Authors: Roxanne Smolen
I
mpani pulled off Anselmi’s mask. His face was gray. She shook him. How could she perform CPR when she didn’t know where his vital organs were? With power born of panic, she thumped him hard upon the chest.
A fountain of water gushed from his mouth. Anselmi sat without warning, knocking her back, coughing.
She gasped. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Quite all right.”
Tears bubbled up her throat. “I thought you were dead.”
He looked at her with his fathomless eyes then offered a slow smile. “My species can access a vestigial float sac. I could have remained dormant for some time.”
She leaned back, feeling sodden with relief. “Where is this sac?”
He rubbed his chest and winced. “Right where you hit me.”
With a crash, the Haz-Mat crew burst into the Impellic Chamber. They wore orange disposable jumpsuits and silver masks. One pushed a cart of chemicals.
Impani muttered, “It’s only water. We were in a lake.”
“Then you should have waited until you left the lake before you activated the ring,” the man said. He opened a panel in the reflective wall, exposing a flexible hose.
Two others walked about the room, tossing handfuls of powdered disinfectant. Their boots splashed the puddled floor.
A woman approached the Scouts. Her voice was muffled by her mask. “Should I call for a medic?”
“No.” Anselmi grunted as he stood. “We’re leaving.”
He pulled Impani to her feet. They left the Chamber and walked down a narrow hall toward Decontamination. Impani felt unsteady. Her head ached, and her ribs were sore. She kept telling herself that Anselmi had not been in danger, but a voice behind her doubts wondered
what if he had been.
The hall ended at two doors. Impani offered her partner a wan smile as he entered the room to the left. She stepped through the opposite door into a small cubicle. Her nose wrinkled at an antiseptic odor, and she cringed from the thought of what awaited her. She believed that decon was unnecessary. In all the years of the Colonial Scout Program, only once did a virus survive the Impellic field to infect the base.
The light turned pink, and a mist fell over her like rain. Impani stretched out her arms, looking up into the shower. Liquid ran down her face. It tasted like medicine and burned the corners of her eyes. She ran her fingertips down the triple seam of her skinsuit, opening it to her waist, and then shrugged out of the sensors upon her sleeves. She crossed her arms over her chest.
A voice from the wall said, “Arms up, Impani.” A female tech watched her on the monitor.
With a sigh, Impani lifted her arms straight up. Being a Scout meant that she gave up certain privileges: privacy, possessions, a chance for a real home. Impani never had a home. She’d been born on the streets and lived homeless until the Scouts recruited her.
She didn’t bemoan these restrictions, but she wished she could have kept her hair. The disinfecting chemicals had a depilating effect, removing her hair, her eyebrows, smoothing the smallest imperfection from her body. The techs wanted nothing between her and their sensors.
She slid the skinsuit over her hips and down her thighs. With a hiss, the shower turned into steam. She breathed deeply. Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine the tension in her neck rolling down her arms and off her fingertips.
The air cleared. Impani stepped out into a dressing room. A screen broke the room into two, and she could hear Anselmi moving about on the other side.
The image of his lifeless face and flooded mask floated through her thoughts. She pushed the image away. She enjoyed being team leader—loved feeling that she was in control, that she was free of orders or opinions. But what if Anselmi had died because of her? They’d become close friends since graduating from the academy a year ago.
Behind the screen, Anselmi said, “What did I miss? How did you defeat that creature on the planet?”
“I didn’t. You scared it away.”
“Is that so?” His voice held amusement; he knew she was lying.
She tugged a shapeless tunic over her head. “You shouldn’t have come in after me. You might have been killed.”
“You also might have died.”
“Nonetheless, procedure dictates—”
“Procedure?” he snapped. “If you were following procedure, you would not have crossed the lake.”
“It was a calculated risk.”
“We weren’t there to take risks.”
His words echoed. Impani pursed her lips.
Don’t let him get to you. He’s reading your thoughts
.
Anselmi knocked on the screen then peeked over the top. He was well over two meters tall. He once told her that the gravity was so light on his home planet of Veht everything grew tall and willowy. He spent his free time working out in the gym to keep his newfound weight from crushing him.
“Apologies,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scold.”
