by Josi Russell
A pang of sadness enveloped her as she thought how long Dr. Laar had been dead, back on Earth. It led to thinking of her family. Her parents, long gone, her siblings. She’d have nieces and nephews that were older than she was now. Even they would have children and grandchildren. Generations of her own family that she would never see. She felt a tear sting her eye and blinked it back, refocusing on the bright little plants, glowing in the afternoon sun streaming through the window.
Listen to the taim. He had known, as so few seemed to, that plants could tell you what they needed. There were ways of communicating with them. They were not so different than people. They responded to light, to music, to kindness. Aria wondered if it was her imagination that these little plants were straightening now, as she brushed them with her fingertips. They almost seemed to be reaching toward her, like they craved her presence. Perhaps they were a kind of companion plant, like philodendrons back on Earth. Philodendrons seemed made to live where people lived. Their glossy foliage and robust growth as a houseplant always made Aria think that not only were they suited to the same temperatures and humidity levels as people, but more than that, perhaps they somehow enjoyed the company of humans.
Every plant, Aria had found, gave humanity a gift. Perhaps it was shade, like the tall trees in the forest outside her window, or beauty, like the aurelia flowers. Perhaps it was fragrance or medicine, like the herbs she’d been gathering from the forest and experimenting with since coming to Minea. She lifted a heavy chei fruit off the counter and smelled the sweetness of its thick rind. Perhaps, like the fruits and grains, a plant’s gift was food.
Maybe the Taim had such a gift to give. Perhaps people could eat them? They looked a little like sprouted sweet beans in miniature. With some encouragement, the Taim growing throughout the house was more than enough to feed a family, and they grew remarkably fast. But to effectively feed people, they’d need to be cultivated. Aria wondered if they’d bear transplanting and growing in trays. She looked at the tray she’d just filled, but the rich soil wasn’t what the Taim chose when it began to sprout. Its seedlings liked a hard, bare surface.
A stack of Luis’ platters, plates, and bowls lay next to her on the counter. She pulled out the biggest platter and carefully began to lift the Taim roots off the glass of the window. They were sticky and tiny hair-like shafts clung as she pulled them carefully away. She spread the roots across the platter as best she could. The plants lay limply on the colorful ceramic. This may not work.
Carrying the platter out of the kitchen, she set it on the desk in her work room, which she jokingly called her lab. It wasn’t much of a lab—really a spare room with a desk and some basic pieces of equipment Ethan had procured for her over the years: a microscope, some tools, and a strong light.
She was tempted to pop a few of the Taim in her mouth just to see how they’d taste, but remembered her training on poisonous plants and decided against it. She went to check on the children, sleeping upstairs. As she climbed she wondered what it would be like not to have food for them in the kitchen downstairs and she felt a little surge of hope that the Taim could help solve Coriol’s hunger problem.
As she looked at the tray of plants, she thought about the food shortage. Why wasn’t Marcos Saras doing more about it? She had met him plenty of times, had seen the peculiar sadness he carried with him. It was peculiar for the most powerful man in a city, and such a young man at that, to have such a burden. She had seen, also, his lust for Yynium. Perhaps the two were related. He seemed to have no joy in his eyes except when he talked about the Yynium production, how it was increasing due to their innovations, how they would soon have enough Yynium back at Earth to send ship after ship through space using RST.
He was so obsessed with Yynium production that Aria suspected most of the rest of Coriol, and the Saras Company, was run by Marcos Saras’ shadows, Theo and Veronika. They were an interesting pair, and she could see why such opposites would be beneficial.
Aria had seen them during parties at the stone and steel Saras mansion or at the Colony Office parties. They were always there, always next to Saras, always watching the crowd.
Saras had always done underhanded things to keep the inhabitants of Coriol working at peak production, but surely this food shortage wasn’t another of his manipulations. He couldn’t be that kind of monster. Veronika’s cold face flashed in Aria’s mind, though, and she knew she was going to have to find out for herself what was causing it. If Saras, or his Vice Presidents, were using it to control the people, then the Colony Offices would have to know about it, and the sooner the better.
