The Planetsider Trilogy

by G J Ogden

  Their route took them higher into the hills alongside Green Haven, though the crawler’s automatic navigation systems had been required to make numerous lengthy course corrections to avoid regions of particularly intense radioactive toxicity, as well as clusters of movement that could have been bands of roamers or the maddened, all of which had added to the time and distance of the journey. Ethan and Summer had both been amazed by the sheer vastness of the city as they had made their way past it; neither had seen it from this angle or elevation, and although it had always been an imposing sight, neither had comprehended just how staggering a feat of engineering it was. It was sprawling yet also ornate, with multiple tiers that spread out from the center, like layers of an onion. Ethan wished he could have seen it before the Fall, before the towering buildings had snapped like fractured bones and the layers had been scorched and smashed. That a fragment of the former GPS space station had collided with the city’s central region so long after its destruction somehow seemed sad to Ethan in retrospect; it was like kicking someone when they were already down and defeated. The burning remains of the fragment, and the fires that seemed to simmer under the surface, like smoldering coals beneath the surface ash of a barbecue, still sent shafts of black smoke in to the air, as if warning travelers to steer clear. It was a message that the crawler’s navigation systems frequently seemed to heed.

  The crawler begun an ascent higher into the mountains, and even Ethan found himself pulling his coat more tightly around his body as the temperature dropped and the wind grew even more biting. They had spoken little during the journey, but had frequently exchanged gleeful looks, and each had pointed out features of the landscape to the other, so that neither missed something special. For those few hours, it seemed like nothing else existed but the two of them and that all the sorrows of the past were a distant memory. Ethan knew it could not last, but if nothing else came of their expedition to find the old hermit, he was glad of the time they had spent together, wordlessly watching the beauty of a planet that suddenly did not appear as broken as they had always believed.

  There was a loud tapping sound behind them and Ethan twisted around to see Gaia rapping her knuckles on the partition glass. She then used her index finger to make a stabbing motion towards her neck, which she then aimed at Summer. Ethan nodded, comprehending her meaning. Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulled out an injector pack and then glanced up at Summer, who was already regarding him suspiciously.

  “What’s that?” she asked; her keen archer’s eyes rarely missed anything.

  Ethan shot her a coy look; he knew she was going to put up a fight. “It’s an injector. Gaia made up a special medicine that would help with your… condition. And it will also help to keep you on your feet while we’re out here in the wilderness.”

  “My condition?” said Summer eyebrows raised.

  “Don’t be difficult, Summer. You need this, so how about you just let me do it, and not give me a hard time?”

  Summer’s eyebrows remained raised, then she did something Ethan did not expect; she agreed. “Fine, just get it over with.” She drew her long red hair off her neck and sat back against the cabin partition.

  Ethan was so surprised that he just froze, holding the box in his hands, as if he’d forgotten what it was or what he was supposed to be doing.

  She glanced across at him. “Come on, before I change my mind!”

  Ethan jerked back into action, popping the lid off the small box to reveal the injector and a single, bright red capsule. He fitted the capsule into the injector, as Gaia had instructed him to do, and then held it close to Summer’s neck. “Ready?”

  Summer rolled her eyes, grabbed the injector from Ethan’s hand and plunged it into her own neck. It hissed and the red capsule liquefied in an instant. She then tossed the injector into the compartment, where it rattled against the metal floor and rolled into the far corner of the rear compartment.

  Ethan laughed. “You’d make a terrible medic with a bedside manner like that.”

  Summer’s eyes flicked across to him again, and then she continued to watch the scenery roll by, her lips pressed into a thin smile.

  “How do you feel?” said Ethan, not dissuaded by Summer’s attempts to ignore him.

  “I feel like someone is trying to annoy me...”

  Ethan laughed again, and gave up. That she had taken the medication at all was victory enough, he decided.

  The crawler finished its steady ascent and as the terrain levelled out again, Ethan spotted a huge lake in the far distance. Ethan had seen lakes before, but this was at least three or four times the size of anything he had ever encountered. He tapped Summer on the shoulder and pointed it out to her.

