The glade was free of wasps. Perhaps the rodents’ feast would keep the huge brown things at bay for now, too. I had no choice but to clear the entire glade with my machete if I was going to stand a chance at … I grimaced. Homesteading here.
Working until I had cut a good fifty square feet of space to a more manageable three-inch height, I spooked several jumping insects and giant moths, but no more reptile-like slithers or rodents. The remaining critters dragged the carcasses away as I worked, avoiding my big bootsteps.
With the area surrounding my EEP cleared, I walked to the edge of the woods and searched until I found a sapling I liked the look of. I withdrew my pouch of hoarded tobacco and used a lighter to burn a pinch of it, the smoke disappearing into the greenery. “An offering and a pledge. I will take what is needed, and I thank you for what you provide,” I said into the ether of this wild place. I couldn’t use tobacco as freely as I might on Earth—I wasn’t prepared to grow it here—so that would be my only offering for now.
Stripping the sapling of its branches, I left it in the ground. I cut a foot length from another tough little sapling. Stepping on it with my boot, I curved it into a “U” shape. With the two ends forced into the ground, I made a croquet loop. I unwound a good length of twine from my utility pocket and cut it with my multi-tool knife. This, I tied to the end of the flexed sapling and around a stick, making a clasp, of sorts, to keep in the loop. With another long stick balancing against the clasp and a big loop of twine, I made my first snare.
I hoped whatever I caught would be edible. Once again, my stomach grumbled in response. Maybe I should deactivate the Handler chip, if only to have something to talk to beside my complaining stomach. The Handler chip had been added to the AI’s Operating System after I petitioned the IGMC Machine Learning Division. It was a simple software gate that limited the AI’s access to functions, and more importantly, kept it from thinking for me. And telling me what to do all the time. But it was lonely here.
I set three more snares along the forest’s edge.
A collapsible jug’s worth of water from the stream strained my shoulder when I carried it inside the EEP for filtration.
When the second sun began its descent toward the horizon, I surveyed my campsite. The lawn had been “mowed”, rocks from the stream had been collected in a pile, snares had been set, and dead wood had been collected for a fire.
I was bushed but satisfied.
A memory surfaced when the second glowing sun dipped below the tree line.
“No use crying over spilled milk, Pattee. Suck it up and turn the situation to your advantage. The world is full of victims. Be a doer. No daughter of mine is a victim.”
“But, Dad, Riley Butkus stole my hoverable! He’s riding it all over, bragging about it! And since his dad’s Chief Peace Officer, he’s not even getting in trouble!”
“You don’t need a hoverable where we’re going,” Dad said. “We’re going up. I got us a job.” His grin didn’t reach his eyes when he pointed to the sky.
“I’m not old enough to work yet,” I said. “I’ve got two more years of …”
“We leave in the morning. The laws are less stringent up there.”
I blinked a few times and turned from the sunset. Inside my EEP, I peeled off everything, gave myself a decent scrub down, and ate an MRE, savoring each bite. I drank my fill of clean water. I inserted the nozzle of the air sampler into the collection tubing and watched the monitor. I had cross-programmed its bioavailable nutrient scanner to collect aerosolized microbiota.
Tickertape numbers scrolled across as Vector tested the silicates for stowaway microorganisms.
“Vector, when will you have results from the scan?”
“Five days, three hours and seventeen minutes.”
I sighed and leaned against the wall, watching the numbers.
I must have dozed off because the light from the double sunrise woke me. I had a terrible crick in my neck.
I growled and rubbed my neck, cursing myself. Survival mode required top form.
“Vector, scan the perimeter for wildlife.”
“Scanning. None detected.”
“That’s bullshit, Vector. Scan again.”
“You did not say you required a scan for bovine excrement, but it is available upon request. Scanning for wildlife. None detected.”
I massaged my lower back, shook my head, and limped to the window. I counted three giant wasps, four of the little rodents sniffing around my rock pile, and a large reptilian-like bird circling the glade.
