My mind rehearsed the passageways in the Pool of the Lonely Sister. In that enormous cavern, snowmelt from Black Heart Mountain was the nearest source.
The network of under-passageways connected the hearts of the deepest mountains. If Black Heart’s snowmelt had released from its icy grip, then my brothers would soon be in danger. Once they descended into Little Sister Pass, they would be unreachable by comms.
Shame, hot like a newly forged raxtheza, roiled in my abdomen. To think I would leave my brothers to their deaths.
But no. I had the chance to save them all!
I stared across the divide—now filled with the tumultuous waves of rolling tree trunks and strange flotsam. Was that a bent piece of metal? It couldn’t be … At the little ship.
A message from Esra, and very probably Naraxthel, waited for Pattee to awaken. I could warn them.
The floodwaters grew more powerful than when the rains came only days before.
Were I to cross now, I would be overtaken by the logs and thrust down into the gulch, yet I needed to cross. My gaze darted from the raging river of bracken and wood to the ship, peaceful and still in the glade.
The stream, now a river, was at least eight veltiks across. I might be able to jump it.
Again, my gaze was drawn to the ship. I cocked my head. It swayed. I zoomed in with my sight-capture. Did it move? Was the sinkhole opening again?
It jostled. The ground swelled beneath my feet.
Kathe!
My visor lit up with alarms. Landquake. As if my own body couldn’t feel the tremor.
Suddenly, the secure spot where Pattee had chosen to land, defensible on three sides, seemed the most dangerous spot on Ikthe. The boulders to the west of her ship trembled.
“Pattee,” I whispered. Muddy water sloshed against my boots.
The ground disappeared beneath my feet the same time the boulders behind Pattee’s ship shivered before my eyes. They shifted. The tumbling outcropping of rocks that had lain in a pile for as long as I had known the glade slid and rolled straight into the ship. It defied them at first. But then the irresistible flow of the rocks pushed it toward the gulch.
I landed on my feet with a splash, but my stomach revolted. I swallowed acid.
“Joaxma,” I whispered. “JOAXMA!”
I strode back a few steps, sloshing through rising flood waters, then ran full bore toward the raging river. With every enhancement engaged, I propelled my legs into a powerful jump. Roaring my displeasure at the Goddesses and Certain Death, I leaned into my jump, willing myself to clear the morass below. Arms windmilling, I thought I could make it.
I landed a veltik shy of the opposite shore, my weight sinking me to the churned-up creek bed where I tried to gain purchase. The wild water plowed over my head, thrusting mud in between the joints of my armor, and pushing me farther from shore. A huge trunk swept me up in its tangled root system and pulled me under its bulk. The last thing I saw was Pattee’s ship, just as it swayed over the side of the gulch.
Hivelt would soon join her in the night river. Perhaps we would dance to the song of raxshe and raxma under the Mountain of Eternal Death. Together. The filthy floodwaters pulled me in its eddies. All I saw was black sludge through my visor while my body twisted unnaturally and rushed toward the edge of the waterfall.
29
Steady beeps brought me into consciousness. All the discomfort from before was gone, but I found I couldn’t open my eyes, try as I might. “VELMA, what is my health status?”
“All systems back online.”
“Um, okay,” I said. “But I can’t open my eyes.”
“Welcome, K90-Miner 110. I am the Vector Egress Liaison Machine AI K-90.”
I was strapped to the table save for one arm. That one dangled above me. Above me? My face felt hot and swollen. I was upside down. Correction. The pod was upside down. “VELMA, access your memory card.”
“Rebooting.”
I brought my arm up to my chest, noticing my fingers were uncomfortable. I had difficulty swallowing, too. I wiggled my toes with gratitude. If I could feel my feet and legs, then that was a good sign. But I needed to know what had happened. There were a couple things that could have caused my ship to end up … upside down. Explosion or earthquake.
“VELMA?”
“Accessing files. Would you like me to replay my audio from the last thirty minutes before system failures?”
“Yes.”
“What is Pattee’s status?” I heard Hivelt’s voice, but VELMA used my language.
