Mara realized how tense she was, standing rigid, hands clenched by her sides. She opened her fists, shook her arms and rolled some of the tension out of her neck. All was going according to plan. No need to worry. One strand of dark hair had come away from her tight braid, and she worked it back in with quick, practiced movements of her fingers. The probe was equipped with the best survey sensors money could buy. The images and readings it relayed back to the lander would be continuously analyzed by its computer. They would find Karic, wherever he had been taken.
Ibri worked tirelessly with the onboard systems to restore the pod’s functions, while Mara stood guard, her eyes swimming with fatigue as she scanned the tree line.
They attempted one lift, quickly aborting the attempt after losing control only meters from the ground. There was something seriously wrong with all the systems. It was baffling. With the pod in this state it could not fly twenty meters without destabilizing, and nothing would respond to the controls. The analyzers, the cameras, the wing, the radio, all were inert. Karic could never have made the descent with the pod in this condition.
Mara held the XR32 nervously, staring into the broad canopy that surrounded the lake. The hours drew on, and once more she looked to the sky, willing dusk to come so that the day could end; yet no sun was to be found in the deep blue expanse above her, and no comfort. Time had no meaning here on the planet’s dark side. This half-day that surrounded them was endless. The raucous noises of the jungle continued in all their alien vitality.
Fatigue drew her down like a weightstone.
The probe shot by overhead on its preprogrammed flight path. She completed a radio check with Andrai. The lander was down and safe, the defensive shield deployed.
The link died as the probe disappeared over the horizon. Her heart sank as she watched it go. It would not return to the area for another ten hours. She was effectively out of contact with the base camp.
She shook her head to clear it, then circled the pod once more, coming to rest near the ruined beacon transmitter. Bored, she examined the central shaft and dish. The paint fell away at a touch, charred to powder. Intrigued, she sheathed her XR32 and prized open the inspection plate. The transmitter had not only been toppled and broken, the interior wiring and circuitry was literally melted. It lay fused in a single mass, still warm to touch. This was hit by an energy weapon.
Mara sprinted to the pod, clambering through the cramped internals to sit before the main console. Ibri lay across the floor of the craft, inspecting the rocket’s control mechanisms, which lay under access panels in the floor. He gave her a dark look, no doubt annoyed at the interruption, and returned to work.
The blank image was still frozen on the console, as it was left by them hours ago. On the margins of the picture, the beacon transmitter lay upright — and untouched.
“God! I’m an idiot!”
She activated the recording. The scene was brought to sudden, silent, life. One of the aliens reentered the view. He touched the transmitter gingerly, then turned and spoke to someone behind him. The alien left the frame, yet scarcely had he moved out of view than another took his place. It was the shaman, unmistakable in his bright decorations. It would have been easy to dismiss him as primitive, and yet his self-assurance — the menace in his slow, deliberate approach — raised goosebumps across the skin of her arms and neck.
The shaman stood before the transmitter, regarding it for a long moment, then suddenly he turned — facing the camera. The raised black nodules of his eyes began to glow yellow, then pulse. Even though it was an image, Mara was transfixed by his gaze, held by the reality of his presence. Finally, he turned back to face the beacon. He lifted the decorated scepter at his side. As the short staff rose, the ragged skins that covered it fell away, revealing the bright metal beneath. A dazzling bolt of blue leapt from the end of the weapon. The electrical corona of the discharge wrapped around the beacon, lifting it from its tripod and turning it into a smoking ruin. He turned to the pod. Once more he raised his weapon. There was a flash of blinding light.
Mara screamed involuntarily, pulling back from the screen.
When she looked back, there was nothing but static.
“Ibri. Ibri.”
“What is it?” snapped Ibri.
“The beacon and the pod were hit by a weapon. Those aliens have energy weapons!”
