Metamorph: The Outbounder Chronicles Read online

  “Laryn?”

  “Huh?” She looked up to see Ryle regarding her from behind his visor.

  “Ready?” he said and shifted his eyes to the gun in her hand.

  She clipped the weapon to a loop on her suit. “Yes,” she said and showed him a carefree smile. “Can’t wait to see the place. I’ve never been to a planet other than Earth,” she said. “Well, Terrica, once, but that doesn’t count.”

  “It’s not something that happens every day.”

  “Come on, daylight’s wasting!” Azah called to them, already standing on the exit platform. Laryn squeezed between her and Ryle as the lift descended, listening to Jex’s lecture that this side of the planet did not rotate away from the sun and wasn’t about to run out of daylight.

  Azah leaped to the ground before the platform had quite reached the ground and before Jex reached the part of his narrative involving the occasional lunar eclipse here. “Loving this gravity,” she said. “We should have a race or something.” She crouched and then launched herself into the air, achieving an impressive height before landing again. “There’s never enough room on the station for low gravity fun.”

  Laryn watched information scroll across the internal screen of her visor, showing that Jex was busy with his analysis. As always, she committed it to memory without discriminating between trivia and useful data. Eventually these things tended to come together to form a larger whole. “Find any more not good stuff, Jex?”

  “The air is suitable for Humans,” he said. “I have not found airborne pathogens near the ship that react to your profiles. I recommend against drinking untreated water. The probes have found arsenic and other heavy metals in the surface water, possibly flushed from the mountains as well as the atmosphere. I have not been able to access the aquifer to study groundwater.”

  “Hmm, that’s a problem,” Azah grumbled. “Anything else we need to look out for?”

  “Yes, I’ve detected almost continuous seismic activity since we landed. Likely, earthquakes are frequent here. Most of the nearby volcanic regions appear to be inert but contaminants are drifting this way from the active ones.”

  “I think I like Terrica better,” Laryn said.

  “This place is still a gold mine. Mark my words,” Azah said, looking around the plateau with proprietary interest. Below them, what looked like thick-stemmed succulents grew to impossible heights in the light gravity. Leafless and without thorns, lobes of fleshy outgrowths formed broad crowns, ominous in their shroud of fog. They grew among the boulders, sometimes wedged between them so tightly that their thick stems took on strange and twisted shapes. Denser growth covered the lower slopes all the way to the open flatlands to the west. In the distance, the ocean stretched green and flat to the horizon beneath a yellowed sky.

  “Nolie,” Ryle said, turning his back to the valley. “We’ll head up on that ridge to get above the fog. I want a better idea of what’s going on before we go down.”

  “Roger,” Nolan replied. “I think the Kalons are waking up. I hear them moving around.”

  “Ask them to stay on the Nefer for now,” Laryn said.

  Ryle led the way up a steep incline through the jagged rocks and Laryn soon wished they’d move a little more leisurely as they passed the planet’s wonderful and foreign curiosities. The arid ground, little more than black volcanic ash, crunched under their boots and yet pockets of plant life thrived up here. Ryle stopped to peer into the funnel of a thick-lobed plant of some sort, but then continued onward, past a cluster of brightly-colored organisms that seemed to be neither insect nor bird.

  “Look at those shrubs,” she said, hoping for a break to explore a little. They had come upon a scattering of perfectly round growths covered in green and orange foliage. Instead of branches reaching for the shrouded sun, they grew a round mesh, like a stiff net, to arrange their leaves. “I should sample these.”

  “Let’s leave it for the science crews,” Azah said. “We’ve got enough aliens on board. We’re here to grab base data and report back.”

  Laryn scowled but said nothing. The woman was right. Outbounders, although carrying the means to collect vast amounts of scientific data, were not equipped for in-depth study. Nor, she gathered, particularly interested in it.

  But Ryle slowed his steps, perhaps understanding her need to explore, and consulted the sensor output on his scanner. He unfastened the hood of his suit to push it off his head and sniffed the air, grimacing a little. “We’re okay for radiation and the air is breathable. I’m no fan of these visors. Makes me feel caged.”

