by J. N. Chaney
The rules of the game were simple. Janus would randomly choose one of the players to start it off. That person got the ball first. Their goal was to throw the ball at any of the other players and tag them. If they hit someone, that was a point. If the person caught the ball, they lost a point. No points were added or subtracted if the ball missed. If that happened, anyone could claim the ball.
Sometimes, if there weren’t too many adults around, we changed the rules. Like the point system. Extra for the face, if someone fell, or if the ball was slapped back at the thrower for a tag.
The concept of enjoying nature was foreign to me. All I knew was ice, dark, and perpetual danger. Still, as my mother reminded me on certain occasions, we were alive. Many couldn’t say the same. And we had fun. Hunting was fun, learning to shoot was fun.
As I’d grown older, the stories lost their appeal and I’d stopped coming.
Now I was back.
Questions burned in my mind. Were the Boneclaws intelligent? Could they be reasoned with? All this time we had been hunting them, but maybe it didn’t have to be that way.
I brought up all of the files we had, dating back to the Eternals’ first experiments. Janus had educated each of us on the subject before, of course, but I hadn’t paid a lot of attention. As a kid, it had been completely boring and unimportant, having never seen one before.
The Eternals that had brought the fearsome beasts to life were long gone, and history lessons had never caught my attention. We were all that remained, the ones left to deal with their mess.
Not that they hadn’t paid the price for their meddling.
Many from those first days of the collapse had perished. Fear and unrest had gripped the survivors, and paired with the elements of an unforgiving ice planet, the colony’s numbers had dropped significantly.
Self-preservation kicked in at some point and the colonists managed to make it through the first year following the collapse, though they could never repopulate to their earlier numbers.
Now, as I scanned the reports and pictures, I couldn’t help but feel some awe for their achievements. It was hard to imagine living in the compound while it ran at full potential.
None of the people in the footage wore furs or scrap metal armor. Their clothes consisted of clean, crisp jumpsuits, lab coats, and new boots. We had similar garments, but they were all worn and patched. Every so often, a scavenger team would come across a container of new clothes in the cave that were undamaged and bring them back. The contents were quickly redistributed amongst those who needed them most.
I opened a report at random and began to read in earnest. It detailed the first real success of the program and spoke of solutions to the aging problem they had been sent here to fix.
Eternals had thought themselves immortal, and for a long time they had achieved something close, even succeeding at accelerated healing. I did remember the lesson where all of their gene manipulation had resulted in the appearance that we still bore today.
Pale skin, white hair, and blue eyes. We’d kept the looks, but none of the other aspects. Our average lifespan was just about 150 years, although our eldest could live as long as 200, and we certainly still took time to heal. As a child, I broke my leg. It had taken a week to recover, even with the compounding brace that held everything together while still allowing for almost normal movement. Janus had said that we were better off than our ancient ancestors—the people before the Eternals—who took even longer to recover and whose lives were even shorter, so I tried to be thankful for what few blessings I could count.
He also told us of the transmissions between the scientists here and the Eternals back on Earth, which had long since ended.
At first, they had only sought to fix the degradation issue, but with each breakthrough, more problems arose that needed to be solved.
Enamored with their own superiority, the scientists had continued to manipulate the Eternal genetic code. Through all of their work, never had they stopped to consider whether their methods might yield catastrophic results. Never had they slowed to weigh the value of any alternate paths. Only the goal had mattered to them, and they pursued it through all available channels.
That thinking had cost them dearly. They were dead now, long since killed by their own horrible creations.
Moving on, I discovered a file dated around the time of the disaster. Curious, I opened it and found footage from one of the experiments, as well as research notes from the session.
Subject: BN009
Lead: Dr. Emanuel Curtis
Day: 379
BN009 shows no sign of degradation despite reaching maturity 299 days ago. Strength tests (previously documented) exceeded all expectations. Eyes remain vestigial. Hearing 50% more efficient than current Eternal physiology. As previously noted, the genetic sequencing of the new specimen demands attention. Dr. Tresbin believes it may hold the key to solving the degeneration problem, but more time is needed to analyze and test the subject’s genetic susceptibility to the degeneration sequence.
Today will mark another attempt to further assess healing and regeneration abilities.
An ominous feeling began to build in my belly, but I opened the holo file anyway.
The view room’s light dimmed, and one wall played the holo feed. A large lab appeared on screen. Two scientists wearing standard lab coats and holding pads stood in front of a heavily fortified enclosure with a Boneclaw inside. They were Eternals, though they looked like any of my people.
The animal sat listlessly in the far-right corner of the bare cell. Its eyes were open, but they stared unseeing at nothing in particular. This was an early form of the Boneclaws I knew. It had eyes, although they were unmoving. Perhaps it was blind, too, despite holding onto its useless organ.
“Commence trial 380a,” the scientist on the left said.
The Boneclaw’s ears perked up, showing that it had heard the man speak, but it didn’t otherwise react. The second man nodded and worked from his pad, tapping in commands.