At once, she had Ibri’s interest. He stood up, suddenly excited, hunched beneath the low roof of the pod as he focused on the grayed-out viewscreen. “Of course. An energy discharge of the right voltage would scramble the software, but leave the hardware intact. That’s it! We need a full diagnostic. Reboot the software.”
Mara paled. “Before we attempt a second lift?” A full diagnostic took hours. Wasn’t he listening to her! They were in danger from aliens with energy weapons!
Ibri nodded.
Mara had a sick feeling in her stomach. “We are all in much greater danger than we thought.” Could the lander’s defensive shield stand up to advanced alien weapons? She had to warn Andrai and Janzen. “We must contact the lander as soon as we can. We have to set out on foot for the new base camp. It’s the only way.”
Ibri’s deep-set eyes fixed on hers. “Through unknown jungle? Abandon the pod? No. We can fly there once I finish.”
“That’s an order, Ibri. We set out on foot. Now.” Mara held his gaze, trying to enforce her orders through sheer force of will. Having to look up at him didn’t help, but she held firm. She watched the contemptuous light drain away from his dark eyes, to be replaced with something else.
“I have to finish this,” said Ibri, his usually soft, tenor voice raised to a high-pitch of agitation. Mara realized with a shock what she now saw in his eyes. Fear. Ibri’s need to continue the repair was obsessive. The prospect of being taken away from the task once a solution was in sight provoked a kind of terror in him. On Starburst, that trait was an asset. Here it meant putting others in danger. That brief flash of fear was quickly replaced by a contemptuous defiance.
“The pod will be worth nothing to us if we are dead,” said Mara.
Ibri turned his back to her. After a pause, he knelt down, sliding the access panels back into place with quick, almost fevered movements. “I’ll have this flying in half an hour,” he said.
She gritted her teeth. Ibri was hard enough to deal with at the best of times. Damn Janzen. His continual efforts to balk her had eroded her authority. Yet, it would be better to return to base camp in the pod.
“That’s all the time you’ve got,” said Mara, injecting as much authority as she could into her voice.
The world around her continued. The same noises, the same light. She paced the thick grass in frustration. They had to be warned. But for her to set off alone? That was too risky.
She looked at the display on her comband. There was still more than nine and a half hours before she could reestablish contact with Andrai. The aliens knew where the pod was. It was only a matter of time before they returned.
Three point six kilometers. She could jog that in less than thirty minutes, surely — despite the extra kilos the planet’s gravity would add to her slight frame. Ibri could lock himself in the pod, fly it to the new location once the systems were responding. No. No. Don’t be an idiot, she told herself. Anything could happen to her in that jungle, and they would never find her. She and Ibri had to stay together. They had to stick with the plan.
A painful throb began behind her eyes. Karic was in danger. They were all in danger. She had to do something!
“Janzen. Andrai. Can you read me?”
Static.
The damn things were not designed for this.
She balled her hands into fists and screamed.
Beside her, the lake glittered in perfection.
CHAPTER 8
It was a surreal trek for Karic. His early attempt to break free had seen him tackled by two of the creatures and slammed into the forest floor under a crushing weight of hairless flesh. He re
mained disoriented for some time after that. The huge natives also took precautions. One of the aliens flanked him on either side, each gripping one of his wrists in their big three-fingered hands, while the others loomed in front and behind. They walked for a long time, the skin-clad shaman leading, scepter by his side, the others following behind.
They had been silent at first, yet now they spoke to each other in a strange musical fluting. He could sense a new purpose driving them, and guessed they were drawing close to some destination. His heart thumped double-time, driving him to a sharp alertness. The verdant green of the forest, the heavy air — redolent with sweet resin and spicy scents — came into sharp relief.
