Base Zero, page 5
part #2 of Captured Earth Series
I wait for her to explain.
“I can’t believe it. I was almost giving up hope.” She glances back at me and the utter glee in her face makes something soften inside me.
She is excited about fungus.
I wonder what she intends to do with it.
We came here seeking food.
Certainly, this is not—
“I can’t wait to cook this. I mean, we don’t have spices and such, but I’m sure we can think of something.”
My belly churns, and not in a good way.
“Hyu’mans eat that?”
She glances up at me again, baring her teeth at me this time.
I stand still.
She is not being aggressive, I remind myself as my ba’clan rise on my shoulders.
It is another hyu’man eccentricity that will take some getting used to.
“Ga’Var…”
I blink at her. She’s said my name.
“Ga’Var, this is chicken of the woods. I mean, it’s no KFC, but it’s food.”
“Chee-ken…” I pause, “Sa’am?”
I want her to say my name again.
“Yeah,” she answers, but my name doesn’t come from her lips.
Her back is turned to me now, as her hands hover over the fungus. “A bird. A fowl we grow primarily for food.”
She plucks the fungus, bringing some to her nose to sniff, and a moan leaves her throat.
I stare at her, my ears cocked.
This is worse than I thought.
I cannot believe what I am seeing, and when she glances back at me, her smile dies a little. “What?”
“That is the remains of a feathered creature that died in these woods?”
She stares at me for a second before she muffles a laugh. “No! That’s just the name of the mushroom.”
Her eyes roll in her head and for the first time, I see the person Sa’am was before the Gryken took her world.
A happy female, running about her planet, picking blooms so she can tee and gathering fungi to smell.
“Come on, open that cart thing. I’m taking as much as we can carry.”
I activate the hexagon in my hand and drop it to the ground. It quickly reconstructs into a cart about the height of a young Vullan.
“Oh, that’s bigger than I thought it would be. Maybe we can actually carry part of this log back and start our own culture of these mushrooms.”
She begins lifting the log when I lean down and lift it the rest of the way for her.
Our bodies brush against each other, and even though I had just been holding her against my chest, Sa’am jerks and her cheeks grow crimson.
Log deposited into the cart and more mushrooms picked, Sa’am brushes off her hands, a genuine smile on her face as she scans the forest.
“I reckon we can find more food. This is good, but it’s not nearly enough.”
My innards hate the idea of hyu’man food but I refrain from commenting. The hyu’mans eat separately anyway.
But so far, I have not been impressed by what they ingest.
Essora worms are much more delicious.
I’m watching her as she starts walking once more when movement high in the trees catches my attention.
My hand on her shoulder stops her immediately and that smile that was on her face freezes.
“What?” she whispers. “What is it?”
I scan the trees, my gaze landing on the brown, full-furred creature.
It stares at us with pitch-black eyes and I move to stand before Sa’am.
Creatures with eyes like that are one of two things.
Young of a vicious predator. Or a fully-grown vicious predator.
I bare my teeth a little as the animal continues to watch me.
“Its gaze is unmoving…”
I sense when Sa’am peeks around me, her gaze searching the tall wiry trees.
“That’s…that’s a squirrel, Ga’Var.”
My name…
Nobody calls my name so delicately.
“Food or menace?”
Sa’am shrugs.
“Both, sometimes?”
I’m off before she can stop me and all I hear is a gasp leaving her lips as I launch myself on the tree.
The little critter scampers higher.
It’s fast, but not fast enough, and I have it in my claw in a matter of seconds.
A trill goes through me, my symbiotes writhing with pleasure at the little hunt.
How long has it been?
How long has it been since I hunted in the Edoorian wild?
Far too long.
And…I will never do it again.
My gaze finds Sa’am and the wide pools of her eyes are upon me while both of her hands are slapped over her mouth.
“What are you doing?!” she hisses, and my ears twitch.
I did not know hyu’mans could make such a sound.
The little creature struggles in my grasp at the sound of her voice, as if it has suddenly recovered from the shock of being caught and Sa’am’s squeaks have energized it.
“You have to let it go!” She hisses again while her shoulders jerk with the energy she puts behind every word. I get the sense she is trying to contain her emotions and keep our location hidden.
Sa’am has not forgotten where we are or the threat of being out here.
“Why should I release a creature that is both sustenance and a menace?”
Sa’am blinks at me.
Several times she does this.
“Because…”
I wait for her to continue, but she doesn’t.
Finally, she squeezes her eyes shut and those strangely supple lips of hers grow thin.
“It’s a squirrel.”
“And it is sustenance when your people have none.”
She gulps at this, but I see when her shoulders sag.
As I slide down the tree, I keep my eyes on her.
She does not meet my gaze, or possibly, she is trying not to look at the sqoo-wrel in my hand.
