by Allen Steele
One thing was clear, though. Somehow or other, Sean’s mother had given him the wrong coordinates.
He had just finished using the lavatory in the rear of the tram—he’d never get used to it, as ordinary as it seemed—when he felt the vehicle begin to slow. Hastily zipping shut his fly, he opened the door and trotted back up front.
“Are we stopping?” he asked.
“Looks like it.” Kyra was peering out the windows on the tram’s right side. “We entered another node about a minute ago and switched tracks right after that.”
Sandy was already kneeling to roll up her sleeping bag. “’Bout time. I don’t care where we are, just as long as we get off this damn . . .”
“I want to get off, too, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’re lost.” Sean hated to put it as bluntly as that—one look at Kyra told him that she was as frightened as she’d been when they’d crash-landed in the arsashi biopod—but there was no point in sugarcoating the situation. “If we do, it’s going to be just long enough for us to . . .”
“Attention, please . . .”
The new voice startled Sean so much that he almost fell over a bench as he swung around to see where it came from. It spoke Anglo, without any trace of accent or even gender, and appeared to be coming from the control panel.
“Attention, please.” The map on the upper half of the panel had vanished, to be replaced by an androgynous human face. “You are entering a habitat with an atmospheric composition different from your own . . .”
“Where?” Sean rushed to the screen. “Where the hell are we?”
The face ignored him. “It is strongly recommended that you don breathing apparatus before leaving the transportation system,” it continued, smiling as calmly as if it were delivering a weather forecast. “If you do not have proper equipment, please remain in vehicle.”
“What if we don’t . . . ?”
The face disappeared as if Sean had never spoken. Apparently it was an automatic recording, not designed to interact with passengers. The map reappeared; Sean noticed that the node in its lower center was lighted, with an arrow pointing to the biopod to the lower right. That was where the tram was headed, whether he liked it or not.
“Airpacks,” he said. “Get ’em on, fast.”
Kyra and Sandy scrambled for their backpacks. Along with their winter gear, they’d put away their airpacks shortly after leaving the arsashi habitat, figuring that they wouldn’t need them again. The tram was still decelerating as Sean retrieved his breathing gear and goggles. Like the women, he wore only his Corps unitard, waistcoat, and boots; he adjusted the airmask’s regulator and tested its flow, and muttered a curse against the fact that he’d have to breathe through a mask again.
The tram left the node and came to a stop at a platform. Through the windows, Sean saw a station that superficially resembled the one in the arsashi biopod except that it appeared that another transparent barrier was in place between the platform and the veranda. The doors opened, and he and Kyra started to pick up their backpacks, but Sandy hesitated.
“What if we don’t get out?” she asked. “I mean . . . if this isn’t where we’re supposed to be, why don’t we just stay on the tram and wait until it takes us where we want to go?”
“And how do we find out where that is?” Sean shook his head. “We’ve got to get in touch with the ship and have someone relay the transmission to my mother.” He paused. “She gave us the wrong coordinates . . . That much is obvious. But we won’t know what the right ones are unless we talk to her . . .”
“And we can’t do that unless we leave the tram because the transceiver doesn’t work here.” Kyra nodded, understanding what he meant. “He’s right. It’s the only way.”
Sandy let out her breath. Sean couldn’t see her expression through her mask, but he had little doubt that she was scowling. “Yeah . . . okay,” she muttered, reluctantly bending down to retrieve her pack from the floor. “Let’s do it and get out of here.”
The tram doors closed behind them. A few seconds later, it moved away, disappearing down the tunnel. As it did, the ceiling scanner came on again. Its beam swept across them; when it was done, the transparent barrier moved upward, allowing the biopod’s atmosphere to enter the platform.
Heat, uncomfortably humid and cloying, hit them like a wave. Putting down his pack, Sean removed his waistcoat and rolled up his unitard sleeves; Kyra and Sandy did the same. He touched a stud on the side of his mask; the red type of the heads-up display appeared within his goggles, showing the atmospheric composition. Mainly oxygen, but with larger than normal amounts of nitrogen; the pressure was only 235.6 millibars, thin by Coyote standards. They’d be able to breathe the stuff, but only for a short time; without airpacks, they’d soon succumb to decompression sickness.
