is going to get ugly fast.

  Moving in unison, each of the Sorrow pulls a knife from under their robes. Wide, heavy blades with wicked pronged points like the one Ord used in his fight with Pel.

  The Givers’ voices grow even louder as they raise their knives to eye level, blade out. The sonar under the song thuds under my skin, churning through my stomach like ravenous hunger. Charging up my spine like uncontrollable fury. I want to run, as far and as fast as it takes to chase that noise out from under my skin. I also want to kill something. To rip flesh with my bare hands.

  What the hell is happening to me?

  As one, the two Givers swing their knives down and drive the blades into their own abdomens.

  Air punches out of my chest, as though the pronged blades just slammed into my intestines instead of theirs. I can hardly breathe, but the Givers continue to sing as they drag their knives across their bellies. Silver-gray viscera and luminescent blood spill out of their bodies onto the grass. They sway on their feet, but they don’t stop singing. There’s no pain in the deep, tactile thrum of their sonar. It’s victory. Lust. Hunger.

  The Givers collapse.

  For a breathless moment, the silence is deafening.

  Then the phytoraptors at
tack.

  They swarm over the robed bodies, their shrieks and groans cracking through the clearing as silver blood and lumps of flesh fly. They aren’t just feeding. There’s a manic ferocity to it that feels unnatural.

  “What just happened?” I whisper to Tarn. “Why did those Givers do that?”

  “This is why they are called Givers,” he says, his eyes still locked on the gory display at the center of the clearing. “They give their lives so that Beasts may be taken.”

  “Taken?” I say. “Like killed? By who?”

  As if in answer to my question, a projectile whistles through the trees and thuds into one of the swarming phytoraptors. Then another, and another. Phytoraptors are collapsing all over the clearing, bleeding viscous white where the spinning missiles strike home. But the predators are so swept up in their bloodlust, they don’t seem to notice. I look up, searching the trees. In their blackout robes, the Takers look like dense shadows crouched in the branches. I count seven of them up there, raining death down on the phytoraptors.

  Suddenly, it all makes a sick sort of sense. This was a trap, and the Givers were the bait. The Sorrow lured the phytoraptors here and then sacrificed themselves to keep the predators in a feeding frenzy so that the warriors could kill them.

  “I told you, we give lives in order to take the Beasts. It is the only way,” Tarn whispers. “This hunt is a celebration of the new Followed, I am sure of it.” He whistle-moans again. I can’t describe the physical sensation of the sound. It’s too complicated. But it makes me want to cover my ears and run screaming.

  “We have to stop this,” I whisper.

  “I doubt we can,” Jay says. “Besides, it’ll be a lot easier to just grab my flex off that thing’s dead body after the Sorrow leave.”

  “The Takers will not leave the bodies,” Tarn says. “No part of a hunt is wasted. They will bring everything they find back to Sorrow’s Solace. They will either collect the flex or destroy it.”

  “Okay,” Jay says. “Guess we’re going with Hotshot’s plan then.”