Binary system, p.9
Binary System, page 9
“It is the pod,” Mahn told her, as if from far away, “sending you to sleep. Good dreams, Delia.”
“Good dreams, Mahn.”
Then she slipped from one state of consciousness to another; she was not asleep, exactly, but neither was she conscious. She drifted in a state of gorgeous lassitude, without a care in the world, and presently she dreamed.
She was running towards her mother and father on a beach; she was five again, and they were on holiday in Mexico, and the sunlight limned her parents, made them glow like angels, like the supernal beings they were, and she knew a boundless love and trust for these people – and she had no awareness of her present self, but inhabited the body and consciousness of the five-year-old she had been.
Then, with the sudden, seamless transition of dreams, she was no longer five, but thirty-five, and she was dining in Paris with Timothy Greene, laughing at something he was saying... Then, later, she was in his arms, in bed in their hotel with the man she loved with all her heart... And yet, while she basked in the feeling, the recapitulation of the love she had known then, a small part of her consciousness was aware that all that was gone, taken away from her, and would never be regained.
And before she could cry out at her loss, she was no longer in the hotel bedroom in Paris, but on the surface of a strange new world, under a blisteringly hot sun, surrounded by swathes of multi-coloured blooms that sprang to life in a great wave of vibrancy and life.
And then she was jolted from this vision, from the dream-state to sudden consciousness, and she was back in the pod again, lying next to Mahn. Only a few hours could have elapsed.
“Delia.”
“Mmm?” she responded drowsily.
“The journey is almost over.”
“No... Surely not.”
Imp, how long have I been out?
Almost three days, Delia.
She took a deep breath. The air on the pod was damp, fetid. Her limbs were stiff, her flesh sticky where it had come into contact with the walls of the pod.
She was aware of the pod’s progress through the intestines of the summer worm, as smooth as a boat on a river.
Mahn asked, “Did you dream, Delia?”
“Yes. Yes, I did.”
“Of the future?”
She recalled the plain of flowers suddenly erupting into life. “I don’t know. Maybe. I was standing on a vast plain, watching a great carpet of blooms come to life. A million extraordinary colours, unfurling in fast-motion.”
“That is the Blooming, Delia! If you dream of the Blooming, it means good luck.”
“I hope so, Mahn. And you? Did you dream?”
“I had a curious vision. I was flying over Valinda, flying like a sqeer-bird over a swollen river and a great jungle.”
“And what might that mean?”
“I don’t know, Delia. I have heard no one speak of dreams of flying, or the import of such dreams.”
“Were you happy in the dream?” she asked.
He thought about it in silence for a while. “I was exultant. I felt fulfilled.”
“Then I think it was a good dream, Mahn. I think it means that your hopes and dreams will come to pass.”
The pod bucked, jolting as if coming up against others. It was as if she were on some kind of precipitous fairground ride, in an enclosed vehicle she could not control. She was rattled this way and that and found herself clinging on to Mahn.
“I think the summer worm is evacuating our seed, Delia. Hold on. There is no telling how far we might drop.”
She braced her head against the flesh of the pod, not wishing to crack her skull against Mahn’s when they hit the ground.
The pod bumped and collided with others for a full minute, and so violent were the impacts that she feared her pod might split and send her and Mahn spilling out into the worm’s lower intestine. Then the bumping ceased, and an odd calm prevailed as if they were sailing through the air.
They hit the ground with a bone-jarring impact. Delia cried out. The pod rolled, squashing them together face to face. She thought for a moment they were rolling down the side of a mountain and might never stop, but the motion slowed and then ceased. The pod rocked back and forth, settling, and soon all was still.
In the aftermath of their ejection, Delia held her breath. Now that the journey was over, all she wanted to do was leap from the confines of the pod, breathe fresh, cold air and stretch her limbs.
Mahn counselled caution. “We must wait a little while, and then split the pod very carefully. Scavengers gather around the lower reaches of the summer worm, picking through seed pods that have not been fully digested.”