They wouldn’t need their goggles, at least. He pulled them off and hung them from a belt loop. Then, curious as to where they’d landed, he walked out onto the veranda, with Kyra and Sandy close behind.
Beyond the railing lay what appeared to be jungle, but unlike any he’d visited in Coyote’s more remote equatorial regions. The slope leading down from the tram station was dense with foliage: enormous ferns, bushes with serrated, sharp-looking leaves, trees that resembled oversized weeds. The humid air was alive with the cries, chirps, and grunts of birds, insects, and animals invisible yet nonetheless present. The light was dim and had a greenish tint; a thick, wet mist prevented them from seeing anything clearly beyond a few dozen yards, and even the biopod ceiling was cloaked by a solid wall of clouds.
“Oh, man,” Sandy murmured, “this place looks nasty.”
“I think it’s beautiful,” Kyra said.
“You would.” Sandy glared at her, then turned to Sean. “Hurry up with the radio. I don’t want to hang around.”
Sean pulled the transceiver from under his shoulder and propped it up on the railing. Unlike Sandy, he was intrigued by the place, almost reluctant to leave. It had a certain primeval majesty, and compared to the cold terrain of the arsashi biopod, its warmth was something of a relief. Indeed, this was close to how he’d originally imagined the habitable world of the danui system to be before the expedition had discovered otherwise.
Sandy was right, though. The fact remained that they were lost; the sooner they found a way out of there, the better. He turned on the transceiver and pointed its antenna toward the ceiling, guessing at the direction in which it should be oriented, then switched to the VHF band and unhooked the hand mike.
“Survey team to Montero,” he said, “please come in. Repeat, survey team to Montero, Carson speaking. Do you copy? Over.”
He had to reiterate the hail three times before Anne Smith’s voice came through the static. She sounded more tinny than before, and Sean guessed that he was probably at the edge of the reception range. “Montero to Survey One, we copy. Corporal Carson, where are you?”
Sean couldn’t help himself; he laughed out loud. “Damned if I know. We followed the coordinates my mother . . . the captain, I mean . . . gave me, and wound up someplace other than where we ought to be.”
“You’re not at Nueva Italia?”
“No. We’re most definitely not.” His lip curled. “I just wanted to thank her for the directions. They were really useful.”
“Sean . . .” Kyra began.
A long pause, then Montero’s com officer returned. “I’m sorry, Corporal, but I can’t reach the captain. She boarded a tram yesterday morning, and we haven’t heard from her since. It appears that something is interfering with her signal.”
Sean closed his eyes. It was the same problem he’d had earlier; the transceivers didn’t work in the tram system. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kyra and Sandy watching him. “Well . . . all right, then,” he said at last. “When you hear from her again, let her know what the problem is, and that she screwed up somehow. Until then”—he glanced at the others—“I guess we’ll try to figure out things from our end. Maybe see if we can find someone
who can help us.”
“Wilco. Good luck.”
“Thanks, Montero. Survey team, over and out.”
Sandy grabbed his arm as he folded the antenna and put away the mike. “What do you mean, see if we can find someone? You don’t mean . . . ?” Her voice trailed off as her gaze turned toward the green chaos beyond the veranda.
“I don’t see why not.” Sean was careful to leave the transceiver switched on as he slung it beneath his arm again. Just in case his mother should call; he was looking forward to having words with her. “Odds are, this place is inhabited.”
“That’s probably a good bet,” Kyra said. “Look . . .”
She pointed to the edge of the veranda. Just as in the arsashi biopod, an escalator led down the mountainside from the tram station, its lift conveniently parked at the top. Beside it was what appeared to be a footpath.
“There. You see?” Sean cocked a thumb at the escalator. “With any luck, we’ll find someone down there who’ll help us out. Just like the arsashi.”
