When did a nightmare end and mind-numbing terror begin? Where was the line? Nothing had prepared Vartan for the things he’d just survived. Nothing. Not even the Harrowing and Cleansing.
During those terrible days people had been ritually murdered, their bodies carefully cut into pieces, cooked, and reverently consumed. If it was truly the universe’s will, it made sense.
What he had just witnessed? Just survived?
Incomprehensible.
Vartan staggered back, away from the last of the trees and onto bedrock, making sure he kept his feet moving. That the thin roots here couldn’t take hold. Twisting, he turned the rifle to cover every approach; the fear-shakes finally took possession of his muscles.
Tried to swallow.
Couldn’t.
That slimy feeling down in his guts urged him to stop. To void his now-liquid bowels of their fear. Breath chattered in his panic-spasming lungs.
Nothing made sense.
Stop. Think. What happened?
Fifteen people had accompanied him down into the forest. Per orders, he’d broken them into three teams. Given each a direction to search. His team had consisted of Mars Hangdong, Hap Chi, Sima Moskva, Will Bet, and Tuac Sao. With Tikal’s teams, they had made the long climb down the south trail, the slow and awkward descent from the heights evidence of the poor physical condition they were in. They’d reached the bottom, exhausted. Were resting on a stone outcrop, away from the roots, when the airtruck had roared off overhead.
Vartan had seen a body fall from the side. Thought it was a female. Tried to make sense as to who would be thrown out of the vehicle so wantonly, let alone why the thing was in the air. Svetlana and Hakil were supposed to be guarding the vehicle.
Leaving that for later—once his party had caught their second wind—he had waved farewell as Tikal’s parties had spread out from the base of the trail.
For him and his team it had been magical; the journey north along the basalt had been a revelation: the sights, the realization of life in every direction, and most of all, the colors, smells, and sounds. After so many years locked in the prison of Deck Three, here, spinning all around them in a tapestry of blues, greens, cerulean, and yellows and reds, the forest was like a dream come true. Just inhale and pull the perfume into the lungs. Listen to the rising and falling chime.
Magic.
They’d laughed, leaped from stone to stone, marveled at the roots that squirmed under their feet. Stared up at the brilliant blue of the sky and the beams of light cast through the branches by Capella.
They’d located the door that marked the tunnel exit. Chained and locked, it meant either the Supervisor’s party had found it open, chained it to keep pursuit from following, or they were still locked inside. He’d studied the ground. Could see no tracks, but that didn’t mean anything. Vartan was a city person who wouldn’t know a track unless it was glaring.
If his quarry was locked inside, well and good. He had them. If not, he needed to know. Leaving Mars Hangdong to guard the door, he’d taken Sima, Will, Tuac, and Hap Chi to run a quick sweep into the forest as insurance that Aguila wasn’t ahead of them.
Nothing big, just check a couple of hundred yards into the deep forest. Besides, he wanted to see. To walk under the towering giants and marvel at the sights and miracle of the place.
At the edge of the basalt flow, some weird plant had grabbed Will Bet as he stepped beneath it. What looked like giant yellow-black-and-red-striped flowers had fastened onto Will’s neck and arm. Jerked him up high and out of reach. The flowers had proceeded to bite down on the screaming Will. Damn thing wasn’t fazed when Vartan shot a couple of rounds through the thick stalk. The only reaction came from the plant’s roots as they slithered out of the ground in his direction, cutting off retreat back the way they’d come.
In horror, they’d fled down the tumbled basalt and into the darkness of the forest. Scrambled across a tangle of giant roots. Realized the damn things were twisting! Slowly, but surely.
Sima Moskva, mother of two, was next. Something resembling knee-high stalks, pale on the bottom and dark brown on the tips, exploded in some kind of spores that puffed into Sima’s face. Sent her into convulsions on the spot. She had fallen, bucking, gagging, her eyes protruding from her head.
. . . And died within moments as the roots she lay on began to writhe and wind around her body. Trying to resuscitate her, Tuac Sao was seized by the same convulsions, having caught a whiff of the spores.
With the roots slipping around their feet, Vartan and Hap had fought a battle to pull away. Barely managed to jerk their way free. Each got a grip on Tuac, tried to hoist the choking, gagging man from the encircling roots. Couldn’t.
They’d stumbled back, watched in awed horror as the roots wound around the dead Sima and dying Tuac. Didn’t take more than ten minutes total before the thick bunching of squirming root mass had totally engulfed both bodies.
“Vart?” Hap had said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Yeah,” he’d panted, consumed by fear.
But trying to get back?
Which way? He was all turned around.
