by Isaac Hooke
Those four hybears had their backs toward me.
I sheathed my knife. Stepping forward, I scooped up my rifle-scythe and with it took the hind leg clean off one of the beasts that antagonized Queequeg.
The other three hybears swung around to look—
Queequeg launched forward, plunging into the rightmost hybear, and the two of them rolled down the rise.
The three-legged hybear struggled away.
That left me facing two.
I swung and jabbed at them with the rifle-scythe.
They backed away warily, snarling, flattening their manes.
I drew my knife, aimed, and threw.
The animal I’d targeted dodged, and as it did so I swung my rifle-scythe into its side.
The sharp blade passed clean through the lung cavity and emerged from the front part of the hybear’s chest, pinning the animal to the shale. Green steam gusted from the wound.
The other hybear came at me before I could withdraw the weapon.
Not letting go of the stock of my rifle-scythe, I vaulted to the other side of the injured animal, twisting the blade in its flesh.
I wrenched the weapon free, and used my momentum to swing at the remaining hybear as it leaped at me. I took its head clean off.
I turned toward the other writhing beast, and mercifully ended its life.
I dashed down the rise to find Queequeg finishing off the last one. He held the animal firmly to the ground, his jaws wrapped around its neck in his favorite killing posture. The legs of the pinned animal convulsed three times before it finally died.
Queequeg released the animal, glanced up at me to make sure I was uninjured, in his opinion, then nonchalantly started eating. A slight mist rose from different scratches all over his body, but otherwise he seemed fine.
I glanced toward the top of the rise, confirming that no more attacks were coming from that quarter, and then I collapsed to the shale.
I’d actually won. Incredible.
Of course it was entirely thanks to Queequeg, who continued munching away on his kill.
I’d let him feast, all right. For as long as he wanted.
I won . . . but that didn’t change the fact I still had less than an hour of O2.
Was this really how it was going to end? Asphyxiated on my own toxic air, on a planet eight thousand lightyears from home?
Probably. But I was going to fight to the end. I’d promised myself that. For the whole hour, if that’s all I had.
My upper arm started to throb with renewed pain now that the threat of the moment had passed. I became aware of the breach alarm once more, which had continued to sound in my helmet all this time, unheeded, unnoticed.
I glanced at my arm: blood steamed from the small punctures where the skin and muscle underneath had swollen outward to seal the suit. The red steam came in pulses timed to my heartbeat.
According to the readout on my HUD, my hybear attacker had cut no major arteries or veins. Essentially a flesh wound. That meant I wouldn’t have to open up the suit with a SealWrap to apply a bandage underneath.
Still, the whole area underneath was swelling (and bruising) because of the pressure differential, and it would only worsen if I didn’t patch the suit.
I resignedly retrieved the suitrep kit from my cargo pocket and proceeded to patch the puncture. When I was done, the breach alarm ended.
The oxygen warning light didn’t go out, however. Less than forty-five minutes left before I died of hypoxia.
Hypoxia. I remembered training for it back in flight school. Well, training to recognize the symptoms, anyway. There was a certain qualification where they took a group of us up in the unoxygenated cabin of a jetliner. We took turns taking off our breathers, and were given a simple set of instructions to follow involving a deck of cards. We’d pick a card from the deck, identify it, put it back, and repeat until hypoxic symptoms occurred, then put the breather back on. For the first minute or so, most recruits completed the instructions well. After that, things quickly went downhill. Our minds started operating mostly on automatic. I don’t remember my own session, as the formation of new memories was one of the first things to go when the brain was deprived of oxygen, but apparently I failed the first time. I kept showing the card I’d been previously ordered to pick from the deck, and I kept saying it was the ace of spades, even though I was repeatedly told to reattach my breather by that point. Finally my training buddy had to put my breathing mask on for me.
Who knows, maybe the oxygen indicator in my suit was wrong, and I’d already run out of O2. Maybe my mind was operating on automatic right now.
Though if that were the case, I doubted I’d have the ability for such a lucid internal debate . . .
Queequeg, who had been busy eating, suddenly raised his head and started growling.
That was one of Queequeg’s faults. Though he was usually always on the alert, sometimes, when dining on a fresh kill, he could become oblivious to his surroundings. Twice before he’d let a hybear sneak right up to us unawares.
He’d done so a third time, apparently.
I noticed a darkness stretching across the shale beside me, originating from behind.
A rather tall shadow for a hybear . . .
I slowly reached for my rifle-scythe as Queequeg continued to growl.
The shadow shifted—
I made an all-out lunge for the weapon and spun around—
Meeting the eyes of a man in a black jumpsuit.
He held an automatic rifle of some kind, aimed right at me.
I heard Queequeg repositioning behind me.
“You tell your pet to stay back,” the man said in the thick accent of someone who spoke native Korean-Chinese. I couldn’t tell if he was military or civilian.
“Easy, Queequeg,” I said. “Easy. This is a friend. Friend.”
The growl Queequeg gave told me he knew this wasn’t a friend, but he remained still, thankfully. I didn’t want the animal to get shot.
“The two of you killed eight of them without a gun,” the SK said. “Very impressive. For a white devil.”
