World of Fire (Dev Harmer 01)

by James Lovegrove

  He paused to take a drink from the water recirculation unit. What he was sucking from the valve-tipped tube was his own sweat and the moisture from his breath, which had been drawn in through ionic membrane pumps, then condensed, filtered and purified. It tasted more than a little salty. It was welcome nonetheless.

  While he was stationary, the shieldsuit recalculated its continued viability time. It was factoring in the heat his body was giving off in addition to the mounting heat outside as daybreak drew nearer.

  On the faceplate HUD, 01:23:17 suddenly, in a blink, became 01:16:09.

  Seven minutes gone, just like that. Not much in the general scheme of things, but for someone in his predicament, every minute – every second – was vital.

  With renewed vigour and will, Dev resumed traversing the boulder field.

  After a while, the rocks grew smaller and fewer. The ground between them was scattered with sharp, gravelly pebbles. These were treacherous underfoot but, after battling his way across the larger boulders, Dev didn’t mind. The going was much easier now. A walk in the park by comparison.

  Trundell caught up with him.

  We’re doing all right, aren’t we, Harmer?

  So far.

  Do you think we’re going to make it?

  I’m just putting one foot in front of the other. As long as we’re moving west, we’re in with a chance.

  They’ll be searching for us. They’ll find us.

  Yeah. Definitely.

  Umm, where’s Stegman?

  Dev turned round. He performed a 360º sweep of the vicinity.

  No sign of Stegman.

  Shit.

  We’d better go back and look for him.

  All right. Yes. It’s getting lighter, though, isn’t it? Have you noticed? The rocks are growing shadows. I can actually see what I’m doing.

  Dev was finding the nascent daylight uncomfortable. It made his eyes ache. He imagined it would only get worse. The shieldsuits’ faceplates weren’t polarised or even tinted. They didn’t need to be; the suits were intended for subterranean use. Nobody – apart from Beauregard – had ever considered that they might be pressed into service as ‘lifeboats’ on the planet’s surface.

  Dev retraced his steps, Trundell with him.

  Stegosaurus? Stegman? You there? Answer me.

  Here, Harmer.

  Give us a clue as to your whereabouts. What’s happened? Why the hold-up?

  I’m among these boulders still. My knee’s not playing ball. Blasted thing hurts like a bitch. Painkillers have worn off. I’m doing my best, but it’s hard with only one leg fully functioning.

  We’re coming back for you.

  No. Don’t do that. If I can’t keep up, that’s my lookout.

  Fuck’s sake, Stegosaurus. You after a medal or something? There’s no room for any hero stuff. We’re all getting out of this mess together, or not at all. Simple as that.

  I mean it, Harmer. I can manage.

  You think I’m going to leave you behind? Can you see me explaining that to Captain Kahlo? “Where’s my sergeant?” she’ll ask, and I’ll say, “Er, well, about that...” She’ll kill me. Skin me alive. With a nail file.

  Ha! I’d pay good money to see that.

  So get yourself up somewhere where we can see you. Top of one of the boulders. Go on.

  Arriving at the zone where the rocks became dauntingly large, Dev scanned left and right.

  Nothing. How far had Stegman lagged behind?

  Then Dev spied a hand, an arm, two hands. Stegman hauling himself strugglingly to the summit of a boulder the size of a garden shed.

  He was only fifty or so metres away. Dev wended towards him through the jagged, rugged rock maze.

  Stegman slithered off the boulder, and Dev guided him out, back to where Trundell was waiting.

  The policeman’s leg was in bad shape. He could barely put any weight on it.

  Dev couldn’t help glancing at the shieldsuit timer.

  00:52:41

  Less than an hour, and that total would be recalibrated and reduced on a regular basis once Iota Draconis cleared the horizon. Continued suit viability was a moveable feast. Time was short, and shortening at an unfixed rate. There could be just over fifty minutes left; there could be far less.