“Like ours,” she said.
“Usually these scavengers are vegetarian,” he said.
“But not exclusively?”
“Dangerous animals are rare hereabouts,” he said. “But the Vo occasionally collect the spent seeds.”
“The Vo are not carnivorous?”
“They are, but they collect semi-digested seed pods, fill them with melt water, and as the heat increases with the coming of summer, so the water reacts with the sugars in the pod and produces a fermented, alcoholic drink much valued by the Vo.”
“That’s all we need,” she said. “Giant drunken spider-crabs!”
“The Vo festivities are some time off,” he told her. “Only at the time of the Great Melt, with the plains flowing with a multitude rivers all tipping from the great equatorial escarpment, do the Vo feast and become riotously inebriated.”
“I hope we’re not around the witness the festivities,” she said.
A silence stretched as they waited. At length Mahn said, “I hear nothing. I will open the pod. I would close your eyes, Delia.”
She did so, and felt Mahn leaning across her and pulling at the seam. Bright red light pulsed through her eyelids as the seam split. She opened her eyes minimally, then covered them with her hand against the blinding dazzle. Cold air entered the pod and she took deep, grateful breaths.
She heard something, a high-pitched squealing.
“What’s that?” she hissed.
Mahn leaned across her chest and peered through the seam, his fur sodden with pod juice.
He stiffened, then withdrew his head very slowly.
The squeals continued.
“What...?” she whispered.
“Very close by, perhaps ten metres away, is a Vo – but it is not the Vo we should fear. I recognise its markings and it is from a peaceable tribe. The Vo has been captured by a ghorn, and it is this creature we should fear.”
“A ghorn...” Delia said.
“The ghorn are carnivorous creatures,” Mahn informed her, “and will eat anything that moves.”
Chapter Fourteen
DELIA CONTROLLED HER breathing and, cautiously, lifted her head to peer through the split in the pod.
They were sitting on a plain of grey rock and fractured, silver ice. The red sun bulged low over a flat horizon. Delia saw the Vo first; it was much smaller than those she had seen ridden by the Skelt, and she wondered if it were a child. It was no bigger than her life-raft, its bulbous headpiece and lobulated body marked with red and yellow chevrons – presumably adornments of some sort.
The Vo lay on its side, its multiple legs gathered and cinched by a rope. Its eyestalks waved this way and that, as if in distress. Beneath them, its mandibles opened and shut, issuing high-pitched squeals.
Its front left leg ended at the first joint, and ichor dripped to the ground and coloured the ice a sulphurous hue.
Only then did Delia see its tormentor, the ghorn.
It was a relatively small creature, a little taller than herself, and resembled a bipedal wolf – except in place of fur it had silver scales that ran with oily iridescence in the light of the sun.
The ghorn sat on its haunches before the Vo, sucking meat and juices from the spider-crab’s severed foreleg.
Delia felt Mahn’s mouth close to her ear as he whispered, “The Vo are a great delicacy for the ghorn. It will feast for days, eating the Vo little by little but ensuring it remains alive.”
She shook her head in disgust at the predator.
“The Vo is from the Jeeri tribe, hence its distinctive markings. They formed an alliance with the Fahran many decades ago.”
“We must do something,” she whispered. “We can’t let the Vo die such a death!”
“By saving the Vo we would gain kudos from the Jeeri tribe, and thus earn ourselves safe passage south through Vo territory. However...”
“Go on.”
“The ghorn are fearsome... and we have no weapons.”
She heard the squealing of the Vo, accompanied by the sucking and slobbering made by the ghorn as it feasted on the severed leg.
She whispered, “The Vo – is it merely crying out in pain, or speaking?”
Mahn listened, then told her, “It is chanting a prayer to its god, praying for death, claiming it has led a virtuous life and that such a fate, at the hands of mindless ghorn, is undeserved. It is a young Vo, barely one summer old, I would estimate – a child. This is perhaps the first time it has left its underground lair, come scavenging for summer worm seed for its tribe. It certainly did not deserve this fate.”
