Impact (6 page)

I'm breathing too fast. I try to slow it down, but it doesn't help. Each breath sucks icy air into my lungs, slicing through me like a knife.

I don't bother calling Syria's name any more. I don't even know if he's able to respond. Chances are, he's probably passed out from the pain.

The wonder I felt at being on Earth has left with the daylight. The sky above me is pitch-black now. I just walk, heading uphill, trying to ignore the fact that nothing around me looks familiar. I laugh, the sound bitter against the wind–it doesn't matter. This landscape is the same for who knows how many miles in each direction. What were the Earthers thinking, coming down here?

My thoughts wander too far, and I lose control of my water container.

I'm already gripping the fabric so hard that my hands are aching and numb. I catch my right foot in a pile of rocks, or a plant root, or
something
, and the fingers on my right hand lose their grip.

There's a panicky moment where I'm scrabbling in the dark, half hoping that I can catch the edges again. Then a deluge of icy water drenches my pants. The leaf-filled shirt flops against me, dripping the last of its load onto the frozen soil.

For a long moment I just stand there, staring out into the darkness. Then I grab the shirt and ball it up, furiously scrunching the fabric. I hurl it away, and it gives a wet thud as it slaps off a nearby rock.

I howl. That's what it is: an uncontrolled, animal howl. It's a hot anger, burning bright, as if trying to force back the cold air.

And as my voice trails off, as the howl dies in my throat, there's an answering sound.

It comes from a long way away–a coughing bark, almost inaudible. I freeze, listening hard. The bark comes again. It's deeper this time, more drawn out, but then it's gone.

Seconds tick by. I let out a breath, the cloud dissipating into the night air. There's not just anger now–there's fear, too, flooding my mouth with a familiar metallic taste.

Whatever's out there isn't a picture in a tab screen or part of a story told by a teacher in some Outer Earth schoolroom. It's alive.

And it knows I'm here.

I start walking again, reducing everything to the physical motion of putting one foot in front of the other. I don't know if I'm going in the right direction, but if I don't keep moving I know that I'll just lie down and never get up again. I keep the slope ahead of me, keep climbing.
Climb high enough, and you can get all the way to the top of the mountain.

I'm so deep in myself, so intent on movement, that I don't realise I've found Syria until I almost trip over him.

He's lying where I left him, prone in the depression. I get my footing, then drop to my knees next to him.

“Syria,” I say. He doesn't respond.

My mind is already moving ahead of my words. I lost the water, but I can still hear the stream. I'll have to take him there, over my shoulders if I have to, no matter how much pain he's in.

He hasn't moved. “Syria,” I say again, shaking his shoulder. The flesh beneath my fingers is a gummy crust. Even the lightest touch must cause him excruciating pain, so why isn't he—

Then I'm shaking him, trying to roll him over, screaming his name.

The screams dissolve into sobs. I sit back, shoulders shaking, breath coming in hitching gasps. It's almost completely dark now–I can't see further than a few feet in any direction.

He shouldn't have died here. He should have died on Outer Earth, in the Caves, the place he protected and watched over. He should have died years from now, surrounded by his friends. Instead, he died alone, in agony. Thousands of miles from home.

Okwembu.

Her name arrives in my mind from nowhere. It's a strange thought, as if someone else is speaking the word. I react, hammering on the ground, once, twice, a third time, tiny rocks leaving impressions in my skin. I barely notice. All I can see is her face.

She made me kill my dad, she helped destroy our home, she took my friends away from me when she shoved me out of the first escape pod. She didn't kill Syria, not directly, but she's why he's here. Without her, the Earthers' plan would never have worked. And now she's taken away the last link I had to Outer Earth.

It all comes back to her. All of it.

I've never felt such anger. The thought is so potent that, for a time, it's all I can hold in my head. When I come back, I realise I'm shivering, shaking so hard that my teeth chatter. Everything below my waist feels like it's made of ice.

I'll never find the stream again in the dark. I barely found it in the light. I decide to stay where I am–I can survive a night without water. But I
have
to get warm. The last time I was this cold was in the Core, back when Oren Darnell had Outer Earth held hostage, and that was a cold that nearly gave me hypothermia. If I don't find a way to get warm, I'm as good as dead.

I can't make a fire–or at least I have no idea how to. It's not the kind of thing they teach you on Outer Earth, where the general idea is to avoid fire of any kind. Besides, there's nothing to burn.

Inspiration strikes, and I jump up, running on the spot. But it only makes my aching muscles hurt more, and doesn't generate anywhere near the amount of heat I'd need.

I sit back down again, hard. If he was here, Prakesh would come up with a plan. And Carver… he'd have some gadget stashed away, a portable flamethrower or a miniature electric stove.

I close my eyes.
They're not here. You need to think.

