Dawn of Procyon (15 page)

Cait glanced back at the doorway. “You put a proximity bracelet on her, didn’t you? Like she’s a convict.”

“The bracelet emits a small shock that immobilizes the wearer if they try to leave the area. Yes.”

“She’s a
kid
, Doctor—”

“Thank you for your help, Cait, but now I have to ask you to leave.” Dr. Nagarkar gestured down the corridor, her face stony. “Please. Just go.”

Fraxa’s voice emanated weakly from the room. “Cait?”

Cait lowered her voice. “She’s afraid for her life. You understand that?”

“Go.”

Cait hesitated for a moment longer, but ultimately she knew that she couldn’t stay. She had a job to do, after all. She had to get her gear back to the repair closest, and then get over to OC to take care of the stuff with Landry—

Landry
. She’d almost forgotten about that whole mess. Dodge would be on her case about it again soon, she had no doubt, calling the shots while he sat behind his desk and did nothing.

She sighed. Fraxa would be safe here in the Infirmary, she figured. Dr. Nagarkar was right, there was nothing more for her to do here.

Turning on her heel, she clutched the EVA suit in her arms and headed for the exit.

Chapter 28

PSD 29-213: 1551 hours

“That’s disgusting,” Landry said, staring at the thing sticking out of the sand. He was torn between watching the hand, or tentacle, or whatever it was, and keeping an eye on the receding form of the Argoni a couple of hundred meters away. From his prone position, he wriggled himself further away from the limb, eyeing it distrustfully.

Part of him wondered if there was an entire creature attached to it, lurking just beneath the sand, waiting for an unsuspecting human to wander close enough for it to snare.

“This specimen does not correspond to anything in my database,” HAIRI said.

“Is it . . . part of an Argoni? Or part of its ship, maybe?”

“We should extract the specimen for closer inspection.”

“Oh,
we
should do that, should we? Why don’t
you
do it?”

“I lack the physical components to perform such a task. If you were to insert my logic card into a Himura Prime droid chassis, I could do as you suggest.”

“Oh, a Himura Prime droid chassis, huh? Yeah, I think I saw one of those sitting behind that boulder over there.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“No, really—”

“This frivolity is pointless. You need to man up, Landry. Extract the specimen from the soil.”

Landry sighed. “So this is what rock bottom feels like. Being told to ‘man up’ by a piece of software.”

He glanced over toward the Toad, which was making its way up toward the ridge. He knew that he really needed to get moving if he wanted to search for the antenna while the Argoni was distracted at the wreck of the scout.

“Okay, here we go,” he said. He steeled himself, then crept forward. The limb was about the length of Landry’s forearm, sticking out of the sand at an acute angle. Although covered in dust and grit, Landry could see that its exterior was scaly and uneven, with tiny furrows clogged with sand. From its end drooped several ringed tubes, what Landry thought might have been tentacles.

Landry stopped just short of it, gathering up his courage, then reached out and slapped at it, pulling back like a fretful kitten investigating a new toy.

The thing wobbled but stayed rooted in the sand.

“That was weak, Landry. Try harder.”

“You really need to learn some manners, y’know?”

He moved forward again, then lunged and grabbed the limb, pulling at it as he moved back. It came free, spinning through the air for a moment before thudding back to the dirt.

“Well done,” HAIRI said.

It seemed that it
was
an arm, or a leg, or some kind of tentacle. Shorter than an average human arm, it looked as though it had been violently severed at one end, the flesh ripped and shredded into flaps. Landry looked over at the Argoni, making sure it hadn’t spotted him or begun to return, then crawled a little closer.

“There, satisfied?” Landry said.

“Most curious. This appears to be organic, but could not possibly be part of one of the Toads themselves.”

“Because their flesh decomposes so quickly.”

“Correct,” HAIRI said.

“And aside from that, it’s too small, and there’s no bony exterior like Toads have.”

“That is true.”

Landry reached out and turned it over quickly, like he was handling a snake. “You said their vehicles are organic. Maybe it broke off from the hull or something.”

“But the vehicles decompose as well.”

“Right. Well, scratch that.”

“This could actually be another species altogether, one that the Argoni prey upon.”

“So this is like . . . the Toad equivalent of a chicken drumstick?”

“It is a possibility. This might belong to a creature from their homeworld that we have not yet encountered or documented.”

“Because we’ve never found their homeworld.”

“Correct.”

