by Craig Allen
Bodin stared at the red-stained rock. “I’d like to, Doc, believe me.”
“Where’s Salyard and Deveau?” Sonja asked.
“Holding the fort,” Bodin said. “We should join them.”
“Yeah.” Sonja nodded at Cody. “Doc, how are you… Doc?”
Cody bent over and vomited. The contents of his stomach covered the inside of his helmet. He could taste the stench, it was so powerful, and it caused him to heave again even as the suit’s vacuum system and nanos cleaned up the mess for recycling.
“Ah, shit,” Bodin said. “Gunny, what do you think our chances are with him and a chickenshit—”
“Sergeant, secure that shit right now,” Sonja said. “Help him.”
Cody let Bodin pick him up and guide him. Cody stumbled to cover, trying not to think about whether Jim had suffered. He tried not to wonder if he would suffer when the planet finally killed him.
Chapter Five
Cody dared a look outside the cave. Nothing. He breathed a sigh of relief… until in the distance, another bat creature flapped by casually. Heavier gravity meant falling hurt more, but it also meant a thicker atmosphere. As thick as the air was, moving through it was more like swimming than flying.
Three more bats appeared. They flew in unison with the first, like hoppers in formation. A shadow washed over the cave’s entrance. Cody ducked back inside just as the bat passed overhead.
“I don’t think it saw me,” Cody said.
“Didn’t have to.” Sonja sat farther inside the cave. “They know we’re here.”
“Waiting us out.” Bodin crawled out from a crevice near the back of the cave. “Just like a hunter.”
“Did you find another way out?” Sonja asked.
Bodin shook his head. “But there’s a lot back there. Fucking tunnels all over the place. Could take a while to go through them all. I dunno, maybe Deveau will have better luck. You know, we could just pop ’em all.”
“Too many,” Sonja said. “They’d nab us before we could down even a fourth of them.”
“Still like to try, though,” Bodin said. “For Jim.”
“What would be the point?” Cody asked.
“A little fucking payback,” Bodin said. “How about that?”
“I can understand that.” Cody faced the sergeant. “I liked Jim, too. He treated me well, and he respected me.” Unlike the rest of you, Cody started to say, but chose not to. “I didn’t want him to die. He was a good man.” He gestured outside. “But these are just animals. They didn’t kill him out of malice or anger. They did it because they were hungry, and they saw us as food.”
“Animals.” Sonja snorted. “I wonder.” She pointed at a group flying in a wedge formation in the distance. One by one, they opened up into a parachute. The wind caught them one at a time, maintaining a loose formation. “Animals don’t do that. That takes intelligence.”
“Those things on the Spinoza hunted everybody down,” Bodin said. “They stacked their bodies like cordwood. Animals don’t do that, either.”
“Birds fly in formation on Earth,” Cody said. “Leopards have been known to hang their prey from trees out of reach from other animals. Neither species is considered sentient.”
“They locked down the mag locks on the hopper.” Anne sat against the wall in a corner of the cave, sitting with her knees pulled up to her chin. Her coil rifle was leaning against the cave wall. “How’d they know to do that if they’re not smart?”
Bodin eyed Anne. “You sure you just didn’t fucking forget?”
“I didn’t forget, Sergeant.” Anne jabbed a finger at him. “I unlocked them. I swear to God.”
“That’s enough,” Sonja said.
“Look, I get your point, Doc.” Bodin turned back to Cody. “But I don’t give a damn what those bats think or why they’re doing it. I just want them out of my way so I can get the fuck out of here.” He glanced back at Anne. “It’d be nice to have a little help, though.”
She ignored him as she stared idly at the diagnostic holo projected by her coil rifle. It carefully fine-tuned itself, aligning internal electromagnets, running a round up and down the barrel, and a myriad of other things to make sure the weapon was in top working order. Someone had demonstrated this to Cody on the ship a week earlier. Coil gun rounds were only a few millimeters in diameter, but could penetrate twenty centimeters of nan-aligned molecular armor. At speeds of thousands of meters per second, coil rounds could penetrate anything—including the monsters outside.
