Tangled Planet

by Kate Blair

  A sniff. “You should visit the graveyard. Choose a good spot for … for …”

  “Oh, Celeste.” I move in again and hug her. She quivers for a moment with silent sobs. Then she pulls away and wipes her face on her sleeve again, adding to the trails of tears and snot on the wrist of her landsuit.

  Astra approaches with Jovan. “I’ll take care of her,” she says, and puts an arm around her daughter’s shoulders, leading her away from the runway.

  Jovan joins me, and we watch them go. “It’s awful,” he says. “I mean, she’s got the baby coming soon. It’s so terrible this happened to her. But this planet …”

  His words hang in the air for a moment. Then he takes a deep breath.

  “Come on. Let’s go see my sister.”

  “Okay.” I steel myself. “Which way?”

  Jovan gestures toward a small path at the side of the runway leading off into the woods.

  “Not too far. Just through the trees.”

  He starts walking, and I scurry to keep up until he reaches the tree line. He pauses at the start of the path, staring between the branches, wary.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  Jovan straightens up. “Just getting used to the woods, you know.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  He nods. “Let’s go.”

  Jovan walks slower than Sabik. He’s less sure of his step, even though this path is clearer, more recently made. That’s good, because I don’t have to rush to keep up. The forest gets thicker around us. Branches to either side of us, glowferns beneath them. But the path is clear, and wide enough that there’s blue sky above us.

  Jovan jerks his gaze around at every sound. At the chirp of the birds and the rustle of branches in the breeze. But soon light appears between the dark trunks ahead, and we step out into a cleared area of land.

  The ground is muddy and flat, scarred with soil in heaps where tree trunks have been ripped out. There are two mounds, right in the middle, one slightly smaller than the other.

  A whole graveyard with only two occupants.

  “It’s bigger than I thought it would be,” I say, staring at the bald mud around us.

  “Room to expand,” Jovan says. “What does that tell you?”

  “That we’re all going to die eventually?”

  “Then why did they make it a priority to clear the space now? Ready for many bodies. Soon. Cassius knew Maia’s and Seginus’s deaths were only the beginning.” Jovan starts pacing, up and down.

  “Cassius knows the planet is dangerous.”

  Jovan’s jaw clenches and releases. “And he’s just accepted that? Unavoidable fatalities?”

  “It sounds bad when you say it like that.”

  “It is bad. Cassius is sentencing many of us to death.” Jovan kicks at a lump of dried mud. “He’s convinced half the ship that there’s no other way. That we just have to accept more deaths like Maia’s.”

  I stare at the space around us, trying not to think of how many people would need to die to fill it. How many people I care about will end up under this cold earth.

  Jovan moves toward the smaller of the two mounds. I follow, swallowing hard. Somewhere below that wet mud is Maia. It’s wrong. She shouldn’t be here, trapped under dirt. She should have been broken down, fed back into the system, used by the ecocarriages to keep us all going. The energy stored in her cells, Maia’s irrepressible energy, should have been recycled back through the ship, through us, enriching the whole system.

  Instead, she’s here. Wasted. Swallowed whole by the earth, and with nothing to show for it. Not even a plant in the bare ground.

  A leaf blows across my feet. This isn’t the right way to think of her.

  “She never stopped talking about you,” Jovan says, then he gives a little laugh. “Used to drive me up the wall, sometimes. But now I’m glad. Having you here is like having a piece of Maia still around.”

  We stand together at Maia’s graveside. He reaches a hand out to me. I take it. His skin is warm, and I clutch his fingers tightly. He squeezes back, almost too hard, then he glances around, as if afraid of being overheard, and leans in close.

  “And … look. There’s something important. But I’m not supposed to talk about it. Section confidentiality and all that.”

  His eyes dart around again. I don’t blame him for hesitating. You don’t betray section confidentiality. And the genetics section has lots of confidential information about the crew.

