The Lying Planet

by Carol Riggs

  A whine sounds behind me. It’s followed by a scorching blast that smashes into a sable tree to my right. Flames roar and crackle. I pump my legs faster. I run past boulders and trees and bushes like a wild animal. My boots beat the ground.

  Another fireball ignites a bush near me and engulfs it. I scramble down a small ravine. Pebbles and sticks roll with me. A bloodcurdling yell pierces the air to my far right, followed by tortured screaming and a triumphant shout.

  “I got mine! He’s down.”

  Thomas.

  My eyes water. My veins surge. I suck in air and blow it back out as I splash across a stream. The other side of the ravine is steeper. I climb upward, flailing. Another whine pierces the air. Fire strikes a tree branch near my shoulder and fills the air with the stench of sulfur.

  My alien assassin crashes through the underbrush into the ravine. Hurry. In a few seconds I’ll be in Farrow’s sights for a straight shot across the ravine. The saplings and sparse brush on the hillside won’t give me much cover.

  I dart toward a rocky outcropping. A shrill zing reaches my ears, and I make a fast dive for cover.

  I’m not quick enough. Pain sears my calf and nearly wipes out my mind. The rest of the shot plunges into dead leaves on the hillside and sends them into an angry blaze. Black smoke churns around me. I gasp and clutch my leg behind the outcropping.

  Man, oh man, the terrible pain. Farrow won’t stop—I have to keep going—

  Coughing, I drag myself into a crouch. I have to climb while the smoke masks my movements, even though Farrow might fire blindly through the haze.

  “Give up, Mr. Lawton,” the commander yells. “You’ve been hit. It’s only a matter of time.”

  I haul myself to my feet and keep low, hobbling up the slope. Down below, splashes indicate Farrow has reached the stream. A shot sizzles against the outcropping below me at the same moment I hurtle over the top of the ravine.

  Rolling, I gulp in fresh air, my limbs trembling. I’m on higher ground. For a short time, he won’t be able to see which direction I go.

  Heedless of my leg, I spring upright and tear off through the trees. An ache plagues my side. After a bit, I slow into a limping jog and survey the area. Scrawny trees, tangled messes of bushes, and brittle logs. I don’t dare stop to rest. Who knows how long Farrow will hunt me. I have a feeling he won’t tire like I will, and the underbrush is too thick in most places for me not to leave a trail for him to follow.

  My right leg throbs. I glance down at my calf. It’s red and blistery, and my pants around the wound have shriveled into a black crust. Sooty, greasy, and sulfuric. I stagger, lightheaded. It looks and smells way too familiar.

  Mick didn’t die from genomide dust exposure after all. The scavenger team members apparently use the exact same flamer weapons during their foraging trips.

  I keep going. In another minute, a rushing sound leads me to a river. Standing on the bank sweating and panting, I estimate the river runs about seven meters wide and up to a meter deep. It’s likely a more energetic version of the stream I crossed at the ravine. While it’s dotted with boulders, there aren’t enough of them to use for stepping stones.

  Slogging across would be too slow and make me an open target, like a mouse hunted in an open field by a hawk. Upstream, on my side of the river, a fallen koga tree leans into the water, its trunk mostly a stump of rotted bark and brambles on the bank. Better than nothing. I can’t wait here.

  A whistling whine reaches my ears, obliterating the gurgles of the river. Tall brush next to me roars into flames.

  Farrow. I peel out and dodge trees, heading toward the fallen log. The stump crumbles beneath my feet as I reach it and start climbing. Thorns snatch at my shirt. Another flame plug slams next to me and ignites the brambles. I throw myself onto the fallen log, scooting fast while the blaze crackles and dense smoke billows around me. The log bounces as I crawl.

  “You’re needlessly prolonging your agony,” Commander Farrow calls.

  I curse and keep moving. The log creaks. At the middle, it gives a tremendous crack and breaks beneath me. I drop with a yell, icy water washing over me. My feet slip on mossy rocks. I struggle to get out of the river, right as a shot sizzles into the water and barely misses my arm.

