Infinite

by Jeremy Robinson

  Capria and I move down the line, lowering each body into the dirt together, saying our goodbyes. The excavator drone follows us, filling in the graves.

  Tom is last, and I step away, giving her some privacy.

  Despite the distance between us, the dead silence of planet Earth makes her voice easy to hear.

  “You were wrong about him,” she says to her old boyfriend. “He’s kind, and smart.” She laughs. “You’d probably say I’m feeling this way because he’s the only man left in the universe.”

  Feeling what way? I wonder.

  “But you’re wrong, and looking back, at you, at us, I should have seen him sooner. He might be an Earthling, but he’s got more heart than you or I ever did. I’m happy to have him, even if he is listening in.” She glances back at me, tears in her eyes, a smile on her lips. Then glances back to Tom. “You’ve been gone for a long time, but this is where we part ways, Tommy. It’s time for me to live, too.”

  I head back and help her lower the cause of all our misery into the ground. Part of me feels like I should say something, too, but I’m pretty sure it would come out wrong, or not be nice at all. So I just pick up a shovel and fill in the final grave alongside Capria. When we’re done, a new graveyard has been created, providing the dead a view of the gray ocean. It’s a stark expanse lacking the power it once held over generations of people, but it’s the best view around.

  We stand at the cliff’s edge, sweaty and tired after working through the night. The sunrise is muted, but still beautiful.

  “What now?” Capria asks.

  I smile at the question that once horrified me: what to do with eternity. “Anything we want. Everything. But I think we should check a few locations first. Mars. Cognata.”

  “And then?” Capria asks. She reaches out and takes my hand.

  “Anything we want,” I say. “And everything else.”

  “May I suggest first returning to the lander?” Gal says, speaking from a collection of drones that helped moved bodies. “You’ve got about ten minutes of air left.”

  “You don’t need to tell me—” I’m not sure why I stop talking. Not at first. Then my conscious mind registers what my subconscious already picked up on. A vibration in my feet.

  Capria feels it, too. “What…”

  A rumbling sound turns us both around.

  The furthest gravestone tips to the side. And then with a whoosh, and a cough of dust, the mound of dirt atop the fresh grave inverts, like it’s been sucked down.

  “Did we leave an air pocket?” I ask, but I know we didn’t.

  “Run,” Gal says.

  I want to ask why, to make some sense of what’s happening, but my subconscious is now shouting to obey her. I tug on Capria’s arm and start toward the lander, two hundred feet away.

  “What’s happening?” she asks. “Is it an earthquake?”

  “Not an earthquake.” I glance back and see nothing, but the vibration has become a rumbling. There’s something under the ground, and it’s now headed toward us. If we had been anywhere else in the universe, I would have a modicum of doubt about the rumbling’s source. But here on Earth, where life was once abundant, but always evolving, it can mean only one thing. “We’re being hunted.”

  40

  When the ground shivers beneath my feet, I stay on course.

  When the sound of cracking earth coughs behind me, I keep running.

  When the baritone roar of some Earth-creature thumps against my eardrums, I can’t keep myself from looking back. It was supposed to be a quick glance, but the thing behind us is strange and completely unidentifiable. My lingering focus skews my balance to one side and my legs tangle.

  I go down hard, landing first on my left wrist, which cracks, and then my rib cage, which follows my wrist’s lead. I feel three deep pops, and then a numbness in my mind, protecting me from the agony that follows, but only just a little. I roll onto my back. I want to lie there and breathe. Maybe whine about the pain. But Capria hasn’t let go of my right hand.

  She yanks hard. “Will! Move! It’s coming!”

  The strange animal, large enough to swallow me whole, bounds toward us, its legs flailing out to the sides with each lunge. Its feet are webbed and tipped with long, hooked claws. Good for swimming, or digging. The body is as broad as it is long, coated in a layer of dry soil still flaking away from its body. A curtain of red flesh and drool dangles from its wide mouth.

  It’s eaten a corpse, I think, and then I realize that this thing must have been sleeping beneath the ground, hibernating, waiting for a rainy season, if there is one. The scent of death, and blood, coupled with vibrations created by our digging, burying, and walking must have roused the beast prematurely. And now it’s hungry, and judging by its interest in the living over the dead, thirsty.

