by Adam Carter
The cat staggered to one side, more shocked than anything. I stood trembling, not certain of what I had done, my strength pouring out of me so quickly that I realised I would not be able to do anything quite like that again. The cat’s surprise soon turned to anger and it snarled at me, baring its massive fangs and promising to tear me apart before it would return calmly to its meal.
I took a single step backwards, for that was all my shaking body would allow.
The smilodon lunged.
I did not die, and it took me long moments to even understand why. I could see the cat rolling around on the floor, something having landed upon its back and clutching on for dear life. At first my brain told me this was a normal sight for a dying man to see; then my reason told me something was odd about the situation before me. It was only when I saw Arowana’s angry, sweating face glaring at me that I realised she was on the animal’s back, her arm locked about its throat as she struggled to maintain her hold.
“Hawthorn, get into the tree, you idiot.”
“I thought you said the cat could climb.”
“Just stop arguing and get into the tree.”
Watching the madly thrashing pair, I decided Arowana was correct. The cat may well have been able to climb the tree, but I would be a whole lot safer up there than I would be down on the ground.
Grabbing the trunk, I scrabbled back up, but the darkness and my fear worked against me and I soon found myself sitting on the ground again. Releasing the case, I made another attempt, but Arowana yelled at me to pick it back up. Snatching it, I wrapped both my arms about it and held it to my chest as I sat there, unable to keep my eyes off Arowana and the smilodon.
With a shriek, Arowana was suddenly pitched forward and disappeared behind the tree. The cat shook itself as it regained some of its dignity. Then its eyes locked on me and it snarled. Just as I knew I was going to die, the eyes turned, the cat sank its fangs into the avimimus carcass and the beast walked away.
It was a long time before I recovered enough to breathe, let alone move. And then I jumped as Arowana shook me by the shoulder.
“Whoa,” she said as I swung my arms about. “It’s gone.”
“It’s … why did it go?”
“A lot of reasons, I guess. It seems prehistoric cats react aggressively to large threats. You made yourself look small, so she lost interest. Also, I think I annoyed her. All she wanted was to eat her meal and we interfered with that. Once my threat was removed and you were sitting there cowering, she lost interest in killing us.”
“You know far too much about things.”
“So you keep telling me. Strange that all the things I do know have thus far kept us alive.”
I have never liked snide women so ignored that. There was, however, something which I needed to say.
“You jumped out of the tree to save me, Iris. Thanks for that.”
“So I’m Iris now?” she asked with an arched eyebrow. “Who says I was saving you?”
“You can’t just take gratitude?”
“I was saving my case. You hit the cat with my case, so I had to do something.”
I could feel my face flush red not only at the truth but also at the bland way in which she had come out and said that.
“What’s in that thing anyway?” I asked. “What’s worth all this?”
“Bio-tech. Illegal bio-tech. Probably not the type of thing you should be hitting cats on the side of the head with.”
I released my firm grip on the case. “Is it radioactive?”
“No. I guess it could kill you, but it’s not radioactive.”
I have never liked cryptic women. In fact, there are a lot of things I have never liked about women, especially ones who made me carry cases filled with bio-hazardous material.
“What is it?” I asked. “Whatever’s in here, it has Captain Taylor scouring this world for us.”
“I told you. Bio-tech.”
“And what exactly does that mean? Robot parts, a contagion? What?”
“Robot parts?” Arowana laughed.
“You didn’t find it funny when I asked whether it was a contagion.”
“Contagions aren’t funny. And there might be one in that case.”
I decided I really did not like the woman.
“Here,” I said. “Have it back. I don’t want to carry this thing any more.”
“You don’t have a choice, because I certainly don’t want to carry it. I know what’s in there.”
I decided it was entirely possible I hated her.
“First light will be soon,” she said, “and this place stinks of death. We shouldn’t hang around, which means getting an early start.”
“An early start to where? Where are we going?”
“Away from Captain Taylor. That’s good enough for you to know. Now move.”
The gun had returned to her hand – I had not even seen it appear. I thought about arguing, but there did not seem much point. Even if I was to overpower her I would still be stuck on a dinosaur world. So, once more taking up the briefcase, I set out on a long walk to nowhere. Optimistically, I supposed at least it would not be hot walking through the early hours of the morning.
It was probably the only thing I could be optimistic about.
CHAPTER FOUR
By mid-morning we found ourselves walking through open terrain. The ground was mainly covered with grass, with trees and shrubs scattered about, so it was hardly desert; however, the grass did not rise above our ankles, which suggested it did not naturally grow very long, or else herds or grazers regularly passed through the area. Whatever the cause, it did not bode well for our journey should Captain Taylor suddenly appear in the sky. She had given us a break during the night, probably due to the difficulties in spotting us, but I had a feeling she would resume her search shortly. Whatever it was Arowana had stolen, Captain Taylor’s employers wanted it back.
“Over there,” Arowana said, indicating with her gun. “There’s a lot of vegetation in that area and I’m sure I can see some animals moving about.”
