Arrival 7 (Apr-May)*Emphasis*
[Thoughts]My apologies for the frequent POV changes, I intend to be less jumpy after this part. BUT I seem to have written myself into a corner and so am writing my way back out of it. ... I do promise to stick to the POVs from the first pods introduced (at least in the odd sections) - so never more than 4 in all of the odd and 4 in all of even; never more than 2 POVs in each individual part. - Gok
****
(Tara Barnett)
Late afternoon, Day 5:
A weary group had entered pod 26’s clearing. Not overly tired, but already they were yawning and scratching at all the little patches of sun-blistered skin that hadn’t been as adequately protected as first assumed. Nevertheless, they got busy and did the work that needed doing.
Barnett wasn’t quite miserable, but her feet hurt and her hands were puffy and red, like overdone peppers. She missed her friends, her bed, and the ability to finish a shift and be done for that day. However, she had decided that cheerfulness was the required thing, if only to annoy Cevry. He had been grumbling non-stop for at least an hour; quietly, but still aloud. Barnett was ready to put a shovel through the man’s intestines, but since that would probably get her into trouble, she instead took the proverbial high road.
“Would you bloody well stop singing?” he hissed at her, sounding just a little angrier than at his 9th - the previous - request.
Barnett glared back for a few seconds, but didn’t stop her half-worded, enthusiastic hum. They’d been able to rest for a few minutes now; she was in the process of stuffing roots under the fire to cook. It was a simple pleasure to be able to do one’s duties. Being the only one was odd however - she could cook all right, and Jocylen could boss, but the rest were stuck. Considering the clean air and wonderful views, this wasn’t such a bad place to be stuck on. Between the altitude descent and their bodies adapting, the air was getting easier to breathe each day. Flowers and interesting plants were everywhere, including two more ‘psychotic killer evergreens’ that they’d had to skirt around. She had already figured out how to keep most foods from burning. And - best of all - she was days, maybe even weeks, away from the supervisor she hated.
Barnett figured she had plenty of reasons to be happy. Ticking Cevry off was only a minor benefit, so she’d continued singing even after the Lieutenant sent him away to get extra firewood. Shifting back from the flames for a moment to cool her hands, she glanced around. Everyone was busy, mostly with washing clothing (working in her underwear was a unique experience); Ng had dozed off on his stretcher and the local fellow was showing Zimmer how to brush down the horses. Torres and Jocylen’s voices raised for a moment then hushed again - something about craters, so Barnett ignored it.
The others might be having their odd moments, but she felt fine, and soon she had the first course ready. It took a second yell to get Sanov’s attention, but she didn’t really blame him - little fellow couldn’t help where he was born, now could he? Polite enough man, anyway. Barnett hadn’t met a rude gutmonkey yet; it was as if the black grease sucked out all the anger and brashness when it scoured off the last remains of intelligence. Clean eaters, too, always picked up after themselves. If not for the impossible-to-scrub-away fingerprints and other marks, you’d never know their usual table was ever used.
Barnett cut things up small so the three without use of both arms could manage easier, and ignored him when Cevry complained part of his tasted burnt. [It all tastes a little burned, you mooch. Still better than yesterday!]
After dishes and then bodies were clean again, the group was actually able to rest, and prepare for sleep. While waiting for the other pods, Mazu and company had managed to heap up grass and leaves to form rudimentary mats; the able newcomers added to the notion with enthusiasm. They unpacked and propped up their own stretchers to use as cots, rank getting the raised beds. Sanov pled fatigue and dropped right off, but Zimmer took great care to examine for, then remove, any small crawling inhabitants in her chosen bed and those on either side; she then made Zoe plunk down on one of the others.
[Now there is someone whose mind has evac’d,] Barnett thought. [How can anyone be so dependent on another person?] The small European woman - after heavy prompting - was able to look at the person speaking to her, was able to answer with a nod or weak grunt or other basic noise. It was an improvement over lunchtime.
Sprawling under a thermal blanket, still in her underwear, Barnett laid back peacefully. She watched the sun setting pale orange and dull, and listened to birds gossiping. [It’s not a bad planet at all,] she thought, and watched the stars slowly sneak out one by one until she fell asleep.
