Second generation, p.16
Second Generation, page 16
“Worth it,” he murmured.
“Hm?”
“Coming all this way. Worth it just for that.”
They took samples for Georgia and climbed back into the rover. Ursula drove a little way inland, searching for a narrower point to cross the river. It wasn’t deep and they could have forded it, but they didn’t want to risk getting stuck. They had to drive all the way to the tree line to find somewhere that looked suitable. It looked suitable. But halfway through, one wheel dropped into a hidden void and jammed there.
“Damn!” said Ursula. “Time to get out and push.”
They heaved from the back, but it wasn’t going anywhere. Then they tried lifting it from the front. Fortunately, their bionics helped, and the rover was light. An aluminium alloy with honeycomb reinforcement. Everything you packed on a spaceflight had to be as light as possible. The wheel sprung free, and Demetria almost fell over. They pushed it away from the hole then dragged it to the far side. There they sat down, tired already. Her headache was back. She realised that any serious exertion would bring it on as they burned through the thin oxygen and took in more carbon dioxide than normal. She also wanted to pee.
“I think that tea is catching up on me,” she said and walked a little way into the edge of the forest to find somewhere private.
She was just pressing the Velcro fasteners back in place when she noticed movement at the corner of her eye. She squirted some antiseptic gel onto her hands and peered through the pines. Something brown and furry dashed between a pair of trunks. She gasped and pushed her back against a tree. Another furry shape hopped into view and lingered, watching her nervously from one of its eyes. Demetria let her breath out with a giggle. Rabbits. How could she possibly be afraid of a rabbit?
“Demetria?” called her father, a little way off. “Are you okay?”
She turned, about to say she was fine. A thumbless hand slipped over her mouth and a stumped limb grabbed her waist, snatching her off her feet.
13
The Hunt
Regeneration 7 – Earth
The young woman presses her ear to the cold metal door and listens. At first she hears nothing but the familiar background clicks and groans of the bunker, and her own heart beating in her chest. She calms herself. Waits. She thinks she can hear the sound of someone sighing. Then a memory stirs from long ago, before the great disaster. Before the tsunamis and the storms of fire. It is the sound of the wind.
She struggles with the wheel lock, stiff with age and rust. She takes an iron bar and wedges it in the lock, pushing all her wasted body weight against it. It shifts a little. It complains and screeches, yet her desperation to escape overcomes its obstinacy and finally the lock turns. The door swings wide and the stale air from inside rushes out. A warm fresh wind blows back in. The young woman stands on her toes and breathes deeply. She smiles. She steps out into blinding light and clenches her fists against her raw eyes. As she stands she feels her face become spattered with moisture. Rain.
She opens her mouth. She doesn’t care if it might be acid rain, she just wants to taste the cool fresh water on her tongue. It has been so long.
Then she opens her eyes, slowly, allowing them time to adjust to the light. Everything has changed. Almost everything is gone. It takes a while to focus on the grey clouds. But there, way over on the bleak horizon is a splash of blue. A stray shaft of sunlight pierces the clouds and spreads a pool of brightness on the dark ground.
The young woman walks towards that pool of sunlight like a bee drawn to a bright flower. Searching for sunshine. Hunting for hope.
As she walks she feels warmer. She pulls her dirty overshirt off and discards it on the ground. The wind tugs at the lapel, lifting it so that a label can be read.
Alyona Petrovitch.
Aleutian Peninsula, Earth – Leo Meier
“Demetria? Demetria! Where the hell did she go?” exclaimed Leo pacing between the pines.
“She can’t be far off,” said Chen.
“Got her,” said Ursula, looking at her tablet display. “I can track her tablet, she’s heading east-north-east,” she added pointing the way.
“Why would she…” began Leo. He was interrupted by a distant shriek that echoed over the open comms channel then cut off abruptly.
He ran.
