[scifan] plantation 04 - beyond the river of time

by Stella Samiotou Fitzsimons

am I now but that feeble, jealous girl in the Saviors’ woods?

  Useless at best. And dangerous to all she loves.

  11

  It’s not long before we realize the space pod is damaged. Either Torik sabotaged the engines or

  we have done something wrong on take-off.

  Damian can’t keep the craft flying straight. He fights to keep us level. After a while, we start

  losing altitude. The pod hisses and puffs in an effort to avoid crashing but eventually there’s only one option.

  “We need to try to land,” Damian says. “I can’t keep it airborne much longer.”

  I nod and squeeze his hand. “I know you’ll land us safely.”

  He has never flown an actual space pod or any other type of hover craft. I do my best not to

  doubt his ability to land. What a tragic joke if we abandoned our friends just to crash and die a few miles away in a strange land.

  A tug suddenly pulls down the nose of the pod. My stomach pushes up against my lungs. Damian

  struggles with the controls.

  “I’m switching to the emergency impact system,” he says. “It’s our only chance.”

  “It won’t end this way,” I say grabbing his hand.

  “Everything ends,” he says and then in a whisper, “I’m sorry, Freya. My job was to protect you

  and I failed.”

  “You’re here now,” I say squeezing onto his hand as our seats enclose us tightly around the

  shoulders and hips. Impact is imminent.

  There’s nothing left in the world to fear, I think as I close my eyes and wait for the end. The space pod shakes and rattles and spirals downward fighting the increasing acceleration. When the

  cabin lights turn red, my mind fades away into oblivion. My head snaps down against my chest and

  pain rushes into my tail bone. Everything goes black. Not even my heartbeat remains.

  My eyes open to a soundless world and blue sky high above. White steam like earthbound

  clouds blur my vision, but I can see the sky through this thin vapor, this smoky veil. A perfect sky. So distant. I am alone. I cannot lift my hand to reach for it. All I can do is whisper his name, “Damian.”

  And then the cold comes for me, racing through my bones as I enter the black.

  *

  I AM FLOATING in wet leaves and then I am run ashore on cold ground. Everything stabs into

  me, rock, twig, shards of pain in my ribs. This is the kingdom of night. There is no moon in this place.

  No sky. No other living soul. The pressure squeezes so tightly then releases deep inside me. My heart pounds loudly and my eyes open to the lonely woods.

  Alive. It’s the only word that forms in my throbbing head, but I don’t know what dark place on

  Earth or under Earth this could be.

  “You’re alive,” his voice says.

  My thoughts exactly. Damian is with me but unseen. I am blind. I cannot find him or I am dead

  and he haunts my purgatory. Then I feel him. He is peeling off my skin, piece by wet piece.

  “You rolled into some leaves,” he says softly. “Let me get them.”

  I see motion and a sudden glimpse of his big eyes. I am not blind. I am alive. I am with Damian.

  It’s night. Exotic smells. Trees. A jungle, maybe. I try to move my limbs to see what parts of me are broken.

  “A rib or two,” he whispers. “Nothing else is broken. Just bruised or cut.”

  “Are you reading my mind?” I say with a thin, dry voice.

  “No,” he says, “but I can feel your pain.”

  “Where are we?” I say.

  “Miles deep into this savage forest,” he says. “I imagine we’re still somewhere in South

  America, many many miles away from the crater.”

  Everything comes back to me now. Torik. Betrayal. Finn. The crash.

  “How did we…” I say not really knowing what I want to ask.

  Damian shakes his head. “The past is meaningless. Every minute going forward needs our

  attention. That only. They will be coming.”

  “You must leave me,” I say. “You can continue the fight. The old way. From the shadows. The

  people of Exodus will help you. I am nothing without the receptor.”

  “You are everything without the receptor,” he reprimands me. “To them and to me.”

  “Then we should move,” I suggest. When I try to move, I grunt from a sharp pain in my ribs and

  aches everywhere else. That’s when I notice my leg. I can’t feel anything in it.

  “You need to stay here,” he says. “I have numbed your leg with a nerve neutralizer from the pod

  med kit.”

  He opens his satchel which contains all the supplies he has collected from the crash site. Tins of

  water, crackers, beans and the med kit.

  “Let me see it,” he says putting the satchel down and taking a fresh gauze out with a small bottle

  of something.

  He applies gentle pressure above my knee with his fingers slowly moving all the way to my hip.

  I feel discomfort but nothing like the pain I should from what I am looking at, lacerated and bruised and torn flesh.

  “I’m going to turn you over, okay?” he says. “So I can have a look at the back of the leg.”

  “Okay,” I say noticing my entire pant leg has been removed and instead my leg is covered in

  bandages. The next moment a deep pain shoots through my leg as he flips me over gently.

  “Look at me,” he says and when I do, I am scared of what I see on his face. He’s about to tell me

  something I’m not going to like. “There were several pieces of metal lodged inside the back of your

  thigh and hip,” he says. “Some of them quite big. You landed on jagged fragments of the landing gear.

