Castaway Planet (21 page)

A low, rumbling growl floated through the air behind her. Sakura whirled, holding the spear stiffly before her. No. It wasn’t that close yet. But it was closer than it had been.

I have to find that omni!

She knew what her hesitancy would look like to a predator; something wounded, or lost, separated from its herd, vulnerable. If it chose to attack—whatever it was, because she didn’t recognize the rattling growl or the snarl—she’d have one stab in the dark to stop it, and then she’d almost certainly be dead.

Ignoring the crawling between her shoulder blades, the certainty that something was going to spring on her, she turned back and continued the methodical movement forward.
Swing the spear left, step, right, step, left, step . . .

The sound was on her left, now, a little closer. It
was
stalking her. That was classic predator’s behavior, surveying the prey, closing in, cautious but confident at the same time.

Flicker
.

It was the faintest spark of light, but her heart gave a tremendous leap. It was here! Nearby!

Another step forward, and her iris displays lit up. The omni recognized that it was separated, and generated a homing image. She lunged forward and caught the little bracelet up, sliding it on, even as she heard stealthy footsteps, faint on the fallen, rotting leaves around her.

The forest burst to visibility in fairy light and she spun swiftly towards the soft, padding sounds.

Scarcely ten meters away it crouched, preparing to spring: a lithe, armored form that combined the worst features of panther and centipede, with the remnant dual back ridges of spines that some creatures of Lincoln sported. It snarled, revealing a mouth that also crossed the worst characteristics of arthropods and mammals. It was nearly three meters long from nose to end of tail.

But Sakura wasn’t going to give it the initiative.
Scare it! Show it who’s boss, or it’ll keep doing this!
Despite the terror that told her legs to start running, Sakura tightened her grip on the spear and gave a short, vicious lunge, jabbing the spear tip at the thing and shrieking her own challenge, a shrill cry that hearkened back to her primate ancestors.

The creature growled and crouched down, easing backwards, but still not convinced, not intimidated. It paced deliberately, patiently around Sakura, looking for an opening.

Keep the offensive.
Make
it back off.
She knew that was what her father would tell her. She gritted her teeth, then yelled and stabbed outward again, this time charging far enough that her spear would connect, if the thing didn’t react.

It gave a frustrated squall, dodging her thrust but not countering. It moved slightly off, as though puzzled. She pursued, knowing that she had to establish that she was
not
prey,
not
an easy kill, not
anything
this creature wanted to deal with.

This time it hunkered down and then slashed out with a clawed leg—one of several. The impact against the spear shaft sent pain shivering through Sakura’s fingers, but she wouldn’t let go. Instead, she shoved forward, right down the leg and ramming the fire-hardened point into the juncture between leg and armored body.

The beast shrieked and lunged back, slashing at her again with its claws—but not to attack. It was now trying to make
her
back off so it could scuttle away, its gait slightly uneven with its one injured leg.

Sakura stood still for moments, panting, shaking with relieved terror. So close. It could have killed her if it had really tried. She convinced it not to, but it could have.

She drained the rest of her one water container. She had to be close now. She just needed to keep going.

She moved forward as fast as she dared, the fairy-outlined forest even more sinister and dangerous. She stumbled more often. She was exhausted. That wasn’t just because of the time and effort she’d expended. The two big scares had taken a lot out of her as well.

But she kept moving.

There! A flicker of light . . . And it’s getting more steady!

As soon as the light of reception glowed steadily, Sakura began shouting. “Dad!
DADDY! Wake up!
” She didn’t care that she was sounding like a kid again. The panic she’d kept at bay was still there and she
felt
like a little girl again.

“Mommy’s been hurt!”

Chapter 33

“Caroline,” Laura said, trying to speak slowly and ignore the stiff, dull pain in her chest.

Her eldest daughter was instantly up, an enhanced-glowing shadow in the night. “Yes, Mom?”

“Any sign of scavengers?”

“Not yet. Maybe the thing screaming in pain scared things off.”

