Hellhole (47 page)

Every three days, Vincent Jenet signed out the camp’s Trakmaster and scouted the area around Slickwater Springs in ever-widening circles, working on his original survey. Alone in the control cab, he rolled the armored vehicle out of the valley, up and over the line of low hills where the General’s guards had shot the native herd beast. On his numerous scouting trips, however, he had not seen another one of the elk-like creatures.

Now, off in the distance, he saw a thin cyclone stirring up dust and sucking it into the sky as it danced drunkenly across a bleak and sterile landscape. The whirlwind dissipated as he watched.

Vincent missed the days of traveling with Fernando. Though he was generally a quiet person and a loner, he had liked the other man’s easy company, a non-judgmental friendship. He was not prone to taking risks, and Fernando was reckless by comparison, but during their time together his friend had pushed him out of his comfort zone, making Vincent strive harder instead of just letting events push him around. Now their paths had greatly diverged.

Still, Vincent wanted to complete the job he and Fernando had started when they set out to map this grid square. They had rushed back to Michella Town after the slickwater discovery, and Vincent hated to leave a task unfinished.

The Trakmaster topped a low rise, and he looked down upon a burst of lush color – a shallow bowl filled with writhing scarlet vegetation of a shade so intense it hurt the eyes. He had never seen such verdant foliage in the wilderness on Hellhole.

Fascinated, he drove to the edge of the alien weed forest. The strange vegetation rose and drooped in long fleshy stalks, wagging like tongues in the air. Nothing like this had ever been documented, as far as Vincent knew, and he made careful notations and took images. The foliage was beautiful, majestic, and very eerie. He didn’t want to get too close.

Knowing it was his duty as an explorer to inspect his discovery firsthand, Vincent donned a long-sleeved shirt, hat, breathing mask, gloves. No telling what sort of pollens or fumes that weed might give off.

He opened the cab’s hatch and emerged into air filled with a moist rustling sound as the red fronds rippled and stirred. The plants rose taller than his head, fronds unfurling. He realized that the crackling, creaking sound was from the rapid growth of the alien plants. Large bulbous buds turned their tips to the sky and spread open to release bushels of feathery spores that flapped away like insects. The flying pollen seized up and died within seconds, dropping onto unclaimed patches of ground.

General Adolphus could dispatch a team of xenobotanists to take samples. Although not edible, native plants could provide building materials, polymers, industrial chemicals, even pharmaceuticals. Considering their furious growth rate, these plants could truly be a boon.

Gingerly, he touched one of the fronds with a gloved hand. He jerked back when the plant recoiled. By now he had learned not to underestimate anything that Hellhole might throw at him. Such explosive, intimidating growth was . . . disturbing. He decided to head back to Slickwater Springs and let Sophie Vence know about this strange forest. Maybe Fernando-Zairic could draw from his alien memories and explain it to him . . .

From inside the Trakmaster’s cab, a weathersat alarm chimed, and Vincent climbed inside to see the urgent meteorological alert. A large static storm was sweeping toward him.

Grinding the gears on the Trakmaster as he raced overland, Vincent watched the growler roll in, his pulse pounding. He monitored the storm’s progress on his way back to Slickwater Springs and was astonished when the weather system altered its course unexpectedly.

Vincent was perhaps an hour ahead of it now. He would have to help the settlement prepare. At Slickwater Springs, Sophie Vence had her own monitoring stations, and she knew how capricious Hellhole’s weather could be, so Vincent wasn’t surprised when he rolled back into camp to find a lockdown already under way. Sophie, Devon, and Antonia herded all the visitors out of their tents and cabins into underground storm shelters. The population of Slickwater Springs had grown dramatically since the small bunkers were dug, and the protective vaults were going to be crowded. People would have to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and hope the onslaught didn’t last long.

When she saw the Trakmaster drive up, Sophie looked relieved, waving both hands. “Vincent, open the hatch! It’s the best protection we can give right now. You can fit twenty-five people in there!”

The vehicle was designed to hold eight, perhaps twelve. “Twenty-five?”

“They’d rather be crowded than corpses. Go, everybody – move!”

Vincent opened the side doors. “There’s plenty of room,” he lied. “Come on – inside!” People ran toward him carrying bundles of whatever valuables they had brought to Hellhole, but he shook his head. “Leave it – there’s no room for your possessions, only people!”

A red-faced man blinked at him, not comprehending. “But it’s all I have left. I can’t—”

Other people streamed around him, dropping their own bundles on the ground and trying to secure a place in the sheltered vehicle. They pushed the red-faced man into the cargo area.

The sky had turned spoiled-green and bruised like a miasma spreading over the line of hills that enclosed the slickwater valley. Angry flashes of lightning whipped across the hilltops. Vincent saw Fernando and nearly forty shadow-Xayans sitting at the far end of the northernmost pool, where they had made their camp. The converts hadn’t made any move to evacuate, entirely unconcerned.

Vincent’s heart lurched. He couldn’t let Fernando and all these people simply ignore the threat. He ran toward them, shouting into the rising wind. “You can’t stay here! Get to shelter!” The crackling sound grew louder in the air. Even if he got Fernando to move all of his followers, there might not be room for them in the storm shelters or the Trakmaster.

Fernando just gazed up at him with a bright smile. “Look at this, Vincent! We can finally show you some of the things I’ve been describing.”