****
They set off early the next morning, everyone carrying what they could and several of them alternating to carry Ng as well as their packs. The rests were short but frequent, and began to include frequent sunscreen applications for those with pale skins. While others checked the wrapping and stitching on various wounds, Barnett gathered up whatever edibles she could; some went into a couple of empty pots for later use, some into bowls and cups to be passed around and eaten right away. If she perhaps nibbled more than she shared, no one mentioned it. Cevry might have been tempted to comment, but upon rising Barnett had noticed that Torres’ and Zoe’s sleeping places had mysteriously been swapped during the night. Cevry also had a large, dark, hand-shaped bruise across of the front of his neck, as well as a limp he was desperately trying to keep hidden.
Jocylen seemed to not notice anything out of the ordinary, apparently more concerned with keeping the group together. Zoe absently tested walking normally, but after an hour of repeated falls the lieutenant made her use the crutches for another day, fearing another injury might occur. The lieutenant also kept an eye on Sanov throughout the morning. Barnett noticed the slightly glazed look on Sanov’s pale face, and the fact he kept trying to dunk his damaged arm in every stream they passed; he tried to hide both. The private wasn’t letting anyone examine it either, claiming he was ‘just fine’.
Before the issue could be pressed, another crisis occurred which had them forgetting about the skittish little mechanic. In the middle of the afternoon, Mazu, who had not witnessed the Ali-lin-toc trees in action, walked into one.
Her face and arms were barely touched, partly because the fright had her fall to the ground - but the branches managed to contact her leg. She was picked up and tossed over 6 meters away, landing with a brief, noisy crunching sound and an even noisier scream that lasted for several minutes. Once everything was settled down, Mazu’d had her broken ankle wrapped and bound in plaster and long rag bits and braced with branches cut to the correct size. Zoe surrendered her crutches and helped Mazu take an injection for the pain. Then they repacked and continued moving.
The fifth day ended uneventfully; the sixth had nothing worse than tending to peeling skin while on the slow hike. The seventh day, minor bickering broke out over things that could not be remembered later, and Jocylen spent several long minutes yelling at all of them. Further on at the night camp, Barnett noticed something while the girls were washing off - in one group to save time - Zoe no longer had her ring on. Barnett wondered where it had gone, but since it was not in the stream, she could not do much about it. The little European woman had stopped communicating at all by then, not even when Jocylen tried to pry words out of her. The other women could not remember when the ring had been lost, but it didn’t take a vote to decide to keep Zoe sheltered from harming herself. Or to keep her from Cevry, who was again attempting subtle advances. Torres came up with a rude, but hilarious, limerick about him; she did not repeat it near any of the men.
They got several hundred meters further down each day, and too many kilometres were travelled for Barnett to even keep track of beyond the sum of ‘LOTS’. The eighth day after the attack, things again got interesting.
Sanov vanished. Not intentionally, but when they had a rest late in the morning they noticed he wasn’t there. They lost hours while spreading out and searching: he was finally found crumpled into a stream several kilometres back, halfway to drowned, the covering for his splint missing. Once pulled out, it took only moments to discover he had a high fever - and that his arm was badly infected. It was bad enough that the local man was no longer angry but concerned. Jocylen took out the medical kits and swore a lot under his breath about thick-headed colonists refusing to ask for required attention.
“Do we need to carry him?” Torres asked, concerned. “We’ll have to abandon something to do so.”
“I haven’t fainted in more than a day,” Zimmer pointed out. “I could try walking again - we might not have to abandon too much.”
“I hope not,” Jocylen muttered, trying to not vomit as they lanced the unconscious man’s swollen limb and rinsed out a river of pus. The smell was incredible. “This is too damned deep to be recent, I bet you anything he wasn’t treated on board. Idiot didn’t tell us!”
Barnett, completely grossed out, wondered how Sanov had managed to hide it. “Explains why he was acting oddly, fever.” She didn’t notice the odd glance Jocylen flicked at her, because a few seconds later Sanov came around, screaming in a language she didn’t know and fighting Torres as she tried to keep him still.
“ ’e sounds scared,” Ng said.
“Don’t you try to sit up either!” Torres snapped at him. Then, “Lau, keep this brat’s legs still ... what the hell has got him so -oof- frightened?”
It was several minutes later when they finally sedated Sanov to shut him up. Then came a brief debate about how much of the antiseptic injections to give him - Ng’s internal injuries had been so serious that Jocylen had previously decided to keep all the shots for exclusive use, but this complicated things.
“I feel fine, just tired,” Ng said.
“Linh, lie still or I’ll knock you out myself,” Mazu said crossly.
“Yes’m.”