  “It looks like we’re heading up towards a cluster of old stone buildings,” said Summer, who was resting on her knees and looking in the direction of travel.

  Ethan also turned to look, and saw the group of four large buildings on the side of the hill, overlooking the majestic lake below. The structures lacked the artificial, manufactured material design of the megacity, but the construction was still clearly beyond the capabilities of the planetsiders.

  “Those buildings must have been built before the Fall,” Ethan commented, speaking his thoughts out loud, “but they must be old; far older than the megacity.”

  Summer shrugged. “Old, new… I don’t care as long as the old codger is there.”

  Ethan laughed. “I’ll say one thing for that hermit; he certainly knows how to pick a location. This place is beautiful.”

  Summer scrunched up her nose. “If you say so; I prefer our settlement walls.”

  Ethan knew she was just trying to provoke him, but he didn’t bite and both remained silent as the crawler drew up beside the buildings and stopped. The cabin doors hissed open as the pressurized, protected atmosphere inside escaped. Yuna practically sprang out of the cabin, and then reached back in to grab her bolt-thrower.

  “What an incredible place!” she shouted up to Ethan, beaming, and then the wind lashed across the hillside and nearly blew her over. She shivered and again reached inside the cabin, picking up the thick winter ranger’s coat she had worn while chatting to Ethan on the wall, pulling it on quickly. “But why does it have to be so cold?”

  Ethan jumped down beside Yuna and admired the view of the silvery lake from what seemed to be the ideal vantage point. There was no doubt as to why the stone buildings had been constructed where they were.

  “If you think this is cold, you’re really not going to like it in a couple of months, Yuna,” he said, glancing back as she frantically fastened every button on the coat and then pulled the collar up around her neck.

  Gaia got out next, already wearing a fully fastened-up ranger coat, which dropped down to the ankles of the petite medical scientist. She rammed her hands into the deep pockets and stood beside her daughter, also drinking in the view. Summer was the last to alight, landing like a cat ahead of them all. She had a quiver strapped over her shoulder and a short bow in her right hand; unlike the others, she ignored the view and instead focused on the stone buildings.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone has been here for some time.” said Summer, studying the four structures. Now they were up close, they could see that one was partially ruined, and that there was no light in the windows or smoke coming from the chimneys of the other three.

  “Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Summer added.

  Ethan went back to the crawler and lifted a bolt-thrower from the rear compartment, twisting the dial to arm the deadly weapon. “Only one way to find out. Though I’d be much happier if we had brought one of the GARDs with us…”

  “Tyler’s working on another control system, but we thought it best to leave the GARDs to defend Forest Gate,” explained Yuna. “Besides, there is no way Tyler would have agreed to remain in the settlement if we took his precious guardians with us.”

  “I know, it’s just that they are handy in a fight.”

  Summe
r slapped Ethan on the back, making him stumble forward. “I’m handy in a fight. Come on…”

  Ethan scowled, and then he noticed the barely contained smirks on Gaia’s and Yuna’s faces, and his scowl intensified.

  “Hey, she’s not wrong,” said Yuna, noticing Ethan’s sudden disgruntled appearance.

  “Don’t encourage her…” said Ethan, before jogging to catch up with Summer, who was already close to the first building, an arrow nocked loosely in her bow. The hillside was exposed to the elements, and though the sky was largely clear, gusts of wind kicked up without warning, knocking them off balance and making aiming the weapons a challenge. Ethan had considered suggesting that Gaia wait in the crawler, but he didn’t feel like being scolded by her again and since there were no signs of danger, he didn’t protest at her coming along, despite being unarmed.

  They reached the first of the four stone buildings and Ethan peered in through the largest of the two front windows, which were set either side of a faded red door. The glass was cracked and broken in places, and Ethan had to rub the grime from the window pane in order to get a clear view inside. The room appeared to have remained undisturbed for a very long time.

  Yuna and Gaia had reached the second building, but it was locked and appeared as dusty and deserted as the first.