“You just stood by the whole time and watched?” I said incredulously.
He shrugged.
I glanced at the rifle. “It’s not even loaded, is it?”
He lifted the barrel toward my face mask. “Do you care to find out?”
I stared at him for a long moment. He was too far away to hit with my rifle-scythe, and by the time I retrieved and threw my dagger, he would’ve shot me in the face. No, this guy had me at his mercy.
As I continued to look at him, I realized his suit wasn’t just black, but he actually had shards of Geronium glued to it. All the better to blend into the landscape, I supposed. Using the aReal in my helmet glass, I tried to pull up the public profile associated with his embedded ID, but all I got was his ID number. He’d blanked his profile, then.
Queequeg continued growling.
“Queequeg,” I said warningly, glancing over my shoulder.
The hybear sat back. His ears were flattened, and his tail remained stiff. He definitely knew we were in trouble.
“You must teach me how to tame them, sometime,” the SK said. “I could use a Chéngdān pet.”
“What do you want?” I said.
The SK ignored my question. “You wear a nice suit. Very becoming. With all that fur, you could almost pass for one of the Chéngdān. Almost.”
I smiled sarcastically. “Yours is pretty sick too. Must have taken you a long time to glue all those rocks onto it. Can’t be good for your health, though. All the radiation, I mean.”
He grinned toothily, keeping his automatic rifle trained on me. “Radiation does not affect me.”
“You never said what you wanted.”
The grin faded, and he seemed angry. “Does everyone always
have to want something? Maybe I am merely a Good Samaritan.”
That gave me a chuckle. “When you’re the only person on a planet eight thousand lightyears from Earth, and you suddenly meet another person and he’s pointing a rifle at you, the Good Samaritan postulate kind of goes out the window. So I ask again, what do you want?”
He smiled. It didn’t touch his eyes. “Yes. I have a rifle pointed at you. Do you know why? Because I am not sure I can trust you. And as for what I want . . . maybe . . . maybe all I want is companionship.”
Companionship. It was a nice thought, if he could be believed. Still, I had more important needs at the moment than companionship. “Do you have any oxygen you can spare?”
“Mm? Oxygen. It is a precious commodity on Hēi Sö.” That seemed to be his name for the planet, and according to my helmet aReal it meant “Black Death.” “Perhaps if you would be willing to do certain things for me, I could give you some oxygen, yes.”
I scowled. “What kinds of things?”
“Oh, I am easy to please, no worry, no worry. Do not look at me that way! It is not what you were thinking. Not at all. There is no way we can do cào in these jumpsuits anyway! Ha!” According to my aReal, cào meant sexual intercourse. “I can’t even visit Miss Five!” He made a masturbatory gesture.
I felt my brow furrow. “You stay away from me.”
“I am joking,” he said, emphatically. “Joking.”
I just shook my head. He sure had a strange sense of humor . . .
“My name is Fan,” he said, edging closer. I saw now that he had a grizzled beard, and weathered lines around much of his face. Must have been in his mid-fifties at least.
“Fan?” I hesitated. “You can call me Shaw, I suppose.”
“Shaw.” Fan scrunched up his face inside his helmet. “Like George Bernard?”
“Never heard of him.”
“Shaw Chopra,” he said, obviously accessing the public profile of my embedded ID. I wished I’d blanked it, like he had. “UC Navy Astrogator.” Gotta love Radio Frequency Identification.
“Yup. Tell me, are you alone, Fan? Are there others?”
“Except for two support robots, no others. And you?”
“I am alone.” I glanced at his rifle. “Maybe we can come to some sort of arrangement. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend?” Fan said.
“Not really what I was thinking, but sure,” I said.
Fan seemed confused. “I do not understand. What is your arrangement?”
“All I meant was, maybe you’re right. You’re alone, I’m alone, we should team up.”
For a second I thought Fan was going to agree. Then his face darkened. “Do you really want to team up?”
I gave him my most winning smile. “I really do.”
Fan kept me in the sight line of his weapon a moment longer, then he lowered the rifle slightly. “Well!” He broke into a grin. “We should prepare these carcasses. Food does not grow on trees around here. Ha! It can be the first shared act of our new friendship! You start with this Chéngdān.” He beckoned toward the animal Queequeg had been eating. “And I will choose one of the others.”
I shrugged, then retrieved my knife and knelt beside the carcass. I started skinning it.
Satisfied that I was working, Fan climbed the small rise, keeping his eyes on me and Queequeg the whole time. When he reached the top, he knelt beside the closest hybear body and set the rifle down.
Got ya.
I looked over my shoulder.
Queequeg took that as his cue. The animal bounded up the short rise with lightning speed.
Before the SK could reach his rifle, he found himself pinned to the ground under Queequeg’s weight, with a nice set of claws pressing into the fabric just beneath his helmet, threatening to puncture the suit.
Queequeg knew not to kill him. Not right away, at least. Because Fan was a human, like me.
“Call it off!” Fan said frantically. If he was a civilian, his suit probably wouldn’t be strength-enhanced. And even if it was, whether he could shove Queequeg away before having his throat ripped open was questionable. Queequeg was the fastest hybear I’d ever seen.