The Core. I was prepared for it then, dressed appropriately, with my dad's old flight jacket and several sweaters, plus thick gloves. Here, I've got nothing on but thin pants and a jacket–a single layer against the cold.

I need insulation. But how?

I could snuggle up to Syria's body–make use of his remaining heat. I could even take his clothes, or what's left of them. The thought makes me recoil. I won't do that. If there's nothing else, if I truly can't stay warm, then I'll revisit it. But there's got to be another way.

What about the leaves?
asks a quiet voice in my mind.

I don't give myself time to poke holes in the idea. I scramble in the dark, using my hands to feel for the plants. I know there's one close by, and seconds later I find it, yanking it towards me. There aren't many leaves, and those that it has are crumbly and dry, falling apart in my fingers. I let it go, and keep searching.

I find another plant, then another, stripping them bare, and soon I've gathered enough to start stuffing them into my jacket. They're scratchy and uncomfortable, but I keep going, pushing them down into the jacket sleeves.

My hands are utterly numb, and the only thing I can see is my breath condensing in the freezing air. I shove more leaves into my pants, which feels even worse. Not that I have a choice in the matter–I do this, or I die.

Something moves against my skin.

I squeal, ripping my hand away. The thing comes with it–I can feel it latched onto my finger. I shake my hand furiously, and then it's gone. A bug. Had to have been. Asleep in the leaves, until I disturbed it. The idea that there might be others, crawling close to my body…

The cold is making it hard to think–my thoughts are coming in quick bursts, barely coherent. My stomach sends a radiating, hungry ache up through my body, and, right then, I realise just how tired I am. It's as if all the strength has run out of my legs.

I find my way back to Syria, the leaves rustling against my skin. My thigh is throbbing. I do my best to ignore it, curling into a ball, pulling my hands into my jacket sleeves and jamming them between my legs as I try to get comfortable on the hard ground. At least I'm out of the wind, hunkered down in the depression.

I hunch my shoulders, trying to get my ears into my jacket collar, but the jacket isn't big enough.

I don't know how long I sleep, but it's dark and dreamless. I only wake up when a sound steals into my mind. The sound is a low growl, and it pulls me out of the blackness.

I open my eyes. They adjust to the darkness instantly, as if I've had them open this whole time.

The animal is right in front of me, no more than three feet away, its jaws wrapped around Syria's leg.

They can't restart the fire.

The fuel on the lake has burned away, save for a few flickers of flame in the centre that provide a little light. No matter what they do, they can't get any other wood to catch.

And the fire isn't the only thing that's gone. Kahlil is dead. He slipped away without anyone noticing, his sightless eyes staring at the sky.

Mikhail is on his hands and knees, blowing with all his might. It would look ridiculous, Prakesh thinks, if the situation wasn't so serious. He's already told Mikhail that it's not going to work–starting a fire from scratch requires fine motor skills. It requires time and energy to gather materials. The cold and damp is taking all of it away, but Mikhail won't quit. He keeps blowing, refusing to give up hope.

“Shit,” Carver says, kicking a clod of dirt into the lake. The last cinder goes out with a puff, and Prakesh coughs as a loose wisp of smoke catches him in the throat.

Clay is praying loudly, invoking Buddha this time, praising his holy name. Carver rounds on him. “Will you shut up?”

Clay subsides, muttering. Carver looks at Prakesh, shivering as the wind scythes through him. “OK, P-Man. Your action. What do we do now?”

But before Prakesh can answer, Janice Okwembu speaks up. “We need to keep moving,” she says, getting to her feet and dusting herself off. “Walking will keep us warm, and we can look for food.”

“No.” Mikhail has finally abandoned the fire and is sitting back on his heels. Prakesh doesn't like the look in his eyes, doesn't like the naked fear he sees there. “We stay here. You heard the radio message. There's
sanctuary
out there.” He leans on the word, as if it'll keep the cold away. “They'll come for us. We swim out, we get more fuel. We restart the fire.”

“And end up like him?” Carver jerks his head at Khalil's body. Mikhail glares at him.

“It won't work,” Okwembu says, folding her arms. “If the people who broadcast that message are out there, we need to get to
them
. We can't wait for them to come to us.”

Suddenly they're all talking at once. Mikhail and Carver are shouting at each other, Okwembu trying to intervene. Clay's prayers get louder.

“Enough,” Prakesh says. When nobody listens, he bellows, “
Hey!
”

Everyone falls silent. Mikhail's shoulders are rising and falling with exertion. Above his beard, his eyes are gleaming with panic.

“She's half right,” says Prakesh, pointing to Okwembu. “We keep moving.”

Okwembu nods, but Mikhail growls in frustration. “We'll never make it.”

Prakesh talks over him. “We're too exposed here. Feel that wind coming off the lake?”

The others nod. Of course they do.

“Moving will keep us warm. And we're not going far–just until we find somewhere out of the wind. Once we're there, we group together for warmth, wait until morning. It's the best chance we've got.”