  “You’d know all about that,” Azah said. She walked to the edge of the drop-off and not only unfastened her hood, but also the top portion of her suit, which she knotted around her waist. She sniffed the foreign air as she gazed out over the valley. “Smells like puddles, but at least it’s got flavor,” she said, referring to the bland, scrubbed air they breathed aboard the ship and the station. She spread her arms out to let the mountain breeze cool her body. Laryn saw that she had chosen a tattoo of leafy vines winding over her shoulder and along her arm to trace the embedded filaments of her biotelemetry transmitter. It shimmered in a mild, iridescent green against her dark skin. “You don’t get views like this on Terrica. Or Earth.”

  “That’s true,” Laryn said, giving in to the temptation to remove her own visor. A humid aroma of herbs and other growing things replaced the filtered air, and she hoped Jex had been right about his assessment of the planet’s atmosphere. It had taken five years of research before the Ministry declared Terrica suitable for Human settlement. Here all it took was a crashed migrant vessel. “Terrica is pretty flat compared to this. Those mountain ranges are fantastically massive. I guess it’s the gravity that let them get that high.”

  Ryle pointed to the rocks above them. “We should be able to see the coast from there.”

  They climbed effortlessly in this gravity, taking care to avoid plants or small residents that might harm their exposed skin. Ryle motioned for them to stay below the crest of the ridge when they reached the top. Lying flat, all three peered around the boulders and into the lowlands.

  “There it is,” Azah said, pointing toward the delta of the river they had followed here through the mountains.

  Ryle reached into a pocket and withdrew a viewer to magnify the sight that their drones were unable to transmit. The lenses embedded in his eyes were capable of great precision and of transmitting what he saw directly to Jex, but the distance to the camp required greater magnification. Laryn patted her suit to find it also equipped with the device.

  “They’re living pretty close together,” she said when the shore came into focus. “That can’t be all of them.” She counted only a dozen tent-like structures visible from here in the lee of a cliff. Deep fissures in the rock suggested that caves offered shelter down there as well. The ground rising beyond the camp was an undulating surface that seemed to have been formed by the range of volcanoes along the coast. “Using wind power. There are also solar power strips on that cliff there.” She started to record the images for later download to her report for Pendra.

  “I see two of the shuttles,” Ryle said. “Looks like they’re not going anywhere soon. Probably cannibalized them for tools. Ah, we got Humans. No six-legged headless monsters in sight.”

  “Not down there,” Azah said. “But check out the fortifications. What’s that about?”

  They surveyed dense rows of plant material and rocks piled high and braced as if the inhabitants feared some intrusion from the hills. A few people crouched on the barricade and it didn’t take much imagination to assume them to be armed.

  “Jex,” Ryle said. “Send another probe into the valley. Try to skim under whatever’s jamming transmissions. See if it’s coming from the village down there, or from outside. Use a bug or something small that won’t be noticed.”

  “Understood.”

  “Send a few more to look for whatever is threatening the camp,” Azah added. “Could be wild
life, could be half-human aliens.” She looked into the forested depths of the valley, scowling. “I don’t like not being able to run broader scans. It’s like being blindfolded.”

  “Nolie,” Ryle said. “See what we can spare from our supplies. Food, clothes, med stuff. These people can probably use some of that by now.”

  “We’re going down there, then?” Nolan said, barely intelligible among the static.

  “Yes. We’ll take the Nefer up and approach the camp from the sea, like we originally planned,” Ryle said. “It’ll give them enough notice that someone’s coming. I don’t want to startle anyone with a gun in their hands.”

  “Seems wise.” Azah slid sideways to the edge of the precipice. “I’m going to check out that rock over there. That green crystal looks like it might be expensive.”

  Laryn and Ryle watched her drop from the ledge to leap effortlessly from one outcrop to the next and then across a narrow gap to the stone spire she had pointed out. The side facing them glinted tantalizingly in the murky daylight.

  “She’s got the eye,” Laryn said, amused. “I guess prospecting for this sort of thing is what you people do.”