Impani nodded but avoided his gaze. So she’d broken a few rules. Rules were only guidelines. She pulled on a pair of soft-soled slippers. “We’d better get to debriefing before they wonder what happened to us.”
<<>>
T
he game room was not busy, but the sounds welcomed him in. Trace stood in the doorway for a moment, enveloped in the laughter of computers, the odd, discordant music. Tables huddled like mushrooms beneath softly lit globes. A bank of windows opened onto night.
He walked to the dispenser, ran his spotcard over the reader, and selected the weekly special: Health Nut, a sparkling amber liquid in a tall glass. It tasted like pecans.
The gaming machines beckoned. They were loud both in sound and in appearance. A few dealt with ability, others with mere chance. He watched two Scouts try to weave a ship through a nebula without imploding in the process. One of them looked familiar—dark skin, stocky build. He nodded at Trace, laughing. Yes, he’d seen him before. Trace tried to remember his name.
He sat at a nearby table and watched the two players, silently rooting for the nameless Scout because he had seemed friendly. He took another swallow of the pecan drink.
“Hi,” said a voice. “I looked for you in the cafeteria.”
Trace glanced up as Natica Galos sat at his table. Natica was Impani’s best friend, so Trace was nice to her—although her pushiness often irritated him.
He shrugged. “I’m not hungry.”
“Whatcha drinking?” She took the glass from his hand and sipped. “Oh!” She laughed, making a face. “You really must be depressed.”
“I’m not depressed.”
“Then why are you sitting here alone?”
“Tough mission.” He took back his glass.
“So I heard,” she said. “You had to ring home early.”
He stared. “Does everyone know?”
“What’s the big deal? It happens. Impani ringed home early, too.”
“She’s back?”
“Came in with a big splash.” Natica grinned. “Pond water or something. Had the Haz-Mat crew going crazy. She and Anselmi are in debrief now.”
Trace frowned. He had never known Impani to return before the three-day auto-retrieve.
“You going to look for her?”
“If the mission was that difficult, she’ll want to be alone for a while.” He looked pointedly at Natica, but she didn’t seem to catch on that he was also referring to himself.
“Good.” She leaned forward. “What do you say you buy me a cold drink, and we play a game?”
“One drink, no games.” Trace stood. “What would you like?”
“Anything but that.” She gestured at his glass.
He brought back a Liquid Sunset for her and another special for himself.
She stirred the layered fruit gels with a straw. “So, tell me about your mission.”
He hesitated. “Pretty standard.”
She prodded him with her gaze, so he described the glacier and the caverns, told her how the ice glowed blue. The more he talked, the easier it became. He told her how the walls shattered with his body heat, and how he’d thought he was being shot at, running through tunnels with explosions at his head. But when he got to the alien, he stopped.
She seemed to guess his thoughts. “Did you see anyone there?”
“One,” he said. “Primitive. No threat to us. But I had already told my partner that I was being targeted. Davrileo crept up behind and shot him in the back.”
Natica gasped. “Trace, I’m so sorry. You must feel horrible.”
He looked down at his glass, surprised that she was consoling him, that he had told her at all. He gave a curt nod.
“It was an accident,” she said. “You can’t blame yourself.”
“I can just imagine how Davrileo feels.”
“I know him. He never takes responsibility for anything.” She laughed and deepened her voice. “Recrimination is wasted energy.”
“I wish I could feel that way.”
“How about another drink? I’m buying this time.”
“Thanks, but no.” He got to his feet. “I think I’ll get some sleep.”
“Rest up, for we never know what we’ll face tomorrow. Why don’t you meet Impani and me for breakfast?”
“I’ll be there.” Trace left the arcade.
The brightly lit corridor held the usual bustle of people. Day and night had little meaning at the base. Scouts came in from missions at any hour, so workers staffed the building around the clock.
Trace turned down a less traveled hall on his way to the sleeping quarters. Vac-rats whirred along the baseboards, polishing the floor, their electronic noses twitching as their sensors followed his footsteps. A bank of windows gave a nighttime view of the city’s lights, looking like a holo he’d once seen of space. How ironic it was that he’d visited so many planets yet had never really seen space.
The hall dead-ended, and a large sign warned that he entered a quiet zone. Trace stepped onto the sound-dampening floor of the sleeping quarters and waited while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He ran his gaze along a honeycombed wall, searching for an empty bunk. The lower compartments were filled. He saw the tops of heads and occasional reading lamps. But a few berths on the fourth row were open.
