The boys brought back more fruit for the evening meal. Everyone gathered to sit in a small circle around a campfire that didn’t exist. Sima choked her portion down, already getting tired of eating the same raspberry-rhubarb flavored meal. She’d spent four years happy to have food at all, and didn’t much care what it was. That she actually got sick of eating the same fruit over and over must mean something… but what?
Snap.
All four of them jumped and whirled, facing the jungle.
“Did you hear that?” asked Austin. “What was it?”
A giant cat. Sima stood. “Come on. Let’s go inside the lifeboat.”
“I don’t wanna,” wailed Lissa, going limp. “I don’t like it in there. I can’t breathe! We almost died in there.”
“Shh. You don’t need to get in the pod, just the lifeboat. We have to.” Sima struggled with the dead weight of an unwilling six-year-old.
Another snap emanated from the trees.
“No. I’m scared!” Lissa bawled.
Sima whispered close to her ear. “It might be a monster. A monster can’t get us if we’re inside.”
The child’s face froze in a mask of terror; she fell silent and stopped struggling.
Sima ran, carrying her, to the hatch, ushered the boys inside, and pulled the door closed behind her.
“Now what?” asked Austin.
Sima let herself breathe. “Now, it’s bedtime.”
“What kind of monster?” asked Juan. “Maybe it’s an Aurak.”
I don’t want to scare them, but I also don’t want them to be clueless and get themselves hurt. “I saw a track today. It looked like a tiger.”
“What’s a tiger?” asked Lissa.
Juan shrugged.
Austin’s eyes bulged. “Umm. Are you sure?”
“No. I’m not sure what it is, other than it’s probably a big cat.”
“I like cats.” Lissa smiled.
“This is a really big cat. So big we would be like mice to it.” Sima ruffled the girl’s hair.
Austin looked around at the walls. “It can’t get us in here. This is spaceship armor.”
She reclined on her side upon the bare metal floor, and soon had Lissa and Juan clutched like teddy bears to her chest, Austin leaning against her back. Stifling heat coated everyone in sweat, but she didn’t dare push them away. Holes in the ceiling and walls let some air in, but none looked anywhere near large enough for a tiger to squeeze inside. If not comfortable, at least the lifeboat offered protection.
Damn. “Be right back. I left the water outside.”
None of the kids let go.
“There’s still a little light out there. And it’s hot in here. We’re going to need water.” Sima nudged the kids. “I’ll be right back.”
With no small amount of whining, they let go and sat nearby. Sima crept over to the lifeboat door and pulled it open an inch to peer out. Nothing appeared to be moving around, but she didn’t quite trust it. That the four of them had spent two nights sleeping out in the open felt as reckless as if she’d let them try the Harmony Tower jump. Of all the things she’d done back on Earth, that had to be the most foolish. But a guy in the E6 gang offered forty glint to anyone who could make the jump. Others in the gang made a lot of glint placing bets on who’d make it and who’d fall to go splat. Sima had been hungry enough to push aside her morbid fear of heights, but only had the nerve to go once.
She held her breath and made a run for the water jug. A snap in the nearby jungle made her look. Her foot came down on a slimy rind from their dinner and shot straight out from under her. She landed on her side and slid a short distance, facing the jungle.
There in the darkness between trees, a large feline silhouette with four glowing green eyes, the top pair set slightly wider than the bottom pair, stared at her.
Too frightened to scream, she grabbed the jug and ran like death itself nipped at her heels. Water splashed down her front as she sprinted and ducked past the partially sunken entrance. She handed the plastic bottle off to Austin and whirled to slam the hatch, shoving the locking bar down to seal it.
Once it refused to close any tighter, she allowed herself to breathe.
19
The Night Scratch
A little hand on the cheek shook Sima’s head until she woke up.
Lissa knelt beside her, inches from her face. The tiny girl’s bones seemed to quiver in her skin. Her underpants sat in a urine-soaked wad a few feet away at the center of a puddle on the lifeboat’s plain white floor. The little color that had been in the girl’s cheeks was gone, leaving her ghostly white. Sima sat up.