The shadow-Xayans sat on the ground, each one holding a handful of sand. Displaying their telepathic abilities, they manipulated the dust and powder to create tiny exotic sculptures – intricate models of ancient Xayan cities.

At any other time, Vincent would have found it beautiful, but now he was frantic. As Fernando extended his cupped hands, Vincent swatted away the delicately balanced sand. “Fernando,
listen
to me! It’s a static storm – you
know
what that is! There’s no shelter out here. Tell your people to follow me. There’s not much time.” He added a pleading tone to his voice to cover the exasperation. “You can show me everything about the Xayan cities later. You can make all the sculptures you want. Just do this for me now, please!”

Fernando’s face had the smooth mannequin appearance of Zairic. With his eerie eyes, he regarded the oncoming growler as if he had not noticed it before. “I understand your fear, but a storm is nothing to worry about. There are dozens of us now, and many are telemancers.”

Sophie was yelling for him, “Vincent, you can’t save people who don’t want to be saved. Get to shelter yourself!”

But there was something in Fernando’s confidence that tempted Vincent to place his own safety there, though it made no logical sense. “Wait just a minute!”

Fernando-Zairic stood up, and the shadow-Xayans followed suit, opening their fingers to let the sand fall back to the ground. They stood side by side, turned their faces toward the oncoming storm, and closed their eyes. Vincent sensed an altogether different crackle in the air – benevolent and protective.

Sophie called several more times as the storm grew louder. Static lightning crackled all around the slickwater pools now. She made a disgusted and sad sound. “I can only leave it unlocked for a few more minutes.” She ducked down into the storm shelter and pulled the door closed over her head. The Trakmaster, crammed full of frantic people, sealed shut as they gave up on him.

Fernando’s demeanor was utterly convincing. In unison, the shadow-Xayans smiled, let out a sigh . . . and the growler passed overhead.

In the small valley, the storm lifted as if it had struck a glass dome, and slid higher into the air. Static lightning spread out in a diffuse pattern, no longer touching the ground. Vincent peered upwards in awe, seeing the underbelly of the growler as the churning brown clouds rumbled above them.

The shadow-Xayans had used their power to deflect the catastrophe from Slickwater Springs and the alien pools. When it passed over the valley and tumbled away beyond the far line of hills, it unleashed its outburst with renewed fury, as if frustrated.

The shadow-Xayans relaxed. A grinning Fernando rushed over to embrace Vincent, bubbling with excitement. “Did you see that? I told you we could take care of it.”

Vincent’s knees shook. “A little forewarning would have been nice.”

“That would have spoiled the surprise.” Fernando squatted down and scooped up some dust in his hands once more. “Now, let us show you our sand-sculptures again.”

Though he still understood little of Zairic’s alien, sermon-like recollections, Vincent sat with his friend every evening as he addressed his gathered converts. The ever-growing group of shadow-Xayans remained at the slickwater pools, where they sat around sharing recalled experiences. Although the converts always welcomed Vincent, he felt increasingly separated from them as the weeks passed. They did not mean to slight him, but he didn’t share their set of second-hand experiences.

Though Fernando had not asked again, Vincent continued to feel the subtle pressure to accept a reawakened Xayan memory of his own. But the more he observed their fraternity and listened to their exotic reminiscences, the more reluctant he was to join them.

Vincent realized that it might be time for him to find some other job, ask Sophie or the General to reassign him.

As the shadow-Xayans gathered under the dark, open skies at the fringe of the settlement lights, Fernando-Zairic sat crosslegged and awkwardly bent over, as if he expected his body and bones to be more flexible than they actually were. Looking up with faintly opalescent eyes, Zairic watched the frequent sprays of shooting stars across the starry sky – bright orange bolides caused by disintegrating debris hitting the atmosphere.

“Our race was so close to achieving
ala’ru
before the asteroid came – within one generation of reaching the . . . quorum, the critical mass, necessary to transform our entire race and fundamentally change the universe.” He spread his hands. “Now, we must try again . . . if we find enough people to join us.”

Many of the shadow-Xayans flexed their fingers and arms as if fascinated by the rigid structure of their human bodies. “But we’re so far from the critical point,” one pointed out.

“Far . . . but not hopelessly distant,” Zairic replied. “You can feel it yourselves. Combined with human minds, we are much stronger. Hybrid vigor. Fewer of us will be required to initiate the evolutionary shift. Recall your other lives. You all trusted me when you surrendered your bodies and minds to the slickwater. With the asteroid coming, we knew what we had to do.”

The shadow-Xayans nodded, muttering amongst themselves. Some wept with remembered fear.

Fernando-Zairic turned toward Vincent. “It was a horrific time for us, my friend. Once we realized that even our telemancers could not prevent the annihilation, slickwater was our only hope of preserving who we were. We entered the pools, one after another, by the hundreds, then thousands, then millions, all across the planet. We dissolved ourselves into the storage liquid, hoping that some spark of our
selves
would survive the celestial bombardment.”

Vincent tried to picture so many Xayans simply dissolving to store their lives in the liquid-crystal medium. But was the memory record actually
them
, or merely a copy of who they once were? What about their souls? It was a question he wasn’t sure how to ask.

Zairic’s voice built in power as he addressed the converts. “I promised you that we could survive, and we have survived. Now trust me again. We will awaken, and we
will
achieve
ala’ru
.”