He climbed a ladder set in the wall. His slippers gripped the rungs as he rose above the sounds of slumber. At the fourth row, he slid feet first into a compartment. The bedding was still warm from the previous occupant. Lying on his back, he reset the temperature to thirty degrees Celsius. A mini touch screen scrolled through videos and books. He switched it off.
In darkness, he thought of Natica. He was glad he had told her about the alien. It was as if a burden had lifted, as if she shared his pain. He had never been able to confide in Impani that way.
Natica’s parting words—rest up for we never know what we’ll face tomorrow—was jokingly referred to as a benediction given to Scouts at the end of debriefing. Lying in his bunk, unable to sleep, Trace wondered what tomorrow had in store for him.
PLANET NGC920-03
F
or the first time in his life, Aldus Hanson wished he were someone else. He sat in the cargo bed of a utility vehicle with his assistant and four field workers from Beta Camp, and he was afraid. But he wasn’t allowed to be afraid. This was
his
show.
“Faster. Go faster,” a woman said behind him.
“Excuse me,” the driver shouted, “but you may have noticed the road is missing.”
Aldus glanced out the mold-spotted windshield at the riotous color outside. The roadway had indeed been overrun, the fungus jungle encasing it like the closing of a wound. Treelike mushrooms that had been plowed under a week ago now stood as tall as a man. Beneath them, bright yellow bracket fungi grew larger than truck tires. How could they mature so fast?
This world was to be his crowning conquest. If he could harness the secret of accelerated growth, he would feed the universe. But more than that, he would give meaning to his wife’s death. Yet he had failed. His wife, his son, everyone.
If only he could take back the last two months.
Suddenly, something heavy struck the truck, causing it to swerve. Aldus pitched forward. Footsteps thudded across the roof. A loud thump sounded as a man-shaped creature landed on the vehicle’s hood. Moss and lichen covered its body, draping the heavy arms like gray fur. It turned its eyeless face toward the windshield.
The driver yelled and veered. The truck teetered for a moment on two wheels. With a groan of metal, it slammed onto its side and skidded. Aldus fell hard on his shoulder. The engine roared and died. For a moment, all he heard was the tap of falling pebbles. Then one of the workers kicked open the back doors. Hazy light broke over him.
“Get up, Mr. Hanson,” Cole said in his ear. “Sir, we have to get out of this truck.”
“I’m all right.” Aldus wheezed.
He leaned heavily on his assistant as he clambered out of the vehicle. A blaze of color dazzled him: bright purple puffballs, stringy orange vines. The toppled truck had dug a trench through the undergrowth. To the side, three men and a woman huddled together.
The woman wept. “Is that thing gone? Did you see where it went?”
“With any luck, it’s buried,” said a man.
Then a sound met them—like wind whistling through pine boughs. The howl of the monster.
Aldus licked his lips. “How far are we from camp?”
“Too far,” said Cole. He kicked at a vine reaching toward his ankle.
The driver leaped from the cab, his face streaming with blood, and waved a resonator in the air. “This way. Let’s go!”
The group followed without question. They stumbled over rocklike toadstools and slipped on slime mold. The driver followed the constantly changing topography grid on the resonator with his face furrowed in concentration. All around them, vegetation leaned away from the sonic waves the resonator emitted. Throbbing puffballs sent runners to trip them. Garish flowers spat pollen at their heads. Vines swung from towering black-capped mushrooms to snag their arms, their shoulders, reaching for them as if directed by a group mind.
Aldus panted in shallow gasps. One hand clasped a handkerchief over his mouth and nose. He held his other arm tight to protect his injured shoulder. Cole trotted at his side. Aldus glanced at him. Cole had been his assistant for over fifteen years, and in all that time, they had never had a disagreement.
Until now. Cole insisted he could send a message through an Impellic ring and communicate with the authorities. Impellic rings created space-time tunnels used to carry one or two people to distant planets. This latest application into off-world communication was revolutionary. The problem was the only organization currently using Impellic rings was the Colonial Scouts, and Aldus couldn’t bring himself to ask for their help.