The faintest of screams carried through the chime. Had to be Mars. Vartan hurried off across the roots, realized that the ones that were squirming marked his back trail.
Hadn’t gone more than ten meters before he heard the hollow impact. A sodden thud. Like someone dropping a melon from a height onto a duraplast floor. Vart had scrambled the rest of the way down the root mat. Turned, figuring that Hap had fallen, and he would help him back to his feet.
Nothing.
Hap was gone.
Vanished.
Looking up, Vart thought he saw movement up in the trees. Couldn’t be sure.
Again, a scream from the direction of the basalt flow.
Somehow Vartan had staggered up onto the basalt flow, panting, falling, tripping over his own feet. He’d kept the rifle, hadn’t lost it in his panic. He’d veered wide around where the flower-thing was chewing on Will’s head and arm.
The door remained chained.
“Mars!”
Nothing but a slight variation in the chime answered him.
Vartan paced before the door, looking for any sign. Blood. Scuffed dirt. Something dropped.
But he found nothing. The only thing moving was the thin layer of roots that quivered and extended in sinuous patterns across the shallow soil.
“Mars? Where are you?”
Only the endless chime filled his hearing.
Vartan came raggedly to his senses. Realized he was sobbing. Had been for some time.
Terrified down to the marrow in his bones, he wiped tears from his eyes and turned his steps back for the trail. They’d been what, no more than fifteen or twenty minutes here? And he was the only one left?
Veering wide around the gaudily colored plants—shivers wracking his muscles—Vartan tried to cover everything with the rifle. Not that shooting the monster-flower plant had saved Will.
At the trail up, he flopped onto the exposed stone, panted for breath. Tried to find some sort of sanity down in his reeling and tumbling thoughts.
I’m supposed to be the strong one. Trained in security.
And all he had left was consuming terror.
A scream. Barely audible, carried from out in the forest.
Vartan turned to stare out at the vast expanse of green, blue, and turquoise. Was it human? It had been so faint, almost drowned by the chime.
Tikal’s parties were supposed to be out there. They’d been sweeping the forest behind Vart’s group. Had fanned out from the bottom of the trail.
Scarlet birds burst from the forest canopy, started flying his way.
Vartan cried out, remembering the stories of some flying creature that sliced a man’s flesh from his bones.
He pulled up the rifle, fired a burst. Missed. Nevertheless, the flying things veered off and dove into the trees.
Got to get out of here.
Some deep well of terror gave life to his exhausted muscles. Whimpering, sometimes sobbing, he scrambled up the steep trail. He climbed until exhausted. Flopped onto the unyielding basalt, unable to go farther. Panting, spent, he gave up. Closed his eyes, waiting for . . . what? Surrender?
Death?
Nothingness?
He came to. A sound, a shadow, a hint of movement at the edge of his vision sent him scrambling in panic. Breath tearing at his lungs, he swung the rifle around. Couldn’t place the threat. Climbed. His feet kept slipping and sliding for purchase given his slick-soled city shoes.
And he made it. Fell weeping on the basalt caprock atop the mesa. The sight of the domes and fields just past the solar collectors was like a miracle of salvation.
After gathering his wits, he struggled to his feet; the heavy rifle hung from his trembling hands. Thirsty. So thirsty. Exhausted like he’d never been.
He managed to stumble his way to the admin dome. Stared at the mangled remains of a woman laid beside the door.
Her face was a bloody wreck; the limbs were broken, rudely askew. The oddly short and contorted torso didn’t make sense—at least until he realized her back and hips had to be broken and compressed. Like a human who’d been crushed five inches shorter by a macabre hammer blow. Which explained why her left leg was dislocated so high up on her hip, as if growing out of her waistband. And then there was the bruising and blood.
The scars. So familiar.
Svetlana?
He wavered on his feet, blinked. Kept trying to understand the impossibility of what he was seeing.
This broken bone and meat wasn’t Svetlana. She was his lover. His friend.
“She fell from the airtruck,” Marta’s soft voice said from behind him. “Shyanne and Tamil stole it. Flew it away. Svetlana and Hakil tried to stop them . . . were clinging to the outside. Svetlana landed in the garden. Hakil fell into the forest off to the east.”
Svetlana?
Could this cold and brutalized pile of maimed flesh be the woman he’d come to . . .
The world turned glassy in Vartan’s vision: He saw it waver, fade, and slide slowly to the side. Thought he heard the distant chatter of automatic weapons fire from somewhere below the rim. Then a singing and ringing sound drowned it out.
The last thing he remembered was his body hitting the ground. Even that faded into a gray haze.