***
The wrecked ship’s lights were going out one by one as the battery died and the wetness got to exposed circuits. The survey team huddled in the damp, waiting for rescue. The light wasn’t enough to keep them warm, but it was enough to keep their shock at bay.
“I’m going out to take a look around,” Collins called.
“Be careful.” Jade’s voice was strained, and Ethan thought she might have an internal injury, though she said she was fine.
He couldn’t stand being in here any longer. Ever since being the Caretaker of Ship 12-22, Ethan didn’t like enclosed places. He much preferred being out in the forest or even in his broad, windowed office in the Colony building in Coriol. “I’ll come with you.”
The two men stepped gingerly past the torn seats in front of the gaping hole where the hatch used to be. Collins had a flashlight, and it shone across a broad plain of the same brown crumbly dirt Ethan had felt through the side of the ship when they’d first crashed. It was springy and dense when they stepped out onto it, and within a few steps they found themselves sinking a bit.
There was a sharp, acrid smell, and Ethan found himself gagging and coughing as they struggled away from the craft.
A flash of white on the ground caught Ethan’s attention. “Collins,” he called, “shine that light over here.”
The beam fell on the arched skeletal ribcage of a dog-sized creature, half buried in the muddy floor. The bones were stripped of flesh and skin, so Ethan couldn’t be sure, but it looked like a wing jutted out from one side. Ethan shuddered. It was a huge, bat-like creature, fallen to the gummy floor and stuck there, leaving only its bones.
He took the light from Collins and shined it above them, but powerful as it was, it was lost in the immensity of the cavern before it reached whatever was up there. Ethan imagined the creatures that must be hanging above them, dog-sized bats, waiting for their nocturnal feeding time. He glanced down with the realization that the sticky, crumbly pile they were walking on was a huge guano field. That explained the smell.
This was the first he had seen of Minean bats, but many species on Minea were like species back on earth. The swimming lizards, though slightly different than lizards back on Earth, had evolved in a similar fashion. This was probably true of bats, as well, he thought to calm himself. Bats on Earth were mostly insect eaters, and even the hunting species back home usually only took the odd bird or snake. These bat-like creatures were—as he always told Polara about other animals—probably more scared of people than people were of them.
But when he stepped off the guano field onto hard, solid stone, he still felt a little relief. Here the great cavern narrowed to a large tunnel, big enough to fly the ship into, if it had been capable of flight—and if there hadn’t been enormous stalactites and stalagmites studding the ceiling and floor of the passage. He stopped at the opening and shined the light inside. It looked like a giant shark’s mouth, gaping open, with the huge teeth casting shifting shadows in the beam.
Movement caught Ethan’s eye. He blinked as what looked like a figure slipped behind one of the giant teeth on his right. Ethan glanced at Collins, but Collins was looking back up the guano field at the craft.
“Did you see that?” Ethan asked.
Collins turned. “What?” He peered into the darkness.
Ethan strode to the big stalagmite and walked around it with the lig
ht. There was nothing there. He shone the light farther down the passage, but neither saw nor heard anything.
“Let’s go back,” he said, annoyed with himself for letting his imagination run away. The dark was beginning to get to him.
***
Ethan had paced the aisle of the craft numerous times in the hours since the crash. Now he crossed to the spot in the back where Jade and Collins had just finished stacking the supplies. He tried not to look at the two dead crew members on the floor.
They’d found nine survey packs. Ethan opened one up and sorted through the contents: lengths of rope, a powerful Maxlight flashlight, a pair of gloves, a vest with a round light on each shoulder, a pair of Everwarm coveralls, four Nutriblock bars, three bags of water, a whistle, a Suremap device, a rain poncho, a mirror, a few fuel bricks, and, in this one, half a sandwich, a chocolate nut bar, and an apple left over from Carlisle’s lunch.
He felt a shiver run through him. “We probably ought to put these on,” he said, holding up the coveralls. The crew was huddled under blankets, but they were beginning to look chilled, too.
