by Stephen Hunt
‘You’ve stayed alive out here for week? Do you give survival lessons?’
The woman just stared at Calder as though he was speaking a foreign language. He tried to offer the radio back to her but she showed no interest in receiving it. Lento really did appear quite insane, as though she was looking through Calder rather than at him. ‘Stay here,’ ordered Calder, gesturing pointedly at the ground as if he was speaking with a particularly dim foreigner. He approached the nearest tree, slung the rifle over his shoulder and climbed the trunk with both hands. Calder shinned up until he reached its lowest branches, large waxy shield-sized leaves an angry red . . . the same shade as this system’s dying sun. He used the branches as a ladder, easy climbing compared to the frozen forests of home, where slipping on a single icy bough would end in a fatal plunge to the ground. Calder’s eyes flicked down to ensure the mute woman hadn’t wandered away; but quite the opposite . . . she had followed his example and shinned up the tree too, stopping by the lower boughs. Sensible. Staying out of the way must have been how Lento had survived in the jungle for so long. He reached the canopy top, poking his head through. Calder felt hope drain from his heart. Just an endless crimson forest steaming from the last rain. Abracadabra’s ugly bloated sun pulsed high in the firmament, making the clouds appear to glow intermittently, filaments of red spreading out like running blood. No sign of the mining camp. No sign even of the mountain where humanity’s sole outpost on this faded world had been blasted out of the thick jungle. How far have I been dragged from the base? If a predator had been responsible for dragging Calder away from the camp, then the exiled nobleman should have been food for its larder long ago. He spotted two dragon-sized lizards wheeling over the distant forest . . . the same species which had attacked his shuttle on the way down to the world, hungrily eyeing the new arrivals through the cockpit’s transparent ceramic as they dove at him. The only way things can get worse was is if the dying sun goes supernova early and kills me in the explosion. He ducked his head before the flying lizards noticed him, then carefully climbed back down, stopping on a branch close to Janet.
‘I don’t suppose you remember the way back to the mining truck you were driving?’
Her mouth opened but she said nothing.
‘Well, I guess we’re both lost. Our best chance is to listen out for a helicopter from the base. If one comes close I can take a pot-shot close to it with my rifle – that should set off its perimeter alarm. Let them know we’re close.’
Lento looked around twenty five, but with life extension treatments, she could have been older than Calder’s grandmother. I really am lost – wrong planet, wrong time period, wrong situation. Janet’s mouth opened, but this time, rather than just sucking air, he heard words, so faint and rasped he couldn’t make them out. ‘What did you say?’
Now Calder was listening, he heard her the second time.
‘It’s covered in spines.’
Calder glanced around. Some of the jungle’s plants resembled giant cacti, but he couldn’t see any from where they were seated. ‘What is?’
‘It’s covered in spines,’ she repeated, hardly louder than a breath.
Calder groaned in frustration. I’m sitting in my tree with someone who is clearly out of hers. What had Janet Lento run into out here to send her off the deep end? ‘It doesn’t matter. We’ll get out of this, Janet Lento. My crew won’t give up on me. And your people have been searching for you since you were posted missing.’
‘It’s covered in spines.’
For a moment he wondered if she was talking about what passed for grass underfoot. Thick orange blades that bristled when you walked across them. ‘Well, I’ll be sure to wear gloves if I have to pick them up.’ Humouring her seemed to have the desired effect. She fell silent. ‘We could light a fire and try to attract attention. But everything in this land is so damn damp, I’m not sure how well it’d burn. And with the steam from the rivers and rain, distinguishing the smoke from the general boil-off isn’t going to be easy.’ It might be worth a try, though. The Gravity Rose’s crab-like navigator, Polter, was still in orbit alongside Chief Paopao. They had still been seeding orbital satellite coverage around the planet when Calder’s shuttle launched down to the ancient world. Could modern technology distinguish the difference between a rescue beacon’s smoke and natural steam from rainfall? Satellites still seemed like magic to Calder. The wizard’s all-seeing eye. Science or sorcery, he would take whatever help he could get right now.
