After Earth: A Perfect Beast

by Peter David Michael Jan Friedman Robert Greenberger

  Considering the reputation of the monster that shared the desert with him, he might have had a hard time sleeping. But he slept soundly and without dreams.

  After all, he cherished simplicity. The Primus made his life complicated. So did Vander Meer. So did the intricacies of a hundred Ranger personalities that he had to fuse into one purpose.

  But hunting Gash? What could be simpler than that?

  In the morning, Conner ate and drank and took a salt tablet. Then he stood up bare-chested in the cool, still air and checked his cutlass. He turned the weapon in his hand, and it glistened in the soft pink light of first sun, long and slender like its namesake. Long and slender and deadly.

  Sliding and tapping, he turned its business end into a blade that shone in the pristine light of first sun. Then a pike. Then a hook. And so on.

  Lyla was a genius. She was also beautiful, as beautiful as any woman he had ever seen, but as soon as the thought entered his head, he thrust it away. He couldn’t be thinking about Lyla now. He had to focus on the task at hand.

  On the Ursa. And on the cutlass he would use to destroy it.

  It was light, so light that he felt it was part of his hand. Perfectly balanced for optimum maneuverability.

  Of course, there was that one slide-and-tap combination he had to be careful of, the one that activated the scythe function. The one that would cause the cutlass to fly apart in a million directions, his own included.

  Lyla had agonized over that failing. That one failing out of everything she had accomplished in engineering the cutlass. If he hadn’t gotten involved, the Savant wouldn’t have let the cutlass out of Lyla’s lab.

  But it wasn’t a failing. It was an asset. Yang was the one who had pointed that out to him. And if Conner got the chance, he was going to use it to good advantage.

  No, he thought, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. Not if. When.

  It was almost midday when Conner came in sight of another chain of mountains, smaller than the one into which Nova City had been built. It was called the San Franciscos after a chain back on Earth that was also rust-colored, though the one on Earth apparently had been bigger and more impressive.

  He didn’t know why Gash would have ranged so far from Nova City if the Ursa was engineered to attack human beings. However, there was plenty of game in the San Franciscos. Maybe Gash, unlike the rest of his kind, had more of a yen for other kinds of prey.

  Not all humans were alike. Maybe the same went for Ursa.

  As Conner closed the distance between himself and the San Franciscos, something occurred to him. Something grim and a little frightening.

  If he died on this mission, the Raige bloodline would come to an end. After all, Grandpa Joshua had died when Conner was twelve, and he’d had only one grandchild—Conner himself. Uncle Torrance—for reasons Conner never had learned—had not had any children, and Aunt Theresa didn’t seem likely to have any, either. She had celebrated her fiftieth birthday recently, and as far as Conner could remember, she had never had a boyfriend, much less a husband. She had always been too devoted to her faith to think about romance, even before she became an augur—or so his dad had told him.

  Of course, Conner had plenty of cousins on his mom’s side of the family. Rebecca Raige had been born one of four sisters, and each of them had given birth to at least a couple of children. But none of them were Raiges. They couldn’t carry on the name.

  That leaves just me, Conner thought. And if I make one mistake, one wrong move …

  He shook his head. A world without Raiges. It was unimaginable. All those sacrifices over the long history of humanity on Nova Prime, all those acts of heroism … gone. Not completely, of course, but nobody would attend to the family history the way the Raiges themselves had.

  Was he the first Raige who had ever faced such a possibility? He wished he knew. Of course, it was too late to go back through the family archives and find out. He could do that only after he returned to the colony.

  If he survived.

  No, he thought. I can’t let myself think that way. The Ranger who worries about being beaten is already beaten.

  A Raige had said that, he recalled with a smile. Carter Raige, who had become Prime Commander hundreds of years earlier. He was talking about the Skrel and how as a child he had gone looking for one of the alien ships without regard for his own life.

  In the end he found the ship and gave the Savant of that time a chance to figure out how its shields worked. And the colony survived. All because one little boy had the guts to take a chance.

