Riley’s Game

25 minutes

Violence

Please enjoy this teaser from my upcoming collection of short stories, “Hearts Uncanny”. Note: This selection has not yet been fully revised/copy-edited, and is likely to change.

I.

“So why’s he wearing a suit?”

Specialist Jenna Bradley leaned down until her faceplate touched Riley’s. The man didn’t look dead, but merely caught napping in the middle of his shift. His body was strapped in, and it leaned forward, balanced on the bend of an outstretched arm whose gloved fingers, splayed beside the keyboard, reminded her of a landing strut.

Bradley turned around, and repeated the question for the two mission specialists. Rick Doski opened his hands in a shrug. Amen Gannet just frowned.

“Life support is good,” offered the rookie.

“He didn’t seem to think so,” said Bradley.

Aside from the rigidity that held him in that awkward posture, Preston Riley could have been some incorruptible saint. There was no bloating, nor obvious decomposition, perhaps because the suit was designed to flash-freeze its wearer for proper burial. He didn’t looked frozen, but then she’d never seen that happen in real life. In her ten years working for Orecorp, “casualty” had always been a euphemism for “spaced”. But there was something on his skin, and it sure as hell wasn’t ice.

Bradley looked around warily, more concerned now about what she couldn’t see than what she could. Riley’s display screen went to sleep, and she woke it up. It seemed he’d spent his last moments tapping out the same message.

APPROACH. APPROACH. -APPROACH.

An odd thing to say, under any circumstances. Odder still that he’d kept typing it, instead of just setting up one message to repeat. Bradley scrolled up though the log and found that the word was often misspelled.

APPROACH. APPROACH. DAPPROACH. -APPROACH.

And, further up:

DOAPPROACH. NPPROACH. OAPPROACH. APPROACH. -APPROACH.

Gannet walked around the other side of the prone Riley, and began running more systems checks. He was the properly educated type—young, just out of Uni—and oozed the charming expectation that everything fit into a system. And well he might; after all, the many lights blinking inside Hector 4’s small escape shuttle made it a tiny cosmos, a bubble of universe that had shrunk down to contain the four of them. But the shuttle’s floor, ceiling, and bulwarks, were coated with a thin blue venation, barely visible except when viewed head on. The same material tainted the skin on Riley’s face.

“It looks like we’re going to be here a while,” said Gannet. “Shuttle’s got plenty of air. Let’s rest the gear.”

He meant take off their suits. Miner’s suits were dexterous, but still too bulky for easy movement in close quarters.

“Leave ‘em on,” said Bradley.

Gannet, slightly miffed, slowly removed his fingers from his helmet clasps, and gently propelled himself toward another console. Bradley heard the beep of a DM inside her suit.

“Yeah?”

“What do you think?” said Doski.

“Don’t know,” she replied. “He was alive when he got here. Something in this shuttle killed him. Maybe he brought it with him from Den.”

Doski nodded.

RESCUE PARTY, REPORT ON YOUR STATUS. FARFINDER, OVER, said Captain Meson on the general com.

Bradley hesitated, then bit her personal com. “Bradley here. Riley is gone. Life support seems good, but we’re playing it safe. Suggest you stay put for now. Bradley, over.”

She returned to the words on the screen, and reviewed the facts in her mind. Hector 4 had disappeared while investigating “Den”, DNN-1336, that was; a small, forested moon of the lifeless DNN-1337. Habitable planetoids being at a premium in the explored universe, only a handful of higher-ups in Orecorp even knew of Den’s existence. Naturally, Hector’s last tight beam before descent had been heavily encrypted, making interception from their competitors basically impossible. Riley’s messages, also encrypted, had begun three days after that.

Now, a year later, Farfinder had arrived to find Riley’s shuttle in a stable orbit. They’d got nothing when they pinged Hector 4 itself, but the ship would have had to be functional to fire an escape shuttle while grounded. Had it self-destructed after that, or had gone it rogue, perhaps to one of Orecorp’s rivals? The latter seemed unlikely. According to their briefing, Orecorp hadn’t even known Den was a living planet until Hector 4 found it, and told them so. The bonus for discovering living worlds was already enough to retire every soul on board, and it would have made no sense to spill the beans to Orecorp if treachery had been on the table. That left a desperate escape from the surface as the only plausible scenario.