  With my mind on water, I’m able to see this thing for what it is, or was—at least part of it. A frog. It’s a few tons too large, but the body shape, lunging legs, wide head and bulging eyes fit. The claws are wrong. Its skin is more like the armor plating of the rhinos that went extinct long before I was born.

  Did this creature evolve over the past few thousand years, or was it the creation of a floundering humanity, desperate to create a resilient source of meat? There’s no way to learn the truth, so I focus on not being its next meal.

  I scramble back, wincing in pain as I plant my left hand on the ground and push up. The break had already begun to heal, but it snaps again when I push myself up. Back on my feet, growling in pain, I make it three steps before my ankle is grasped and pulled back.

  The ground is once again unforgiving as I collide with the dusty surface just ten feet short of the lander’s open hatch.

  I roll over and look back into the open maw of the frog-thing. A long, pink tongue stretches from the creature’s throat to my ankle. The muscle flexes, and then pulls. I’m dragged across the dry ground, caught in a reverse slingshot. I shout, partly from pain, partly from the horror of being digested alive, a fate that probably would kill me in the slowest, most torturous way possible. It’s an end at which even a suicidal person would balk.

  The jaws snap down on my waist. I feel my insides compress. Something in my back cracks. The pressure is immense but, without teeth, it’s not enough to sever me in two. I scream again, this time with the expectation of pain, but there is none. My body is numb. I punch and claw at the thing’s snout, but it’s hopeless. My lower half is trapped and useless, as I’m sucked inward, a tasty morsel. I swing for its large eyes, watching me with indifference, but I fall short.

  Its cheeks bulge, getting ready for another gulp that will no doubt plunge me into its gullet. I’ll have a Galahad crewmember for company, but since he or she has been dead for thousands of Earth years, I’ll be the only one in slowly dissolving agony. How long will my body be able to regenerate inside the creature’s stomach? Forever, I think, and that’s when the true horror of my situation sets in.

  My fingers hook onto the creature’s snout, dragging dirt free as I’m pulled slowly inward. The scream that flows from my lips is embarrassing and wet with blood. If not for the rebreather strapped to my back, catching on the large lower lip, I would already be drowning in stomach acid.

  Then, a black blur. It collides with the frog-thing’s side. The world becomes a chaotic, twirling mess of confusion.

  Pressure abates.

  I feel hot air on my face. In my lungs.

  I hit the ground, limp, and roll to a stop, on my side. Facing the creature.

  Like me, the beast is on its side, but with a kick of its leg, it vaults back to its four feet.

  Run, I think. Move!

  But I can’t. My legs are useless. My back is broken. I try to pull myself along with just my arm, but pain from my broken wrist, ribs, and whatever internal damage has been done, keeps me stationary.

  I’m at the predator’s mercy, but not without help.

  The excavation drone pulls back from the frog-thing. Gal rammed it, I reali
ze, but any hope that brings is quashed when the creature turns my way again. It doesn’t know what the drone is, but it knows it’s not edible.

  “Can you move?” Gal shouts.

  “Not yet,” I reply. My body is broken, but I can feel it pulling itself back together, each stitching bone and reformed organ itching and pulsing fresh waves of nausea through my gut.

  She rams the creature again, garnering a croak of pain, and its full attention. Large claws whoosh through the air, colliding with the drone’s body, carving four long gouges through the metal. Sparks fly as the drone’s sensor array is split down the middle. The camera allowing Gal to see through the robot is destroyed. She’s blind.

  But like me, she’s not alone. With a battle cry that surprises me and makes the frog-thing flinch, Capria leaps from the lander’s ramp, shovel in hand. She reels back and brings the metal diamond down on a single bulbous eye, which folds to the side, and bursts.

  The predator is undone, flailing back, clawing at its own head, perhaps believing its eye is covered, rather than missing.

  With the monster now on its back, Capria turns to me. Reaches out.