I do not understand why she is so sad about killing it, but as I snap its neck, she winces.
She may not like it now, but starvation is a painful thing.
I know.
I have experienced it before.
“Come,” I say to her and she jerks her chin toward her chest, finally rising her sullen gaze as I deposit the sqoo-wrel into the hover cart. “We should not linger here for too long.”
Chapter Seven
SAM
I’m in my mid-twenties.
I’ve seen death before.
Lots of it.
I’ve been seeing even more since the end of the world began.
Still, hearing the bones of the squirrel crack made me feel a deep sadness inside.
It’s a survivor like I am.
Why am I worthy to take its life?
Technically, I didn’t kill it, but I didn’t stop Ga’Var either.
I wonder if he would have changed his mind had I asked him to.
But…we need the food.
This isn’t like before when I could watch squirrels playing in my neighborhood and not think of them as food.
Nothing’s the same anymore.
And Ga’Var…
The way he scaled that tree like he was a superhuman or something…
A breath shudders through me as we pick our way through the brambles.
It reminded me that he’s different. Somehow, in the short time that we’ve been together, I forgot that.
He’s much easier to be around than I thought. His presence comforting instead of another source of anxiety.
In a time like this, he’s made me laugh. That counts for something.
My knees buckle as I walk, heading to higher ground.
If Base Zero was some kind of tourist attraction, then there’s bound to be a visitor center somewhere, and if I find that, maybe I can find food in there.
Proper food, like beans and cans of tinned soup.
I push the dead squirrel from my mind and focus on that.
Ga’Var hasn’t spoken since, but I can feel his steady gaze at my back.
He’s always behind me, silently watching me.
I don’t know if he knows how unnerving it is. Every time I glance back, he’s looking at me as if he’ll pounce on me at any moment.
Yet…I am not afraid?
Not of him, at least.
It doesn’t make sense.
We’re far away from the base now, probably farther than we should be. But we’ve come this far. It would be stupid to not try to scope our surroundings before heading back.
Plus, I have the mushrooms.
I can only hope Adira found something better.
As we trudge up the mountainside, the extent of the climb is slowly getting to me.
My steps falter a little. My breathing coming harder.
I’m sweating and each step feels like I’m using that stair stepper machine at the gym.
But Ga’Var is a steady untiring presence and I keep going.
I wonder if he thinks I am weak, and that leads me to wonder what he thinks about helping us hyu’mans.
Even trying to move faster isn’t helping me now. My efforts are negated in the presence of gravity.
I keep thinking of how Ga’Var scaled that tree and realize that really and truly, the Vullan have been purposefully slowing down their movements while around us.
It’s frickin’ jarring seeing how fast they move when in their element.
Taking a deep breath, I continue making my way when I feel something like a pulse against my wrist.
I don’t realize what it is until I feel the pulse again.
Looking down at my hand, my brows furrow as my gaze finds the transparent disc the medic gave me.
It pulses again as I look at it, changing to a dim blue before reverting to its transparent color, and I freeze.
It wasn’t doing that before.
My heart picks up the pace even before I turn to look at Ga’Var.
He’s stopped several meters behind me and I didn’t even notice.
What I see makes me blanch.
His spikes are all rising around him, his lips pulling back into a snarl.
It feels like my heart does an enormous thump, and time slows down for me.
I don’t know where it is.
I don’t even see it, but I know what it is even before I hear something heavy hitting the ground.
The ground shakes.
“Get down!” Ga’Var is rushing toward me even as I head back his way. My foot hits a rock and I stumble, but I’m on my hands and knees, scrambling toward him in an instant.
Fear spikes through me. My heartbeat thumps in my ears.
Terror fills my veins.
It’s coming.
We have to find cover.
But we’re not fast enough.
Terror shoots through me as something large and metal blocks out the sun and I only hear Ga’Var’s roar as the earth shakes around us.
I’m almost by his side when the earth itself shifts.
I don’t know where to look. My body doesn’t know what to do.
I’m falling, tumbling, trying to find my balance even as the earth shakes around us and everything inside me wants to scream.
Somehow, I remain quiet, biting down hard on my lips as I tumble.
But I’m moving too fast, aided by something else that is not gravity.
Dimly, I’m aware that the earth is moving like water, and at the same time, something hard hits my leg.
My ankle twists as my body spins.
I don’t know what terrifies me more.
That I probably just broke my leg or the sight that greets me as I turn.
Behind me, the whole mountainside is collapsing.
A landslide.
And behind that, overhead, the huge underside of an orb passes.
I bite down on another scream just as I feel powerful arms encircle me.
But we’re moving downhill fast.
I’m not sure Ga’Var can stop us. I’m not sure he can even save himself.