Calder heard a scratching noise at the end of the branch. He peered through the bloody red leaves. A spider the size of a rat shook the tree’s vegetation, a peacock-like fan of multi-coloured fur at its rear, bristling as it drummed its fore-legs against the wood. Disgusted, Calder reversed his rifle and swiped the thing away using the gun’s collapsible metal butt. ‘Off you hop! This tree isn’t big enough for everyone. Guests get priority.’
As the spider fell it made a keening whistling noise like an angry kettle brought to the boil. Its cry was answered in the jungle, distant echoes muted by the thick undergrowth. That’s not good. The creature he had dislodged fell to the ground in the tree’s shade before whipping around in circles like a puppy chasing its tail.
Janet Lento shinned higher up the tree as the faraway whistling grew closer, ferns rustling as more spiders appeared. And Calder realized that what he had ejected from the tree wasn’t exactly a spider . . . at least, not an adult one. The mature hunters weren’t rat-sized. In fact, mastiff hunting hounds in the exiled prince’s palace kennels would have given the fully grown spiders a respectfully wide berth. The creatures swarmed forward, a series of legs pincering down either side of their orb-like bodies; large and small limbs interweaved like dancing tanks, at least four feelers up front for carrying and hacking with sharp, poisoned bristles. Dagger-sized fangs angrily clattered around their mouths, clusters of eyes at the mount of the central body bulb focusing on Calder. They didn’t appear happy in the slightest to find uninvited visitors in their tree, mistreating their hatchlings. The feeling is mutual. Calder realised that the long, low sound like creaking wood originated next to him. Janet Lento wasn’t speaking, but she could still make some noises and was at least aware enough of her surroundings not to appreciate dozens of nightmare-sized spiders scampering towards their perch above the jungle. Calder unslung the rifle and pointed it towards the ground. He squeezed the trigger but nothing happened. Cursing, he pressed the safety selector to semiautomatic and let have at the creatures below. His rifle was recoilless . . . the same magnetic field that accelerated the darts to hypersonic velocities catching the back burst and absorbing the energy, recovering it to help power the gun. Only a slight quivering with every hail of pellets triggered. Every short burst made a zup-zup sound as the gauss field flexed, followed by an angry explosive cracking as his ammunition broke the sound barrier. Swine-like squeals came from the spiders below as they were literally blown apart by each volley. They didn’t sound much like spiders . . . the arachnids back on Calder’s freezing home world, Hesperus, had been coin-sized, silent and joyfully shy. Shrewd enough to avoid humanity for the most part. These ones kept coming, leaping up at the lower trunk until Calder sighted on them. Not much more to it than pointing and squeezing. Colourful bodies burst apart with the impact. The nobleman heard a scampering noise from the back of the tree, and he leaned against a branch to hose a wave of spiders climbing up the rear. He changed position, the assault on the front renewed with fresh vigour. They drummed against the wood as they climbed. Calling their pack, or communicating with each other? Calder fought the impulse to check his ammunition count. He sweated, shooting furiously into their ranks for maybe five minutes, beating back a last attack made from all sides simultaneously. The spiders finally learnt caution, backing away from the tree, whistling angrily and impotently against the intruders, shaking their colourful fur fans as they attempted to intimidate the two newcomers. What was it the mining camp manager had said back on the landing field, desc
ribing the base’s murderous automated weapons? “We’re not in the food chain and they’ve learnt it the hard way.” Too damn right. This was probably the first time this pack had run into humanity. Their fate was the same as so many non-sentient predators introduced to mankind across so many worlds.
‘Keep away!’ yelled Calder. ‘This tree is my kingdom now.’ So, this is what his realm had shrunk to, the measure of his reduced circumstances. The first time he’d actually shot a modern weapon, too. Guns in the sim entertainment shows that the ship’s android, Zeno, had used to bring him up to speed on modern existence surely didn’t count, as real as they had seemed at the time. It seems shockingly easy compared to the many tedious years of real training with sword, shield, crossbow, longbow and armour I suffered in my youth. His father and his man-at-arms permanently disappointed in Calder’s martial progress. If he had only possessed a couple of crates of such rifles back on Hesperus, he could have armed the basest peasant farmers with the guns and routed every nation on the world – crowned himself emperor of the planet. I would never have been beaten on the battlefield, betrayed by my treacherous fiancée and then forced to ignobly flee my world in exile. Part of Calder was glad he had never been offered the temptation by the wizard who had turned out to be merely a rogue crew member. This rifle is a coward’s weapon, a knave’s weapon. No skill required. Neither strength nor patience. No need to put yourself in risk. Just sit back and slay at a distance like a god casting lightning bolts.
