Gamma Rift

by Kalli Lanford

  “Always and any time,” she said through a sob.

  My poor Garran, broken and bloody, sucked in a long breath. “Garran, we couldn’t find the door,” I cried, as I came down onto my knees next to him.

  “I was afraid of that. The sensors. Anything, a bird, a leaf, could have triggered it to seal.”

  “How do we re-open it?”

  “Shell scan. But even if I could get to the ship,” he choked, “it couldn’t read my fragments of shell.”

  “I’m not going to let you die.”

  “Let’s take him to the hospital,” suggested Attie. “Maybe they can do something for him.”

  “We can’t,” I said. “They’d shut the hospital down. Put Garran under quarantine. The military would come and take him to a research facility, and I can’t let that happen to him.”

  “But we can study his culture, his race, his technology,” blurted Kevin. “Learn from—”

  “We? You mean them. They’d never share this with the public. You and your master’s degree wouldn’t benefit from any of it.”

  Garran gave a snort that released a small fragment of shell from his nose plate.

  “She’s right,” said Attie, moving closer. “We have to try and help him here. Maybe we can wrap him in gauze to hold his shell in place until it heals.”

  “Shells don’t heal, remember?” said Garran. “And there’s something else, something I didn’t realize until your sun hit the center of the sky. As gamma radiation is your enemy, gamma radiation is an Enestian’s friend. My father warned me not to stay in this type of atmosphere for more than a day, and now I know why. Gamma rays give Enestians life. As my atmosphere was killing you, your atmosphere is killing me…” His eyes twitched closed, and his lips became limp and parted.

  “No, don’t die. Please don’t die,” I cried, wanting so badly to hold his crushed hand but knowing that doing so would only hurt him more. His shell continued to rise and fall. He was just unconscious.

  “That piece of shell— It’s digging into his throat,” said Kevin.

  Garran’s chest rose with an erratic up and down, and I moved close enough to hear his shallow breathing whistle between broken shell pieces. A moment later, his breathing quickened, and I watched his shattered neck and chest plate and readied myself to grimace as his internal organs poked through.

  “We’ve got to pull that piece of shell from his neck. It’s affecting his breathing,” said Kevin. “He’s slowly suffocating.”

  “We can’t. Garran told me there was nothing under their shells except their insides. He said their shells held them together.”

  “No, I see something else,” said Kevin, leaning forward, and I joined him, squinting to get a glimpse between two separated plates.

  “Oh my God. So do I.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Garran

  My eyes—I was too weak to open them, too weak to move. But a strange sensation rippled through my body, beginning at my neck. There was a tug. My shell. Something or someone was touching it. No, doing more. Lifting it away.

  Stop! Don’t!

  The cool rush of wind. Or was it the flow of blood? A lightness I’d never felt before. Another yank at my broken shell released the warmth beneath it. My internal organs were exposed. And I imagined them now, spilling to the forest floor to mix with dirt and dry leaves.

  Why are you doing this to me? Stop!

  But why did it matter? With a shattered shell, I was already dead.

  Another jerk on my body. Cold. So cold. Warm hands. Human hands upon my innards. But still so cold. Fingertips running under the edge of my shell. Prying. Wiping. Wiping what? Blood? Scooping the organs from my body?

  Was this it? What it felt like to be dissected alive?

  Little pain. My body numb.

  Floating. Weightless. Drifting upon a cool breeze.

  Was this a dream or was this what death felt like?

  Chapter Forty-Three

  America

  I reached for a small fragment of shell half covered by his ripped tunic. But did I dare? The plate lifted easily in one section, and what was underneath was not what I expected.

  “It looks like skin!” I announced. Attie jerked up onto her feet and backed away.

  “That is skin,” said Kevin.

  “The mountain lion didn’t do this,” I said, pointing to an exposed patch of pale skin. “His shell did this. It cut into him when it broke. Most of his injuries are probably from his shell and not from the mountain lion.”