I smacked a random wall panel, and it popped open, spilling tubing, a mesh screen, and a roll of duct tape. I stuffed it all back inside and closed the panel.
Standing in front of the main monitor, I accessed the keyboard, and typed and talked to myself. “Calibrate heat signature. Reorder perimeter movement sensor to A1 priority, set cameras to scan every thirty minutes …”
I finished reprogramming the security protocol and stood back. When my helmet was on, I would receive notifications every ten minutes on my IntraVisor.
“Vector, if I thought you could behave, I’d remove your Handler chip and give you some more leeway. But as it is, you’re kind of a piece of clunky junk.”
“You are entitled to your opinion, K90-Miner 110.”
I could have corrected it to call me by name, but why bother? It’s not like it was going to be my friend here. It was a useless piece of software that was a little too proud of its ability to scan for poop.
With the air sample plugged in to the EEP, I was ready. I paused mid-thought, the adrenaline-inducing events of the prior day causing my heart to pound. I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fists, forcing a steady rhythm of breathing. List. Making lists calmed me. Check the snares, collect more water, and most important at this stage, set up an electronic perimeter.
Back in the day, our EEP protocol training discussed arming the rescue beacon at length. I recalled arguing with my professor back then. “Secure your area. THEN set up the beacon,” had been my argument.
“The sooner your beacon is armed, the sooner your rescuers will arrive, negating the need for a secure area.”
Ridiculous. I surrendered a good grade in that class, but when you were right, you were right. I had yet to set up the beacon, but I had my reasons. According to the EEP log, I’d been in cryosleep while the pod searched for a Goldilocks zone with all the necessary criteria, covering a distance of five light years. The beacon would be a red herring of hope if ever there was one. No one was coming for me. What I needed was security, and I knew just how to get it.
I searched the storage panels until I found what I was looking for. Small laser boxes that asteroid miners used to scan tunnel width. I had four but could use a fifth. I poked around some more until I found a telescoping mirror tool. Perfect.
I stood at the fold-out desk and used my utility knife and soldering iron to connect the main laser box to a simple, programmable logic controller, stripped the wires, twisted them together, then soldered them to the exposed wires in the back of the laser box.
Outside the egress pod, I used a neodymium magnet to secure the main box to the north face of the EEP. I paced out fifty feet and drove a stake I’d whittled into the ground, zip-tied the second laser box to it after making sure the receiver faced the first box, paced another fifty feet perpendicular to the first border, drove another stake, tied another zip tie, then adjusted the receiver and the laser. I repeated the procedure until I had a nice square plot of land surrounded by an invisible laser trip wire. One of the stakes had the mirror, since I didn’t have enough boxes. The rodents could pass under the laser beam, but with the grasses kept short, I doubted much wildlife would cross. Anything taller than six inches would alert Vector. I spent another two hours finishing stacking the rocks to form cairns at each corner to protect the stakes.
Keeping busy kept the wolves of terror at bay. For the first time in several hours, I felt pleased about something, and I set out to inspe
ct the snares and fill up my jug with fresh water again. I was going to be okay. I could do this alone.
I’d caught two rodents and admired their soft yellow-and-gold-speckled brown fur. I longed to remove my gloves and pet them. Touch. Companionship. Connection. Warmth from their bodies left quickly and I gasped with a sudden pang in my heart when I felt their fragile bodies in my hands. Loneliness struck me full force, and I had to kneel to regain composure. Surrounded by people on the Lucidity, I didn’t mind being alone. It was a choice. But this … this was exile.
Suddenly, I felt disgusted because I had killed them.
I closed my eyes and bowed my head for a second. In that moment, my stomach growled, and I centered myself.
“Rodent spirits, thank you for serving me in your death.”
I blinked to clear away moisture pooling in my eyes and stood. If their meat was safe, I would have protein to subsist on while I lived out my days here under a duet of stars. I needed to focus on that.
4
Just a few hours into the analysis, the particulate scanner stopped.