APPROACH. DNPROHCH. -APPROACH. Jenna spun the pieces around in her mind like the colored hexagons on a Harley Sphere. Why hadn’t Riley at least made a start toward Saxon Gate? Was he infected with something? The blue growth; that would be a reason to stay put, but then why the plain invitation instead of a stark warning? The general com squealed again.

FARFINDER TO RESCUE PARTY: WHAT’S THE SITUATION DOWN THERE? IS RILEY ALIVE OR DEAD? OVER.

With a sinking feeling, Bradley turned to look at the others. “Try hailing them again.”

Doski did, repeating the same information about Riley and the life-support systems.

“Please confirm you read us, over,” he added.

Nothing. After a very long wait, the com crackled.

FARFINDER TO RESCUE PARTY: IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU’RE IN SOME TROUBLE. WE’LL COME AND GET YOU. OVER.

Bradley bit her com on. “Negative, Farfinder! There may be a pathogen here.”

Gannet looked at her with alarm, and quietly shook his head. He stared out the view port, then spoke to Bradley over his shoulder.

“In my opinion,” said the scholar, “It’s likely just some mold from _______ that made it into the air recyclers. Anyway, he’s coming for us”

She didn’t bother to correct him. What was actual professional experience beside expensive book knowledge? Farfinder stowed its sails and pulsed toward their rescue shuttle.

RESCUE CREW, IF YOU READ US, GET BACK INTO THE RS-1 AND DETACH FROM HECTOR 4’s SHUTTLE. BRING RILEY, ALIVE OR OTHERWISE. OVER.

“Belay that,” said Riley. “We’re leaving him here.”

“What?” said Gannet. “Disobey a direct—”

“—Do what I said,” snapped Bradley.

Gannet shook his head despondently. Doski frowned at Bradley, but he shrugged, and patted Gannet on the shoulder, before pushing himself toward the airlock. Meanwhile, the young specialist looked back and forth between Riley’s body and the approaching ship.

“Leave him,” she said, “or I leave you with him”

Gannet scowled, but he followed Doski into RS-1. Bradley took up the rear. She quietly regretted her generosity in suggesting Captain Meson send the junior engineer, rather than, say, Dr. Malcom. Unlike this green boy—probably the nephew of some Orecorp suit—Doc Mac would have grasped the danger they were in. He would have backed her, instead of dragging his feet. But Jenna soon scolded herself for caring. Were she ever to merit a command, she’d have to trust own her decisions without needing affirmation.

Back in the RS-1, Doski initiated the undocking sequence. Farfinder grew larger in the view port. Bradley sighed, anxious to be away from Riley’s corpse, and the stuff growing on the walls. Something nagged at her. Riley in orbit. The strange message. The com trouble. It formed a meaningful pattern, but she couldn’t put a name to it. Then there was the little matter of her disobeying orders. Even if the captain agreed with her once he knew all the facts, he might still note her disobedience in the log. Notes like that could generate auto-inquests.

Jenna Bradley was no rebel, but she had secrets. Given the situation, she’d just have to risk discovery. They should all be quarantined, and Riley left to his eternal grave. That was the right call. Meson would probably see it her way. Doc Mac surely would, and he had the captain’s ear. Once they were well away, she could explain it to them.

“Shuttle won’t let go,” said Doski.

Bradley slowly processed his words.

“What?”

“She’s hearing what I say, boss, but it’s like she’s ignoring me.”

The sullen Gannet, still smarting, looked up anxiously. The airlock doors stayed stubbornly open, and stared at them like a dead eye. Through the portal, Riley could still be seen leaning forward in his chair, hard at the job of being dead. Bradley’s stomach churned. As she watched Farfinder float toward them, the implications unspooled with mechanical finality. If they couldn’t detach from Riley’s shuttle, then they couldn’t dock with Farfinder. They could only be towed. And, even if they survived going through the gates unshielded, the law strictly forbade bringing exotic contaminants back to Earth. A breach like that, were it ever found out, would more than get her fired. It could bring the whole corporation down, and land them all in a prison colony. She looked at Rick, and the veteran’s grave expression told her he’d been having similar thoughts.

