There was a rustle in the brush off to John’s left. He ducked down out of instinct, hiding in the reeds. No telling what sort of creature might be out there, now. He watched the bushes, careful as he did to also observe the water around him for threats.
John was about to make an exit from the water back to his side of the stream when he heard Dana humming from her shore. It must have been her that made the noise as she was coming through the bushes. He caught a glimpse of her hair as she moved between two trees and stepped out into the clearing around the stream.
He opened his mouth to offer the greeting he had planned. John wanted to compliment her on the fence she’d placed in the water. He wanted to offer to share dinner with her. Or tell her that he missed her. Anything at all, really. But all he could manage to do was open his mouth, and then close it again. He dipped even lower into the water to avoid her notice as she went about whatever she was doing.
Eventually, her humming faded away. John stood up, water streaming from his body. He shook his head in disgust. So much for his brilliant plan to offer her a hello! This would have been an ideal opportunity, and he couldn’t even make himself do that much.
John walked to her shore, curious what she’d been up to. He didn’t see any of the root-plants that made a good food nearby. Then he spotted a familiar bush and froze.
It was a berry bush. One he knew all too well, even though he’d only ever seen it once before. John would never forget what that bush looked like. It bore small, red berries. Berries that could kill.
But there were no berries on this bush. He could still see the stems from which they’d been plucked.
How it had come to be here, John had no idea. He’d thrown the last one off the cliff into the ravine. Somehow, the damned thing had grown back anyway. What he did know was what Dana had been doing while she hummed. She’d been picking the berries.
How many of them could she eat before they killed her? John had no idea. Even a single one might be enough to kill, just like they’d killed his mother.
John raced toward the trees as fast as his legs could carry him. He had to find her. He didn’t know where Dana’s home was, but he knew the lay of the land. He had to get to her in time! He shoved aside the darker thought, that he might already be too late.
Thirty-Five
John heard the sound of Dana’s humming from nearby. She wasn’t far. He might still be able to reach her in time, if she hadn’t eaten any of the berries yet. He turned a little to the left, aiming directly toward her, and poured on the speed. He gave every bit of energy he had.
He burst from between two trees and saw a spear point leveled at his chest. John halted so quickly that he almost tumbled to the dirt, barely saving himself from being impaled on the sharp tip. Panting, he gasped for a deep breath and tried to push aside the spear. Dana was having none of that, though. She aimed it right back at his chest again. That wasn’t how he had wanted to start this meeting.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Dana asked. “I could have killed you just now!”
“Berries… Don’t eat,” John gasped out between ragged breaths.
“Why the hell not?” Dana asked. She glanced down at the ground beside her. John followed the line of her vision toward a small woven-grass basket. He caught a glimpse of a flash of red from inside. That was where she’d put the damned things.
“Poison,” John said.
Dana made a scoffing noise. “They are not. My people ate berries like this all the time.”
“Exactly like that?” John asked. He felt a pang of doubt. Was it really the berries that had killed his mother? He’d been so sure, but now that certainty faltered.
“No,” Dana said with a frown. “Not precisely like that. But close enough that I can tell these are fine to eat. And what are you doing here, anyway? I told you to stay on your side of the river.”
“Saw you picking the berries, and I wanted to warn you,” John replied.
He sagged a little. She wasn’t about to relent from her demand that he stay away. John didn’t know how he could possibly convince her. Time hadn’t worked, not yet anyway. Maybe waiting longer would help? Somehow, John had the feeling that wasn’t the case. Dana’s mind was set. Time was only going to make her more sure of her decision and less willing to try anything else.
“I didn’t need your help, and I told you to stay away,” Dana said.
John wanted to shout at her, wanted to yell. His anger boiled up inside him. But he held it in check—barely. If he was going to be any help to her at all, he needed to remain calm. What if she was wrong about the berries? If he let his temper run wild, she’d never trust him, never believe that she was in mortal danger.
Instead, he took a deep breath to calm his nerves before replying to her. Dana didn’t believe what he was saying. He could see that in the challenge of her stance and the flaring anger in her eyes. She wasn’t prepared to trust him, even though he had saved her from the gator not long before. John’s anger flickered back to life at that thought. He pushed it down again. Now was not the time.
“I’m sorry I intruded. I wouldn’t have come unless I thought it was urgent,” John said.
“Is that what I am going to get from now on? You traipsing over here every time you think I’m in trouble?” Dana asked. “I won’t have it. This side is mine. That side is yours. Why can’t you understand? I can’t be what you want me to be!”
Dana’s voice broke with those last words. All of the anger was gone from her eyes now, replaced with anguish. She looked down toward her feet, long hair trailing in front of her face, masking it from John’s view. In that moment, she seemed broken, tired, and worn out.
John took two steps forward, reaching out with a hand toward hers. At the slightest touch, her head snapped upright. She raised the tip of her spear toward him again.
