His words were cut short by a loud groan. The traxx lurched to a halt and the back end flew up into the air, throwing them all from the vehicle, along with their supplies.
Aaron hit the ground hard on his back. There was nothing but stone to cushion his fall, and the blow knocked the wind out of him.
The traxx continued to grind away at the rock, its groans getting deeper as it tried to gain traction behind them. He turned over to look up at it, and it had gone completely vertical, its treads caught in something. As he watched, it began to tip down toward him. He shuffled backward on his hands as quickly as he could manage, trying to breathe.
The traxx fell where he had just been with a deafening thud, and then went silent.
At last air rushed into his lungs, and he just sat there for a moment, staring at the traxx dumbfounded, trying to get his wits about him.
Aaron stood slowly, checking himself over. Aside from a few bruises and scrapes on his hands and knees, he seemed to be all right—no major damage.
He found Devon a few feet away and helped him up. The man’s arm hung at an awkward angle. “You okay?” He eyed Devon’s limb, which had popped out of its socket.
“I’ll live.” His eyes were rimmed with pain.
“Where’s Keera?”
“I don’t know. Sit down on that rock there. We’ll get your arm back into its socket, and then we’ll look for her.”
Devon did as he was instructed.
“Is it going to hurt?”
“Not at all.” Aaron pulled the arm out with a slow, steady pressure. After a moment, it popped back into place.
“Son of a bitch!” Devon shouted, pulling away and rubbing his shoulder fiercely. “I thought you said it wouldn’t hurt.”
“I lied. Now help me find Keera.”
Chapter Ten: Challenges
ANA LAY on her hard bunk at the North Fargo Detention Center, staring up at the sunlight that shone through the bars of her small window to light up the concrete ceiling. Only slivers of sunlight, but they were a promise that one day she would be out of here and a free woman once again.
Ana’s eyes flickered open, and she found herself staring up not at a concrete ceiling, but at the narrow canyon walls and the alien sky above. Instead of sunlight, a soft glow filtered down from the pollen afloat on the currents above, matched by the mosses in the water that filled the floor of the canyon.
The water was moving, albeit slowly. The canyon was channeling it somewhere. She tried once again to sit up, and this time managed it with only half the pain she’d felt the day before.
She managed to get the wing from her glider untied from her back and put her cupped hand down into the stream to get some cool water to drink, carefully keeping her back in a neutral position.
The water tasted amazing, even though half of it ran down her face and onto her shirt. She gulped down a few more handfuls and then took a minute to appraise her situation.
She had no food. She could live with that fact for a while, although her stomach grumbled and surely disagreed with her.
She had plenty of water.
Extended movement was currently out of the question, although she was encouraged by the progress she had made in just a few hours. If she was careful, she might be able to go limited distances on her feet, assuming nothing was badly broken.
She had to assume no one was coming to find her. Maybe their search methods were limited. Maybe she was hidden too far down here in this canyon. Maybe the world-mind was blocking the search somehow.
Whatever the case, she had to make her own luck. If she waited to be found, she might end up dying of starvation. That was not an appealing thought.
She set about organizing the few supplies she had. She’d spend the morning in preparation, rest in the afternoon, and wait to see which way the light moved at dusk. Then she’d know which direction to go to get back to McAvery Port.
She would set out tonight under the soft light of the canyon walls, going as quickly as she was able with her injured back.
AARON SCOUTED around the now upside-down traxx, looking for signs of their other companion. The tough little machine had gotten a tread caught in a protruding spur of rock, which had been enough to flip it over, sending them and all their supplies flying. “Keera?” he shouted.
“I’m down here.” Keera’s voice sounded far off.
Aaron knelt at the edge of a drop-off. She was about three meters below, balanced precariously on a thin ledge.
“I found her,” he called back to Devon. “Find some rope!” To Keera, he said, “Stay still. We’ll find something to lower down to you.”
She nodded, but her face was white as a sheet. A little more of the ledge crumbled beneath her, sending a spray of gravel into the depths below.
He couldn’t tell how far it went.
“I’ll be right back.” He eased back from the edge and joined Devon to search for some rope. They quickly gathered all the supplies they could find strewn across the empty landscape, but the pack that held the rope was gone.
“The winch!” Devon dashed to the back of the traxx, which was now, paradoxically, in the front. “There’s a carbon-fiber winch on every one of these machines. As long as the crank isn’t too badly damaged….” He spun the wheel around, and the hook and line extruded from inside the traxx.
“How long is it?” Aaron asked, estimating the distance to the edge of the cliff.
“Give me a sec.” Devon pulled it out to its full length. “Maybe ten meters?”
“That’s not going to be enough.” Dammit, there has to be a way. “Here, help me loop it around my waist. You can lower me down, and then when I have her arms, winch us both back up.”
Devon eyed the traxx suspiciously. “You think this thing is wedged in tightly enough?”
Aaron frowned. “It has to be.”
They looped the line around his waist twice and pulled it tight.
