Event Horizon Threshold

by Kaitlyn O’Connor

  Without spying so much as an insect, she made it to the pool and set her pack down and dug through it until she found a water test kit. Aurek had drank from it the night before and he was still breathing so she was pretty convinced the water was ok, but she wanted to test it for her peace of mind. When she saw nothing to indicate it wasn’t safe, she dug her bath cloth out and wet it.

  She wasn’t getting in. She didn’t care how many reassurances she had, but she could at least bathe the sweat off.

  She went easy on the soap. She didn’t want to take hours trying to wipe it off with just a one foot square piece of terrycloth. She felt worlds better when she’d finished and, since she’d only wiped down, she was pretty much dry when she got done.

  Fishing in her pack, she got out the second change of clothes she’d brought and then rolled up the things she’d removed, thinking she could air them when they stopped for the night if she didn’t get the chance to clean them.

  It was as she straightened with her pack to return to the campsite that she discovered Aurek—little more than two yards from where she’d squatted to bathe. A jolt went through her. Her brain went into chaos mode, pelting her with various improbable and actual images.

  Before she could demand to know how long he’d been standing there, watching her, he strode toward her, snatched her off her feet and swung her away from where she’d been standing moments before.

  Then he stomped something on the ground.

  When he lifted his boot she saw a snake-like thing, still wiggling in its death throes.

  He caught her chin. “You are not to leave camp alone—at any time for any reason. We are on a hostile world and none of us know what dangers there are—what might be in the water.”

  Releasing her, he leaned down and picked the dead thing up by one end, examined it and tossed it.

  Roslyn felt ill and faint. She managed to find her tongue, however. “You … we should bag that as a specimen for study.”

  Shrugging, he retrieved it and escorted her back to camp.

  Everyone had gathered for breakfast, she saw, when they got back.

  She got several speculative looks for returning to camp with Aurek.

  Aurek distracted them, however, with the thing he’d killed. Striding over to the group, he dropped it in Paul’s lap.

  Paul let out a high pitched shriek, shot to his feet and took off, running in circles.

  Marvin reached over and picked it up to examine it. “It’s dead,” he announced and got up to find a specimen jar big enough to hold it.

  Paul sent Aurek an ‘I’ll kill you in your sleep’ look and then pretended he’d been acting and it was a great joke. “Had me going there, big guy. I thought it was alive.”

  “It was. Dead now.”

  Aurek dismissed him and headed to the supplies for his own breakfast. He returned with one for Roslyn to her great surprise. “Oh! I … uh … thanks!” she said instead of telling him she really didn’t eat in the mornings. She usually just had coffee—which was conspicuous by its absence.

  How could they go off without coffee, she wondered irritably?

  “Weird ass mother fucker,” Paul growled in a low mutter. “Scared the fuck out of me.”

  Marvin nodded. “That was … reckless,” he agreed. “I’ve never approved of pranks. Dangerous thing to do. It could have been venomous.”

  “It was dead,” Roslyn pointed out instead of disagreeing with his assessment that it had been a prank. She honestly didn’t think it had been. She’d told him it should be kept as a specimen and he’d brought it back and dumped it in Paul’s lap.

  It hadn’t scared him when it was alive so she supposed it never occurred to him that it would scare any of the others when it was already dead.

  She had to agree that he—well all of them—were strange.

  She couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was about them that made them seem out of place, but they definitely did.

  “You think it was a prank?” Gretchen asked in surprise. “I sure didn’t see anything about the way he acted that made me think it was a prank. Shouldn’t he have laughed his ass off when Paul screamed like a girl and jumped up and ran around in circles? I mean, I would’ve laughed if I hadn’t been too stunned.”

  Paul shot her a bird.

  Gretchen shot one back at him.

  “Children!” Marvin said chidingly.

  Both of them shot birds at him.

  Roslyn bit her lip.

  “Time to go,” Aurek announced, striding past them where they sat by the dead campfire and striking off without a backward glance.

  The four of them gaped at his back for a long moment and then shot up and began to gather their things up and stuff it into their packs as fast as they could.

  Roslyn had mostly packed hers before she went down to bathe and helped Marvin with his since he’d taken his specimen case out.

  They had to rush to catch up with the soldiers who were damned near out of sight before they could pull themselves together.

  “Looks like your boyfriend might be pissed with you,” Gretchen commented, a fishing expedition that got an instant hit.

  Roslyn whipped a stunned look at her, but she didn’t have to search her mind long to connect the dots. “He was pissed off, I guess, that I left the camp and went down to the stream. He followed me to lecture me about being on an alien planet.”

  Gretchen nodded. “That was pretty stupid. You don’t have a weapon that I know of and I sure as hell wouldn’t go off by myself. I thought Paul was the resident adrenaline junkie.”

  The comments pissed Roslyn off, but she was obliged to admit that the woman was right. “Yeah it was stupid. It’s just … it’s hard to adjust my mind to the new reality, you know? Yesterday I was on Earth and I wouldn’t have thought twice about going down to a stream.”

  “Sooo you didn’t think about it this morning?”

