Nightborn, page 9
Jeff looked at him. How empty his gaze was, how haunted! “Serpents from the pit of Hell. Glowing violet hunger, bright and dark at the same time. Shit.” He shook his head sharply. “I don’t know what the fuck they were. Maybe just my imagination. But their presence was so cold it sucked all the heat from your body, so that you couldn’t move. I tried. I tried! But I couldn’t help Wayne, just watch as they ate him. They ate him. Then suddenly I could move again, and I ran. Like a coward.” He lowered his head to his knees, trembling. “I’m sorry, Wayne. I’m sorry I left you alone with them.”
Serpents from the pit of Hell. Was that a real physical threat of some kind, or a delusion? Certainly something physical had removed the bones from Wayne’s body. Delusions lacked the power to do that.
For a few minutes Jeff just stayed as he was, head bowed and shoulders trembling, silent. Dani released his hand and rubbed his back gently. Finally Jeff looked up again. “True night’s coming. Isn’t that right? All the sunlight will be gone. All of it.” He shivered. “It loves the dark. It feeds on the dark. It is the dark.” He looked at Dani. “Promise me you’ll keep all the lights on for me. And lock the pod door, so nothing can get in. Promise me!”
“You can lock it yourself, from the inside. And yes, I’ll make sure all the lamps are fully charged.”
They stayed with him a while longer, offering words that might have been comforting back on Earth, but here, in this alien setting, mere words lacked power. Jeff lay back onto the cot and gradually shut his eyes and relaxed into sleep. Maybe Lise’s sedative had made it possible. Maybe emotional exhaustion had simply overwhelmed him.
They left as quietly as they could, and Dani shut the door behind them with care. For a moment, then, they were all silent as they digested what Jeff had told them.
“He should sleep tonight,” Dani said at last.
Leo nodded. “Hopefully.”
“No, I mean . . . we should make sure he sleeps tonight, during true night.”
“He won’t see it from inside the pod,” Leo pointed out.
“But he’ll know it’s happening. And you saw his state of mind. The mere concept of darkness terrifies him.”
Leo looked at her for a moment, then nodded. “All right. Make it happen.”
“You do realize,” Lise said, “when the story of this gets out—and it will get out, sooner or later—people will want better shelter than we’ve currently got. The tents were designed to fend off rain, not monsters. And regardless of whether solid walls can offer any real protection against whatever the hell killed Tia and Wayne, people will feel less helpless with solid walls around them.”
Leo shook his head. “There’s not enough room in the pods for everyone. We were packed in shoulder-to-shoulder for the drop, and even if they were all empty—which they’re not—there still wouldn’t be enough room for everyone to sleep inside them at the same time.”
“The module?” Dani asked.
“Designed for efficiency,” Lise said, “not comfort. Access corridors are narrow, and most large storage spaces are still packed with supplies. A couple of the labs have decent floor space, and there’s the storage bay that the tractors were in, but I doubt you could fit more than a couple of dozen people inside there.”
“We’ve got the cargo pods,” Leo said. “The plan was to cannibalize them for materials, but there’s no reason we can’t do that later. I’ll send out a team to bring them in whole. Add some ventilation, and they can provide basic shelter until we have time to build something better. That’ll cover the psychological angle, at least.”
“Put them end to end,” Dani suggested, “and cut some doorways between them, so we’ll have a longhouse-style shelter that can accommodate a lot of people. That and the empty pods should provide enough indoor space for everyone, if there are more threats.”
“Hopefully there won’t be.” More ideas were coming to Leo now. “We can build a palisade. Whether it will keep out Erna’s more bizarre threats is anyone’s guess, but it’ll be a solid defense against mundane beasts, and right now that’s what most people think killed Tia.” He looked at Lise. “Not to mention the psychological value of having a defensible stronghold. Something people know they can retreat to if anything bad happens.”
Lise smiled slightly. “Now I know why they pay you the big bucks.”