RESCUE PARTY said the captain WHY HAVEN’T YOU DETACHED FROM HECTOR 4’S SHUTTLE? OVER.

Rick Doski shook his head. “Should I try again?”

“Might as well,” muttered Bradley.

“Farfinder,” said Doski, “this is RS-1. Do you copy? Over.”

DOSKI, IT’S ABOUT DAMNED TIME! WHY’D YOU GUYS GO SILENT?

Bradley motioned to Doski, and he let her pick up the conversation.

“Captain Meson, this is Bradley. We have been responding, sir, but nothing’s getting through. Something’s sideways here. Also, we can’t unclamp. Over.”

There was a pause, and series of choppy clicks, the radio equivalent of “ums” and “hmms”.

IS RILEY ALIVE OR DEAD?

“Dead, sir. Possibly … possibly killed by an unknown pathogen. There’s evidence of a lifeform on his person and in the shuttle. Begging your pardon, but we left him there.”

She formulated her next words carefully. “Sir … if we can’t dock with Farfinder, then you’ll have to tow us. I don’t know if we’ll survive that. The thing is, even if we spacewalk to you, it’s still a problem. Whatever killed Riley could be on us.”

Gannet whirled around. “What are you trying to do?”

Doski swore at the junior engineer, and told him to stay out of it, but Bradley caught his quick, sidelong glance. Rick had his own doubts about her read.

WE’RE NOT TOWING YOU, said Meson. THAT’D KILL YOU SLOW. WE’LL GET YOU INSIDE, AND FIGURE THIS OUT.

Gannet nodded triumphantly. Relief and terror danced like fire behind in his eyes. This boy hadn’t signed up to be a martyr.

“Thank you, captain,” said Bradley, soberly, “but how?”

INTABA SAYS BOTH SHUTTLES SHOULD FIT INSIDE THE HOLD. VALE WILL SCOOP YOU UP, AND WE’LL KEEP YOU IN THERE FOR THE VOYAGE BACK. WORST CASE SCENARIO, WE HAVE TO DECONTAMINATE, AND HOPE FOR THE BEST, BUT THAT’S A HELL OF A LOT BETTER THAN IRRADIATION, OR LEAVING YOU HERE TO ROT FOR ANOTHER YEAR.

Bradley closed her eyes. They’d come straight from Theonon on a rescue mission. She’d completely forgotten that the ore hold was empty. Plugged into Farfinder, quarantined in the hold, the life support systems on RS-1 might be sufficient to sustain them in the open space between jump gates. Bradley thought of Nina, and fought back tears.

“Thank you, sir.”

Shaking off her doubts, she followed Doski to the view port to watch the Farfinder’s approach. At least she was confident that Vale Orissimo could pull off the tricky capture maneuver. The gunmetal-gray ship looked like a pudgy dog resting on four haunches. Those haunches were powerful thrusters, sufficient to get the mining lugger out of a planet’s gravity, but subtle enough to help her maneuver at sub-sail speeds. The dog crept forward, and the big ore hold opened to admit the conjoined shuttles. Because they were connected end-to-end, there’s be just a little wiggle room. Bradley had never seen a hold used this way, but if Vale said she could do it, then she could. Soon Farfinder was on top of them. The ore hold, a black hexagon, looked too small to fit them. Bradley held her breath.

There couldn’t have been more than a meter of clearance, but so smooth was Vale Orisimo’s approach that the shuttle tapped the hold walls only twice before the bay doors closed and locked behind them. There was a jerk as the conjoined shuttles came under Farfinder’s artificial gravity. They struck the ground with a loud clang. It was a most pleasant racket.

II.

Safe in Farfinder’s belly, Jenna Bradley stared straight ahead. She bit her tongue, a trick she had for holding back anxiety. This was too close. She'd been playing a dangerous game, and now she had serious doubts about the stakes. She made a good salary. There’d be huge bonus for this job. She could quit, go to Agranor, and start a little farm. If they made it back.

When we make it back, Jenna promised herself, I’m done. Probably.

Rick noticed her, elbows on her knees and leaning against the bulwark. Bradley saw him coming over, so she did her best to look at ease. He slid down the wall, and came to a rest beside her.

“You okay?”