The others ran after him. Running in double gravity wearing bionic exoskeletons took practise. On Mars you needed a wholly different gait to stop yourself from launching into the air. On Earth you were constantly pushing yourself up, stopping yourself from falling flat on your face. Despite the training sessions on the Armstrong, Leo’s legs were burning within a hundred metres, but he gritted his teeth and pushed through. The bionics buzzed and whined as he drove them to their limit. Without them he’d already be crawling.
He ducked as low branches whipped his face. Some seemed torn away. His heart thumped, feeling as if it were up in his throat and he pushed harder, digging the balls of his feet into the soft layer of needles. His nostrils flared, full of the scent of pine.
“What’s happened?” called Georgia over the open channel.
Leo had no time to reply. No breath.
“Leo? Demetria? Tell me what’s happening,” she repeated, panic in her voice rising.
Demetria shouted over the same channel, “MUM! DA…” There was a crackle of static and her end went silent.
“Shit!” cursed Ursula just behind Leo, “Lost her.”
They kept running for another minute until Ursula slapped Leo on the shoulder, “Stop. Stop! This is where I lost contact. Look around, see if we can find her.”
Leo’s heart was still thumping hard. He leaned forward panting, hands on his knees. His attention was caught by a flash of reflection in the dappled light of the forest. He stumbled forward and reached for the shiny object. Demetria’s tablet. Smashed and buckled.
“Shit,” said Ursula, “That explains why we lost her signal.”
“We haven’t lost her yet,” said Chen. “See those broken twigs?”
Leo followed his finger. A pair of low twigs had been snapped off.
“We follow those,” Chen said.
Leo nodded and started off again. Jogging, not running. Searching for more cracked twigs or branches.
“Leo, please, tell us what’s happening,” pleaded Georgia.
“We’re looking… for Demetria,” gasped Leo. “We don’t understand… what’s happened… but we’re on her trail.”
He heard an agonised groan from Georgia and Phoebe making soothing sounds beside her.
“We’ll find her,” promised Ursula.
Chen was silent, focussed, searching for the next sign.
They jogged for what felt like a long time. Every few hundred metres they’d slow down and fan out, looking for the next clue, until one of them called and pointed them past a snapped frond. Eventually they reached another river. More of a stream that drained the forest floor. Leo tripped over and sprawled out across the bank. As he pulled himself up he saw half a dozen cut tree logs bound together with what looked like woven reeds. It had been covered by a pile of pine needles and loose branches.
“Looks like a raft,” said Chen.
“A raft…” echoed Leo stupidly, his mind still locked with panic over his daughter.
“Stef,” Ursula called on the channel to the Armstrong. “Demetria is missing. We just found logs bound together, could be a raft. Whatever it is it looks fabricated as Georgia likes to say. I doubt it was butterflies or rabbits. I think there are people here. They may have Demetria.”
“Wait there,” answered Stef. “I’ll get Feng to set up another rover and find you. We can’t afford to put you or any others in danger.”
“My daughter is missing,” said Leo.
“Which is why I’m standing you down from control of the landing party until we find her,” said Stef. “I nominate Feng to take temporary charge.”
“I understand, but I’m not going to stand around until Feng gets here,” argued Leo.
“Shh!” hissed Chen, “Look.”
He followed Chen’s gaze and through the parting in the trees made by the river, Leo could see a rise in the forest. Above the treeline, perhaps a kilometre uphill, a thin wisp of grey smoke meandered across the sky.
Aleutian Peninsula, Earth – Demetria Philippou
“Ow!” cried Demetria as she was hurled onto the floor of the treehouse. She rubbed her arm where it had been grazed by the rough log floor.