A panel inside the enclosure opened and a mechanical arm slid out. There was a slight hiss of pressure being released, then the animal jerked, and something bounced off its coat and rolled across the floor.
“Up the pressure by ten percent.”
The scientist worked the pad again and repeated the process. It only took another two tries before the projectile embedded in the Boneclaw, causing it to screech in pain and scrape at its arm.
I felt a gnawing at my conscience watching the video. It continued like that, the scientists trying various tests meant to determine the poor animal’s limits.
“Moving on to audiometric data,” said the first scientist. He seemed utterly unmoved by the suffering he was inflicting on his test subject.
Both men donned earpieces before a shrill tone filled the room. It increased in decibels every ten seconds until the Boneclaw’s ears began to twitch. It swiveled its head as if trying to figure out where the offending sound was coming from.
As the pitch continued to rise, Subject BN009 began to exhibit more signs of discomfort. It tried to cover its ears, but the awkward length of its arms and clawed hands offered no relief. It finally began to stomp around the cage, banging its fists on anything it could reach, roaring as it went until it finally collapsed on the floor, writhing in agony.
I shut the recording off, unable to stomach the rest. I left the view room to try and get some rest, but it took a long time to finally sleep, and when I did, the animal’s tortured screams followed me into my dreams.
3
When my alarm went off the next morning, I woke feeling more at ease than I expected, given the subject of my midnight studies. The Boneclaw and its plight seemed far away now, and I pushed it from my mind.
Or tried to.
The footage of the tortured creature was over two thousand years old. Even if they had been more human-like back then, they were killers now.
In my mind’s eye, I pulled up the picture of the Boneclaw’s razor-
sharp talon racing toward my father. It had come so close to killing him. If not for Nero, he’d likely be dead.
I ignored the little voice in my head that said we’d attacked first. It was survival of the fittest on this frozen world. If we hadn’t killed the Boneclaw, it would have gladly ripped us to shreds and gobbled up the pieces.
This wasn’t news, so why couldn’t I get their sad mourning song out of my head? My father, as usual, had been right. Thinking of them as anything but monsters was a sure way to second guess myself and get killed.
My datapad beeped again, telling me it was time to get moving. I sat up and gave my space a cursory glance. The room was small, just over two and a half square meters. Not that any of us did much more than sleep in them anyway.
Each of the three facilities in the sprawling cave network had been built to house more than three times our current number. Even after the collapse, when some of the living quarters had been destroyed, they still outnumbered the bodies available to fill them.
Despite that fact, many colonists still chose to sleep in communal areas. On some level, I could see the appeal. At times, the underground compound had a claustrophobic effect and the shared areas were more open.
I preferred to have somewhere of my own to go, at least to sleep.
To conserve energy, the lights were set to ten percent and cast a dim glow in the small space, not enough to do more than get dressed and stumble out into the slightly brighter hallway, but that was fine with me.
According to my data pad, it was well into the morning. If I didn’t get into gear, all the good helpings would be long gone. Another hunting party had returned after ours, and they’d brought in an adult frost horn.
Our food machine recycled edible material into full meals, and Janus did a decent job making different offerings. Not that I had anything to compare them to. In any case, the food quality went up several notches after feeding the synthesizer frost horn meat.
It didn’t take me long to realize that I was far too late and the few people that remained in the dining hall were chowing down one of Janus’ synthesized oatmeal dishes. With a reluctant sigh, I grabbed a bowl and sat down at an empty table.
I wasn’t alone for long, though. Before I took my first bite, Josef sat down and placed his tray next to mine without preamble.
“Good morning,” he said, and spooned up a mouthful of the oatmeal. “Mmm, strawberry.”
“Morning,” I replied, digging in with more enthusiasm. Strawberry was my favorite flavor and it took some of the sting away from missing out on frost horn.
“You look tired,” I said, noting the circles under Josef’s eyes and his rumpled jumpsuit.
Josef shot me a glance and his lips twitched up into a teasing smirk. “You’re not looking so fresh yourself, Prospus Visaro.”
“I was digging through the archives,” I said defensively. It came out a little ruder than I intended, and Josef’s smile faded. Grinning broadly to lighten the mood, I rambled on. “With Selection around the corner, I want to be as prepared as possible. Can’t have Nero beating me.”
I grinned, but Jo didn’t seem amused. If anything, his expression darkened, and his tone went uncharacteristically flat.
“If he becomes the next leader, we are in for some trying times indeed.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s irresponsible. You’re clearly the better choice.” Josef winked at me, but his harsh words surprised me.
The engineer was usually soft spoken and uncritical. To hear him speak like that about Nero made me wonder if he knew something. But that was ridiculous.
“Oh, come on,” I chided. “You don’t think he’s holding a grudge or out to get me because his dad lost to my dad?”
Josef just shrugged.
I wrinkled my brow at that. It was true, though. During the last Selection, the choice had come down to our fathers. Even though Cyril had been the ultimate champion, chosen by the Primes as the next colony leader, the two remained friends and I’d never even seen them argue.
