Pilgrim (7 page)

Nova lifted her heavy head from the pillow
and blinked tired eyes as she adjusted to the dim light of her
sleeping pod. The hard grey lines of Crusader’s interior were all
around her, hiding compartments and shelves beneath cool metal
panels.

She swung her legs over the side of the
fold-down bed and rubbed her face with her callused hands. It had
been a late night. It had been especially hard to get to sleep
knowing the children from the village could reappear at any
moment.

She stood, her bare feet touching the cold
metal of Crusader’s floor. She wore loose pants and a long sleeved
shirt that kept her warm through the night. She grabbed a bowl of
cereal from the food generator.

Holding her bowl of cereal in one hand and
spooning great mountains into her mouth with the other, she
wandered through to the storage bay. Her hair was tussled from
sleep.

Cal hovered in front of a short bench. Three
hatches were open in his sides allowing tiny steel arms to move the
equipment and vials spread out before him. Glass clinked as he
lifted one vial after another and mixed liquids together in a
fantastic dance.

“What are you doing?” Nova asked around a
mouthful of food.

“I took a sample from that rock I told you
about, the one that’s interfering with our weapons. I thought I’d
analyse it, see if it gave us a clue to what’s going on.”

“And?”

“It doesn’t reveal much at all,” Cal replied
as he swirled vials and placed tubes as small as Nova’s fingernails
into a great beeping machine set into Crusader’s wall.

“What do you mean?” she asked. She placed
the now empty bowl down on the bench, well away from Cal’s working
space.

“I mean there’s nothing especially abnormal
about it.”

“But there must be. Something happened when
it landed,” Nova said, “It has to be the ‘great rock’ the children
were talking about.”

“There are no gods hidden in that piece of
rock,” Cal said with some sarcasm. “There was some dust which
places the landing at about one hundred and fifty years ago with
some room for error. There are some microbial life forms present in
the scraping I took, but they most likely crawled there from Taive.
It’s impossible to be sure; they’ve had one hundred and fifty years
after all.”

Nova rolled her eyes at Cal’s tone.

“But no, as far as my analysis is concerned,
there are no enchantments, spells, witchcraft or gods hidden in the
rock.”

She sighed in frustration; it was too much
to ask for that a scraping from the meteor could solve the riddle
of the Taiveans.

“Just have to keep searching,” she said with
a sigh, turning back for her sleeping pod and the rest of her
clothes.

She donned her usual black pants and shirt
along with her dark trench-coat. As she strode to the main door she
strapped her holster about her waist.

“So is my gun going to work now?” she
said.

“Scans indicate we are now out of the field
of interference from the rock. As long as you don’t go closer to
the village, you’ll be fine.”

“Good,” she said, gathering supplies. “I’ll
take a magnetic gauge just in case. If it starts going off, I’m
turning around and coming straight back here.”

Cal hovered out of the storage bay with a
gentle whir of his motor. Nova checked her bag and her gun for the
third time and took a deep breath. Then she remembered what she’d
been meaning to research.

“Cal!” Nova called from the entrance of
Crusader into the darkness of the storage bay. “Cal!”

Nova tapped her foot impatiently, waiting
for the robot to appear. He was taking much longer than usual.

“Cal!”

“I’m here!” Cal replied as his silver body
entered a beam of sunshine streaming through the open door.

“About time,” Nova said, taking a deep
breath to calm her frustration at having to wait.

“You know we can communicate
telepathically?” Cal said. “So I don’t have to come right up to you
every time you want to say hello.”

“You should come when I call anyway,” Nova
said with a single raised eyebrow.

“What do you want?” Cal asked, his tone
terse.

“Start repairs on the engine while I’m away
and run a search of the Cloud. I want to know if there are any
other planets reporting people disappearing from their beds with no
signs of a struggle.”

“Signs of a struggle,” Cal repeated.

