Stepping Stones

by Steve Gannon

  During these first days, having decided her best course lay in avoiding all unnecessary interaction with the humans, Lara requested separate quarters and spoke to no one, not even Jake. Except to eat, she remained in her cubicle in the main dome. As a result, more and more she was shunned.

  It came to a head late one evening of the third week. Lara was sitting by herself in the nearly deserted cafeteria, eating a gruel of protein and carbohydrate—a product of the newly functioning hydroponic tanks. She found it delicious. Eating was one thing about her present situation that she had come to enjoy, and enjoy immensely. And curiously, no matter how much she ate, she always seemed to be hungry.

  Nearing the end of her meal, she noticed Jake crossing the room toward her. She ignored him, concentrating on finishing her meal.

  Jake sat across from her at the table. “Is this how you keep your part of our pact?” he demanded.

  Continuing to ignore him, Lara got up and started for the door.

  Jake rose and grabbed her arm, spinning her around. “Hold on. I have something to say. And you’re going to listen.”

  Noticing others watching, Lara hesitated. “Say it, then.”

  Also aware that others were watching, Jake lowered his voice. “Everyone on this planet is pulling together to survive—everyone but you. So far you’ve done nothing to help. Some people think you don’t deserve to be here.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Call it what you will. I don’t care what happens to you. That wasn’t part of our agreement. But the child was.”

  Pulling free of Jake’s grasp, Lara again turned to go.

  “Jesus, how can you be so selfish?” Jake demanded. “Even for a cyborg, you’re—”

  “Cyborg?” sputtered a burly, red-faced man sitting nearby. “So it’s true!”

  “This is between her and me, pal,” Jake warned. “Stay out of it.”

  The man stood, levering his rawboned frame from the bench. “I reckon if she’s a cyborg, it concerns everybody.”

  “See? I told you,” another man chimed in. “She’s the one they were looking for, the one that escaped from the pleasure house.”

  The red-faced man moved to block Lara’s way, his eyes narrowing as he peered at her face.

  “Stay out of this,” Jake repeated, stepping between the man and Lara.

  The man poked a thick finger into Jake’s chest. “It’s her, all right. And you’re the one who brought her, ain’t you?” he added, grabbing a handful of Jake’s shirt.

  Twisting the larger man’s wrist, Jake forced him to his knees. The other colonist who had spoken rushed in from behind, circling Jake’s neck with his forearm. Snapping forward at the waist, Jake sent the second man tumbling over his back, dumping him onto his red-faced friend and sending both men crashing to the floor.

  With a snarl, the red-faced man came up swinging, plowing into Jake. The other man scrambled to his feet and circled left, once more trying to get behind. Jake retreated and threw a jab. The first man ducked and kept coming, walking into a punishing right that again sent him to the floor. He lay groaning, blood spurting from his nose. Seeing his friend down once again, the second man backed away. As quickly as it had begun, the fight was over.

  Caught off guard by the sudden violence, Lara glanced around the room, noticing that many hard eyes were now upon her. Realizing she had once more drawn attention to herself, she headed for the door, determined to minimize the damage.

  “Grab the cyborg!” someone hollered.

  “Do, and you’ll regret it,” Jake warned.

  Silence.

  “Ah, let her go,” the red-faced man muttered, rising to his feet. He wiped his bloodied nose with the back of his hand. “We’ll decide what to do with her when everyone’s present,” he added, glowering at Jake. “Till then, where’s she gonna go?”

  Outside, Lara pulled her coat around her as she struck off into the darkness. Passing through the settlement’s outer perimeter, she lowered her head against the wind and trudged across the frozen snowfield. For over an hour she walked steadily, working her way ever higher into the surrounding mountains. At last she stopped to rest on a granite outcrop overlooking the valley. Far below she could see the lights of the settlement. Above, a thousand stars glittered in the night sky.