“Pattee was close to the early stages of organ failure; however, I have precisely engineered the antidote and am now administering it intravenously,” she answered. “I have created a bacteriophage that will consume the infection. The process takes seventy-two hours. However, Pattee may not need as long to recover because dosing antibiotics right away broke up the infection and prevented its spread. Pattee will make a full recovery.”
Hivelt! Where was he?
Her recording continued.
“Incoming message from Esra Weaver. Would you like to hear it?”
Nothing sounded for three minutes. Then, “Hold the message for Pattee when she awakens.”
“Very well,” VELMA answered.
More silence, with quiet beeping from VELMA’s console. I heard pacing, and then the snick of the hatch opening and closing.
Hivelt left.
Another several minutes of steady beeping, and then everything went haywire on the recording.
“Warning, foreshocks detected. Microtremors increasing. Likelihood of potential earthquake. Pattee, are you conscious? Warning, foreshocks detected. Seismometer recording acoustic emission readings that predict a 7.5 magnitude earthquake. Pattee Crow Flies unresponsive to vocal stimulus. Vector Egress Machine AI K-90, taking admin control of the Emergency Egress Pod. Earthquake imminent. Shutting down all auxiliary systems. Retracting biomedical devices. Patient safety harness secured. All egress accessways double-locked. Magnetic reinforcement protocols initiated. Stabilizers retracting. Internal system buffers activated. Insulated buffer trap locked down. Scram Nosecone Protocol initiated. Sending neural network into Super Low Orbit in five, four, three, two, one.”
A loud whooshing noise came from the recording.
Then, I could hear rumbling and the sound of the ship scraping against rock. I heard crashing things, probably anything that wasn’t secured by the magnetic reinforcement protocol. The noise subsided.
“End recording.”
I imagined my furs nestled in the “top” of my pod. My swollen face was giving me a headache.
“Increased heartrate detected. Do you need assistance?”
“VELMA, I’m okay, other than having difficulty opening my eyes and swallowing.”
“My records indicate you received two doses of Pulmocet Mecaprotin. A side effect of the Pulmocet Mecaprotin is temporary ptosis. The oculopharyngeal muscle system will be compromised for a short time.”
I tried to regulate my breathing, but without seeing the state my ship was in, I felt terror, a kind of cold steel in the pit of my stomach. Was I buried underground? Dangling off the gulch? Trapped in a fault line? I gripped my flight suit so tightly my knuckles burned. I needed to open my eyes. “What is the status of my infection?”
“Due to seismic events, I retracted all biomedical devices. I have access to your vital signs. Do you wish to hear them?”
“No, thank you,” I said between clenched teeth. Sweat beaded at my neckline. It was hot. Was there enough oxygen? “VELMA, oxygen levels?”
“Oxygen levels stable. Access to outside atmosphere enabling steady supply of filtered breathable air.”
I exhaled. Thank you, Great Spirit. I just had to wait for my eyes to open.
Where had Hivelt gone? Why did he leave me? Why did I care?
I could unfasten my harness, but without knowing what condition the ship was in, and not being able to open my eyes yet, it was too risky. “VELMA, are there any b
reaches in the ship?”
“Negative. EEP intact.”
“Wow,” I said and sighed. “You did great, VELMA. Thank you for saving my life.”
“That is my programming. Would you like to hear the message from Esra Weaver?”
I’d forgotten! “Yes.”
“This is Esra Weaver, K90-Miner 105. Boy, do I have a story to tell you, Pattee! I’ve sicced VELMA on the task of fixing up our communication. Without a DSN tower, we can’t send and receive radio waves. VELMA’s going to patch into the transospheric nanosatellite array. Anyway, Naraxthel and I are headed your way. He says we’re about three days out. He’s my, um, we’re … I’ll explain when we get there. Hang tight, okay? You’re not alone.”
I smiled at Esra’s speech. She sounded down to earth. Dammit. Down to predator planet. Something.