Aaron kneeled and looked over the edge again. Keera was still there. “Keera,” he called softly so as not to startle her. “Devon’s going to lower me down to you. Get ready to take my hands.”
Devon tightened the line with the crank and then began to slowly play it out as Aaron eased himself over the lip.
He so did not want to be doing this.
Then he was over the edge and committed.
He dropped in steps as Devon played out the line, drawing excruciatingly closer to Keera.
More of the ledge crumbled under her feet. How much could be left? “A little faster up there?”
All at once he dropped a meter, and his heart stopped.
“Sorry!” Devon called from above. “Are you close?”
“Half a meter.” He reached out his hands. “Keera, get ready to grab my arms.”
She nodded.
He dropped the last few steps. “Now!” She let go of the rock face and flailed toward his outstretched arms. Her left hand missed, but he caught her right one, and they locked arms. She brought her left arm back around and grabbed his other arm as the rest of the small shelf gave way and fell into the abyss.
“Got her,” he called to Devon.
The winch began to pull them upward, small step by small step. He could hear the traxx groaning ominously at the strain.
They reached the halfway point, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He looked down at Keera. “Almost there—”
Everything shifted.
With a tremendous shriek, the traxx rumbled across the ground above. It must have been dislodged.
“Holy fuuuuuck,” he yelled as they dropped back halfway to the now missing ledge.
“I’m gonna fall.” Keera was slowly losing her grip.
Then things stabilized again.
“Hang on. We can do this.” He grasped her arms even tighter with his own. “Devon, what happened?”
Devon’s head appeared above. “Thank the stars you’re still there. I think the weight was too much, along with the angle. Hang on. It seems to be secure now. I�
�m going to reel you the rest of the way in.”
“Hurry” was all he could manage. They began their arduous ascent again, and this time, within a minute they reached the safety of the ledge.
Devon pulled Aaron up, and he helped Keera over the edge.
They collapsed together in a pile, breathing heavily.
The traxx had lodged up against a short pillar of rock. Another two feet in either direction and they would likely have been lost down the crevice.
Then the world went black.
It was a short vision this time—the doctor, sitting up in some kind of crevice or deep canyon, working intently on something next to a glowing stream of water.
He opened his eyes to find his two companions sitting up and staring at him.
“It happened again, didn’t it?” Devon’s arms were crossed.
He nodded. “I saw her. She’s alive, and I know how to find her.”
AARON, KEERA, and Devon had gathered everything that hadn’t fallen into the crevasse—enough to fill the two packs they still had.
They had enough food for three days and enough water for a week. They also had one remaining med-kit, handy with the scrapes and bruises they had all sustained. They were lucky there’d been no serious injuries.
Aaron set the homing beacon on the traxx. It would at least get their rescuers this far. He carried a second one with them. He planned to set it off when they found the doctor.
Aaron was learning to judge the time of day by the brightness of the sky. He decided it was midafternoon when they set out at last. The mountains had drawn much closer, but they still had a good half day’s trek to reach them, and he wasn’t at all sure how they were going to get over them.
They crossed a terrain that was both forbidding and strangely beautiful—and as alien as anything he had ever seen. He’d had little time to pay attention to it while driving the traxx—it had been more of an obstacle course than anything—but now it revealed itself to him in all its strangeness. It was primal, with an extreme absence of the life he had grown up with on Earth.
They walked through deep valleys where black rock was upthrust like the ribs of some great dead beast, and along ridges where the land fell away on both sides in a sheer drop. He stopped to touch the rock every now and again, and it guided him on.
It was hard to explain. It was almost like he was accessing its memory, or at least the memory of its shaping.
As evening approached, the Dragon’s Reach loomed over them like the mouth of one of the mythical animals from the Hercules dimensional. It was massive on a scale that his mind refused to accept. “How are we going to get over that?” Devon asked, sounding doubtful.
“Not sure yet.” He was trying not to be intimidated by the sight.
Keera laughed harshly. “Well, if you don’t know….”
“Hey, I don’t see the two of you offering any useful ideas.” He looked around at the open plain. It was smooth as glass, but every hundred meters or so, giant boulders sat like silent sentinels. “When the time comes, I’ll know.” He could practically feel them exchanging worried looks behind his back.
“Anyhow,” Devon said at last, “nightfall will be here soon. So we won’t have to worry about it until tomorrow.”
“True, but we do have to find a place to camp for the night. How often do those storms blow through?” he asked.
“Every three or four days, usually,” Keera replied. “So we’re good for a couple more days.”
They’d lost their tents, and Aaron didn’t want to take a chance on getting caught out in the weather.
ANA PASSED the afternoon preparing herself to follow the course of the canyon she was trapped in.
First she used the parachute material to construct a carry sack.
Dismantling the flight pack provided her with a makeshift blade of sharpened metal, and she tied the cord from the parachute together to make a decent long rope.
One of the components of the pack made an adequate, albeit small, jar. Water shouldn’t be a problem as long as she followed the stream; if she was forced to leave it, she could fill the jar with enough water to last her at least a short time.
