The Pioneer

by BRIDGET TYLER

  I try again.

  Something lights up in his eyes this time. He raises a broad, double-opposable-fingered hand and touches it to his head, just above his eyes. Then he draws it out, and up.

  Hello.

  “No way,” Jay says quietly. “Did he just . . . ?”

  I nod. I raise my hand and echo the gesture. Then I add Nice to meet you in slow, careful motions.

  I expect Bob to mirror me. Instead, the raptor points to himself, then taps two fingers on each hand together. He stops for a moment, like he’s confused. Then he puts his thumb together with his gnarled forefinger in a circle, the other fingers straight. That’s a B. Then he closes them, so his hand forms a round O, and then he raises them again. Another B.

  Hello. My name is Bob.

  Fourteen

  The signed words set my brain on fire, rewriting the scene even as I’m living it. Bob spoke to me. He isn’t mimicking. He’s talking. I am officially making First Contact.

  Bob smacks an open hand to his chest. It isn’t sign language, but I get the gist: Pay attention!

  When he’s sure I’m watching, Bob points at me. You. Then he hooks a finger and swipes it downward. Must. Next, he raises his hand to eye level and makes a pinching gesture with his fingers as he draws the hand away from his face.

  Crap. I don’t remember that one.

  Bob repeats the sequence even more emphatically.

  “You must . . . ,” I say, hoping that speaking the words out loud will help my brain translate. It doesn’t. “Damn. What is that sign?”

  A sharp whistle punches through the air.

  I look up to where Miguel is standing on the top of the cliffs, waving his arms to get our attention. The web of light above us is starting to fade. The phytoraptors around us are stirring. Shifting and kneading the soil.

  They’re waking up.

  Bob slaps the surface of the river, pulling my attention back to him. He points at me, then plunges one hand behind the other and pulls it out again.

  That one I know.

  You. Out.

  “It wants us to leave.”

  “Yeah,” Jay says, scanning the stirring around the canyon. “I second that motion.”

  “Move slowly,” Beth says, already starting upstream, slipping between the restless phytoraptors.

  “Or we could run really fast,” Chris says, looking around nervously as we follow Beth. “Just a thought.”

  “Stay frosty,” Leela says. “Let’s keep the ‘Do Not Disturb’ on as long as we can.”

  That’s easier said than done. The phytoraptors are still asleep, but they are no longer quiet. Their blooming tendrils writhe and snap as they retract. I have to turn sideways to slide between a small phytoraptor that bristles with thorns the size of my hand and a huge one covered with tiny, close-packed pink flowers that run up their back in neat rows like stripes. They look like a linebacker dressed up for a sorority party.

  I clamp down on the inappropriate giggle that bubbles in my chest, carbonating my adrenaline into something close to hysteria. I just have to hold it together a little longer. Then we’ll call Mom, she’ll bring us back to the Landing, and I can have a meltdown in peace.

  A cloying smell like burning maple sugar billows around me. It’s coming from a phytoraptor covered in wide, meaty leaves. They drip with some kind of viscous liquid that splatters as each one folds back into their body.

  We give that raptor a wide berth, which leads us straight into a cluster of phytoraptors covered in hair-thin vines. They’re tangled together like a blackberry patch, pulsing in the shifting morning light. There’s no way through, so we have to go around. By the time we reach the ravine wall, a few of the phytoraptors are already sitting back on their haunches and stretching thickly muscled limbs.

  I think this might be more fear than I can live with.

  “Just keep moving,” Jay mutters, urging me on with a hand on my back.

  We creep forward, low and slow. It’s the slow part that’s killing me. We’re so close. Leela and Beth are already scrambling up the cascade of boulders that leads out of the ravine. Every muscle in my body wants to charge up the rocks and hit the top running. But this is no time to panic. We’re almost out of here.

  Chris is about to start climbing when a phytoraptor covered in dense, curling tendrils that sparkle with bits of metal and crystal throws their head back, smacking into Chris as they stretch.

  Chris shrieks in terror.

  Behind me, Jay whisper shouts, “It’s okay, Chris! They’re still asleep!”