They cleaned and coated Sanov’s wound with the local’s potions, going as deeply as they could, and hoped for the best. He woke up partway through, but was again silent and blurry-eyed. They decided to pause for lunch right there, quickly, and see how coherent Sanov was. Afterwards, he was able to walk, if wobbly, and the people who were not carrying Ng took turns walking with him. It was very slow going; he could not seem to move quickly enough. By the time they stopped for supper, again waiting for Sanov and escort to catch up, he was informed that his choice was down to “ride or be dragged”. A comm call went overtime with battery consumption to inform the main group of the incident. A reassurance: there was more medicine with the large group, all they had to do was get the injured there, preferably soon.
They left a large bundle of technical things that no longer worked - by now, this covered almost all of the powered equipment apart from a single cranky radio - in a clearing to make space on a horse. Sanov, still almost as silent as Zoe but from fear and illness rather than deep depression, did not take well to riding; even with all the tips Zimmer, Shea, and the local gave him about relaxing his legs.
“Any second, old lady Brisco’s gonna come out and belt me one for doing this,” he mumbled to the air around him. It was Barnett’s turn to guide him.
Barnett wondered who ‘old lady Brisco’ was, and though she didn’t remember saying so aloud, she must have done so because Sanov replied, still groggy-sounding, “They owned part in the mine. Were wealthy compared to us rest. Got 20 percent of all profits, plus whatever they could skim from us b’fore sending it on. Only scared of the other owners. Never showed up, other owners. Couldn’t bother with us. Mean bastards. All of ‘em.”
“They the ones who had horses?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well they can’t get to you here,” Barnett said kindly, patting the shoulder of his horse. Sanov looked at her, not quite able to comprehend. He still wore the same frightened look as before.
So Barnett smiled at him.
That was on the eight day.
****
The 11th morning, they could see that there was a wider valley some kilometres ahead, and the reception to the base camp there was comparatively good. They had seen signs of others in their valley: a brief look at an abandoned pod on the far slope, later a glimpse of campfire ashes across the huge ravine they were skirting the eastern flank of. Both made by crew who had landed closer to the valley junction, who had already gone down and were with the others. These others were now able to stay put and rest, waiting for the main group and gathering food. Jocylen, for all his caution, was in a race. Another group was heading southward to the valley camp - right across from them as they went north. Mr. Zimmer was among them, and Marlon was equally anxious to get there - preferably before her husband. The main group, over 300 crewmembers - including the Captain and a whole lot of medical staff - was no more than a day or two away, eastward. Jocylen wanted to beat both, and the way looked good. No obstacles apart from the final steep hill, something the local claimed was not difficult, just long. They just had to get there.
That afternoon, the radio crackled and said that the main lot of crew had arrived. Captain Ivanova seemed in good spirits and hadn’t yet killed any of the locals, which meant some crew had already lost their bets. Jocylen muttered something, but Barnett could not tell what. He just motioned them all to pick up and keep going. The Lieutenant had been picking up on sign language fairly quickly, shortening the delays over maps. Most of them were learning new skills, apart from Sanov and Zoe; both seemed stuck in a holding pattern. Wounds were healing (Lau complained about her cracked ribs aching, but since private Johnstone was worse off, she did not say so a second time), tempers were kept confined, and Barnett hadn’t burned anything the last two meals. Packs were becoming lighter as food ran low, and the medical supplies were almost gone, but they had enough to get to the main group, ETA tomorrow evening: a full night before the northbound group was expected. As far as Barnett was concerned, all was basically well.
****
Late afternoon on the twelfth day, Barnett almost crashed into the person in front of her. “What are you stopped for,” she griped and shifted around him, pushing past some bushes that had sharp little thorns.
The local man had stopped them at the edge of a rocky clearing - not a level one, either, but a stretch of gravel and bits of tumbled rock that looked to be over half a kilometre wide, and went right up the slope of the mountain. “This is not how it looks on the map,” Jocylen said, apparently discussing something with the local. The weather-beaten old man was very agitated at what he saw, from what few signs Barnett had learned to interpret.
Torres was skirting back from the lower edge. Barnett first noticed she had climbed over a horizontal tree truck - then that the trunk was still attached to green branches. Then Barnett noticed several more trees, also on their sides, roots sticking out in the air and snapped branches tossed about like a giant child had stuffed them roughly into the rocks, leaving all sorts of smaller bits laying around. [What in the world could knock over entire trees? And why?]
