PATCHER

by Martin Kee

  Kendal looks at the breather beside his bed of leaves. “Oh—” It feels like a lame thing to say, but he can’t think of anything better. “Thanks for letting me use it.”

  “Yeah—” Chaz says. “Well, it was just extra weight. It was actually getting a little difficult to manage all of it since I fucked up my leg. Two of us will be able to carry a lot more.”

  “Right.” Kendal takes a breath and can’t shake the fact that he’s breathing a dead person’s air, someone who mattered to Chaz. He pulls the mask away and turns to Chaz, who has already started breaking camp.

  “Tell me about her.”

  “Who? Oh.” After a breath, Chaz says, “Valerie. Her name was Valerie. She was in Accounting and Legal—AnL. We worked together on the initial survey. She was a good person. You have a girlfriend? I mean… before all this started. Surely you have someone who was important to you.”

  Kendal winces internally at the sudden rush of blood to his face, feelings he’d thought he’d forgotten. He thinks about the picture of Jess, wrinkled and fading in his pocket. Chaz notices this.

  “I’m sorry. Stupid question. Of course you did. We all left people behind, but that’s part of the adventure right?” Chaz laughs again. Something about it feels forced, inappropriate. Kendal can easily imagine getting tired of that sound after a while. Still, it’s hard not to feel glad that he’s found another human being on the planet.

  “It’s okay,” Kendal says. “I mean, yeah. We all left someone.” He blinks away the sleep from his eyes and yawns.

  Chaz slaps the tops of his thighs and stands. “Well, enough of this moping! Let’s get you set up with a backpack, and we’ll get going.”

  He reached into the lean-to and pulls out a large canvas survival pack, one with canisters and dangling ropes and hooks. It looks like it weighs a hundred pounds, the bottom caked with dirt and mud. Chaz lets the pack topple unceremoniously onto the dirt.

  “That’s yours,” he says.” And this is mine.” He reaches in and pulls out a thinner pack. Before Kendal can find his voice to protest, the man has his pack strapped to his shoulders. He sees Kendal looking at the heavier backpack and points at it. “It’s not as heavy as it looks—and look, kid, I’ve been hauling that one around on a makeshift sled for the last month. My back is killing me. It’d really be solid of you to help me out.”

  “Where’s the sled now?” Kendal asks.

  “I had to ditch it a while back. Can’t pull it through the dense trees and rocky terrain. Look, I mean, we can trade if you want, but with my back.” He places a leathered hand on his lower back and makes a face. “I mean I might end up slowing you down.”

  “No. It’s fine,” Kendal says. He picks up the back. It feels like it’s full of solid gold bars. “What’s in here?”

  “Equipment mostly. After the impact with whatever killed the ship, we managed to have a few minutes to load the pod with gear. A lot of it is communications equipment, stuff to talk to the orbital rescue beacon.”

  “Does it work?”

  “I can’t tell,” Chaz says. “It’s all this atmospheric crap in the air, makes a barrier for the radio signal I guess. Can’t get through to anything no matter how many times I try and I’ve tried a lot. If we could just get higher up, I think we’ll have better luck. And of course, if there’s anything left of the ship then we’ll be able to use that.”

  Kendal hefts the pack onto his shoulders and takes a second to test the weight. It’s heavy, but he feels stronger now after all the work on the ranch.

  Should just tell him about the town. Might even be able to get help. If the Younger one sees him, she’ll probably offer him shelter too. He thinks this as he watches Chaz scramble to get the rest of his camping equipment into his bag. The thought never makes it to his mouth. Kendal isn’t sure why, but maybe it’s just not a good idea. You’ve left other people behind before. Might as well use this to make a clean break. Once they get to the ship they’ll probably set up camp there anyway. It would cost time to backtrack to town. And then what? You’ll just explain in whatever birdcall, telling them that you’ve found your spaceship and it’s time to go home? Yeah. Better to just let it go. He’ll vanish and they’ll wonder for a while what happened to him and then they’ll go about their lives.

