by Tim Marquitz
“You did it, you made it move,” Latal told him, her expression somewhere between aghast and delighted. “The controls are still working.”
Jai twisted to look out the window. It was now facing forward, and she had a view through the trees toward the sea. She still couldn’t see the Escarpment or the predator.
“But that can’t be,” Shiri protested. “Even ilene wears out after a while.”
Jai said, “Shiri, prove we are wrong by turning your head very slowly to the left and showing us how nothing happens.”
With a doubtful grimace, Shiri complied. And the cabin made a terrible grinding noise and swung to the left. Shiri and Latal made exclamations but Jai’s heart seized in horror. She could see the Escarpment now, and it was fouled in a water tree at the edge of the stand. The predator climbed toward it. She said, “Shiri! Can you take us closer?”
“How? What do I do?” Shiri’s voice was desperate.
Latal pointed. “Hands and feet. There are controls for hands and feet.”
Shiri’s gray brow furrowed, and he adjusted his stance to make sure his feet were in the pedals. Then he lifted his leg as if to take a step.
Nothing happened. “It’s broken.” Shiri stared at the window and the Escarpment, where Kiev was trapped. “What do we do? How can we…? It’s going to kill him!”
Jai’s heart sunk, but Latal slapped herself in the forehead. “That’s what those tubes are for!” She grabbed the ladder and swung down.
Jai scrambled to the opening. Latal had dropped the ilene light and her pack on the floor and wrestled with the first tube. She called, “I’m going to need a tool that fits these to tighten them, it’s not making the connection!”
It wasn’t very coherent, but Jai understood. “Shiri, stay where you are.” She was afraid if he broke his connection with the harness, he wouldn’t be able to make it work again.
Jai swung down the ladder, tangled in the remnant of her harness rope, and fell on the floor. She popped up again before Latal could turn to help her and said, “No, keep doing that.”
Jai went to the cubbies first, but found nothing but rotted padding and the ghost of must. Then she realized the panels under them were cabinets, and she pried the first open with her nails. It held nothing but more rotting cloth. The next two were empty, but the fourth held an array of dull copper-colored metal tools. Jai scooped up everything that looked like it might possibly be for a tube and carried them to deposit at Latal’s feet.
Latal tried two before finding the right one. Then Jai held the tubes together as Latal fastened them with the tool.
From above, Shiri yelled, “Hurry!”
Some tubes refused to tighten all the way, and Latal waved Jai back up the ladder with, “I’ll stay down here and try to keep them together.”
They had to see if it worked, first. Jai hauled herself up into the top level again. “Try it—” she began, and froze, staring.
The predator had seized the Escarpment in two of its limbs and was dragging it away across the tops of the water trees.
Shiri threw her a desperate look. “Now?”
Jai recovered herself. The Escarpment still looked intact. The creature could not have pulled Kiev out and eaten him, or Shiri would surely have mentioned that. She couldn’t afford to panic. “Yes, try. Follow it.” She caught hold of a girder and braced herself.
Shiri’s face set in determination, and he lifted his harnessed foot again. There was a hesitation, then a grinding howl echoed up from below. Then the cabin and the structure under it shuddered and lurched forward.
Shiri made a high-pitched noise of elation. He lifted his leg higher, and then put it down. Trees shook on either side of the window, and Jai held on harder as the cabin rocked.
But Shiri seemed to have difficulty lifting his other foot, as if it suddenly weighed more. He grimaced with effort, then jerked his foot up and the cabin lunged forward.
Jai slammed into the window and so had a good view as they staggered into a water tree. A loud crack made Jai flinch and the tree gave way, branches crashing against the crystal. With that impediment removed, the structure jolted forward again. This thing has legs, Jai thought, both appalled and astounded. She had thought the legs and arms of the harness were metaphors, as it were, for some sort of propulsion devices. But no, they were actual non-metaphorical legs.
