Kraken Orbital (5 page)

My heart
starts beating faster as all kinds of thoughts race through my
mind.
Had I been wrong to
trust him?
With the lack of food evident
on this planet, maybe he was planning on killing me right there and
then, and grinding my flesh into paste to have for supper! My body
urges me to run but doesn’t provide the means. My legs have gone
stiff and I am oddly frozen to the spot. He brings the knife up to
eye level and I finally spot his target. If I had been more aware
of my surroundings, I could have saved myself that brief but
intense moment of embarrassment.

A gruesome, oddly long, and green patterned
snake washes through the thin flakes of sand about my feet. I
remain calm, rested a little by the knowledge I wasn’t on the menu,
and keep my foot still. Any sudden movement could have resulted in
a strike and there was no telling how venomous it was. Kolt threw
the knife down with scary precision. It strikes the snake just
behind it’s muzzle shaped head. An instant kill.

He
kne
lt down and I’m suddenly hit again by
the burning relentless sun. It knocks me for a second but the break
has done me good. I don’t feel quite as sick right now. He digs the
knife right behind the snake’s skull and successfully,
effortlessly, beheads the thing. He pushes the head deep into the
sand and starts unraveling the lengthy beast from it’s sandy home.
I remembered some of my basic survival training. The one good thing
to come from that job. It is always a good idea to bury the head as
it remains poisonous for some time.

The snake is
at least two meters long, a good two inches thick, and rubbery in
texture. It is a sandy green color and I’m not sure, what with the
blue and green spots dazzling over my eyes from the sun, how the
Hell Kolt spotted it at all. Maybe his gas mask lenses had a tint
on them to keep the light out. For the first time ever I’m jealous
of him for them.

‘
I have never
done anything to make you afraid of me.’ The rising intonation at
the end of the sentence almost makes me think he is asking me a
question. But I think
he’s actually just
surprised. Maybe a little offended too.

‘
I’m sorry.’
I say after a few seconds to think. I came up short. That was the
best I could manage.
But for me it was
still pretty good. He was right though. He had never done anything
to make me afraid of him. I just was. But there I was regardless
making up things he might be thinking. I leave the issue. Nobody
wants to talk about it. I can sense that.

Maybe the two
of us are quite similar in our stunted emotional development.
Neither of us wants to hold hands and talk about
o
ur feelings. Even though I know I’ve
hurt him. Instead of dwell on it or make an ass out of myself
making up some bull excuse, I decide that I’m just going to try to
make more of an effort to understand my new accomplice. It looks as
though we are going to have a lot of time together
anyway.

He reaches the end of the snake and starts to
squeeze. He rolls his tight fingers right around the dead animal
and pushes all of the brown, murky innards out of the gaping hole
he had stabbed through it. The rest would be meat and good eating
later on. The bile he forces out stinks in the desert warmth. It
smells like fresh sick and makes me gag. I manage to hold it
together, mostly out of pride, and swallow to keep my water down.
Kolt casually throws the snake carcass over his back, draped around
his shoulders like a scarf and picks up the backpack.

‘
I though I
was going to be on the menu.’ I just can’t resist. I try to
use
humor to mask the fact I upset the
man.

‘You might
have been. Had I been able to eat solid food.’
Was that a joke?
Had I
finally dragged a sense of humor out of him. He turned around and
gently tapped his soldered gas mask. Of course. How could I have
been so stupid. The poor guy couldn’t even take in water. He must
he been surviving on liquid supplements ever since the
crash.

I get sick of
all of the walking before I even know it. I’m tired of falling over
in the sand and stumbling like some uncoordinated ape. The effort
of getting through the desert is sapping eve
ry bit of strength that I have.

It wasn’t
supposed to be like this. I was supposed to come here and before I
knew it life would be getting easier. I shouldn’t have to do this.
I should have an easy life by now. Those kinds of self indulgent
thoughts flash through my mind as I slowly start to see
th
e sun crest across the
horizon.

