Paradise 21 Read online

  Chapter Two

  Life-Forms

  Aries awoke to flashing lights and smoke. A wailing siren sounded in her ear, each surge aching in her head. Coughing, she pushed a panel to bring up the screen, but the panels remained blank. Trying to control a jolt of panic, she unbuckled the belt across her stomach and heaved herself up, feeling like a supply container was sitting on her chest. She gasped in dismay as she ran her fingers across a jagged crack slicing the main control board in two pieces. The impact had destroyed the mainframe processor, ruining the escape pod.

  She’d known the landing would destroy the pod, but that didn’t quell a feeling of vulnerability from washing through her. Aries had stranded herself in a foreign land with no way home. The thought of her parents and the ceremony she’d missed in order to escape flickered briefly in her mind. If her friends and family ever found out what she did, she hoped they would forgive her. To live her life for them would make her miserable—she had to invent her own destiny.

  Laughter rumbled up from her gut, light at first, then deepening into triumph. She was free. Halfway stuck in a dune on Sahara 354 was exactly where she wanted to be.

  A new light blinked beside her, distracting her from the condition of the pod. Aries brought up her arm to check out the locator. A light on the wide cuff flashed bright green, and she wished she could rip it off. Someone in the New Dawn had found a way to reactivate it.

  The pod’s display had died, but Aries checked the time on the locator itself: 1721. She’d been unconscious for only a few minutes, but still long enough for the locator to complete at least one cycle of transmission.

  If they’d remotely activated it, they knew she was missing. The signal had obviously penetrated deep space, although she’d hoped it wouldn’t. The ship would have the exact coordinates of the escape pod’s landing. That’s how they’d found Tria. Besides, Sahara 354 was the only planet in light years that had any signs of life. Barliss knew her well enough to guess she’d planned ahead.

  Aries pulled the energy cell out and the flashing stopped. The crash coordinates had been sent, but at least no more would go out as she explored her new home planet. She dropped the energy cell on the dashboard and watched it rattle to a halt underneath the cracked glass of the sight panel. If she left it there, they’d know she’d taken it out. It would be better if she brought the energy cell with her and reactivated the locator when she found a life-endangering situation, like quicksand. If she found a way to remove the whole device without tearing off a chunk of her arm, she could throw it in, and they’d have to assume her body had gone with it. They’d stop looking for her once their retrieval machine pulled it out.

  Aries shoved the energy cell in her pocket and grabbed the backpack she’d spent months filling with all the right supplies. She hit the pod’s manual eject button, and the lid of the craft popped open, smoking and wheezing.

  The heat hit her in a tidal wave. She gasped for breath, thinking of poor Tria. The air scorched Aries’ lungs, and she waited for her skin to crinkle or her body to burst. She squeezed her eyes shut to brace for the worst, but she remained conscious. Each intake of breath burned like fire, but then again, she’d only ever breathed regulated air. She had to trust the historical reports. The atmosphere on Sahara 354, although parched, must be adequate.

  As the hatch lifted, blinding sun poured in like a thousand laser rays, blazing into her pale skin. She’d read about the sun on Earth and had felt the flames of a lighter on her fingertips, but she’d never experienced such a rush of raw elements. The radiating light infused her with awe, as if a higher power touched her directly.

  Shielding her eyes, she peered at the sky, a canvas of cerulean and gold. She’d always wondered what it would be like to stand in an atmosphere. It provided a sense of protection in a blanket spreading above her head, shielding her from the harsh elements of deep space. At the same time, the world felt open and endless compared to the claustrophobic corridors of the New Dawn.

  Aries stepped out of her broken pod, and orange sand stained her pristine space boots. Her white uniform ruffled in the breeze. Thank the Guide, she had long sleeves covering her arms from the burning sun. The light microfiber repelled heat. As her eyes adjusted to the bright glare, she could make out the plateau of rock from the image on the viewing screen. The pod had landed exactly where she’d told it to. Now all she had to do was get as far away as possible, find a place to ditch her locator, and hide.

  After one last look at the steaming wreckage, she secured the clasps on her pack and took the first steps forward. Her boots sank into the ground as if lead lined the soles. Trudging through the sand was cumbersome compared to bouncing along the metal walkways of the New Dawn in light gravity. She felt like a toddler again, flailing her arms as she learned how to balance and stand. Although the increase in gravity and uneven terrain made her body work harder, the stretching of her muscles felt good and oddly natural, as if she’d missed a certain pleasure all her life.

  Drunk on freedom, she trekked on. A brutal wind hit her face, sending sand particles in her eyes and mouth. Aries coughed and spit on the ground. Her tongue stuck in her mouth like sandpaper.

  As a little girl, she’d stood in front of the ventilator, feeling her hair fan out as the air had rushed past the back of her neck. The natural wind on Sahara 354 blew much stronger, a violent force beyond man’s control. Being exposed made her feel weak and vulnerable, but also excited.