A corner of his mouth twitched. “Not nearly enough.”
It wasn’t a perfect plan, by any means. And he’d have to delay the construction of other projects to divert labor and materials to this new one. But even he would feel safer with a wall between him and the wilderness of Erna. And not just for symbolic reasons.
“You need to tell the colony what Jeff saw,” Dani urged. “Don’t wait for it to get out by some other means. You don’t want people to think you’ve been hiding things from them.”
But I am hiding things from them, Leo thought. More and more with each passing day. What was it an ancient poet had written? Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. It bothered him that he couldn’t remember which poet. Memories from Earth were slipping through his fingers.
Every day that he failed to fully inform the colony—to trust the colony—the potential complications multiplied geometrically. Dani was right. The others needed to know.
“After true night,” he said at last. “Let them deal with that first. And if we can get a few of the cargo pods set up by then, we’ll have solid shelter that can accommodate everyone, ready to go.” Not to mention it will give me time to review everyone’s psych profiles, so that I know who is likely to take the news the worst.
After lunch it rained.
Johnny had warned them that precipitation was coming, but hadn’t warned them about how heavy it would be. With sheets of water slashing down from the sky, no outdoor work was going to take place for a while—including moving the cargo pods. And if the rain went on for long enough, the ground would become sodden, making that job twice as difficult tomorrow.
Sometimes it seemed like the planet itself was going out of its way to screw with them.
A few people took the opportunity to pair off for private activities, either in an empty pod or one of the tents. Privacy was a scarce commodity now that the forest was no longer considered safe. The rest of the colony gathered in the mess tent. Leo had brought in the parachutes from the landing, and people gathered around them, picking apart the panels stitch by stitch, like an old-fashioned sewing bee. The parachutes had been designed to provide fabric for future projects, so the panels were in colors one might use to make clothing: denim blue, khaki, camo, and a host of patterns ranging from subtle to cheery. When they ran out of the raw material their printer needed to produce cloth, they’d be glad to have a stockpile of usable fabric.
Then Malik brought out a guitar, and other instruments appeared, some in better condition than others. Enough people had brought small instruments along that soon there was music to compete with the pounding of rain on the solar panels overhead. Almost homey.
This is how it should have been, Leo thought wistfully. No dismembered hearts, no serpents from Hell, just a small community facing the prosaic challenges of this world together.
He sought out the other members of his inner circle and filled them in on what Jeff had said, then headed back to his office to start going over everyone’s profiles. The nine of them would meet in the morning to discuss everything, and after that . . . After that they would need a game plan.
He left his door open so he could hear the music.
The dinner bell woke Ian up.
For a moment he just lay there, not sure what was going on. He didn’t feel hungry, and there was no sunlight brightening the tent cloth, so no meal was being served. Yet all around him people were rising from their cots. One of them turned on a lamp; the sudden light hurt Ian’s eyes and he turned away.
“Hey, sleeping beauty!” Someone kicked his cot, jarring him fully awake. “You wanted to see this more than anyone.”
True night! That was what they were talking about, he realized suddenly: true night. Had the rain stopped? When he’d gone to sleep it had seemed like the sky wouldn’t clear in time. But he could no longer hear the patter of rain on the tent’s roof, so maybe people would have a clear view.
Or lack of view, more accurately.
He disentangled himself from his blanket, grabbed a lantern of his own from the hook near the door flap, and followed the others out. Those who were carrying lights were using the dimmest setting, just enough light to keep them from stumbling over unseen obstacles without compromising night’s darkness. As people gathered in the southern field it was as if a swarm of fireflies had arrived. There were lights from atop a few of the pods as well, where armed sentries with night goggles would stand watch during the event, alert for the approach of anything that didn’t belong inside the camp.