  Just for a moment, Dev was overcome by a sense of futility. Everything was against them. The sun, the terrain, Stegman’s knee. They might not make it after all. Rescue might not arrive in time.

  Their deaths would be gradual and not pleasant. First the cryo-coolant would pack up. The sun’s rays would then barbecue the suits’ occupants like lobsters in their shells. Not long after that, the suits themselves would melt. In the end, there would be nothing left of Dev, Trundell and Stegman but three pools of bubbling ceramic, clotted with human ashes.

  All at once, Dev hated this world. This fucking Alighieri. Hated it with a passion. It had tried to kill him in so many ways. It was trying again, really hard this time.

  “Screw you, Alighieri,” he said inside his helmet, to himself. “You’re not getting me.”

  He hoisted Stegman’s arm around his neck. He didn’t say anything further, just started walking again.

  39

  THE SHADOWS SHORTENED and sharpened. The light whitened. The landscape ahead was thrown into sharp chiaroscuro relief. Every detail stood revealed, every bulge and crack, every ridge and pinnacle.

  Iota Draconis was coming up, and with it, Alighieri was waking up. At the sun’s touch, rocks began to glow like flowers blooming. The heat haze grew thicker, becoming an iridescent shimmer. Fumes arose from cracks in the ground, creating palls of low-hanging, sulphurous mist. There was a deep cacophony of creaks and rumbles as basalt expanded, rock rubbing against rock.

  Inside the shieldsuits, the temperature gauges read 42ºC. The cooling systems were operating at full capacity, but the figure crept inexorably further upward. The viability times, meanwhile, ticked down, occasionally jumping by a whole minute in the space of a single second.

  00:31:13

  The three men tramped on across the fiery landscape. Now and then, Dev would broadcast an encouraging message to the other two – That’s it, good work, on we go – but it became more and more of an effort. Not just to formulate the words, but to believe in them.

  Stegman was more or less a dead weight on Dev’s arm. He hopped and hobbled along, frequently stumbling and falling, dragging Dev down with him. He asked several times to be left alone. He could make it without help, he insisted. Dev didn’t bother to reply, just lugged him onward.

  Trundell sometimes chipped in to help, supporting Stegman on the other side. The xeno-entomologist was himself struggling, however. He would send out short messages every so often that tried to be upbeat, even amusing, but were mostly nonsensical:

  At least I’ll be getting a suntan, no more Mr Pasty Face for me.

  Now I know what I know what a beef brisket feels like. Brisket, brisket, brisket; that’s a funny word, brisket.

  “How did you manage to survive on Alighieri’s surface for so long, professor?” the journalists will ask, and I’ll tell them it was by dreaming of snow and icebergs, snow and icebergs, so white, so cold, ice and snowbergs...

  Dev let him ramble on and didn’t ask him to be quiet, although he would have preferred not to have to listen to his gibberish. As long as Trundell was communicating, as long as his mind was active, he was still in the game.

  00:24:08

  Dev reset his looped beacon message to say: We’re running out of time. Someone respond, damn it. Mayday, mayday, mayday. Three men about to be burned to a frazzle.

  He wondered whether the sun’s intense UV radiation might be interfering with commplant signals, scrambling them or at least reducing their range and effectiveness. If that was the case, then their chances of being rescued had dropped from low to nearly zero.

  The light was dazzling now. Dev had to squint just to be able to see. Every footstep was a trial, a test of endurance. Steg
man weighed a ton. He was a human ball and chain. Walking was like wading through hot tar.

  The temperature gauge was nudging 45ºC. Outside, it was five times that. Dev was bathed in sweat, slick with it, dripping, as though he was standing out in a tropical rain storm. His throat was raw with a thirst that the recirculated water couldn’t quite slake.

  Abruptly Trundell halted. He stood like a tree in a breeze, swaying.

  Trundle, what is it? What’s the matter?