“You’re counting on a lot, aren’t you?” Sandy stared at the escalator. “Sean, I’ve followed your lead until now, but . . . man, this place gives me the creeps. I think we ought to wait here until your mother gets back to us and . . .”
“And does what? Give us some more bogus coordinates?” Sean turned away from the railing. “Sorry, but I’m not counting on her again.” He grinned. “Besides, we’re explorers, aren’t we? So let’s explore.”
Figuring that they wouldn’t be there long, they decided to leave their packs at the station. But when they stepped aboard the lift, Sean noticed that its control panel showed signs of not having been used in a while; its surface was spotted with rust and mold, and the descent button stuck a bit when he pressed it. The escalator was still functional, though, and the lift slowly began making its way down the incline, shuddering every now and then.
As it descended, Sean examined the path running alongside the escalator. It was paved with stepping-stones that appeared to be almost randomly placed, overlapping one another in a crazy-quilt pattern, with no two exactly alike. If they were stairs, then it didn’t seem as though they had been made for bipedal feet. Wondering who—or what—lived there, he found himself suddenly nervous about meeting the residents of this particular habitat.
The foliage became more dense the farther down they went, and when the lift finally reached the bottom, they found that the escalator ended at the edge of a vast swamp. Murky brown water lapped against an overgrown shoreline; a river curled away from the escalator base, leading into mist-covered wetlands. A large red bird, ostrich-necked and with broad serrated wings, took off from its hiding place behind one of the oversized ferns and flapped away, screeching in alarm.
There didn’t appear to be any paths leading through the brush; when Sean stepped off the escalator, he noticed that the ground trembled and sagged beneath his boots and realized that he was walking on a thick bed of floating moss. If there was any dry land in that biopod, there probably wasn’t much of it. But just as he was beginning to wonder whether they should turn around and go back to the tram station, Kyra pointed to something floating in the water on the other side of the escalator.
“Does that look like a boat to you?” she asked.
They carefully picked their way across the floating moss to the object, which was tied up to a small, twisted tree. Yes, it was a boat, no doubt about it; about twelve feet long, shallow-hulled and flat-bottomed, it was fashioned from reeds that had been tightly woven together. It seemed like a frail thing, but when Sean tentatively climbed aboard, he discovered that it was watertight. Two double-bladed paddles lay athwart its bow and stern; they resembled those of a kayak, except longer and with two deep grooves on either side of their centers.
“I think it can carry all of us,” Sean said. Although there were no seats, the boat was obviously meant to be used by two individuals, sitting fore and aft, with enough room in the middle for a passenger.
“I don’t know about this.” Again, Sandy was hesitant. “Maybe we should just leave it alone. It probably belongs to someone else . . .”
“Of course it belongs to someone else.” Carefully sitting cross-legged in the stern, Sean picked up one of the paddles. It was lighter than it appeared, but he couldn’t fit his hands into the grooves; whoever used it had a smaller grasp than a human. “If we find them, we’ll apologize for borrowing it for a little while.”
“Assuming we’re able to talk to them.”
“Only one way to find out.” Sean nodded toward the front of the boat. “C’mon, get in. We’ll go just a little way and turn back if we don’t find anyone.”
Despite her reluctance, Sandy climbed into the bow; she was stronger than Kyra, and they’d need her muscles for the other paddle. Kyra took the middle position; although the gunnels were only a couple of inches above the water, the boat didn’t sink under their combined weight. It took Sean a couple of minutes to untie the mooring line—its clumsy knot could only be described as a double granny—but once the boat was floating free, he used his paddle to push away from the tree.
The river was more narrow than the one they’d seen in the arsashi habitat. It branched off in all directions, with tributaries sometimes rejoining the main channel after flowing around small floating islands but more often disappearing entirely from sight. The landscape was a labyrinthine swamp, potentially confusing to anyone but its inhabitants. As they followed the channel, Sean carefully memorized landmarks—a particularly tall fern here, a strange-looking weed-tree there—to prevent getting lost on the way back.