“Of course,” she scoffed. “Where’s Gannet?”

“Messing around in Riley’s shuttle,” said Doski. “I think he’s trying to prove it’s perfectly safe in there.”

She smiled. “Then tell him to take his helmet off.”

Doski laughed. “I guess he’s not that sure. Actually, I think he’s just avoiding us.”

Bradley nodded in quiet agreement.

“What really happened to Riley?” said Doski.

She shook her head. “I don’t like it. There’s something bad on Den.”

Doski looked mildly skeptical, but he craned his head back, and stared politely at the ceiling. “Can’t leave fast enough, right?”

Bradley nodded, but she couldn’t summon any enthusiasm. Ever since finding Riley, a quiet fear had been growing in her mind. It was irrational, but she couldn’t easily dismiss it. “God, what’s taking them so long!” she snapped.

As if in answer, Captain Meson appeared on the dim display above the shuttle’s console. Bradley and Doski came close so they could see him.

“Sorry for the wait. We encountered a slight problem.”

“Problem?”

The word hit Bradley like stroid slag flying out of the black.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” assured Meson. “And we’re not going to wait anymore. You three just strap in until we get moving.”

“You were waiting on a tight beam from home,” said Bradley. “And it didn’t come.”

Meson kept very still. The captain was not a tall man, but his broad shoulders and straight back lent him a confident, even imperial air. Adoni Intaba, the huge Sengari miner who’d befriended her on the voyage out, passed a few meters behind Meson’s chair in the display. Even at that distance, he made the captain look small. Intaba’s skin was so dark it glistened like flaked obsidian, and Jenna always had to force herself not to stare lest her attentions be misunderstood. Or worse, understood. The giant caught her gaze, and inclined his head ever-so-slightly, confirming her suspicions about the tight beam.

“It’s not a problem,” said Meson. “Where’s Amen, by the way?”

Gannet walked up to join them.

“Great,” said Meson. “One happy family. Strap in until I tell you it’s safe to move around.”

The screen went dark. Bradley and the others secured themselves for the coming gut-check. Vale would make a hard start with the engines at high burn before unfurling the stellar sails. If she hit Saxon Gate just right, Farfinder would skip through each of the subsequent gates like a well-thrown stone, and they’d adjust spin in medio to normalize apparent Gs. Eventually, the crew wouldn’t even feel the full assault on their bodies.

Bradley smiled a little. The hard burn meant the captain had taken her concerns to heart. She wouldn’t need to worry about any inquest. Vale Orisimo’s silky voice came over the com:

BURN IN SIXTY, FIFTY-NINE, FIFTY-EIGHT…

Bradley checked her straps again, then made sure to pull her tongue far back from her clenched teeth. With the suit on, she wouldn’t have the aid of a bite stick, nor of the drugs that rendered a hard burn more bearable. The anticipation of pain made her nervous, and suddenly she had to pee. She debated just going in the suit, but then worried she wouldn’t finish before the Gs hit her like a mallet.

THIRTY-SIX, THIRTY-FIVE, THIRTY-FOUR…

She checked to see if Gannet was properly secured. The boy-man’s face showed every sign of stark terror. He’d probably never jumped inside a suit, and he might be worried about biting his tongue off. She quickly bit her com, and told him what to do. Gannet visibly relaxed; even smiled at her in thanks. She found herself forgiving him.

SEVENTEEN, SIXTEEN, FIFTEEN, FOURTEEN…

She really did have to pee, but now it was far too late. Jenna scowled, irritated that she’d have to add “bladder” to the long list of muscles to keep rigid or to relax while under heavy thrust. But at least she knew what she was doing. Even with her advice, Amen Gannet would likely shit himself, and probably break a bone. Would it be a wrist? A toe? She stifled a laugh, and resisted the temptation to take bets with Doski.

TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN, SIX, FIVE…

Jenna closed her eyes, locked her molars together, and flattened her tongue against hard pallet.

TWO, ONE, BURN!

There was a colossal jerk, and the weight of the whole ship pressed down on her chest, crushing her breasts and stomach, and forcing air against her already-full bladder. Then, just as suddenly, the ship seemed to groan. Her chin snapped forward. The RS-1 struck loudly against the hold bulwarks, and only her suit’s round faceplate suit stopped Bradley from breaking her neck.