  Spotting a massive boulder on the bank, I scrabble toward it. A shot zings past my ear, and I flinch and leap. My shoulder smacks into the boulder as I roll behind it. At the same time, a nearby sweetbush whooshes into flames, causing a bunch of darkwings to shriek and take to the sky. When I peer out, Farrow is glowering at the river, a scowl twisting his face.

  “You’ll die of infection and starvation out here,” he shouts. “As you’re dying, you’ll be sorry I’m not here to put you out of your misery.”

  A long minute passes. He plunges one boot into the river like he plans to cross. For a split second, his leg flickers with an image of his real appendage, spiny and amber-colored. He yanks it out and shakes it off. “If you’re still alive in a few months, I hope the scavenger team finds you so they can flame you and turn your body into a safe zone lesson!” With a snarl, he turns and crunches away from the river.

  The yellow of his coveralls recedes through the trees and underbrush. Is he really leaving, or is this a trick? That foot shake was strange, with the water messing up his camouflage. Now that I think of it, I never saw Mom or Dad or any adult swimming in the lake or heading off to take a shower. They were always dressed and ready to start the day by the time I woke up. That fits in with Leonard saying his parents always used sanitizer instead of washing their hands.

  Farrow evidently didn’t want me to see his true self. Even with banished students, he keeps up the deception…for his horde’s ultimate protection, I suppose. Whatever the reason, I hope he’s stopped pursuing me. My legs tremble from spent adrenaline, and I ache all over. I touch my ear. My finger comes away tacky with blood. The rest of the wound, I suspect, has been cauterized like my leg.

  Close call, that last shot.

  After I rest for a few minutes, I check the riverbank. It’s empty of life except for a lone chirping pullbird and some needleflies. The stump still smolders. Keeping a careful eye out, I hobble to the riverbank and rinse my shaking hands. After that, I go farther upstream and scoop clearer water, drinking deeply, over and over. I splash water over my stinging ear and leg, then sit with my head on my arms. The sun beats upon my back with a merciless heat.

  What now? I’m not anxious to head back toward Sanctuary and risk being shot by perimeter guards. But I need to build a shelter fairly close by and set up a camp. I’ll have to forage for food, too. I ease to my feet and groan, partly from the pain of my leg, partly from harsh reality. Who am I kidding? I don’t know much about surviving in the wild. I have no weapons or tools, no laser knife. Even if I get through the summer by eating berries, nuts, and wild rugar leaves, there’s no way I’ll make it through the three winter months when the night temperatures get close to freezing. Liberty’s winters are mild, but it’d be brutal trying to stay alive.

  Sanctuary is an hour south by vehicle, which means about two days of walking. Maybe I should hike north into the outer zone colony. Farrow and Boggs didn’t seem worried about genomide dust. No gloves or masks. Their coveralls were probably to protect their clothing while they crashed through the underbrush. That monolith marker we passed listed New Paradise as four kilometers ahead, and if I go there I might find an abandoned UHV that I can get working, along with supplies and canned rations. Maybe I’ll even find banished graduates surviving by foraging and growing their own food.

  “Yeah, right,” I mutter. With Farrow heading up human target practices with his alien weapons, the graduates are probably all dead. Blake and Shelly included. Banishment isn’t a safe option anymore. Once I’ve set up a camp, I need to warn everyone. Would Harrel, Peyton, or Leonard live through something like that?

  I grimace. Mick must’ve survived…only to die by flamer guns four months later.

  Thomas’s ter
rible scream echoes in my mind. I wonder if Farrow and Boggs left his body for vermals and worfers to find or if they took it with them. They can’t use him as a scavenger team lesson because he hasn’t been banished long enough to fake genomide exposure like they did with Mick.

  I shake off those morbid thoughts and limp away, keeping the sun on my right and angling west to intersect the hovertrack. My singed leg aches like the stabbing of a thousand needles. My boots squelch. I wipe sweat from my face and swat gnats. I’m already thirsty again.

  After a long time, I finally glimpse the hovertrack through the trees and underbrush. I step onto the pavement and trek north at a quicker pace, keeping alert for vehicles.

  The hovertrack slopes up a hill. I begin to see broken spires and buildings above the treetops, rising up like monstrous ghosts of irathon fiber and plexisteel. They’re the broken tombstones of an outer zone colony. New Paradise, post-War.