The current was with them, though, and it wasn’t long before the escalator disappeared from sight. By then, they had company. What appeared to be clumps of floating wood drifted away from the shoreline and slowly converged on the boat until they moved alongside it on both sides. Kyra had allowed one hand to dip into the river, idly letting her fingertips skim across the top of the brown water. The nearest of the clumps suddenly darted forward, and Sean barely had time to shout a warning when a blunt head emerged from the driftwood and sharp-toothed jaws snapped at Kyra’s fingers. She squeaked in alarm and jerked her hand away before the creature could take off a finger or two. She kept her hands out of the water after that, but the creatures continued to follow the boat all the same; Sean realized that they burrowed into fallen pieces of wood and used them to hide themselves from their intended prey.
Tall, strange-looking trees grew at the riverbank: gnarled, slender roots rose from the water to support a thick trunk from which oval fronds hung almost all the way to the river. Nearly sixty feet tall, the trees loomed above the waterway like sentinels. What appeared to be eggs floated in clusters near their bottoms; Sean was about to suggest that they paddle closer to examine them when he saw one of the driftwood-disguised predators approach a tree. As before, it swam slowly, as if mimicking river debris, but it was only a couple of feet from the eggs when the tree abruptly moved forward on its roots, and its middle frond stabbed down into the water. A violent splash, a harsh cry, then the frond—which Sean now saw to be an immense beak—rose from the water, the creature impaled on its tip. The walking tree tossed the smaller predator up in the air; its beak opened wide, revealing a leathery-looking maw, then caught the creature on its way down and swallowed it whole, wooden shell and all.
“A mimic,” Kyra said quietly. “An animal evolved to resemble a plant.” She pointed to the egg cluster. “Those are probably its eggs. It protects them and uses them as lures at the same time.”
“I don’t care.” Sandy’s voice shook as she glanced back at her and Sean. “Let’s get out of here. I’m serious.”
Sean ignored her. Something else had caught his eye. Not far ahead, he saw something on the left side of the river: two large, cone-shaped mounds, resembling immense anthills, that rose above the ferns and weed-trees along the riverbank. The longer he studied them, the less natural in origin they appeared to be.
“I want to ch
eck those out,” he said, pointing to the mounds. “If there’s nothing there, we’ll turn back. But I’ve got a feeling . . .”
“They’re dwellings?” Kyra gazed at them. “You may be right. Let’s go see.”
“Let’s not,” Sandy grumbled, but she thrust her paddle into the water. “Oh, hell. No one listens to me anyway.”
Careful to avoid the walking trees, they paddled farther downstream. As they came closer to shore, they could see the mounds more clearly, and it soon became obvious that Sean was correct. Narrow, ramplike terraces wound their way up their sloping walls, and holes that could have been either windows or doors were spaced irregularly along the ramps.
There was no movement from the dwellings, though, even when Sean and Sandy maneuvered the boat close enough that it could have been easily spotted by the occupants. Along the riverbank, foliage had been cleared away to make room for a wharf. Boats much like the one they were using were tied up at a floating dock, and woven baskets on the beach were further evidence of habitation.
“Maybe it’s deserted,” Sandy said quietly.
“Or maybe it’s not, but whoever lives here doesn’t want to meet us.” Kyra’s voice was almost a whisper. “I don’t like this.”
The silence of the place made Sean uneasy. They hadn’t traveled very far from the escalator, perhaps no more than a mile or two; it wasn’t too late for them to turn around. “Maybe you’re right,” he murmured. “Perhaps we should . . .”
A quiet splash from the right, followed by a muffled creak. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that they were no longer alone.
So quietly that Sean hadn’t heard them, three more boats had quietly emerged from behind the ferns growing along the opposite shore. Within each boat sat three creatures that resembled giant insects: elongated heads with four bulbous compound eyes, two on either side of narrow snouts; chitin exoskeletons covering angular bodies that looked much like those of grasshoppers or mantises; four multijointed arms, which grasped boat paddles within pincherlike claws. Their long antennae constantly twitched as they rowed toward the human intruders; as they came closer, Sean could hear the rapid clicking of their mandibles.