  But before Jay can get the words all the way out, Chris yanks Ord’s black knife from his belt and drives it upward into the phytoraptor’s eyes. The raptor explodes from half-sleep into a scream of agony and collapses forward on top of him. The sound snaps through the valley, whipping through the phytoraptors as though an invisible hand has jerked them awake.

  “Run!” Jay shouts, shoving me forward. It takes both of us to drag the phytoraptor corpse off Chris. He almost stabs me as he flails with his knife, shrieking blindly in terror. Jay heaves the corpse into the path of the vine-covered phytoraptors who are still detangling themselves even as they seethe toward us.

  I grab Chris and half throw him up the trail ahead of me. I don’t look back at Jay. It would slow me down and put us all in more danger. I know he’s right behind me. I can hear his boots scrambling up the rocks.

  Then he isn’t.

  Jay screams.

  “Keep going, Chris!” I shout. Then I twist my body, leaning into my uphill leg and letting my momentum skate me down the wash to Jay. I reach him as he punches the phytoraptor who just clawed his leg. I plant my downhill foot and let gravity spin my slide into a kick. My boot thuds into the phytoraptor’s head, and they tumble backward off the narrow path. I lose my balance too, but I manage to fall back against the cliffs instead of over the edge.

  Jay swears continuously as he tries to push himself upright. I find my feet again and duck under his shoulder, supporting his injured leg.

  “Are you okay?” I pant, ignoring the shrieking apocalypse of my muscles as I pull both of us up the rocks again.

  “I’m great,” Jay says. “Except for the about-to-get-eaten part.”

  “We’re not going to get eaten.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  As if to prove me wrong, heavy footsteps churn up the wash behind us. The phytoraptors are swarming straight up the cliffs ahead of us too, blocking our way out. Any second now, we’re going to be surrounded. Shortly after that, we’re going to be dead.

  A spark of light zips past my head.

  There’s a fleshy thud and a shriek behind me.

  Another sparkling object arcs just in front of us. It’s a chunk of crystal! It smacks into a phytoraptor clinging to the cliffs ahead of us. The raptor shrieks as they lose their grip and fall.

  “Take that, swamp thing!” Miguel shouts from the top of the cliff. Then he hurls another chunk of rock straight down onto another phytoraptor climbing below him. They fall with a howl.

  Miguel keeps pelting the phytoraptors as we scramble up the last few meters. It’s working. Even when Miguel misses, the light catching on his glittering missiles seems to distract and disorient the raptors.

  I pull Jay up the last meter. Leela and Chris are waiting at the top to help him over the edge of the cliff.

  “You’re a genius, Miguel!” I shout, scrambling out of the wash.

  “I know, right?” He turns to throw me one of his classic, face-splitting grins. Enjoying the moment.

  A huge phytoraptor with a lion’s mane of blue-purple tendrils sprouting all over their head springs over the edge of the cliff behind him.

  “Miguel!” I shout as the raptor charges, but it’s already too late. The lion-maned phytoraptor tackles Miguel off the cliff.

  The phytoraptor leaps free, hitting the ground in a rolling bounce. Miguel doesn’t bounce. He smashes, his body shattering against the rocks.

  My stomach clenche
s and flips, vomiting up a sob that is also a scream.

  A thick, muscular hand closes around my ankle.

  I look down. A huge phytoraptor with a crest of bold yellow petals running down their spine grins up at me. It’s Sunflower.

  The raptor yanks down hard, pulling me backward off the cliff.

  I fall.

  I throw myself forward, reaching for the jagged face of the cliff. The rocks cut into my palms but I hang on, scrambling my feet against the cliff face until my boots snag on a narrow foothold.

  I cling, gasping for air.

  I can hear Sunflower hooting and growling below me. They must have dropped to the canyon floor when they pulled me down, expecting me to fall. Now they’re coming back up the cliff after me. I can hear them grunt with each leap upward.

  I try to climb, but the razor-sharp crystal digs deep into my hands, making my fingers go numb when I try to pull myself up.