  She dug in her backpack, found her water bottle, and took a swig of mineral water, trying to get her bearings and adjust to the new levels of gravity and temperature. Her eyes stung and her skin burned, but she was free. Bracing herself against the gale, she ripped off a piece of her uniform and tied it around her nose and mouth. Thank goodness she’d cut her hair to shoulder length. Barliss had fought against the new style, until she’d fooled him into thinking she wanted to make the change so the upper command would take her more seriously, to move up the ranks with him. Only then had he allowed her to chop it off.

  The wind swirled mini tornadoes in the sand, erasing her tracks. The pod glinted as a silver spot on the horizon. She’d walked far, but the monotonous terrain provided nowhere to hide. Miles and miles of craggy ridges surrounded her, sand heaped in drifts nearly up to their peaks. A look at her water rations told her she was draining her supply faster than she’d planned.

  The sun set, just as a new sun rose on the horizon behind her. Perpetual sunlight. She remembered reading about it when she’d targeted this forsaken place, but only now did she understand the relentless heat. How could she hide in the blazing light of eternal day?

  Aries grew angry with herself for not planning her landing better. The New Dawn would come and the search crews would find her easily with their scanners. She was the only life-form for miles around. She desperately needed to find those human-sized beings and hide among them. Then, maybe she’d have a chance of being overlooked.

  Aries dug a handheld device out of her backpack and clicked it on. The glare of the sun reflected off the plastic screen, making it impossible to read. Sitting in the sizzling sand, she took out her sleeping bag and unraveled the fabric. She draped the cloth over her shoulders like a cape and leaned her head over the mini computer. With her arms outstretched, she shut out the majority of bright light.

  The readings didn’t make sense. Perhaps the landing had damaged the scanner. The device registered several life-forms approaching, the first only meters away.

  Aries poked her head out of her makeshift cover and saw only endless dunes of sand shifting under the gusting wind. She consulted the device again and got the same readings, only now the fluorescent dots crowded closer, surrounding her in a circle. The blinking lights on the screen were spaced with perfect symmetry. She gulped down bile. Whoever they were, they were hunting her and closing in.

  She searched the hazy horizon and saw nothing. Crazily, she thought of ghosts, specters from a failed colonization attempt, but of course, ghosts wou
ldn’t register as breathing life-forms on her scanner. Fingers shaking, she packed up her sleeping bag and the device. She cursed herself for not bringing any weapons. Why had she thought the only bad guys were on her ship?

  At least she had her pocketknife, something she often used to rewire circuit boards. She switched open the blade and held it out in front of her. It felt like a miniscule defense compared to such a vast land.

  “Hello?” Her voice broke on the word, and fear twisted its way up her spine. “Is anyone out there?”

  The wind ripped through Aries, sending another wave of grit into her face. Before she could clear her eyes, the sand exploded around her, as if bombs erupted at her feet. Human-shaped beings leaped from holes in the ground. They wore layers of rough hides on their bodies and wrapped around their heads. Carved bones with slits covered their eyes. They towered over her, pointing spears at her neck and ribs.

  Aries clutched the knife. The blade shook in her grasp. “I mean you no harm.”

  The creatures jabbed their spears at her nose.

  “I’m just trying to get away from my ship…”

  One creature stepped forward. Two stubby horns protruded from the animal hide around his head. He hissed, a primitive, insect-like sound cutting through Aries’ inner ear. Her hope for intellectual communication dwindled. She gazed into the bones covering their eyes, half of her not wanting to know what kind of eyes stared at her, but the slits were too narrow to see through.

  The others echoed the apparent leader’s hiss as if in affirmation of their intended quarry, and adrenaline shot through her limbs. Iridescent scales covered their bodies, shimmering vermillion in the sun. The urge to run bubbled up inside her as she eyed the sharp tips of their spears. Three-pronged claws grasped the weapons. One of them lunged, and she backed right into another. It threw its skinny arms around her and squeezed.

  Aries dropped her knife. She thrashed and screamed, kicking her legs, but the creature only held her tighter. The others, however, rather than attacking her, rummaged through her pack, so Aries gave up her energy-sapping struggle. Fighting would achieve nothing, only make her too tired to run if the chance came up. They pillaged her belongings and tossed aside important survival gear like trash. So much planning…spilled into the sand. One creature stepped on her only water locating device, cracking the screen and kicking sand over the circuits. Another ripped her sleeping bag open. Feathers fell to the ground, white on orange sand, as if the creatures had shot a bird from the heavens. Their comrades danced on top of the discarded items and thrust their spears in the air in excitement.

  “Stop, you lizard bastards!” Now she would die of hunger and thirst in the middle of a desert, her perfectly packed bag stolen by primitive lizard men. Maybe Tria had had it easy.

  The creatures didn’t let her go. They signaled to each other in strange swings of their heads and tugged her forward. Aries struggled as she watched the first few disappear into the tunnels underneath the sand. The rest dragged her with them.

  “No, no, no.” She felt like she was stuck in some twisted bedtime story with a moral to scare small children: never run away from home.

  A high-pitched squeal erupted from the dunes behind them. The creatures froze, then hissed in unison, but this time there was urgency to the sound, a sense of alarm. Twisting their necks at an impossible angle, they peered behind Aries to the dunes. Aries followed their gaze. She focused her eyes until her head hurt. The desert moved on the horizon, a ripple in an ocean of crimson-orange waves.

