by Rob Boffard
There’s another branch above me, to my left. I swing up onto it, making room for Harlan. The wolves aren’t giving up. As I look down, I see that they’ve made it onto the fallen trunk. One of them is a few feet up, trying to dig its claws in, but it topples backwards, landing on two of its friends.
Stopping, even for a few seconds, drives the situation home. We’re moving away from the road, and we can’t stay in the trees forever. But I feel elation, too. It worked. Wolves can’t climb. As long as we stay up here, they can’t get us. They can’t—
I slip. I don’t know whether it’s a wet patch, or just bad balance. One second I’m crouched on top of the branch, and the next I’m falling. My fingers claw at the bark, hunting for a grip, and get nothing. The familiar, sickening feeling of gravity takes hold of me, and then I’m tumbling down towards the snapping wolves.
29
Riley
It’s only at the very last second, right when my legs are about to leave the branch entirely, that I realise what I have to do.
My left leg is still in contact with the branch. I swing my right leg upwards, fighting against gravity, forcing my burning muscles to react.
My ankles slam together, locking me to the branch. I start swinging, upside down now, swinging back and forth. I look down, and a pair of jaws slams shut inches from my face. The wolf falls back to earth, vanishing in a sea of barking, growling fur.
Harlan is reaching down for me, his face contorted in pain. He grabs for my hand, misses, tries again. I’m swinging too wildly. I have to tighten my ankles on the branch, slow myself down. As I do so, I feel them slipping, inching away from each other.
I bend from the waist, my torso screaming at me. It’s just enough. Harlan snags my fingers, then his other hand grabs my wrist. I can see the sweat standing out on his face.
But he’s got me. He’s pulling me up, around the side of the branch. Away from the pack.
He wrenches me upright, and I sit, my legs dangling on either side of the branch, breathing hard, trying not to let the panic take over. The branch itself is bending and creaking, threatening to break under our weight.
The wolves are milling around below us, growling and snapping at one another, as if arguing about what to do. I risk a look down, and several pairs of eyes meet my own, bright with hunger.
Harlan is talking, more to himself than me, his words coming fast. “That was much too close. Too close. Not like that time in Dawson when we had warning. Goddamn spray. It should have worked, it should have. Eric’d know what to do. He’d get us out of here.”
My nose is running, and the stinging in my eyes has changed to a horrible, maddening itch. “We have to go,” I say, forcing the words out.
Harlan is still muttering to himself. I swing round and look at him. “Hey. We can do this. All right?”
He looks up. He’s trembling, although I don’t know if it’s exhaustion, or fear, or both, but I see him nod. Moving as slowly and as carefully as I can, I make my way across to the next branch. The wolves see the movement, snarling, grinding up against the trunk of the next tree. Some howl: a noise which feels like it’s going to pierce my eardrums. They’re frenzied at the thought of prey, nostrils flaring, teeth bared.
Harlan is slower than I am, but he’s staying with me. We move higher into the trees, testing branches, contorting our bodies as we stretch between them. It’s hard going: several of the branches are covered in slippery moss, and there are others that won’t take our weight. Once or twice I place a foot on one, only to have it snap and fall, crashing down onto the pack. It feels like there are more of them, like they’re calling their friends from all over to join them. There’s no way to tell. Everything down there is teeth and fur and horrible, burning eyes.
Even as we make progress, I know we can’t keep going like this. My arms are already burning with exhaustion, and Harlan looks like he’s about to fall over.
I can see sky through the trees ahead of us, the grey clouds level with my eyeline. There must be a hill, with the forest sloping down it, away from us. We can deal with that. We just have to be careful.
Then I reach the edge of the forest, and a horrified moan escapes from my lips.
It’s not a hill at all.
It’s a cliff.