“Well, that’s all very interesting,” Landry said, surveying the landscape again, “but I really need to find this antenna. And I need to do it before the Toad comes back.”

“Agreed. But you should take the specimen with you.”

“What? No thanks.”

“This is a significant scientific discovery,” HAIRI said.

“Sorry, but I’ve got enough stuff to lug around without adding a creepy alien appendage to the mix.”

“I cannot force you to take it—”

“No, you can’t. I’m sorry I won’t be making my contribution to the scientific community today, HAIRI, but I’m trying to survive here. Okay? I don’t want to touch that thing again.”

“I understand. Please proceed.”

It took Landry around fifteen minutes to make his way to the boulders where he had first spotted the Argoni. By the time he got there, the Toad had disappeared above the ridge, evidently returning to the scout to continue its deconstruction of the craft. Landry couldn’t help but be a little disappointed once he arrived; he had expected the components of the scout to be easily visible, their silver and white edges glinting in the afternoon sun against the ruddy landscape, but there was nothing. All that lay before him was sand, rocks, and more sand. Beyond, he could see the scorched soil from where from where the Argoni base had been recently obliterated.

“Nothing,” he muttered. “Not a thing.”

“Perhaps the Argoni has buried the components under the soil,” HAIRI suggested.

“Is that what it’s doing? Trying to hide the scout one module at a time? That would take forever.”

“Or we have simply chosen the wrong location in which to search. We first saw the Argoni in this area, but it may have been simply passing through.”

“So you’re saying it could have made camp anywhere. The antenna could be anywhere.”

“Do you think it might have returned to the destroyed base?”

Landry glanced at the charred remains of the base again. “What for? There’s nothing left. The UEM wiped it off the face of the planet. They also run scans of the terrain for a few days after to make sure there’s nothing left alive, subterranean profiling with ground penetrating radar to make sure the critters aren’t hiding under rocks or trying to make burrows or something. The area’s clean.”

“Perhaps you should search it in any case.”

Landry frowned. “I don’t like that idea. The area’s too flat over there, too exposed. The Toad would spot me for sure. At least over here I have boulders to hide behind.” He looked at the ground behind him, where the toboggan had been leaving scratch marks in his wake. “Not that it’s going to have difficulty finding me if it wants to. I’m practically leaving a trail of breadcrumbs behind with this thing.”

“Yes. Unfortunately, that is true.”

“So, if I—” Landry stopped as he turned back the other way. A chill ran through his veins.

He dropped like a stone, finding cover behind the largest boulder he could see, and drew the toboggan close to him with a desperate tug, trying to hide it.

Up on the ridge, the Argoni was heading back with another piece of the scout under its arm.

Chapter 29

PSD 29-213: 1607 hours

The boulder was large enough to hide him easily, but to Landry it felt about the size of a pebble.

He hunched behind it, legs tucked up and the toboggan drawn up against him. For a time there was no sound but his own shallow breath inside his helmet. Now and then a gust of wind stirred around him, pelting tiny grains of sand against his suit, but it made no sound. Even HAIRI had fallen silent, as if he too had sensed the urgency of the situation and decided it would be best to remain silent.

All the while, Landry waited, listening for the sound of the Toad’s approach. It felt to Landry like hours that he had been waiting there, a lifetime since he had spotted it descending from the ridge, headed in his direction.

It’s going to see me
, he thought for the hundredth time.
It’s going to see a stray foot sticking out from behind the boulder, or a glint of reflected sunlight on the solar panel. It’s going to hear the OXEE slurping in air for sure. In the quiet of the wasteland it must sound like a drunkard with sleep apnea.

It’ll sense me here, and when it does, it’s going to find me and rip me apart.

A part of him cursed himself for being such a coward. If he’d been one of those burly UEM guys, he would have already constructed a makeshift weapon out of sand, rocks, and gaffer tape, and he would have planned an ambush to take the Argoni down, or he’d have just clubbed it into submission in a straight up fight.

Heck, he would probably have retrieved the antenna already, wired it up somehow, and be waving at a rescue scout on its way in to land right now.

That’s garbage. Those grunts are about as smart as a puddle of grease. The only reason you’re still alive is because you’re resourceful. You’re a survivor.

Somehow his little pep talk to himself fell flat. It didn’t make him feel better in the least.

Now he began to wonder if he’d inadvertently placed himself directly in the path of the alien. After all, he’d observed it from a couple of hundred meters away. He wasn’t sure of the exact route it had taken through the boulders.