The man who had carried her for the last couple of kilometres barely seemed out of breath. He stood over her, glowering, thumbless hand on one hip while pointing at her with his stump. He said something in another language that seemed familiar. His body language said he wasn’t happy to find her. Neither were the other two who had been running beside him all the way. One was a man with a growth that covered the side of his face, completely closing his right eye. The other was a woman with huge scars down her neck and shoulders. Small growths gathered just below them, on her chest. It looked to Demetria as if someone, perhaps the woman herself, had conducted some crude and dangerous surgery to remove the growths closest to her neck and face. It was difficult to tell because their skins were heavily tanned and weather beaten, but they seemed to be in their early twenties. They wore a strange mix of worn out and fraying manufactured clothes under light cloaks that looked woven together from rushes and threaded with random pieces of plastic sheet. She saw glimpses of words printed on the plastic. Some in a foreign language, a few in English. One fragment on the thumbless man read ‘…ade in USA.’ Another fragment on the man with growths read ‘Walmart Special Offe…’
USA started talking at Demetria again, gesturing angrily. Walmart stood beside him; arms crossed, frowning through his one good eye. The woman shook her head and climbed back down the ladder they had used to get up to the treehouse. Demetria could hear voices below, then the sound of people climbing the ladder again. The woman re-emerged, followed by another, much older woman. Perhaps in her seventies, though she seemed fit and strong, with no sign of the conditions the younger ones bore. She looked shocked, staring hard at Demetria. Then she backhanded USA, a smart smack on the side of his face. He yelped. She ranted at him in that tantalisingly familiar language, then she turned back to Demetria and knelt.
“Ты кто? Откуда вы пришли?”
Demetria shook her head, “Sorry, I don’t understand.”
“Ah… wh-who you? W-where come you from?” stumbled the woman as if drawing out a language long submerged in her memory.
“Demetria. My name is Demetria. I come from Mars,” she pointed up at the sky. A daft gesture as Mars could have been straight down relative to her at that moment, but it seemed to help.
The older woman sat back heavily on the pine platform. Her eyes wide. “Боже мой! После всего этого времени. Я думал, что ублюдки забыли нас... Eh… my name Alyona. How find you us?”
Demetria guessed more had been said but decided not to ask. “Hi Alyona. Your friends found me,” she nodded at USA who had his arms crossed in defiance.
Alyona glared at the young men and woman, who started to look uncertain of themselves. “These useless комки grandchildren. Grigoriy,” she pointed to USA, “Ilya,” she pointed to Walmart then, “she Inessa.”
Demetria did her best to smile and nod to each in turn, while rubbing her sore arm. They nodded back, embarrassed now.
“They thought you рыбы-люди… fish-people,” said Alyona, shaking her head. “Fish-people with… бионика… machine legs,” she finished, waving at the exoskeleton fitted to Demetria’s limbs.
“Fish-people,” repeated Demetria, feeling like she’d missed a vital part of the conversation. “Who are the fish-people?”
The mood darkened. Walmart… no, Ilya, spat over the side of the platform. Inessa snarled and shook her head.
“Fish-people come в тишине ночи… in night. Steal food… steal baby.”
“What!” exclaimed Demetria.
“They… hunt us,” said Alyona.
“Why should they hunt you? Where do they come from?”
Alyona shook her head as if talking to a particularly slow child, then pointed north, “Sea. Because they fish-people.”
Suddenly all four of them started and looked over the edge of the tree house platform. There was a rustling from below. For a moment, Demetria wondered if they were under attack from the mysterious fish-people, then a more plausible explanation came to her. “My friends and family. They must be looking for me.”
Alyona peered sideways at Demetria then said something in her own tongue to the others. They nodded and disappeared noiselessly down the ladder. Demetria peered over the edge of the platform and called out, “DAD? CHEN? URSULA?”
“DEMETRIA, thank heavens!” exclaimed Leo stepping out from behind a pine. He baulked when he saw Grigoriy and the others.
“They’re okay,” called Demetria, “They made a mistake. I’m fine.”
Chen and Ursula appeared next, followed by Feng, Samaira and Georgia. Grigoriy and Ilya bristled. Inessa clenched her fists. Alyona called down to them, the palm of her hand down in a universal gesture of peace.
“Don’t frighten them,” called Demetria. “They think… they thought we might be fish-people, whatever they are.”