  Feel sick. Want to throw up.

  You’re in a shieldsuit. You can’t throw up. It’s nausea from the heat. You’re not actually going to be sick. Drink some more.

  Trundell didn’t appear to hear. He grappled with his helmet, making a cackhanded attempt to remove it.

  Dev lowered Stegman to the ground and hurried over to the xeno-entomologist. He took Trundell’s hands and brought them down before he could disengaged the shieldsuit’s airtight seal.

  Look at me. Look at me.

  Through their faceplates, their gazes locked. Trundell’s eyes were huge and scared. He was blinking so profusely it was as though he was transmitting Morse code with his eyelids.

  Drink. It’ll help. The nausea won’t go away completely, but it won’t get worse either. These are just early signs of hyperthermia.

  Hyperthermia. Yes, hyperthermia.

  You know what that is?

  I know what that is. It’s... It’s...

  It’s heatstroke. Your heart rate’s probably high too.

  Yes. Uh, yes. Racing.

  That’s all right. That’s natural. Just your body trying to cope. Accept it. Don’t let it feed your anxiety. We’re going to be okay.

  No one’s coming for us, are they? Are they?

  I don’t know. I expect they are.

  They haven’t said. We haven’t heard.

  Doesn’t mean a thing. Maybe our commplants are misbehaving. The sun is fucking with everything.

  They’d have said, wouldn’t they? By now? If they were on their way.

  If we stop, if we give up, we’re doomed. It’s that simple. So we’re not doing that. You get me, Trundell? We’re not giving up.

  Trundell. You only use my proper name when things are serious. When you want my attention.

  Bingo. And that’s what I want now. Your full attention. Stay sharp. Stay with us.

  Stegman joined in the conversation.

  Can’t we rest? Just for a little bit? My knee’s killing me.

  The sun is killing us. Little by little. But if we just sit still and let it, then what’s the point? You want to beat this? You want to live? We do that by moving. Every step we take is a fuck-you. A fuck-you to Iota Draconis. A fuck-you to Alighieri. A fuck-you to the Plusser who brought us down in the first place.

  You’re... You’re one crazy bastard, Harmer.

  I know. It’s why I’m still alive.

  Stegman tottered to his feet. Dev grabbed him and steadied him.

  Trundell started walking.

  Dev and Stegman followed.

  40

  ON THEY TROD. On, across a world of fire.

  The ground pulsed like flame. The air was a hazy, smoky yellow. There were no shadows any more, other than the faint, fluctuating silhouettes their bodies cast on the ground ahead of them. There was mostly just brightness, a range of lambent hues from hearth-fire orange to magnesium-flare white.

  00:11:21 became 00:09:33 became 00:07:09. Dev couldn’t tell if it was the shieldsuit recalculating or if he was losing track of time passing, a malfunction in his own internal clock. Minutes were instants. Yet they were also shapeless and malleable. One segued seamlessly into another. Everything was a continuum of heat and pain and toil and glare.

  Now there were warning lights. Loads of them. The faceplate HUD was giving him all sorts of ominous messages. The shieldsuit’s internal temperature had soared to 55ºC, as hot as any of the hottest places on Earth, as hot as the Sahara, as hot as Death Valley on a bad day. Externally it was nigh on 500º.

  Dev noted scorch marks appearing on Stegman’s suit. Wisps of smoke were drifting up from Trundell’s helmet.

  Five minutes to unviability.

  They walked.

  They didn’t communicate, didn’t acknowledge one another.

  Just walked.

  Each man on his own. Each dizzy and suffering from nausea. Each isolated, lodged inside himself, alone with his suffering and misery. Each drenched in sweat and listening to his pulse pounding in his ears, fast, too fast, like a timpani roll. Each barely conscious of his legs moving, lost to the why and the where of the journey, going on because that was all that was left, this mechanical motion, like a ritual which had long lost its original significance and become rote. Because walking was all that mattered and all that had ever mattered.

