by Dan Davis
It worked.
The slap-slap-slap of the footpads drummed on the floor as the Wheeler accelerated toward him, closing on Ram, the sound growing louder behind him.
He ran on to the left as fast as he could for a few steps, knowing that he could never outrun the speed of his pursuer, expecting the blow to crash into his skull at any moment.
The drumming of its feet filled his ears.
Ram changed direction for the final time, crouching to take the momentum out of his pace, twisting completely about and running straight for the Wheeler.
It was right there. Almost upon him.
But the changes in direction had had the desired effect. The Wheeler was off balance as it swung a vast hand at Ram's head, leaning and twisting itself out of shape trying to match Ram’s movement.
He ducked and weaved away from the blow and, changing direction again, jinked beside the enormous monster looming above. A massive yellow footpad stomped down where he’d been just a millisecond before but Ram was already up and moving, coming up on the other side of the Wheeler's hub. The thing pivoted and the other arm with its powerful, clawed fingers flashed up toward him with mad power.
Every instinct screamed at him to run, to duck and to curl into a tight ball on the ground.
Instead, Ram leaped forward and crashed into the Wheeler's central hub.
The claws raked his face, head and shoulder. Agony seared through him as the claws sliced deep enough to cut open his scalp and grind against the hardened bone of his skull. Blood gushed out and down his face before the coagulants in it stemmed the flow.
As he grappled the Wheeler's hub a great anger flooded up and into him, the deep, primal revulsion at it overwhelming his reason.
The hub was so wide he could barely grasp it but he wrapped his arms around it and pushed as hard as he could. The ball and socket joint of the alien’s arm on that side was over his shoulder, giving him a point to heave upward.
His face pressed jammed against the yellow, knobbled, lizard-skin that covered the whole creature and it reeked like nothing he'd ever smelled before. Like a rotten food, fungus stench mixed with stomach bile and raw sewage.
The claw on his side raked Ram's back from his neck to his kidneys with shallow but long and savage cuts, slashing and tearing away at him. The sickly-sweet metallic stink of his own blood filled his head.
There was no time to think, only to feel. And the feeling was hate. An all-consuming hatred for the wrongness of it, for the unearthliness of it. His disgust gave him strength.
Ram pushed against the hub, his shoes sliding on the black floor underfoot, pushed it sideways with everything he had.
It began to fall, tilting over to what seemed like the point of no return and Ram felt a momentary thrill of victory.
The Wheeler pivoted, fast and threw out its clawed hand on the far side to hold itself up.
Ram kept pushing but it would not fall further. It writhed beneath him, twisting to free itself from his grasp. Ram punched the hub hard, with an uppercut down low.
It was like punching a slab of greenwood. The blow crunched Ram’s knuckles. He hit it again, breaking the bones in his hand but the hub’s skin did give a little, quivering with the force of the blow and the alien ceased writhing for a fraction of a second, as if it was stunned. Ram hit it again, mangling his hand and the pain made him cry out, half a whimper and half a roar of fury.
It tilted further. But no more.
The Wheeler had greater leverage than he did, could transfer more of its strength into the struggle. Ram’s feet were small in comparison but the alien had one huge footpad providing unrivaled friction to the floor, plus the tripod-hand like a kickstand, stopping it tipping. And its strength was enormous. It twisted, pivoting on its many joints, still raking his back over and over while Ram cried and heaved, his tendons stretching and muscles tearing from the effort.
Ram's red blood spattered everywhere, smearing the Wheeler's body, spraying the air with a red mist.
He couldn't do it. He wouldn’t push it over. He wasn't strong enough. The realization almost defeated him as the Wheeler forced itself back to upright, bending and using the mass of the other legs force Ram back. So much so he was afraid his back would be broken by the weight of it.
So he pulled.
He wrapped one arm over the Wheeler's shoulder joint, the joint of the arm flaying the skin from his back, where it came out of the hub. And he pulled, heaving backward, pulling the gigantic mass of the Wheeler down on top of himself.