Jenna’s mouth opened in a gasp, and she lost control of her bladder after all.

Doski groaned. “What…the hell…was that?”

The shuttle floor began to shake. Bradley felt herself pushed forward against her straps, not violently, but with a steady, iron pressure. Captain Meson’s voice came over the general com.

ALL HANDS ON DECK!

Gannet turned around to face her. “What’s happening?” he slurred.

Bradley ignored him, and looked at Doski, her eyes asking him to verify what her senses had already made obvious.

“What’s happening? What’s happening!” shouted Gannet.

Doski shook his head in disbelief, then winced from the movement. He looked slowly around at the rescue shuttle’s stark interior, as if recognizing for the first time how fragile it was. Gannet continued to shout his question louder and louder, like sheer volume would force the universe to cough up answers. Doski reached out and put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder.

“Burned failed, kid. We’re being … pulled.”

“Pulled?” sputtered the boy. “How? Where?”

Jenna Bradley shut off all her emotions lest they leave her crippled, useless in the coming struggle.

“Down,” she muttered. “We’re going down.”

III.

Under a milky white sky, countless blue-green fronds reached up from marshy soil, their tall tops swaying in the humid breeze, shuddering and twitching toward the low clouds like fingertips that beckoned noiselessly, “Come hither.” Nothing moved in the thickly-grown understory, yet brambles and hedges and things like inverted roots covered the sucking ground. The soil, where it could support the mighty frond trees, was covered in a spongy film the color of bile. Elsewhere, it gave easily, as if Den were an endless swamp, a vast yellow-green stomach. Through the creamy cloud-cover, a boxy thing that could never have been born in this place came down to die in it. Dragging the enveloping clouds as it spun, the ship crashed through the frond tops, and spouted desperate blue flames. It struck the ground at an angle, and skipped through the hedges and root-things, crushing itself against the giant trees until it came to rest beneath a grove of them.

Farfinder’s four burners belched smoke, but its entry heat had also boiled the moist ground. The smoke and steam curled together, and climbed like a magician’s rope toward the low-hanging sky. After a time, the noise of the ship’s arrival died away, and Farfinder seemed but one more fixed item under the dark frond canopy. No birds had flown up crying to escape the ship’s calamitous plunge, nor had any animal run howling in its wake. Only silence observed the fall. But the silence listened.

Does time pass without a mind to mark it? Is it then only motion? There was motion in the peristalstic squeeze of ichor through xylem and phloem. There was a constant pulsing among the tree roots and the vast fungal networks that joined them. Not far from the grove, bubbles formed and popped, beating out a strange tempo on slime-coated and bottomless pools. Even the clouds changed shape at intervals too long to be observed. But from the grove where Farfinder had ground to a halt, these and other anonymous turnings were once more be given quality by minds that could mark their passage.

The ship lay on its back like a dead dog. Its thrusters still smoked, but the wet ground had finally overcome the heat from its entry. Its metal skin was growing cool. From Farfinder’s belly came a frantic beating. The skin of its chest was torn back, and white figures spilled out in a strange birth. They clambered down, dropped carefully to the spongy ground, and then climbed onto the upturned bridge. With torches and prying tools, they breached the ship’s smashed hatch, and soon began pulling others from its interior. It was hard, hot work, for the bodies of the dead outnumbered the living, and few of the crew had met this New World in one piece.

One by one, they pulled the survivors out. Those who remained looked with horror on an indifferent forest, and wondered if living had been the better fate. They inhaled foreign air into unprotected lungs. They saw the wreck of Farfinder, and knew in their hearts that escape was near hopeless.

The survivors raised a pavilion. The bright orange tent was stretched over gray metal poles, which had to be thrust very deep to stay put in the soft ground. The tent’s loud orange color, which had meant rescue back home, stuck out like blasphemy in this silent world. Already the thick white mist was dulling its brilliance to a muddy ochre. The survivors spoke in hurried whispers, unsure what creatures might be watching from under the tall trees. Meanwhile, the dead lay still.