  Sitting in the lee of the rock, Lara drew her legs tightly to her chest. By then the temperature had fallen below zero, and her body was shivering uncontrollably. Ignoring her trembling, she tried to think.

  Why hasn’t Command sent help?

  She had already been among the humans far longer than expected. And the longer she stayed, the more trouble they became. She could eliminate them, but could the shell in which she had cloaked herself survive without them? And if her present form were to perish and her true essence be exposed—even for the instant it took to enter a new host—she risked revealing herself to the Dark Ones.

  What now?

  Coming up with no answers, Lara finally decided to return to the colony and deal with the humans as the need arose. Shaking worse than ever from the cold, she began descending the rocky slope. Before she had gone a dozen steps, she slipped on a patch of ice. Her feet flew out from under her. Arms flailing, she slid several meters on her back. Then suddenly she was falling! Accelerating through the darkness, she dropped, faster, faster . . .

  Seconds later she crashed to the rocks below. She heard a sickening thud and felt a white-hot stab of agony. Then, nothing.

  She tried to move. She couldn’t. Nor could she see. Blind to the world around her, Lara lay trapped in her body. Is it dead? she wondered. No, that couldn’t be it. She was still cloaked, still encased within it.

  What, then?

  Sending her senses inward, Lara examined her injuries. The damage to her body was extensive: bleeding into the abdomen, broken ribs, a shattered leg. Worse, blood was pooling in her cranial cavity, exerting pressure on the neural tissue contained within, and the photonic circuits there as well. All these injuries she could repair, save one. Without help, she couldn’t reposition the jagged portions of bone that were protruding through her thigh. And even if she could, she would still be unable to walk.

  Lara lay encased in the cyborg’s twisted flesh, wondering how long it would survive. With a plunge of despair, she realized her new body wouldn’t last the night.

  Nor would she.

  * * *

  Hours passed. Stars wheeled in the sky above as Lara made what repairs she could. Although she soon stopped her body’s bleeding, she had barely returned the cyborg to consciousness when she sensed the presence of another human.

  She reached out with her mind. It was Jake. Then he was beside her, his hands tending to her injured thigh. “What are you doing?” she asked, able at last to open her eyes.

  “Splinting your leg,” Jake answered curtly.

  “How did you find me?”

  “I followed your tracks in the snow. Why are you out here?”

  “I needed to think.”

  “Well, you picked one hell of a place to do it,” Jake observed quietly.

  Using his belt and several lengths of plastic from his backpack, Jake stabilized the bones of Lara’s leg. That done, he lifted her and started down the slope. They made good time for the first few minutes. Once they had cleared the protection of the granite face, however, the full force of the wind hit them, and as Jake fought through the drifts, Lara suddenly realized the risk the human called Jake had taken to save her. Puzzled, she asked, “Why did you come for me?”

  Jake remained silent for a long moment. Finally he answered. “Let’s just say it’s something you wouldn’t understand,” he replied, refusing to say more.

  Just before dawn Jake staggered into the settlement, Lara in his arms. Exhausted, he carried her to the infirmary, finding it deserted. Baffled by the absence of medical staff, he placed Lara on a gurney and went in search of assistance. Eventually he spotted Dr. Madison, one of the colony’s younger physicians, exiting the q
uarantine dome. The medic’s eyes were bleary, his face drawn. Evidently noting something urgent in Jake’s manner, Dr. Madison straightened. “What now?” he sighed when Jake arrived.

  “There’s been an accident. My . . . wife is hurt,” Jake answered. “She needs help.”

  Reluctantly, Dr. Madison followed Jack back to the infirmary. Upon arrival, the physician withdrew a penlight and shined it into each of Lara’s eyes. Then, as Jake watched, he checked the injuries to Lara’s chest and leg, started an IV, covered her with a blanket, and wheeled over a portable N-scope. He fell silent as he examined her internal organs, seeming to become progressively mystified as he worked. Finally he flipped off the machine.