“No, no signs of a struggle,” Nova said with
confusion. Cal didn’t often forget things, in fact he never forgot
things. That was the great thing about having a robot
companion.

“That’s what I said,” Cal said as his
internal computers began to scan the endless Cloud.

“Whatever. Do you have any more information
on the crash-site?”

“The ship went down north of the swamp.
Northwest of here. I’ve updated the map on your chip. Chip. Chip,”
Cal said.

“I heard you the first time,” she said with
a sigh. If Cal’s systems were fried again she was going to need a
lot more money to get it fixed.

“What?” Cal asked.

“Nothing, I think you’re short-circuiting
again. Check it out while I’m gone and tighten up whatever needs
tightening.”

Nova shook her head at the strange robot and
reached down for her bag of emergency equipment. She was determined
to find the crashed colonisation ship, and hopefully the warp
converter that was supposed to be with it. If she was especially
lucky, she’d also find new parts for Crusader.

She slung the bag over her shoulder. It had
guns and fire-starters, flares, a portable food generator and a
towel. She’d packed everything she thought she would possibly need.
She just hoped she wouldn’t need it.

With a thud, she jumped to the green grass
below and headed for the forest. She scanned the area for signs of
children, beasts, or barbarians. They were still too close to the
village for her liking, it could just been seen at the edge of the
horizon. Still she didn’t have much choice; they were lucky
Crusader had made it this far. The only movement was from the wind
in the grass as she entered the line of trees and the village
disappeared from sight.

***

Nova’s spine tingled as she walked through
the open field to the line of trees as if eyes bore into her back.
She could almost see the young girl in the white dress watching
her, waiting. The hairs on Nova’s neck stood on end, prickling her
skin. It was as if someone had blown a puff of air over her collar,
but she refused to look back. Let the group of crazy kids be
damned.

She had her gun in her hand. Usually, it
would be holstered at her waist but something about this planet
made her skin crawl. It was as though a thousand eyes were
watching, just waiting for her to trip up. Well damned if she was
going to do that. Oh no, she’d be ready to shoot anything that
moved the wrong way.

As soon as she was within the forest she
fired at a nearby tree. A blue plasma blast shot through the air
and the tree exploded into splinters. The gun worked.

Nova brushed past tree branches and twigs.
She occasionally consulted the imported image of the map. The
mental chip allowed Cal to upload files directly to her memory. It
was as if she was remembering seeing the map, even though her eyes
had never actually taken it in. It was a strange piece of
technology, something which had taken a while to get used to when
it first came out. Now she didn’t know what she’d do without it. A
big X marked where Cal’s scans thought the ship should be. She
hoped he was right. The sooner she got off of this planet, the
better. Whatever was wrong with the village, she wanted no part of
it.

She came to a small creek and marched
upstream alongside it. It bubbled down through the forest carrying
with it small twigs and leaves. Eventually, she came to an abrupt
cliff-face. The stream cascaded down in a waterfall, which created
a light mist.

Nova looked up at the cliff and back to her
map. According to Cal’s scans, the shipwreck should be just across
the creek and a little further uphill. She peered through the trees
but there was no sign of the spaceship yet.

She stepped away from the waterfall and
plonked her foot into the river. The cold water seeped straight
through her boot and soaked her leg. The stream was relatively
shallow; it came halfway up her shin. The fast-flowing water
streamed past, sending icy waves up her legs. Her skin rose in
goosebumps and she shivered. The water carried with it a clear moss
that left a jelly-like layer on her skin that refused to wash
off.

Her teeth chattered but she forced herself
to put another foot forward. This time when it sunk through the
water, it encountered a slight resistance and then fell to the
bottom of the riverbed with an audible crunch.

She yanked her leg back up and looked down
into the water to see what she had stepped on. Through the clear
stream it was easy to make out the upper torso of a girl. Her chest
cavity was caved in on the left side with a mess of broken ribs
from Nova’s boot. The flesh clung to the bony fragments and waved
back and forth in the current.