“What’s wrong?”
Lissa crawled into her lap and whispered. “The monster’s tryin’ to get us. It looked at me ’froo the hole.”
Sima gazed along a line from the child’s pointing finger to a ten-inch rent in the hull near the stasis pod. Tiny feet braced against Sima’s thigh, the child pressed close, trembling. The girl had wet herself, though Sima didn’t even think to push her away or feel disgust. She opened her mouth to say something comforting, but hesitated when a creak came from above. At the scrape of claws on the roof, she gulped back the initial urge to scream. I gotta look strong for them. She glanced across the ceiling, following the soft groans of metal as weight shifted from one side of the lifeboat to the other. Scratching near the door conjured a mental image of a cat trying to get at mice hiding in a box. Darkness lurked in the holes dotting the lifeboat’s hull. The bracelet screen showed the time as 3:08 a.m.
Sima wrapped her arms around Lissa. “It can’t get us in here.”
“What can’t get us?” Juan sat up, wiping his eyes.
“A monster,” whispered Lissa.
Juan’s eyes shot open. “There’s monsters?”
“Ugh.” Austin sat up, realized his hand lay in a puddle, and yelled. “Who messed?”
Lissa’s guilt showed on her face as obvious as her wadded underwear on the floor.
“Stupid little kid. What’s wrong with you? Eww.”
Lissa burst into tears.
“Austin!” whisper-yelled Sima. “That was mean.”
Juan punched Austin in the leg. “Leave her alone.”
“Hey.” Sima grabbed Juan’s wrist. “Stop that. No hitting.”
“Sorry,” muttered Austin. “I woke up with my hand in pee.”
The scratching at the door resumed, louder and more fervent. It ceased in a few seconds. After a thump outside, a pair of luminous green right eyes glimmered in the large hole. Lissa screamed a high-pitched tone that echoed painfully loud in the small compartment. The cat flinched.
Austin turned white.
The girl buried her face in Sima’s shoulder to keep quiet.
Green glow vanished from the hole. A second later, the lifeboat jostled as weight landed on the roof. The creature emitted a low growl. Austin scurried behind Sima. Everyone kept silent. Squeaks and groans came from the hull as the beast explored, drifting toward the back end. The pod shifted ever so slightly. Sima glanced at the urine puddle spreading a few centimeters to one side. At the sight of claws picking at one of the holes in the roof, Austin threaded his arms around Sima’s gut from behind, shaking.
“Austin…” Sima adjusted Lissa’s weight to allow circulation to resume in her left leg.
“Yeah?”
“If you pee on me, I’m going to be upset with you.”
He scoffed into the back of her hair. “I’m not a little kid.”
Metal screeched overhead.
Austin squeezed her tighter and wailed, “Don’t let it get us!”
“You yell like one,” whispered Juan.
Contagious fear seeped from him into Lissa, who stifled whimpers. She appeared to have more practice being terrified in silence. Juan retrieved the axe and handed it to Sima. He sat nearby, calm as anything. Sima glanced at him, baffled until she remembered he’d lived in La Propagación and probably had to sleep while gunfights went by right over his hea
d.
“It can’t get in. She’s right for making us go inside.” Juan crawled off away from the puddle and curled up as if to sleep.
Snuffling at the hatch made Lissa whine and squirm. Sima set the girl down and grabbed the axe in a two-handed grip before creeping up to the door. Lissa backed away and cowered against the stasis pod that almost killed her, both hands clutched at her chin, staring at the door. A long, spine-tingling scrape of claws over metal made all the kids whimper.
“Stay behind me,” whispered Sima.
“Don’t open it!” yelled Austin.
“I’m not going to.” She stopped a few feet from the entrance, axe poised. I’m crazy. Am I really going to get in a tiger’s face with a little axe?
“So why are you at the door? You think the monster’s smart enough to open it?” whispered Austin.
