Exigency Page 8

  She sat up for a better perspective, counting four of the hotspots. John continued moaning appreciatively. Maybe his survival bag only had him half covered, one leg thrown over the top to cool. The bag was practically invisible through therm, so she switched to biomag.

  “No! Oh, crap, John!”

  Minnie scrambled out of the tent with a virtual full-light view of the cave, biomag’s surreal colorizing casting the place and John’s body in embellished tones. He remained asleep despite her yelling, a little smile curled into his cheeks as he sighed with pleasure. But on the left side of his neck, from the edge of his jaw to the armpit, lay a flat, parasitic lifeform apparently feeding on him. A larger one was on his opposite side, stretched out along his ribcage, down to the hipbone. His left thigh bore a smaller creature about the size of her hand, and the last was attached to his right calf. She couldn’t tell exactly what they were doing, but it mustn’t hurt too much, she imagined, or John would’ve woken up.

  Minnie scanned around the cave in search of others. Indeed, there were many, many more, though only a couple centimeters each, and all over the walls. On the ground around John’s mat, several of the tiny worms were making their way to him. This would be happening to her if John hadn’t traded, “gallantly” opting to sleep outside the tent. At the time, she’d thought it silly, perhaps a bit sexist or martyrish of him.

  She crouched down and slapped his cheek. “John. Wake up. Hey.” He licked his lips, sucked in a deep breath, and released a longer satisfied moan. “John,” she said louder. “Hey, wake up. Bit of an emergency here! Hello!” She slapped him harder. Poked his chest.

  Finally, John stirred and opened a single groggy eye. “Yeah?” He wore a dumb, drunken smile.

  “Listen carefully. You have some sort of platyzoa attached to your skin.”

  “Platyzoa?” he slurred, squeezing his eyes shut and rising up onto his elbows. “I think it’s fine. Go ahead.”

  “John, do you understand what I’m saying? We need to get these parasites off of your body. I don’t know what kind of damage they’re doing.”

  John displayed a clownish pout and deepened his voice, mocking, “That sounds pretty serious.” He rolled onto his left side, pulled the bag up over his shoulder, and nestled back in to sleep. He murmured, “Go away, Minernie.”

  The parasites must have been releasing some sort of drug into his bloodstream, Minnie surmised, something with a narcotic effect.

  He doesn’t feel them.

  She pulled the top of the bag off his shoulder to examine the large specimen on his ribs, wondering if a type of dermal numbing agent was also at work.

  He doesn’t feel—

  Alarmed anew, Minnie hastily scanned her own body for foreign creatures. Wearing only a tank and undershorts, she ran her hands over every body part she could reach: arms, neck, face, ears, scalp, shoulder blades, armpits, all the way down to her ankles, where she discovered what felt like an old bandage. Hyperaware of the dangerous ground and perhaps even ceiling, Minnie fled into the tent, zipped the door shut, surveyed the place for intruders, and then sat down, examining the tiny thing attached to her ankle. She scratched at its edges with a fingernail, watched it partially detach. It peeled back with surprising ease, writhing like a disturbed slug. She pinched the body between thumb and forefinger, pulling it off the rest of the way, and set it on her palm, inspecting the underside through a series of optics. Magnification exposed rows of tiny cilia, some secreting a viscous fluid, while other extremities appeared to be for absorption. Around the edges she found little articulated hooks searching for something to grab.

  She plucked a small container from her kit and deposited the creature inside. Her focus returned to her ankle. The small oval of skin appeared burnt and moist, as if injured and then coated in salve. Still no pain. She was afraid to touch it, but also worried that the parasite’s acidic mucous could still be breaking down her skin. After a few swipes with an alkaline medipad, Minnie began to sense the little wound—raw, like the skin beneath a freshly picked scab. She hurriedly finished with an antiseptic cream and slapped a dermal over it.

  She needed to rip those things off of John immediately. Who knew how long they’d been on him, or how rapidly they were consuming him? His drugged state suggested they could ingest an entire body without the victim putting up a fight. A brilliant, terrifying design.