The trees run right up to the edge of it. I could take a few more steps out onto the branch I’m on, and have nothing below me but air. The cliff itself must be fifty feet high, formed of weather-beaten rock, grey and white. It extends a long way to our left and right, curving away from us, as if we’re at the apex of an enormous circle. Here and there, plants cling to the surface, small branches thrusting outwards, like they’re trying to escape.
The wolves reach the cliff. We’ve managed to get a little way ahead of them, and at first there are only three or four, growling, running in mad circles. But then the rest arrive, bunching up against the edge.
I don’t see it happen, but, suddenly, one of the wolves is falling, legs kicking at nothing. It gives a puzzled bark, and then it smashes into a jutting part of the cliff. Its head detonates, gore exploding across the rock, and the pack’s howling gets even louder.
Harlan is whimpering. “We have to go back,” he says.
“What?”
“We can’t go down there. We can’t.”
“We don’t have a choice.” I say it knowing full well that I have no idea how we’re even going to get to the cliff, let alone down it.
I look at the wolves. The small one, the leader, is staring up at me. Every other wolf is in a mad rage, pacing and turning, but the leader is still. He’s waiting. Calmly, patiently. He knows that sooner or later we’ll need to come down.
I lean out over the edge and scan the cliff, looking for something, anything, that will help us.
I see it.
Then immediately wish I hadn’t.
“Harlan, listen to me,” I say. “We’re going to have to jump.”
“What?”
I have to force the words past my lips, because what I’m proposing is completely insane. “We grab hold of that,” I say, pointing. There’s a tree growing out of the cliff face, fifteen feet down, slightly to the right of us. It’s got two branches, shooting out at right angles to the rock face, sprouting tufts of leaves. They’re not nearly as thick as the branch we’re standing on, and there’s every chance that they’ll snap the second we hit them. But it’s our only shot.
Harlan has stopped talking. Now, he’s just shaking his head rapidly, back and forth, hugging the tree even tighter.
I’m not going to convince him. I could stay up here forever, and never talk him down. I’ve seen panic before. If you try to take a panicked person somewhere, they won’t just refuse to go–they’ll fight you, desperate to stay where they are.
I have to show him.
The howls get louder, rippling up from below. I look down at the plant on the cliff. It seems impossibly far away. If I miscalculate this, if I’m off by even a foot…
No. Don’t get scared. Stay angry. Stay focused.
I inhale once. Exhale. And jump.
30
Riley
Most times, when I’m airborne, things slow down. It’s my body’s own safety mechanism, the adrenaline working to make sure I survive whatever I’m trying to do.
Not this time. This time, things speed up.
Almost immediately, I can tell I’m moving way too fast. I’ve overcompensated, overshot the jump, and the only thing on the other side is open air.
The branch knocks the wind out of me. I hit it so hard that I keep moving, somersaulting over the top. I have just enough presence of mind to bring my hands down, wrap my fingers around the wood, and then everything goes upside down. I get a momentary look at Harlan, his mouth open, and then I’m hanging, swinging in the wind.
My swing goes too far, and one hand comes loose.
This time, everything does slow down.
One hand. Four fingers and a thumb. That’s all I’ve got betwee
n me and a fifty-foot drop. I can feel the grip on my thumb sliding away as the swing pulls it around the branch.
But swings go both ways, and this one doesn’t travel quite far enough to pull me off. As I come back, I throw my free hand up, grabbing hold of the branch again. Slowly, I come to a stop. When I look up, I see a dozen animal faces staring down at me, saliva dripping from open jaws. The wolves are barking, harrying each other, not sure what to do.
“Are you OK?” Harlan is shouting, over and over again, the words blending into one another. I don’t answer–not yet. Instead, I move along the branch towards the cliff. It creaks and bends, but it feels like it will hold. Twigs jab at my cheek, spiky and intrusive. Now that I’m down here, the adrenaline has started to ebb, and an awful worry has replaced it. What if the rock is smooth? What if I can’t find handholds?