I can see the water sparkle in the distance.
I’m sure I can hear it lapping against the sandy shores but I don’t
know if I’m just hearing things. I feel sorry for myself. I know
it’s silly but I can’t help it. I was naïve to have come here.
Naïve to have thought life was suddenly going to be easy without
any kind of effort from myself. That’s just childish. I was right
to get away from my employers but I should have known that even
greater hardship was afoot.

Kolt hasn’t
said anything all afternoon. It’s irritating how collected he is.
It’s annoying how he doesn’t have to try and doesn’t seem to be
affected at all by the painful desert heat. I want to take
my
armor off and cool down but I know
that if I do I’ll just get burned to a crisp.

I can smell
the snake cooking around his back. The heat bouncing down on it’s
fragile flesh, reflected and intensified over his disgusting apron,
and the thing is cooking in it’s own skin. I want it to make me
sick. I would feel more normal if it did. But it’s just making me
hungry. The flesh is sizzling under the scales and I can smell
th
e meat as if it was a
barbeque.

Maybe it’s
just that
I’m so used to eating that crud
they forced down my throat for the past five years of my life. All
you can eat snake buffet sounds, smells and looks appealing right
now. I can’t help but to stare at it. Swinging back and forth with
each of his gentle steps.

The sun is
low in the sky and its hard to see. The light is calmer
though
and ebbs away with each passing
second. As the powerful, evil sun passes down into the night and
stops belting us all day long. I feel as though I can’t take
anymore. I stop, shout to Kolt, and start frantically tearing at
the shell of my armor. Kolt turns. I though he was going to stop me
and complain that I was slowing down the pace. But instead he waits
patiently as I clamor at the sticky armor.

My skin is
wet and clammy. The soft texture of the
armor underneath sticks to my arms as I pull and tug at it
relentlessly. The sudden exertion makes my heart beat faster and I
feel like I’m about to pass out again. A few deep breaths settles
me and my armor finally relents. I pull my arm free and take off
the torso cover like a sweater. I fall to my knees, panting for
breath from the dry desert and sandy air, and watch as sweat drips
down my ridiculously hairy chest.

The air feels cool. And the sun dries me
gently as the day slips, finally, into old age. I take one last
deep breath and open my eyes. My chest hair tingles as the sun
caresses me dry. I sigh. Happily.

‘
We are
almost to the body of water.’ Kolt raises a weary arm to the
setting sun. I watch him in silence. I’m only half interested in
what he has to say. I’m watching the gorgeous rays of orange
colored light wash across the darkening sky as
the sun dips below the dunes. I turn to see the three moon’s of the
planet rise in the pale sky behind me like silver discs in the sky.
The view clashed as night met day and day was defeated by
night.

I can see the stars again over my shoulder
and I could not be more grateful of it. I know the night will be
cold. I know that as the heat disperses I will beg for the sun once
more. But I don’t want to let that thought drive me crazy. I don’t
want to feel like I’m in some kind of perpetual Hell. I just want
to feel cool and dry as the sun finally gives in.

I can’t even be bothered to reply to Kolt. I
just get to my feet. He locks eyes with me and just waits to see if
I can carry on. He is much kinder than I have judged him to be. I
feel guilty and ashamed of how I reacted to him. I thought I was
better than that. To judge a man because he looks, simply,
terrifying.

‘You want me to carry the bag.’ I ask him. I
am surprised at how croaky my voice sounds. I haven’t used it much
all day. He shakes his head but carries on without looking back.
‘Or maybe your gun if it’s getting heavy?’ I offer. It must have
sounded like a threat. Or a ghastly attempt at diplomatically
disarming him. He doesn’t rise to it. Even though the bait was
completely unintentional.

‘I can manage.’ He says in his rugged
accent.