She also rigged up a flashlight using a small LED light from her pack, along with a battery scavenged from the flight pack. She’d have to commend its designers if she got out alive. It had provided more help than she’d dared hope for.
When she was satisfied she had done all she could to prepare, she sat back along the ravine wall and waited for nightfall.
She dozed lightly but worried about missing the end of the day. She wondered idly if it was possible to feel the onrush of night in this strange world.
At long last, dusk came, the sky glow flashing to darkness. She imagined it as a sizzling sound crossing the constricted sky, but in reality she could neither feel nor hear the change. Still, it told her which way the South Pole was—off to her right.
She tested her back. It was still sore, but the worst of the pain had subsided. Getting up would be the hardest part, but she thought she could manage all right once she was on her two feet. As long as she took it slowly.
Her eyes adjusted to the dim light provided by the glowing moss in the river. If she had to leave the lighted watercourse, her makeshift flashlight would light her way for a while.
She used the rock wall to find purchase and slowly pull her protesting body up. The pain was intense, but she paused only once, tears squeezing from her closed eyes as she fought to master it.
At last she reached her feet. Her back pain eased.
As long as she babied it, she might just be okay.
If only she could have found something to use as a cane, but trees, with their roots and branches, were notoriously scarce on this side of the Dragon’s Reach.
She turned and began to make her way up the ravine, one painstaking step at a time. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter Eleven: Torrent
KEERA’S WEATHER prediction was a little off. Late in the afternoon, the sky began to darken with clouds, and just after nightfall, the rain started to pour out of the sky.
Aaron’s touch sense led them to a protected rock overhang where they planned to wait out the storm—a shallow cavern in the foothills of the Dragon’s Reach.
They set up a camp along the back of the cavern. Around the light of a lantern, they shared a meager repast—dried fruit they’d brought with them from the camp and some hard bread he and Devon had brought up from McAvery Port.
Aaron excused himself to take a piss at the cavern mouth. When he returned, Keera looked up at him and laughed.
“What?” He felt more than a little self-conscious.
“You’re a miserable mess.” She set down her meal and stood next to him, smoothing out his hair. “The weather got the better of you.”
“The weather you didn’t see coming.”
“Forever is a fickle mistress.”
She turned him around, and her hands found his shoulders. She began kneading his sore muscles, which ached from the weight they’d carried today.
“Not to be a third wheel here….” Devon looked uncomfortable.
“Don’t worry, Dev.” Keera grinned at him. “I’m not planning on getting nasty with him right here in the middle of this oh-so-romantic cavern.” She kissed Aaron’s cheek and went back to finish her meal.
“That’s a relief.” Devon laughed. “So how are we going to get over those mountains? It looks like an awfully long walk.”
Aaron shook his head. “I’m not sure yet. I guess I’ll know when the time is right.”
“That’s so weird. How can you be sure you’re… we’re not being led somewhere we don’t really want to go?”
It was a good question. “Do we really have a choice? Besides, if the world-mind wanted us dead, there are easier ways to do it.”
Keera stared at the light of the lamp for a moment, her brow furrowed. “Has one of these minds ever gone, you know, crazy?”
“I don’t kno
w,” Aaron said honestly. “I heard about a mine accident once. They said the mind just lost it and trapped and suffocated a whole shift of miners.”
Keera shivered. “So how do you know you can trust the world-mind?”
Aaron frowned. “It’s hard to explain. I… I just do.”
They sat in the uncomfortable silence for a long time. Outside the rain continued unabated, and eventually he suggested they try to get some sleep.
Aaron bedded down for the night, unfortunately without Keera, but he didn’t want to make poor Devon any more uncomfortable than he already was. They’d been fortunate to salvage the sleep sacks from the accident, but their tents had been lost.
He closed his eyes and tried to get to sleep, but the doubts from their conversation earlier persisted.
How did he know he’d actually spoken to his father? Surely a mind that could manufacture such a convincing reality could fake Jackson Hammond too. How was he to know if he was being manipulated into doing something he might regret later?
He remembered his first explorations of the servitor minds at home. How clean and straightforward they had been. There was no subterfuge there, only cold machine logic, as beautiful and symmetrical as a mathematical equation.
These newer biominds were something else altogether—not all that different from a human mind. So why couldn’t they also be capable of a very human subterfuge?
He’d read that Director McAvery had insisted there be no organic parts at Transfer Station. What if that wasn’t going far enough?
What if the world-mind did have it in for them? It wasn’t being paranoid if it was true.
Eventually, he grew tired of speculating about something for which he had no ready answers. He was exhausted from the trek, and he fell into a deep sleep at last.
In his dreams, there was a vast plain, black as night but filigreed with thousands of glowing golden tubes. They stretched out before him like a network of roads or a crazy-quilt city map, branching and connecting beneath his feet, far off into the distance. As he watched, the tubes grew dark, and night fell across the strange plain.
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