  Roslyn wrestled with the truth versus admitting guilt and decided on the truth. “I did. I just thought I’d watch myself and it would be ok—because it wasn’t that far.”

  “Sometimes it only takes a step, if you know what I mean.”

  She could see her point.

  She wondered if Aurek actually was mad.

  He didn’t seem mad and it was pretty rare to find anybody that got angry and hid it that well. It was possible, she was sure, but she hadn’t really gotten the impression that he was tense and wouldn’t he at least be tense?

  He had been, she realized, when he’d caught her by the stream.

  His voice had sounded rough, too.

  She would’ve liked to think he was overcome with lust since he must have come upon her bathing, but, try though she might to bend it to her will, she couldn’t think of a damned thing to suggest that was anything but wishful thinking on her part.

  He was … like a twelve on a scale of one to ten. She just couldn’t imagine him having a ‘thing’ for her when she was maybe a five? Possibly a six if she really dolled up and that meant most likely, in her current situation, a four.

  She’d read a study about it. Fives usually ended up with fives or maybe a four or a six. They might aspire to someone further up the chain, but everybody shot for something higher—not lower—and then they ended up with what they could get.

  Nobody that something that looked like Aurek was going to settle for somebody that looked like her—especially when she didn’t have mitigating circumstance to give her a nudge up.

  And Tor and Dylan would also be above her touch even though she didn’t think they quite measured up to Aurek—close, but no enchilada.

  Sad, but she needed to keep her mind on business anyway or she might not make it home.

  * * * *

  “What I’d like to know is who died and made that bastard god?” Paul muttered directly beside Roslyn.

  She hadn’t noticed he’d dropped back to walk almost beside her until he spoke. It was taking pretty much all she could do to keep putting one foot in front of
the other. If he wasn’t pissed off, it sure as hell felt that way when he was pushing them so hard.

  “The government?”

  “That was rhetorical.”

  “Oh.”

  “I thought this was supposed to be a scientific expedition,” he grumbled. “We haven’t gotten the chance to study a damned thing.”

  Roslyn frowned. He had a point, but he clearly hadn’t worked for the government before if he wasn’t used to them saying one thing and doing something else. “Yeah, I think they said that.”

  “So what is this shit? That’s what I’d like to know! So far we have collected one dead thing and some readings on the equipment—tested the water in that stream …. What the hell? Does he know where he’s going? Because he acts like he knows exactly where he’s going and I’d like to know how the fuck he would know.”

  Roslyn felt her belly clench at the implications. “I … uh … don’t know. Maybe he just seems to know?”

  “Maybe. But he took us right to that stream … almost like he could smell the water if he didn’t know it was there.”

  “Luck?” Roslyn guessed uneasily. “Maybe there was other stuff in that DNA junk that they translated? I mean, they got the plans for the gateway. I’m not in to computer stuff, but I guess there’d be room for a good bit of data. Maybe they got … like a map? Maybe the history of the aliens? Maybe an entire library. Nobody told me anything except that it was decoded by a researcher who later died.”

  “Yeah. Under mysterious circumstances.”

  Roslyn whipped a sharp look at him. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean it was a freak accident. You didn’t read about it?”

  Roslyn was embarrassed. “I … uh … I don’t remember if I did.”

  “His car ran over him.”

  “Oh my god! How?”

  “That part was sketchy, but you know they all run on computers now and any computer can be hacked.”

  “Don’t tell me stuff like that!” Roslyn snapped. “It’s creepy and I don’t want to think about it.”

  “Well, if it makes you feel better there wouldn’t be a lot of people around that could do it … Maybe Gretchen.”

  Gretchen shot him a bird. “Go fuck yourself, asshole. I don’t do cars if that’s what you’re suggesting. I’m a hacker, not an assassin.”

  “I wasn’t,” Paul said, but the denial sounded a little hollow to Roslyn’s mind.

  “I’m starting to get a headache. When we stop … if we do, I’m going to have to dig out some painkiller.”

  “Sunglasses might help more,” Paul said pointedly.

  “Maybe.” She thought it was tension, though, and Paul wasn’t helping. In point of fact, he’d given rise to most of it. Before he’d started all of his speculations she’d been mostly focused on her misery.

  “We will take a ten minute rest,” Tor announced from the front of the line, almost as if they’d heard the discussion.

  Roslyn didn’t care. She dropped her backpack and crouched to search for her asprin and the half bottle of water that she’d stowed after breakfast. Her leg muscles screamed when she crouched. Her feet felt like somebody had been beating the soles with a rod. She took the asprin with a gulp of water and then moved off the trail to relieve herself.

  Tor followed her and stood over her.

  “Do you mind?”

  “I do not.”

  Disconcerted, Roslyn gaped at him. “I have to go.”

  “Yes. I will watch.”

  “You damned sure won’t!” Roslyn snapped angrily.

  He went into zen mode, just sort of winked out of focus for a moment. “Watch over,” he corrected himself.

  That was almost the most bizarre thing any of them had done of the many strange things.

  “Turn your back,” she ordered him.