Shiri kept his feet moving, and they staggered forward after the fleeing predator, water tree trunks bending aside, branches snapping. “Keep your eye on it.” Jai gasped, and climbed to her feet. From the way Shiri leaned forward, he had lost his balance, and if he stopped, they might fall. Would surely fall, crashing down into the mud at the base of the water trees. Jai climbed around behind him and, carefully, gripped his shoulders and used her weight to gently ease him back.
Their forward progress shifted from staggering into walking. The cabin-head rose higher as Shiri was able to lift his head, and they had a better view of the predator moving from water tree to water tree ahead. Shiri said in relief, “That’s better, thank you. No, keep holding on, it’s pulling me forward.”
Ahead, the predator abruptly vanished into the water trees. “There!” Jai said, remembering at the last moment not to shout in Shiri’s ear.
They plunged forward, knocking another tree aside and taking multiple jolts from sturdy branches. Shiri slowed cautiously and brushed past the last water tree blocking the view. As they saw what lay beyond, Shiri made a horrified noise.
“What you said,” Jai said. Ahead, half a dozen trees had been sheared or bent near the top, the branches woven together and held with a ropey web that had clearly been excreted by something horrible. The something horrible, the predator with the Escarpment clutched in its limb, was braced atop the nest glaring at them with all its tiny eyes.
There was some material in the lower part of the nest that hadn’t come from water trees. Jai saw metallic glints, and curved wood. She was looking at the prow of a wind-ship. That explained why Vreshian’s previous contractors had not fulfilled their commission. The Escarpment, so far, did not look damaged and the steering cabin seemed intact. Hopefully Kiev was inside and still intact as well.
“What is it?” Latal called from below.
“We’ll tell you later,” Jai called back. “Shiri, you’re going to have to—”
Then the predator dropped the Escarpment into the nest and lunged at them. Shiri yelled in fury and lunged at it.
Jai let go of Shiri and grabbed a girder to keep from slamming into him. Shiri was normally timid, but apparently controlling a giant walking metal ship had a liberating effect on one. But the last thing they needed to do now was fall. If this contraption went face first into the water and muck at the base of the trees, they would be smashed against its walls like bugs.
Mental clanged as the predator landed on top of the head/cabin. It twisted down and expanded its fanged mouth, barely a pace from the other side of the glass. “I don’t think I can lift the arms,” Shiri gasped out, “I should have tried to do that earlier.”
Jai ripped her gaze away from the predator’s maw to see Shiri with gritted teeth, trying to force the hand controls upward. Jai said, “Try your head.”
“What? Oh.” Shiri jerked his head down. The cabin shot forward and the window was suddenly full of enraged maw and spiny fur.
Shiri jerked back in shocked reaction. Jai gripped the girder as the cabin jerked backward. Shiri’s legs made staggering motions and the whole structure jolted backward. She yelled, “Forward, Shiri, forward!” but she was dangling from the girder, unable to help him.
Shiri forced his body back upright, keening with effort, and then jackknifed forward. Jai felt the weight shift, then the whole metal body jerked with his motion and staggered forward. The stagger abruptly turned into a fall and she tumbled painfully over the tubes and rammed into the crystal.
Dazed, Jai realized much of the light was gone. Pain radiated through the side of her face, and Shiri groaned. She cautiously felt her left tus
k to see if it was broken, but it seemed firm enough. Below, there were clanks and thumps and yells of alarm, then Latal poked her head up through the opening, demanding, “What happened?”
She had the ilene and it illuminated the cabin. Jai peeled herself off the crystal and crawled back far enough to see what was obstructing the light.
It was something liquid and disgusting, with spiny fur and mashed eyes and … “Oh,” Jai said. “Shiri, I think you did it.”
“It’s dead?” Latal stepped closer, holding up the ilene and peering at the creature cautiously.
“It better be dead,” Shiri panted. “I can’t do that again.”
“You really can’t.” Latal leaned down, examining the smashed predator with uneasy fascination. “I heard big things snap under the chamber below. I think we broke it.”
Jai shoved herself upright. “Latal, help Shiri out of that thing and wait down here.”