Dirt covers us and I cannot see, even as I try to aid him, to aid myself, by grasping for something, anything, to stop our descent.
But we’re moving with the weight of the earth itself pushing us and, for a second, I wonder if this is how I’m going to die.
Time slows down in a moment where my mind goes into a daze, but as soon and as suddenly as it started, we suddenly stop moving.
Horror fills me when I realize one thing.
I still can’t see.
My eyes are closed, and I cannot open them. There is a weight on me, all around me, that feels all too familiar and terrifying at the same time.
And…I can’t breathe.
Soil.
We’re underneath it. Tons of it.
I’ve seen my death lots of times in the last few weeks.
But the last thing I’d thought would happen was that I would be buried alive.
GA’VAR
My ba’clan is still on edge except for where I have Sa’am against my chest.
When we finally stop moving, I take a moment to breathe.
We are alive.
But not for long.
I can feel Sa’am struggling against me as she tries to free herself from the weight above us. But the earth is soft and heavy.
The more she moves, the deeper we sink.
Her chest is heaving and I try to tell her I will get us out of this, but I am not sure she can hear me.
Of course, she cannot.
She cannot hear through the density of this soil and even though I am holding her, her body is much lower than mine.
She cannot hear…and she cannot breathe!
For the first time since being on this planet, a different kind of fear shoots through me. One not tied to myself, but tied to someone else.
I have to get her to the surface of this loose earth, but I am not sure how quickly my efforts will free us.
She might suffocate before I can pull us through.
I cannot allow that.
I can breathe. I can even see.
My ba’clan have enough energy within them to go without air for several hours.
They are protecting my entire body from this troublesome soil, but Sa’am…Sa’am’s hyu’man clothes offer no protection.
She is vulnerable.
A rumble starts in my throat.
I will not let a female die under my watch.
Sa’am is struggling against me, still trying to reach the surface of our prison, and I have to wriggle until my free hand covers her face.
She’s not going to like what I am about to do, but I have no choice.
Either I do this, or I allow her to die.
I’ve already decided, even before my hand covers her face, but the feel of my hand over her eyes, nose, and mouth sets off more struggling.
I have to ignore her silent pleas as I focus, concentrating on my symbiotes, sending them to her.
The ba’clan ripple as they move against my skin, through my body, as some of them migrate to her.
I feel the moment they leave my fingertips to cover Sa’am’s face, pushing through the soil till they make a barrier between her skin and the soil itself.
She stills against me, and I wonder if she feels them, too.
I have gotten so used to them, I no longer consciously feel them against my being unless I concentrate and focus on them solely.
They have been my constant companions since my birth until now, and as much a part of me as each one of my limbs.
There is a beat of silence where Sa’am doesn’t move and then suddenly, her body jerks against mine as she takes her first breath.
Relief floods through me.
It worked.
My ba’clan will pull the air through the soil, allowing her to breathe…allowing her to see.
The symbiotes I sent to her leave my arm up to my elbow bare, and the sensation takes a few moments to get used to.
I can feel them communicating with me…learning about Sa’am.
The others writhe against me.
They like this female.
The thought makes me pause, almost forgetting where I am, but when Sa’am jerks against me again, her arms moving outward as she tries to dig upward, I am brought back to reality.
That is a thought for another time.
I will think about it more when I am alone.
Chapter Eight
SAM
My arms and legs grow tired quickly, but I try to dig, to pull myself out of the mess that we’re in when a thought hits me.
I don’t know which direction I’m digging in.
What if I’m digging the wrong way? Digging myself deeper underground instead of upward where I want to go?
That’s when the alien behind me moves.
Ga’Var shifts so powerfully, the entire loose dirt around us moves.
He’s going to get us out.
I just have to trust him.
I do trust him.
The strange mask he somehow put over my face allows me to breathe.
I can even open my eyes, though I cannot see a thing underneath this dirt.
But although my heart is slamming into my chest, I am not as afraid anymore.
I can breathe now, which means death isn’t looming right above me.
…which means I can still get out of this shit alive.
As my heart thumps against my chest, the world around me is dim. Not because of the lack of light or the fact my body is weighed down, but my senses…I can’t use all of them.
It feels like I am in an isolation tank. I can only focus on the one sense that works right now, my sense of touch, and all I can feel is the weight of the dirt…and him.
Behind me, there is a deep vibration.
Through all my panic, I never felt it till this moment, and it makes me freeze.
My heart hammers against my chest so hard, it is difficult to breathe, but I manage to, focusing on the vibration behind me.
“Ga’Var,” I whisper.
His chest is against my back, and one of his arms still encircles me.
All through this, from the first moment he caught me, he has been holding me.
Throughout all of it, and I didn’t notice, too focused on getting above ground.