  “We did the DNA analysis. On Orion’s body.”

  “You found my DNA on him.”

  “And something else.”

  “Something?”

  Another furtive look. “Yes. The sample size was small. We were only able to sequence fragments. But it’s not human. And it doesn’t match anything in the databases.”

  His closeness and the shock of his words mute me. After a few long seconds, I get control of myself. “Alien? But that’s not possible.”

  “You’re right, it shouldn’t be.”

  Maybe I didn’t imagine it, then. Dizziness sweeps through me. “Does Cassius know?”

  “Yes, but he wants us to run the tests again. He thinks it was a mistake with the DNA amplification process.”

  “Could he be right?”

  Jovan shrugs. “It’s possible. Cassius says it’s obviously an error, and that releasing the information would panic people and distract from the search for a human killer.”

  My voice is rising. “But if there is something —”

  “Shh.” Jovan looks around, although we’re all on our own. “This is supposed to be confidential. I’d get in so much trouble if anyone found out I told you.”

  “We have to warn people.”

  “I wish we could, but I told you. It comes under section confidentiality.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. This is so frustrating. Knowing this and not being able to do anything about it.

  “We’re settling this planet too fast. More people are going to die. We must do everything in our power to slow this down. Keep people safe,” Jovan says.

  “Maybe you could say something,” I say. “Pretend you saw the creature in the forest. Section confidentiality wouldn’t cover that.”

  He shakes his head quickly. “Everyone knows I’m no fan of the planet. Of the rush Cassius is in to settle it. They wouldn’t believe me.”

  I must be out of the loop. I didn’t know any of that. “Then what do we do?”

  Jovan puts a hand on my shoulder. “You trust yourself. Don’t let anyone mislead you. Someone else will see it soon.”

  I feel like my stomach is in a vise. “But other people could get hurt before then.”

  He moves away, stares at his sister’s grave. “People are already getting hurt. Look at Zaniah.”

  Zaniah got frostbite after she got lost in the woods. She needed new fingers.

  Jovan continues. “She could have frozen to death. Just being outside can be deadly.”

  “But the creature’s different. It’s not meant to be here. Maybe Cassius will be reasonable if the second tests confirm it.”

  “I wish I could believe it.”

  “I’ll talk to Mom. She’s on the executive. To Astra. To anyone who’ll listen. Tell them I am sure, now. That I did see a creature.”

  Jovan nods, sighs. “Thank you, Ursa. Thank you so much.”

  I stare at the bare mound of Maia’s grave.

  “I should get back to the shuttle,” Jovan says, after a while. “We’re launching in an hour.”

  I wish I could go with him. Head home tonight, instead of sleeping down here.

  “But it’s been nice talking to you, Ursa. You get it, don’t you?”

  I do get it. I get the fear. The loss. The desire to protect the crew. I glance back at the trees. “Is it safe? Going through the woods,
I mean?”

  Jovan breathes in through his nose. “Orion was killed at night. I think it’s nocturnal, or I’d never have brought you here.”

  Still, I reach into my gear bag and pull out my wrench again. “Well, let’s move quickly.”

  “Agreed,” Jovan says.

  As we head back through the trees, I keep the wrench raised, keep checking around me, looking for any odd movements among the black trunks and glowferns. I’m not looking at the ground itself, so it’s Jovan who spots it. He grabs my wrist, points.

  It’s a bird, on the forest floor. Or what’s left of a bird.

  Its head is missing. There’s just feathers and a mess of blood and internal organs. I swallow down bile, trying not to think of Orion’s corpse.

  The trees are still, apart from the faint breeze. Nothing moving between them. Was the dead bird here on the way out? It could have been. It’s easy to miss. But we can’t take chances.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I say.

  We both run then, tripping and stumbling through the forest. We burst out from between the trees and into the muddy space around the runway. I stop, put my hands on my knees, and gasp for breath.