“VELMA, send this reply: It’s nice to meet you. There’s been a bit of a hiccup. Unfortunately, I didn’t hear your warning in time, and I am recovering from the cyanobacteria infection. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there was an earthquake. I hope you two are okay. I don’t know if I am yet. I’m sealed inside the EEP. VELMA gave me some medicine that keeps my eyes closed. I’ll send an update soon. Oh, and I met one of the indigenous people, too. His name is …” Loud static erupted inside the pod.
“VELMA, what was that?”
“Interference from the nosecone in Super Low Orbit. Please standby.”
I squeezed my eyes tight. Maybe if I could twitch and tighten those muscles I could start blinking again.
It didn’t work. I was forced to wait. I hated waiting.
Thanks, Dad.
30
The kathe black waters of snowmelt-turned-flood thrusted me into madness. Up was down. Light was dark. Pleasure was pain. My heart throbbed relentlessly, its attempts to break free close to succeeding.
I spun beneath the churning waters, buffeted on all sides by limbs and rocks. I imagined the raging waters purging the tunnels under the mountains, drowning the agothe-faxl, scraping the tunnel walls with shards of mountain-heart, and flooding the cave pools with fresh water. The little water suns would perish, and the glisten-fish cycle must begin again.
Likewise, the snowmelt purged Hivelt from the stream, and I felt my body go into free fall over the side of the gulch. I twisted and blinked furiously as daylight streamed through my visor. What once had been blackness was now sunlight. I fell to the night-river, praying to the Goddesses that I would miss the powerful rocks jutting up from below me. My armor could protect me somewhat, but not from gravity.
By the grace of Shegoshel, I split the turbulent waters with my feet and plunged into the depths, jostled by hundreds of split logs. Bashed repeatedly, I strove to swim through the milieu to shore, only to be beaten back by endless flotsam.
Alarms blared in my visor, indicating damage inflicted on my armor, but I fought my way through the flood, trying to resurface. The landquake caused a rain of gravel from the steep cliff to my north.
Bobbing up between floating wood, I spied Joaxma’s ship. It poised at the edge, angled downward. Its engines were encased by the boulders, trapping it, preventing it from toppling over. Its nosecone was gone.
A rushing wave closed over my head, and I went down again. I swum below the jetsam and chose a diagonal route, headed to the opposite shore. If another landquake issued, Pattee’s ship could tumble over the edge. I needed to pull her out.
A last kick, a great heave, and I pulled myself ashore. A thick branch swiped my leg in a final bid for dominance, but at last I grasped sweet tufts of grass. Mud and filth dripped from my armor. I stood, gasping from exertion, and scrutinized the precarious ship.
Zooming in with my sight-capture, I saw one hatch at the edge of the cliff. If I could open it, I might be able to retrieve Pattee without plunging us both off the edge.
My gaze returned to the tumble of debris rushing headlong toward the rokhura nesting grounds some several days’ walk from here.
Ikthe was in turmoil. As was my heart. Every time I thought of Joaxma, it beat more quickly and earnestly. Perhaps the myth was not a myth at all. I would speak to Naraxthel of this. First, to rescue Pattee, then warn my brethren. And maybe someday, when events were not so dire, I could ask him of the myth of the heart mate.
A few tiks of rest and I was pacing the south shore of the teeming river, searching for a narrow pass I might jump. I had misjudged before at great peril. My body trembled from fatigue and the battering I had received in the water. But Pattee came before all else.
Some several veltiks to the northwest, I found a logjam. It groaned and creaked as waters continued to flow into it, the jam widening with more detritus. It was a risky, dubious bridge. But my little builder needed me.
I climbed upon the pile of logs. I could feel tremors throughout the jam, the many waters rushing below, and the corkscrew limbs and branches hedging each other’s way. Holding my arms out for balance, I traversed the bridge. Each step I took brought me jotiks closer to the little builder.
Steady and slow, I creeped across.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the wide, black trunk of a dead tree plow through the flood, headed straight for my erstwhile bridge.
I leaped the final veltik, tripping among the splayed branches, and hugged the cliff face. I heard the cataclysmic impact of the trunk against the logjam and then felt water lapping at my feet. Now the flood rose rapidly, the natural dam breaking apart to wreak havoc.