Janet Lento’s wide eyes settled on the blood-mangled bodies quivering at the foot of the tree. She seemed to find the carnage as much to her amazement as everything else she mutely observed. Her gaze shifted accusingly to Calder.
‘Better them than us,’ said Calder. ‘I know it isn’t exactly glory, but we’re about two hundred light years away from all of that . . . and I’m not a prince anymore, so there’s not a lot left I can disgrace, is there?’ Least of all the not so glorious House of Durk.
He checked the ammunition counter on his drum-like magazine. Two hundred pellets left. He had managed to fire off two thirds of his ammunition in one brief engagement. Magnificently done, Calder Durk. Mighty King of the Tree. He pushed the fire selector to its sniper setting, single fire and maximum acceleration, to make his magazine count. An optical sight rose from the centre of the gun as he flipped the switch, an integral field projector to paint targets with a laser. Thank you, but quite unnecessary. At this range a six year-old goat herder would be hard pressed to miss. Down in the jungle clearing the remaining spiders retreated into the neighbouring trees, foliage shaking as the creatures passed through the leaves. What are they up to now? Are they going to wait until we come down to see us off their domain? Is this a siege now? This area of the jungle was obviously serious spider territory. ‘I don’t suppose you know how these hairy monsters hunt . . . their pack behaviour . . . intelligence? Any nests near the mining camp?’
Lento said nothing. Something shifted below in the clearing, and for a second Calder thought he caught sight of a small child moving through the brush. But then the apparition was gone. I must be going mad out here. He wondered how long it would take stranded in the alien jungle until he ended up like his companion. Two blades short of a castle armoury.
‘Gods, I wish we had some of the camp’s big robot tanks to protect us.’ And sitting behind a laser fence topped with automatic guns would have been welcome right about now. Except the machines obviously hadn’t proved up to the task of keeping Calder on the right side of their defensive perimeter. And tanks wouldn’t have been able to fit in the clearing to stop the spiders . . . swinging across between the trees on sticky white webbing! Calder swore and moved his rifle up, but the spiders were well dispersed in the surrounding trees, arcing across at random . . . ones, twos, three at once, a dozen different directions. Too many to sight. He fired off shots as they swung over like great hairy pendulums – all quivering legs, victoriously whistling and clattering their fangs like knives sharpening for a roast, his bullets cracking wide as the creatures slammed into the tree’s high foliage. His tree. Foliage trembled above them. How would such a creature hunt? They demonstrated. Dropping out of the tree like an assassin on whatever unfortunate passed below seemed a more-than effective method. Calder tried to hold down his rising tide of terror. Losing it out here, up here, would be the very last thing he did.
‘Get down!’ Calder cried at Lento. An unnecessary shout. She was already shinning her way towards the clearing. He swung off the branch and grabbed the wood, finding handholds to desperately jab fingers into. It seemed a lot less demanding to get into my tree. Then Calder found an easier way . . . it started raining spiders and he lost his grip, plummeting towards the jungle floor without the benefit of a spider’s web-like rope to control his fall. The ground slammed into him sideways – or maybe he was sideways, knocking the life out of him for a couple of seconds. His rifle still securely slung around his back as two aggrieved wolf-sized arachnids landed close enough to reach out and touch.
***
Captain Lana Fiveworlds ducked under the helicopter’s slowing rotor and ran towards the waiting miners and her lizard-snouted first mate, Skrat. Her android, Zeno, was immediately off the helicopter and by her side.
‘What’s the situation?’ demanded Lana.