  The buildings come into full view. Some of them loom eight, ten, and fifteen levels high. Amazing. They’re nowhere near the height of Earth skyscrapers I’ve seen in the database, but they’re still bigger than anything I’ve ever experienced in person. The Corveira Mountains fill the horizon beyond the buildings. Clouds cling to their peaks, clouds that actually let loose moisture. No rain falls anywhere on Liberty, but on the peaks, snow falls…and later melts into the underground water tables that feed the nightly ground-swells.

  If I didn’t have a safe zone of friends and sisters to protect from a bunch of carnivorous aliens, I’d hike up there and check out some of that cold, mysterious snow. Someday, maybe. When—and if—I survive this part of my life.

  I enter the colony, winding my way through shattered glass, hunks of wood, and metal skeletons of rusted and burned UHVs. Weeds grow in thick clumps, pushing through cracked pavement. A sluggish breeze lifts hair from my forehead, while rawkers cackle overhead like winged demons. The noise echoes off the empty buildings.

  I peer through one building’s shattered windows, a building labeled “Dentistry Center.” Its chairs stink, infested with yar-flies and dung beetles. Fledgers have built a nest on a shelf, their droppings splattered across the dusty floor. A foot bone protrudes from an inner doorway. A person, part of what was once a human being. I retreat with a nasty taste in the back of my throat. Someone died and has been lying on that floor for over two decades.

  This colony is a twenty-five-year-old nightmare. Destroyed, desolate. Ravaged by a war that may or may not have included genomide dust.

  I hack out a cough. My whole mouth is dry, along with my throat. I need to find water and rest my throbbing leg. But there isn’t any water. The fountain waterpods aren’t working, and the inside faucets are probably filled with nothing except rust, arachnids, and sediment. I find a food service building and verify my discouraging theory.

  I’m alone with my thirst. Totally alone.

  Outside again, I sink onto a bench in the shade of a sable tree. The sun beats down from its noon perch like it’s trying to exterminate my shade. I curl onto the grit-encrusted bench, not caring about the hard surface under my shoulder and hip.

  Closing my eyes, I wish to the twelve galaxies that I were back in Sanctuary, living in the sheltered haven I thought existed a few weeks ago.

  I drift off despite my pain and thirst.

  Under my eyelids, I dream about pure, cool water. I drink and drink, but my throat stays dry and my thirst won’t quench. Strange pale globs float around me like wet clouds. I strain toward them. After a moment, I stop and listen. A huffing noise threads through the soggy whiteness. My skin tingles. A breeze snorts across my leg, followed by one across my arm. The snuffling reaches my face—

  My eyes snap open and I freeze on the bench, fully awake. I stare into a long beastly snout tipped by a rubbery black nose. Large pointed ears sit on a furry head. The jaws open and breathe a dose of foul air across my face.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I shrink from the creature’s snout, not daring to move more than a few millimeters. The beast looks like a larger, darker version of the vermal Mr. Redmond shot by the perimeter fence.

  A female voice calls from a short distance away. “What didja find there, Sadie?”

  My muscles tighten, like I’ve given them one crank too many with a hydro-wrench. A girl? There are actually humans living in this colony? Footsteps thump closer, while the big vermal creature and I continue our stare-down. I remain still. In my peripheral view, tan and green clothing grow closer until a figure stops next to the furred creature.

  “Whoa, look here, it’s a recently banished dude. Nice forehead, pal.”

  My eyes follow a pair of tan coveralls up to a bright green shirt and a holstered pistol at the girl’s waist. A slender white object dangles from her mouth, smoke wisping from its tip. She has dark hair cropped short as a guy’s on one side and hanging straight to her chin on the other.

  “M-Marnica?” I croak, my voice not quite functioning yet. It has to be Marnica, even though it’s been a year since I’ve seen her in sessions, flirting and trying to get Blake’s attention. The B on her forehead has healed into a pink, puckered scar.

  The girl squints. “Jay Lawton! What the flamin’ worrel dung are you doing here?”

  “Dying of thirst. Is this animal going to bite me or what?”

  She laughs and ruffles the fur on the animal’s back. “Nope. This is Sadie, my Earth dog. She’s my foraging partner.” Her gaze flicks to my charred pants and skin. “Gruesome little leg wound you got there. Daniel can fix that for you. Come on, get up. You can’t take naps in the open around here. A scavenger team might find you and turn you into toast.”