  “I don’t understand,” he said, eyeing Lara curiously. “Except for the broken leg, all her injuries seem to have been healing for at least a week. Was there an earlier injury?”

  When neither Lara nor Jake responded, Dr. Madison continued. “I also found a power pack where her spleen is supposed to be, and photonic circuitry grafted in her cranium.” He turned to Jake. “This creature is a cyborg, but for the life of me I don’t understand how she’s functioning without a control collar. And I know it’s impossible, but she’s four months pregnant. What’s going on?”

  Lara threw off her blanket and sat up. “My injuries were the result of a fall. None of the rest concerns you. Reposition the bones of my leg. I will do the rest.” Glancing at Jake, she added, “Please.”

  Dr. Madison stared. “You’ll do the rest?”

  “That is correct.”

  When Lara didn’t explain further, the doctor shrugged. “Fine,” he grumbled. “I’ll set your leg. As it is, that’s all I can do right now. I have to get back to the quarantine dome.”

  “Are there any new developments with the fever cases?” asked Jake, welcoming a change of subject.

  “You don’t know?” replied the physician. “I thought everyone had heard. Where were you last night?”

  “I was busy,” Jake answered. “Tell me.”

  The physician looked away. “Three patients died just after midnight. We’ve lost four additional colonists since then.”

  “And?” Jake prodded, sensing there was more.

  “This morning, twenty new fever cases turned up.”

  By the end of the week the number of sick had swelled to over a hundred, with more streaming in daily. Eight days later the casualties reached sixty.

  During her recuperation from her fall, Lara thought long and hard about the crisis threatening the settlement. Deciding that her survival was linked, at least for the moment, with that of the humans, she came to a decision. When she could walk, she sought out Dr. Moses, the colony’s medical director. At that point, to accommodate the growing patient load and isolate the sick from other colonists, all fever victims were being quarantined in one of the largest domes. Lara found Dr. Moses in a cubicle near the entrance, working in a small space that had been set up as a lab. He was hunched over a workbench, methodically examining a tray of microscopic slides.

  Dr. Moses looked up as Lara entered. The medical director appeared haggard, as did the rest of the staff. Round-the-clock work had taken its toll. Worse, despite every precaution, nearly a third of the medical team had also contracted the fever. “What do you want?” the doctor asked brusquely.

  “I want to help,” said Lara.

  “You’re the cyborg Dr. Madison treated, aren’t you?”

  Lara nodded.

  Dr. Moses eyed her castless leg. “I thought you had a broken femur.”

  “The bone is healed.”

  “I can see that.” Baffled, the physician stared at Lara. Then, shaking his head, “I suppose it doesn’t matter now. You want to help? Fine. Most people won’t come near the isolation dome, and we need all the nursing help we can get. But cyborg or not, you realize that if you go in there, you could become infected, too.”

  “I could become infected anyway. Is that not correct?”

  Dr. Moses nodded glumly. “I suppose so. When can you start?”

  “Now. But I can do more than nurse the sick. I know what’s causing the disease.”

  Dr. Moses regarded Lara doubtfully. “Is that right?”

  “The pathogen is a rod-shaped particle that’s transmitted within another single-celled organism, one that you consider harmless.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I can see it.”

  “You can see it?”

  “Yes. Once inside a host, the particle binds with critical proteins and disrupts their function. Search for the pathogen within the mitochondria of infected cells.”

  Although skeptical, Dr. Moses was also at his wits’ end. Deciding that grasping at straws was better than doing nothing at all, he directed his lab team to investigate Lara’s assertion. To his amazement she proved correct, and within twenty-four hours they had isolated the offending organism. Racing against time, they began working on a treatment.

  The epidemic lasted seven weeks. A vaccine was eventually developed, but not until the disease had nearly run its course. At winter’s end, of the four hundred and ninety-one colonists who had landed on Regula, only seventy-six remained.

  * * *

  The survivors elected to burn their dead.