  A long leg extends, blindly kicking at the air, but still deadly. I try to shout a warning, but I find the hot, stinging air in my lungs inefficient. My air mask is missing. Capria is struck by the next kick, and flung through the air. She lands a few feet short of me, unmoving, face down on the hard-packed ground.

  “Cap…” I manage to say.

  Then she gasps back to life, pushing herself up. The gasping continues. She can’t breathe. Her hands go to her facemask and yank it away.

  She heaves in a breath of Earth air, and discovers, as I already have, that it’s not nearly potent enough to quench our lungs’ thirst, or keep us conscious.

  As my vision starts to narrow, my spine snaps back into place. The pain is exquisite for a brief flare. The Big Bang is in my back, and then I’m fully mobile again.

  The frog-thing rights itself. Red, white, and clear liquid coats half its face. The other half still looks hungry. The long tongue rises from the mouth, dragging across the gore, not wasting an ounce of liquid. Then its attention turns back to us and the promise of water kept inside our bodies.

  “Go!” Gal shouts. “Get to the lander and leave!”

  I push myself up and yank Capria up beside me, already hobbling toward the lander. “I’m not going to leave you.”

  “It’s not me,” she reminds me. “Now, run!” She must be using the live feeds from the smaller drones, or the lander, or even the view from orbit to guide the excavation drone. It rams the creature once more, pushing it to the side, but doing no real damage.

  The frog-thing unleashes a frustrated flurry of claws, swiping with the frenetic energy of an enraged cat. The drone takes a beating, but the engines on the undercarriage remain active, keeping the robot airborne and mobile.

  We reach the ramp, fully healed, but losing consciousness.

  At the top of the ramp, I fall to my hands and knees, heaving deep breaths, but never getting enough oxygen. Cap topples beside me, already unconscious.

  I reach for her. Grab her forearm. But I lack the strength to pull myself any further, let alone pull her along with me.

  But I don’t need to. The lander ramp rises from the ground. For a moment, I’m lying on my stomach, feeling a strange kind of comfortable as darkness shrouds my vision. Then I’m pitched forward and dumped onto the floor. I’m sure it hurts, but I barely register the pain.

  On the edge of unconscious bliss, I hear the doors seal shut, and feel a blast of cool air. I take a slow, lazy breath, welcoming sleep.

  And then I wake up.

  Oxygen reaches my mind with an effect similar to that shot of epinephrine. I launch to my feet, heart beating fast, refueling my body. I lean against the rear hatch and look out the window. The lander must have lifted off while the hatch was still closing. My mind was too close to unconsciousness to register the motion. We’re already fifty feet up and climbing.

  Down below, the excavation drone, along with three smaller units, are fully engaged in battle. And they’re about to lose. The injured frog-thing is being joined by more, some already hopping toward the activity, some still rising from the hard ground, and still others ignoring the fight altogether, focusing on the corpses buried in the ground.

  I regret the fate of the dead we honored, but take comfort in the fact that my brother, nearly indistinguishable from the dry earth in which he’s buried, will be left undisturbed.

  Capria stirs, and I move away from the window. She’s let Tom go, but I’d prefer she not know his final resting place is probably in the stomach of a giant, mutated frog.

  I crouch down beside her as she opens her eyes. “Hey.”

  “Hey, Frog-Bait.” She smiles. “That’s my new nickname for you. F.B.”

  It’s horrible. “I love it.”

  I help her into a sitting position and then lean against the wall opposite her. We’re quiet for a few minutes, watching the gray sky turn muddy purple as we rise steadily into the upper atmosphere.

  “So, F.B.,” she eventually says. “What’s next?”

  I’m relieved to see that the effect of freeing ourselves from our combined survivor’s guilt hasn’t worn off, despite nearly being eaten alive forever. And when I smile, I’m even happier to realize that my relief hasn’t faded, either.

  “I’m thinking Mars,” I say. “Just to be sure.”

  Neither of us expects to find life on Mars. It’s even less likely than it was the first time mankind touched down on the red planet.

  “And then Kepler 452b?” she asked.

  I nod. “And from there…anywhere and everywhere.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Can I make a suggestion?” Gal says, her voice loud and clear from the lander’s speakers.

