Viking (16 page)

Rafa shuddered.

The first thing to do was to inventory his assets and make some plans before
daylight was gone. He clambered awkwardly up the warm west face of the boulder,
squatted cross-legged at the top, and began emptying the pockets and pouches in his
biosuit onto the rose-tinged granite. They’d cataloged a suit once during training back
on Earth, but it had been a cursory scan with little explanation or comment, and he
didn’t remember much—so he was surprised and somewhat encouraged at what his rummagings
discovered.

There was a palm-sized pliers-like compound tool that folded out into a dozen
combinations of blade, gripper and probe, a small first aid kit, a package of water
purification tablets, and a large survival knife in a thigh sheath. He also found a
lighter, a palm-sized flashlight, a coil of thin cord, a compass, a collapsible ceramic
cup, a signaling mirror, an empty water bag, and a styrocele survival blanket.

Inside the first aid kit, which was sealed in zippered mylar, was a small note
directing him to his online manual for survival instructions. Rafa read the words twice
before they meant anything. Then his brain finally clicked, and he remembered the
wealth of information at his fingertips.

He activated his wrist display and scanned its menus with renewed appreciation.
Besides complete advice for a variety of medical emergencies, he found a series of
satellite-generated maps, a weather forecast, and a flora/fauna database that had been
populated by a combination of orbital surveys, his own roving work with biologists, and
detailed DNA analysis by sequencers on Earth. It was hopelessly incomplete, of course,
but every scrap of knowledge might be useful.

Rafa pored carefully over the maps. The GPS pinpointed his location with a tiny red
dot. On his wrist he was a mere centimeter from the module—but in actual scale it was
over sixty kilometers by skimmer, and probably vastly more by foot. Topographical
details matched his recollection all too well; the way home included long stretches of
sun-drenched savannah, a river, and a line of steep, densely wooded foothills.

Thoughts of travel led to ideas of food and water. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast,
and his stomach churned restlessly. No help there; maybe later he’d see if the biology
database could tell him anything about edible plants. But he could at least relieve his
arid throat.

He slid awkwardly down to the grass and trudged to the stream with his water bag,
wondering about the purification tablets. No doubt he’d be ingesting a generous dosage
of alien microbes—if the tablets only worked against terrestrial parasites he shuddered
to imagine the consequences. However, he had little choice; he could hardly spend long
days hiking through sun-baked terrain without water.

Kneeling carefully, Rafa clenched teeth against the pain in his broken arm and
plunged the container into the burbling water, holding its mouth open with his good
hand. He continued to scan the horizon carefully, alert for anything dangerous-looking
or human, but seeing nothing new. The current was surprisingly cold and rapid, and the
flaccid bag soon swelled full. He dropped in two purification tablets, zipped it shut,
then clipped it, still dripping, to a ring on his belt. The instructions said to wait
fifteen minutes.

Again his broken arm throbbed. He immersed it in the brook and sighed audibly. With
the other hand he dug through the first aid kit until he found some oral pain reliever,
then gulped two of the orange capsules. Without moisture they stuck stubbornly in the
throat, and he had to swallow half a dozen times before they went down.

That task accomplished, Rafa resealed various pouches on his suit and flexed aching
muscles, careful to keep the soaking arm in the current. He felt completely weary and
depressed, and he dreaded the descending darkness.

As the bruised muscles and bone soaked, he noted a growth of small bushes leaning
out from the bank downstream and gazed at them speculatively. Too green to be useful
for a fire—but maybe he could make a splint with some branches. Rafa drew his survival
knife and walked toward the near edge of the thicket.

He nearly stepped on the body. His foot swerved at the last minute, avoiding the
crushed skull by centimeters and sending him stumbling and splashing into the slippery
shallows of the brook. After a moment he regained his balance and squelched unsteadily
out of the ankle-deep water, his jaw locked against rising nausea. A herd of ten-ton
herbivores had left little that was recognizable. But it was the tattooed kid—had once
been, anyway.

He looked away, but it was too late. He vomited violently, over and over again,
until there was nothing left.