“Goes right to the ravine, sir. We can’t go under it.” The marine looked a bit cross as she reported this.
The local made a facial expression like he was swearing, and that the curses were both foul and many. Then he gestured a few things.
“Obviously it’s moved, since it looks a lot smaller on the map. You had to cross over it to reach us, right?”
“What moved?” Barnett asked.
“The mountain,” Jocylen said, and ignored her bewildered look. “He claims it’s not safe to cross.”
“Well that’s dumb, mountains don’t move,” Barnett said. She was quickly hushed by an annoyed look from the local.
“What do you mean, we can’t cross?” snapped Cevry.
Gradually, the local explained. The slide that used to cover just a small portion of this slope had moved, shifting down and making the previous path unusable. The ice pack above them (Barnett squinted at the whitish chunk that was several kilometres above them, near the top of the rocky area) had melted and shifted a lot more than he had figured it would, and had brought down much of what used to be stable ground.
The horses, even when nudged, refused to set foot onto the rocks. “How are we going to get to the others?” Zimmer asked.
“Tomorrow,” the local wrote out. “When we have better daylight. Before the underlying ice has time to make things worse.”
“There’s still hours of daylight left, you fool,” Cevry shouted. “You can’t expect us to stop-”
Cevry paused when an anxious hand was abruptly raised; at the same instant, the horses made sounds in their throats while backing up. A few of the rocks were moving, with sharp, deep sounds - a large boulder gave way a few hundred meters above them and began to thud down, setting smaller rocks moving as it rolled over them. It took almost a minute for the dust to settle and everything to be still again.
The local held his finger over his mouth in a ‘Shh’ motion; the tendons on his hand and neck were standing out from his skin, nervous. Jocylen said quietly, “Perhaps we should back up to talk.”
Having retreated a few dozen meters, the soonest they could rein in the horses, the argument broke out anew. Jocylen, though angry still, had apparently been at least partly convinced by the gravity-loving boulder. The others fussed - in a few hours, they could be with the rest; they could have more food and blankets and medicine and could rest for a while. Sanov, though still fevered, was awake enough to complain about feeling ill. He said that wanted a doctor to check his still-slightly-swollen arm, which was his first verbal confession of not being in perfect heath. Ng, to be contrary, was feeling well enough to risk sitting up, but the other injured all wanted proper treatment before they went to sleep again.
“Uncle here refuses to give in,” Jocylen said. “Radio the others - see what they have to say on it. There’s still enough light, I think, even if the sun is behind the mountain already.”
A few minutes later, a cross Cevry was forced to concede - the main camp told them to follow the local’s orders. Informed - again - that the man lived outside in these mountains, he knew what he was doing. Binoculars used from the valley camp could see the slide clearly, and agreed that sometime in the past few days it had gotten a lot larger.
It was a sullen group that set up camp that night, and the local was still trying to keep them as quiet as possible. The radio, in a futile effort to cheer them, had earlier mentioned there was a party of some sort to be expected that night. And though they did not give any details, they mentioned that the slide-trapped group was going to miss dancing.
“What sort of dancing,” the local wrote out, which Cevry repeated into the radio.
“No idea, friend, but the local girls have been getting some sort of skin die ready - they’re planning some sort of show. Too bad you’re going to miss it, I’ve heard some fellows practising what I assume is music for a few days now. It’ll beat being bored silly, anyway.”
Barnett was startled to see that the local man looked ready to cry, staring down towards the valley even though the view was totally obscured by trees.
[What sort of show are we going to miss?] She wondered, then set about trying to find enough food in the area to make a decent meal. They were almost out of rations; all that was left was some of the liquid insta-heat packs that the local had strongly suggested they keep stored for the cold snap that was due in about a week. So it had been all-native food for the past few days, and that meant a lot of work just to eat. The local didn’t go hunting in the time he had left, not leaving sight of the camp and not going towards the rocky open area. He didn’t trust the group, even after repeated instructions to keep quiet and keep off the rocks. No one could get a body washing in either - the nearest stream was a ways back and they had to haul water just to cook with. But most of the others were reluctant to move the camp any further back - it just meant retaking their steps again in the morning, and they were weary enough.
Torres climbed a tree again, binoculars in hand, and watched what was going on below for a while. She reported a lot of campfires, then just a few. After a while, all the fires sprang back, but it was still too far to see what was going on besides a good bit of activity. “I can’t hear any clear music,” she said once back on the ground, “but they seemed to be having a good time. And here we’re bugger-all missing it!”