Jai ignored their protests and climbed up the girders to the trapdoor. She touched it and it made a creaking noise and slowly slid open, letting in fresh damp air and the sickly odor of mushed predator. It stopped at the halfway point with a weary squeak, and Jai shoved hard and managed to open it enough to struggle out onto the metal surface.
She got carefully to her feet, staring toward the nest. She didn’t see the Escarpment. She moved carefully to the edge of the cabin roof and looked down to see if it was trapped below them. They were wedged halfway down a bent water tree, and one of the ship’s legs, a long column of metal, had broken off and lay atop the muck around the tree’s roots. But there was still no sign of the Escarpment. If the ship was in the nest, wrecked…
Then from behind her, Kiev yelled, “Hey, this way!”
She twisted around to see the ship hovering about fifty paces above the tree tops, Kiev waving frantically from the deck.
Though bruised, Latal scrambled up the boarding ladder. Jai put on a harness so she could carry Shiri, who had possibly sprained or pulled every muscle in his body. She swung over the rail and delivered him into Kiev’s waiting arms. “Drop the tow rig before you romance,” she told Kiev, unclipping her harness from the line. “Swoon later.”
Kiev was bruised and rattled but alive, the Escarpment had many new dents but still flew, and Jai wanted to hook up the detached leg and get out of here as fast as possible. Vreshian would just have to be satisfied with that, though for her part she would be glad to take a reduced payment. She had no intention of making another trip out here. Predators like that did not exist alone. There would be more like it, and a whole host of prey, including other predators. They needed to take their prize and leave before anything else happened. At least the next wind-ship to come out here would be forewarned.
Shiri said, “Wait, I want to see it.” He staggered to the rail. “Please.”
Jai waved an assent at Kiev. That they could do.
She, Shiri, and Latal stood at the rail as Kiev moved the ship back through the water trees and angled it so they had their first good view of the thing that had saved their lives.
It was a giant person-shaped metal husk, the remaining attached leg extending into the muck and water, the arms dangling at its sides. The hands were just metal scoops, festooned with torn vines and patchy mold. The head sat directly on top of the torso and was a featureless triangle. The smashed remnants of the predator, now drawing the attention of a great many insects, still covered the window.
Shiri said, quietly, “People like me built that.”
Jai said, “I am more excited with the fact that you saved our asses in that.” She squeezed his shoulder gently. “But it is very impressive.”
They let Shiri look his fill. Then Jai and Latal hooked their tow lines to the detached leg, and they started the long slow journey home.
1
When I awake, two sensations vie for my attention. The first is an alarm which, if I’m honest, isn’t uncommon when pulsing through the galaxy, smashing into cosmic dust and tripping sensors. But, when an alarm is combined with the increasing weight of gravity, it’s never a good thing. Odds are that a pile of rubble and a futilely pinging black box will be all that’s left of Daikoku, my aptly named survey mech, which is plummeting toward a gravity source.
The alarm, muted by liquid, spurs me into action. I slap the manual override for the impact pod, and the tubes in my arms dump adrenaline into my system, waking me hard and fast. When the door slips up, releasing the gelatinous fluid supporting my body, I’m sucked out and spilled to the floor.
Hard.
The gravity is getting more intense. Feels like a planet. If it was a star, I’d already be slag. A black hole would have eaten me like a bowl full of spaghettified Captain Marshal Gunn. And it’s too intense to be an asteroid.
A planet, I decide. But is it my planet? Is it Rogue 57?
The tilted floor and my slick body work in tandem to send me sprawling. Despite the adrenaline coursing through my body, artificial and now natural, I’m unable to stop myself. I curl into a fetal pinball, bouncing against walls and consoles. My back explodes in pain when I come to a stop, nearly bending backwards around my pilot’s chair.
Illustration by FRANKIE B. WASHINGTON
At least I was flung in the right direction. Had we been facing the other way, I would have had to try scaling the tilted floor with gel-slicked feet. I see myself running like one of those ancient cartoons, hovering over the floor, legs spinning and going nowhere. The image brings a smile to my face as I cling to the back of my chair and haul myself up.