  Fully suited up, and with the tent closed behind her, Minnie stepped beside John, bent over, and unzipped his survival bag all the way to his feet. With their limited attire, she didn’t want to ruin his one pair of enviropants. She tugged them down from his waist with several yanks.

  John groaned halfheartedly. “What? … Hey, quit it now ...” One hand blindly grappled for covers he couldn’t reach.

  With his pants at his ankles, Minnie gained a clear view of the slug on his calf. A subtle wave rolled across its surface from one end to the other, repeating once more. She slipped her gloved fingers beneath one end of it, tightened her grip, and peeled it off. It was definitely more tightly affixed to him than hers had been, like separating strong Velcro. Goopy threads stretched out between the worm’s underside and John’s leg. The concept of liquefied skin launched a shot of bile up Minnie’s throat. She swallowed and tossed the contorting parasite to the wide puddle at the other side of the cave.

  She looked down at his calf.

  Oh no …

  It was bad. An uncontrollable quiver attacked her chest and she inhaled a shaky breath.

  No no no.

  She rolled him onto his back and ripped the creature from his thigh. It, too, had made it well into the muscle, cauterizing the wound as it delved deeper and deeper into its food. The hunk splashed in the puddle and a sickening revelation hit her. She’d just tossed John’s left quadriceps. The wriggling mass had begun as a tiny thing—probably smaller than the one she’d plucked from her ankle—but it had broken down John’s flesh, fat, and muscle, converting the matter and expanding its own form. It had felt like a couple kilos when she threw it.

  And then there was the ribcage.

  The parasite landed somewhere near the last. Tears began to cloud Minnie’s eyes. With several ribs half-exposed, she didn’t know how John could possibly live through this. Even with the cauterization, burn victims’ greatest threat was infection.

  “D’you mind?” he said, slowly rolling over. “Some of us’re tryin’ t’sleep here. What … what time’s it?”

  Minnie opened her visor a bit more as she studied the worm on his neck. If it had burrowed deep enough, infection would be the least of his worries. “John, you had some parasites on you. I’m pulling off the last one.”

  “I’m here to help.” He was still intoxicated.

  “Go ahead and roll all the way toward me, okay?”

  He complied with some effort. “I’m itchy. Hey, am I naked?”

  Minnie leaned close and pulled back the end attached to his jaw. Indeed, it had made it well into the mandible, bone apparently no more resilient than flesh, but she was more concerned with John’s neck. She continued peeling it slowly away, its body compacting as it squirmed in her grip. It had melted away much of the neck muscle, but had yet to reach the carotid or jugular. Farther down she could see that the things seemed to prefer muscle—his pectoral and a bit of deltoid muscle eaten deeper than the surrounding skin.

  Fully detached, she flung it away to join the rest.

  “Minerva, what ezackly’re you doin’ t’me right now? Y’know …” He lowered his voice to a slurred whisper. “I don’ really thing of you thi’sway. No ‘ffense.”

  She looked at his eyes, almost wishing he could remain ignorant of the reality he’d soon comprehend. She patted his chest, examining the ground with biomag. The little ones were everywhere. Fortunately, they moved at a snail’s pace. Minnie leaned close to John’s face.

  “I need to grab some medipads to clean up these wounds and neutralize the acids.”

  “What’re these wounds?” He was so
unding a trifle more lucid. “Who’s hurt? Am I hurt?”

  “Just sit tight,” she said and walked around him, squashing the nearest parasites and twisting her boot into each.

  “Jaw stiff. Cheek fills like … dentist. Neck too.” He poked at his cheek and she saw him itching around his ribs.

  Minnie tried to sound calm for him. “Try not to touch anything, okay?”

  As she knelt down and pulled the medikit from his SSK, she knew the instant that full reality kicked in for him.

  “Oh … no … what, what happened to me?”

  She turned to see him straining to sit up, shirt raised, and arm lifted out of the way to inspect his side. Four of his exposed ribs and the meat between them shone in the heater’s glow.

  1.6

  297 hours on Epsy. 12 Earth days. 15 Epsy days.

  Water dripped from Minnie’s boots to the sinkhole below. Her arms and shoulders quaked as she let go of the rope, watching it with both disdain and triumph when it came to rest in its two-week-old indentation.