Nova’s face contorted in disgust. She put
her gun back into its holster and knelt down in the water to get a
better look. The body seemed fresh enough, there was still skin
covering the bones. The girl had brown hair that waved about in the
water and was naked aside from a necklace made of wires.

Nova fished in her bag and pulled on a set
of rubber gloves before turning the girl over. Shallow boulders
held the body in place and stopped it from flowing further
downstream. It was easy to move the corpse in the light-weight
environment of the river.

On the girl’s back, there was a line of
grazes, probably from the river’s rocky bottom. She had a few
broken bones but no bruises, suggesting the injuries happened after
she died.

Nova stood up and looked down at the dead
girl. Could she have come from the tribe of children? She was young
enough and the wires around her neck looked familiar. Nova’s
stomach twisted at the thought.

She sighed and chucked the used rubber
gloves into a sealed plastic bag in her pack. There was nothing she
could do for the girl now.

Reaching down, she put her hand to her
holster and felt the comfort of her plasma pistol. The familiar
grip was good in her hand. She reluctantly put the gun back while
she manoeuvred her way through the river towards the trees, which
surrounded her in every direction. With a splash, she hauled her
water-soaked legs out of the river.

She turned right to walk up the slight hill.
Her ears strained. All she could hear was the rustling of leaves
and the occasional cry of a bird. The air was hot and humid under
the thick rainforest. It clung to her like a cloak. Soon, she was
sweating large droplets that dappled the path behind her.

After three hours of pushing through thick
undergrowth, Nova was more than ready to get to her destination.
The forest felt like an endless mass and she was just a tiny
life-form walking through it.

Footsteps.

Nova’s heart exploded in her chest and sent
adrenalin pumping through her veins. A hot flush burst across her
neck as she froze and whipped out her gun.

“Who goes there?” she said. Her eyes scanned
the surrounding trees. The branches were so thick it was impossible
to see far into the forest.

A rustle of leaves turned her attention to
the branches above her head.

Spread out through the trees and hanging
from almost every branch were large monkeys. They were covered in
brown fur and their mouths and hindquarters were decorated with
bright blue skin. Their mouths opened wide to reveal elongated
fang-like canines. The teeth were so big, they could puncture
straight through Nova’s arms and come out the other side.

She stood absolutely still. The only parts
of her which moved were her eyes. She’d encountered primates
before. They were always one of the first species introduced to a
new planet to ensure survivability of human colonists. These had
probably come out of the crashed colonisation ship, two hundred
years before. Clearly, they had thrived on the new planet.

Unlike previous primates Nova had
encountered, these had enlarged heads. Their foreheads extended out
and up, much more like a human head than most of their ape cousins.
They stared at her; their only movement was in their tails that
swished back and forth.

Her heart fluttered in her throat as she
searched for a way out. All she could think about was the agony
she’d feel if the monkeys attacked.

She cleared her throat. “I come in
peace.”

The monkeys blinked but didn’t respond.

She shrugged. It was worth a shot, these
wouldn’t be the first primates who could talk. Her eyes moved
around the circle of monkeys, counting. There were at least
twenty-five that she could see. They didn’t seem overly aggressive,
but then why were they staring at her like that?

She kept her gun up and took a step to her
left.

The monkeys erupted.

They screeched and bounced between the
trees, pulling back their lips to reveal massive teeth. Their cries
echoed around the trees and their movement shook a flurry of leaves
loose. They beat at their chests with their fists and leapt high
into the air from the branches.

Nova’s heart flew into her throat. Her
breathing constricted and sweat broke out on her forehead. Her
fingers clenched around her gun. She jumped back to her right where
she had been standing before the outburst.

The monkeys froze. They settled back down
onto their branches, stopped shouting, and resumed staring at
Nova.

“Alright, not that way,” she said. Her
breathing and heart rate slowed. She gradually loosened her grip on
her gun and let her shoulders relax.