  Leela calls over the cliff above me, “Jo! Hold on! I’m coming!”

  “No!” I shout. The word is out before I know why I’m saying it. Then I realize, “I need an anchor!”

  Leela catches on immediately. She’s already ripping an anchor stake from her harness as she shouts, “Tarn! Help me!”

  Sunflower reaches for my ankle again. I kick down hard. My foot connects with their head. The impact radiates up my leg and nearly jars my numb hands free of the rocks, but it works.

  Sunflower screams in outrage as they slide down the cliff face below me. The tearing shriek almost drowns out Leela as she shouts, “Do it, Jo!”

  I slap the control panel on my harness. The tether shoots out, winding around me like a living thing. Searching. But not finding. It can’t sense the tether point on Leela’s anchor.

  The cliffs are blocking its sensors. I need a clear line of sight.

  I’m going to have to jump.

  The image of Miguel’s shattered body slams through my brain, followed by an even more terrifying thought. Jay’s flex is zipped up in a pocket on my harness. If I fall and die, the others won’t be able to get back to the Landing in time to stop Stage Three.

  The future of this whole planet is riding on me. On a single leap.

  Fear wraps itself around me, paralyzing me for precious seconds. Then another memory runs over my panic, dissolving the stiff helplessness. Miguel’s beautiful smile fills my mind.

  Walk in the present, Jo.

  He’s right. He was right. He still is.

  I plant my boots against the cliff and shove myself upward with all my strength.

  Everything gets really slow as my body arcs up and away from the cliff face. The pale sky above me is flecked with the last hint of stars. I feel light, as though I could simply evaporate into the morning.

  Then my tether line snaps taut, slamming me back against the cliff face.

  Crystal cuts into my face and bare left arm.

  I scream.

  The tether holds.

  Claws slice through my jeans as I smack the control panel on my harness again. The tether retracts, dragging me free of Sunflower’s grip, over the top of the cliff, and straight into Leela’s arms.

  A dozen meters ahead, Beth and Chris are helping Jay jog-limp down the mountain after Tarn.

  “Miguel—” I start to say, but Leela cuts me off.

  “He’s gone, right?”

  I nod.

  “Then we gotta keep moving,” she says. She shifts her grip on my waist and propels me forward without asking any more questions.

  We’re moving downhill now, running in long, leaping strides as gravity shoves us forward. The sun is rising over my left shoulder. We’re going south, toward the hot spot. I feel light and strange. Like my brain is still falling off that cliff. The image of Miguel grinning at me as the huge phytoraptor charged at him from behind burns through my brain on loop. The memory feels fake. Like a dream that doesn’t make any sense. We were out. We should have been okay. But we aren’t. We never were. Nothing about this place has been right, from the very start.

  The ground is suddenly crumbling under my feet. The vegetation is thinner here, and the hard mountain soil is getting softer, fading into blinding-white dunes up ahead.

  As we cross onto the powder-fine sand, it billows up in clouds around us, sticking to my lips and crusting around my eyes, clinging to tears I didn’t know I was crying. My feet sink up to my shins with every step. It’s impossible to run, but that doesn’t matter. The phytoraptors don’t seem to be willing to go into the sand. They stop at the last of the scraggly trees and prowl there, watching us from their branches.

  I crest the dune, and an outrageously bright turquoise ocean crashes below me. Perfect waves curl up onto the sand, shining like blown glass in the morning light. I stop and stare, snatched out of my pain by the glory of the water and the sunlight and the sand.

  Miguel will never see this. He’ll never sink his toes into this sand. He’ll never surf those waves.

  Walk in the present, Joey.

  I hate the present. The present sucks.

  But I’m in it now. The empty lightness is gone, and with it the paralyzing sense of unreality. Miguel died. We’re alive. We have the flex. And we still have time to use it.

  “Where’s the hot spot?” I call to Leela. She’s a few paces ahead of me now.

  She points to a big rock jutting out of the water just offshore. I don’t see it at first, but then the artificial gleam of solar panels catches my eye. Once I know where to look, I can see the bristle of antenna poking out of the rocks above the panels.