  Ryle shrugged. “She’s just having fun with the gravity here. Well, and maybe she’ll swipe some crystals before Pendra grabs the mining rights. Don’t put that in your report.” He turned onto his back to gaze up at the yellow sky. The planet’s red dwarf star, hanging perpetually above the horizon in permanent twilight, seemed to take up too much of it, veiled by drifting clouds.

  “You two seem to be well equipped for scoping out remote planets,” Laryn said, watching his face. “Considering how few of them there are, I mean.”

  His eyes shifted to her. “We get around. It pays to be well equipped. Finding a world where you can walk around practically naked isn’t something we see every day, though. We spend a lot of time sampling planets from a distance. This one is exciting.” He waved his hand toward the valley. “Mostly because we can skip a whole lot of remote exploration because these folks have already contaminated the place. We’re now part of this planet.”

  “You seem comfortable here,” she said.

  He sat up and lifted his field viewer to scan the horizon. “What are you getting at, Agent Ash?”

  She laughed, startled by his question. “Sorry, I keep forgetting that I’m the warden. I am actually just curious about your work.” She squinted at the rock wall Azah was exploring. The woman crouched near it, her eyes on her portable scanner. “You two used to be military? On Earth?”

  He shrugged. “Not really. Running refugees in the north, mostly, after the border closed on the exclusion zone. Flying patrols to fish people out of the river. Decided to return to the Hub after that. She was itching to join the outbounders, too, so we teamed up.”

  Laryn nudged a crystal-streaked pebble to let it roll down into the ravine. “You and Azah both? Are you two… I mean, do you…” She groaned inwardly. Why the hell did she start this now? She felt her face flush and then felt even more awkward because of it. “I’m sorry,” she said, striving to sound casual. “That’s none of my business.”

  “You mean me and Azah?” He grinned. “Yeah, none of your business. But no, nothing like that. Not really.”

  Laryn frowned and stared off into the distance. What did that mean: not really? And why did she care what it meant? “She’s not too eager to have me aboard,” she said, hoping to reroute this strange line of inquiry and fairly convinced she was making it worse. “So I wondered why.”

  He laughed. “You’re a Pendra agent, Agent. Us outbounders have to play by Pendra’s rules and having a mediary aboard, too, is just too confining for her. That’s all.”

  “Not crazy about having snoops around,” Laryn said. “I get that.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “We’ve got nothing to hide. I’m in enough trouble.”

  She opened her mouth to speak but something in the small shift of his expression told her that this wasn’t the time to talk about whatever crimes he may have committed. And so she picked up her field viewer to scan the shore south of the camp.

  Featureless marshland covered in windblown waves of grasses stretched toward ridge of eroded hills. Water glinted here and there in the bog, reflecting the filtered sun, and she saw people moving around out there. Hunting for things? Harvesting?

  “Did you ever realize that looking into the far distance feels good on the eyes?” Ryle said.

  She lowered the viewer to follow his gaze to the horizon.

  “It does,” he said. “Soothing, like a tonic. We never see things at a distance any more, except to look out at the stars, and that’s on a screen, usually. Never like this, looking at mountains and oceans. I miss that sometimes.”

  She nodded. “Never thought of that.” Her eyes travelled over the western ocean. Its surface seemed lifeless. “This is a bleak place, I think. Forsaken.”

  “Bleakness is the inspiration for all the really good poetry,” he said.

  “You read poetry?”

  A shrill whistle stabbed their ears and launched Ryle to his feet before she had even seen him move. A moment later, Azah vaulted onto the ridge, gun in hand. “Things coming this way. Bigger than Humans.”

  “Back to the ship,” Ryle said and pulled Laryn up. “Quick.”

  Laryn followed Azah, instinctively reaching back to the years she had spent learning to hunt with her brothers. She moved over the sloping terrain without dislodging so much as a pebble. “Don’t wait for me,” she said when she nearly walked up on Azah’s heels. The woman had no doubt slowed their pace for her sake.