“We can’t just lie here for days, watching the ghorn feast and the Vo die slowly.”
“As I said...”
“I know, the ghorn are fearsome.”
She contemplated her options. “Mahn, we couldn’t simply frighten the ghorn away, could we?”
“What, bare our teeth and run at it, screaming?”
“Well, something like that.”
She detected scorn in his reply. “It would scythe us down with its claws, rip out our bellies and watch us die. And then, when it had had its fill of Vo meat, it would vary its diet by sampling our flesh.”
“I get the picture.”
Imp, she said, we must do something.
You have a plan?
A vague idea. The laser scalpel in the medi-pack...
It is hardly a suitable weapon.
It’ll suffice, in lieu of a laser rifle. Its blade might be short, but it’s lethal.
Tell me how you intend to go about besting the ghorn.
She thought about it. As before, I want you to project a holo-image, to attract the animal’s attention. One figure, beside the Vo and directly before the ghorn. While the ghorn’s attention is on the projection, I will approach it from the rear and use the laser scalpel.
And if I advise you not to risk your life in this way?
I will overrule your advice and go ahead anyway.
It would appear I have little choice in the matter.
None.
She looked at Mahn and whispered, “In the larger of the two packs on my back you will find a short, green device, as long as your finger. If you could get it out and pass it to me...”
She struggled onto her side so that her back was to Mahn.
“Delia?”
“A knife,” she whispered, “but a special knife. Quickly.”
She felt the alien’s long fingers tugging at the fastenings of her pack, and then Mahn rooting through its contents. She rolled up the sleeves of her thermal suit to free her hands.
“Is this it?” Mahn asked, holding up the laser scalpel.
“Good work.”
She took the scalpel and looked across to the Vo and the ghorn.
“Delia, I plead with you to be careful.”
“I can’t sit by and do nothing. You said yourself that we would earn kudos from its tribe if we saved its life. That’s what I intend to do.”
“But the danger to yourself...”
She stared at the little alien. “You must have considered the danger when deciding whether or not to save me, yes? You elected to go ahead, despite the risk. Well, there you are... And anyway,” she finished, “I will have my Imp’s assistance.”
She eased herself into a sitting position and was about to swing a leg over the side of the pod when Mahn stopped her. He took her hand and looked into her eyes, then lowered his head and allowed her to proceed.
Imp, she said. Wait until I’m standing, then project the image.
Affirmative. But which image? Your own?
No... My father, okay?
Very well.
Taking shallow breaths, she lifted a leg over the seam and climbed from the pod. Her boots came down on the icy rock. She heard something crunch lightly beneath her weight and held her breath. Her legs felt shaky from enforced inactivity. For the first time since her arrival on Valinda, she felt the warmth of the sun through the material of her suit.
She activated the laser scalpel and pushed out the light blade to its ten centimetre extent.
Five metres separated her from the ghorn. If it were to turn now and see her, then she would be forced into a face-to-face fight. She had attended tae-kwon-do classes a few years ago, but had proved inept. She would have to rely solely on the scalpel. She only hoped that the creature didn’t move as fast as the Skelt.
The ghorn hunkered down with its back to her, sucking at the severed leg.
Imp, I wonder if I should approach it now, without resorting to the projection. It seems intent on its meal.
I advise adhering to your original plan, Delia. It might appear absorbed in its meal, but it is an animal. It will be alert for predators, and jealous of its cache.
You’re right. Very well. Project.
She looked across at the Vo; if it saw her, it gave no indication. Beside the bulbous body of the spider-crab, the image of her father suddenly appeared. He stood, tall and white-haired and a little stooped, smiling across at her. Something kicked in her heart and she smiled in response.
A split-second after the image appeared, the ghorn sprang to its feet, dropped the spider-crab’s leg, and crouched as if ready to attack.
