by Jack Halls
Connor walked around the muddy patch with the footprints and squatted down, poking at the edges with one finger. “I saw similar tracks by Veronica’s SF. Do you think it’s the same animal you chased off?”
Gideon went down on one knee to examine the ground more closely. “It could be,” he said, turning his head back and forth. “There were some other animals that night, but they looked like herbivores to me. I doubt they’d have claws like these.”
Connor looked up at Gideon. “What can you tell me about it?”
“Why don’t I just show you?” said Gideon, tapping the side of his helmet. “That is, if you’re ready to see it.”
Connor nodded slowly, keeping his eyes on Gideon. Gideon told Pauline to transfer the footage of his fight with the rasp to Connor. Connor dropped his visor and watched the footage in silence.
Connor watched the video several times. When he was finished, he pulled back his visor. “Why didn’t you kill it?”
Gideon coughed, finding it hard to meet Connor’s intense gaze. “Before we found Veronica’s SF, Takomi and I were startled by another big animal. I didn’t really think about it before I shot and killed it. Takomi got mad at me for killing an animal we knew nothing about. I figured she was right, and that we should avoid killing animals if we don’t have to.”
Connor looked down at the tracks in the mud. “I think this one should be killed,” he said, barely loud enough for Gideon to hear.
From behind, Padre called out to the others to wake up and break camp. Connor looked up. “We should tell Padre and Vincent we’re being followed, and Takomi too, but let’s not tell the others yet. David’s nervous enough as it is. We don’t need him causing a panic.” He tilted his head in the direction of the camp. “Come on. Everyone’s getting ready to move out.”
Gideon walked back to the camp and picked up his backpack and rifle. Connor fell into step next to him and gestured toward Padre, and the two of them walked over to the priest.
“Padre,” said Connor, “we’ve got a problem.”
“What is it?” asked Padre.
Connor told Padre about the footprints and the creature that made them.
“Yes, I saw the footage of Gideon’s fight. I don’t like that thing skulking around. What do you think we should do, Gideon?”
Gideon frowned. “Why are you asking me?”
“You fought it, so you know more about it than any of us. What do you make of it?”
Gideon thought about it for a moment. “It’s dangerous, but I think we can handle it. I don’t think it will attack a group of us if we stick together. If it’s the same one I fought, then it’s probably still wounded.”
“All right,” said Padre. “We’ll tighten up formation and make sure no one goes off alone. I’ll tell the others about the... what did you call it?”
“A rasp,” said Gideon.
Connor grunted. “Fitting name. Maybe we should be careful about what we say to the others. David still thinks we should have stayed at the shelter. We don’t want him going off about how he was right and we were wrong.”
“Rasp or not, he’s better off sticking with us since we have the Sentinel Armor,” said Padre.
“Yeah, but he might not see it that way,” said Connor. “It doesn’t matter if he’s right or wrong, he can still make things difficult if his pessimism spreads.”
“Come on,” said Padre. “We’ll tell Vincent and Takomi about the rasp and let the others know we found footprints and leave it at that. Let’s get moving.”
☥
By mid morning, they’d found an abandoned SF. Two sets of tracks led away to the northeast in the direction of the next signal. A quick check with Gideon’s AI found that two brothers, Garth and Jared Fitzsimmons, had been in this starfighter.
“The Fitzsimmons brothers aren’t stupid,” said Connor. “They should be doing fine. They probably headed to that ridge to get their bearings.” He pointed at a ridge a little higher than the surrounding area, following the direction of the footprints.
“Then that’s where we should go,” said Padre. “Takomi, Vincent. Check the SF to make sure they didn’t leave any supplies behind. After that, we’ll see if Connor can’t track them. He seems to have the gift.”
The party moved off through the forest once they’d checked the SF, but it turned out that tracking skills weren’t necessary. The Fitzsimmons brothers obviously wanted to be found because they had used a plasma blade to carve a small X into each tree they passed.