  “This one is locked up tight,” Yuna called back to Ethan. “It looks like whoever lived here left in a hurry, a very long time ago.”

  Summer had circled around the back and advanced a little way further up the hillside to gain some elevation. She was aiming an arrow at the third building, which was nestled close to the ruined fourth structure, which was likely to be a barn or storage outbuilding. She caught Ethan’s attention and nodded her head towards it, as if something had caught her eye. Ethan waved at Yuna and then pressed a finger to his lips. She appeared to understand and fell back beside him, ushering her mother behind them both, before they all slowly advanced towards the small cottage. Unlike the other two, the windows of this cottage were not dirty and broken, and Ethan noticed that the long grass leading up to the door was trampled flat. He tightened his grip on the bolt-thrower, drew up alongside the window and peered inside. The room was barren, but clean, with a simple wooden table and a single chair in the center, and a stove and large cupboard on the far side. There was also a single coat stand, upon which hung an enormous black coat, with a seemingly never-ending array of pockets and compartments. Ethan recognized it immediately as belonging to the hermit.

  “He’s here,” said Ethan. “Somewhere anyway…”

  “Ow!”

  Ethan spun around and saw Yuna on the grass, rubbing her arm, with Gaia knelt at her side, looking puzzled.

  “What happened?”

  Gaia shrugged. “I didn’t see.”

  Ethan heard the high-pitched whistle of an object flying past his ear; he spun on his heels to look for the source and was hit squarely in the chest with an apple-sized rock. The pain was excruciating, even through the protection afforded by the dense layers of his ranger clothing.

  “Ouch! Hey, stop it, we’re friendly!” he called out to whomever was throwing the missiles, but the assailant remained hidden.

  Another rock narrowly missed his head, and he ducked instinctively; if the projectile had been aimed a fraction of a degree to Ethan’s right, it would have struck him cleanly on the temple.

  “Get back, filthy roamers!” came a fierce cry from a voice in the vicinity of the ruined barn. Then another rock flew past, again narrowly missing him, and Ethan gestured for Gaia to move flat against the wall of the cottage, while he helped Yuna to get out of the line of fire.

  The next rock clattered against the stone of the cottage. “Go away! Go on, get out of…”

  Then the shout tailed off abruptly and there was silence.

  “Hello!?” Ethan shouted, but there was no answer. Tentatively, he crept out from behind the cover of the cottage and saw Summer, ushering the old hermit towards them, bow at half-tension and arrow pressed into his back. Without his enormous coat on, he seemed to have shrunk to half his usual size, but though his face wore the lines and creases of old age, his body seemed no older than a fit man of forty or fifty.

  Ethan relaxed and rubbed his throbbing chest. “I would have thought that after all these years, you’d be able to tell a roamer from a ranger,” said Ethan, wincing as he massaged the pain from his bruised muscle.

  “Sorry laddy, but you never can be too careful,” replied the hermit, anxiously glancing at Summer, who was glaring back at him with a hunter’s stare. “I don’t suppose you can tell your warrior girl here to stand down, could you? She’s making me nervous…”

  Summer relaxed the bow, but kept the pointed tip of the arrow pressed into the hermit’s spine. Slowly, she lowered her head over the top of the hermit’s shoulder and whispered into his hairy ear. “I’ll make you full of holes if you call me a ‘girl’ again.” The hermit shivered, but Summer had not finished. “Oh, and by the way; the only person who tells me what to do, is me…”

  Summer drew back the arrow and strolled past the hermit, slapping him on the back and shooting him a wink, before returning the arrow to its sheath and heading in through the door of the cottage, uninvited.

  The hermit chuckled and his mouth curled into a toothless grin. “I always did like her!” he said. “She scares me half to death, but makes me feel more alive than being chased by a pack of roamers!”

  Yuna and Gaia looked anxiously at each other, but Ethan joined in with the laughter, and went to greet the hermit properly, shaking him vigorously by the hand. “It’s good to see you again, old man.”

  “Likewise, lad,” said the hermit, warmly, and then his sharp eyes flicked across to Gaia and Yuna. “Tell me, who are your new friends?”