“What, you want to take us to their breakfast table?”
Her expression told me she thought I was an idiot. “They’re indications of a watering hole. You’re not thirsty?”
We had not eaten or drunk anything since crashing: she knew darn well I was thirsty. I was still wary of the animals she had seen, and as I strained my eyes I thought I could make out movement as well. Still, every animal had to drink, so the chances were fair that the animals we could see were herbivores. Perhaps even the herd which had munched its way through the fields.
I walked ahead without my companion insisting. I had grown used to the gun being waved around, even though I had long since come to the conclusion that she would not shoot me. Whoever Arowana was, murder did not come easily to most people; plus she still needed someone to carry her briefcase. I found it humorous to think about her taking the thing to work every day, for her to remove her sandwiches from the fridge each morning, collect the newspaper from her local vendor, and place them both in that case beside the hazardous bio-tech she just happened to have stolen that morning.
It brought my thoughts back around to that term. Bio-tech meant nothing to me. If it was an actual term it was not something I had ever heard of, although I suspected it was just a nickname used by whatever division Arowana worked for. It occurred to me then that I knew nothing about the woman. Taylor had called her private, which meant she was in the security force, but aside from that the woman was a complete mystery to me.
As we neared the watering hole I could make out its features more clearly. The trees in that area were more numerous, with the grasses turning to large thick reeds about the water’s edge. The area was a lagoon, I suppose you would call it, covering an area about the size of a football pitch. I could see a few strange elephant-like creatures frolicking in one area – odd in that I was taller than them. A few smaller stoat-like mammals were moving mud around, or stones or something. It put beav
ers in my mind, building dams, although I did not much care what they were doing. I could not see any predators but had no doubt there would be some trouble to be found in the area.
“Go on,” Arowana said. “I’ll cover you if anything nasty happens.”
I walked alongside the lagoon for a short while, searching for a safe place to approach. I did not want to go anywhere near the thick bushes and had no idea what might have been lurking in the tall reeds. Eventually I located a spot by which I could approach the water without being set upon by anything monstrous. There was a bland rock upon which Arowana could sit and watch me; she seemed susceptible to this idea so I left her there while I went to collect water. I had no hip-flask or anything – I seldom prepared for a good kidnap – and was tempted to open the case to use that as a means of collecting water. In the end I just crouched at the water’s edge, scooped handfuls into my mouth and thought to hell with Arowana.
The water was warm but it was clear and it tasted all right. It had a slightly acidic tang to it, which I put down to all the alien bacteria, but that could not be helped. Dying of thirst was never a good alternative to refusing to take a risk or two.
Not having had any water in so long, I made sure not to drink too much, but reasoned I would have to figure out a way to take some back to Arowana before she started moaning at me. There was no handy way to carry it, however, so I turned round to ask whether she might have some idea. I stopped with my mouth open, my words dead in my throat, to see she had set down her gun on the rock and was paying no mind to me at all. She was meant to be covering me while I went to the water’s edge and instead she was focusing all her attention on massaging her side.
“What are you doing?” I asked, annoyed.
She winced; my sharp words had made her jump and appeared to have caused her pain. I could see her fingers at her side were stained red and my attitude changed. I had spent so much of my time walking ahead of her that I had not noticed she had been injured somehow. Probably in her tussle with the smilodon, I reasoned. I knew she had said she had only been protecting her briefcase, but leaping from the tree as she had done had saved my life, so I felt a little responsible for any injury she might have taken.
“You want me to take a look at that?” I asked.
“Why, are you a doctor all of a sudden?”
I drew back, genuinely horrified by the anger to her eyes. She held my gaze, daring me to say something, but I knew fear when I saw it. Until that moment I would have paid good money to see fear shining out of Arowana’s eyes, but as she sat there on the rock, blood seeping through her fingers, I found I only felt sorry for her.
“I’m not a doctor,” I said, “but I have steadier hands than you right now. I’ll fetch some water; take your vest off.”
“I most certainly will not.”
“You want it to get infected?”
“Better that than have you grope me with your fat gorilla fingers.”
“I’m trying to help here.”
“I know what you’re trying to get, Hawthorn, and I’m still closer to this gun than you are.”
“You know what, have it your way. Sit on that rock and bleed to death for all I care. I’ll just lounge around at the water’s edge, sipping water and waiting for you to die. Then, just to really get your goat, I might eat you. How do you like them apples?”
Her only answer was a wince. Then she swayed forward and I rushed to catch her. She tried to push me away, but her strength was failing, and I was able to ease her down onto the flat rock. She did not want to lie on her back, but I was giving her no choice in the matter.
Getting her hands away from her wound was difficult, it was almost as though they were stuck there. When I did manage it, I could see something had torn through her black vest and clean into her flesh. The injury did not look too deep, but all the walking had not allowed it the chance to heal at all.
“I’m going to fetch some water,” I told her in no uncertain terms. “When I get back I want you to have rolled up your vest so I can clean the wound. Don’t argue, just do it.”