The Martians looked up with expressions that suggested she might be losing her mind. “Fish-people?” asked Georgia. “Seriously?”
Demetria shrugged, “Just… come and say hello.”
Georgia nodded.
Leo stepped forward with his hand out towards Grigoriy.
Grigoriy studied it, uncertain. Alyona said something then he extended his thumbless hand and shook Leo’s.
Ilya forced a smile and shook hands with Feng. Inessa offered her hand to Georgia who took it and smiled back.
Demetria climbed down the ladder, followed by Alyona, then ran to embrace her mum and dad. All three stood in a tight hug, reluctant to let go. Demetria caught sight of Chen hovering awkwardly a few steps away. She broke away to hug him too.
“This is Alyona,” Demetria pointed to the white-haired little woman. “And her grandchildren. Grigoriy, Ilya and Inessa,” she gestured to each in turn. As she did so, about thirty more people emerged from different directions, as if conjured from the forest like sprites. Some were children. Some seemed middle aged, and a very few were white-haired like Alyona. All looked as if they had lived most of their lives outdoors. Many had deformities and growths.
“Come,” beckoned Alyona. “We talk.”
They sat around a fire in a circle. Demetria had never seen a campfire before. She was mesmerised by the flames which danced and glowed orange to bright green to crimson, imagining all manner of fantastical shapes and creatures within. Logs crackled. Woodsmoke filled her nostrils making her pleasantly giddy. She pulled her eyes away from the flames to look at each of their hosts. They studied her and her companions with intense fascination. Another aroma competed with the smoke: roasted rabbit. Like all Martians, Demetria was vegan. It was a necessity, not a choice. There was no livestock on Mars, not even a rabbit. She lifted a piece that looked like a leg and sniffed it. She felt the eyes of her hosts on her, so she took an experimental nibble. It was rich. Overpowering for her. She forced a smile but almost gagged when she swallowed it. Would she have to get used to this?
Alyona took pity on Demetria and passed her a wooden bowl of something that looked like it might be seaweed soup. It turned out to be a lot tastier than she expected. Salty with a subtle tang.
The ring of unfamiliar people made her nervous, yet there was something deeply comforting about the way they sat together. A community of souls, united by the fire, with their backs to the terrifying world, yet watched over by the one who sat opposite. The elders took the role of story tellers.
These are the stories they told…
Like many of the survivors, Alyona had been among the ‘lucky’ few who survived by hiding in military or nuclear bunkers, deep underground. Not all bunkers had protected life. The seals had failed on some, others had fractured in earthquakes that preceded the tsunamis, so that when the walls of water arrived the bunkers filled and drowned all who sheltered within. But some survived. Enough to save humanity from total extinction.
Most around the fire were of Russian origin, while Russia had existed. They all came from the east of that vast continent, far away from the meteorite impact on Europe. Yet not far enough from the many nuclear power stations that had ruptured and leaked radioactive materials which poisoned the ground for many hundreds of kilometres around. Now Demetria understood why so many had been cruelly disfigured with mutations.
Another woman introduced herself as Judi. Her story was sad. At first she had thought herself lucky. She brushed a lock of pure white hair from her wrinkled cheek as she remembered how she was invited into a bunker in Alaska, in the last few hours before Goliath arrived. It didn’t take long to understand she was there for the amusement of the super rich, whose money had built and supplied the bunker. She was their toy. To while away the long, scary, boring, uncountable days underground. She had no idea of day or night. It was one unending hell, and she prayed that she might escape or die. Her chance came when her captors risked a look at the world outside. That was when she ran. They came after her of course, they hunted her for days. She could hear them calling her name. “Judi, Judi, come back and play.” Later the calls changed, “Judi, come back you ungrateful bitch or we’ll skin you alive.” When they finally caught up with her, she made them wish they hadn’t. She had smuggled two things out with her: her sanity and a knife. One helped keep the other.