‘It’s terribly perplexing,’ said Skrat. ‘Calder appears to have disappeared from the camp. We were working together unloading supplies. He went to check on a malfunctioning loading ramp. Calder seemed to be gone an inordinately long time, so I went over to see how he was doing. There was simply no sign of the fellow! We have searched the base and the landing field and every shuttle, but he’s completely vanished.’
The camp’s manager, Kien-Yen Leong, appeared from the second copter. He addressed his staff. ‘You’ve checked the fence’s sensor logs and all the automated guns?’
‘Of course we have,’ grumbled a miner. ‘There’s no record of anything leaping the fence or flying through our air-space’ He pointed to one of the sentry guns up high on a tower, rotating with elephant-like radar manifolds sticking out of its turret, tracking a dragon-sized beast in the sky above.
‘Could you have had a power outage on your guns or along the sensor line?’ asked Lana.
‘’There’s no hole in the logs to match that,’ said the miner, looking up at the bloated blood-red sun. ‘Before you ask, everyone in your crew is listed in the camp system as friendlies. None of our guns glitched and blew him to pieces . . . and even a mortar round leaves some remains. These systems are hardened against solar activity. They’re rated for badly nuked battlefield environments. Background radiation here can be erratic, but it’s never approached anything close to our defences’ tolerances.’
Lana held back from retorting that it was a pity the base hadn’t taken the same trouble with the truck that the missing miner had been driving. Maybe she and Zeno wouldn’t have been wasting their time searching for a probably long-dead worker after she disappeared. Just like Calder Durk. He’s green as a meadow – at least, the ones on most worlds – and trouble through and through. She gazed back towards her helicopter . . . Professor Alison Sebba dismounting with a dainty disdain for the landing field mud. If the academic hadn’t been flying alongside Lana during the search for the missing miner, Lana might have suspected the life-extended harpy had finally gotten her claws into Calder. I could have asked them to search the base again, checking under bunks for the pair.
‘One thing,’ said Zeno to their first mate, the android’s skin glistening orange under the auburn light. ‘We asked you to do one thing out here, and that was to keep the new guy safe.’
‘I seem to recall advising the dear boy might be better occupied in the engine room,’ said Skrat, his thick green tail swishing irritably behind him.
‘I know, I know . . . it’s my fault,’ said Lana. ‘I thought a bit of shore leave and seeing his first real alien world would be good for him.’ It had hardly been a bribe at all, had it?
Lana was the captain. She certainly wasn’t in competition with the professor over some ill-educated exiled nobleman . . . a junior crewman she simply shouldn’t be involved with in the first place. And this was meant to be a cake walk. A supply drop to a barely inhabited planet. How dangerous could it be?
The conceited professor who might be able to answer that last question approached the group. ‘Please tell me that at least some of the camp’s workers are still occupied inside the mine?’
‘Calder has vanished,’ said Lana, furious at the woman’s lack of concern. Cold selfishness was a trait plenty of humanity’s life-extended members shared. Supposedly a coping mechanism to deal with the less rich members of society’s habit of expiring from old age. Survivor’s guilt. Lana suspected the professor probably possessed that chill self-regard from the age of twelve, however.
‘Have you contacted your ship?’ said Sebba. ‘If Mister Durk’s really not inside the perimeter, then perhaps he wandered into one of your empty shuttles as its autopilot activated and lifted the boat off the field? He could have found himself locked in and unable to get about. He might be trapped in an empty cargo bay inside your vessel’s hangar as we speak?’
Lana sighed. They were clutching at straws here. She unbelted her communicator and patched it through the command shuttle’s antenna to punch through this world’s god-awful radiation field. A brief bleeping as she paged the Gravity Rose’s bridge. Her navigator, Polter, picked up, his voice distorted by more static than normal. ‘Revered captain?’
‘Order the ship to scan every returned cargo lifter racked on board. Check to see Calder Durk isn’t trapped in one of the freight bays. In fact, sweep the whole ship for life signs, while you’re about it . . . and do the same for any birds we’ve got in the air.’
The line went silent for a minute, before the navigator returned. ‘Only myself on the bridge and the chief in the drive room. All the returning supply ships are safely docked on board and accounted for. Is Calder in trouble?’