  The Ranger who worries about being beaten is already beaten. It was good advice. He would do well to remember it rather than fret about his family coming to an end.

  Conner leaned into the wind on his skipjack. The air was warm and dry on his face. Soon, he thought.

  He didn’t have any way of knowing for sure, but he could feel it in his gut. Soon.

  Late in the afternoon, with first sun dropping down in the sky, Conner reached the San Franciscos. He heard the wind howl through the smooth red rock formations, hooting as if it were amused. But then, it had never before seen what it would see if Conner was right about Gash’s having holed up there.

  The problem was that the mountains were rife with overhangs that obstructed his view. He wouldn’t be able to find Gash unless he got off the skipjack and continued his search on foot.

  He would be a lot more vulnerable on the ground. But then, the same thing went for the Ursa. After all, the mountain passages were narrow. It would be difficult for Gash to maneuver.

  With all that in mind, Conner landed the skipjack on a shelf of rock. Then he took his cutlass in hand, climbed down from the shelf, and found a cleft that wound its way through the range.

  First sun dropped out of sight as he negotiated the cleft. Then second sun followed it. And no sign of Gash.

  Conner was eager to confront the monster, but he didn’t want to do it while he was sleeping. If he didn’t find Gash soon, he knew, he would have to double back to his skipjack, which had his sleeping gear and his perimeter monitors, and resume the search in the morning.

  But he still had half an hour at least. He stopped for a moment, just long enough to pull a drink of water from his canteen. Maybe I’ll get lucky.

  Suddenly, Conner realized something with terrible clarity. He wasn’t the hunter anymore. He was the hunted.

  Whirling just in time, he caught sight of the Ursa as it emerged from the cover of some rocks. It was huge, pale, with thickly muscled limbs and curved talons the size of Conner’s head—easily the biggest, most fearsome-looking Ursa he had ever seen.

  There was a livid scar across half its face, or what passed for a face. The scar that gave it its name.

  As the monster loomed against the sky, its maw wide, its claws extended, it let loose a roar that Conner could feel in his bones. Then it bunched itself and launched itself at him.

  It was faster than he’d expected, faster than any of the other Ursa he had seen. Conner flung himself to one side, careful to maintain his grip on his cutlass.

  A claw tore open the front of his uniform and scored the flesh underneath, setting Conner’s chest on fire. But it didn’t kill him. He rolled to his feet, his cutlass at the ready.

  It was a good thing, too, because the Ursa had already landed and was turning in his direction.

  It didn’t have the same range of senses that humans did. The Savant’s people had established that fact. But it knew there was prey within reach. Conner was certain of that. Dead certain.

  He was certain also of what he wanted to do. Trusting in his ability to manipulate the cutlass, he did it.

  As Gash came at him a second time, Conner summoned a blade and slashed at the creature. The move drew a black splash of blood from one of its forelegs.

  Just as important, Conner ducked back beneath an overhang before Gash could return the favor. But he was out again a moment later, pressing his attack before the monster could whirl in
the tight space afforded it.

  He called up one function after the other so quickly that Gash had all it could do to adapt. First the spear. Then the mace. Then the hook. Then the blade again.

  But the Ursa avoided them, every one of them, as if it knew they were coming, as if it had a crude animal sense of what Conner would do and when he would do it. Of course, that was impossible. It was just a beast, wasn’t it?

  You’ve just got to be faster, Conner told himself.

  He gritted his teeth and attacked with redoubled speed, not just with single blows but also with combinations, coming at the creature from every angle he could manage. It didn’t seem to make a difference. Gash was a step ahead of him. Conner began to see how this Ursa had earned its reputation as the most deadly of its kind on Nova Prime.

  Doesn’t matter, Conner thought.

  His muscles screamed. Sweat fell from his forehead, found its way down the sides of his face, and dripped from his chin. Lean and fit as he was, he felt his throat burn like a furnace as he pulled in breath after hot salty breath.