“Or they’re coming underwater, where we can’t see them. I want to move farther up the slope.”

She could see Caroline’s frown. “
Can
you move, Mom?”

“Slowly, I think. No damage to my spine. The medical nanos have the pain under control for the most part, though most of mine are concentrated on my hip.”

“Still,” Whips’ deep, rippling voice broke in, “maybe we should just stay put.”

“I’d really feel more comfortable with more distance between us and the water. I can’t be sure, Caroline, but it looks to me like up
there
,” she pointed and had her omni transmit a highlight for the same region she was pointing at, “is a fairly large section of bare stone. Am I seeing right?”

Caroline looked. “Hard to be certain in the dark . . . but it does look that way. Hold on.” A pause. “Okay, checking the imagery we got during the day, yes, I’m pretty sure you’re right. Is that where you want to go?”

“Yes. We’ve got the little bit of camping gear so we can make the rock more comfortable, and bare rock keeps fire under control and pests have a harder time crossing it.”

Despite the nanos, this much talking was making her chest burn. She didn’t look forward to moving at all, but she knew it was the right choice. Another of those monsters could be the scavenger that showed up. Predators usually had no problem with adding fresh carrion to their menu.

Caroline was looking at Whips. “Do you think you can make it up there?”

Whips hesitated. Laura couldn’t blame him; his arms were badly damaged, and she wasn’t in any shape to reposition the shoehorn plates or try to guide the ligaments and tendons to realign. He contracted into himself but answered, “I think so. Won’t be fun, but I think I can.”

Caroline sighed. “Okay. I don’t know if this is a good idea, but you’re the boss, Mom. Lean on me, right?”

“Believe me, honey, I’ll take all the help I can get.” She looked apologetically at Whips. “Whips, I’m sorry, but I don’t think either of us can do much to help you.”

He gave a shimmering laugh that was phosphorescently visible even without the omni helping. “I outweigh any two of you put together, maybe any three of you. I know you can’t do much without a winch. I’ll get there somehow. Just . . . keep an eye on my telltales, okay?”

“Wait until I’m up there, then. I want Caroline to at least be able to follow along with you.”

Whips slumped down comfortably, or as comfortably as his injuries would allow. “Waiting I can do.”

Laura couldn’t help but suck in her breath loudly as Caroline helped her up. “Mom!”

“It’s . . . okay.”
That’s a lie, and she knows it.
“I have to get up there, so it doesn’t matter that it hurts.”
That’s the truth.

Caroline walked beside her, helping her with each painful step. The nanos could dull all the pain, but she didn’t like that. Pain was the body’s warning mechanism, and she wanted to hear the warning bells clearly.
When I’m going to sleep, that’s different, but not when I’m up.

“Do you think we’re really in danger, Mom?”

“I’m . . . afraid so, yes. That’s a huge kill out there, and the scavengers and other predators won’t leave it alone for long. If your father’s right about the possible behavior of the insectoid creatures like the crants and the shieldlice, we don’t want to be in their path if they start heading for the smell of a kill, either.”

Caroline nodded.

Progress up the slope was slow, torturous in the literal sense. The site wasn’t more than two hundred fifty meters up the slope, but it took Laura and Caroline an hour, with frequent stops, to finally get Laura deposited, on top of one of the precious sleeping pads, on the smooth, weathered coral-rock surface. “Whew,” she said as she sank back in relief. “Oh, God, it feels so good to be just lying down.”

“I’m going back down to Whips,” Caroline said. “Will you be okay?”

She forced herself to a sitting position. “Prop me up on the tent roll, all right?”

Caroline positioned the rolled-up shelter and Laura leaned back. It supported her well enough. She took out the SurvivalShot and laid it across her lap. “Now I’ll be okay.”

Caroline nodded and jogged back down the hill.

It took even longer for Whips to get up the hill. Without Caroline to act as a guide and anchor, Laura suspected he’d never have made it, and once or twice she nearly called the whole attempt off. The last thing they needed was the poor Bemmie hurting himself just because she was being cautious.

