I don’t hear myself scream. But I do see all the colour in the world drain away. Everything goes grey, the pain so sharp that I almost pass out.
Somehow I stay awake, looking down at the piece of metal. It’s long and thin, no more than half an inch wide. It was embedded lengthwise in my thigh, the wound a shallow cut. My fingers stray to my skin–there’s blood, but nothing like the amount an artery would pump out. I hang my head, sucking in deep breaths through my nose.
The wound still hurts like hell, but it’s a manageable pain. I rip a length out of the bottom of my shirt, binding the wound tight. That makes everything go grey again, but only for an instant. You can deal with this. You have to.
That’s when I hear it.
At first, I mistake it for the noise of the fire. But that faded long ago. This is different: a distant rushing sound, so quiet that I think I’ve imagined it at first. But then I get a fix on it.
That’s water. There’s water near here.
Syria is awake again, groaning. I crouch down, resisting the temptation to put a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey,” I say. “Can you hear me?”
His voice, when it comes, sounds as blistered as the skin on his back. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know. But I’m going to get you some water, OK? I think there’s some of it close by.”
“Hurts,” he says. “Hurts bad.”
“I know. Just… hang in there. I’ll be back as fast as I can.”
I walk a few steps, picking my way up the edge of the depression, and stop.
How am I going to find my way back here? It’s all very well heading for the water, but I don’t know how far away it is. I could get lost on the return journey–there are no landmarks here, nothing but rocks and dirt. Syria would…
Syria. That’s it.
I turn back, kneeling next to him. Then I snag the undamaged part of his jacket, working it loose as carefully as I can. It would be better to use my own clothing, but the bright red cloth will be easier to see in the fading light–and since I used a strip of my shirt to bind my thigh wound, I might not have enough.
I’m a little worried about hurting him, but the piece comes away easily. I start tearing it into strips. They don’t need to be that big, and soon I have a dozen or so in my hands.
“Just hang in there,” I say again. It’s all I can think of.
I climb over the top of the depression, clambering over the rocks. One of the plants is there, its branches trembling in the frigid wind. I take a strip of fabric, and tie it on. It’s caught by the wind, a bright red flag, easy to pick out even in the gathering dusk.
There are other plants dotted here and there. I make my way down the slope, skidding every so often as I lose my footing on the rocks. Just when I’m about to lose sight of the first strip I take another and tie it onto a second plant.
I don’t know what’ll happen if I run out of strips before I reach the water.
But the sound is louder now, somewhere ahead and to the left. My legs are shaky and uneven, and I’m conscious of how hungry I am. Cold, too, with every breath showing itself in a puff of white vapour at my lips.
My dad’s ship crashed in eastern Russia. I don’t how close that is to where we are right now. He spent seven years trying to stay alive, desperately trying to get back to us. I had to destroy his ship to save the station, and, in the few minutes I had to talk to him, he told me about where they landed. Kamchatka, it was called. Cold, barren, hostile to life, the air a toxic soup, the environment battered by deadly dust storms. The craziness of this entire situation crowds in on me again–how am I able to walk around out here, without freezing solid or suffocating? How am I even here?
I take a deep breath, pushing back the panicky thoughts. I don’t know where I am, or what I’m dealing with. I can only focus on what’s in front of me.
The slope steepens slightly. I have to place my steps carefully, stopping every so often to tie a strip of fabric to a branch.
Soon I’m down to three pieces of the fabric. A few more steps. The slope is getting even steeper now. Two strips.
I stop, listening hard. I’ve been heading towards the water for the longest time, but now I can’t place the source of the sound. It’s coming from everywhere, as if the boulders themselves are picking up on it, twisting its direction.
I look back. The third-to-last strip of fabric is just visible, flickering in the dusk.
I head to my right, where I think the water is. But the sound doesn’t change. If anything, it gets even harder to figure out its location.
With a shaky breath, I tie the last strip of fabric onto a plant. I can go a short distance from here, but not too far. If I get lost, I’m finished.
A few more steps. A few more. The sound is really loud now. I have to be close. But where is it?
Come on.
And then I step through a gap in two boulders, and see the stream.
It’s barely worth the name. It’s a trickle of water, a foot wide, narrowing to inches in places. The noise is coming from a waterfall, maybe five feet high, spattering onto the rocks from a hollow in the slope. The rocky surroundings amplified it, made the noise sound as if it was a gushing torrent.