  “It’s eating birds,” Jovan says.

  I wait for the nausea to subside and try to focus. It’s still impossible. How could there be a creature here? Nothing could have survived our bioengineering.

  “That bird could have gotten caught in a landclearer,” I say. “Or maybe a bigger bird ate it.”

  Jovan looks rattled. “We haven’t released the birds of prey yet.”

  “Well. At least that’s something that isn’t covered by section confidentiality. I’m going to tell Cassius about the bird at our meeting tonight. Then we’ll find out if he’s reasonable or not.”

  I say goodbye to Jovan and take the landbike back to the forest camp at full speed. Not for fun, this time. I don’t dare go any slower. I try not to look into the forest as I drive.

  Back at the village, I finish my shift, putting together woodcutting machinery that came in the seeding ships, but I’m not my usual efficient self. My mind slides off my tasks, and more than once I have to start a checklist from the beginning, as I can’t remember where I’ve gotten to.

  Pressure is building in my head. Fear. Suspicion. People are lying to me. Sabik. Cassius. How can I trust anyone down here? They could be hiding anything.

  When my shift is done, I hurry out of the equipment hut and cut through the village toward the captain’s cabin. I won’t let Cassius derail me this time.

  I’m almost there when I see a familiar figure coming in the other direction. Vega. The moment she sees it’s me, her face hardens. She walks past without saying a word.

  Then it hits me. Cassius said she still wanted to be my friend. He told me to talk to her. This is my chance to see if his word is worth anything. I’m going to take his advice.

  “Vega!” I call out. She keeps walking.

  I hurry over. “Wait.” I catch up with her, match my pace to hers. It’s hard. She’s walking too fast. She folds her arms. Doesn’t look at me. This isn’t going to be easy.

  “I … hey,” I say. But I’m already getting breathless. “I know this is a hard time.” I pause to try to catch a breath. “Maybe we could find time to talk … if you want.”

  Her voice is hard as steel. “Get away from me.”

  I stop walking. There’s heat in my chest. Humiliation. Anger. She keeps going.

  Vega doesn’t turn back. Her long, powerful legs carry her away quickly.

  And that’s when it occurs to me. She’s big. Strong. Trained in combat. She was the one who lured Orion into the woods that night by making him come to see her in the shuttle camp. She could have waited in the dark, killed him, and been back to her hut before I arrived.

  I shake my head. That doesn’t explain the DNA, the dead bird. And why would she kill him when she wanted children? This thing is making me crazy. Making me suspect everyone.

  I need some answers. I need to work out what’s going on. I check my linkcom. I’m still early, but I don’t care. I’m going to see Cassius now.

  And I am going to give him hell.

  I don’t knock. Just slam open the door to the captain’s cabin.

  Yuri, Head of Agricology, is there. Cassius is leaning across the chest toward him, gesticulating with one hand as he talks.

  “… sounds like a snack or a picnic. He’s been visiting a lot. It’s only natural and —” Cassius stops. He stands, his chair scraping back on the wood. “Ursa, you’re early.”

  “Well, you’ve got a lot to explain. I thought I’d give you extra time.” My hands are in fists at my sides.

  Cassius looks me up and down. “Well, perhaps we should start our session, then.” He glances at Yuri. “We can finish this conversation tomorrow.”

  Yuri fixes me with his usual cold glare as he stands, filled with years of hatred for my family, stored up like the supplies his father stole from the Venture. He seems bigger than usual in the small hut. His black hair sticks up, matching his scruffy black beard.

  “Are you sure it’s wise to be alone with this one, Cassius?” he says.

  My eyebrows rise. This one. Like I’m the threat on this planet.

  But Cassius smiles. “It’s fine. You are too suspicious, my friend.”

  “And you are too trusting,” Yuri replies. He heads for the door, not taking his eyes off me the whole way.

  “Please, sit,” Cassius says. He pulls his own chair back into position and settles into it, wiping imaginary dust from his knees.