Bradley and Doski crouched with Doc Mac beside Captain Meson. The captain was dazed, but alive. His left leg had a hairline fracture, but Malcolm had already put it in a dynacast splint. Like him, the captain’s life was spared by the ship’s own architecture. The bridge was centered up and away from the sides. Much of the crew—support technicians, along with Farfinder’s skeleton mining team who were there only because Orecorp thought they might want to do a little rock collecting on the way home—had been secured near the outer bulwarks, above the thrusters. Those sections had struck the frond trees first, and dragged the forest as the ship skipped through it. Numerous tall plants and vines had wrapped themselves around ship’s arms. The engines were buckled-in, and their only escape shuttle was somewhere in that mess, mashed to powder. With such dense forest to great them, even the hardiest of the miners had died on impact.

Bradley thought then of Adoni Intaba. She hadn’t seen anyone pull him out. She rose, without much hope, leaving Doc Mac to attend to the captain.

To her surprise, she found him. The ebony giant lay sprawled upon the mossy ground, a felled tree of a man. Several ugly, root-like plants had broken under his body, and their insides oozed out so that he appeared to be lying in a pool of black blood. She wondered why Intaba was here, and not trapped in the debris. Being a miner, he’d have been housed in the arms of the ship. It was a wonder that his corpse had even remained in one piece. The man was likely too big for anyone to have carried him out this far, so she could only assume he’d been flung through the breached arms when the ship ground to a stop.

Adoni’s face, pleasantly chiseled, remained peaceful even now. She hadn’t forgotten that it was his idea to use the ship’s hold to capture the two shuttles. He’d saved their lives—though to what end she hardly knew. She’d shipped with him only two or three times, but had lately come to admire him. Partly it was the knowledge that they were both among the best in their respective classes, handpicked for this rescue mission. That made him familiar; almost a peer. Not long ago, after a nightcap, she’d even caught herself speculating on what sort of father-figure a man like Adoni would make. She hadn’t know if he was single, let alone attracted to her, but she could assume most of the crew were unmarried. Nowadays, Orecorp employed only the childless. No more orphaned miners’ kids to go after them in court. Not on the record, anyway.

She suddenly cursed her own selfishness. What kind of person was she to think about what the man could have been—for her—when he was lying there dead? But it wasn’t just these broken castles in the air that made Jenna bitter. Intaba had seemed invincible, and Den had already managed to kill him. What were the odds, then, for the rest of them?

“Dammit,” she said.

At least Doski and Meson, Vale and Dr. Malcolm, had made it out alive. She could count on them. Probability be damned, she had no choice but to believe they could escape this death-trap. Someone was waiting for her back home.

“Adoni,” she said, shaking her head, “we really could have used you.”

The black statue at her feet opened one eye, and then another.

“Is that a fact, ma’am?”

His voice was hoarse, but his spreading grin brought Bradley to her knees.

“No!”

She hugged him. Hard. Adoni grunted, and brought up one hulking forearm to pat her on the back.

“That hurts ma’am.”

“Oh,” she said, letting go. “I’m sorry. Anything … broken?”

He closed his eyes, and hummed like a ship running diagnostics on itself. “Um … don’t think so. My ribs are bruised. That could be from the straps.”

Jenna looked over at the smashed-in sides of the ship, then back down at Adoni.

“How the hell did you get out?”

“Just climbed out, ma’am,” he said. “After you made the hole. Figure I’m too big for you people to lift anyway. Meson had me up on the bridge, remember? I was secured in the back, near the crew quarters.”

She laughed. A tear beaded up in the corner of her eye, and by instinct she tried to wipe it away. The suit blocked her.

“You gonna keep that on?” asked Adoni, reaching up to tap her faceplate.

“For now,” she said. “I still think something here contaminated Riley. I don’t plan on catching it.”

She winced after she said it. Assuming she was right, Intaba and others were already exposed. He gently touched the arm of her suit. “It probably got us all, then.”

She looked down and saw the large rip below her elbow.

“Shit.”

But if the suit was breached, then she’d already been breathing filtered air from Den for some time, rather than her own supply. She’d been too busy setting up camp to notice the rip, or the change in air quality. But in that case, there was no point putting up with ungainly suit.

“How is it?” she said, nodding skeptically at the milky sky.

“Mmm…musty,” he said, “But not too bad. When it isn’t hot here, it rains hard.”

