Pilgrim (6 page)

Sora remained inside the wooden building.
She stared down at the headless carcass with vacant eyes for some
time. Her bloodied mouth and hands, and her dark expression, were
completely at odds with her young face and child-like arms. Her
hands clenched into fists at her sides.

After a moment of silence, the girl strode
away from the carcass to the far wall of the building. Kneeling on
the dirt, she tossed a hide out of her way. She scooped handfuls of
dirt and flung them behind her onto the furs covering the rest of
the floor. She worked without pausing until she threw the last
handful of dirt away and crawled into the divot she’d made,
nestling into the dirt as if it were home. Her eyes drifted shut
and the frown disappeared from her face.

Nova dragged her eyes away from Crusader’s
front screen to look at Cal. He swivelled mid-air to gaze back at
her with his single lens.

“That was enlightening,” she said.

“That is one word for it,” Cal said.

Nova shivered at the memory of blood
dripping down the children’s faces. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able
to sleep after seeing that.”

“Crusader’s senses are on full alert and I
will keep watch. It would be best if you rested.”

Nova nodded as she let out a long
breath.

***

Nova woke early and was relieved to find her
swollen face had healed some, although her cheek was mottled with
green and purple. She had sat down to enjoy her breakfast when she
noticed something strange on the video feed.

“What are they doing?” she said.

She examined the video feed from Spidey’s
camera. The children marched through the village. Spidey watched
them from the entrance of the main wooden building.

The children walked behind Sora, in a slow
sombre line. Each of them wore a fur tunic with a piece of black
material tied around their waists.

They each had dark lines drawn on their
faces and hands. They walked with their heads hung low, each
stepping in the footprints of the one before them.

Sora was the only child with her head up.
Her eyes were blank and emotionless as she led her procession
through the village. She carried a wooden torch that flickered in
the morning breeze.

“It looks like a funeral procession,” Nova
said.

Cal hovered over to join her. It was only
then that Nova noticed the sad pile of clothing outside the main
hall. She couldn’t make out much more than that, but the way it was
placed, so deliberately, made her heart lurch into her throat.

Meanwhile, Sora continued to march around
the circle of tents. They made three laps before she led them to
the pile of clothes. She lifted up her spear to halt the march.
Everyone behind her came to a dead stop. The line of children would
have been comical in any other setting, the oldest at the front, to
the youngest at the back. Some of them had only just learnt to
walk. They toddled after the older children with as much ceremony
as they could manage.

Sora stood before the pile of clothes with
her burning torch. “The great Rock has lifted Leela up. She has
moved on and become one with the stars. All we can do is hope we
are given the same honour.”

When her words faded into silence, Sora
lifted the torch on high and then lowered it to the pile of
clothes. The fur caught fire with a whoosh. The fur sizzled and
burnt, disappearing into a charcoal breeze.

The collected children watched the clothes
burn in complete silence until every scrap of the material had been
lifted by the wind and carried away from the village. Only then did
some of the children walk away from the ceremony and resume their
daily duties. Others remained by the burning pile, including
Sora.

Their eyes were locked on the slightly burnt
patch of ground but they acted like they saw nothing. Their
child-like faces were aged by their serious expressions.

“What the heck does that mean?” Nova said,
slumping back into her chair.

“Computer analysis suggests a female from
last night’s feast is missing,” Cal said.

“Leela.”

“The data would suggest so.”

“Crusader, replay the video from last night,
four times speed,” Nova said.

The front screen flickered and the video
feed darkened and flicked to night-vision. The camera roved back
and forth around the village as the children slept.

Something howled in the darkness.

“There!” Nova said, pointing at the screen.
Crusader slowed the video replay to normal speed.

A young girl wearing nothing but a wire
necklace stepped out of her tent and crept away from the
village.

“What’s she doing?” Nova said.

Spidey’s camera followed her as she strolled
out of the circle of tents and continued through the field. She
kept walking until she disappeared from view.

“What kind of place is this?” Nova said.

“The behaviour is unusual and doesn’t match
anything described in the Cloud,” Cal said.

“We’ll leave Spidey in the village for today
and call him back tonight. If nothing else changes, I want to get
away from here as soon as possible.”

“What about the colonisation ship and the
warp converter?”

“I don’t know. I’m still thinking,” Nova
said.

She was at a complete loss. The warp
converter was the only way to get past the Confederacy borders and
as far as she knew, there weren’t any others lying around for the
taking. On the other hand, the demonic children scared the crap out
of her and the last thing she wanted was to be eaten or burnt alive
by them.

***

Spidey’s legs tapped along the metal floor
as he returned to Crusader, just as night was falling. Nova grabbed
him from inside the main cargo-bay doors and flicked the red power
switch. Spidey’s legs fell still and his gears stopped ticking. She
placed it into a deep drawer in the storage bay and leant against
the bench.

The day had taught them nothing.

The children walked around the village,
occasionally stopping to talk to each other, but mostly staying
silent. A group of older children had gone out hunting and returned
with a small deer. There was no other hint as to what was going on.
Despite the lack of evidence, Nova was sure they weren’t human, or
at least not entirely.

As if their behaviour wasn’t clue enough,
their small village was filled with riddles. While the tents were
covered with animal hide, Spidey had caught images of the sturdy
metal frames underneath. Throughout the village were all kinds of
remnants which didn’t belong in the barbaric setting. Pipes, wire,
metal struts, even a thick metal door were scattered around the
place. They cast a stark contrast against the severed heads.
Whatever was going on in Taive, it was unnatural.

Nova went to bed with a restless mind, but
drifted into sleep.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Nova’s eyes popped open and she sat upright
on her bed. Her ears strained. Had she dreamt it? She sat as still
as an old-Earth photograph. Every muscle in her body was tensed,
waiting to strike.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

She stood up. She hadn’t dreamt it. The
blanket whispered to the floor.