But the rock is cracked and fissured, and there are more shrubs dotted here and there–none with long branches, but they should be enough. I move carefully, placing my feet first, positioning them on a convex piece of rock. Then I jam my fingers into one of the fissures, bending my body so that my legs can take the weight. At the back of my mind, fear is trying to grab hold, but I won’t let it. Not this time. If I can climb a surface on Outer Earth, I can climb one down here.
“Riley! Help me!”
I look up. The wolves have forgotten about me. They’ve turned their attention to Harlan, crowding around the tree below him. He has to jump. It’s the only way.
“It’s OK!” I shout. It still hurts to speak, my throat stinging from whatever Harlan sprayed at the wolves. “It’ll take your weight.”
“I can’t do it.”
He’s still in a panic. Not good. If I don’t get him down here soon…
Leave him.
The voice speaks from nowhere, and this time it’s so forceful that I can’t ignore it. Leave him. You can find Whitehorse on your own. He’ll only slow you down.
I actually feel my hand start to move, as if I’m about to make my way down the cliff. I clench it deep into the fissure, horrified.
I’m not leaving him. I won’t do that. He’s only here because of me–he might have offered to take me to Whitehorse, but I was the one who ran for the trees, the one who led us here. More than that: he’s not physically equipped for this. I’m asking him to do something that even I found nearly impossible, and I’ve been a tracer for years. Wherever that horrible thought came from, I can’t give in to it. I have to help him.
Going first wasn’t enough–I’ll have to talk him through it.
“It’s closer than you think,” I say. “I know you can make it.”
Harlan moans.
“I’m going to move further out of the way.” I slide along the cliff, hunting for a hold. “We’re going to go on zero.”
“Can’t do it. Can’t.”
“Yes, you can. We’re going to get down there, and then we’re going to go to Whitehorse. You’re going get me there safe, and I’m going to tell them you were with me every step of the way.”
I don’t give him the chance to back out. I just start counting. “Three… two…”
Harlan jumps.
I’m looking at the branch, so I don’t even see him do it. Suddenly there’s this scream, and then a thud as he slams into the branches. He hits them exactly as I did, toppling head over heels. But he doesn’t have my instincts, and he doesn’t grab hold of the branch as he goes over.
I rip one hand out of the crack in the rock, lunging for him. My fingers grip the collar of his coat.
Then gravity takes over, and he nearly wrenches me off the cliff face.
He slams back into the rock, roaring with pain and fear. I grit my teeth, plant my feet, do everything I can to keep my other hand buried in the cliff. I can feel the skin tearing off my fingers.
Somehow, Harlan doesn’t fall. He finds one hold, then two, then he’s being supported by the cliff. My hand is clenched so tightly around his coat that it’s an effort to actually let go.
“Still with me?” I say, trying to inject a little humour into my voice. I’d almost forgotten about the wolves, but they’re howling and barking, furious at the loss of the kill.
Harlan grunts. It’s good enough.
“I think we’ll be OK,” I say. “You need to go first, all right? Just take it slow. I’ll be right behind you, I promise.”
He stays frozen for a long moment, long enough to make me think I’m going to have to talk him into it again, but then he starts making his way down the cliff, inch by inch. I wait one breath, two, then I follow.
More than once, I get stuck, dead-ended in an area without any holds. I have to backtrack, climbing up the cliff, and somehow those are the worst parts, the times when I come closest to letting gravity take me. But soon we’re thirty feet above the ground, then we’re twenty. There are more shrubs now: scrubby, insubstantial things clinging to the rock. We grab them as close to the roots as we can, clenching them in our fists. At ten feet above the ground, I take my deepest breath yet, and drop.
I’m used to landing on hard surfaces, and the soft ground catches me off balance. I tuck into a roll, feeling dead leaves and frozen, clammy dirt under my hands. I come up onto my feet, gasping.
Harlan is just below where I was on the cliff. I consider telling him to jump, but he might not know how to land properly–he could crack an ankle, or worse. I direct him, pointing out the holds, talking him down until he’s a foot above the forest floor.