Loki was setting in the east now, distant mountains silhouetted black against its final glowing sliver. There was so little light coming from the heavens that the night already seemed pitch-black, and it was hard to imagine that when that sliver was swallowed by the horizon it would make any substantive difference. Dark was dark, right? The mere setting of a moon shouldn’t have been exciting enough to draw half the colony out of their beds. But the fact that this was an alien event—a uniquely Ernan event—made it feel like a rite of passage.
Purple snakes rising from the darkness. That was what Leo said Jeff had described. Ian wondered if these people would be embracing total darkness quite as enthusiastically if they knew about that. More likely they’d be huddling in their tents with solar lamps blazing, like in Jeff’s pod.
“One minute and counting!” Joshua announced.
All that was visible of Loki now were points of light between the distant mountains: jewels sparkling at the edge of the world. Joshua began to count loudly down to totality, and people joined in. Ian had a flashback to a New Year’s Eve party he had once attended, with fireworks ready to be launched the moment a glowing ball hit the ground. Nine! Eight! Seven! People were turning off their lamps so that they could experience true night in all its glory, firefly after firefly snuffed out. Some joined hands, creating a human chain of expectation. That was a little much for Ian, and he moved away from the gathering, not wanting to be distracted by someone grabbing hold of him. Three! Two! He wound up near the boundary fence, between two of the pods, and gazed out at the grasslands. Or rather, at the lightless expanse that had once been grass. The ground was as black as the sky overhead, even more so as he turned off his lantern to greet the true night. An expectant shiver ran through him.
Then Joshua’s counting concluded—One!—and the black monster at the edge of the world swallowed the last few jewels, casting Erna into total darkness. Intellectually Ian knew that it was no different than the darkness of a few seconds before, but it felt different, in a way that was hard to define. And it awakened a visceral fear inside him that no mere darkness should have, all the more unnerving because he didn’t know why he felt that way. Domina would rise in a mere four minutes, he knew that. Yet deep within his soul, in the shadowy recesses where mankind’s most primitive instincts lay coiled like serpents, it felt as if the light was gone forever. He wanted to run away—he needed to run away—but there was nowhere to run to. Blackness had swallowed the universe.
This is Erna, he told himself. He had to force himself not to turn on the lantern again. Not an alien world, but our home. This darkness is part of it. We can’t run from it any more than we can run from the air or the sky. He hesitated for a moment, then opened his arms wide. “Come,” he whispered to Erna. “Make me yours.” And for a moment he imagined that all his senses were sharper, so that he could smell the grass beneath his feet, hear the sound of leaves shifting in the distance, and even see subtle variations in the darkness surrounding him.
And more.
Light was rising now, as if flowing forth from the earth: a strange blue glow, dim in illumination but intense in color. He could see currents in it, and as the light intensified waves became visible; they seemed to pulse across the ground in time to the pounding of Ian’s heart. It was as if the entire field was a vast luminescent lake, and he was part of it. The sight of it was mesmerizing enough, but the sensation—the sensation!—was like nothing he had ever felt before. Fear and awe in such perfect balance that he was frozen in place, as if any human movement might banish the alien display. Was this experience even real, or was it a bizarre hallucination brought on by Erna’s unnerving darkness? Was his mind perhaps so hungry for light that he was creating the illusion of it, drawing upon his memories of bioluminescent seas back home?
He forced himself to look away from the hypnotic display and back toward the camp, to see if the strange light was visible there as well. And it was, but in a very different form. Whereas the light outside the camp flowed smoothly over the ground, rhythmic waves rippling across the grasslands with mesmeric calm, inside the camp the waves were shattering, frothing into the air as they came in contact with the colonists, sending cascades of tiny sparks into the air that hung there for a second before sinking down once more into the tide. It was wild, like the whitewater of a raging river.
And not a single person was looking down. He could see that by the dim light that the tide afforded: not one single colonist was staring at the ground, wondering at the azure light that surged around their feet. Everyone was looking upward, their attention fixed on the black horizon as they waited for Domina to appear. Clearly none of them were seeing what he was. The implications of that were chilling.
I’m going mad.