  As I watch, Chris lunges out of the water and grabs the rock, hauling himself up to the hot spot.

  “Chris swam out there?” I say. “By himself?”

  “He’s the engineer,” Leela says. “Let’s just hope he can get it running.”

  I fish Jay’s flex out of my pocket. It comes to life under my fingers.

  “Computer, call Jo’s Mom.”

  “Searching for wireless network,” the flex replies. “Searching for wireless network. Searching for wireless network.”

  Leela and I exchange a look.

  “Searching for wireless network,” the flex says again.

  “What are we going to do if Chris can’t get the hot spot back online?” I say.

  “He’s going to get the hot spot online,” Leela says firmly. But I can hear the doubt under her confident tone.

  “Searching for wireless network.”

  My heart feels like it’s crumbling. This isn’t working. Miguel died for nothing.

  “Searching for—” the computer cuts itself off. “Connected.”

  “He did it,” Leela breathes.

  “Computer, call Commander Watson,” I say.

  “Connecting,” the computer says promptly. “Please wait.”

  My mother’s face appears on the flex. Time and space blur around me as the familiar sound of her voice fills my ears. I’m not sure what she’s saying. Or what I say to her. All I know is she’s going to stop Stage Three, and then she’s going to come for us.

  I close the call and walk down to the water. I pull off my boots and sit down on the wet sand where the waves can lick at my toes. No one follows me. I expect to be glad, but I’m not. I don’t want to be alone.

  That’s new.

  Actually, it’s old. I never liked being alone before Teddy died. I’m not sure I liked it after, either. I just felt like I deserved it. I think I’ve been growing a hard shell since the accident. An invisible carapace, holding the sharp edges of the world away from my aching skin. I didn’t realize it was there until now. I don’t know where it went. But it’s gone.

  “Don’t get melodramatic about this,” Leela’s voice says behind me.

  I turn to see her walking down the beach toward me. She drops to the wet sand at my side.

  “I’m doing my best,” I say.

  “Good,” she says. She swipes tears from her eyes. “’Cause Miguel would be pissed if you used him as an excuse to get all w
ithdrawn and edgy again.”

  We stare at the water. There are so many things to say, but the words have knotted around each other in my head. I can’t find a loose thread to pick and let them out.

  Miguel would know. Miguel could always find the simplest way to look at a problem.

  So what’s the very simplest thing I could say right now?

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  Leela rolls her eyes. “You are such a drama queen. I know you love to take credit for things, but you can’t blame yourself for the GFP playing E.T. surprise party with us, neglecting to give Beth pertinent information, and nearly causing us to terraform Tau to death. It’s their fault Miguel died. Not yours.”

  “No,” I say. “I meant . . . I’m sorry I was a jerk about you being cadet pilot. And everything else. Basically.”

  “Oh,” Leela says. She takes a deep breath and looks back out at the waves. “Well, I was a pretty big jerk, too. About a lot of stuff. So . . .” She trails off, but it doesn’t feel like she’s done talking, so I don’t say anything.

  She just sits there for a while, digging out a hole in the sand with the toe of her boot. Finally, she says, “It’s not like I wanted to be cadet pilot, you know. I like protecting people. That’s why I was going into the marines. Being a pilot feels like I’m risking other people’s lives all the time.”

  “I never thought of flying that way,” I say.

  “That’s why you’re good at it,” Leela says.

  “That’s why I was good at it,” I say.

  We get quiet again, but that feels okay. Something has changed between us. I don’t know if I can really describe it. I feel like Leela’s been far away for the last two years, and suddenly we’re sitting next to each other again.

  The tide is coming in. The waves aren’t just licking at my toes anymore, they’re splashing over my jeans and spattering what’s left of my shirt and hair with water so salty it stings. I get up and hold a hand out to Leela. She takes it and lets me pull her to her feet. I try to let go, but she hangs on.

  “I was so mad at Teddy after he died,” she says.

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” she says quietly. “I know you thought I was mad at you, and I guess I let you think that, but I wasn’t. Not really. I was mad at him.”