  Holding my hurt arm in place and using my other hand, I lifted the edge of an adjacent fragment of shell and ran my fingers underneath it. The inside surface was slick and kind of slimy, and I held up my fingers to examine the clear, odorless gel it left behind. “The shell must produce some kind of lubricant, something to buffer the shell against the skin.”

  “So the skin’s not attached to the shell?” asked Attie, cringing as I slid my fingers back under another section of it.

  “No, it isn’t,” I said as I pried a Frisbee-sized piece free.

  “Are you sure you’re not hurting him?”

  Something told me I wasn’t. Deep inside my body, something gave me a gentle push to continue removing his shell. An unexplained thought made me believe pulling his shell away was the right thing to do.

  I peered down at Garran and remembered how I felt when he held me in his arms. I settled my head against his chest and knew why I had to do this.

  “It can’t make him any worse than he already is. His shell can’t be repaired, and he can’t move with it like this. The shell would dig and rip into his skin. And look at his knees,” I added, pointing to his tattered leggings. “He can’t walk with broken knee plates.”

  His fair, tender skin glistened in the sun, knowing its direct heat for the first time.

  Attie took a few steps forward and dropped back onto her knees next to me. “So you want to…?”

  “Yes, let’s take off as many as we can.”

  “I agree,” said Kevin, his fingers already wedged under a shard of shell.

  Attie hesitated, eyeing the goo on my fingers, but after Kevin and I removed three additional shell plates that revealed soft, human-like skin, she picked up a small chip by its corner and lifted it away. Garran didn’t stir, but his breathing remained steady while we continued our work, beginning with his neck and chest and moving to his arms as a neatly stacked pile of shell grew behind us.

  His biceps and forearms were defined by thick muscle that flexed when we lowered his naked arms to his sides. The shell plates encasing the fingers gave easily, and the thick leather shell attached to it peeled away, unveiling manly hands and fingers topped by nails that grew just to the tip where its growth must have been stopped and stunted by shell.

  There were a few fang marks from the mountain lion up and down his arms, but nothing debilitating or life-threatening, indicating he had only survived the mountain lion attack due to the protection of his outer casing. Most of the blood came from small nicks and cuts when jagged shell pieces pierced the skin beneath it.

  “There’s a lot of blood on his chest. Kevin, help me unhinge the plates,” I urged, feeling a renewed sense of energy and determination.

  To do the job, it took both of us giving a hard yank on the count of three, but just like his bare arms, his chest and abdomen were that of any athletic, extremely fit twenty-one-year-old guy. The body beneath the six-pack of shell matched its counterpart with bulging, lean muscle. Carrying all that shell around must have been like lifting weights.

  Like the rest of his skin so far, his torso was marked with cuts, some deep enough for stitches, but the bleeding had stopped. Even a jagged tear that looked more like it was from a mountain lion’s grip rather than a sharp-edged shell fragment had stopped bleeding and didn’t need immediate attention.

  Garran remained unconscious, but his breath was less shallow now that his throat was no longer squeezed tightly by crushed shell.

  �
�There’s one puncture mark at the back of his neck, but it doesn’t look deep. It just bled a lot. I don’t think there’s any major damage,” I said.

  Garran’s leggings were torn at both knees with rips that ended at the top of his boots. From the knees up, his leggings were intact, and with the lack of blood and smooth contours to his waist, it was obvious that the shell beneath there hadn’t been damaged.

  Attie pulled a plate free from Garran’s calf and stacked it with the rest. Like me, she was beyond being grossed out by the thick, broken armor of an alien, its gel-like lubricant, and the sucking noise made when shell was pried away.

  “There are only a few more pieces that are broken and detached from his thigh plates,” Kevin announced.

  We worked our way up to one of Garran’s knees and then the other, and by the time we were done, Garran was free of shell with the exception of his feet, face, and his thighs up to his waist.

  “That’s all we can do,” I stated and stood to evaluate our work, “except for his face.” The plate at his jaw was askew, with one point of it poking deep into the exposed flesh of a cheek. “We need to remove that plate on his chin. It’s hurting him,” I said.