  I win, rope. I don’t care if you care.

  It would’ve been nice if John was awake to witness her victory, but he couldn’t exactly suit up, walk to the tunnel, and swim out. He could hardly roll on his side. Sealant cream was supposed to prevent infection and regrow flesh, but not that much flesh. Goddamn worms. Her only miniscule source of solace lay in the memory of worm genocide she’d committed after the incident. Wormocide, the Worm War Crimes Council would call it at Minnie’s trial.

  Her pulse and breath settled, she peered out at the valley—an obscenely picturesque view lit by the afternoon sun—and she set out down the hill, back to the valley floor. Two kilometers east, a stand of especially tall trees was her target. She began with a careful jog.

  Beneath the shade of thick vegetation, she maintained a constant scan of her surroundings as she ran, wary of even a single Hynka roaming about. But, as always, her thoughts soon narrowed into a tight beam, focused straight up.

  If Minnie were in an EV at that moment, somehow still alive, adrift or settled into some crazy high elliptical orbit, would she want to go on living? To have survived this long would’ve meant purifying and drinking urine, gathering condensation, or possibly having had the forethought to kill her podmate on day one, thus keeping all water and solid sustenance for herself.

  There remained only two possibilities: Aether was dead, or she and Qin successfully made it to the surface. If the latter were the case, they’d likely try the same things Minnie intended: attempt a link to the BH or—and Qin would be the one to think of it—hack the supply pod network to post a message. Without an EV, Minnie was limited to her suit’s comms which reached a mere 3-5K in this sort of terrain. Aether, or any crewmember for that matter, could’ve been broadcasting for days and Minnie wouldn’t know it.

  She stopped at a broad trunk, placed her hands on the back of her helmet to stretch her ribcage and lungs, and gazed up the tree as she caught her breath.

  She tested the lowest “branch,” a thick, circular pad nearly the size of a rooftop helipad. It bent a little from one foot, but when she stepped all the way on, it actually touched the ground. But it was still quite sturdy. She crept along the squishy surface and found a sweet spot. A meter from the central trunk, the “leaf” lifted off the ground. Minnie bounced, gently at first, then tried to actually break the thing. It wasn’t going to happen.

  One of the next pads sat at shoulder height, overlapping the first. She dug her fingers into the mossy teal matter, planted a boot against the rubbery trunk, and carefully pulled herself up. Fortunately, the distance between pads decreased as she climbed.

  Minnie hadn’t given up on comms after all this time, but would others? Would Aether? It depended upon environment and survival concerns.

  Anyone landing in an arctic region would probably remain focused on the bare necessities of living. But anyone making it to Threck Country, a land full of wild fruits and fungus—plenty that were low on arsenic, though Minnie couldn’t speak to the taste—plus rivers and coastline loaded with healthy, presumably edible vertebrates, and no significant predators. A person landing there could afford to split their attention.

  Finally perched atop Epsy’s equivalent of a redwood—the towering, lichen/fungi that Angela named epsequoias—Minnie slowly scanned the landscape. The closest Hynka roamed more than 5K south of her, which was about 7.5K from the EV landing site. There were three of them on the move even farther south. In search of other life forms, she surveyed the area with various optics, spotting only scattered rodentia until something paralyzed both her mind and body. A monstrosity so ghastly that any thought of Hynka evaporated to nothingness: the Giant Flying Spider Monster.

  It had been a big laugh on the station. Those with a healthy distaste for arachnids cringed and squealed when Tom Group-M’d the sped-up loopvid to everyone. One of his dragonflies had caught the thing on camera on an island the team called Badagascar, but which was officially tagged LI 52S-232.

  The autonomous dragonfly had clamped itself to a vine about a meter off the ground and aimed its sensors toward a cave. A short time later, a bristly creature emerged from the darkness, skittering on ten long, multi-jointed legs. Its body alone was the size of a beanbag chair, with a single shiny eye as big as a human head. And it moved with unnerving speed, even without the loopvid’s playback doubled. But the worst part, the part of the vid that inspired more than one crew member to shriek, laugh, and attempt to flee their own skin, was what happened next.