I stare at it, feeling absurdly cheated. And yet, as I do so, the oddest thought occurs. It’s still more water than I’ve ever seen in one place.
Thirst claws its way up my throat. I scramble across the rocks, dropping to my knees at the edge of the water, ignoring the pain in my thigh. The water is so cold it stings my lips. It isn’t like the water on Outer Earth–it’s sweeter, somehow. More full. I almost laugh when I realise that, for the first time, I’m drinking water without a single chemical in it.
None that you can taste, anyway.
The thought makes me lift my mouth from the water, but only for a second. I have to use the water–and not just for my thirst. I need to clean the wound in my thigh. I debate leaving it, but decide that it’s more important to flush out the dirt from the wound than worry about chemicals that might not even exist.
I unbind my wound, wincing as I splash ice-cold water on it. The cut itself looks deep, despite the tiny size of the fragment that hit me. I have no idea if the water will help keep infection away, but it’s all I’ve got.
I pat it dry and bind it up again, then sit back. Syria’s still out there. I have to get this water back before it gets too dark to see.
But how? I don’t have a canteen, like I would on Outer Earth. I’d give anything for my tracer pack right now, with its water compartment.
Inspiration hits. Working quickly, I strip off my jacket and the shirt beneath it. The cold is harsh enough to make me gasp. I put the jacket back on, zipping it up all the way. It’s not nearly as warm as it was before, but it’ll have to do.
I make my way back to one of the plants. Their leaves are small and waxy, sickly green in colour, but it looks like there are enough of them. I strip them off the bush, grazing my hands in the process. My fingers, I notice, are getting slightly numb at the tips. Not good.
I head back to the stream, carrying my bundle of leaves. The shirt itself is long-sleeved, made of stretchy nylon. I turn it upside down, and tie the sleeves tightly around the front below the neck, as if the shirt is wrapping its arms around itself. I stuff the inside of the shirt with the waxy leaves, pushing them down, trying to cover as much space as I can. There. A vessel, with the shirt’s hem as the lip.
But will it hold water?
Only one way to find out. I crouch by the pool again, and drag the shirt through the water, open end first. A bunch of leaves float out, and when I lift the shirt up water cascades through.
I force myself to stay calm, retrieving the leaves, packing the shirt again. When I lift the container out of the pool, my hands all but frozen, there’s nothing but a few steady drips leaking out of the bottom.
I breathe a shaky sigh of relief. OK. Now I just have to get it back to Syria. It’s grown even darker while I’ve been working, and for a second I forget my rule about not looking up. The sky is turning black, with a thin band of grey on the horizon as the day fades away. Then my vision goes wonky, like it did before, and I have to look down.
It’s hard to carry the water. The vessel is heavy, and I have to hold the fabric on the shirt hem tight in both hands. The fabric of my jacket is waterproof, near enough, but the shirt is still soaked through, and before long the top of my pants is dripping wet.
I can barely see the ground. The slope is steeper than I remember, and my legs are already aching. I have to concentrate hard to spot my tags. The water swings back and forth in my hands, pattering on the dirt. Apart from the slowly fading sound of the waterfall, it’s the only sound.
My thoughts turn back to Prakesh, to Carver. Are they safe? Did they land close to us? I have a sudden image of them being drawn to the stream, looking for water, just like I did. I half turn, but the thought of abandoning Syria is horrifying. I stride forward again, furious with myself. I can’t leave him. I won’t.
That’s when I realise I can’t see the next tag.
I swing round, looking for the last one I passed. There. Just visible in the fading light, wrapped around one of the thin plants. That means the next one should be visible from here.
But it isn’t.
I backtrack. Panic is sparking in my chest, tightening around my lungs, but I push it away. I look left, then right, then turn a slow circle.
Nothing. I can’t see it. Did it come loose? Did the wind take it? I look downhill, but I may as well be staring into a black hole. There are nothing but shadows down there.
All I have to do is head uphill.
I keep walking, still looking for the tag, checking back over my shoulder for the previous one. And just at the point where I can’t spot it any more, the slope changes. It’s as if I’ve walked over the crest of a small hill, because the ground drops downwards again. I didn’t see that on my way to the stream.
I keep going–and walk right into a wall of soil. Part of the slope is exposed, with roots poking through it, scratching my face.
“Syria!” I shout. My voice echoes into the distance.