They crashed to the floor, the legs thrashing to free itself from his grip.
Milena was shouting warnings in his head but he was beyond understanding language, he had become an animal, fighting for its life.
The arm that had shredded his back was now caught under his body. The claws stabbed into his body and carved up his kidney and guts on one side. The agony of it shot through him. But he wrapped his legs around the hub as best he could and he held on. He held the arm to him and he punched it in the shoulder joint. The Wheeler shuddered and Ram knew, he knew, that he had hurt it.
A thrill of joy surged through him, even as the massive creature squirmed, crushed and stabbed him. Ram punched it again feeling the soft tissue under the skin give a little. He hit it again and again while the alien writhed and twisted but Ram held on. He jabbed a series of blows at the arm then pushed it, levering the long, thin bone of the upper arm using his own shoulder as the pivot point.
Ram felt and heard the shoulder socket pop.
The alien moaned.
A horrific, muffled shriek from inside the hub like a gagged banshee and Ram laughed as he punched and twisted the arm again, trying to tear it off.
The skin was too strong. Though the arm was dislocated inside and had suffered internal soft tissue damage, the yellow lizard skin exterior was too tough to tear through.
It bucked and rolled and it was all Ram could do to hold on. The alien reached through its legs with the other arm and grabbed ahold of Ram's knee where he had wrapped his limbs around the hub.
Though Ram yanked his leg away, the alien stuck its claws in deep and pulled, ripping his calf muscle to pieces. Ram screamed as the agony tore through him and he punched the hub repeatedly in a blind rage. The pain and the fury filled him and he stamped up at the arm, kicking it away. His calf hanging in tatters from his knee.
The weight of the Wheeler, writhing on top of him, compressed his chest so much that it was hard to breathe, impossible to take a full breath. As the creature struggled to right itself, kicking all its legs, a cascade of Ram's ribs popped. The sharp agony shot through his chest like a hundred knives carving into his lungs.
The Wheeler rolled itself half off him, the enormous footpads swaying and hammering to drag itself away.
Ram held on to the dislocated arm, terrified of losing his only possible advantage. He couldn’t let it get upright again, get mobile.
The alien’s arm was not attached internally to the hub and had little strength but it was not completely disabled. The thirty-centimeter-long fingers scraped their savage claws down Ram's face, puncturing his cheek and slicing between his molars. The alien pulled and Ram's cheek came away in a tearing shred and a shower of teeth that splatted
Ram screamed. He turned his head over to clear his airway of teeth and he coughed the blood out of his throat.
The Wheeler crawled away, righting itself but Ram staggered over to it, threw himself against the hub and stamped on its ankle with his one working leg. The thing shrieked again, shaking and Ram pushed it over.
Ram felt himself weakening. His heart was racing so hard it was like an assault rifle on full auto, his face was torn and between his crushed chest and facial wound pumping blood down his throat, he struggled to breathe.
The Wheeler was disoriented and injured also but Ram knew, with complete certainty that broken bones and dislocated joints wouldn't kill the beast before Ram died from his own injuries.
He had only a f
ew moments left, he needed a new plan, a better course of action, something, someone to help him.
Milena was yelling in his ear.
“Get away from the screen, Ram,” she was shouting, barely discernable over his racing heart and tattered breath. “Watch out for the smokescreen.”
Ram glanced behind. Their grappling had brought them to the edge of the arena, the wall looming up over him. The deadly smokescreen was within arms reach. The murky gray plasma swirled right there behind him, the shapes of the boarding crew beyond.
The Wheeler kicked with a powerful foot, knocking Ram into the screen. Ram knew whatever part of his body touched it, he was going to lose. And yet the unstoppable power of animal instinct took over deep within his brain, far beyond the control of his conscious mind and his hand shot out to brace himself against the wall.
He yanked it back as he fell onto his face, landing just centimeters from the screen.
Too slow.