But finally he slid onto the smoother rock surface and sagged down in relief, so exhausted that his whole body flattened out. “Made . . . it.”

“You did great, Whips!” Caroline said.

“Just relax, Harratrer,” Laura said, using Whips’ real name to emphasize her words. “I’m going to turn up your nanos—and mine too, so don’t either of you start—so you can really try to get some sleep.” She shook her head. “I hate to do this to you, Caroline—”

“Don’t even say it, Mom! I can stay up a while longer if I have to, and you guys need rest about a hundred times more than I do.”

“All right.”

There was silence for a few moments. Then Whips spoke up, asking the real question that she’d been shoving to the back of her mind for hours now. “How do you think Sakura’s doing?”

Her mind invented about a hundred scenarios of horrifying disaster in the instant before she responded. “It’s been, what, six hours? I’d guess she’s near the Stonetree Forest by now. Maybe in it.”

“Did we do the right thing, Mom?” Caroline asked slowly. “I mean . . . it . . . we were all still panicked.”

“I hope to heaven we did do the right thing, honey,” she said, in as comforting a voice as she could. “Someone had to let your father know what had happened. If we’d waited . . . well, to make sure she wouldn’t be in night at all, we’d be waiting for a long time before she could even leave.”

She looked down at the SurvivalShot in her lap. “If she doesn’t make it . . .”

“She will.” Whips’ voice was certain. “Sakura’s not going to give up, and she’ll find a way to get there. We just have to stay alive until then.”

Laura knew part of that was bravado, but part of it was Whips’ genuine faith in her daughter, and that warmed her as though the sun were still shining. “You’re right.” Laura felt the weariness stealing over her as the nanos finally drove pain into the background. “Okay, Caroline . . . keep a watch.”

“I will.”

* * *

When Laura woke up, she could tell it was several hours later. The stars had shifted quite a bit. Her omni helpfully informed her it had been almost seven hours. “Caroline?”

“Yipe!” The startled yelp was accompanied by a jump. Caroline turned, embarrassment written clear across her face. “Sorry, Mom. It’d just been so quiet for so long . . .”

“Nothing near the carcass?”

“Actually, there have been noises from there. Infrared shows various shapes moving around it. Not sure how many or how big. A couple shapes have moved up near the shore, maybe onto it, but none going farther. I haven’t seen any specially nasty things anywhere near us, though.”

“Give me a hand up,” Laura said reluctantly. “I need to . . .”

“Oh.” Caroline looked around. “Over there. Wait, let me dig a pit first.”

“You don’t—”

“We should, even here. It’ll just take me a few minutes.”

Sure enough, Caroline finished her preparatory work quickly and took Laura to the improvised latrine. Once Laura was done, she got up, with difficulty, and let Caroline fill it in.

“All right. Just give me a little food and water, and you can get some rest, Caroline.”

“I . . . could use that. I was starting to nod off a bit even when I was walking.” Her eldest daughter looked at the stars for a few moments. “Mom . . . do you think Sakura . . .”

“I think she must have gotten there by now and your father’s probably going to be on his way immediately,” she said firmly. “Now get your rest.”

Guard duty was eerie. Her omni painted the darkness with clear outlines and enhanced data—probably better than Caroline’s. Sitting on this exposed ridge above a swamp, in territory they didn’t know was enough to make anyone tense. But looking down, Laura saw a lot more to worry her.

There
were
shapes down there. They flickered in and out of view as they rose and submerged, since infrared didn’t penetrate any depth of water, but it looked very much like a school of sharks around a whale carcass. The animals looked to be two to three meters long, if she took a guess at how much remained underwater. There were other smaller things, too.

Some did pause at the water’s edge, even seem to pull themselves a short distance up; she got an impression of a flattened, rippling body that didn’t look like anything they’d seen on Lincoln before. That wasn’t surprising. They’d only seen one tiny part of one floating continent so far. Most things were going to look different.