  Except the dream still lingers. The Younger, the spiked guardian, the little ox-thing. They aren’t in the village at all anymore. They’re in the desert, talking about him, talking about something else, some tragedy. He shakes it off. Probably nothing important. He’s been away for a while and it’s easy to let his mind drift towards these other alien thoughts, assigning them personalities, making them almost human. Chaz would probably just think he was crazy anyway if he tried to explain.

  “So you ready to go?” Chaz asks. “Gotta make progress before the sun goes down—well, assuming that’s the light. I figure we got ourselves about twelve hours of daylight before the critters come out, and there’s no telling what’s waiting for us further up the ridge.”

  They emerge from the trees into a swarm of gnat-sized bugs, then up through more forest, where the bamboo gives way to sturdier, oakish trees. The bugs swarm the bark, moving up and down in ant army patterns.

  “Don’t get too close to those,” Chaz warns. “I lost a glove to them a while back. They’re like little carpenter ants, carving up anything they can get their hands on. It seems to be the general rule around here—salvage everything. It’s like a world of goddamn scavengers.”

  There’s not a lot of time for talking, aside from the occasional warnings from Chaz. He acts as though he’s been through this part already, pointing out dangers Kendal’s never noticed. Most of the time there’s just the crunch of gravel and dirt under their ragged boots.

  “Where did you land?” he asks Chaz.

  Chaz turns and points off into the distant hill range, barely visible now. “Way off there in a thick patch of vegetation. Was rough going at first. Valerie… Valerie was pretty worried we’d never see another person. I see now—well, I wish she could have been here to see you.”

  “How did—” Kendal starts to ask, but chickens out.

  “How did she die? Them.” That’s all he says and for the longest time they simply hike uphill in silence, passing through trees and forest. “Honestly, kid, I’m surprised that you’ve lasted this long. How did you manage to avoid them?”

  Kendal pretends not to hear as memories of the poachers surface in his mind. “I had to fight a few off.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Chaz laughs. “They can be tough little assholes. You know that as well as I do, right?” Chaz says with a chuckle. “They don’t taste bad though.”

  Kendal almost trips on a rock. He stumbles, recovers. “You’ve eaten them?”

  “You haven’t?”

  Kendal shakes his head.

  “One. Got too close to me. I had to act fast. For something so small, they sure can be vicious. I wonder if the mammoths thought the same thing about us, right?”

  “Right,” Kendal feels the word come out, as if it’s from someone else. His mind is still stuck on the other part of the conversation. He’s eaten one. He’d probably eat the Younger and half the town without even thinking twice. “But I mean, they can’t all be dangerous, right?”

  “What do you mean?” Chaz asks.

  “I mean, they build things. You’ve seen the ruins, the towns. They have to be intelligent to do that sort of thing.”

  “You know what I think? I think they might have. And I also think they might not have.” Chaz rubs the side of his head again, winces. “I mean, there could have once been a race that made all this stuff, but does it look to you like these things actually create anything? They just scavenge. They probably scavenged whatever race made the first civilization and are just all fighting over scraps. I’ve seen them go to town on things, animals, each other.” He shudders. “Count yourself lucky you haven’t had too many run-ins. I’m impressed you fought
off the ones you did—Or are you just bullshitting me?”

  Kendal pulls up the side of his shirt, revealing the scar there. Chaz lets out a slow whistle.

  “One got you good. You’re lucky.”

  “I guess,” Kendal says.

  “You guess? You guess?” Chaz laughs again. “Kid, you fought off a freaking alien on their own planet. That’s some Grade A badassery right there. Don’t get all teenager on me and say ‘I guess.’ That’s something to be proud of.”

  Kendal shrugs. He’d rather not think about it, rather not think about this man killing and eating the people Kendal has lived with—and they are people, with their own language and buildings and customs. He just wants to get to the ship and get off this world.

  “Do you think a ship will take us back to Earth?” he asks.

  Chaz doesn’t answer immediately. “That’s a good question. The odds would be against it. Most ships are going to be just passing by, probably on their way to Andromeda or somewhere else to colonize. I mean, even the Luxemburg was on a one way trip. They would have just scrapped it once it arrived.”