“Cal. What is that?” she said.

The lights in her sleeping pod were
gradually lighting up, allowing time for her eyes to adjust.

“They’re outside,” Cal said as he hovered
into her sleeping pod.

“What do you mean?” Nova said.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“They’re outside. Trying to scare you, I
suppose.”

“It’s working,” she said.

A shiver went up her spine and her neck
tingled as if cold fingers had just brushed across it. Her eyes
darted around her sleeping pod. The noise came from outside, it was
as if the children were circling Crusader, banging on its exterior
with a metal pipe.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

This time, it echoed right next to Nova, and
she jumped away. The noise resounded around her sleeping pod and
through the rest of the ship.

“Can they get in?” Nova said.

“No,” Cal said, his voice wavering.

“Are you sure?”

“We don’t know what they’re capable of.
Analysis suggests an eighty percent chance that they can’t get
in.”

Bang. Bang. Bang.

The noise had moved closer to the ship’s
front.

“How could they possibly get in? Crusader’s
shields stand up against space and the strain of atmosphere breach.
They’re just a few children with some metal piping,” she said.

“As I was just about to say; the shields
went down five minutes ago,” Cal said, hovering out of her
reach.

Nova’s stomach clenched and beads of cold
sweat broke out on her forehead. She imagined the children climbing
over Crusader, like a swarm of insects, clamouring to get in. Her
skin itched as if they crawled across her arms and neck.

She stepped out of the tangle of blankets at
her feet and crept on silent feet through to the pilot’s pod. The
front screen showed Crusader’s exterior. Every video feed was
filled with glowing green eyes. It looked like a pack of animals
had surrounded Crusader and were staring at the cameras.

“How could the shields go down?” she
said.

“Cause is unknown, but computer simulations
suggest an EMP attack,” Cal said.

“Where the hell would these savages get a
magnetic pulse from?” she said, waving her hand at the screen.

“Warning. Warning. Damage detected,”
Crusader said.

A red light flashed from the ceiling.

“What?” Nova said, leaning closer.
“Where?”

The camera rotated, passing many sets of
eyes, until it came to rest on Crusader’s rear engines. There were
five small children crawling over the machinery. They pulled at
pieces of piping and bit into the wires.

Sora stood beside the engine with a long
piece of metal piping. She lifted it above her right shoulder and
swung it down. It slammed into Crusader’s engine and left a massive
dent.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Nova said.
“She’s torn the damned fuel line. How the hell did she know to do
that?”

She stepped up to the dashboard and examined
the readings. The fuel gauge was falling down at an alarming
rate.

“Perhaps she got lucky?” Cal said.

“Yeah, well that’s all the luck she’s
getting. Send an electric pulse along the exterior,” she said.

She watched the cameras as a bright flash
consumed Crusader's metal plates. The electric shock went up
through the arms and legs of the children climbing over the ship.
They convulsed and fell off. Their bodies crunched to the ground
where they frothed at the mouth and vibrated. The other children
stepped back, their eyes widening.

“Crusader, get us away from here, now,” Nova
said.

“The engine stabiliser is damaged. The risk
of a crash is high.”

“Just get me away from this village. Take us
closer to the forest,” she said.

Crusader’s engine roared into life. The
sudden vibration and gusts of air threw the children away. They
scattered in all directions, lying on the flattened grass.

“C’mon, c’mon,” Nova said.

Crusader lifted into the air and shot away
from the village. The children were left staring after them. Nova
gripped hold of the controls with white knuckles.

“Engine critical,” Crusader said.

“Take it down,” Nova said.

The ship slowed and they thudded to the
ground a kilometre from the children’s camp. Nova was thrown off
balance and fell to her knees. The ship rattled and then fell
still.

“Engine non-functional,” Crusader said.

“Great, I guess we’re stuck here,” Nova
said. She pulled herself to her feet. “I want to know exactly what
happened back there. Our shields failed and our sensors didn’t pick
them up. We should have known they were coming.”

“Affirmative, simulations are already
running to determine the proximal and distal causes of the
incident,” Cal said.

“We’d better start hoping that the colony
ship has spare parts,” Nova said.

She sighed as she looked around her small
ship.

“So you will be going to find the ship?” Cal
said.

She dusted her hands off on her legs. “I
don’t have much choice anymore.”

“What about the village?”

“As long as they don’t come near me again, I
say we ignore them. Whatever is wrong with them, I don’t want any
part of it. Have you got coordinates for the crashed ship?”

“I’ve got an approximate region but with
Crusader’s broken depth-detectors, she won’t be able to land
there.”

“I’ll walk.”

“Are you sure you want to risk that?” Cal
said.

“We don’t have a choice. We need parts to
get off this planet and Crusader needs a new depth-detector. Plus,
who knows what else will be with the ship? It’s a whole colony
vessel; it should have everything we could ever need. And of
course, it’s got the only free warp converter in the entire
universe!”

“Confirmed.”

“Good, upload the map to my chip and I’ll
head off tomorrow,” Nova said. “Also, make sure you test all the
guns. I do not want to be stuck somewhere and have them fail
again.”

She felt a small tingle at the base of her
skull and in front of her mind’s eye, an image of a map flashed
into existence. The image embedded itself into her memories and she
saw clearly the path to the colony ship.

“Excellent,” Nova said. “Are the shields
back up?”

“They’re running on backup solar cells, it
should hold,” Cal said.

“Are the children following us?”

“Heat scans indicate they’ve returned to
their village. I’ll alert you if anything changes.”

“Make sure you do,” she said, shuffling
toward her sleeping pod.

CHAPTER
SIX