‘Where did you find that thing by the way?’ I
have wanted to ask him that since the first second we met. I
thought people had given up on projectile weapons long ago. I
should have been more considerate though. He has lost his memory
and is, like me, trapped on an alien and unfamiliar world. I didn’t
mean for my question to cause him any offence.

‘
It was on my
ship.’ He looked, more sounded, distant again.
I can’t see his eyes. But I doubt they’ve changed and still
look as distant. We walk side by side for the first time since
meeting. If I could see them I’m certain they would be the windows
to his lost soul and would be searching his broken memory for the
answer to my question. But he continues.

‘I found it
after the fire finally went out. I’d not thought about… what it is?
Is it old?’ He asks me and sounds pretty genuine too. He sounds
confused. He even glances over to me. I can only see his eyes for a
second but they look horrified. He looks like a broken man, hiding
under his impressive shell. For the first time in our short
relationship, I feel deeply sorry for him.

‘Yeah man.’ I reply. I don’t want to upset
him. But he is freaking me out a little again. I try not to let it
show and think back to how silly I was to be scared of a man who
saved me. ‘Nobody uses projectile anymore. They’re noisy,
inefficient, offensive weapons.’ I try to explain to him. He draws
it from his back and studies it as though he was picking it up for
the first time ever. He holds it nervously but grips around it with
his open palms a few times. Its like he is reassuring himself of
something.

‘I like it.’ He finally says and throws it
back over his shoulder. He strides forth again. He can walk as fast
as he likes, he isn’t escaping the reality that he is lost. Perhaps
more so than I.

I
’m sure now. I am sure I can
hear the water. I can see the light reflected from the celestial
moons against the lapping and undulating waves ahead. It’s pretty
much dark, and our conversation about his gun is a distant memory
for us both by the time we finally make it to the shore. The
lapping, gentle and caressing sounds eventually turn into crashing
and slapping waves as we draw closer. I can see the blackness of
the water ahead and the breeze rolling in cools me to a more
comfortable level.

The water
can’t be deep, or the stretch of it between land masses long. I can
see, in the very distance, tones
and hues
of green on the horizon and the washing shadows of trees swaying in
the wind. I want to drink so bad. I remember my survival training
and I know that I can’t drink salt water. I can smell the saline in
the air as we finally stop.

The sand
about my boots is cooler and damp here. I pull my
armor back on in the brief recess. As I
expected, the night brings the cold with it. I remember watching
instructional videos about drinking salt water and how it
dehydrates you quickly. It sounded easy back in what passed as a
classroom back at work. It sounded obvious. It was almost insulting
that they would have offended our intelligence and overstated
it.

But the video didn’t mention how hard it was.
To stand in front of a stretch of water and not be able to drink
when you are, literally, dying to quench your thirst. I envied
ignorance. I wish I could just drink and not know what torture my
body would go through because of it. But I can’t and I don’t.

Kolt stops
too and places our bag of
meager supplies
on the cool sand. I know we can’t swim this mass of water in the
dark. I have to face another cold night in the desert. He takes the
dead creature from around his neck and snaps the snake clean in
half with his bare hands. He, kindly, gives me the larger
half.

‘
Other half
for breakfast.’ I could swear he is smiling. Even laughing. Under
that garish black mask of his. But I’m so grateful I don’t stop
to
analyze it. I wolf the meat down
without stopping to feel sorry for him because he can’t even eat.
He stabs his needle back into the water bottle and again into his
already battered and bruised arm.

The meat is
chewy, tough, and tastes like overcooked pork. But I couldn’t care
less. I wolf it down, tearing into the gristle and flesh with my
back teeth. I yank at the snake and tear it apart like a possessed
wild animal. I have left any manners behind, and did so long ago,
and don’t stop until the meat and skin are all eaten. It warms my
stomach and I feel a gentle, soothing build up of energy that
builds like a crescendo inside of me. I feel alive again. I feel
like I could swim an ocean with ease, find the biggest dinosaur on
the planet and punch it right in
the
snout.