“No. I just wouldn’t put anything past him.” Josef’s response interrupted my thoughts and I refocused.
“I won’t,” I promised. “Besides, we’re a long way off from my dad’s retirement.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Forget I said anything,” said Josef, and he scrubbed at his face. “I’m just tired. Elias had me researching the grid all night.”
“Oh. Any news?”
Josef shook his head. “Not really. The predictions are still holding. Without the other tritium core this facility will be in the dark within a hundred years. Two if we’re careful.”
“I remember,” I said with a nod. “That’s why we have to keep hunting the frost horn.”
“For as long as we can, yes.”
Something about his tone was unsettling and I studied his face. Josef was a year younger than me, but it didn’t show. Like everyone else in the colony, he had blue eyes, white hair, and pale skin with the markings of our ancestors.
He was usually pleasant, radiating an air of calm, but not today. I could see now that there was something more than weariness in his features. Worry creased his forehead, prompting me to dig deeper.
“What do you mean?” I asked, homing in on the cryptic phrase. “Is this something we need to bring to the Prime’s attention?”
Josef waved my concern away. “It’s not a crisis or anything. At least not yet. It’s just that…” He trailed off as a small group walked by our table, then started again. “Have you noticed anything different about the herds lately?”
I thought back to my most recent outing, unsure of what he meant. Then something Alma said on the hunt came back to me.
“We had to track longer than before to reach a herd. Almost out of the valley.”
He nodded. “Their numbers are beginning to wane.”
That made me frown. “Isn’t it normal for this part of the year? We assumed they were migrating.”
“They are,” agreed Josef. “But they are going farther and farther each season.”
“Why?” I asked, confused by what he was saying.
“Before we came here, the frost horns only had one natural predator,” he answered.
“Yeah. The wolves.”
The image of the animal that came to mind wasn’t an exact match for their Earthly namesake, but it was easy to see the similarities. Like the frost horns, the wolves sported thick white fur that helped them blend in with the snowy environment. Four long claws protruded from each of their six well-muscled appendages. They were faster than any human, often standing on two legs and using their heavy tail for balance.
It was an odd sight when they did. I’d seen it for myself on a few hunts and it always unnerved me. If they were standing upright and you were squinting from a distance, they could almost pass for one of us.
Until you got up close.
In addition to a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth, there was a single tongue-like organ. To take down prey, the wolves would latch on to their backs with four legs and rip at the thick frost horn hide with the remaining two. Once through to the meat, the tongue would worm its way inside, attach to the poor animal, and release a paralytic agent.
It usually took a pack of wolves to take down a full-grown frost horn and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Not as bad as a Boneclaw at feeding time, since they sucked their meals dry, but still gross.
The original colonists had collected a few samples upon their arrival, but when the tests didn’t yield anything they deemed useful, the animals had been forgotten. Thinking of the footage from the night before, I couldn’t say that was a bad thing.
I could see where Josef was going with the conversation now.
“Then came the Boneclaws,” he continued.
“And us,” I finished for him. “You think they’re being over hunted?”
He nodded. “With three apex predators around, they can’t reproduce fast enough.”
“Without the oil we harvest from
them, we’ll be forced to find an alternative.”
From the pinched look on his face, I had a feeling that was the root of the problem.
“What alternatives are there?” I asked.
“As far as we know, there aren’t any other animals like them on the planet. Scans have shown that their numbers are greater elsewhere, but…”
“Leaving isn’t an option,” I said.
Now I understood his fear. If we didn’t figure out a way around this, then the colony wouldn’t survive.
“Well, you said we have two hundred years to figure it out, right?” I asked, trying to be cheerful.
He nodded but didn’t look convinced. “If we’re careful.”
I nodded firmly. “With our best engineer on top of it, I’m sure it will work out.”
Finally, Josef cracked a smile. “Best engineer? I’m hardly a Prime. But thanks, Luce. Anyway, I noticed you found my notes. The staff is looking good. I can help you with the coding later if you want.”
I couldn’t help but smile at the thought. We’d been working on my weapon together for the last few months and it only needed a few more things to get it working.
Josef had a fusion core in the lab that we used for testing, but if I wanted to have a working staff to bring to the Engineer Prime during Selection, I’d have to find my own during the scavenging test that would take place in the caves.
“Yes, if you have time.”
“For you, always.” Jo’s datapad beeped, so he pulled it out of his pocket, then frowned.
“Elias wants me. Catch up with you later, okay?”
Having already been chosen for engineering, his studies were over. Now he worked closely with Elias Doyle, the Science and Engineering Prime, and was being groomed as his successor.
“Sure,” I said, scraping the last of my oatmeal and standing up. “I’d better get going too or I’ll be late for Janus’ class.”
He laughed as we walked to drop off our trays. “For an artificial lifeform who has all the time in the world, he’s pretty strict about keeping a schedule.”