  Because he wasn’t just fighting the Ursa. He was fighting the desert as well. And of course fighting himself.

  Every part of him wanted to stop, to give up, to go home. But he couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do that.

  Except little by little, Gash was forcing Conner to retreat. And with each step backward, he was less protected by the rock formations around him. With each bit of ground he yielded, he emerged onto a flat plateau where the Ursa had a decided advantage.

  He tried to take the offensive again, to push Gash back into the cleft. But he couldn’t. He was faltering, his arms and legs growing leaden despite his determination to destroy the creature. And the more he faltered, the closer he came to the edge of the plateau.

  Worse, the rock was smooth there, worn down by the elements. Don’t slip, Conner thought.

  But Gash seemed to have other ideas. The beast gathered itself and sprang at him, filling Conner’s vision with its bulk. All he could see for a moment was its maw, huge and black and full of teeth.

  Except it had slipped on the smooth surface of the plateau, and its attack fell short. Instead of landing on its prey, it landed just in front of him.

  It was all the opening that Conner needed.

  He pulled his cutlass back and swung at Gash’s head with all that was left of his strength, hoping to slice the creature’s throat open. But the cutlass never connected with its target—because Gash ducked underneath it.

  And looked up at him.

  Too close, Conner had time to think. Too close.

  He was less than an arm’s length from the monster’s maw. If Gash was quick enough, it would reach out and disembowel him. Or rip his legs out from under him. Or kill him in a half dozen other ways.

  But the Ursa seemed as surprised as Conner by its proximity to him, because it didn’t do anything right away. It just continued to stare at him.

  He would never get a better shot.

  His jaw clenched, Conner forced himself to slide along and tap the handle of his weapon exactly as he had done a hundred times in practice. Then he reached into the monster’s slimy black maw and shoved the cutlass down its gullet.

  Got to get away, he thought wildly.

  Except before he could do that, he felt Gash’s teeth close on his hand. The pain shot up his arm, forcing a cry of pain from his throat.

  But he couldn’t let Gash keep him there—his cutlass was set on the function that made it explode. And it would do exactly that in just a few short seconds, destroying anything and everything within ten meters of it, Conner included.

  He tried to yank his hand free to no avail.

  Then Gash solved the problem for him. With a wrench of its head, it tore off the last two fingers on Conner’s hand.

  The pain was indescribable, but Conner was free. Pulling his mangled, bloody hand into his chest, he whirled and scrambled away as fast as he could.

  Gash flailed at him, raking his back with its claws, but the monster failed to get a grip on him. Ten seconds, Conner thought, dropping back down into the cleft.

  He could see Gash’s shadow stretch out past him, falling in disjointed sections on the formations in front of him. The creature was coming after him, cutlass in its throat and all. But then, as the Savant had told him, it didn’t breathe the way people breathed. The cutlass might not be an impediment.

  At least not yet.

  Eight seconds, Conner told himself.

  He ran as he had never run before, careful not to trip, because if he did, it would be his last act. The mountain air was like fire, burning the lining of his throat. It didn’t matter—it was fuel. He drank it down as fast and as hard as he could.

  Six seconds.

  Was Gash’s shadow getting shorter? Was it short enough?

  Four seconds.

  One last burst of speed. It would be for only a little while—a few quick heartbeats, a few frantic strides. Then he would know if he had put enough distance between himself and the Ursa.

  Two.

  One.

  Now.

  Nothing happened.

  No, Conner thought bitterly. It’s got to work. It’s got to.

  He shot a glance back over his shoulder. Gash was still pounding after him, showing no ill effects.

  He had given up his cutlass. He had gambled everything on it exploding inside Gash. And it hadn’t. It had failed to fail. Even in his desperation, he couldn’t help seeing the irony.

  Now what? He couldn’t keep up this pace much longer. But Gash could. It would narrow the gap and—

  Suddenly, his ears throbbed like drums and he felt a giant hand shove him forward. He went tumbling end over end so hard that he thought he would surely break his neck.