I walked back to the lagoon and left her to make up her own mind about how she intended to handle this situation. Crouching to the water, I removed my own shirt and tore off both arms. Tying the sleeves together, I fashioned what I hoped would act as a reasonable tourniquet before plunging the entire thing into the water to get it nice and wet. Returning with it to Arowana, I found she must have decided to trust me because she had pulled up her vest to expose the injury.
I rewarded her common sense by tilting her head forward and placing the soaking shirt arms to her lips. “It’s probably the worst water-delivery system,” I told her, “but suck this. You need to take in some water.”
She did not refuse and I let her spend a minute taking what water she could from the shirt. She did not complain, which was pretty decent of her since I knew I would have if someone had removed their sweaty shirt, shoved it in a rancid pool and told me to suck on it. If she had stopped having a go at me I figured she was either worse than either of us thought or else she was swallowing her pride along with the water.
Not having the first clue about cleaning wounds, I dabbed at the blood with part of the sleeve, wiping away the excess and what had dried. I could see the rents in her flesh, the blood still oozing out, but it was not flooding so I figured the injury must already be coagulating. Raising her body slightly, I slipped my sleeves-tourniquet beneath her and bound it tightly across her midsection. She groaned slightly, but still voiced no actual complaint. By the time I was done I decided I had done a reasonable job, even though I had no idea whether that was true.
Closing her eyes, Arowana said, “Wake me if something wants to eat us.” And then she went to sleep.
I was dumbfounded. Here was a woman who had held me at gunpoint all this way, who had made me carry a case filled with some deadly disease or something, who had ruined my entire life; and she had gone to sleep, expecting me not to react. I could take her gun and shoot her, I could open her briefcase and infect her, I could abandon her to the wild animals roaming the waterside ...
Instead I sat beside the rock and kept watch while she slept. In all honesty, I did not give much thought to doing anything else.
We stayed like that for a long time. I wasn’t wearing a timepiece and had no clue how to mark the passage of time by looking at the sun; but even then, we were on an artificial world so the blazing heat of the sun was likely artificial, too. It got me thinking about Ceres, about how generations ago someone came up with the idea of fusing asteroids into one great mass, then populated it with prehistoric life. Far too much time had passed to ever find out who had come up with such a weird idea, why they had done so, or even how they had managed to acquire dinosaur DNA in the first place. There were those who still asked questions, but in the main people generally just accepted that this was the way things were.
I looked across to Arowana, considering how so much like Ceres she was. Here was someone of whom I knew so little, yet answers would not help me cope with the situation. We were on the run and if we didn’t work together we were going to die. I may not have liked her, but Arowana needed me and I had to admit I needed her. I would not, of course, have said such to her face.
Her face; now there was something curious. All this time she had projected herself as the hardened soldier, the boss of the situation, the woman who would take no advice, no help, no words spoken back. She was in charge and that was all there was to it. In sleep, I could see a different Iris Arowana. The hard lines had all fallen away, the anger had abated, the hostility ebbed to nothing. Watching her sleeping, it was like looking at a different woman: one who did not have all the answers herself, one who knew the same fears as I, who experienced the same uncertainties. I understood something of her, then. I understood she was perhaps even more terrified than I was, but that she was hiding her fears beneath a veneer of aggression.
Something bleated and I looked round to see a small lizard watchi
ng me. It was only about a foot in length and most of that was tail. It did not look especially threatening, but I shooed it away regardless. It was happy enough to scamper away, and as I watched it go I missed Arowana’s condescending knowledge of all that was Ceres. Had she been awake she would have been able to tell me the creature’s genus, family, what it had for breakfast and what its future plans were. I still had no idea how Arowana could do any of that, but I had to admit her knowledge was coming in handy. It may have been incredibly annoying, but at least it was keeping us alive.
Then there was her case. I less than half believed the contagion story, mainly because I was the one who had initially suggested it. It smacked of someone not wanting me to open the case, like telling children Jenny Greenteeth lurked in rivers purely because parents did not want their children playing by dangerous shores. Of course, opening the case would have proved the truth either way, and unconscious as she was there was nothing Arowana could do to stop me taking a quick peek. If I was wrong, we would both be dead, but at least I would have the satisfaction of not having Arowana say I told you so while we died. It was stupid to even consider opening the case, I knew that even at the time, but the problem was a woman had told me not to do it, which only made me want to do it more.
You may have gathered by now that I have never liked women telling me what to do.
Sitting on the rock beside my patient, I placed the case on my lap and examined the lock. It was a standard mechanism with four scrolling numbers, which meant I had no chance of sneaking a peek. If I was desperate to open the thing I would have to force the lock or just bash in the case with a rock or something. Holding it to my ear, I gave the case a shake. Whatever was inside, it did not rattle around, nor had I detected any movement from within all the time I had been carrying it. It got me thinking about radioactive rods, uranium or whatever. They could easily have been inside the case, packed in foam with special depressions designed to hold the things in place.