His reaction came after it had already happened. He snatched his right hand back only to find he'd lost all four fingers. The stumps were just above the knuckles, the glistening red wounds sheered off with molecular precision. As he watched, blood welled in a dozen tiny points then poured out over his skin.
The Wheeler kicked him again and Ram rolled sideways, straight into the claws that reached for his face. He grabbed for them with his ruined hand, his missing fingers meaning all he did was thump into the alien’s tough skin and the razor sharp claws lacerated his face, tearing through the remnants of his already shredded flesh.
One claw slipped into Ram's eyeball, catching on the lower rim of the socket and whipping out the eye itself. Ram screamed, blood pouring from his missing face and into his throat.
He threw himself against the hub, half blind and mad with pain, punching and striking with both hands. Expending everything he possibly could, all he had left. The Wheeler shook and flailed. He was hurting it but not enough. Ram was fading fast, his strength leeching out along with his blood.
There was just no way to hurt it.
He needed a blade, a spear to get through the armored skin. But he had nothing. One hand was useless, punching with his missing fingers weakened the structure of his fist and was effectively pointless.
He wrapped his arms around the hub and heaved it backward, twisting, trying to throw or roll the thing into the screen but he couldn't shift it.
His strength faded with the effort. All the alien had to do was to survive a few moments longer and Ram would die.
The Wheeler had braced itself with a foot right underneath him and, blinking away the blood and tears from his remaining eye, Ram saw the limb stretched under him. Ram stamped down and felt it crunch and snap with a resounding pop.
Ram wished he could use the alien's shattered bone as a blade to spear through the thick yellow hide.
But there's no way to get the alien’s bone out of its body.
The hub was heaving, struggling for breath, it seemed but it bucked and threw Ram off again. The smokescreen was behind him, there was nothing he could do to stop his momentum and the sheet of swirling plasma burned through his hand up to the wrist.
Ram screaming through the tatters of his face as the pain and horror shot through him. He pulled back his right arm, glistening pink bones at his wrist, sheered off completely flat at the ends, like some sort of biological tool.
And there it was. Right there in front of his face. The way to make a spear.
While the Wheeler thrashed itself upright behind him, Ram laid his arm at an oblique angle against the searing agony and rotated it, rolled it around to burn his wrist bones into sharp points. He had to peer through his tears in his eye. The horror of it twisted his guts, the wrongness of burning his own limb away, of searing through the skin, the muscle and the two bones of his forearm. He was screaming, shaking as he pulled it back and inspected the damage.
Two perfect chisel point.
As he turned to drive it into the Wheeler’s body, which was hanging back from the smokescreen, it lashed out and slashed its claws across his abdomen, low down, ripping three gashed through his body from hip to hip from his genitals to his ribs.
It was a killing blow. But Ram didn't stop as his guts tumbled out under his feet in slimy, shit stinking ribbons. He knew he was dead as he charged raggedly forward, treading on his guts, dragging more of them out of the gaping wound with each step as he closed on the Wheeler. Its next swipe, Ram caught under his left arm. Still, the power of it crushed more ribs and knocked Ram to the side, forcing more of his entrails out of the gaping holes across his belly.
But Ram held on. He had only seconds of life left.
Roaring through the hole of his face, he fell against the Wheeler and drove his arm into the creature with every gram of strength he had.
His chisel-bladed arm punched through the skin and his arm thrust deep inside the hub. The thing screamed and shook, rolling away. Ram held on to the hub’s shoulder joint with his other arm, drew out his bone-spear in a spray of dark red, stinking, gelatinous blood and slammed it back in again, tearing through more of the tough yellow hide. Inside the hub was a mass of tissue. Gristle and soft, pulpy organs that he stabbed through, over and over again. The Wheeler rolled and bucked, cartwheeling around. He held on but Ram had no idea which way was up or how long the fight had gone on for nor how long he had left to live.
All he knew was he had to finish it.