Crossly, the local made them go over their instructions once again, and got what packs pre-arranged as he could. He repeated to them to let the horses pick the route, those on foot would be spaced between the lead and rear horses. Told them they had to travel in absolute silence, watching their footing, and in single file. Told them what to do if the slide did move on them - run like hell for the edge, since they had no change of trying to make it to the bottom in one piece, and get as far into the trees as they could, since the forest next to the slide’s edge might not be safe enough. And they had to get to the other side before the sunlight touched the glacier up top. He made each of them repeat the orders, even though he had to take Zoe by the shoulder and shake her just a little to get even a mumbled summary out of her. They went to bed after that, dissatisfied.
There was cold tea for breakfast, served with a repeat of very fussy orders, at first light. The local refused to eat even a little of the cold roast tubers, spelling out he was too agitated to risk food. He had always eaten a full breakfast before. His nervousness was contagious; few of the others nibbled anything. Their last act before leaving the camp was to radio ahead and let the main group know what they were doing, arranging to meet a party of medics at the edge of the large valley. Once they got off the mountain’s slope there would be able-bodied volunteers to help carry the remaining packs.
They had packed up in absolute silence, and remained that way as they went back to the edge of the rubble. Barnett carefully tested her first pebbly footstep - it shifted a little under her feet but seemed fine otherwise. Slowly, they began to pick their way around the larger rocks, ones that were as high as her knees, often with jagged edges. The lead horse wasn’t in a great hurry, and she was forced to trust that it could somehow sense what places were the best to step. She followed with great care, uncertain as to what might happen to her feet if a rock trapped her - she did not want to hobble on crutches like the others for days.
Sometimes a rock would slip from under a hoof, or more frequently, a boot. But slowly they made their way across - first 100 meters, then 200. Almost a third of the way, Barnett began to relax a little, though she too watched as the little rocks skipped and bumped their way to a new resting place.
Just past the halfway point, someone - she never saw who - suddenly slipped on their feet, causing a shower of grit and pebbles to fly out from under them as they crashed. All five horses suddenly lifted their heads, pausing mid-step as the person got back up, wobbly. She could hear them mutter, but did not turn around enough to see who it was.
She watched the rocks, however, over her shoulder - the pebbles did not bounce a few meters then stop. A pace wide, the shifted part stayed in motion, downwards, and it took a few seconds for Barnett to realise that the shifting was spreading, more than a few rocks were moving and the pace was getting wider. And longer.
That was the moment the horses screamed, and as one, bolted forwards. One almost knocked her over but swerved upwards at the last moment, jarring Barnett awake. “Run!” a man shouted suddenly, “run!”
She ran. Others in front of her were running too. Under her feet she could feel a tremble like she had felt during the attacks; then it grew into an outright rumble. She tried to keep her footing when the entire ground seemed to be falling apart under her and somewhere in between hearing someone behind her scream in pain and scrambling off a swiftly tilting rock she realised that the rumble was a roar, filling the air with grey dust and drowning out all the other sounds.
She didn’t stop moving to think about the sound, it would be heard enough in later nightmares: a deep, shaking rumbling sound that had never been reproduced by machines. The sound of things breaking and grinding and flowing when they should have been immobile and secure for at least another aeon, that was the sound, overlaid by the screaming of horses and humans. Behind her, the middle of the slope gave way, knocking into motion the rocks underneath it, and by their absence, setting loose the rocks that had been above them. Within a few more moments, the shift had spread hundreds of meters upwards, and every rock it touched on the sides began to move as well.
Someone was still screaming at them to run, she heard vaguely over the roaring, as she ducked between the trees and then went deeper in, terrified. The ground here, dirt now, was shaking as well, the grass and branches were dancing around her as she wheeled around suddenly - where were the others? A few paces behind her, the moving rocks smashed into and tore away another tree, splintering it with an ease that only increased her fear. Someone in blue was beside her, but the rest - she took a few steps back towards the movement, trying to see where the others had gone. Someone was visible below her as a blur in the clouds of dust, a human, but only the top half - which vanished a moment later.
Her last view, just before something huge and brown with branches struck her, was that of the small dark-haired form of Zoe DeClerke a few meters out of reach: carried down the slope too fast to be walking, mouth open in an unheard scream just before the officer was swept under by rubble. Then it went black.
****
(end part 7)