I dug into the cliff wall with a roar, using my claws and boots to slam myself into the rock. I climbed up like an agothe-faxl, stretching to reach any grip or toehold.
Still the waters rose.
I creeped up at an angle, growing ever closer to the ship. I growled and heaved, stabbing my claws into the rock wall and pulling myself upward.
Nine veltiks above the original shoreline, the waters abated and rose no more.
I continued my climb, sweat pouring from my hairline down my back. I passed the cave opening from which I had emerged days ago. The sinkhole and then the landquake had altered the tunnels inside, I had no doubt, and, likewise, the outcropping had collapsed at an angle, charging the ship from the west but piling atop it and dozing it to the southeast, toward the edge of the gulch. At last I reached the lip of the cliff and pulled my weight to rest on the ledge.
With a half-veltik of space from which to work, I could reach the hatch if I stretched over a large boulder.
I touched the panel, but nothing happened. “Pattee!”
Some component inside the ship whirred.
Static inside my helmet buzzed, reminding me of the nonsense flies.
I slapped the side of my helmet.
It buzzed again.
“Hivelt, this is Pattee’s technology. I have rerouted your communication system. I assumed you would like to communicate with Pattee Crow Flies, otherwise I would have observed your desire to remain without communication ability.”
“Ah, yes. I wish to communicate with Pattee. Does she fare well? Is the ship sound?”
“Pattee is recovering. Once the ship is stable, I will resume treatment.”
I studied the ship’s encasement. Perhaps one third of it lay buried beneath rubble. It didn’t shift, but if aftershocks hit, it might tumble over the ledge.
“Open the door. I will come in to assist Pattee.”
“Negative. Additional weight will compromise the ship’s balance.”
I inspected the ship again. “Am I able to communicate with my compatriots with your repair?”
“Yes, all settings are operable,” she said.
I retreated a few steps from the ship, mindful of the ledge and enormous pile of rocks poised to tumble again. “Naraxthel, it is I, Hivelt.”
No response.
“Naraxthel, greetings from Hivelt.”
No response.
I looked around me. The rocks. The crumbling ledge. The still-flowing mud-river of broken trees and ikfal detritus below. I c
ouldn’t see beyond the rocks to the glade, but evidence all around showed destruction. Perhaps Esra and Naraxthel were likewise in a dire predicament. I groaned. I must reach out to my hunter-brothers, the ones who may be less tolerant of my abandonment or befriending a human. I sent a silent prayer upwards before calling them.
“Raxthezana, it is Hivelt.”
“Hivelt?” Raxthezana’s voice rose in surprise. His last sight of me had been in the pazathel-nax ambush when I had disappeared and feigned my death.
“There is danger in the under-passageways,” I said. “The snowmelt from Black Heart Mountain has flooded the Pool of the Lonely Sister. Do not go under the mountain!”
“Why were you in the Pool of the Lonely Sister?” Ever a distrustful son of a kathe Raxthezana was.
“Do you let my words fall through the cracks? Do not go under the mountain. There will be great danger.”
“But we are already through Little Sister Pass,” he said. “We came up the risewell at Moon’s Shield to reestablish communication with Naraxthel.”
“Stay at Moon’s Shield until I can get to you,” I said. “Have you any messages from him?”
“He has mated with Esra. She is his heart mate,” he said with derision in his voice. My own heart cramped and pinched, causing me to catch my breath. “He fights his way through the ikfal to reach us, but Esra sustained injuries, causing his delay.”
“I tried to signal him with no success,” I said. “You have heard from him recently, then?”
A pause.
“Three days ago.”
“Kathe. He left a message for …” I stopped. Dare I tell the others of Pattee? I paused. Were there more humans? Once the Ikma Scabmal Kama learned of them, she would rain terror down upon us all, sparing none, not even Ikthe, in her wrath. If she learned they were potential heart mates … I scrabbled my claws against the unforgiving armor at my chest. Raxfathe and death to us all.
“Are you still there?” Raxthezana asked.
Tracked on Predator Planet (Predator Planet Series) Page 16