What if Landry was squatting right where it was about to walk? He might not hear it until it was on him, tripping over Landry’s stupid feet.

He glanced around. There were no footprints in the immediate area, but the Argoni had already demonstrated during their first encounter that it could disguise its tracks by stepping from boulder to boulder.

Landry shifted, deciding that he couldn’t wait any longer. He had to take a risk, he figured, try to get a sight of the creature again to see what it was up to. For all he knew, it could have turned around or disappeared entirely—

Shhhk
.

He stopped. There was a noise. A furtive shift of soil. Just a whisper of something nearby.

Or was that his imagination?

Shhhk
.

No. There is was again. Louder. More distinct.

Shhhk
.
Shhhk
.

Footsteps. No doubt about it. The thing was walking toward him, getting closer with every step.

Landry hugged himself tighter, compressing himself down as far as the EVA suit would allow. It still felt totally insufficient to Landry. He was a huge, shiny blob that screamed louder than a car alarm in a wasteland like this.

It was going to spot him. How could it not?

The footsteps came closer still. He watched from the corner of his eye, at the side of the boulder, expecting to see a shadow any second. He waited for the Argoni to loom over him, staring down at him with those malevolent black eyes.

The sound of the Argoni moving changed in timbre as it moved from sand to rock and then back again. The pace was steady and consistent. Maybe it was going to miss him after all, he thought.

The direction of the sound changed, and Landry realized it
was
moving past him. He snuck a glance around the other side of the boulder, and there it was—tall, bulky, like a giant wedge of charred bone, streaked with crimson—its heavy footsteps kicking up puffs of sand and dust as it went. Landry dodged back, surreptitiously moving both himself and the toboggan further around behind the boulder as he realized that he would be spotted if the Argoni turned his way. He slowly looked again, but it didn’t seem to have noticed him. It was still walking through the boulders.

Then, abruptly, it came to a complete halt.

For a moment, there was silence again. Landry sat there panting, watching intently, his pulse racing.

It heard me moving. It’s going to come back.

It made a sound like sand being ground between two stones, a noise that raised Landry’s hackles like nothing else.

Then the Argoni moved its arms, and Landry saw that it had indeed stolen another component of the scout, possibly a section of the VTOL arcjets. It tucked the piece under one arm, then extended the other arm toward a sharp outcropping of basalt jutting out from the ground. It paused and Landry saw a shadow pass across the upper face of the rock.

Whoosh!

Landry practically jumped out of his skin and fell back against the toboggan, which scraped against the boulder. He bit his lip, inwardly cursing his clumsiness.

That was it. He knew there was no way the Argoni could have missed that.

He clenched his fists, tried to stop shaking. He wondered if he should just stand up, prepare himself for the onslaught. At least that way he wouldn’t die sitting in the dirt.

There was a loud rumbling, grating sound coming from the direction of the Toad, like a boulder being pushed along the ground, and he looked back.

The Argoni was gone.

Frantically, he looked about in all directions, fearing it had snuck around behind him, but it wasn’t there. He looked at the place where he’d last seen it, and not far away, a large boulder seemed to be rotating in the soil of its own volition.

“What the . . . ?”

The inside of the boulder almost seemed to shimmer, as if it contained some sort of energy field. A moment later, it settled down once again, and the rumble ceased.

What had he just seen?

“That was most curious,” HAIRI said finally.

“Is it gone?” Landry whispered, still peeking over the top of the boulder.

“I believe so.”

“Gone
where?
”

“That is the curious part.”

“I mean, it can’t have just disappeared into thin air.”

“We would have a better idea of its whereabouts had you not been cowering behind this rock.”

“You call it cowardice. I call it self-preservation.”

“In any case, we should go and investigate this mystery.”

“I’m not investigating
anything
until I’m sure that thing is gone.”

“Very well. Please let me know when you are ready to proceed.”

They waited there for the better part of ten minutes, but there was no sign of the Argoni. Landry continued to look around him, expecting the alien to suddenly appear out of nowhere, but it was the boulder drew his attention. What had that been about? It was so odd that it seemed surreal, he thought, like a hallucination induced by the extreme stress of the situation.

But a part of him knew that it wasn’t.

Finally he got to his feet. His mouth was dry, so he instinctively sipped on his IDB tube, then remembered his water supply had run out some time ago. He was acutely reminded of how thirsty he was.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s go take a look.”