  Lara stood in the darkness, apart from the humans. Across the frozen snowfield she could see Jake and Megan and the others gathered around a funeral pyre they had built. Constructed of wood cut from the surrounding forest, it had taken three days to assemble. Giant logs had been set as corner posts, with interlocking timber placed in between. Measuring seven meters square and eighteen meters high, it stood nearly as tall as the main dome of the colony. Steps of horizontal logs created internal platforms throughout the structure. It was upon these platforms that the colonists laid their dead.

  In its latter stages the fever had invariably grown incapacitating, with patients requiring constant attention, and during the epidemic’s final weeks Lara had spent countless hours on the ward. Originally her concern had been for her own safety, realizing that she needed the other colonists to survive herself. But as she watched the humans die, something had changed. Although she hadn’t understood it, she had felt it more strongly every day. She wanted them to live.

  She had been there the day they’d brought in Cameron, and the following day when Megan had carried in their son as well. Later, standing beside Cameron’s bed, she had heard him speaking to Jake in a rare moment of consciousness. He asked for Jake’s promise to watch over Megan and Adam after he was gone.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Jake had told him fiercely. “You’re going to be fine.”

  “Jake . . .”

  “Cam, stop talking like this. You’re gonna be fine.”

  “Please, Jake. Promise.”

  And at last Jake placed his hand on Cameron’s arm and agreed.

  Then Cameron had tried to sit, almost knocking over an IV stand beside his bed. “Is Megan here?” he’d asked.

  “She’s with Adam,” Lara had answered, moving closer. “Shall I get her?”

  Cameron nodded weakly, then sank back down.

  Lara had found Megan on the far side of the ward, in an area reserved for children. She was kneeling beside a cot, holding the hand of her feverish son. “Cameron is conscious,” Lara told her. “Go be with him. I’ll stay with Adam.”

  Megan hesitated, then gave Adam’s hand a squeeze and hurried off. Once she had left, Lara gazed down at the child on the cot. He was sleeping fitfully, his clothes soaked with sweat. Placing her hand on his burning forehead, she brushed aside his matted hair. Then, on impulse, she slipped into the child’s mind, wanting to comfort him, to soothe his fear.

  He was beyond reach. She found only pain and confusion. Suddenly a series of convulsions wracked his body, each more violent than the last. Lara tried to maintain her link with him, but could not. Helplessly, she watched as he arched and shuddered and finally lay still.

  Now he rested beside his father in the pyr
e. Cameron, and Adam, and hundreds more like them.

  Lara remained in the darkness as the fire was set. She watched as flames licked up the mountain of timber, illuminating the faces of the encircling humans. They stood together holding hands, somber and dry-eyed, slowly drawing back as the flames raged higher. How fragile these beings are, she thought once again. But as she regarded them in the flickering light, she also realized that there was more to them than she had first suspected.

  Slowly, she walked forward and joined the circle. Taking Jake’s hand, she stood with the humans, watching as the fire blazed into the night. And deep within her, she felt the precious spark of life she had started begin to move.

  Spring came at last. The snows slowly withdrew up the mountain slopes, and the valley bloomed with life. Under a crystalline blue sky, Jake and Lara sat on the granite crag where Lara had nearly lost her life the previous winter. Together they gazed out over the land. The valley below was now thick with waist-high grasses that rolled and swept in the wind, moving like an ocean of green in the morning sun. Flowers dotted the hillsides to the south; to the east a river shimmered through a wall of trees guarding its flanks.

  Fed by rushing cascades, the river had swollen during spring thaw, flooding the lowlands near the colony before finally receding. From their rocky perch, Lara and Jake watched it flow, tracing the course of the valley as it collected in lazy pools here and there, rushing in the narrows and fanning out in wider sections on its meander to the sea. On its western bank several fields were now under cultivation, and young animals—pigs, sheep, cows, and horses from the colony’s library of frozen livestock embryos—frisked in bordering grasslands and pens.