That wasn’t much of a comfort just then. Jim was dead, and so was the crew of the Spinoza. The ones who had died in the crash had lucked out. The survivors had suffered. Cody wondered if he would die the same way—as a mere snack for terrifying creatures.
He crawled across the small cave and sat next to Anne. “I’d ask how you’re doing, but you look almost as bad as I feel.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, her voice shaking.
“You better be more than fine, sweetheart,” Bodin said. “The last thing anybody needs is you going to pieces.”
“Sergeant—”
“Don’t ‘Sergeant’ me, Private. I know you’re fresh out of boot, but you’re still a marine. And if I got to babysit your ass, I’ll up and leave you here. Got it?”
Anne calmly stood as much as the narrow cave allowed. The diagnostic holo of her rifle flickered briefly as her foot passed through it. She stepped toward Bodin until she was face to face with him.
“Excuse me, Sergeant,” she said. “You’re right. I am a marine fresh out of Camp Serene. You came from where? Hood?”
“Parris Island,” Bodin hissed.
“Oh, Parris Island,” Anne said. “You know, Sergeant, I did every fucking thing you ever did except in one-point-one g’s. I can do PT, run, jump, and fuck in high-g better than most. I busted my ass when everyone said I’d drop in one week, but here I am. And with all due respect, Sergeant, I’m not about to take shit from a lifer who thinks he’s hot shit because he bottles up the same fear everyone else has got.”
Bodin stared at her for maybe ten seconds. Sonja didn’t react at all and continued to watch outside.
Finally, Bodin spoke. “So you’re saying you can handle it?”
“I think I just said that.”
Bodin grinned. “Good. That’s what I wanted to hear. Carry on.” He turned and went to a different part of the cave.
Anne watched Bodin for a moment before sitting down again. The rifle behind her beeped once, indicating the diagnostic was finished. She picked it up without a word.
Sergeant Deveau came out of one of the tunnels in the rear of the cave. “Got some more mapped out. All the ore around here is making it difficult. It’ll be a while before…” He stopped, glancing at everyone. “What’d I miss?”
“Nothing,” Sonja said. “Keep at it. I don’t think our friends are…”
She stood slowly. Cody started to ask her what was wrong, but she held up her hand. She flashed a hand signal. In less than a second, both Deveau and Anne had their coil rifles at the ready. All of them pointed their weapons at the back of the cave, just as something squeaked.
Carefully, Cody leaned forward. A part of the cave wall shifted slightly, and then it picked up and moved across the wall, scurrying to the cave floor. It looked like a rock that had grown legs. Cody’s suit analyzed the creature’s shape. At five centimeters in diameter, it didn’t seem as threatening as the bats. Its circular body reminded Cody of a tick with four legs spread evenly around its body. It had no eyes or mouth. Light from outside the cave reflected off the body, making it look like a stainless steel beetle that crawled with the grace of a spider.
The creature’s body changed color. At first, it changed to match the color of the rocks beneath it, and then it slowly shifted to a dull gray. A small, circular extension appeared out of the top of its body, like a worm with a claw on the end. It waved the tiny arm briefly before retracting again. The thing made a noise like nails on a blackboa
rd then waited.
“What the fuck is that?” Deveau asked.
Sonja kept her rifle steady. “Another local.”
“Hope he’s friendly,” Anne said. “Or it.”
“Look at the way it appeared,” Cody said. “It was camouflaged, and then it wasn’t.”
“It’s like it wanted us to see it,” Sonja said. “Doesn’t sound like something an animal would do around something bigger than itself.”
“Oh, shit,” Bodin said. “It ain’t alone.”
One by one, they emerged from the rear of the cave. Another beetle appeared, and then another. Each moved slowly toward the first one, lining up in rows of five. Once they reached their positions perfectly spaced apart from the others, they clung to the walls and ceiling, unmoving. Cody could almost play checkers using their bodies as squares.