He turned away from the camp and shut his eyes for a moment, telling himself that there was nothing really there. His mind was just playing tricks on him. Once he accepted that, maybe he could banish the delusion. But when he dared to open his eyes again the currents were still present, brighter than ever. Had he really expected them to disappear? Or did he know in his gut that this was something real, even if he couldn’t assign a Terran name to it?
Pull yourself together, he told himself sternly. You’re a scientist. Act like one. He hooked the dark lantern onto his belt to free his hands, then reached into his back pocket and pulled out a few of the small specimen bags he always carried with him. Crouching down (close to the light, so very close!) he lowered one into the strange blue tide, holding it so that a current of light flowed directly into it. He shivered as he did so, anticipating . . . what? That he would feel liquid flowing over his hands, or fire, or some alien, unfathomable substance? But the light had no physical presence at all, and though goosebumps rose along his arms when he submerged his hands in it, he felt nothing. After a moment he sealed the bag, then repeated the process with a second one. If there was some kind of organism causing this display—as there was when the oceans of Earth produced similar light—hopefully he’d just captured a sample.
Suddenly a new movement caught his eye. From a place near one of the pods, deep violet light was rising up from the ground. It didn’t appear in a shapeless tide like the blue light had, but took on a distinct shape, long and slender. Like a tentacle. Another followed, and then another. Snakes rising from a nest, alight with purple fire. Their color was so dark he could barely see them, yet so intense that it burned his eyes to look at them directly.
Purple serpents.
With a sinking in the pit of his stomach he stepped back quickly, stumbling on the uneven ground. Were these the same serpents that Jeff had described, that had killed Wayne? They were coming toward him now, slithering across the ground as if drawn by the heat of his life, the power of his scrutiny. What the hell are you? he wanted to scream. Every instinct in his soul was crying out for him to run away, but he dared not turn his back on them for a moment. And weren’t some predators triggered by the flight of their prey? He backed away as quickly as he could, watching in horror as violet tendrils slithered across the ground, mirroring his every step.
And then there was light. Domina’s leading edge had finally breached the horizon, and he could feel its light spreading across the land, not yet bright enough for a human to see by, but natural, blessedly natural. The purple mist-serpents felt it as well. They flinched and began to withdraw, to return to whatever Hell had spawned them. Back, back they drew, and as they sank into the earth the last bits of foul violet light were swallowed by the blue tide, and vanished.
But the blue light was fading as well now, as the moonlight gradually intensified. Unlike the violet serpents it didn’t sink into the earth but faded slowly. Or perhaps it was still there in all its strength, but he was losing the ability to see it. He tried with all his might to hold onto his vision, but even as he watched, the blue currents faded to thin veils, then disappeared entirely.
Ian took up his lantern and turned it on, to see what was left. All he saw was dirt and grass, the normal elements of a mundane landscape. Nowhere was there even a hint that it had ever been anything else. He looked back toward the camp, where people were starting to relax. A few were even laughing nervously. True night was over, for them.
But not for him.
He looked at the specimen bags he had tried to fill. They were empty. “I’m not insane,” he whispered. Trying to convince himself. “I’m really not.” But the words sounded hollow, even to him.
Ian was the last to arrive for the meeting. He had planned it that way. The last thing he wanted after a long night of frustrating experiments was to have to sit there while everyone made small talk around him, trying to look normal. He didn’t have the energy or interest to engage in superficial chat right now, much less field nine different versions of “Are you all right?” or “You look tired.”
He wasn’t sure he was sane, and he didn’t want to talk about it.
The only seat available was at the rear end of the office pod, directly facing Leo. The colony commander didn’t look like he’d gotten much sleep himself, but as usual he was making an effort to look strong and confident. It worked better on some occasions than others, but Ian always appreciated the effort. Someone needed to look strong while things were going to hell around them. When Leo looked his way Ian tried his best to look equally steady, but subterfuge had never been his strong point, and he felt strangely naked before that piercing gaze.