“How do you know?”

He frowned at her. “Taste the air, ma’am.”

She stood, nodded once to herself, and began removing the suit. As she did, she remembered her loss of control during the aborted burn.

“I’ve got to…” she glanced down, bashfully.

He smiled, understanding. “Come back and say hi when you’re ready, ma’am.”

Jenna said she would. She began marching toward Farfinder. Climbing inside, walking on the ceiling that was now floor, she quickly made her way to the crew quarters, where she found a locker with clean jumpsuits, and a detachable shower head that still worked. To her surprise, the stall was already wet, and she wondered who had had the time to come in and use it. Jenna lifted the laundry chute cover, saw “Orissmo” on the name label, and shook her head.

“Typical.”

But there was no time for personal dislikes. Jenna thanked God that Farfinder’s command center still had power. She wasn’t overly concerned about using up the ship’s water reserves. Den clearly wasn’t short on water, which they could siphon up and purify. The question of food was more vexing. Were any of the plants edible? Were there animals here? She’d seen no sign of them so far; not even insects. But there ought to be enough dry stuff to keep them while they figured it out. And, of course, fewer mouths would need feeding.

As she showered in the upside-down stall, Jenna considered the awesome duty of burying the dead. But no, that would be unthinkable. There were too many. Cremation was the only practical option, if they could get a fire hot enough to do it. There were fires still burning in the nearby woods, so perhaps they ought to act quickly. God only knew what scavengers might be hiding out there, waiting to dig up their comrades as soon as they put them into the alien ground, or to drag the corpses away when they turned their backs. With these unpleasant thoughts in mind, she re-entered the bridge, as clean and fresh as was possible for a castaway. Rick Doski had joined her there, and now stood on a supply crate so that he could reach the inverted console.

“Any idea what brought us down?” she said.

“An idea, yeah,” he said. “But it makes no sense.”

“Well?”

He shook his head. “Computer says something on Den pulled us down.”

She frowned. “Yeah, that’s obvious. But if this place harbored advanced life…I mean sophisticated enough to build a gravity gate…”

Rick shrugged. He exited the diagnostic screen, and began scanning the surrounding area. A structure appeared on the sweeper. Bradley squinted.

“What is that?”

Rick shrugged again. “Don’t look like much, does it? Maybe a small mountain. Indications are that’s where it came from. Hold on.”

He kept sweeping the area, widening the arc until it was at the limits of Farfinder’s sensors. In a few seconds, to both of their surprise, something talked back. Doski whistled low.

“Don’t know about the mountain-thing, but that’s Hector. And she’s still got power.”

He tapped in a few more commands, and Hector 4’s location relative to Farfinder came up on the display. Without satellite data, the ship could only use radar, ladar, and whatever it had auto-scanned from orbit, or during its fall. The image of Den thus rendered was only partial, and frayed at the edges like a treasure map.

“There be dragons,” whispered Bradley, mostly to herself. “But hey, why is Hector talking now, when it wasn’t before?”

“I have no idea.”

Bradley chewed her lip. The situation felt eerily familiar. The wheels in her mind were turning, and she didn’t like where they wanted to settle.

“Maybe somebody didn’t want us to find it before,” she said. “But now that we’re here, it doesn’t matter.”

“You think it’s … some kind of intelligence? Targeting us?” said Doski. “But there’s no evidence of cities, or development or any kind. I mean other than the … the thing. I’m inclined to think it’s something natural that we just haven’t seen before.”

Bradley considered a long time before answering.

“Maybe, like you said, intelligence of some kind. Do me a favor, and look up the communication logs between Farfinder and us when we were in Riley’s shuttle.”

“Why Riley’s shuttle?”

“Just indulge me, please.”

He nodded, and went to work. Rick had to pull his arms down and shake them out a few times, and she realized that reaching up to operate the console was pulling all the blood into his chest. Finally he found what he was seeking. He let his arms rest again while he read the screen, then turned to Bradley with an incredulous frown.

“The log shows a record of all of our calls back and forth,” he said, “even though Farfinder couldn’t hear us when we were there. But the way the system works, if those calls went through, they should have heard us. Makes no sense.”

