“It’s deep… eww! It’s covered in sticky wet stuff like glue.”
She sniffed at her fingers, then screwed up her nose.
“Smells disgusting.”
“I don’t like this,” I said. “I think we should go,”
“Not before we’ve found what we came for,” Nako said. “Either Jacinda gives us the information herself or we get it from the computer. She can’t be that far away.”
“You know what I don’t like about this place?” I said.
“What’s that?” Nako asked as she peered into the capsule interior.
“The forest is silent. There’s no sign of life. Don’t you think that’s strange?”
“It's better that than hearing a tiger or a snake heading our way,” Nako replied.
I turned at the sound of a rattle in the foliage behind me. There was nothing but tall green bushes.
“Okay. I was wrong about the silence. Did you hear that noise?”
“That was the wind,” Nako replied. “Where do you think she got to?”
She looked back at the boot prints.
“At least, we don’t see a body,” I said.
“Not yet you mean, don’t you?” Nako said.
She was on her tiptoes trying to peer through the hatch above her head.
“Okay, you move out of the way,” I told her. “Let me take a look inside,” I said.
She stepped away from the hatchway and went back to examining the boot prints on the ground.
I ran my hands over the metal edge of the capsule’s skin and pulling myself up, peered into the dark interior. Sticky white crystals of sand coated the inside.
“The thing full of the desert,” I told her. “At a guess, I would say she got into trouble with the storms and blasted out of there then crash-landed here.”
“If that’s what happened, she probably ran out of fuel,” Nako said.
“Or she got caught in a tornado and—” I began.
There was that rattle from the foliage again.
I turned to see nothing but plants surrounding me.
“Was that the noise you heard before?” She asked.
“Yes, and there’s not a breath of wind.”
“You know, I don’t think we are alone,” Nako said looking around for the source in bewilderment.
Her voice dropped to a whisper as she peered into the forest.
“I can’t see anything but trees and bushes. Can you?”
“Not a thing,” I told her. “You don’t think Jacinda might be lying on the ground injured, do you?” I asked.
“Let me see what my HUD shows,” she replied.
She closed her helmet and visor and did a slow three-sixty of the area. Then she retracted her headgear and looked at me.
“Nothing,” she said, looking just a little relieved. “I should see a heat signal. I used a five-hundred-yard perimeter check, but the only heat signal I saw apart from our own is the residue heat around the capsule. If she’s anywhere close, she has probably been dead for hours. Or else, she isn’t anywhere close.”
“Where the heck did they everyone go?” I asked.
25
More Dust
The ridge was one massive dune that took the best part of an hour to climb. At least, I was not getting stuck. My boots were barely leaving an imprint on the steep side. I concluded that under a thin layer of sand there was a regular rock. When I reached the top, I gazed at the land stretching out before me. The desert went on forever both in front and behind as well as a way to my left. The land to my right looked far more promising. A line of purple hills and beyond a much thicker line of dark green. The desert ended at the hills. The boundary was an almost straight line.
Nako was not more than a half a mile from where I stood on the peak. I could make out the sparkle of light reflected from the metallic curves of her capsule.
I gazed back across the white desert again. It was flat like salt flats that ran all the way to the horizon. The sky was still alive with clouds that formed and disappeared. Someone might as well have been blowing puffs of smoke into the air. Each puff was blasted away by a sudden burst of air. Below the cloud puffs, dust storms darted across the dry surface. Elsewhere, I saw that the clouds grew into tornados that touched down briefly before vanishing back into the air, absorbed completely into the pale blue sky.
Nako’s voice crackled in my ears.
“I can see you on the dune. Take it easy on the way down. You don’t need an injury.”
It took another twenty minutes of trudging over the sand before I was able to see her capsule. It was a perfect landing. The capsule appeared to be balanced in the sand in an upright position. I had to turn to look back the way I had come. It didn’t seem possible. The huge dune must have shielded her.
She ran to me and threw her arms around my neck.
“So good to see you,” she told me.
“You didn’t see the twister at all?” I asked in disbelief.
“I saw a cloud form on the other side of the dune. It bubbled out of nothing. I watched it turn brown and saw it move to the East before it disappeared.”
“That would be the one that picked me up,” I said.
“The sky has been weird from the time I arrived,” she said. “I’ve been watching twisters in the distance. They come and go. Have you noticed the sun?”
I follow her finger to the orange ball in the sky.
“There must be a layer of dust high up in the atmosphere,” she said, gazing up at the burning orb through her darkened visor a moment longer. “It seems bigger than normal though. I didn’t know dust would have that effect on it.”
“We must be at a high altitude,” I told her. Even as I said the words I realized how silly they sounded. “Not that being higher up means the sun would appear larger.”
“You think we’re in the mountains?” She asked as she made her helmet disappear inside her suit.