Karic looked up into the doughy too-smooth faces of the creatures and tried to read some intent or emotion in their big, black eyes. He had a sudden sense of how alien they were. He swallowed against a reaction of nausea, as though something had tried to crawl up his throat, something with hooked beetle legs and barbed flesh. The aliens were even larger up close. At least three meters in height, yet as bulky as polar bears — but without the hair. The two that held him were slightly different from the others, taller and thinner, with a predominance of red color on their head and shoulders. There was no way he could hope to overpower them; yet, for all their strength, they seemed to lack an instinctive coordination that was second-nature to a human. Maybe he could outdistance them. Outmaneuver them with his primate-derived agility. He just needed a chance.
The slope steepened as they climbed toward a ridge. The aliens began to speak at once, their voices sliding over each other from note to note until they harmonized together in a weird musical scale. The vocal gymnastics appeared to be natural to them, and it was in their voices, rather than their faces or bodies, that Karic could read a rising excitement. The forest, which had initially thinned out, now grew thick. The path became constricted as trees and vines, grown rampant in the waxing radiance of another crystal mountain, pressed in from either side. Just for a moment, one of his alien wardens released his grip on Karic’s right hand in order to negotiate a bend in the path.
Now.
Karic twisted his left hand out of the grip of the second alien warden and fled off the path.
He pushed through the thick growth, desperately looking for any escape. The forest became a blurred capsule of green as he sprinted away. His lungs were raw with the effort, his limbs burning in the heavy gravity.
He spotted a huge wall of vine, weaving around two fallen forest giants. The whole tangled mass blocked a steep gully that led down into a narrow valley far below him. If he could force his way through this wall of vine, the bulky aliens would waste hours finding another way around.
He ran for the vines.
They filled his vision. Huge purple leaves, shaped like teardrops. Strings of small white flowers. A pungent, sickly scent.
Almost there.
Karic felt a pressure behind him and leapt to his right. A bright flash seared his vision as something struck him on the arm. A surge of electricity shot through him. The chain around his neck burned into his skin with sudden heat. His body twisted and he tripped into the vines. His head hit one of the gigantic, fallen trees and he collapsed onto the thick grass, stunned. The leaves and flowers above him shriveled instantly to black as the last of the discharge swept through them. The scent of the vine was overpowered by that of burning vegetation and the smell of ozone.
A hot wave of agony flared across his left forearm, bathing his mind in fire. He opened the seam of his jacket with his other hand. His chain fell to pieces in his hand, the links melted. The blackened St. Christopher medal tumbled from his shaking fingers to the leaf-strewn ground. He clawed at the soil, desperate to find it.
But his vision blurred, and darkness took him.
***
Karic groaned in pain. He hovered in dark, suffocating molasses, a grim shadow world lit by distant flames. His limbs were impossibly heavy. He could hear voices around him, conversing in high melodious tones. Fear filled him, yet desperation gave him will. He swam to consciousness.
A flood of color stung his eyes.
He sucked desperately at the humid air, looking around him with wide eyes. His head swam, and he forced himself to slow his breathing.
Karic was no longer in the forest. He was on his knees, his arms held firmly by two towering, red-crowned aliens. Other aliens crowded the space, speaking slowly in their mellifluous language.
He looked up at them, and immediately they grew silent.
Karic pushed himself to his feet. His head throbbed, yet this pain was nothing compared to the agony in his left arm, which had been burnt by the discharge of the energy weapon. The long, ragged burn was bleeding, the damaged skin torn by the rough grip of the alien’s huge hand. Up close, he could see their skin was roughly textured, patterned like a reptile’s — it felt like sandpaper.
He was inside some sort of circular structure. A raised dais was set before him, bathed with warm amber light. Seated there was one of the aliens, huge even compared to those he had seen. His skin was stretched tight in places, the bloated belly and torso dwarfing the round face. His huge eyes glowed faintly in the dim light with yellow phosphorescence. The colors across the skin were faded almost to black.