  I spring into a sitting position. “They come here to New Paradise?”

  “Only when they can’t find what they need in the colonies down south. Which has been more often lately, since after twenty-five years those areas are pretty picked over. That’s what Daniel says, anyway.”

  “Daniel…is he from Refuge or Fort Hope?”

  “Neither.” Marnica takes a long inhale on the white stick and exhales a disgusting-smelling cloud of smoke. “He’s old world. Been around since before the War. He can tell you everything you ever wanted to know, and you’ll be frothing mad at the bunch of lies the Board told us.”

  “Like genomide dust?”

  “Naw, that one’s for real. You’re sitting on some right there on that bench.”

  I scramble up and gawk at the thick layer of pale orange dust I just slept in. It clings to my arms and the legs of my pants. I’m dead. I’m so dead.

  Marnica gives a thin smile. “Don’t short-circuit. You’re safe. The dust hangs around, but the effects didn’t stretch on for years or cause miscarriages like the Board always said. It lasted a month, tops. Let’s go somewhere safer and I’ll get you a drink.”

  No lasting genomide dust. No miscarriages.

  Incredible.

  Brushing off the powdery stuff, I hope she’s right.

  I follow Marnica as she trots along the ravaged street with her Earth dog. She carries a pack, the strap slung over her shoulder, and it hangs down near her pistol. She’s one tough, soldier-like girl, and her dog creature is intimidating. Thank the stars above she’s managed to stay alive in this colony for an entire year. It’s better news than I expected.

  We walk to a compound that’s set back from the street, the units arranged in a U shape. Marnica aims for the largest unit, a food center with the front windows busted.

  “Sadie, stay. Guard.” Marnica points at the permawalk. As if Sadie somehow understands, she sits on her haunches and looks attentive. Marnica crunches over broken glass with her thick-soled boots, leading me inside, past shelves of scattered ration packets and canisters. More canisters litter the floor.

  “Hey, bud,” Marnica calls into the dim rows. “Come see what I found. You’ll never guess, not in a terazillion years.”

  “Be there in a sec,” a familiar male voice calls back.

  Another dog, w
ith lighter fur than Sadie, pokes its head out from behind an aisle and makes a loud woofing noise. I stop. Maybe it’s not wise to keep walking. These animals have really long, sharp teeth.

  A guy with a bandaged arm rounds the corner by the dog, holding a cylinder of laundry capsules. He skids to a halt when he sees me, blue-green eyes bulging under his crew cut. “How on stinkin’ Liberty did you get here, Lawton?”

  My own shock prevents me from answering. I stare at the guy.

  Blake is here in New Paradise, too.

  Marnica chuckles, flicks the stub of her white stick onto the floor, and grinds it out with her boot heel. “Toldja you’d never guess.”

  Blake saunters closer and eyes my battle wounds. The light-colored dog shadows him, moving its tail back and forth in a slow rhythm.

  “I see you managed to escape your dad’s execution attempt, Zemik,” I say. “Farrow said your dad tore up one section of woods trying to get to you.”

  “Yeah,” Blake growls, holding up his bandaged arm. “And luckily Shelly got away, singed but alive. Lieutenant Simpson went after her, since her dad didn’t feel like doing it. I know the Board thinks we’re unworthy when we get banished, but that hunting game takes things way too far. Did you really get banished or are you here to spy on us?”

  My hands curl into fists. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say something that incredibly stupid. Yeah, I got banished. I did it on purpose—did you?”

  “Of course not,” he says, frowning.

  “Simmer down, guys,” Marnica says. “We’re on the same side. Wait a sec, Jay—what do you mean, you did it on purpose? Why would you do something like that?”

  “Long story.” I exhale, more weary than ever. It sounds like neither of them meant to get banished, and they don’t know about the aliens. “I’d like that drink now, please.”

  Marnica digs in her pack and thrusts a canteen toward me. “Sorry. Have as much as you want.”

  “Thanks.” I take long swallows of the cool water. I’m wiping my face when a soft wetness bumps my other hand. I flinch and look down to find the light-colored dog sniffing my fingers.