In the quiet of the night, with an undertone of susurrations and night-calls that sounded almost like those you might hear on Earth at night, she could now hear something else; ripples and breaths, sounds of tearing, snorts.
They’re feeding. Well, if the carcass keeps them satisfied, they won’t bother us.

But the question was whether it
would
keep them satisfied. After all, if new, hungry creatures kept coming in to replace those sated, or if something disturbed them . . .

She caught her eyelids drooping.
No. Can’t allow that. It hasn’t been long enough. Caroline needs her rest, and so does Whips. He’s worse off than I am. He almost tore himself in
half
with that crazy, heroic stunt.

She glanced over and smiled fondly at Whips’ sleeping form. Objectively, he probably looked as scary-monstrous as any of the things out there. But he was family, and that made him look as helpless as her kids when he was asleep. Even if he was the size of a small horse.

She turned her attention back to the swamp below, after casting a wary glance around the rest of the terrain. It would be ironic to be watching so carefully for danger down there, and not notice some stalking predator coming from the hills.

There
had
been a couple of forms creeping down towards the water, but they were small—about half the size of Hitomi, no more—and probably wouldn’t cause any trouble.

She felt something on her barkcloth pantleg, flicked it off.
Crant. Large one.
The crants didn’t put out significant heat, being cold-blooded, but if you looked carefully you could still see them on IR due to varying emissivities. There were quite a few now, mostly heading down towards the water.

Laura was strongly tempted to build a fire. They only had a fairly limited store of fuel—they’d had to pack it with them, and they’d used some to cook the fish earlier—but fire was one of the few sovereign weapons. The discovery of plains-like areas and of real wood trees—and the fact that with sufficient heat a lot of the non-wood “trees” would, in fact, burn—had encouraged them to believe that the land animals of Lincoln would know and avoid fire, and a few tests had confirmed it. They knew what it was, and that it was something to be avoided.

She decided to wait. The crants weren’t a real problem yet, and nothing else was approaching them. Better to save it for when and if things got worse.

Her thoughts turned to Sakura. With no one else awake, no one else depending on her to be stable, she could not fight off her fears: Sakura with a broken leg, fallen somewhere on the way back; bitten by a venomous minimaw, her nanos desperately fighting off the poison; seized and devoured by a canopy kraken; lost and wandering, somewhere, with no one to help her or guide her . . .

“Stop that,” she muttered to herself. She had to believe that Sakura would make it. She wouldn’t give up, and she wouldn’t stop, and she wasn’t stupid. She’d stay out of the reach of the minimaws and the krakens, and she’d follow the route. Which meant that by now Sakura would have reached home, let her father know.

She knew Akira. He’d get ready as fast as he could and be on his way—probably bringing everyone with him, because he couldn’t leave Mel and Hitomi alone, even with Sakura. He was probably on his way now, and
he
was the biologist, with more field experience than anyone else. He would make it here as fast as anyone possibly could.

There came a faint splashing and a dragging sound. She saw that another of the unknown things was moving around on the shore. It moved hesitantly upward, an undulating, slithering motion that made her skin crawl just to watch it. But it stopped and turned slowly back towards the water.
Thank goodness. Well, that certainly woke me up.

Laura activated the medical imaging package and checked Whips’ progress. His nanos were keeping inflammation down and she could see that healing had started. The internal bleeding had stopped and there was no systemic damage, thankfully. She’d have to realign those plates, though.

She kept the pain damping on her own body very high—just enough left to let her know if she was doing something that would be really damaging—and cut off all sensation to Whips’ arms. It was a good thing that modern medical nanos for colonization types could be used for anesthesia since they didn’t have any chemicals for that.

The worst off were the basal shoehorns. Whips had nearly pulled his own arms off with that impossible stunt. One of the basals was cracked, and all three were pulled from their ball sockets. It was incredible that he’d managed to continue to function as well as he had.

With the inflammation kept down, however, it was possible to reseat them. She aligned the ball with its socket, and then pushed as hard as her ribs would allow. As her force peaked, she triggered a spasm of Whips’ own muscles surrounding the basal, and it popped back into place with an audible
thump
.