The shaman was at the base of the dais. Karic recognized him immediately in his distinctive regalia of sticks, leaves and skins. The shaman’s henchmen he knew from his trek through the forest, recognizing them by the distinctive colors on their heads, shoulders and torsos. Behind Karic, a score of the creatures were gathered in ranks, solemn and attentive to the events beneath the dais. Assembled, they presented a maze of colors that dazzled his eyes. Beyond the strangeness, his heart quailed at the sheer size of them, the weight and power beneath their mottled skins.
In the gathered creatures, he could see a variety of postures and facial expressions, yet had no way of knowing what they meant. Their eyes were multi-faceted, like an insect’s, and scattered the light across their surface like expertly cut gemstones. In the dim light he could see that all the aliens’ eyes possessed the same quality of bioluminescence. These subtle variations of light and color brought them to life. Despite being only raised nodules, they were capable of being extremely expressive.
Karic turned back to the dais. The leader’s eyes — for this was unquestionably their leader — seemed to slumber with suppressed power, and Karic had the sense of great age.
Karic looked across to the shaman, staring deep into the alien eyes trying to judge his intelligence. The shaman stared back with unconcealed malice. The emotion was unmistakable, and strangely human. This dark dislike, the first real communication between human and alien — albeit on an emotional level — made his stomach squirm with fear.
Karic’s limbs trembled with fatigue and he sank to his knees. A wave of dizziness threatened to drag him down, but he fought back to consciousness. The effect of the heavy gravity was not just added weight. His knees and lower back throbbed, and he felt the strain in every joint and muscle as they struggled to adapt and function.
The shaman raised his scepter and pointed it at Karic. Turning to the great figure on the dais, he began to speak once more, gesticulating wildly with the skin-covered instrument.
Karic had seen what destruction the scepter was capable of, and watched it with great anxiety. In the torchlight it gleamed with the bright finish of burnished steel, undulled and perfect. The end was tapered and set with a faceted lens unlike any Karic had seen. It delivered a pulse of energy far beyond anything a device of its size should be able to command, and was out of place amid these primitive surrounds. It spoke of a technology far beyond anything he had seen on this world. Far beyond anything humankind had yet devised. What was he dealing with here? A fallen culture? Two races, one advanced, another primitive, yet sharing technology?
The shaman turned back to him. The alien’s eyes grew brighter, becoming twin orbs, filled with hate. A desire for his destruction.
Those ey
es …
Karic had a sense of recognition. A distant voice of realization was calling for his attention amid the clamor of the Starburst’s alarms and the smell of burned flesh …
The thought was lost below the edge of consciousness.
This time, he felt, rather than saw, the shimmering, surging patterns that preceded the fugue. He had spent so much of his life fighting it, developing an arsenal of tricks and drugs that would keep his mind in the here and now. Yet now his instincts urged him to surrender. The voice of reason urged him to fight, to keep his wits, but exhaustion and pain dulled that voice.
The fugue’s usual effect was lost time — he would experience strange visions while time dilated. What would seem moments to him would be hours where he was lost, immobile, staring into some unknown space. It was frightening for those who witnessed it. He would appear like a man trapped in a catatonic episode, unresponsive to outside stimuli. Thankfully, his family recognized his first fugue state, having seen his grandfather experience the same condition, and helped him both conceal and manage it.
Yet the fugue had changed.
When he was overtaken by the fugue state during the pod descent, amid the turbulent fury of Oasis’ storm-wracked upper atmosphere, there had been no dilation. No lost time. His mind had grown outward, meshing with the storm and the matter of the pod, but he had remained acutely aware of his surroundings and the normal passage of time. He had experienced the fugue as a state of heightened awareness, with his senses enhanced in new, unexpected ways.
After that episode in the pod — that strange, focused state — a secret, reckless hope he had always held close to his heart, that he would one day learn to control the fugue, emerged with new strength, urging him to leap into the unknown. For a brief moment, Karic hovered on the edge of fear.
Then he let the fugue take him.
His vision expanded. Karic reached out, desperate to anchor himself, to prevent the time dilation.
The Tau Ceti Diversion Page 12