  I cleaned you and stunned the nerves to help with the pain.”

  “My leg is gone, isn’t it?”

  He, at best, seems unsure. “I don’t think so. I was very careful when removing the metal and I

  tested your leg when you were out. It seems intact, but highly traumatized,” he says. “Only a doctor

  can know.”

  “You cleaned and bandaged me as well,” I say. “And carried me for many miles, but what about

  you?”

  “I was lucky,” he answers indifferently. He lifts his hand to show one finger taped to another.

  “A broken finger and some nasty burns on my back. I’ve had worse in the sparring ring back in Spring

  Town.”

  “I’ll just hold you back, Damian,” I say quietly.

  “Everyone holds me back,” he says smiling. He hands me a pill and a bottle of water.

  “It’s nice being your patient,” I say getting suddenly groggy.

  “It will help with the ribs, some Exodus magic,” he says. “And it might prevent infection.”

  I take the pill. Almost immediately Damian sticks a needle in my arm.

  “Ouch,” I say but a moment later I feel light as the air. Floating. He has tricked me. He has given

  me a sedative, one of those that make you forget any unpleasant experience you might go through

  while under their influence. Doc had a short supply of them. There must be plenty on Exodus.

  I have a vague sensation of pressure on my thigh. My head feels heavy. I can barely keep my

  eyes open. I drift off in a land of tranquility.

  When I open my eyes again, I’m inside a small, musty cave with something soft tucked under my

  head. Damian’s jacket. I look around the small space and I cannot find him. He must be outside,

  plotting our next move.

  I try to sit up as gently as possible. I know that the pain is there but I do not feel it. I look down at my leg that’s been bandaged from the knee up. I feel more myself than the last few times I was

  conscious. Maybe because I
slept for a long time and Damian hasn’t loaded me with drugs.

  He walks in carrying a blanket and a pillow. “Good, you’re awake,” he says with a smile.

  “How long have I been out?”

  “A day, more or less.”

  “Are we safe? You covered our tracks?” I say.

  “As best as I could,” he says. “No telling what kind of bloodhounds those wrinkly bastards

  might have though.”

  There’s glistening sweat mixed with caked blood on his brow and arms. He keeps pacing about,

  examining the small amount of supplies he found in the pod or peeping outside through the mouth of

  the cave.

  “What’s next?” I say.

  “We wait,” he says with his gaze still trained on the outside world.

  “Because of me,” I say. “I am the kiss of death. It’s only a matter of time before I get you killed

  too.”

  “I could use a little rest myself,” he says and plops down next to me.

  “You fool. You haven’t slept since we left Exodus.” I glare at him which makes him smile like

  an idiot. I wrap the blanket around my shoulders and try to prop myself up with the support of the

  pillow. He notices my efforts and comes to my rescue placing the pillow against the wall to support

  me.

  “How bad is it?” I say. “My leg.”

  “If we were on Exodus,” he says hesitant to finish the thought.

  “You were not the biggest fan of their advanced society,” I tease him.

  “Well, I’m coming around,” he admits.

  “Good boy,” I say softly, then lay my head in his lap. “You’ve done your best. Losing the leg is

  the least of my worries.”

  “I’m cleaning it every few hours,” he says. “Just rest. Give it a chance to heal. We’re going to

  make it out of here.”

  It takes him a few seconds to decide to put one hand down on my shoulder and use the other to

  play gently with my hair. His heart beats so hard in his chest I can hear it clearly. It beats like a bass drum: boom, boom, boom.

  I am through with questions and through with answers. I don’t want to fight to survive. I just

  want to lie here and live with him in this moment as if the world will end while I am in his arms. I

  will believe in every word he says so that he believes them. We will not talk about the alien

  technology searching for us right now or our inability to contact Exodus. And never mind that our very limited supplies of food and water won’t last long.

  I hug him as tight as I can and bury my face in his chest. I don’t want there to be any space

  between us. I want us to be melded together, one body and one beating heart. He kisses my forehead

  to tell me it will all be okay. I like that he lets his kisses lie to me. I think it means he loves me.

  “It’s getting dark out there,” he finally says. “We’ll need water.”

  *

  MY HEAD FEELS like it’s about to explode. I have a dull ringing in my ears and my sweat

  feels heavy and cool on my skin. I feel Damian’s warm hand on my forehead. I realize I am burning up

  and trembling at the same time.

  “Why is it so hot?”

  “It’s not. You’re running a fever,” he says taking his hand away.

  He reaches out and grabs a bottle of water and a pill. “Swallow this,” he says. “I’ll get you

  some food. What do you feel like? Crackers or beans?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing. I don’t feel like eating.”

  “Just try,” he says handing me a cracker.

  I swallow the pill and drink the water with large gulps.

  “Easy,” he says. “We don’t know how long we will be out here or when we will find more

  water.”

  “They will come looking for us, won’t they? The commander will send Joshua and another

  team.”

  “They will,” he says unconvincingly. “I hope they don’t land. I have covered up our tracks.” He

  laughs for a second. “They won’t find us, but the aliens might find them.”