  But somehow he didn’t. He found himself lying on his back in a cloud of dust and debris, looking up at the sky. It was quiet, unnaturally so.

  Conner felt something sitting on his shoulder, something soft and wet. He plucked it off him and looked at it for a moment, trying to figure out what it was.

  Then he realized: It was a chunk of pale flesh mingled with thick, black ooze. A chunk of Gash.

  It smelled putrid. But he didn’t get rid of it, not right away. He endured the stench long enough to rasp with his raw, dry throat, “Got you, you bastard.”

  Then he flung the chunk away as far as he could.

  Something gnawed painfully at his hand. Looking down at it, Conner saw blood seeping from the ragged wound where two of his fingers had been ripped away.

  He rolled onto his side. His chest hurt, too, where the monster had scored him. And it had lashed his back as well.

  A small price to pay, he thought, though that didn’t make his wounds hurt any less.

  With his good hand, he fingered the activation stud on his naviband. A moment later, he heard: “Conner?”

  Blodge’s voice sounded like it was underwater. The explosion did something to my hearing. Temporarily, he hoped.

  “I’m here,” he said, his voice thinner and wearier than he had expected. “And Gash …” He looked around at the splashes of black gore all over the landscape. Gash was still there as well. And there. And there … “Gash is dead.”

  He heard cheering through the comm link. It was a good sound. A great sound. “Any chance you can send out a flier?” Conner asked. “With a med kit?”

  His friend laughed, and there were others in the background who laughed with him. “It’s on its way. Hang in there, buddy.”

  Conner grunted, enduring the pain as best he could. “Like I’ve got a choice.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Conner inspected his heavily bandaged right hand. A bright red spot where some of his blood had seeped through was the only outward evidence of his injuries.

  Of course, the throbbing hadn’t quite gone away despite the painkiller the doctor had administered. It felt like a massive toothache. But he had the satisfaction of knowing that Gash’s toothache had bee
n much worse.

  “That’s about all we can do,” said the doctor, and sat back on his stool. “Come back to see me in a few days and we’ll change the dressing. Till then, just keep it clean and dry—and for heaven’s sake, stay away from Ursa.”

  Stay away from Ursa. It was a joke the doctor couldn’t have made even as recently as the day before. But with Gash gone, the colony could breathe easy for the first time in weeks.

  “I’ll do my best,” Conner said.

  When the bandages came off, he would be missing one finger and part of a second one, which would hamper his ability to use a cutlass with his right hand. He would have to train himself to be adept with the left, which would no doubt be a long and arduous process. But he would worry about that later.

  “Now get going,” the doctor said. “When you’re ready, we can talk about prosthetics.”

  Conner shook his head. “Rangers don’t use prosthetics. It’s a tradition.”

  The doctor, who obviously hadn’t heard of the tradition, shrugged. “Listen, it’s my job to make you aware of the options. Which one you choose is up to you.”

  “Thanks,” said Conner, who had a bit more on his mind than a couple of fingers.

  “Come in.”

  The words sounded hollow in the Primus’s sanctum. Theresa stood just outside the doorway, reluctant to enter because she didn’t know what she would encounter. But she was sworn to obey the orders of the Primus, and so she kept faith with her oath and entered the room.

  The Primus was standing at the far end, near his balcony, gazing at the stars. “Augur Theresa. I understand that in my absence, you were rather … busy.” He let the word hang there like the last leaf on a tree before it released its hold and fell.

  She was happy to see that the Primus had reappeared. But if I had vanished like that, I would be offering an explanation. The Primus seemed inclined to do no such thing. He was acting as if he had never been away.

  “Busy?” she echoed.

  “Yes,” he said, still giving her his back. “Your little program of going door to door? It’s doing well?”

  “Oh,” she said, “that. Yes, Primus. I’m pleased to report that it is.”