Her heart hammering, sweat gathering under her face-mask, Delia approached the ghorn step by careful step.
She readied the laser scalpel, tightening her grip around its shaft. She would bring the laser down into the creature’s upper back and rip downwards, along the length of its spine. The blade was long enough to reach vital internal organs, split them apart...
She was two metres from the ghorn, and raising her weapon, when the animal moved. Draw by the image of her father, the ghorn took a step forward, then another. Delia found herself matching its steps, maintaining the distance between herself and her prey.
If it reached the projection and discovered it no more than a trick of light...
The ghorn slowed, wary. Delia took another step towards the creature. On her next step, she would plunge the scalpel into its back.
She raised the laser just as the ghorn, alerted by some hair-trigger animal intuition, growled and spun round to face her.
Instinctively she lashed out and slashed with the laser, back and forth so fast that she surprised even herself.
The ghorn stared at her with massive liquid eyes in its oddly vulpine face. Delia backed off, fear swelling within her. The creature appeared unharmed, and she wondered if the blade had merely scored impotently across the surface of its scales.
It took another step towards her. Delia backed off a step, too terrified to press the attack.
She saw a pink line appear just below the creature’s jaw. It opened its muzzle in silence – as if to threaten her, or to protest at her actions – and something bubbled past the ugly, sickle arrangement of its fangs. It took another step forward and, as she watched, its long head made an odd movement on its neck, a sickening sideways slip.
Then the ghorn fell to its knees as if in supplication, its head sliding slowly from its shoulders and hitting the ground at her feet a second before its body thumped down beside it.
Delia stood and stared at the body, too shocked to move, as the ghorn’s pink blood pulsed out across the ground and flash froze in a beautiful, spreading pattern of crystals.
Then Mahn was beside her, gripping her arm. “I was too terrified to watch, Delia! Only when I heard the ghorn hit the ground...”
She looked across at the image of her father; he was smiling tolerantly at her, as if in quiet approbation of her actions.
Imp, stop the projection.
Her father’s image vanished.
She looked into the hideous face of the Vo. Its furred, jet-black mandibles clacked, and its eyestalks regarded her. She heard a high-pitched tweet issue from its slit mouthpiece, and Mahn translated.
“I cannot understand all it says,” he said, “but it is asking what kind of creature are you.”
She smiled. “And not a word of thanks!”
“No... it is thanking you. It... it is reciting a song... a poem... of debt, of thanks.”
“Thank the Vo on my behalf,” she said. “It isn’t every day that someone composes a poem in my honour. Tell it that I am a human, from very far away, and that I couldn’t just stand by and watch it die.”
Mahn stepped towards the Vo, tiny beneath its clacking mandibles. He looked up and spoke in an approximation of the spider-crab’s language, gesturing with his long hands as he did so.
He turned to Delia and said, “She says that her name is Var.”
She smiled. “Var the Vo...”
“And,” Mahn went on, “she says also that we are in danger, here.”
“Danger?” She looked around her. “More ghorn?”
“No,” Mahn said. “Skelt. A party of Skelt militia.”
“Not the same who followed us from Alkellion?”
“Unlikely. But perhaps another band of militia from Alkellion. They range far and wide in search of Vo and other creatures.”
The Vo moved her slit mouthpiece, issuing a whistling sound painful to her ears.
Mahn reported, “Var says she saw the party riding harl – beasts of burden – a day ago, just north of here. She was near a tunnel to her underground lair, quickly concealed herself and so remained undetected.”
“We’d better not hang around,” Delia said. She lifted her laser scalpel. “Tell Var that I’ll cut the rope binding her, and then we’ll be on our way.”
Delia slit the rope and pulled it free of the Vo’s remaining legs. The severed foreleg was no longer dripping ichor; Delia stepped back from the frozen slick of fluid and watched the creature rise to her full height, twice as tall as her. The spider-crab moved up and down on her remaining nine legs as if testing their agility.