He counted up to fifty and then gave up. They stretched back into the crevice from which Deveau had emerged. They seemed to be regarding them, though how they did so Cody couldn’t be sure. Whatever they were, they didn’t seem hostile.
Humans have made that mistake before. People anthropomorphized everything around them, animals especially, but humans also impressed personalities upon boats, spaceships, and even aliens. But extraterrestrials weren’t human and didn’t act with human motivations. It had taken a war with the Spicans to drill that message home.
Cody stared at the creatures. It could have been a first-contact scenario. Or it could have been nothing more than a mad hope that they could find friends on that strange world.
“Want me to unload on ’em?” Bodin asked.
“No, wait,” Cody said. “Let me try something.”
“There sure are a lot of them, Doc,” Sonja said. “Locals haven’t been too friendly so far.”
Cody accessed his HUD. He searched the menus for the right program. It was standard issue at one time, though it might have been abandoned for military suit design. Luckily, his suit still had the program. He piped the program to his wrist display.
He moved toward the beetles. They turned toward him as he approached, as if they were watching him. He activated his display and ran the program. The creatures quivered in unison at the image. A series of three lines appeared, followed by a series of five. Next appeared a series of seven, then eleven, thirteen, and then seventeen. Then the sequence started over.
“You think they’ll understand, Doc?” Anne asked.
“If they know what prime numbers are, they might,” Cody said.
“You hope,” Deveau said. “What if they can’t see it?”
“The atmosphere allows a lot of visual light through,” Cody said. “It’s reasonable to assume they can see this. It displays in all colors in the spectrum, which is why it’s white. It’s also displaying in infrared and ultraviolet.”
“Well, yeah, they might see it,” Deveau said. “What I mean is what if they don’t get it? That may look like prime numbers to us, but it might just be a bunch of lines to them. It took the Spicans how long to decipher that shit?”
“About a week,” Cody said. “But it took the Tauans about an hour.”
“Tauans are pretty smart,” Bodin said. “These guys might not be.”
“Yeah,” Sonja said. “Look, Doc, I know you’re hard up for this, but we’ve got bigger—”
The creatures fluttered suddenly. A red light flashed briefly on Cody’s HUD, and a chart appeared. Magnetic waves increased noticeably, far above normal magnetic fluctuations. It was similar to the fluctuations they had experienced while standing under the trees, just before the bat creatures attacked. Just before Jim died.
“You guys getting this?” Anne asked.
“Yeah,” Sonja said. “Doc, what’s it mean?”
Cody touched the graph and entered instructions. The HUD found the source very quickly, as dispersed as it was. “It’s them. They’re doing this.”
“What? They’re little magnets?” Bodin asked.
“That metal shell,” Deveau said. “You think they’re causing it? What for?”
“Communication, perhaps,” Cody said. “I wish I knew what they wanted to communicate.”
“Maybe they’re just scared shitless,” Bodin said. “Hell, the last thing we—”
Each beetle grew a little worm with a claw on the tip, just as the first one had done. Nineteen waved their stalks back and forth in perfect unison.
“That’s the answer.” Cody switched off his wrist display and stood. “Nineteen is the next number in the sequence.”
Bodin lowered his rifle. The others did the same. “Told you they was smart.”
Before Cody could respond, the beetles stopped and let loose with a shrill screech. It was the same chalkboard screech the first creature, which was now lost among the sea of metal shells, had made. Cody’s suit registered the sound at around seventy decibels. It carried throughout the cave complex for a few seconds after the beetles had stopped screeching.
Bodin gestured outside. “I’m sure our buddies heard that.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think it matters.” Sonja snapped her fingers and pointed at the beetles. “Maybe they know a way out of here.”
“You think they want to talk?” The barrel of Anne’s rifle shook.
“Not sure how we can understand them,” Cody said. “Or they us.”
“Can’t we use hand gestures or something?” Bodin asked.
“It’s unlikely they know what a hand is,” Cody said, “much less what it means when I wave it around.”
“Deveau, pull out one of those trackers,” Sonja said.
“You wanna tag one?” Deveau asked.