  “Of course.” I’m a little worried our human-oriented plan has offended her, but she doesn’t sound upset. In fact, I think I heard a touch of whimsy in her voice.

  “I think we should make another pit stop before leaving Earth.”

  I can’t imagine where Gal would want to go. There’s nothing left of humanity but ruins, the local wildlife will likely want to eat us, and the scenery is rather bleak.

  “Where?”

  “I’ve been scanning the planet, while you’ve been, you know, trying not to get eaten.”

  “Gal,” I say. “Where?”

  “Patience, F.B.” Gal gives Capria a moment to finish chuckling. “I detected higher concentrations of oxygen in the atmosphere. It could be nothing, but I think—”

  I thump my head against the lander’s wall. “Seriously. Gal, you’re killing me.”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve tried.” She laughs. When I don’t, she adds, “Fine. We’re going to the South Pole. Antarctica.”

  41

  “It’s…it’s green.” Capria is standing at the lander’s window, hands on the wall, peering out at the Earth as mankind once knew it.

  After returning to Galahad, showering, changing our clothes, and rehydrating, we began our descent, this time accompanied by a small army of drones ready to wage war against anything that might try to eat us. If evolved animals are still clinging to life in the parched world beyond Antarctica, there’s no telling what we’ll find on the now lush continent.

  I step beside Capria and watch the coastline grow closer. There are trees, and grasses, swaying in the wind.

  “Oh my God!” Capria says, her knees going wobbly. “Birds! I see birds!”

  On Earth, birds weren’t uncommon, even when things got bad. While mankind suffered, insects thrived, and so did the animals that ate them. So I’m not overly surprised to find them on a still-green continent, or in Antarctica’s case, a newly green continent.

  But Antarctica wasn’t always frozen, I remember. Before the last ice age, the continent was warm, and according to an ancient map I read about once, it supported plant, animal, and human life. And l
ong before humanity walked the planet, dinosaurs lived here, the bones surviving millennia to reveal life had once thrived at the bottom of the world.

  For Capria, the birds are more than a sign of life. She’s a Martian, born and raised on the red planet. She’s never seen a real bird. She’s encountered a giant killer frog monster, but she probably spent her childhood, like most Mars kids, dreaming about what it was like to see and hear animals like birds.

  Looking out the window, it’s as if the birds know that, and they’re putting on a show. A great flock of gulls flies east as we approach, no doubt migrating from one feeding or breeding ground to another.

  “Are you seeing this?” Capria asks.

  “Not for the first time.”

  She shakes her head, smiling wide. “I never pictured it like this. Never really understood what it would be like.”

  Her elation is communicable, pulling a laugh from me. “We haven’t even stepped outside yet.”

  “ETA, thirty seconds,” Gal says, as the lander slows its descent. “Oxygen level is at eighteen percent. It’s a little low for sea level, but it approximates what was normal for people living in what was once known as Denver, Colorado. With your genetic alterations, you should have no trouble acclimating to the lower levels.”

  My forehead scrunches a moment before I realize I’ve come up with a question. “The frogs…”

  “What’s that, F.B.?” Capria says, her elation faltering just a little when she sees my face.

  “The frogs. They were big. Really big.”

  “So?” she asks.

  “Their oxygen requirements should have been greater than ours, but they had no problem hopping around and trying to eat me, while we barely made it back to the lander without passing out. It doesn’t—”

  “Acclimation and evolution,” Gal says. “There are several examples of animals that require little or no oxygen to survive.”

  I open my mouth to offer a rebuttal. Those animals were tiny. The frogs were huge. But Gal is quicker than me.

  “And, there is a long list of Sherpas capable of not just surviving in low oxygen levels, but thriving in them. A Nepalese man, Babu Chiri Sherpa, spent twenty-one hours on Mount Everest’s summit, four thousand feet above the ‘death zone,’ without the aid of supplementary oxygen. While the oxygen level atop Everest was twenty-one percent, the thinner air reduced the availability of that O2 to thirty-three percent of what’s available at sea level.”