He reached his left arm inside the hub and grabbed hold of a slippery string of sinew and pulled, snapping it. The Wheeler screamed and bubbled, belching out horrifically foul gasses. He stabbed his sharpened wrist into the inside, mincing whatever tissue he could and he dragged out fistfuls of foul yellow mush with his hand and yanked out red chunks of quivering alien matter and he knew that he was drowning in his own blood.
He couldn't get a breath through his windpipe. His vision, already half gone, darkened from the edges. He went on fighting, punching and thrashing at the Wheeler which shook under him, quivering and writhing.
Milena was shouting in his head but he didn't know what she was saying. He didn't know anything anymore. He had been destroyed. His body was ruined. His face was gone. He couldn’t move a muscle.
Far above him, the half circle dome ceiling of the Orb arena curved up into a shining darkness, like the endless blackness of interstellar space.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE – SPOILS OF WAR
The void. Lost in dreams and voices in the midnight dark, packets of data swirling in the ether. Time passed.
And Rama Seti woke.
“Ram? Can you hear me? Ram?” A woman's voice. He recognized it, perhaps. A voice from far away. “Come on, Ram, wake up, hurry.”
Another voice spoke, close by the first. “He should be conscious right now. Look at my display, it says he is awake.”
“Then why is he not responding, doctor?” the woman said. A rich, confident voice.
“Milena?” Ram asked. “Milena, is that you?”
“He moaned, did you hear that?” Milena said, a smile in her voice.
“I think you are imagining things.” It was Dr. Fo, he knew it now. “Still, no harm in moving things along. Here, let us give him a little jolt of the old wake-up juice.”
White light seared into Ram and he cried out.
“No!” he screamed, trying to leap up.
Figures moved in the whiteout. He was on his back, on a bed. Lights above at the edges of the room made his eyes ache.
He could not move.
“Ram,” Milena said. Her hands, the cool touch of her palms, pressed against his face.
“What happened? Where am I?”
“You are disoriented,” a voice said in his ear. It spoke English but the accent wasn't Indian. “Do not be alarmed. You are perfectly safe.”
His bed hummed and it sat him up. He couldn't open his eyes properly but they put a straw in his mouth and he drank down a beautiful draught of lukewarm water.
“Everything is alr
ight,” Milena whispered. “You’re safe now.”
“So bright,” he muttered. “Can’t see.”
Dr. Fo spoke to someone unseen. “Can you dim the lights, please?”
“Your eyes are new to you, Ram,” Milena said. “Your brain needs time to adjust.”
Ram blinked away some of the glare. He was in the clinic. The white tile walls too bright to look at but he could see the people around him. Milena, Dr. Fo and his familiar team, beavering away.
“What happened?”
Dr. Fo’s face loomed over him. “What do you remember?”
“I don't know. The Orb. The arena. Oh, god. Dying. Oh, god.”
Milena's voice smiled. “You won.”
Ram didn’t think that sounded right. “I can’t have done. I remember how it felt.”
Milena spoke gently. “Your life signs continued and the Wheelhunter’s did not. The Orb stated that you won and here you are.”
“How do you feel now?” Dr. Fo asked.
“Not sure. How do I look? How should I feel?”
“It may take time to adjust to your new body but it is largely the same in outward appearance as your last one.”
“Another one?” Ram said. “You used that poor Artificial Person just to bring me back?”
Dr. Fo cleared his throat and adjusted his collar. “That Artificial Person gave its woeful existence so that you could be reconstructed. That was its entire purpose. Do not mourn that animated collection of tissue. We salvaged as much from the shreds of your brain and spinal cord as we could. It was a challenge, what with so much of your nervous systems essentially pulped by the alien but we scraped out rather a lot of good material from your remains to integrate into your new body. And then we plugged the gaps with pieces of downloaded memories. You may feel a touch of dislocation for a while.”
Ram felt like his head was submerged under a ton of water. “How long have you been working on me? How long has it been since the Orb? Where are we?”
“It has been ten months since you killed the Wheelhunter,” Milena said. “The doctor was taking his time, being sure to do it thoroughly. But our timetable has recently accelerated somewhat.”