“Vector, what happened to my air sample?”
“Loading. Please wait.”
The black monitor displayed a spinning triangle; it blinked, pointing to twelve o’clock, then began spinning again. The progress bar showed it had halted at fifty-one percent. I stared at it, willing it to resume, and clenched my fists. I wanted to bang on the screen.
“This is why I changed majors from software engineering to mechanical engineering,” I muttered to myself and turned away from the screen. I paced to the porthole and observed my little corner of the planet.
The rodents skittered across the cleared land, racing from the tall grasses on the north side to the tall grasses on the south side. Their wobbly gaits amused me, until a huge orange and black bird swooped out of nowhere and clutched up two, one in each taloned foot. I noted the puffed-up black throat sac and its long, pointed beak. It pitched upward on a clumsy wing arc, its size a liability. It was five feet from wingtip to wingtip and had a fat oval body covered in black feathers. Its crest on the small head consisted of long orange feathers that sprouted from the crown to its neck. Its wings adjusting to what must have been a harsh downwind, it soared into the sky and out over the darkest part of the tall forest. I watched until it disappeared into the canopy.
I exhaled. I didn’t have a way to protect the airspace above my camp, other than smoke. I cocked my head at the tree. Maybe I could use the lone tree somehow. I would have to think about it.
With a disgusted look at the blinking monitor, I suited up for going outside again.
The progress bar on the monitor showed fifty-two percent, so it was at least doing something.
I stepped out onto my lawn and chose a spot ideal for a large fire. Scouting for deadfall along the way, I headed to the edge of the forest for all the kindling and dead wood I could find. Controlled fire, from the beginning of mankind, was the symbol of civilization. Not only would it make it possible for me to smoke skins and cook meat, but it would offer comfort. For millennia, my people had told stories of their legends and ancestors around the fire. I would summon their aid with the first strike of a match.
I hiked to the stream, appreciating the trail I cut. The more traffic I created with frequent activity, the less likely wildlife would be to wander close during daylight. I hoped. I found what I was looking for right away: a large round stone I could use to sit on. I rolled it up the shallow bank and pushed it along the trail, heaving and resting, heaving and resting, until I settled it next to my planned fire pit. An Adirondack chair it wasn’t, but it was better than squatting for hours.
With the sharp blade on my multi-tool, I whittled several stout limbs. I used more nanofiber twine to tie off lashings and assemble a drying rack. Even through my gloves I could feel the texture of the bark and the smoothness after I peeled it away. I loved working with my hands and let the steady progress of my whittling settle a serenity over my heart.
“One thing at a time, Pattee. Today we learn woodcarving. Tomorrow, rope tying. There is time,” my father said. “Our ancestors learned the ways of the wild step by step, as Nanabozho taught them.”
“But I want to go play with the other kids! They’re building a homemade rocket!”
“You will learn to make rockets in time. Here, hold the knife like this.”
“I hate your stupid rules, and I hate your stupid ancestors! We’re not ‘indigenous people’ now, Dad! We’re Terrians!”
“They are your ‘stupid’ ancestors, as well, Pattee Crow Flies,” Dad whispered. Tears filled his brown eyes. “Run along then. We’ll resume tomorrow.”
The memory cut at my heart. Dad had never deserved my ire in all the years I’d known him. Sure, the illegal stuff was … unfortunate, but we made it through that year and many others. I grimaced. All these tasks were forcing me to relive a time with my father that I had both loved and hated. He had pushed me until I had broken, always expecting more and better. But I knew he had loved me. And on the days I hadn’t been mad at him, I had loved what I was learning. There had been something empowering about creating order out of chaos.
Assembling the drying rack gave me great satisfaction. It wasn’t that I hadn’t wanted to learn the old ways, I had just cared too much about the opinions of others. The kids in my district had all been headed to mining school. I had too. We had wanted to build things and explode things. The old ways were just that: old. Obsolete. Not to mention, even after the Accountability Years on Earth, I had still been fighting Indigenous People stereotypes. Mining school hadn’t been a high enough goal for me. I had needed to become a Mining Engineer. I had needed to surpass my district peers and the expectations of my teachers. I would never have lived it down if they all had known I loved learning about the Ancient Ones.