“I told you they weren’t stupid,” said Connor. “Now that I think about it, I wonder if we shouldn’t have...”
Connor froze mid-step. “What is it?” yelled David from the back of the line.
Connor turned around to face them. His eyes were wide and his face white. “I think I found them,” he said. “At least, what’s left of them.”
Vincent and Padre rushed to the head of the column to take a look, while the others moved forward more cautiously. Soon they stood side by side next to Connor, staring down at two mangled and bloody corpses. Gideon’s stomach rose up in his throat, like when he’d found Sanjay and Veronica. Takomi walked down toward them, followed by Vincent and Padre.
The three of them inspected the bodies, then Padre looked up. “Connor,” he said. “Come take a look at these tracks.”
Shaken from his trance, Connor went forward and stooped down to inspect the dirt. The rest of the party was either fixated on the carnage below, or was warily scanning the surrounding forest, weapons ready.
“Gideon,” said Connor. “Check this out. I think it might be our old friend.”
Gideon walked down the hill, trying not to look at the bodies. Connor showed him an impression in the soft dirt. “That has to be the rasp,” Gideon said. He asked Pauline to confirm that the footprint matched the one they’d seen earlier that morning.
Connor searched the ground surrounding the area. “I’m not positive, but it looks to me like there was only one rasp,” he said. “It must have ambushed them from inside that underbrush.” He pointed to a thicket to the side of the hollow. A closer inspection revealed that the rasp had indeed hidden there.
“So now we know it’s a hunter, and not just a scavenger,” said Vincent.
“Excuse me,” said David from the top of the rise. “What exactly are you all talking about? You know what did this?”
“Gideon named it a rasp,” said Padre. “He and Takomi encountered one at the other SF crash site and fought it off. They were only able to do that because of their Sentinel Armor, but without it, Garth and Jared weren’t so lucky.”
“You knew about this monster and didn’t tell us?” demanded David.
“You were worked up enough already,” said Padre. “We told you the kids had encountered dangerous creatures.”
Somehow, being referred to as a kid rubbed Gideon the wrong way. But he decided to keep his mouth shut as the argument went on.
Tony looked up from where he’d been inspecting the tracks. “He did tell us there were dangerous creatures out here. That’s why we decided to stick together.”
“Yeah,” said David. “Stick together and go running around the forest like a bunch of idiots. We were better off back where we were. Now we’re out here in the open with some bloodthirsty animal.”
“You know what, David?” said Connor. “You’re pretty stupid sometimes. What makes you think you were better off back there than you are out here?”
“Oh, shut up, Connor,” said David. “You and Padre have been ordering us around ever since we crashed here. What makes you think you’re in charge?”
“For starters,” said Connor, “I can do this.” In one huge leap, he covered the eight-meter distance between him and David. He grabbed the other man by his collar and lifted him off the ground. David flailed and kicked against Connor’s armor to no avail. “You’re sitting ducks out here without us to protect you, whether you like it or not,” yelled Connor. “Who’s to say this rasp wouldn’t have c
rept into your camp last night and torn you to shreds? You want to end up like them?” He thrust a finger at the two bodies before them. “Then leave. Go back to your little shelter, and we’ll see how long you last out there.”
“Connor, that’s enough,” said Padre. His voice was calm but clear, carrying to each of them. “I think you’ve made your point.” Connor dropped David and turned away with a look of disgust.
David picked himself up. “Doesn’t matter anyway,” he muttered, “we’re not going to last long on this rock.”
There was a palpable silence for several moments. Finally, Vincent went over to the bodies and grabbed their ankles one by one, dragging them next to each other on the ground. The others watched as he took a rock and laid it over one of the bodies. He did the same thing with another rock, then another. Padre joined him, then Takomi, and eventually the others followed his example.