“No! I mean it! Stay back!” Dana said. “I won’t be hurt like that ever again. Better to be alone. But every time you come over here, it reminds me of what I lost, and what I can never have again. Stop.”
John backed away a step, hands open at his sides. He didn’t try to push away the spear tip. The only thing he could think to do was present the most vulnerable posture he could.
“If that’s what you want,” John said.
“It is.”
This time it was his head that sagged down. He’d tried. He’d lost. She didn’t believe him about the berries. Even he wasn’t even absolutely certain they were what killed his mother. How could he expect her to trust his word when he wasn’t sure himself? But this went deeper than that. She hadn’t changed her mind. Rather, she’d become even more set in her decision. John couldn’t think of anything that could shake her from the course she had chosen at this point.
He heard a rustling noise and looked up. Dana had set aside the spear, leaning it against a tree. She’d reached down and picked up the basket. Once she saw that he was looking at her again, she reached into the basket and pulled out a berry.
“These little things scare you so much? These are the big, bad monsters you came over to my side of the river to defend me from?” Dana asked, her voice like acid. “Then let me put your mind to rest once and for all.”
She lifted the berry toward her mouth.
John’s mind flashed back to his mother, eating the berries before she drifted off to sleep.
John’s hand lashed out. He had barely had the thought before he unleashed all of the anger and frustration that he’d been pressing down. All of it went out in that swing, his open palm aiming for her hand. John saw Dana’s eyes widen when he swung at her, but she was too startled to react. The blow connected.
The berry was too close to her face, John’s hand too large, the swing too rushed and imprecise. The slap he’d intended to knock the berry clear from her hand did just that. It tumbled free from her fingers into the dirt. But his hand also caught Dana’s chin, snapping her head around. She tumbled to the ground.
John stared at his hand, mout
h open. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean…”
“To hit me?” Dana asked, wiping a bit of blood from her lip. “I think you did.”
“Not like that! I was trying to hit your hand,” John protested. It was a weak excuse, and he knew it. Dana had dropped her basket when she fell. He reached forward and picked it up, careful not to spill any of the fruit. He had to get them away from here.
“Well, you did that and then some,” Dana said. Then she twisted her leg around, sweeping it in a small circle around her body that banged into her spear and sent it tumbling toward her. She reached up and caught the weapon in an easy motion while rising to her feet.
John gaped. He’d never seen anyone move that fast. He felt clumsy and uncoordinated in comparison. But his attention quickly returned to the point of the spear, which was now dangerously close to his belly.
“Give me my food and go, or I bury this spear in your gut,” Dana snarled.
There was no mercy in her voice, no signs she might relent. John did the only thing that made any sense in that moment. He turned and ran, clutching the berries tightly against his chest.
Thirty-Six
John half-expected to feel Dana’s spear pierce him from behind as he ran. He couldn’t really blame her if she did. He’d swung the first blow. He’d proven with one casual act of violence he was a danger to her. She had every right to retaliate.
But she didn’t strike. John didn’t question his luck or look back to see what she was doing. He just kept running until he reached the river. The bush was somewhere nearby. He had to find it and remove the threat. That was what mattered most.
He wandered downstream, keeping his eyes open for the plant and thinking over how he could have done things differently. There must have been some point where he could have won through to a different outcome, but for the life of him he couldn’t see a way.
“There you are,” he growled, glaring down at the offending the bush. It was right where his mother had found it. It looked just as he remembered it, too. Like it was the same plant. But that was impossible, he’d torn the thing out of the ground and thrown it over the edge of the cliff.
How had it managed to regrow? Maybe one of the berries had dropped to the ground, and it had grown from a seed. John checked the grass around the bush, looking closely for any flash of bright red that might reveal a berry that had fallen and might give the plant a chance to come back. There didn’t seem to be any, and he didn’t have enough time to do a more thorough search. Dana could come after him, and he wanted to be gone from her side of the river before she did.
John wanted the danger gone as well. He grasped the bush firmly by the base of its roots, close to the ground. Then he pulled. At first, the plant resisted. To John, it felt like the thing was clinging to the soil, fighting against him to hold on to life. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. He wouldn’t allow it.
“No. This ends. Now,” John said. He grunted, and it moved a little, the ground giving way, roots snapping. He bunched his muscles, pulling with all the strength he could muster. The branches bent. The bush’s slim trunk twisted in his hands under the immense pressure. It didn’t snap, though, and John hung on.
Then all at once, the bush pulled free. John staggered backward as the resistance vanished. He almost tumbled to the ground. The bush was there, in his hands. He looked down at the torn ground. A few rootlets had remained in the soil, but he didn’t think there was enough there for the thing to regrow. He took one more look around for dropped berries and didn’t see any.
“Beat you, this time,” he said.