Sima smirked at the lift bar, feeling like an idiot. “Umm, yeah. No idea if this thing is smarter than a cat.”
For several agonizing minutes, Sima shivered at the bone-jarring screech of claws raking over metal. Eventually, the creature gave up. Low, irritated snarling circled outside. She let the air out of her lungs as she lowered her axe. Thumps and snaps grew distant outside, suggesting the large cat had run back off into the jungle. Hopeful the worst had passed, she moved to sit on a clean spot of floor. The kids rushed over and clamped on, no one caring about the hot, stuffy air.
Half an hour after the scratching ceased, Sima allowed herself to attempt rest. She lay on her side with an arm over Lissa. The girl curled up against her chest, thumb in her mouth. Too much adrenaline had shocked her system to allow sleep. When Sima rolled onto her back, Lissa whined in her dream and cuddled tighter. Sima stared at the ceiling until sunlight leaked in from the holes overhead.
Did I even sleep?
She sat up and yawned, her face scrunching at a nasty smell fouling the air. The puddle Lissa made had become a tacky, amber stain on the hospital-white floor, not quite dried. She frowned at the wadded cloth. If we weren’t stuck here, those would be garbage. I can’t leave her naked. Sima grumbled. The kids would eventually outgrow their skivvies, and hers would fall apart. If she didn’t find some usable leaves or other materials, they’d all be nudists soon enough.
This planet sucks. Okay. I’ll wash them.
She sat up and yawned. Lissa startled awake and stared at her. Juan stretched, yawned, and farted.
Austin laughed.
Sima eyed the door. Is that bastard waiting for us?
“Is it gone?” asked Austin.
“It’s quiet.” Sima listened. “I only hear the birds and sky mantas.”
“Can we go outside? Gotta pee,” said Juan.
Sima pulled the kids closer. “Not yet. I don’t trust it.”
Juan stood and walked over to one of the smaller holes in the wall. As soon as he pushed his briefs down, Sima looked away, mildly jealous at how easily he could cope with being shut inside.
“Me too,” whispered Lissa, shying away from Austin.
Austin said nothing, but made a sour face at his hand. He went over to another breach in the hull at the appropriate height. Lissa looked up at Sima.
“Gimme a minute.” Sima roamed around checking panels and cabinets. She found an empty plastic canister in the guts of the stasis pod Austin had been in, likely used to contain the cryonic fluid. It served as an emergency toilet, which she left situated on the far side of the debris wall in the much smaller section of the lifeboat for a modicum of privacy.
Lissa insisted Sima stay with her while she went back there.
Since Sima still didn’t trust going outside, they sat around for hours talking about Earth, mostly food places they liked to hit back home. Austin didn’t know any of the vendors, so Sima figured he must’ve come from a different district… maybe even a different continent. Who knows how far the EGSF would’ve transported Outcasts for the ship. She vaguely remembered from fourth grade history class something about how different places used to be different countries before the End of Nations. However, she couldn’t remember any of them, and since everyone had been speaking GANSEC for two centuries, little trace of regional accents remained.
By noon, stomachs growled and Sima’s tongue felt like cotton from thirst. Finally having had enough of self-imposed confinement, she approached the door, but Lissa tried to drag her back.
“We can’t sit in here forever.” She ran her hand over the girl’s hair. “We need food.”
“You’ll die,” whispered Lissa. “Night Scratch is a bad kitty.”
Sima grasped the lever and pulled the door in three inches. She yelled a few nonsense words and slammed it. “If it’s out there, it’ll come back now.”
They waited in tense silence for a while.
“Maybe it’s smart,” said Austin.
“Or it only comes out at night,” said Juan.
Sima shivered. “Okay. I’m going to get food. No one goes outside.” She trudged over to Lissa’s underwear, cringed at the thought of touching the pee-soaked fabric, but grabbed the sopping wad anyway.
“Eww,” said Juan. “You touched it.”
“I’m sorry.” Lissa pouted.