“We don't even know where we are,” Mikhail says. Prakesh can hear the fear in his voice.

Clay stops praying, then clears his throat. “Actually, I think I do.”

They all turn to stare at him, and he swallows before continuing. “I looked at some old maps on the ship's computer before we came down here,” he says, pointing to the water. “I think this is Eklutna Lake. South shore.”

He swallows again, knotting his hands. “We're north-east of Anchorage. It's far, but all we have to do is head that way.” He points into the forest.

Prakesh doesn't wait for an answer. He walks away from the group, moving into the trees, rubbing his arms furiously. For a long moment the only sounds are his feet crunching on the frosty ground.
They're not coming
, he thinks.
They're actually going to sit there and freeze to death.

But a moment later he hears them coming after him. He slows down, waiting for them to catch up. No one mentions Kahlil.

The ground slopes slightly, and before long Prakesh's knees are aching from the descent. His eyes have adjusted to the dark, but it's a relative term. The forest is as dark as space itself. He can just make out the stunted trees against the black sky. Once again, he feels that excitement–a feeling that refuses to go away, despite their situation.

How can there possibly still be trees down here? Why has this part of the planet survived, when everything they know about Earth says it should be a frozen, radioactive dustball? Is the planet starting to fix itself? How long has it been like this? Surely not long–they would have seen it when they sent the Earth Return mission down, when they were scanning the planet for landing sites. That means it's only been like this for seven years, at the most. How is it even possible?

A hundred years before, the people still on Earth were using every technological trick they had to turn the tide of climate change. Cloud seeding, messing with the ionosphere, carbon capturing. None of it really worked, and then the nukes came raining down and it didn't matter any more. But here, something has changed. Something made this part of the world different.

His thoughts return to his parents, back on Outer Earth. The regret comes rushing back, rough and familiar as an old blanket.

But what is he supposed to do? How can he possibly help anybody who might be alive on Outer Earth? There's only one thing he can do now, and that's survive. If he's going to live through the night, then he's got to shut out everything else.

The wind has got worse–it's constant now, whistling through the tree branches and every gust freezes him to the bone. He keeps hoping that the slope will deviate, that there'll be a depression or gully where they can get out of the wind. But there's nothing–no matter where they go, the ground is evenly sloped.

Carver is to his right, and he can hear Mikhail behind him, swearing as he pushes through the foliage. He can't hear Clay, or Okwembu, and he doesn't want to lose them. “Everybody still here?” he calls.

“Still here,” mutters Carver. The others echo him, one by one, their voices betraying their exhaustion.

Abruptly, the trees open up. They're in a small clearing, no more than fifty yards wide. There's a sliver of moonlight, peeking down through a tiny gap in the clouds–enough for Prakesh to see some strange structures ahead of them. He identifies an old wooden table, half of it rotted away. Plants have grown into it, winding tendrils through the wood. Next to it is what appears to be a large steel drum, now rusted, most of its top half gone. The bottom is still held in place by two metal brackets.

Prakesh runs his hand across the edge of the drum. It would have been installed over a hundred years ago, and probably hasn't been visited in about as long.

One thought leads to another. If humans really have survived, then they'll have managed to keep some tech going–they wouldn't have been able to broadcast a radio signal otherwise. The excitement rises again at the thought of what else might be out there.

He pulls his hand back from the drum. Wouldn't do to get an infected cut out here.

The others stumble into the clearing behind him. Mikhail collapses on the table, which groans in protest.

“Keep moving,” Prakesh says.

But Mikhail is shaking his head. “No. No. This isn't right. We stay here. We can light another fire.”

“Mikhail.” It's Okwembu. She's shivering, too, holding herself tightly, but her voice is as calm and controlled as ever. “Get up.”

If Mikhail hears her, he gives no sign. He's still shaking his head, muttering to himself.

Okwembu walks up to him, grabs him by the shoulders. “Get up,” she says, and this time there's real fury in her voice. He ignores her, rocking back and forth on the rotten wood.

Carver strides off, heading for the other side of the clearing.

“Aaron!” Prakesh catches up to him just before he disappears into the trees.

The wind has got even worse, and Prakesh struggles to hear Carver's voice. “Forget that. He wants to stay where he is? Fine! Let him!”

“We need to stick together,” Prakesh says, but he doesn't even know if Carver can hear him. He plunges into the trees, almost tripping over a rock, and has to put his hand against one of the tree trunks to stop himself from falling. The bark is damp and frigid against his skin, speckled with frost.

“Wait!” Clay screams the word, stumbling after them. Prakesh can feel a panic of his own rising, as if the presence of the others was the only thing keeping it down. He is colder than he has ever been in his life, and every breath feels like it has to physically claw its way out of his lungs. The wind has increased now, strong enough that he has to lean into it. He can hear the trees beginning to bend, the old wood creaking.