  Three minutes to unviability.

  Two minutes.

  One.

  Then the warning lights, in unison, winked out. Dev’s shieldsuit stopped telling him how much distress it was in. He clearly wasn’t paying any heed, wasn’t worth alerting to the danger any more. The suit seemed to settle into a sullen, acquiescent silence, as though accepting that it had tried its best and now there was nothing anyone could do.

  When the cooling system gave out, the suit just put up a silent perfunctory statement informing its wearer of the fact. Likewise when the water recirculation unit gasped its last, and when the heat sink went down.

  The shieldsuit was now simply an inert shell, an inorganic carapace. It could do nothing but hang off Dev’s body and be a barrier between him and the sunlight.

  A failing barrier.

  The glass of the faceplate developed a crack. Tiny striations branched off the crack like the veins in a leaf. The glass itself began to blacken from the edges inward, and the head-up display flickered and vanished.

  Dev could smell burning. Was it coming from inside or out?

  Both.

  The suit’s ceramic had started to singe.

  So had he.

  An aroma of chargrilled meat.

  His own flesh, cooking.

  armer

  A voice.

  No, just a thought. Something random flitting through his brain.

  Harmer, are... Harmer... Acknow

  He tried to answer it, this ghost voice in his mind, this accidental sparking of neurons. Words wouldn’t come, however.

  is Kahl... read me... Hang

  Baked alive.

  Vision darkening.

  Then a rush of wind, and his head emptying, and something large, something insectile and monstrous, descending in front of him with claw-tipped arms outstretched...

  And then the darkness swamped in and entirely obliterated the light.

  41

  LIGHT. AND MOTION.

  The sway of transportation.

  Dev forced his eyes open.

  He was on a floor. Cool metal. Blessedly cool.

  An IV was in his arm, feeding him a clear fluid.

  Icepacks on his forehead and forearms, his legs.

  People. Cramped, crowded conditions. The cargo bay of some sort of small airborne craft.

  He turned his head, and there was Trundell lying right next to him. Paramedics were bending over the little xeno-entomologist. The skin of his face was reddened and blistered.

  Then his body started trembling, twisting. A seizure.

  The paramedics reacted with practised calm, rolling Trundell onto his side, making sure his airway was open, cradling his head. An injection. The fit passed.

  “This one’s come round,” said one of the paramedics, noticing Dev watching them. “Stay down, sir. Don’t try to get up.”

  “Trun–” Dev croaked. “Trundle. Is he all right?”

  “Him? We think so. He’s suffered heat syncope, as have you. Fainting from extreme hyperthermia. Seizures and muscle spasms aren’t uncommon after heat stroke collapse. We’ve given him a muscle relaxant and we’re putting saline and electrolytes into him, just like we ar
e you.”

  “Stegman. The third guy. Where is he?”

  “He’s okay too, Harmer,” said a familiar female voice. “Up front in the cockpit. That’s how pushed for space we are. He’s worse for wear, but the docs say he’s going to pull through.”

  Captain Kahlo edged into Dev’s line of vision.

  “Kahlo,” he said. “So I didn’t imagine it. You were talking to me out there.”

  She squatted down beside him. “Who else did you think it was?”

  “Things were starting to get muddled. I thought you might have been a hallucination.”

  “No such luck. It was me, and I’m not best pleased with you.”

  “When are you ever?”

  “What kind of insane stunt did you think you were pulling? Out in full daylight?”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time. As a matter of fact, it still seems like a good idea, considering you found us and we’re alive.”

  “Only just, in both instances. We were about to call off the search. This is a surface equipment maintenance flyer we’re in. She’s got a daylight tolerance of ninety minutes. We were at the point of no return when we picked up your signal. As things stand, it’s touch and go whether we’re going to get back to safe harbour in time. Pilot’s pushing her to her limits. Lot of people are risking their lives to bring you home.”