“It’s all right.” Sima smiled at her. “If I was your age, I’d have done the same thing. Wait here and stay quiet. I’ll be back as fast as I can. We need water, and I’m going to wash these.” Sima grasped the door handle. This is a bad idea.
Lissa cried. “No. Don’t get eated!”
20
An Ill Wind
Sima ducked through the hatch and climbed out of the hole she’d dug to clear the bottom. She held the axe up and turned in a slow spin, searching for the cat, ready to drop everything and dive back into the safety of the lifeboat. Shining jungle on all sides appeared benign and harmless. More paw prints crisscrossed the dirt by the door, about the same size as the ones she found the day before.
No sign of anything dangerous lurked in the jungle. If the cat waited to ambush them, it would’ve had to turn invisible.
Maybe the kid’s right and the thing can’t stand daylight. She rolled that thought marble around her brain. Its eyes glow. Maybe daylight hurts it?
The door squeaked open.
“We wanna go,” said Austin.
Lissa ran out and grabbed on to her, staring up with irresistible blue eyes. Sima didn’t have a free hand to pry her away. Leaving the kids safe in the lifeboat made the most logical sense, but she hated the idea of being separated from them. Lissa’s feeble cough clinched it.
“Okay. Stay close to me and keep quiet.”
Sima led the way to the nearest water source, a river about twenty feet across, thankful not to encounter anything with sharp, nasty teeth. The far bank consisted of a steep cliff about eight feet tall, though the near bank met flush to the ground. By the time they reached the water, the pervasive fear of a tiger coming after them had lessened to strong worry. After all, they’d been running around in the daylight for several days now, and not once had they been attacked.
The boys slipped off their briefs and jumped in. Lissa knelt at Sima’s side in the shallows while she crouched and washed the soiled cloth without any soap. Once she’d gotten the garment as clean as river water could manage, she wrung it out and tossed it onto the grass to dry. No longer giving a damn, Sima stripped to keep her clothes dry, then pulled Lissa into the water to rinse her off and also bathe herself.
Attempting to wash a six-year-old in chilly river water soon degenerated into a splash war—though she made sure to keep it calm and not push the girl too hard. She mostly sat chest-deep, amusing Lissa with shiny rocks or pointing out rainbow mushroom-like things growing on the bottom while the boys swam all around, diving and having fun like they hadn’t spent most of the day in fear for their lives.
The boys headed off to the left and climbed out of the water by one of those huge indigo root/vines. Lissa got up and headed over, curious at what they had gotten into. Sima sighed to herself watching them, imagining
some stuffy old narrator voice talking about the primitive tribes of Mirage. It almost made her laugh to think about how uncomfortable she’d been at Magdalena’s around so many women showing their bodies off in lacy underthings, and now she sat on a planet with a population of four humans, and none of them had a stitch of clothing on.
Mag’s was way different. This is innocent. And the EGSF stole our clothes. She wondered what kind of rags her three charges had before the cops collected them. How long had they been on the street? She’d worn the same tunic for four years and went through two pairs of pants after the dress she’d run away in had fallen apart. Though, being attacked by a pack of older girls trying to steal it while she slept hadn’t helped. They’d torn the dress off her rather than let her escape with it intact. Fortunately, the tunic had been long enough to double as a dress. She gazed up at the clouds, thinking about her first criminal act before that kid told her about karma. She’d snuck into a clothing store, carried a pair of pants to the changing rooms, and walked right out wearing them. If the vendor noticed, he hadn’t bothered to stop her.
Maybe there’s more nice people than I thought.
Sudden unexplained laughing from children worried her.
She glanced over at the kids, and gasped. They’d smeared each other head-to-toe in purple ink, which they evidently found hilarious.
“You said that oil won’t hurt them, right?” asked Sima.
‹As long as they don’t eat it, they should be fine.›
Lissa declared herself a ‘night faerie,’ while the boys called themselves ‘Falnorians,’ whatever that meant. Based on what the boys proceed to say after that, she assumed they pretended to be some alien race from a movie.
Out of Sight (Progenitor Book 1) Page 23