  “What?” Kendal turns to look at him.

  “Oh yeah. Hell, most ships by the time they’ve reached their new homes are a hundred years out of date. Nobody wants them after that, not even the corporations. They’re all just liability and overhead at that point. The ship we were on? That was just going to be a home to whoever rode it to the end.” He pauses a second. “Why? You hoping to head back to Earth? You picked the wrong ship for that.” More laughter. Maybe it’s the heat or the strange sky, but Kendal finds the sound grating.

  “No—I mean, I knew we weren’t headed back. I just…” Just never did the research before Uncle Ernie set me up on a one way trip.

  He looks over at Chaz to find the man staring at him, sizing him up, a curious twinkle in his eye.

  “What?” Kendal asks.

  “You got on a ship headed out across the void of space, not knowing that it was never coming back?” He shakes his head. “Come on, kid. Don’t bullshit me. Everyone on that ship had the same plan. Everyone on that ship was running from something or to something. Nobody gets on a survey ship without knowing full well what they’re getting themselves into.”

  Kendal doesn’t say anything, just bites his tongue. “I was in some trouble—”

  But Chaz waves it off. “You don’t have to tell me, kid. What’s back there, on the planet of humans, it’s in the past. What concerns me is that you’ve been running all this time with no plan. Haven’t you thought about the future?”

  Kendal gives up, turns and starts walking. “Let’s just get to the ship, Chaz. This pack is heavy.”

  “You wanna switch? I don’t mind.”

  “No…Just, how much farther?”

  “Hell if I know, kid.”

  By afternoon they reach a high altitude lake somewhere around the summit, and it’s decided—mostly by Chaz—that this is good enough a place to camp. Kendal drops the pack, stretches.

  “Easy with that,” Chaz says.

  “Why?”

  “There’s equipment in it.” The man frowns. “And a lot of it isn’t stuff that’s going to be easy to replace.”

  The lake is small, formed in the middle of a large granite plate. Kendal can’t tell if it’s erosion or some kind of ancient impact that might have formed it, but the view is spectacular—he can see almost all the way into the valley. Most of the foliage can’t seem to grow in the rock, except for a few small scrub bushes, clinging to the meager runoff that leaks into the lake from some unseen spring. The lake itself seems deep enough to swim in.

  “Think there’s any fish?” Kendal asks.

  “It isn’t like we have any gear for fishing,” Chaz says, unpacking. “But I imagine it’s safe for swimming if you don’t see anything big.”

  One minute he hears the words, and the next, Kendal is stripped down to his underwear and wading into the lake. Was water ever this good? He submerges, letting the coolness wash over him, not caring at all about the temperature, and for a while, he just holds his breath underwater, looking up.

  The lake’s surface forms a membrane above him, filtering the sky, making this alien world almost seem like home. He wonders what that cloud cover is made of, if that’s the reason there are no birds—if it’s toxic. He’s been so busy the last few months he hasn’t even given it much thought, always worrying about whether he might be sold or taken out to pasture. Sometimes this one particular villager would come by and look at him—just staring at Kendal for no reason—its body covered in spikes and blades. This same creature had greeted them when they first entered the town. He’d even kicked it once, kicked through the barn door back when Kendal was scared for his life.

  It’s face now forms clear in his mind, however. Small eyes, hidden under grafted plates and spikes, arms covered in blades and bludgeons. He stares at him in his mind’s eye, unblinking. Watching. He isn’t sure why he’s thinking of that particular creature at all—in fact he’s almost forgotten to breathe.

  Kendal lunges up, out of the water with a gasp. Chaz is nowhere to be seen. For a minute, Kendal feels a thrill of panic at the thought of being abandoned. It’s almost a relief though, to be away from the twitchy, unstable Chaz. Kendal can’t put his finger on why he’s always so anxious around Chaz. Maybe the man’s trying too hard.