  His face— That’s what I was the most anxious to see. Would it mirror its hard exterior with a delicate nose and prominent jaw, or would it also be like that of a human?

  At this point, the throbbing in my shoulder had worked its way down my arm and into my hand and fingers. But I didn’t care, and the more I concentrated on helping Garran, the more the pain became a burning tingle that was easy to ignore.

  I set my good hand upon the middle of his shell-free chest. His heartbeat was slow but strong. At his chin, I brushed away the loose piece of shell that cupped it. It landed on its end and rocked like the half shell of a chicken egg.

  “Go ahead, Am. Keep going,” said Attie.

  Holding my breath, I twisted two larger pieces away, uncovering one cheek and then the other. Attie helped me pick away tiny fragments on the side of his face, and Kevin removed the biggest part of shell from the top of his head, lifting it away like a bicycle helmet. The head underneath was bald and glossy with gel. So far he was free from any hair, but everything else about him was like a human’s.

  Was the lack of hair due to the systematic rubbing of shell against skin when he spoke or smiled, or was its growth being inhibited by shell? Or maybe Enestian’s were simply hairless?

  “He still looks human,” said Attie.

  The last part of his face-covering rode over his nose, mouth, and each eye. I eased my fingers underneath the thick, leathery plates and rolled it upward until it lost its suction and popped away.

  “Oh my gosh,” Attie cried.

  Except for the lack of eyelashes and eyebrows, everything about Garran’s face was human with its defined nose, cheekbones, and lips of soft flesh.

  Garran lay almost naked, striped of his shell and tunic, from the top of his neck to the waistband of his leggings. And it was there that we stopped to look at our progress.

  “He looks like one of us,” said Attie, wiping her sticky hands on the butt of her jeans.

  “Yeah, he does,” I agreed. He was the absolute perfect specimen of a human guy.

  “So is he a human?” asked Kevin, wiping the gel from his hands onto his pant legs.

  “I don’t think so. He can’t be. All of the beings on his planet are encased in shell.”

  Garran’s breathing was slower now and erratic. Each time he exhaled, I thought it was his last, and then he’d suddenly suck in a thin stream of air, and it would start all over again.

  “Removing his shell hasn’t helped. He’s dying,” said Kevin. “You heard what he said. He needs gamma radiation to live. There isn’t enough on Earth, even without his shell blocking it.”

  “I-I know,” I stuttered. “I failed.”

  My body became numb, and everything seemed to stop, the pain in my shoulder, even the beating of my own heart. I choked out a small cry, and as if my body contained no bone, I fell forward limply, barely catching myself with my hands.

  “But you tried,” said Attie.

  “And it wasn’t enough,” I sobbed. Garran’s next breath was labored, making his whole body shudder. “I’m not leaving him. I’m going to stay here with him until the end.” I picked up Garran’s hand. His skin was soft, baby soft, and warm. My tears came. There was no way to hold them.

  “You did everything you could for him,” said Attie as she blotted her wet cheeks with the back of her hand.

  “He’s dying for me. I get to live while he dies. It’s not fair. He sacrificed everything for me, and now that sacrifice includes his life.” I rubbed my palm along his forearm and then back to his hand where I gave it a squeeze. “I love you,” I whispered into what was now a very human-like ear. “I will never forget you.”

  “I’m here for you, Am. I’ll stay with you,” said Attie.

  “Me, too,” said Kevin, “and then I’ll help you, you know.”

  “Bury him,” I said.

  “Actually, I was going to say take you back to the hospital, and then deal with the authorities for you once we turn over the body. We can’t bury him. We’ve been all over the news. If one of us goes into a hardware store and buys a shovel, it would look suspicious. The cops already don’t believe your fake amnesia. We’d be questioned, and—”

  “And we are not going to tell anyone else about this. We can’t. He’s going to rest in peace, not in pieces in a lab. You can sneak a shovel from the bait shop. They’ve got to have one. We’ll bury him and hope he’s never discovered.”