Jade started distributing the packs. Lindsey Jade seemed, to Ethan, tough and efficient, a younger version of her captain, without the bitterness. He looked at the crew, watching as they took the packs. Brynn seemed especially glad to extract her coveralls and pull them on.
Ethan climbed into Carlisle’s coveralls, then put everything back in the pack before heading to the front of the plane. He leaned out the broken windscreen and peered up at Traore, who was sitting on the nose of the ship, holding aloft his Suremap device.
“Any luck?” Ethan said, quietly so that the others wouldn’t hear.
Traore turned to him, and his bright teeth flashed as he grimaced. “Not good news. We’ve fallen into a 150-meter shaft. It was small at the entrance but it’s like a funnel, and it grows wider as it gets deeper. We’ve bounced away from the opening pretty far. If you look closely, you can see it just there—” he pointed up and to the right. As Ethan squinted, he could make out a tiny pinprick of light—like a star. Outside, the sun would be fading. Night was coming on, and even that light would be gone soon.
“Are they coming for us?”
Traore shook his head. “It’s unlikely they’ll know where to look. We were kilometers off course when we dropped in here. The ship’s signal beacon was crushed, and we’re so far down that even if we were right under the entrance, which we’re not, they couldn’t see us from the air when they flew over. The Suremaps have locators, but the rock above us will block their signals.
“What are our chances of getting out the way we came in?” Ethan knew the answer, but wanted Traore to say it so he wouldn’t have to.
Traore simply waved his hand toward the pinprick and shook his head.
Ethan moved back into the plane and sat heavily in the pilot’s seat. They couldn’t go out, and the cave was dark and full of danger around them. They’d have to stay here.
He turned to the crew.
“We should probably make ourselves comfortable. Eat something. Try to stay warm. Get some sleep if you can.”
It seemed strange to be giving the orders. The team probably knew better than he did what surrounded them, but none of them seemed to want to take charge. He wished that their actual leader, Schübling, would wake up and do the directing, but to be fair, she had a shattered leg, so it only seemed right to let her rest. The team was weary, and there was little conversation as they settled in on their packs and tried to sleep.
Ethan made his way back to his seat carefully, not bumping the sleeping Schübling. He leaned back and closed his eyes, grateful for the encompassing warmth of the coveralls. In spite of all the unknowns, he was tired and he felt himself drift off.
***
Ethan was awakened by the whoosh and screech of the bats above as they spiraled out of the opening through which the little craft had fallen hours earlier.
And then he heard the scratching, like the sound of wet wood crackling on a fire. It was a muffled, uneven sound. He sat up and it stopped. Glancing around, he saw the rest of the crew still sleeping, except for Collins, who was scrolling through his missive, though Ethan was sure he hadn’t gotten any new messages down here. Ethan lay back down in his seat, trying to shake off the uneasiness that was growing within him. As he stilled, he heard the sound again, closer. It was immediately outside the ship, and it was louder. He looked down through the gaping hole and saw the shiny back of a krech—a Minean cockroach—but this one wasn’t like the ones he scuttled outside for Aria. Those were size of a coin. This one was as big as his hand, quick and shining. It moved through the dim light and was gone into the darkness again.
Ethan tried to put it out of his mind. Of course there were creatures down here. It was a cave. Creepy things lived in caves. But he’d seen much bigger monsters, and he wasn’t going to let a krech, even a really big one, scare him.
But then he heard Collins swear and saw him jump up, shaking his leg. Attached to it, biting through the thick leg of his coveralls, was another huge krech. Another scuttled in through the broken windscreen, and two more followed it. Ethan saw one crawl through the hole near his leg and up onto his pack. With a side claw sharp as a razor, the creature tore at the pack, shredding a three-inch slit through the tough polyweave material. Ethan kicked it off with his foot and snatched the pack, but Carlisle’s half-sandwich fell out and the krech was on it instantly. Three more poured through the hole and squabbled over the morsels of bread and meat. Ethan shouldered his pack and Schübling’s, then shook her shoulder.