  The hellspawn folded four front legs, leaning forward so its cycloptic head almost touched the ground, extended two pairs of hind appendages, and began excreting a viscous yellow-green fluid, like snot, from some glands in its backside. Saturating its rear legs with the substance, the goop kept coming, and soon after, the thing began inhaling through a wide-open mouth where one would expect a neck, shooting the air out its backside, and inflating the thick fluid like a soap bubble. After a couple minutes, the bubble had grown to twice the creature’s size and the light breeze lifted the horrific thing off the ground and out of sight.

  There were GM’d replies of Noooooo! and Welp, nothing left to do but burn down the planet. And, of course, Ish—the self-appointed champion of all that nature had to offer—later blasted the group with a thousand-plus-word finger-wagging on why they’d all come in the first place, asking how they can rate by appearance one species’ right to exist over another’s, that everyone should be ashamed of themselves, blah blah blah, blah blah. She’d pretty much sucked the fun from the moment, and John had to send out an oh-so-serious brief on respecting each other and the research subjects.

  Now, from her supposedly safe position, no more than 6m away, a dangling spider monster drifted slowly by, hanging from its bubble, wide-open mouth sucking air as it passed. Minnie froze in place, turning her head with it, unblinking eyes tracking the thing until it disappeared into a stand of mushpalms.

  Several years had passed since the original discovery, back when they were finding hundreds of new species a day, and the Giant Flying Spider Monster was known to be a harmless consumer of root worms. Despite this fact, and a mind that strove for logic over emotion, seeing one in person had Minnie’s neck hairs standing on end.

  After she was certain it was gone, and after verifying it was not the point-monster for an entire air force of unholy miscreations, she reminisced and enjoyed a smile. Briefly.

  Oh, Ish, did you strand us all on purpose?

  From her lofty vantage point, Minnie studied a recommended course through the forest. A thick red line marked the path, tapering thinner all the way to the EV’s previous resting spot. The app flashed warnings in areas where topo was either unknown or known to be hazardous, and she adjusted accordingly until satisfied with the route.

  On to mapping a backup option.

  JOHN: How’s it going out there?

  MINNIE: Good morning! I didn’t want to wake you. Want to see where I am?

  JOHN: I
see where you are in the mapping app. Congrats on making it up the rope.

  MINNIE: Yeah, thanks! But I meant optics.

  JOHN: Oh, yes please!

  Minnie shared her optics with him and, beginning with a distant shot of the sinkhole entrance behind her, she slowly panned across the scene. He’d yet to see it all in daylight.

  JOHN: So far away. Beautiful. Hynka?

  MINNIE: None close to the EV site, though I can’t seem to pick up the EV itself. Worried they might have taken it somewhere.

  JOHN: The beacon?

  MINNIE: If you recall, the beacon hasn’t been up for over a week. Either too far or they destroyed it.

  JOHN: Right. Sorry. Forgot. Well, carry on. Don’t let me distract you. Be careful.

  MINNIE: Yup. I’ll leave optics up for you as long as you don’t backseat hike.

  John replied with a sealed lips emoji and Minnie began climbing down the flat “branches.” She mused that a skydiver with a parachute malfunction would need only target an epsequoia on the ground. Slamming into 100 layers of thick, squishy pads would probably slow them to a safe stop, while breaking off half the pads on the way down.

  JOHN: What do those feel like?

  MINNIE: Ever walk in arctic moss?

  He replied with a smiley face and resumed his silence.

  Sometimes conversing with him hurt. Since his injuries, John had become this pleasant, agreeable stranger. It was as though he knew he was dying and saw life through cheerful new eyes. Pain meds may have had something to do with it, but regardless, there was little evidence of the man she’d often despised, and so she frequently found herself assailed with guilt. Perhaps this was who he’d always been. Maybe she’d been such a jealous, egotistical, competitive jerk that she’d never seen the real him.

  She reached the ground, unholstered her multiweapon, and activated route guidance. The transparent red line appeared before her, overlaying the terrain. Just ahead, the planned path led around a large boulder, continuing beyond the obstruction as a dashed line. Minnie cracked her visor open to allow in outside air and she broke into a jog.