“Sure,” I said, pretending more confidence than I actually felt. “The air’s thinner here, just as you might expect if we were high above sea level.”
“The HUD says the same, but it doesn’t look like we’re in the mountains to me. Does it really look that way to you?”
I shrugged. What other explanation could there be?
“My best bet is we’re on the Tibetan Plateau,” I suggested.
“Do you know how high that is?” She asked. “And by the way, you’re a know-it-all.”
“I’ve read about it,” I told her with a grin. “I always wanted to go to the Himalayas. To answer your question, it’s around fourteen thousand feet above sea level.”
“No way are we that high up!” She said with a laugh.
“There should be less oxygen than we have here, if we were at that elevation,” I admitted.
“That’s right,” she said. “Another thing wrong with the idea we’re in Tibet is that bloody jungle.”
She pointed to the dark green horizon.
“Yes, I saw that when I was in the air,” I said.
“Well, I’m no geography expert, but I thought Tibet was all mountains and grassland,” she told me.
“Me too,” I replied. “But, if we’re not in Tibet or Mongolia, then I’ve no idea where we were. So, what are we supposed to do now?”
“Locate our most esteemed mission commander, and find out what she knows,” she said.
“Good idea,” I said.
Geography was one of Nako’s strong points. I think it must have come from her interest in things military. She told us at Burbank and Rosen she wanted to be a space marine. She remembered applying for a cadetship and hoping to work in military intelligence where she would be able to use her language ability. Her dream came to a shattering end when she became a Zero like the rest of us. They didn’t take non-human combatants unless you were a hybrid, dog, dolphin, or robot. Even hybrids were eventually considered human.
She said she didn’t remember most of it. She said it must have involved a parent or her family, and all that memor
y had been blocked. I always thought the role of second-in-command had fallen to her because she had shown an interest in joining the military. That was showing them she had right aptitude for that kind of thing. It was just what the two professors and especially Major Concorde would have been excited to find in her records.
“Have you asked the computer where you are?” I asked.
“The stupid thing won’t tell me. When I asked it gave me a recorded message from Major Concorde telling me to locate Jacinda and assemble the team as soon as we landed. He said she would tell us all we needed to know.”
“She must have known about the mission,” I said, suddenly angry. “What a bitch! All this time.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Nako told me. “That same message would have been available for everyone on their console once they landed. If their computers weren’t broken like yours. She may have waited for her computer to tell her what we needed to know.”
“Let’s find her,” I said.
“The computer model shows all the rest of the capsules behind the tree line,” she said. “Jacinda’s is the closest to us.”
Suddenly I could see the worry in her eyes.
“Atoma, I spoke to Kali, it was really difficult to understand what she was saying. She said she has talked to Rachel who told her Sinead and Hana are with her. She said they had not been able to reach Jacinda.”
“What about Diah?”
“She might have mentioned her, but I lost the connection.”
“Have you tried since?”
“Yes, but she doesn’t reply.”
Nako stared at me.
“You don’t think they are all dead do you?”
“How would that happen? You were talking to them. They would have said if they were in immediate danger.”
“Maybe they didn’t know they were. We better keep our eyes open.”
26
Boy with a Sword
The figure on his mount watched the purple mat grass flatten as the tongue of the wind lapped the hillside. The flank of the beast twitched under him. Danger could stay hidden in the forest until the last second when it might spring at them from above or below. The rider whispered to the creature to comfort it. He had been hunting for a specific trophy for two days and now that he had it was about to return home.
A chance to hunt didn't present itself often. There was regular training at the warrior center to keep up with and he needed to fulfill his monthly obligation as a warrior to take part in the border patrol that protected the borders of the valley from infiltration.
The valley was a full day ride away from the village. He would have made it back late in the evening if he had not decided to investigate the strange sight he saw in the sky. The decision was about to change his life in ways he could have barely comprehended.
His steed was massive. The back was almost twice the height of the boy which made the stable where it was rested and cared for, as was all the steeds ridden by the warriors, the largest building in the village after the Hall of the Councilors. The animal now belonged to him. Or perhaps it was truer to say he belonged to it. Three years had passed since the young creature chosen him.
There was a chill in the breeze as usual when he got this close to the desert. He could smell the metallic door of the sand in the air. The animal stamped the ground and snorted. It hated the desert. It was more dangerous than the jungle. Neither it nor any other jigatsu or the warriors they carried on their backs could survive three days in such a place.
“Easy,” the boy whispered.
The boy was sixteen Earth years though not a skinny kid by any means. He was fighting fit. His body strengthened by years of martial training with his uncle. Every day at sunup, until the boy’s mother called them in for breakfast, they would cut and thrust at each other with long hardwood swords and blunted pikes. Each move was precise, and each heavy strike and stab was safely absorbed or deflected by the thick protective tunics and armor they wore.