We’re in a large clearing, on the edge of another part of the forest. Huge boulders lie scattered across the ground, as if they fell from the cliff long ago. When I look up, the wolves have gone.
“Harlan,” I say. “I am so, so sorry. It was the only thing I could think of, I…”
Harlan is making an odd sound. He’s standing, hands on hips, gazing up at the cliff edge, and he’s laughing. Actually laughing.
“You like that?” he shouts. “Try to mess with old Harlan, eh? That’s what you get! Hope your stomachs are rumbling good and proper, you bastards. Can’t catch old Harlan, not in a million years. That cliff goes for miles in each direction. You’ll never find us.”
He collapses in howls of laughter again. I take a few deep breaths, feeling my heartbeat get slower and slower.
“What was in that thing?” I say, when Harlan subsides. My tongue is dry and heavy in my mouth, and it’s hard to speak.
“What thing?”
“The spray can. The stuff you used on the wolves.”
“Oh, that?” A dark look crosses Harlan’s face. He digs the canister out of his jacket, staring at it like it personally betrayed him. “Bear spray,” he says. “Guess it doesn’t work if there’s more than one wolf, right?”
“Bear spray?”
“Should never have traded for it in the first place,” Harlan says. “Goddamn useless piece of shit. Now, if I was younger, I’d go back and find the guy who traded it to me and bust his head in two.” He raises his voice again, shouting at the clifftop. “Just like I’ll do to the next mangy rat-eared fleabag that comes anywhere near me! You hear?”
He grins. “Come on,” he says, the volume of his voice returning to normal. “Whitehorse ain’t far.”
He limps off, heading for the trees. I follow, the wound in my thigh throbbing like a broken tooth.
31
Okwembu
Okwembu is the last one up the ladder.
It’s made of rope, frayed and salt-stained, and it’s all she can do to persuade her exhausted muscles to hang on. A bitter wind slices through her clothing as she climbs.
There are plenty of faces above her when she reaches the top, but no hands help pull her over. She has to do it herself, crawling over the lip of the opening. It’s only when she’s on all fours, shivering, that rough hands find their way under her elbows. She is yanked upright, and the first thing she sees is a rifle barrel, pointed right into her face.
They’re in a wide cavity in the side of the ship, with ridg
ed metal walls. There are fluorescent bulbs in the low ceiling, just like Outer Earth, and only half of them appear to be working. The space goes deep into the ship–Okwembu can see passages branching off it, sealed with thick doors.
Her captors say nothing. There are around twenty of them, men and women. Most of them appear to be around her age, and they’re all dressed in overalls with the same pattern of grey and blue splotches. Both their clothes and their faces speak of hard use, of long years spent fighting against the wind. Edges are frayed, knees torn, and their shoes are as mismatched as their weapons–rusted rifles that have seen endless repair jobs.
Carver, Prakesh and Clay are all being held at gunpoint, just like she is. Behind them, she can hear Ray grunting as he pulls himself over the top of the ladder.
That’s when she sees the man at the back of the group.
He’s around fifty, she guesses, and completely bald, his head gleaming under the lights. His right eye is gone, the lid sewn shut. The stitch job is clumsy, with dark lines criss-crossing his skin; it reminds Okwembu of a bad tattoo she once saw on Outer Earth. In this case, she’s almost certain that nobody has ever told this man how ridiculous it makes him look. There’s something about the way he carries himself–he’s not tall, or muscular, but there’s a set in his shoulders that speaks of power.
Okwembu waits until he looks at her, and smiles. “Hello, Prophet,” she says.
A murmuring rumbles through the crowd at her words. She can feel Aaron Carver staring at her, his eyes drilling into the side of her head. Not that it matters–he no longer matters. None of them do.
Ray gets to his feet behind them. “We got ’em, Prophet. These’re the only ones who survived the crash. Only ones we could find anyway. If we—”