When the kettle whistled I emptied the fungal contents of the mortar into my mug and filled it with hot water. Then I notched my arm with my dagger as I had been taught by the elders. The blood flowed down my arm and I deposited the 6 drops of blood in the mug as well. While the ritual tea steeped I tended the wound. I did my tai chi forms and screamed myself hoarse, calling out for guidance. I drank the tea and rested finally on my cushion. A montage tore its way across my mind.
A pod of dolphins clicked sonar to one another in the dappled light of the shallow ocean. ASSAULT. I could smell stale water sitting in a glass. I ran my finger along it and it began to vibrate. OPPORTUNITY. A mole blindly emerged from its hole.
I returned to Captain Darwin to tell him what I’d seen and prepare for the expedition. Harrow’s fur turned pale violet in fear. He strapped onto me a metallic, reticulated vest. We all gathered our weapons and loaded onto the transport vehicle. Cramped, sat on benches on opposite walls facing each other we all confronted our personal terror as we set off. Spirits sunk as the wife of one of the men begged him not to go. She ran alongside the vehicle pleading, “Vesper don’t go again. Please!” Then she fell behind. A man down the other end put his head in his hands.
“Don’t worry about Eveline out there,” said a man sitting next to me with dog tags reading Echo. “She’s a sweet girl. She’ll be fine when he comes back again eh Vesper?”
The man down the end gave a thumbs up without lifting his head. Every man on here knew just how dangerous these missions were but whether for bravado or for curiosity or for Captain Darwin himself, they all strapped in for his vision.
The captain sat across from me and yelled to me over the noise of the transport. “You’ve met these two jokers. This is Crash and this is Frost. To a man all battle tested and ready to roll.”
We crested the edge of the valley where the Prize sat. An old growth forest of the kind that should be unsustainable in a place like this. We disembarked and heard a sound like an engine stuttering to failure, barking and baying. The long tentacles, seven of them, were the first thing you saw as the slug inched its way across the forest floor the size of whale spawn. The tentacles wrapped around new trees and pulled the beast forward. Dragging its legless body. The corrosive trail behind it burned the eaves to soil in an instant. We continued on, careful to avoid contact.
“This is the predator’s primary food source. They don’t look like much but that ooze its trailing will burn through your environment suit, no problem. We’re going to follow this one for a bit to see if we can’t find one of our quarry. We don’t know how many this wood can sustain but with the way they eat, each death gets us one step closer to settlement.”
Hours passed of slow march through the dark wood. We encountered an odd herbivore munching a large fern. A beautiful mammal with large mandibles that stood four-legged to roughly the shoulder height of Echo. Captain Darwin pointed it out as the game he’d been referring to yesterday. It stood dressed in tawny fur with no fear of humans as it seemed to not have the epigenetic memory to fear us. The birds and insects sang loud. A chorus interrupted only by the barking of the slug before us. We basked in the alien beauty of the Prize until without warning the woods went silent all around us. A loud snap punctuated the new silence and my blood ran cold.
A scent of ammonia and deep herbal rot came to us. Every man quit moving and drew their weapons. They covered each other as we all climbed into the canopy. A large mammal, roughly the size of our transport truck, dripping mucus from a many-toothed maw stalked its way through the thick trees. It had four massive compound eyes, two forward, and two lateral. We watched as it replicated the barking and baying of the slug perfectly. All were locked in terrified silence when a branch snapped and Frost plummeted 30 feet to the ground. The beast was on him in an instant echoing his screams of agony as it tore him limb from limb. A cruel, cruel mockery.
I drew my vibra-bow and fired a soundless bolt of searing light at the peripheral eye on my side. But it was moving too frenetically and my bolt sailed right past him. It turned on me and let out a shriek that vibrated the tree I was sitting in. I could feel it in my chest. It ran, faster than anything at that size, and rammed the tree I was in, cracking it. I was fucked.
I fired again and hit it in the side which emboldened the rest of the men to open fire. But it stayed focused on me and lined up to ram the tree again. The tree snapped at the trunk and fell over into the oak next to it. I lost my balance and wound up hanging by my arms from the nearest limb. I tried to climb up and lost my footing. I fell to the forest floor and in a flash of fur and teeth it was on me. Its claws tore the flesh of my legs to ribbons. I accepted my death when I saw an opportunity and plunged my dagger into its front-facing left eye, destroying its depth perception. It missed me on its next lunge and turned to run.
Now we were in full pursuit as it ran to wherever its den lay. I stopped and fired my bow into its backside. I yelped and gained speed. My injuries caught up with me however and I slowed down enough to lose the beast and the rest of the party. I trudged along in the dark forest following the trail of blood for I don’t know how long. I stopped and climbed into the canopy to heal myself as best I could. I did my best to patch my legs. But my best was beyond not good enough. I wasted supplies and time. Night came and I wept for my fate. I spent the night in that tree.
My comms cracked to life in the middle of the night. “Eren if you’re alive do not reply to this,” Captain Darwin’s voice whispered through the speaker. “If you half depress the comms button an LED on my system will light up. Once for yes, two for no. Are you alive?” One push. “Are you hurt?” One push. “Can you move?” One push. “Are you actively in danger?” Two pushes. “Okay. Now listen to me you crazy son of a bitch you’re lucky you’re not fucking dead. But if you don’t find us before sun up you might end up dead anyway. We have a solid defensive position and we’ve located its den. Its incredible. They live alone in caves and there are only so many big enough to hold them. We’re about 2 clicks from where we last saw you. Follow the blood. Make no noise. And you’ll find us. We’re back in control of this fight. We got ‘em.”