In my makeshift work area inside the pod, I skinned my pile of dead rodents. Their small size was best suited for case pelts, where I would turn the skins inside-out to treat. They would make fine pouches.
Never waste resources in a survival situation.
The odors of blood and fat would draw the attention of more of this planet’s wildlife than I could handle at one time, so even though it was cramped, doing it inside was for the best. Smoking the meat outside was going to be problematic enough without adding to it.
Outside, smoke filled my glade once I had the dead wood down to embers. Helmet donned, I wondered what it smelled like. I recalled the hardwood fires on Earth, how oak burned hot and long while apple burned with a hearty fragrance.
I laid the strips of fatty rodent meat along the rack and fed green branches to the coals. The smoke would keep most wildlife away until nightfall. If it was anything like Earth. I swallowed and squinted into the woods. At night, the firelight would attract insects. Shuddering, I thought of the giant wasps and wondered what this planet held in store for me once the suns set.
With all the meat smoking, I retreated into the pod to treat the skins. The membranes peeled off easily, and I found, to my delight, a consistent network of sinews in each animal. I could strip them away mindlessly until I had a spool’s worth. Then, the blunt edge of a rock was suitable for scraping the skins of all their flesh.
I cracked open the skulls and scooped out brain matter. Each animal had enough brain to treat its entire skin, so I made a paste and rubbed it in.
Back outside, I draped the skins over the rack so the smoke from the fire could penetrate. By tomorrow morning, I would have a handful of them.
Arms folded, I watched the smoke swirl in eddies, then it drifted to the north, as if on a strong breeze. I turned in time to see another black and orange bird veer away from me, having swooped to investigate the strange smells. It flew to the tall tree and landed in its branches, but I could see it spying on my operation, its massive wings enfolding it like an old man wearing a cape. It made no sound.
I scanned the perimeter, noting erratic movements among the grasses. I had curious company.
Nervous sweat created an itch at my hairline, but I started my next task.
One of the features of my landing site was a huge boulder at the base of the rocky outcropping. I found a dark gray stone in the streambed and brought it up to the site to chip out the center. What I wouldn’t give for my mining tools. The EEP had many diverse supplies but none of the large pieces of equipment we landed on planets with for mining expeditions. The muscles between my shoulder blades and lining my spine ached from overuse. I had to stop often to rest. Not to mention, banging rocks together rang a clamor in the air. I stopped to look around my site, but the noise seemed to be keeping wildlife at bay, rather than attracting it.
When I was satisfied with my work, I hiked to the stream once again with my jug, collected water to pour into the basin I had formed, and used it as a sink. I surveyed the work of my hands, and a grim smile broke my expression.
Thank you, Dad.
5
I ranged across my hunting grounds for veltiks, but something always drew me back to the glade. At times, her ship was obscured from view with its cloaking system, yet I knew from having met the first soft traveler’s vehicle that it permanently resided in its spot. These human ships could not launch. She disabled its cloaking when she had business that brought her in and out the hatch frequently.
I sat with my legs crossed while chewing on dried rokhura meat and watched her, the little builder. My helmet sat on the ground beside me. It was useful for protection and vision enhancements when I hunted or to detect the human’s ship when camouflaged, but without a ship or a Tech-Slave, and without comms, it was little more than a heavy hindrance.
The smells from her camp drifted to me. I grunted my approval when I saw she had preserved animal brains to treat the skins of the animals she had trapped. She sat on a rock and scraped the membranes and sinews from many jokal. It was a tedious task, as they were small, but she worked at a steady pace until she had a stack of pelts. I stared at the stack. She had enough to make a vest, perhaps.
Tracked on Predator Planet (Predator Planet Series) Page 3