  “We should be outside,” I say, “so we can signal them.”

  “We can’t go outside in the daylight. You know that,” he says. Then quickly adds, “In a day or

  two we will walk at night or I will carry you.”

  My stomach feels like it’s been twisted into a million knots. “Where’s your touchpad?” I say.

  “Destroyed,” he replies. “Not that it would be of any use out here.”

  I close my eyes and try to bring up images of the few happy times in my life. My mother’s voice

  late at night when I had a tummy ache; Finn’s laughing eyes when we picked up mushrooms in the

  woods surrounding our village; Tobi as a newborn, his little fingers holding on to mine like he knew

  we were as close to each other as two creatures could ever be.

  I hunger the sunshine. I want to lay in the open air again and hear the Saviors talking and

  laughing and dreaming of days to come. I feel a pang in my chest when I realize I have never seen my

  sweet Tobi’s hair shining in the sunlight. It’s a strange thing to cry about but it brings tears to my eyes.

  I want so bad to see my son running through a green field, picking up flowers and giving them to me,

  telling me I am beautiful like the flowers.

  I open my eyes and grab on to Damian for dear life. I pull him closer and wrap my arms around

  him. I search for his lips and lace my fingers through his hair. Kissing him has a calming effect on me.

  It shuts down my fears for a moment and I want this feeling to last.

  I turn my body to the side as much as I can so I can wrap my good leg around him. He pulls

  away and takes me by the shoulders.

  “No,” he says. “You have to get stronger now. Concentrate on that.”

  I laugh. “Stronger, right. That’s all I was ever told. Be strong, Freya. Grow up, Freya. Don’t be

  so selfish, Freya. What if I just want to be weak for a moment? What if all I need is to forget who I am?”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying and you definitely don’t know what you’re doing,” he says.

  “It’s the fever.”

  I lock my eyes with his. “I love you,” I say. “Is that the fever too?”

  He lets go of my shoulders but his eyes are still on mine. It’s the first time I’ve told him I love

  him, we both know that. The first time I looked him straight in the eye and declared my love for him

  as simply and honestly as love should always be proclaimed.

  “This is not a time or place for love, Freya,” he says, but I can see emotion in his features. The

  big brute likes to be loved. I might have weakened him now at a time when he should not be weak, but

  somehow I don’t care. Selfish Freya has returned in full force. If we are to die, I need him to know.

  And maybe for the first time, in this moment of frailty and despair, things are crystal clear to me.

  “You have to stop talking,” he mutters.

  But I can’t stop. I’ve become an injured animal. All instinct and very little reasoning. “You

  know there’s a good chance I won’t survive this,” I say. “If my life is coming to an end, I don’t want it to be a miserable end.”

  “You won’t die,” he says. “I won’t let you.”

  “We’ll both die probably.”

  “This is not a time to test my patience, Freya. You know who I am, how hard it is for me to

  focus. Let me be so I can think.”

  “I can almost hear your soul grinding against itself,” I say. “It needs my kisses so it can run

  smoothly again.”

  I fall back on the pillo
w. I find it hard to breathe. I suppose that’s what they call shortness of

  breath.

  “You see what you’ve done?” he says. “And you’re talking nonsense. Rest or I will give you the

  needle again.”

  “You’re just dumb,” I tell him exhausted by all this talking.

  “I know that and loving you proves it,” he says with a dismissive wink.

  “Stupid man,” I conclude.

  I see concern in his eyes. Ah, yes, he blames it all on the fever.

  “What if the entire Dark Legion has reverted its loyalty?” I say.

  “There’s no point in thinking like that,” he says getting up. He goes to the back of the cave and

  examines the walls. “Have you noticed this?” he says pointing at a crack in the rock that goes all

  around and comes back together like a circle. “It almost looks as if this part here is separate and was placed back at a later time.”

  “An earthquake,” I say totally uninterested in his findings.

  “Maybe,” he says fascinated by the grimy wall. “There might have been refugees hiding here,

  living here all those years ago when the aliens invaded.”

  “Who would know how to switch the legion back?” I go back to what interests me. I slap my

  forehead. “Of course, Zolkon. It makes sense. What an idiot I have been. I should have killed him. He begged me to kill him and I should have. You’ve been right all along. In a war you need to be

  ruthless.”

  He pays no attention to me. He feels along the wall crack with his fingertips, then applies

  pressure to the rock.

  “What will happen to Tobi? Have you thought of that? He will be at Kroll’s mercy if he’s been

  converted as well. I caused all this.”

  Damian explores the wall with both hands now. “Sure, everything is your fault always, now

  let’s stop talking about it,” he says. He punches the rock and hurts his fist doing it.

  “I can see you have better things to do,” I say.

  He sighs and then he comes and takes my face in his hands. He kisses me. “You have to shut off

  that brain of yours,” he says.

  “Keep doing that. I think it’s working,” I say. “It’s shutting me up.”

  “Freya, listen to me. You are not getting any better and we have to move on. I want to see why

  there is a hole in that wall and why they blocked it. Please, drink some water and get some rest.”