“That’s a good idea,” Cody said. “We can track one of them when it leaves the cave.” He tilted his head to the side for a moment. “On second thought, they’re pretty small. It’s possible they’ll leave by a direction that’s too small for us.”
“Don’t those trackers have radar capabilities?” Anne asked.
Deveau nodded. “Yeah, they’re designed to send back information on the region around the tracker. We could get a good idea of the area around them as they leave the cave.”
“That’s nice thinking and all,” Bodin said, “but how are we supposed to convince one to get tagged?”
“They might just take it,” Cody said. “Semi-intelligent creatures are sometimes attracted to unusual objects, especially if they are shiny.”
Sonja shrugged. “Worth a shot.”
Deveau slung his coil rifle and pulled a box from his pack. He depressed one corner, and it hissed open. As it did, the beetles inched forward in unison. Deveau pulled out a tracker. It resembled a glass bead less than a centimeter across. He set the box down and knelt carefully.
“Here you go, little fella.” He gingerly rested the tracker in front of one of them. It walked toward the tracker and straddled it. For a moment, it did not move, and then it backed up and flattened itself on the ground by the tracker. In one swift motion, it flicked the tracker into the air and caught it on its back.
“Shit, that was easy,” Sonja said. “Activate it.”
Deveau nodded as he picked up the container. The mini-holo-controls lit up. He ran his finger through them. “Activated. We have more trackers. Shouldn’t we—”
The beetles let out a collective shriek. The beetle carrying the tracker snapped the back of its body forward, sending the marker flying out of the cave. It backed away, disappearing into the group. The entire group turned in the same direction—facing the cave exit. They remained frozen.
“Turn it off,” Cody said. “Hurry.”
Deveau glanced at Sonja, who nodded. Deveau ran his hand over the holo-controls of the tracker container, and it flashed in response. As it did, the beetles shuddered for a second. They calmed down, staring outside the cave at the tracker resting on the barren ground.
“Didn’t like that shit, did they?” Bodin said.
“Sorry about that.” The beetles seemed to regard Cody as he spoke. “What else do those tr
ackers emit besides radar?”
“Don’t they send information back on a high-end carrier?” Anne asked.
“Well, they’re obviously sensitive to the tracker somehow.” Cody tried to scratch his head, and his hand smacked the bubble of his helmet. He lowered his hand, embarrassed. “You know, we’ve encountered high-level magnetic fields on this world. I wonder—”
Suddenly, the creatures moved closer to one another. Sonja and Deveau raised their rifles. Bodin grabbed Cody by the shoulder and pulled him back. The beetles started to pile on top of each other until they formed a column reaching the cave ceiling.
Sonja glanced at Cody. “What are they doing?”
The beetles froze in place, stacked on top of one another like bricks and clinging together with legs that bent in ways no Earth insect could hope to copy. For a moment, nothing happened, and then Cody’s suit sensors went crazy.
“Holy crap,” Anne murmured.
Cody could hardly disagree. Graphs and readouts scrolled across his HUD. Magnetic waves permeated the cave but centered on the beetles. It was as if the cave amplified whatever it was they were doing. He put his hand on the wall. It vibrated gently. His suit calculated the resonance of the shaking ore. He wasn’t sure the cave could take the strain for long.
“Guys,” Anne said. “Are you—”
“Yeah, I’m reading it, too,” Sonja said. “We should leave.”
“And go where?” Deveau said. “Out there with the giant bats?”
The magnetic waves stopped as quickly as they started. All at once, the column of beetles collapsed to the floor. They spread across the cave walls and across the floor, scurrying past in waves but never coming closer than a few centimeters as they poured out of the cave. Rivers of them ran by. A minute later, every one of them had left the cave. They gathered out in the open, beneath the flying predators that had easily killed an armed marine.
The beetles covered several rocks. Each one of them pointed the single stalk in the center of their bodies skyward. For a moment, nothing happened, and then one of the giant bats dropped from the sky. It flapped its wings gently, easily remaining aloft in the thick air as it hovered only a few meters above the ground.