Some would call the smile odd. My psych eval said it was indicative of a dangerous personality. A borderline risk taker. What they didn’t know was that there is nothing borderline about it. I take risks. Sometimes big ones. While most of my job requires a ridiculous amount of learned mental and physical agility, I would be all but useless at it without the one talent God felt generous enough to bestow on me: an unabashed desire for adrenaline.
So, when the pod dumped the chemical into my body and woke me up, I already felt pretty good, despite the circumstances. And now, bare feet slipping, body pulled by the mass of a nearby planet, I’m having the time of my life.
That doesn’t mean I’m stupid, or that I have a death wish. I’m not yet afraid for my life. Partly because I’m not thinking that far ahead, but mostly because of the aforementioned mental and physical agility. I’m good at this. The best, in fact. And while I’ve never woken to a free fall before, I have simulated this scenario a hundred times. The worst thing about it is how the gel, still clinging to my naked form, squeezes up my ass crack when I sit in the chair. Everything about it is uncomfortable, but I manage to pull the crisscrossing straps around my torso and clip myself in place. The belts retract slowly, pulling me against the chair, which conforms to my body. My weight and the clipped belts trigger the control systems, which lower into place around me in an array of keyboards, each key customized by me. Two joysticks rise in front of me as pedals find the soles of my feet.
While some survey jockeys prefer the new-fangled interfaces, I prefer the analog. Sure, the others can literally feel what their mechs feel, and they can control the things with their thoughts, but I prefer to retain my humanity. There’s a clarity in it. And if a drill bit ever strikes something solid and breaks, I won’t feel it. Bonus.
Of course, if Daikoku pancakes, I’m going to feel a lot, but just for a fraction of a second before the safety belts sever my body into four quarters and several tons of mech compress me into sludge. Good times.
The array of screens lowered into position above my crescent of controls blink to life. They normally provide a two-hundred-fifty-degree view of my surroundings. But the screens showing my front view are washed out in bright orange. To the left and right, the screens are red. I turn my head, and the lasers tracking my movements transmit the motion to Daikoku’s body. Its head, a maroon dome that looks like brushed metal thanks to the space dust pelting it with each pulse across the galaxy, swivels in time with my
head. My side view becomes a back view, of empty space. The cameras mounted within the mech’s head and body are still functioning, which means the hot colored wash being displayed isn’t a glitch.
I tap a button, and the screens directly in front of me pull back and shift to the side, hiding behind the others. While that’s happening, the flaps in the front window shield slide up, letting me get a look with my own eyes.
The view on display matches what I’m seeing through the window. But now the details—subtle shifts in color and contrast—aren’t lost by the upgraded lenses in my eyes. The fire of re-entry, or in this case just plain entry, licks over the window.
Interesting. While the Interstellar Resource Division has gotten good at finding rogue planets—watching for the miniscule bending of light as they pass through the void between solar systems—predicting their makeup and environment is still an evolving science. And it would seem that Rogue 57 has a bona fide atmosphere, which is a first.
But the atmosphere burning the mech’s hull with friction is the least of my concerns. The hull is built to take a beating, withstanding the void of space, pulse travel, the pressure of oceans, and all kinds of inclement weather, from wind and water to acid and razor sharp, scouring dust storms. What it can’t handle is being ejected from a pulse and impacting a solid object…like a planet.
A quick check of my rate of descent, altitude, and time to impact reveal the seriousness of the situation. My smile falters.
When the flames suddenly extinguish, revealing the view below, the grin snaps away like a loosed elastic band. “Oh, hell.”
2
I see the terrain rushing toward me for a fraction of a second before I react to it, retaining just one single detail about Rogue 57’s surface—its proximity. When the boosters kick in, propelling Daikoku in a quick 180-degree backwards flip, my gut sours. I’m fairly hardened against things like nausea, but when centripetal physics attempts to extract your gut through your esophagus, it can get uncomfortable. With the mech’s feet now facing the correct direction, the boosters in the metal arches kick in hard, joined by stabilizing rockets in the front and back, all cooking at maximum heat.