Then he scooped the little basket of berries up from the ground. Bush in one hand, basket in the other, he followed the river downstream. It was only a short distance to the edge of the ravine. The water plummeted over the cliff face, dropping into the mist and vanishing in a roar of sound that drowned out everything else once he got close.
John spent a few long moments staring over the edge. Dana would hate him now. How could she not? He’d struck her. She was already unsure of him, and hadn’t wanted him around. All he’d done was demonstrate how right she had been. Even if his motive had been good, even if he’d never meant to hit her—just knock the berry away—there was no way he would ever convince her of that.
It might be easier just to jump. John didn’t know what was at the bottom, but he could see down far enough to know that the fall would certainly kill him. What was the point in continuing? All of his efforts to find other people had failed.
Then, when another person was dropped into his lap, he’d bungled things so badly that she didn't want him near. He’d be lucky not to wake up to see her standing over him, spear in hand. How could she ever feel safe while he was still nearby? Her life would be better if he was gone.
He walked up to the edge of the cliff and let the bush go. It dropped away, vanishing into the mist. Then he dropped the berries. Neither made a sound after they disappeared into the mist. For all John knew, there was no bottom. Maybe the mists went on forever.
He didn’t think so. It didn’t feel like that made sense.
He considered the river beside him. The water flowing through John’s world was coming from somewhere. Some other world, someplace else. After it left his world, it was going someplace else, too. That thought made John tap his chin. Where there was water, there might be green things growing. And perhaps more people.
Alone, hopeless, John realized that eventually he would go mad. If there was anything worth finding at the bottom of the cliff, that would be worth trying to achieve.
“Even if the attempt kills me, I have to try,” John said. “That will be enough.”
John turned away from the edge, with its quiet call. He would be back, but he had things to do first.
Thirty-Seven
Kantrobil thought a command at his console, sending the anti-grav drones back into waiting mode. He shook his antlers. This was ridiculous. The plan had been simple. Too simple, clearly, since the humans were messing it up in every way possible. He called Felizian to assist him but the other scientist doubted some of his actions. Kantrobil didn’t want to give him more cause for concern.
It should have gone perfectly. The toxic plant was placed, the female subject discovered the thing, and picked the fruit. Eating just one of the berries would have been enough to send her into a gentle sleep, and from there, slowly shut down her breathing impulse. It was a quick, painless, and ethical form of euthanasia.
But then the male subject had chosen that particular moment to go looking for the female. After six cycles of practically ignoring each other, he finally stepped across the river and looked in on her, precisely as she was picking the fruits. Somehow, the male had perceived they were dangerous after his mother’s death. He had warned the female. No, more than warned her, he had actively prevented her from taking the poison.
Then he fled with the rest of the fruits, uprooted the plant, and threw the entire mess over the edge of the pen. That movement to the edge had sent automated responses into place. They didn’t want to lose a subject that accidentally fell over the side of the cliff, and early on there were some cases of humans intentionally throwing themselves over. Kantrobil didn’t understand that behavior at all, but it had been documented in their findings, and they’d kept drones on standby ever since to prevent recurrences.
For a few moments, Kantrobil had been afraid the male human might do the same thing. He’d been hoping not. That subject was still relatively intact, without significant alteration to his memories. While they tried to minimize the damage and alteration to a subject’s psyche during memory deletion, there was always a concern that too much deletion could change a subject’s consciousness enough to invalidate an experiment.
But if the human had thrown himself over the edge, he would have been caught by the waiting drones, sedated, and then returned to his pen after a brief period of evaluation and memory removal. Kantrobil breathed a sigh of relief when it turned out they didn’t need to do it on
this subject.
His relaxation returned to turmoil when he realized the male animal wasn’t returning to normal behavior patterns. He was going through a frantic set of activity. The subject gathered vines and roots—lots of them. The ropes which he’d made for his escape attempt over the wall, but more as well. Every bit of rope he had available was piled in a heap.
And then he started making more.
Something was up. There was a frenetic feeling to the subject’s activity, like he was doing something out of desperation. Kantrobil didn’t like what he was seeing.
“He’s going to try to escape again, isn’t he?” Kantrobil murmured. He recalled the long looks the human had cast over the edge of the cliff. “Not over or under the wall. He’s going to attempt to descend, instead.”
That wasn’t going to be permitted. How could he move the subject away from this course of action without revealing so much that he was forced to do a memory wipe? Kantrobil thought for a few moments. It was clear that the female wasn’t interested in this male. Nothing had changed there, and she would still need to be dealt with. But there were many means to handle her removal, and this was a more pressing matter. The subject’s new activity was a result of his last interaction with the female. Perhaps the human male was feeling…lonely? It missed having something to interact with? Kantrobil recalled his strange symptoms after the first time he was alone.
This new agitation might be related. If that was the case, there might be a way to prevent it from leaving. It was incredibly risky. If he failed, it would almost certainly mean the human would need his memories wiped. Kantrobil found that thought more and more distasteful.
The Human Experiment Page 14