“I think you’d better wake up, Captain,” he said.
Schübling opened her eyes groggily, then looked down at the creatures on the floor. “What the—” she pulled her wounded leg away just as the krech reached her boot in search of more food. These krech were scavengers, and in the remains of this little ship they’d found a feast.
Around the craft, Ethan heard the screams of the crew as the krech advanced. He slipped an arm around Schübling and supported her as she stood. Together they hobbled into the aisle. Ethan stepped on a krech and heard it crunch and screech. His boot was slick as he pulled it out of the mess. The other team members were stomping them, too, holding their packs above their heads, but the krech kept coming.
A horrified scream cut through the chaos and Ethan looked to see Brynn throw herself across the bodies of Carlisle and Espinoza. The men were covered in krech. A huge bug crawled onto Brynn’s shoulder. Ethan saw it bite, saw the blood seep through her coveralls. She screamed again and batted at it and the others, trying to clear them off the bodies of her friends.
“Get her out of there!” Ethan barked at Collins. More krech were pouring in, clicking excitedly, their antennae moving wildly. They were communicating, calling more of their kind to the ship.
Their slick exoskeletons shone in the dim lights. The sight reminded Ethan of the Others of Beta Alora, of the battle that he’d fought in the stateroom. His heart was beating hard. He was paralyzed with a sudden rush of memories: the crushing weight of Traxoram’s mind shackles, the sharp edges of his armor slicing Ethan’s hands. Mixed with the memories, an image—the delicate bones of the bat skeleton—flashed through Ethan’s mind. These bugs were carnivorous. The image grounded him, pulled him out of his memories and back to the moment. They would all end up that way if they didn’t get out of here.
“Let’s go!” he yelled. “Come on!”
He was half-dragging Schübling as he charged out the door, slipping on the shiny backs of the krech as he went, struggling against what he now saw was a horrific tide of them pouring down the walls and across the guano field. He ran for the shark’s mouth tunnel, stopping only to kick the krech from Schübling’s leg, where they swarmed, trying to get to her wound. Ethan glanced back and saw the survey team scrambling across the field behind him.
He led them to the tunnel and wove in between the stalagmites. He didn’t have a light and didn’t want to stop t
o dig one from the pack, but the utter darkness of the passage soon had him crashing into the rock formations and both he and Schübling were tripping over the smaller ones. He stopped.
The rest of the crew came up behind him. Collins, dragging a weeping Brynn, had a Maxlight. Ethan took it from him and swung the beam back toward the mouth of the tunnel. Only a few of the krech had strayed to follow them, and Jade crushed them under her boot one by one. Ethan wondered briefly if that would attract more krech.
Schübling must have been thinking the same thing. “Let’s get farther away,” she said, obvious pain making her voice waver.
Ethan nodded and led the group farther down the tunnel. The solid stalagmites and stalactites around them were oddly comforting after the shifting, living floor they’d crossed. The smooth rounded sides of the stones, marbled from eons of the dripping water that had formed them, caught the light and cast it back to the little group. Just as Ethan was getting used to the cozy tunnel, the stalactites disappeared from the ceiling. When he shone the light up, he saw the high, arching stone of another cavern.
***
Aria flinched as she saw a little krech scuttle across the bathroom floor. She squashed it and felt a ripple of frustration. It was past dark, and Ethan wasn’t home yet. She tried calling his missive. No answer.
She was anxious to tell him about Rigel, and about the blight. He’d raise an eyebrow that she had used his badge, but he trusted her, and he wasn’t the type to judge. Five years alone had given him perspective. It was a wonderful quality in a husband.
She thought of the moment, earlier that afternoon, when she first saw the shoots of her wheat peeking through the dark soil, and grew more impatient for his return. She had so much to tell him.
But late that night, when Ethan’s dinner had been put away on one of Luis’s beautiful hand-thrown pottery plates, when Aria had checked the new, growing wheat again, and when the children had been bathed and rocked off to sleep, Ethan still wasn’t home, and a knock came on her door.