  Ethan turned around, and extended a hand towards Gaia and Yuna, who both looked deeply uncomfortable in the presence of the peculiar old man. “This is Gaia and her daughter Yuna. They are from…” and then Ethan hesitated, realizing he had no idea how to explain their relationship. “Well, let’s just say it’s complicated.”

  The hermit trotted over to Yuna and shook her by the hand, enthusiastically. “Pleased to meet you, Gaia!” and then he turned to Gaia and did the same. “And this must be your daughter, Yuna. Ah to be young!”

  The hermit winked at Gaia, and they both couldn’t help but laugh. “A pleasure to meet you too!” said Gaia, who now looked and felt far more at ease. Then the hermit did a funny little low bow and backed away to stand beside Ethan again.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know how to introduce you, other than as ‘the hermit’,” added Ethan. “After all, you never have told me your name.”

  “Ah, my name is unimportant, lad,” said the hermit dismissing the statement with a wave of his hand. “Hermit does me well enough. Now, shall we join the fiery one inside, so you can tell me what brings you all the way out here? I haven’t see anyone else out this far for…” his voice trailed off and he seemed to disappear into the void of his own thoughts. He sighed and smiled again, though more weakly than before. “Well, for a very long time.”

  The hermit trotted over to the cottage and invited the others to follow, before entering through the faded red door. Summer was sitting in the only chair in the kitchen with her boots up on the table. The hermit chuckled as he saw this, and then went into an adjacent room, returning with additional chairs, each considerably dustier and dirtier than the one in the kitchen. When all the chairs had been fetched, the hermit beckoned for them all to sit and then danced past Summer, causally brushing her boots off the table, and lit the stove in the corner of the room. The speed and deftness of the hermit’s actions had surprised and embarrassed Summer enough that she simply shuffled her boots under the table in an attempt to disguise that anything had happened. The hermit placed a large black kettle on the stove, and then went to the cupboard and opened a drawer, removing an ornate wooden box. He placed this on the table and removed the lid, revealing a stas
h of Katie’s amber honey cookies. He took one and munched on the corner.

  “Help yourself!” he said, with his mouth half full.

  Ethan and Summer both looked at the cookies and turned their heads away, while Yuna and Gaia both reached in and gratefully tucked in.

  “Delicious!” said Gaia, who was genuinely impressed.

  The hermit’s old eyes flicked from Ethan to Summer and then back to Ethan again. “Aye, I’ve never found any like them in all my travels,” he said, and though his voice retained its liveliness, he expression was somber and thoughtful. “But, you didn’t come here for cookies, I’ll wager,” he added, placing his cookie on the wooden worktop behind him. “So, tell me, why have you come?”

  Gaia looked to Ethan, expecting him to take the lead, but his face was white and still turned away. Gaia then looked at Summer, who seemed to sense the eyes landing upon her, and stood up and abruptly left the room. Seconds later the faded red door opened and slammed shut. Shaken, Gaia looked back to the hermit, whose eyes were fixed on hers, though he appeared unperturbed by the strangeness of the events.

  “You have such a lovely voice, Gaia, so I would love it if you told me how you came to be at my door,” the hermit said, cheerfully, and in a single sentence he had dispelled the tension in the room.

  “I am afraid to explain everything would take a rather long time,” Gaia began, resting her elbows on the table, which creaked under the added pressure.

  “The short version will do, young lady,” said the hermit, smiling softly, while casually reaching over the table to collect the wooden box of cookies, before placing it back in the drawer. He did so with such catlike dexterity that, had she not been watching, she probably wouldn’t have noticed him doing it at all. The hermit slid the drawer shut and then returned his focus to Gaia, as if nothing had happened.

  “In short, we need your help,” Gaia continued, noticing that some color had returned to Ethan’s cheeks and that his attention again seemed to be back in the room. “Ethan believes that your blood may contain within it the key to developing an immunity to the sickness you call the Maddening. If true, I could perhaps reverse its effects.”