Their armor protected the combatant’s head, face and neck, torso, hands, forearms and elbows, and shins and knees. And yet it was light enough not to limit their full movement.
Now he was lightly clad. A hunt required speed and stealth and neither were possible wearing a protective tunic and armor. There was also more honor in giving his prey some opportunity to win. When a hunt was not about bringing food home, it was about increasing one’s personal social standing. Along with any recognition earned for being a good hunter, testing one’s battlefield techniques in a hunt, no matter how one sided it often became, was something most warriors took great pride in.
He rested the palm of his hand on the bound silver heft of the long sword hanging next to his blood-red leather saddle. The thin double edged metal blade had a long bound hasp because it took two hands to wield a blade of that length and weight.
He ran his hands over the soft plates of the dead Kuranbatuz stretched over the front of his saddle. It had been a clean kill. One slash of the blade had neatly cut through both throats. To take out both the creature’s heads in one draw of the sword was a marker of skill, a rare feat even among experienced hunters. He knew his uncle would be able to tell from the state of the corpse that he had done so. His uncle would be proud of him. The armor of the dead animal had already begun to lose its bright colors. Another reason to get back to the village before the whole body took on the tray-blue hue of death.
He turned his mount around and headed back down the trail they had taken from the jungle. He hoped to meet no more Kuranbatuz, but he knew he probably would. They could smell their dead at a great distance and would come out to investigate. The scent of a dead Kuranbatuz presented the possibility they had met their match and usually that animal would be badly wounded as a result of the fight.
The apex predators had ferocious appetites and would never turn down the opportunity of an easy meal. He gazed up at thin trunks around him where six legged creatures would cling when they sensed their dinner might be drawing close. They rarely attacked Kai, but it was best he did not let down his guard all the same.
All the same, he should have seen one or heard a cackling growl by now.
After an hour of riding with not one single Kuranbatuz showing itself to sniff the air, he was feeling decidedly nervous. Since he had already found one, there should be others. He knew the fact he had seen none; meant they were spooked. There might be a storm bearing down, but it was the wrong time of year for green belt storms. There might also be a different kind of apex predator was close by, one that the creatures feared. That didn’t count out another Kai, but it was far more likely to be something more terrifying. It might even be a fabled marauder.
Usually, he would have laughed at the thought of running into a marauder. Today was not one of those days. He had traveled through the jungle to the range of hills bordering the Desert-of-No-Hope to find high ground for a better view of the terrain. Instead, he had looked up at the sound of explosions to see streams of fire falling from the sky. It was both terrifying and amazing. Whatever the fire turned out to be, there would be evidence of it on the ground. No one had ever reported such a sight before and he was curious.
27
Computer Talks
“She’s searching for the others,” Nako told me.
I could tell she was not entirely convinced by her own words.
“In that case, she might come back here,” I suggest. “Let’s see if we can’t learn something while she’s gone.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” she replied. “Since you’re halfway inside the cockpit, you might as well sit in her seat. See what you get from the computer.”
“Right.”
I grasped the edges of the doorway, bent at the knees, and jumped as high as I could. My momentum carried me halfway into the capsule. Nako pushed me the rest of the way. It wasn’t necessary. I rolled onto the floor.
“You made that look easy,” she called out.
“It was,” I said, gazing down
at her from the open hatch. “Do you think it’s possible going through that wormhole made us stronger?”
“I’m no scientist, but I am fairly sure that would make no sense at all,” she replied.
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “But, I know I feel lighter.”
“You felt half as heavy as I expected you to be,” she told me.
“Do you think we’re dizzy because of the low oxygen,” I suggested
“What is the condition of everything in there?” She asked.
I climbed into Jacinda’s seat and brushed the sticky grains off the console. It pulsed lights at me in response.
“We have power,” I called out.
I slid my hand into the gray and yellow control glove on the arm of the seat. The console lit up, but it quickly faded again.
“The lights are on but I can’t get anything to work,” I said in exasperation.
I put my head out the hatch and looked down at her.
“Give me your hands and I’ll pull you up.”
“I might be smaller than you are but I’m heavier,” she told me. “Just warning you.”
“Okay, at my count,” I said. “One, two, three!”
She jumped, and I pulled her inside.
“You weigh about fifty pounds,” I told her.
She snorted.
“You can add another fifty to that,” she told me with a snort. “You really are strong.”
“Didn’t you just tell me, you thought I weighed as much as you thought I would?”
“Maybe you were right about the wormhole making us stronger,” she said. “How about that?”
We took it in turns to manipulate the control glove, but there was no response from the console, and we gave up.
“What do we do?” I asked.
“Don’t ask me,” she responded. “I’m only second-in-command.”
“So, the capsule responds only to her touch, her voice, just like the Bricard reads the DNA of a single individual,” I mused.
Atoma and the Blockchain Game Page 10