  Wading to the shore, feeling the hard rock under foot, Kendal looks around and then wonders if there’s something in the pack that can pass for a towel. He pulls out a few things, some woman’s clothes. There’s also a rat’s nest of cables attached to a bag with something hard inside. Smooth. Plastic. The sensation seems almost too amazing to be real, but as he pulls it out, Kendal recognizes the plastic and graphene screen of a tablet. Not one of the ship tablets either—those relied on the ship’s data center to work. No, this is a personal device, the sort of thing that people took on vacations and read books on, watched vids and picshows. Kendal gently wipes away the solar panels along the top of the frame. He slides the power button.

  He holds magic in his hand. A small animated flower unfurls and closes again. He holds his breath as the home screen appears.

  Books. He hasn’t read a book in what? Months? Years? Most of his time on the ship he’d spent immersed in movies and adult vids, things that provided the highest level of distraction. But now? Does he even remember how to read? Kendal chuckles. Most of the books are classics, the free stuff you get from the internet back home: War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Forever War. Classic science fiction and romantic fantasy from a century ago.

  There are other folders too, personal files. He’s about to tap them when he hears footsteps. Scrambling, Kendal shoves the tablet back in the bag, then slides the bag quickly into the backpack. Chaz hadn’t mentioned it at all, just stuff about the beacon, which means that either he doesn’t want Kendal knowing about it or he doesn’t know it exists at all. Why have something so amazing if you aren’t planning on telling the one other person in the world you can talk to? Better to just keep it hidden, see if it comes up in conversation.

  The footsteps come closer, accompanied by a sharp squeal that makes his hair stick up. Kendal grabs some clothes and scrambles over the ridge.

  Chaz is hunched over some small animal. It’s no bigger than a guinea pig, squirming under the man’s knife. From what Kendal can see, Chaz doesn’t even seem all that aware of the animal he has pinned and tortured. He stares past it, his eyes focused on something else, something that might not even be there. Then, with one quick movement, he slides the knife across the animal. It squeaks with surprise then goes silent. With surgical precision, Chaz dissects the animal, separating limbs and placing them out in a neat rows on the rock besides the brightly colored organs where they leave little damp stains in the hard ground.

  He sits back on his haunches, waiting.

  There’s a sick feeling in Kendal’s gut, like he’s not supposed to see this, like it’s some kind of private r
itual. From the bushes comes a rustling sound, followed by another small animal, body covered in thick hair, mixed with flat, shiny scales. The creature uses a separate pair of arms to scoop up some of the limbs. It takes them one by one, holding them up overhead. Using a spare arm, it then gouges a hole in its own body and attaches the scavenged legs. There’s no grace to the action—it simply jams the stump into the freshly carved hole, twisting until the limb sticks. It leaves them there before turning to the carcass, eating several of the organs. As the scavenger digests and chews with insect-like mandibles, the attached arm starts to move, slowly coming to life as it eats.

  Chaz grips his head, pressing in on his temples like he’s trying to squash a melon. He rocks back and forth, keening loudly. The small animal, alarmed, races for cover. He hugs his knees, falls over on his side, weeping silently.

  Kendal moves back to the camp, hoping Chaz hasn’t heard him, confused and lost in what he’s just seen. There’s the beginnings of a campfire on the ground, so he feeds scrub brush and scraps of kindling into the pyre.

  When Chaz finally does return, he acts as if nothing was wrong.

  “Good swim?” he asks.

  “The water’s a little cold.”

  “I’ll have to check it out myself. Any fish?”

  “Nothing I could see.”

  “Huh,” Chaz says. “Too bad. We’ll have to get by on what we have I guess. Saw a few things scurrying along the ground and in through the bushes, but they’re too fast to catch. Might try to make a snare later on. You have any experience in that field?”

  Kendal shakes his head. “No.”

  “Oh well. Leftovers it is tonight.”

  As the sun sets and Kendal stares up at the night sky he can still hear the squeals of the creature under Chaz’s knife.

  Chapter 28

  MORE THAN the fact that Veerh wants to simply drop in unannounced, Bex is bothered by the fact that she has brought nothing to wear. No ceremonial garb, no shells, no offerings. Just her, Bindo and the clothes on her back. It’s embarrassing.