Twenty minutes later, the mutilated bodies were buried under a pile of stones. Padre took a flat stone and placed it near the head of the burial mound. He etched their names into the stone and queried his AI for their dates of birth. Turned out they were twins, born on Mars nearly two hundred years ago. They had been young men, barely older than Gideon, when they left the solar system. They’d spent nearly all their lives waiting to get to Valkyrie, only to die soon after reaching it.
Padre said a few words over the graves, then they departed in silence. No one said anything during the march up to the ridge. A sense of dread filled Gideon, though it wasn’t because of the rasp. David had said the same thing he had told Takomi two nights ago: that they were going to die here. It had just been him and Takomi then, and spoken in a moment of weakness. Since then, he’d begun to feel more optimistic of their chances. It wouldn’t have bothered him so much if someone had disagreed with David, but no one had said a word.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Polaris
THE GROUP REACHED the next hill an hour before sundown and were relieved to find not one signal, but three signals off to the northeast. They all hoped it meant they were coming up on the main concentration of starfighters. The thought helped raise their spirits some.
They made camp at the top of the hill, setting up their bedrolls a little closer than they had the night before. After gathering firewood they organized five watches, each with two guards. This new watch made it so that one person in Sentinel Armor was awake at all times. Gideon had wanted to take the watch with Takomi, but he gave in to the wisdom of this approach. Instead, he and Sophia had the last watch of the night. When Connor came to wake him for his turn, he dutifully took up his post.
The suit made sentry duty easier with its sensors, searching for any movement or noise. The infrared picked up loads of animals out beyond the border of their firelight, but it was the animals that didn’t show up on infrared that worried Gideon, and so he found himself circling the camp, peering into the darkness.
A small voice in his ear made him jump.
“Nervous, are we?” It was Sophia over his com.
Gideon laughed. “I guess so.”
She was sitting on the opposite side of the ring of sleeping people, looking out over the forest with a rifle across her lap. Since she didn’t have Sentinel Armor, she wore the tight-fitting active wear that came in the survival packs. Every young man on the Leviathan knew Sophia Salvioli’s shape, and Gideon tried not to stare at her graceful form silhouetted in the moonlight. Since she had an earpiece in, they could easily hear each other from across the camp, even while whispering.
“I don’t know why you’re so nervous,” she said. “You’ve got your armor.”
“Yeah, but you don’t,” he said. “I can’t relax while you guys are exposed.”
She laughed quietly. “You know you sounded exactly like your father just then. Somehow, I think he feels responsible for all of our fates because he was the first. He blames himself for the hatred the humans had toward us, as if he had willed himself into being somehow.”
“How well do you know him?” asked Gideon.
“As well as anyone, I guess,” she said. “I’ve known him for two hundred years. And before that, I knew of him, but everyone knew who Ethan Killdeer was.”
“So he was famous even before the war?”
“Of course. Besides being the first aionian, he was the richest person on earth for decades.”
“Huh. I always knew he was rich, but I didn’t realize he was that rich.”
“Well, it’s not like he’s the type of person to talk about himself much, and it was a long time ago.”
Gideon found a flat rock and sat. “When did you first meet him?”
“Hmm. That’s a fairly dramatic story, actually.”
“Oh?”
“You probably didn’t know I used to be an actress.”
Gideon’s eyes went wide. “Really?”
“Really. I was a pretty famous one, to be honest. It was all very glamorous for a while, until people started murdering aionians. I was one of the first to be attacked, since I was something of a public figure.”
“What happened?”
“We were filming a movie on a beach in Thailand when a mob showed up and tore the place apart looking for me. I managed to escape on a boat, but a lot of innocent people died that day for no reason other than being affiliated with me. The media coverage triggered a frenzy, and overnight, hundreds of aionians were killed all over the world.”
“You know, I think I read about that,” said Gideon. “All this time I never realized you were part of it.”
She laughed. “Being a figure in one of your history books makes me feel old.”
“So what does all that have to do with my dad?”