She shook her head, disagreeing. “It makes sense, if somebody on Den interfered with those transmissions.”

Doski didn’t say anything to that, but he exited the screen, and went back to the scanner. She saw that he was re-processing the scanner data to try to generate a better map. He tapped the screen, and the partial map expanded in scope, though not greatly in detail. Something else appeared as an undescribed point with fuzzy edges. The map now highlighted three locations: their own, Hector 4’s, and this point some distance to the southwest.

“And that is?”

“Don’t know,” said Doski. “That’s the mountain-thing I was talking about. Let’s call it the Anomaly. Whatever pulled us down came from there. It’s roughly hill-shaped, but it’s not mountain-sized or we could see it from where we’re parked.”

Jenna laughed grimly at ‘parked’, then raked her fingers through her damp hair. “A small planetoid like this can’t generate enough gravity to pull us from orbit. And any technology that could would leave its imprint on the surface. I mean, even if the …inhabitants … even if they live underground, where are the vents? The power plants? The infrastructure?”

Doski nodded, but repeated himself. “Computer says were grabbed from orbit, and dragged all the way here. But Hector’s shuttle was in orbit too, and it stayed there for over a year.”

“So, we were targeted!” said Bradley. “And Riley’s shuttle was bait!”

She wanted to sit down to think, remembered the crew chairs were all fixed to the roof, and began pacing in frustration.

“What about Hector’s crew?” she said.

Doski nodded obligingly. “I mean, I can check. Hector’s talking, so I should be able to port in remotely.”

He went back to work. She watched as he accessed Hector 4’s systems, and began to run diagnostics them. He shook his head, but kept digging around without speaking. After a few minutes passed, she became impatient.

“Hey, Rick, I’m still here.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I get hypnotized. So, as I suspected, nobody’s alive, at least not on board, and the engines are damaged beyond repair. That’s the bad news.”

“What the hell is the good news?”

Doski favored her with a grim smile. “Stroid slaggers. Remote mining charges. Ship’s still got two missiles in the bay, and they look intact.”

“Okay,” she said. “So if we can recover those, we might be able to use them against Den.”

“Den?” said Rick.

“I mean whoever or whatever on Den captured Farfinder and Hector,” she quickly amended.

Rick hopped down from his crate, and sat on it. “Speaking of that, we don’t really know that it is somebody. Could just as well be an unknown phenomenon, like I said … Like, I don’t know, a gravitational … geyser. Something weird, that flares up from time to time. I mean, the place is covered in greenery, and we haven’t even seen herbivores, let alone intelligence. I think it’s better to deal in what we know. There’s something about a lot of tall, leaning trees that makes you feel a little paranoid. Let’s just stick with facts.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “It’s just the trees making me paranoid.”

She came over, and sat on the crate. It was so small that they had to face in different directions, like points on a compass.

“The facts are that something plucked a Venture-class mining lugger from orbit, but left behind its shuttle to lure us in too,” said Bradley. “Whatever it was interfered with all the communications that could have helped us, but still let through an invitation across space. And now, if we call for help, we’ll become the new Riley. A worm on a hook.”

“Maybe,” said Doski. “But we’ve got what Riley didn’t have.”

“Which is?”

Rick gave her a surprised, chiding look, and stamped a few times on the ground, or, rather, the ceiling.

“We’ve got a fifth burner. Farfinder’s a third-generation Venture.”

Jenna stared at him. She’d been sailing so long on the old series, she’d hardly given it a thought when Orecorp sent them out on this newer, faster rig. But it wasn’t just faster. Its bridge was also a detachable skiff, with its own thruster. They could just right the thing, and make a run for it. But if they tried it now, wouldn’t Den just pull them back down?

“So if we can destroy this … Anomaly, we can blast our way out of here!”

Doski laughed. “Yeah. I mean, I hope ‘yeah’. Plus we know whatever did it ain’t always running. Otherwise Riley’s shuttle wouldn’t have stayed up there.”

Jenna leapt to her feet. Now there was real hope. But even as she rejoiced, that quiet doubt stirred inside her, and she wondered, as she had on RS-1, if it could possibly be that easy.

© 2023 Joseph Breslin All Rights Reserved

Read the full story in my upcoming anthology, Hearts Uncanny.

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