I climbed down from my tree in the first early light of dawn. Not much time. I hobbled along the forest trailing the blood left by the beast. At first I walked like a newborn with my torn legs. Soon though I found my rhythm. Before long I caught up with the troop stationed in the trees. They motioned for me to stay silent as I climbed into my own tree. We were down to just four including myself as it appeared Echo had also fallen at some point after we separated.
It was 3 hours before the beast stirred in its cave. As soon as it showed its ugly face the men opened fire. I hid behind the trunk of my tree in an effort to truly observe this creature in its final panicked push to stay alive. The bullets hitting it bodily seemed to do nothing, suggesting a super thick hide. I noticed it was protecting its back side. Most creatures back into an easy escape route like the cave would take the opportunity to flee but it refused to turn its body like that. I climbed further into the trees to use the canopy as a crude bridge. I walked slowly and quietly to where I might get an angle on its back flank and signaled for Captain Darwin to do the same from the other direction. Once we were in position I opened fire in tandem with Captain. My bolt sailed past it again. Combat is just not for me.
I’d given up my position and the game itself when Captain Darwin scored a series of hits giving me enough time to hide. I radioed the entire team, “it’s back. Hit it in the flank now!” We all watched as the beast finally died but no cheers went up. Men, presumably good men, were dead. And as this creature’s final gasps of breath went out we knew this was its wood. It and its kin kept this place the way it is and we were the invaders. We’d need to find a way to coexist. But we’d learned much.
We crested the ridge where our transport was waiting for us sometime in the early afternoon light. We looked out over the valley and saw in its pockmarked landscape dozens of caves like those we just left. Potentially dozens of these beasts we’d named Vorhaths. Truly the Prize was beautiful. A single green swath of gnarled and knotted forest canopy with high walls swiss-cheesed through with caverns. I understood Captain Darwin’s obsession. If they could figure out how to protect a small settlement, it would be worth it. Hopefully the Ganthanum would help.
As we loaded into the transport our blood ran cold as we heard the barking and baying of either a slug, or another Vorhath. There was no time to find out. We piled into the transport vehicle and took off just as a Vorhath, with low-hanging teets, climbed at speed out of the Prize. It followed and caught up but only managed to get one good swipe at the engine compartment, hobbling the vehicle. We learned two additional facts about the Vorhath as we left: they care for their young even into adulthood, another humanising factor, and that their endurance is the trade off for the great speed at their size. We glided noisily out of harm’s way and came back into the relative safety of Mudd.
When the adrenaline finally wore off it became apparent how much help I actually needed. The skin of my legs tattered and bleeding needed medical attention and quickly. The adobe clinic Vesper ferried me to welcomed me and I collapsed onto a bed. The pain of the disinfection alone blew anything I’d previously endured out of the water. I passed out from the agony of the flesh regrow solution my legs were bathed in.
I self-soothed in the hallway of my home. Controlled breathing and a soft rub of my leg as I ventured into the basement. The smell of mold overtook my senses and I found myself pulling at my own hair. The ceiling pushed toward the floor with every step until I had to transition from bent stumbling to frantic crawling. I could feel electricity through the floor and into my arms and legs.
The tattoos covering my legs were ruined. I would need them fixed or my ancestors would just have to understand I did what I could. Within a couple days I was firmly on the path to being healed. The people of Mudd are a suspicious lot but once you get past their icy front, they’re as warm as anyone. I spent much of my time over those days chatting with a man next to me in my bunk and being visited by Captain Darwin. Before long my spirits buoyed as well.
In what felt like no time I was feeling much better. I went back to the comms stack in my ship to leave an outgoing message for Fletcher. “Morricone may have a region that has been terraforming with Takarium for centuries. I suspect a meteorite strike in the desert. They call it the Prize and there’s one man who will take you to look for samples, Captain Ulan Darwin. Tell him I sent you if you come. It’s dangerous out there but it is getting safer by the day.” Captain Darwin had his Ganthanum. He did as he promised and we met so I could get my introduction to the exiled Adept.
I could smell her third floor chambers from the ground floor. The reek of an unwashed body and the decay of rotting food. The children playing outside seemed to be used to it or at least saw no cause for alarm. When we finally got inside Captain Darwin introduced me to Kayla Jemison.
“Please, call me Aurora.” She would have stood out in a crowd for her striking beauty in her advanced years. Her graying hair pulled back into a messy bun under her hood. The hood hung low with data cables like a mockery of prayer chains, all plugged into the machine at her sternum. Her robes were an ashen white from far away but up close held tones of blues and fibers of dark red. Form-fitted in what could be mistaken for tailoring.
The room itself was dark and the curtains were drawn in every window. A smoke of burning incense hung in the air like useless clouds. She held a ritual dagger in her hand as if in defense. Though the lack of concern she had for her own life shown through the flies buzzing thick in her kitchen. Harrow glowed a coral blush to let me know that, despite all appearances, she greeted us with warmth. She knew we were coming. I explained my desire to meet with the Adepts.
“Have you considered they may not want to meet with you?”
“I had. But this discovery could help the whole Forge.”
“You are a seer yourself. Why not use your own ability?”
“It is beyond my sight. And I must better understand my own sight to begin with.”
“Any Adept can help you there.”
“Could you?”
“I could, and I will for my part. But you are correct, you need their tutelage.”
“Then you’ll help me.”
“Absolutely.”
The introduction made, Captain Darwin excused himself. In the coming days I knew I would get some answers. Not just about Concord but more importantly about myself.
Corvid Grin 
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