“After the attack, it wasn’t safe for me in Thailand. Ethan used his influence to get me and a few others out of the country and into Australia. After that, I was part of the resistance, so to speak. I worked with your father to try and find a peaceful solution. Australia was supposed to be our safe haven, then Mars, and now Valkyrie. Somehow, I keep surviving.”
For a while, they both sat in silence while a thin band of light crept over the eastern horizon. Talking to Sophia had made the time fly by. “Sophia,” he said. “Did you know that my dad stayed behind on the Leviathan to make sure the alien ship was destroyed?”
There was a long silence. Finally, she spoke. “I didn’t know that, Gideon. However, it doesn’t surprise me.”
Gideon clenched his jaw for a moment. “He said he was going to do a halo jump, but...” He didn’t finish.
Sophia didn’t answer right away either, but eventually she cleared her throat. “Gideon, your father is the bravest, smartest person I have ever known, human or aionian. If anyone could make that jump, it’s him.”
Gideon sighed. “Thanks for saying so, but I’m afraid it’s impossible.”
Sophia snorted on the other end of the intercom. “Ethan Killdeer is the master of impossible. If anyone else had said, ‘hop on this spinning hunk of metal, and let’s take a trip into the Void for a couple hundred years,’ I would have laughed them out of the room. But we all knew your dad could make it happen, and he did. Before that, he explored the solar system and colonized a dead planet. Somehow, he got thousands of aionians off earth before they were killed, then did the same thing when the humans attacked Mars. Don’t you ever underestimate your dad.”
Gideon thought about that for a while. He had always taken for granted the incredible things that happened in those days. He was only starting to appreciate real gravity, let alone the idea of populations in the billions, massive construction projects, and interplanetary war. It made his head spin.
He looked up at the stars, now dwindling in the coming dawn. It occurred to him that for countless millennia, his ancestors had looked up at the stars wondering what was out there. And now, here he was. One of a handful of people who had set foot on an alien planet. Humanity was probably still out there somewhere wondering if they were alone in the universe, but he knew the answer.
He had another thought. “Pauline, where is earth?” His visor lit up with a flashing circle indicating a particular star. It was the sun his parents and grandparents had been born under, way out there in the celestial sphere with all the other stars. He stared at it for a while in wonder, then tilted his head to one side.
“What are you looking at?” asked Sophia.
He continued to focus on the star. “It’s earth,” he said. “Or at least it’s the sun. My AI found it for me.”
He sensed Sophia walking toward him but didn’t take his eye off the star, as if he feared he would never find it again. Her footsteps crunched on the gravel close to him, then she stopped. When she spoke, it was her real voice and not the intercom.
“Show me,” she said.
Gideon pointed, and Sophia leaned in close to follow his finger. “Which one is it?”
He swallowed, reminding himself that this beautiful woman was almost as old as his dad. In fact, he was fairly certain she was Connor’s grandmother. That thought helped clear his head. “You see that line of three stars, the ones that kind of make the bottom of a square in the group over there? It’s the middle of the three stars.”
Sophia leaned forward and squinted. “I see,” she said in a reverent whisper. “Unbelievable. Over a century and a half ago, I was standing in the light of that star, and yet even this far away I can still see it.”
Gideon was still staring with his head cocked to one side. “It kind of looks like a big ship, doesn’t it?”
She turned to look at him. “What?”
“A ship,” said Gideon, “like an old-fashioned sailboat.”
Sophia raised one eyebrow. “What in the world are you talking about?”
Gideon let out a sigh. “You know, the stars make points, and when you connect the dots, it makes a picture of a sailboat.”
“Oh, you mean like a constellation?”
Gideon made a face. “A what?”
“A constellation. A group of stars that make a picture, like you said. Ancient cultures used constellations to measure the rotation of the earth and predict the seasons. Sailors even learned to use them to navigate the oceans long before compasses and satellites. You never learned about constellations?”