I casually approached, and snatched the rifle from where Fan had dropped it. “Not bad for a ‘pet,’ wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes. Beautiful animal.” To Queequeg: “There, there, nice Chéngdān.”
Queequeg snarled in return.
I aimed the rifle squarely at his face mask. “How’s it feel to have a barrel poking you in the face?”
“Uh, good?” Fan said. “If it pleases you, call the nice Chéngdān off.”
“If it pleases me?” I cocked my head. I considered prolonging his torture, but decided he’d had enough. “It does please me. All right, that’s enough Queequeg. You can let him go. Queequeg!”
He released Fan, but not before snapping at the air in front of the captive’s face mask, making Fan wince. Queequeg returned to my side.
Fan clambered to his knees and kept his hands in the air.
“Remove your bailout oxygen canister, and toss it over to me,” I said.
He didn’t move.
I swung the firearm toward the ground and squeezed the trigger.
The loud boom and the explosion of black shale beside Fan confirmed the weapon was loaded after all.
Queequeg started slightly, but remained in place. The animal had heard me fire a rifle before, when I still had ammo, so he was used to the sound by now.
Fan, on the other hand, leaped right into the air. He hastily unbuckled his life-support system and disconnected the bailout cylinder. He threw the cylinder my way, re-securing the system to his back.
“You never had any intention of teaming up, did you?” Fan said.
“I’m a bit of a lone wolf, but depending on what you have to offer me, I may just stick around. However, I’m the one who gets the rifle.” I retrieved the bailout canister, then moved several paces away so I could swap mine out for his. I was just glad the UC and SKs had the same supplier for their jumpsuits, which ensured universal connectors. “Queequeg, watch him.”
Queequeg snarled, voicing such intimidating growls that Fan actually retreated a step.
“You’re the one who drained the oxygen from the Forma pipe back there, didn’t you?” I unbuckled my life support. I’d be breathing surplus suit oxygen until I reattached it.
Fan kept his eyes on Queequeg. “If it pleases you, yes. I am a terraforming engineer. A civilian contractor. I used to live inside that chimney. Until the Yaoguai demons came and destroyed the generator.”
I nodded. “So how long have you been watching me?”
“I did not watch you long. I was returning to get some parts from the chimney . . . I saw you emerge. I hid, and followed you. Then the pack came.”
“I see. You said the demons came and destroyed your machinery. You mean the crabs?” I remembered the sinkhole inside the Forma pipe, and the beasts inside it.
Fan shook his head. “Crabs? I do not know this word.”
“They have claws, like this.” I pantomimed a snapping claw with my glove. “And a few heads. A hard carapace.” I knocked on my chest piece with a fist.
“You speak of the Mara?” Fan said. “The creatures with many heads, and three hearts? Connected by cord to—”
“Yes, that’s them.”
He frowned at my interruption. “Well, the mist of the Yaoguai came, and I fled. When I returned, the Yaoguai were gone, but my equipment was sabotaged. Unfixable. The tanks still had oxygen so I chose to stay for a little while and work on a small project of mine. One night, a few Standays later, the floor caved and the Mara came. I held them back with my rifle. Then I used a grenade to seal the hole, severing the cords of the Mara. They died. No others came.”
<
br /> I finished securing his bailout canister to my life-support system, then I swiveled the entire apparatus around so that it rested beneath my rucksack. It locked into place. I glanced at the O2 readout: eight hours now remained. What a relief to see the oxygen bar back in the positive.
I retrieved the rifle. “For a civilian, you’ve quite the fighting spirit, if you really took down those crabs on your own.”
“Civilian contractors who work with the military are trained to fight,” he said, puzzled. “Is it not the same with your UC?”
“Probably. Either way, you got lucky as far as I’m concerned. If those crabs were determined, they could’ve gotten to you. A couple more sinkholes and you wouldn’t be here.”
He scowled like I’d just given him the gravest of insults. “It was skill, not luck.”
“Sure. Anyway, what have you been doing for oxygen? You’ve obviously long since depleted the Forma tanks back there. You should be well on your way to the next pipe by now. Unless you have another source.”
He seemed reluctant to tell me. I gave my hybear friend a look.
Queequeg advanced a pace, growling louder than he had yet.
Fan recoiled. “Okay, I speak. I speak!”
Queequeg glanced at me, and I nodded. The animal stood down.
“I have engineered a solution from the Forma equipment,” Fan said resignedly. “I have created a small solar-powered extractor. It uses a heating unit to raise the temperature to 2,500 degrees Kelvin. I put rocks into the extractor, and the heat boils away the oxygen. Hydrogen from the atmosphere strains through a tungsten shield, combining with the oxygen to form water. The water pumps into an electrolyzer, and half of the water separates into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is returned to the atmosphere, the oxygen and leftover water are stored for my use. Simple as cake, as they say in the UC.”
I felt my lips quirk. “Inventive. I want to see this extractor of yours. Lead me to it.”
“You want oxygen, I understand, I do,” Fan said. “But there is a problem. It will not extract enough for the two of us. We can share for now, but in the long run we will use up oxygen faster than we can replenish it.”