  “Move!” Ryle said when something approached, unconcerned by the noise made by the crunch of gravel under its feet. A foreign, rasping sound seemed to come from all around them now. “She’ll keep up.”

  Azah pivoted and shoved Laryn aside when something massive and incomprehensible burst from among the lobed trees and into their path. Three somethings, Laryn realized, resembling the tiny life forms they had encountered on their climb onto the ridge. But these were monstrous in comparison, far taller than the Humans, carrying glossy exoskeletons atop eight multi-jointed legs. Another creature resembled a centipede with countless appendages rippling over obstacles in its path.

  A shriek tore through the air and then one of the beasts lunged at Ryle with outstretched forelegs as if to impale him. He dodged and one of its claws speared the bole of the tree behind him. He ducked behind a rock and fired at the creature, burning a hole into the iridescent shell on its back. It reared up and twisted as if looking for what may have hit it and he fired again, this time at its head.

  Another of the strange arthropods raced toward Laryn, forcing her to fire. She was glad when it withdrew after just a few hits. Her instinctive reaction to protect herself fought with a deep aversion to harming these locals whose claim to this mountain certainly outweighed hers. But she also felt a familiar rush when her aim found its target. She had not lost her skills, nor had these past few years of pampered existence as a scholar and scientist blunted the thrill of the hunt.

  “Behind you,” she shouted at Azah and fired past the woman when the creature she had wounded returned to attack again. Another scuttled out of the fog with a high-pitched shriek.

  “They’re blocking the way we came,” Azah said. “Head left. Don’t get hemmed in by those tree things.”

  “Jex, Nolan,” Ryle hissed into his com tab. “Could use a big gun right about now. Damn, is that a stinger on that thing?”

  They fought their way toward where they had left the Nefer, firing and hoping their guns held their charge until they reached the safety of the ship. The creatures lunged and withdrew, clearly fearing the weapons but not about to give up.

  “Nolan!” Azah shouted. “Damn. Is he not seeing this?”

  “Ryle!” Laryn cried when one of the centipedes wound around the thick bole of a tree above him, moving unnervingly fast. It launched itself toward him, extending front legs lined with a
fringe of finger-length spikes. She fired, barely missing him, to target the underside of the creature. It twisted in mid-leap, slammed into Ryle and then dropped to the ground where it curled up, oozing an acrid pink substance she smelled even at a distance.

  He stumbled and then regained his balance to finish the creature. Another darted toward them and he shot that one as well before aiming at one of the crab-like aliens that Azah was already targeting.

  They drew together, breathless, as silence descended. Had it been this quiet before?

  Ryle touched the back of his neck. “You just totally shot my hair,” he accused Laryn.

  She had to laugh. “No, I didn’t!”

  “Did so. I can smell it burning.”

  “Our little princess knows how to shoot,” Azah said. She turned a full circle, her weapon grasped in both hands, to survey their surroundings. “I guess we should recalibrate our scanners to detect cold-blooded life forms. I should have thought of that.”

  “Let’s keep moving.” Ryle raised his wrist unit. “Nolan, did you happen to notice anything odd out here, maybe? Are you asleep?”

  “Watch out!” Laryn yelled when another of the multi-legged worms appeared on top of a boulder. “More coming that way!”

  * * *

  As supplies went, the Nefer’s inventory wasn’t exactly a treasure-trove of luxuries, Nolan thought as he poked through the storage bins that lined the cargo holds. He nodded his head to the raucous beat of his favorite music as he pulled a few coveralls from a cabinet. Jex was inventorying the food storage to see what they could do without on their trip back to Pendra Station. He wondered if Ryle would insist on giving up his beloved rice pudding.

  The music in his ear cut out without warning, leaving his head in mid-nod.

  “What?” he said to Jex.

  “I thought you would want to know that the Kalons are more active now. They seem prepared to leave their room.”

  “Good. I want to grab those extra blankets in that cabin.” Nolan gripped the overhead pipes to swing his legs over the loose crates, enjoying the light gravity as much as Azah had. He took a few experimental leaps down the camped corridor, stopping only when he barked his shin on the corner near the bridge.