The Scouts were teenagers who used the rings to transport to obscure worlds and report their conclusions to the Colonization Bureau. It was just a game to them. A presumptuous, dangerous game.
Besides, twelve years ago, the Scouts who had found this world said it was innocuous. No intelligent life forms at all. They said nothing about moss creatures.
Aldus’ team had been attacked since the moment they’d set up camp. Equipment was smashed or stolen. Now, five of his employees had disappeared from Beta Camp.
He gave an involuntary shudder as he relived his first view of the ruined site. When he’d left the team two days ago, they had erected interlinking bubble tents and had already cleared the field for its first planting of grain. When he returned to check on them, he found the site all but erased and most of the team missing. The surviving workers claimed they’d been ambushed despite the precautions they’d put in place.
He’d searched in vain for bodies. It was as if the jungle had absorbed them, as if the world were alive and taking offense. And he was responsible for bringing them there. Aldus forced the guilt away.
No, he wouldn’t ask the Scouts for help. He was not yet ready to concede.
A mossy hillock rose ahead. Reeds sprouted from its top like antennae, and brilliant meter-wide flowers drooped from its sides. But as Aldus approached, he noticed that the hill stood on stilts. He saw the occasional glint of glass.
“It’s the Lander,” he cried with sudden recognition.
“Looks even worse than the last time we saw it,” Cole said.
“Oh, God, let the airlock work,” moaned the woman.
Aldus glowered. He didn’t know her name; Cole had handled personnel. He was certain she was good at whatever job she’d been hired to do, but right then she was worthless. He muttered, “First we have to find the hatch.”
He stepped to the saucer-shaped craft and dug his fingers into the thick growth, searching for the airlock. The others did the same.
“Here!” cried the truck driver.
Aldus hurried to his side. They clawed at the fibrous moss and finally revealed a door. Aldus keyed the entry code upon a control pad. A light blinked. The lock cycled.
Then a reedy whistle filled the air, like wind through pine needles.
“It sees us,” the woman hissed.
The door opened.
“All right, three at a time,” Aldus said.
“You should go, sir,” Cole told him.
Aldus motioned to the woman and two men. “These three. Hurry up.”
Wide-eyed, the field workers crammed into the narrow compartment. The hatch closed, and the airlock started its slow cycle.
Aldus tapped the side of the Lander. He heard another windy whistle, heard the clack of reeds on top of the ship. He looked at the driver’s blood-streaked face, at Cole’s patient façade. Then the airlock opened, and they piled inside.
Oxygen whistled, and his ears popped as the lock pressurized. An inner door opened. Aldus walked into the dim interior. He glanced up at windows girding the ship, surprised to see light filter through the hoops of purple mold.
The Lander had brought them down to the planet from a transport ship—a ship that was no longer in orbit. The circular vehicle had seats along the walls and a control hub in the center. A few lights glowed with lock-down.
He said, “See if you can rig enough power to contact Alpha Camp.”
Cole nodded and sat behind the communications console.
“There should be a first-aid kit in the supply cabinet,” he told the driver. Then he looked at the field workers, their moss-stained clothing, their fear-spent eyes, and he growled, “I want an accounting. Why didn’t the barriers hold?”
If possible, they looked even more alarmed.
“Y-you must understand, Mr. Hanson, those energy grids were n-never meant to be used as electric blockades,” one man stammered. “We w-were told there were no life forms. We never expected to need—”
“There’s nothing wrong with the fences,” said the other. “The moment we started plowing the fields, those monsters walked right on through. Nothing stops them.”
“Fire does,” said the woman.
“Fire just slows them down a bit while they re-grow,” said the truck driver. He dabbed his forehead with a gauze pad.
“Sir,” Cole called. “I have the camp.”
“Good,” Aldus said. “Tell them we need to be picked up. Seven of us.”
“I count only six,” the driver said in a hushed voice.
The woman shrieked. “Bentley! Where’s Bentley? Oh, God!” She ran to the airlock.
Aldus rushed to intercept her. He grasped her wrist before she could activate the controls. “What do you think you are doing?”
“We can’t leave him out there!” she cried.
He shook her shoulders then leaned until his face was level with hers. “He’s gone!”
A loud bang at the door made them all jump. Aldus looked up. Several mossy, eyeless faces pressed against the windows.
His stomach fell. “They found us.”