Finally Rafa wiped his mouth with the back of a hand and stared at the spattered
rocks between his boots, trembling as he strove to erase the picture of a crushed and
mangled corpse from his mind. The image wouldn’t go, and after a minute he angled
toward the bushes again, deliberately staring straight ahead. He suppressed a guilty
twinge about leaving the body unburied, especially after his indignant comments to
Edvardsen a few days earlier. He’d psych himself up for the job tomorrow, before he
left for good. Now was not the time.

The thicket proved even denser than it had appeared at first glance, and Rafa
immediately discarded his vague intention to return to the rock for the night. The
tangled branches and finger-length thorns might be terribly uncomfortable, but they
offered some protection against enemies in the dark.

He battled several meters into the underbrush, slashing judiciously with his knife.
Once he flushed a rabbit-sized ball of fur that disappeared like lightning and left his
heart in his throat. Another time he felt something slither past his ankle and froze
for nearly a minute.

The tough material of his biosuit snagged on thorns but did not puncture, and Rafa
was grateful for his gloves. He was sweating heavily by the time he stopped, ensconced
in a small opening he had carved in the bramble. He checked his watch. Still five
minutes before he could drink anything.

Then he heard a shout. Someone was calling, faintly, from the other side of the
brook. It sounded like they were quite a distance upstream as well, and Rafa couldn’t
make out the words.

 Instantly he was struggling back out of his hiding place, yelling at the top
of his lungs. He thrashed wildly, heedless of scratching thorns and sharp twigs that
left welts on his face and neck. All he could think about was the relief of other
human company.

In a few moments he was crashing free, then staggering into an all-out run along the
bank of the stream. He skirted the kid’s body by dead reckoning alone—lingering dusk
was fading—and continued to shout hoarsely.

Now there were answering calls, rapidly approaching. From long habit he disciplined
his breathing, synchronizing the whistling gusts with alternate pounding footfalls,
deliberately pumping his good arm to maximize each stride. The shapes on the grassland
were hazy and indistinct, difficult to make out against the slightly lighter sky where
a sprinkling of stars had appeared.

Abruptly the sound of splashing reached Rafa’s ears. It emanated from a shadowy
region where the banks of the stream obscured his vision, and his mind flooded with
unreasoning fear. Was this all a trap baited by some cunning alien predator that could
trigger hallucinations, a siren’s snare about to be sprung? He skidded to a stop and
gulped air quietly, every sense alert for danger, belatedly aware of the target he made
for any interested carnivore.

A moment later the black silhouettes of his fears resolved into two human beings,
wading eagerly out of the knee-deep current. Abbott and Chen. They looked bedraggled
but relatively uninjured.

As proximity resolved faces, a sudden silence fell, punctuated only by heavy
breathing. Rafa watched the optimism melt from Chen’s lined features, flicker out of
Abbott’s eyes as they faltered to a stop in the muddy grass. He wondered if the death
of hope showed as plainly on his own face. Clearly they were all anticipating a rescue
party, safety, and transportation to the utopic prospect of the explorer module.

The bitterness was too intense for words, so they just stood there, panting, until
Abbott at last broke the silence.

“Well, Orosco, they say misery loves company.”

Rafa snorted, the ghost of a humorless smile playing grimly on his lips. “It’s just
the two of you, then?”

Chen nodded. “We made it to some trees ahead of the stampede. Couldn’t do much but
wait it out.”

“You see anybody else?”

“The skimmer flew by before it was safe to climb down. It was pretty low. Must have
been searching. It didn’t notice us.”

“Some search! I was stretched out in the open and they didn’t find me either.”

Abbott nodded morosely. “The dust was terrible. For a while I could hardly
breathe.”

Chen stared dully at the ground. “They gave up awfully quick. Think they’ll be
back?”

There was a long silence. Finally Rafa shook his head. “They’d still be around if
they were all that interested in finding us.”

Abbott put his hands in his pockets. “We couldn’t see the skimmer very well, but I
think it headed for home after our flyby. We were actually going that direction,
following them, when we heard you shout. That was you, wasn’t it?”

“Guess it was.”