  Kevin’s athlete eyes were full of fire, and his nostrils reddened with anger. “We’d never be able to get away with that. Besides, if we—”

  Garran gasped, and with a deep inhale, his eyes fluttered open. Blinking against the sunlight, he took another deep breath and gripped my hand, lightly at first and then harder as the skin above his brow wrinkled.

  “Garran!” I gasped, sucking in a deep breath that made my chest flutter.

  “My shell. What happened?” he asked and lifted the hand that held mine. “I’m not dead, and it wasn’t a dream.” He clamped his soft lips together and gave them a lick with the tip of his tongue.

  “You said your shell couldn’t be repaired,” I said gently. “And your shell was blocking the gamma rays you need to survive. You were dying, so we, we removed most of your shell.”

  He gasped again, sitting up and grabbing his abdomen like he needed to cradle his innards and hold himself together, then pulled his hands away to inspect his newly found casing of flesh.

  “It’s okay. See, you have skin underneath, and with part of your shell gone, you can move again. Your injuries are minor, just some cuts and scratches. Your shell saved you from the lion attack, and now being shell-less might save you from Earth’s weak radiation.”

  “I, I…” He shook, drawing in a deep breath, and using all ten fingers, inspected his torso, pressing lightly at first and then deeper, watching his skin move under the pressure of his fingertips. When he reached his waist, he ran his hand down his hip to his thigh, closing his eyes as it slipped across the remaining pieces of legging and shell.

  “Like I said, we didn’t remove all of them. Only the pieces that were separated from the middle of your body, the pieces that would jab into your skin if you moved.”

  He bent both knees, drawing his legs toward his body, and reached down to slide his hands along his calves and to the tops of his boots where shell remained, leading down to his feet. And then, as if in a panic, his right hand shot up to his face to meet his cheeks.

  “I feel human,” he said and looked at me with knight’s eyes that penetrated my soul, taking me back to the small, dark cell on Enestia, back to the first time I realized I cared so much for him.

  “You look human.”

  “I do? How is that possible?” He shivered as his fingertips rode the curves of his own face, pressing and pushing against a now malleable
nose.

  “I have a mirror,” said Attie, holding a compact of blush. “If you want to see yourself.”

  “Yes, let’s look together,” he said to me. He swallowed hard, touched his throat, and when his Adam’s apple moved, he flinched.

  “It’s okay. It’s supposed to do that.”

  Attie handed me the compact, and I opened it and held it out to Garran. His touch was too light and then too hard as he adjusted his hold, manipulating it with his new lighter fingers and their greater sensitivity.

  The mirror captured both our faces. The gel covering his skin had dried and flaked away. There were a few smears of blood across his forehead and chin, and several nicks on his cheeks and neck like he had battled it out with a razor while shaving that morning, but the small flaws weren’t a distraction from his loveliness.

  He touched first his own soft, pink lips, his hands shaking, and then mine, his own cheekbones, and then mine. The contour of his jaw came next.

  “You’re beautiful, Garran,” I whispered into his ear. “I hope you’re okay with what we did.”

  “I am. I understand it had to be done.” He looked down at his body. A small shell fragment I missed was stuck to his forearm, and he lifted it and flicked it away. “I can’t leave this planet.”

  “No, but you’ll be with me. I’ll help you. I’ll be there for you, and you can—”

  A deep reverberation penetrated my body, making my skin tingle, and Attie shouted, “What’s that?” as she jumped to her feet.

  Kevin grabbed my shoulder. “We know that sound.”

  And we did. It was the hum we had heard before, the roar of a dual propulsion cruiser, a sound I now knew as well as the sputter of an Earthly gasoline engine.

  “Is it your cruiser?” I asked Garran.

  “No, it couldn’t be. Not unless someone was inside, but that would be impossible.”

  “Whatever it is, we need to find out.” After taking Garran by the arm and lifting him up with me, we stepped away from the discarded shell pieces. “Can you walk?”

  “Yes, it feels strange, weightless and restricted at the same time, but I can do it.”