  “I cannot watch if I am looking away.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Shrugging, he turned away and then Roslyn discovered her bashful kidneys had to be coaxed. By the time she managed, that asshole Aurek was demanding that everyone get up and head out again.

  “I didn’t get to rest,” she complained to no one in particular.

  “I will carry you,” Tor volunteered.

  Roslyn snickered at his joke. “Oh please!”

  Before she could point out that she probably weighed damned near as much as he did, he swept up and followed the pack.

  Roslyn’s mind was so boggled she couldn’t think of what to say. “Uh … that’s ok. I’ll walk.”

  “Is ok,” Tor said. “I carry.”

  “No really,” Roslyn said uneasily. “You’ll drop me.”

  “I will not.”

  Apparently their discussion was overheard. When Roslyn glanced up to see who’d noticed, everyone had stopped and turned around to gape at them.

  Aurek plowed through the group. “She is injured?”

  “She is not!” Roslyn said indignantly. “She’s tired, damn it!”

  “I will carry her. You take the lead.”

  Were they insane?

  She gaped at him and then looked at Tor.

  Tor looked reluctant to hand her over.

  He did, however.

  “Put me down!” Roslyn said imperiously.

  “You are tired. Rest.”

  “I’m not that damned tired.”

  His lips curled faintly, the closest she had seen to a smile. “You should not have said so then.”

  She folded her arms. “Suit yourself then.”

  He did. Without a word, he strode past the gaping group of scientists and kept going.

  Roslyn got tired of trying to distance herself from him before he got tired. After he’d gone a little distance, she slipped one arm around his shoulders and not long after that, settled her head on that same broad shoulder.

  And then went to sleep.

  It was nearing dusk when Aurek stopped and the cessation of movement woke her. She lifted her head and looked around groggily. Everyone was staring into the distance, she discovered and, curious, she followed the line of sight.

  There was a city in the distance. Roslyn sucked in a gasp of stunned surprise, felt her belly go weightless. She hardly noticed when Aurek settled her carefully on her feet, steadied her and then moved closer to the edge of the bluff where they were standing.

  Roslyn nearly passed out when she saw he was standing at the very edge of a drop off.

  It was hard to focus on the city skyline after that, particularly since dusk was encroaching and it was hard to see.

  “We will go down to the valley and make camp and send out a drone to have a look,” Aurek announced to everyone in general, she supposed.

  Or no one in particular.

  It took them another thirty minutes to reach the valley he’d mentioned. Leaving the science team to set up camp, he and his men took the parts for a drone from one of the cases they’d been hauling, put it together and then sent it off toward the city.

  It was gone from sight by the time the science team had rushed through camp setup to free up the time to watch the video feed.

  It was disappointing.

  Not only were the soldiers mostly blocking the view, but it was so dark by the time the drone reached the city that they couldn’t tell anything about it. Aurek switched to infrared, but that was almost worse in Roslyn’s book.

  Disappointed, she went to the food locker to get the MRE’s out for everyone.

  It was deeply disturbing to discover that they only had enough left for maybe three more days.

  She wasn’t certain because Aurek caught her and closed the locker before she could finish her count.

  Chapter Four

  Roslyn glanced around to make certain the others were still gathered around the computer, watching the drone footage. “Do we have enough to last until we go back?” she asked quietly.

  Aurek studied her for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. “Yes.”

  She stared at him. It took him that long to co
me up with ‘yes’?

  Or had he been debating whether to be honest or not?

  “You’re certain?”

  He lifted his head to stare at the sky. “We must contact the command center in the next thirty six hours and let them know if we are ready to return or if we will stay longer.”

  She understood that they’d packed enough for a month even though they weren’t supposed to stay more than a week.

  When she said nothing, he continued after a moment. “They will have to recalibrate the system.”

  “What?” Paul demanded, joining them abruptly. “Recalibrate? Nobody said anything about having to recalibrate before they could bring us back!”

  Roslyn couldn’t say that that was particularly welcome news to her either, but she was more worried about the more immediate problem of the supply situation. Why had they been told they had enough for a month if they didn’t?

  And if they had had that much, what happened to it?

  That thought sent a cold chill down her spine.

  Were they being stalked? Was something out there, taking their supplies?

  Or someone?

  “They will only need to recalibrate if we stay longer.”

  “But … that city must be at least two days hike. There’s no way in hell we can get there and back to the landing site in thirty six hours.”

  “No.”

  What the hell? What did he mean ‘no’?

  Frustration filled her. Her head began to throb with the building tension. “We can’t complete the job we were sent to do in less than thirty six hours. We’d have to head back now to make that contact.”

  “No. I will send a report via the drone.”

  Well! At least that was some information!

  “And you’ll report what, exactly?” Paul demanded. “What was that about the supplies?”

  “We were discussing whether or not we had enough to get by until we head back,” Roslyn supplied as neutrally as she could.

  Paul exploded anyway. “WTF? We were supposed to have a month’s backup!”

  Aurek glanced from Paul to Roslyn and back again. He shrugged. “Two of the containers that were supposed to hold food were left behind and two containers of science equipment came instead.”

  Paul’s lips tightened. “So … you’re saying somebody fucked up?”