“We backtracked quite a ways to get here. We thought maybe they’d left someone
behind in case anybody showed up.”

“What I don’t understand is why they’re not getting our signal from the implants. It
should be a piece of cake to home in on us.”

“Maybe something was damaged. They were parked awfully close to the herd when it all
started.”

“Maybe.”

“Or maybe the skimmer doesn’t carry any homing equipment and they went back to get
it.”

“That could be.” It was the first explanation that gave Rafa any spark of hope.

“If something on the skimmer broke, would they be able to fix it back at base?”

“Depends. There’s a bunch of replacement broadcasting equipment and some basic
electrical supplies. But I don’t think they planned on anybody rebuilding
microcircuits. Everything’s supposed to be disposable and redundant.”

“Including us.”

“Including us. Exactly.”

“So do we wait around here to be rescued?”

“Wouldn’t hurt to give them till morning. I don’t think it’s a good idea to be
traveling at night anyway.”

“Maybe there’s others wandering around, too. Montaño was away from the skimmer. So
was Compton.”

“Montaño’s the kid with the lollipop, right? He didn’t make it. I found him a few
minutes ago.”

Abbott grunted. “Earthside wanted him to get samples of some stupid flower that was
growing right next to the herd. What a waste!”

Chen sank wearily to the trampled grass. “I think we’re probably it. Compton was on
the far side, away from the direction the hexapods ran. Everybody else was close enough
to get airborne in time.”

Rafa unclipped his water bag. “Want some?”

Chen guzzled gratefully, then passed the container to Abbott. There was a loud
gurgle while his dark Adam’s apple bobbed up and down and moisture spilled along
his throat. When he was finished Rafa gulped the last few swallows and walked back to
the stream for a refill.

“That come out of the stream?” Abbott’s tone was carefully casual.

“Yeah. I used some purification tablets. Hope they work.”

Abbott forced a grin. “Me too.”

Chen was idly scattering pebbles into the weeds. “So where do we spend the night?
I’m not too excited about being out in the open.”

Rafa shifted position to re-immerse his aching arm as the container filled. “I found
a good spot,” he said. “Downstream a ways. Really nasty thicket. It’s definitely not
comfortable, but nothing’s going to come in after us.”

“What’s the matter?” Chen asked, suddenly noticing the way Rafa was bathing his arm
in the stream.

“Think it’s broken,” Rafa said.

“Let me take a look.”

“Wait till we get under cover. I don’t want to be out in the open in the dark any
longer than I have to.”

Abbott yawned mightily and rubbed his eyes. “Let’s go. I’ve got dibs on the
presidential suite,” he said. “And I’ll kill anyone who wakes me up. I plan to sleep in
tomorrow.”

* * *

A gray haze hung in the air when Rafa abandoned his attempt at sleep and opened
leaden eyes. Breezes were riffling the leaves a few meters overhead. It smelled cool
and slightly damp, though there was no question that it would be hot in the full light
of day.

He unclipped the water pouch and took a swig of the tepid liquid, hoping to wash the
pastiness from his mouth. Last night he’d been too thirsty to notice, but now the grit
and moldy aftertaste were strong on his tongue.

He forced himself to swallow.

The sounds of his stirring apparently disturbed the bugs or frogs or whatever they
were that had provided background music throughout the night. They fell silent, leaving
only the murmuring of the brook and the faint resonance of Abbott’s snoring to break
the stillness.

Since no bathroom was available, he unbent into a stiff crouch and began to crawl
out of the thicket, cautiously favoring his newly-splinted forearm. Chen sat up and
looked around with bleary eyes.

“Where are you going?” Her hoarse voice sounded nervous.

“Out to water the weeds.”

Chen blinked and yawned as she became more awake.

“I left you a drink there. Tastes terrible.”

There was gurgling, then Chen’s voice sounding slightly more alert.
“Like a cross between a duck pond and dishwater. Those purification tablets are
nasty.”

Rafa was busy pushing through the last few meters of bramble and tangled branches.
At last he reached grass and stood up, pressing his good arm into the small of his back
to ease the soreness.