  “I’d rather not.”

  He leans back. “Whatever makes you comfortable.”

  He looks very comfortable himself. Relaxed. That makes it worse.

  I start to pace. My anger is bubbling over. I can feel it, like an out of control thermal reaction, spreading through me, heating my face, speeding my heartbeat as the horror of it all washes over me.

  “What’s the problem, Ursa?”

  “The problem? It’s obvious, isn’t it? People are getting hurt. Killed! And you’re here, kicking back and relaxing.”

  “Please, Ursa. Calm down. Take a seat.”

  I stay standing. “How many accidents have there been since we arrived?”

  Cassius looks away. “I don’t have the exact …”

  I slam a hand down on the table. “How many?”

  He sighs. “Yes, it’s a lot. But it’s well within projections.”

  I want to hit him. “Jovan was right. You’ve just accepted that some of the crew will die.”

  Cassius winces. “This is a group of people who have never been outside, trying to survive in the wilderness. Throughout Alpha’s history, colonists had high fatality rates. Look at Easter Island or Svalbard. We’re doing very well in comparison.”

  “We shouldn’t have fatalities at all. We have much better technology!”

  “Yes, and we’re using that to minimize risk. But we have no experience of farming, building, or even being outside. We can’t stop all accidents.”

  “So, you expected this?”

  “Problems have been anticipated since the planning stages of the Venture missions.”

  I stare for a moment. “Our ancestors expected us to die?”

  “This isn’t a secret, Ursa. But they paid their own price. Giving up sunlight, space, and the luxuries of Alpha. Shorter lifespans and premature aging.”

  I start pacing again. Thump, thump, thump on the wooden floor.

  Cassius leans back in his chair. It creaks. “There’s no point in being angry at people who’ve been dead for hundreds of years, Ursa. We just have to make the best of our lives.”

  “Yes. We have to retreat to the ship until we’re ready.”

  “We’ll never be ready if we stay on the ship. There’s only
so much we can learn from manuals and vidstreams. We need practical experience.”

  I keep quiet. Keep pacing.

  Cassius watches me for a moment before speaking. “What’s behind all this? What’s changed since yesterday?”

  “You lied to me.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Dead birds. The …” I’m about to say “the DNA,” but I realize I’m not supposed to know about that. “Vega. She hates me.”

  The squeaking of the wooden boards beneath my feet is irritating me now. But I’m not stopping.

  Cassius blows out a puff of air. “I spoke to her too. You know what she’s like when she’s made her mind up about something. But she’ll come around.”

  I stare at my boots as they thud on the floor. The mud sticking to them looks like the stuff we scrape out of the wastewater pipes.

  “You mentioned dead birds,” he says.

  “Yes, in the forest. A dead bird. Its head had been bitten off.”

  “Bitten off? How do you know it was bitten off?”

  I stop. Put my hands on my hips. “It didn’t fall off, did it?”

  “Where was it? What were you doing in the forest?”

  “On the path from the shuttle to the graveyard. Jovan and I were visiting Maia’s grave.”

  Cassius’s gaze is thoughtful. “That’s not far from where Orion was found.” He closes his eyes, rubs at his eyelids. “There could be a simple explanation for the bird’s death. The bird populations are grown in the lab. Their behavior could be different from on Alpha, but I’d expect lab-raised animals to be less violent.”

  I throw my hands up. “We don’t even know how the animals are going to behave, and we’re still settling the planet as fast as we can? This is madness.”

  “We’re burning through our energy reserves faster than the Venture’s generators can replenish them. We have to initiate Beta-fall and bring the Venture down or cut back on shuttle flights. The clock is ticking.”

  “Then cut back on flights!”

  Cassius looks up at me. I was wrong. He’s not relaxed. He’s exhausted. “The flights are important, psychologically speaking. A link to the ship. They’re keeping the colony from splitting in two.”