  Not wanting to find out what was causing that disturbance on the horizon, Aires took advantage of the distraction and elbowed the creature holding her. He flew backward, landing on his tail in the sand. Although his wiry body consisted of lean muscle, she outweighed him, so the power of the impact left him stunned. She braced herself for another fight, but his comrades scurried into the tunnels.

  She looked around for her pack, but they’d taken it. Before she could decide whether to follow them to steal it back, the ground opened next to the fallen creature. A mound of glittering scales unfurled before her like a giant spring. Choking on a stench that reminded her of the waste depository, she stared as a worm the size of a ventilator shaft rose above her head, casting an ominous shadow on the land.

  The lizard creature clawed the earth in an attempt to get away, but the worm lunged, opening its mouth. Ridges of serrated teeth lined the pink, muscular opening. Its mouth clamped down on the lizard-creature’s torso. The worm lifted its head, bringing him upward to the sky. The lizard man waved his thin arms and dropped his spear before the jaws loosened and the worm swallowed him whole.

  Aries watched, transfixed. The bristles protruding from each scale on the worm’s long throat flexed as the lizard man’s body traveled down.

  Run, you fool.

  Her legs shook and buckled underneath her. Aries scrambled down a drift of sand. She tumbled, head over boots, and rolled down a steep incline. Sand was everywhere, in her mouth, in her hair, and she couldn’t tell which direction she’d come from. Behind her, she heard the now-familiar squeal of the sandworm, so she scrambled ahead, sprinting blindly in the opposite direction of the call. The sun beat down on her, mocking her feeble plight as she spent her last ounce of energy.

  Gazing fearfully over her shoulder, Aries searched the sand mounds for movement, but the landscape remained placid. Why wasn’t the worm following her? Was it taking a shortcut underneath her feet?

  She wasn’t going to take any chances. Aries regained her feet and staggered until the sand dunes ran together in an endless tide, until she collapsed, disoriented and dehydrated. She opened her mouth to gasp in air, and her lips cracked, letting trickles of blood seep into the sand. As she closed her eyes, precious beads of sweat evaporated instantly from her forehead.

  At least I died free.

  Chapter Three

  Striker

  Striker shielded his eyes and crouched near the sand, listening to the wind. As the only human on this godforsaken planet, he’d learned in the past five years to rely on his other senses when the sandstorms obscured his vision. He sniffed the tangy scent of minerals in the air. A spring of underground water rippled through a vein in the earth. Reaching into his backpack with calloused hands, he drew out a long metal stick and thrust it into the ground. He waited, perfectly still, while the rod sank down and the wind whipped his long, black cloak behind him.

  When he pulled out the rod, moist sand crusted the tip. He wiped the end on his palm and smoothed the granules between his fingertips. After a moment’s consideration, he untied the wrap around his mouth and tested the taste of the wet sand on his tongue.

  Today the stars were on his side. Placing his backpack down, he began to untie the knot holding his shovel.

  A call sounded across the dunes like the wail of a suffering banshee, rousing him from his fortune. Sandworm.

  “Damn. Not now.” Weighing his options, he calculated the proximity and direction of the sandworm. It wouldn’t be worth the risk to stay and dig.

  He squinted at the horizon. Large packs of raiders attracted sandworms. He wondered what had drawn their attention, but curiosity in this case could mean death in a sandworm’s stomach.

  Turning away, he collected his belongings and prepared for the hike home. He’d slid halfway down the dune when a familiar sound sailed on the wind. He froze in mid-step, the sand collapsing around his high boots. Not much fazed him these days, but this call stirred emotions he’d long buried. It was a sound he hadn’t heard in years: a human scream.

  “Damn it to hell.” He had no choice. Humans were damned scarce in the universe, unable to live on most planets. They’d wrecked old Earth centuries ago and had existed ever since in space, floating around in giant colony ships or clustered on the few hospitable rocks they’d stumbled across. To hear another human’s voice on this desert planet was more than he could have hoped to encounter. Pulling his hood around his face, he grabbed his water-seeking rod, clutchin
g it with both hands as a weapon, and bolted in the direction of the scream.

  He could hear the hiss of the raiders on the other side of the dune, wheezing like a dozen steam pipes. Swallowing his disgust, he crawled up the incline of rippling sand until he peered over the ridge. There was a sandworm, all right. A big one. Raiders were fleeing like ants into their tunnels. The scene was everything Striker should be running from, with one unavoidable reason to stay: a young woman, staring up at the hairy beast like a princess in an evil fairy tale.

  He couldn’t yell to her, because he knew better than to distract a sandworm while it devoured a meal. Before he could think of another way to get her attention, the woman suddenly sprang into motion, sprinting away. As she disappeared over the adjacent ridge, Striker followed, making sure to give the sandworm a large berth.

  His caution wasn’t enough. The pounding of his boots in the sand roused the beast from its digestion. It stiffened as if it felt the vibrations, raising its head and turning toward Striker. He froze in place, squeezing his palms around his metal rod.

  “Come on, you sucker.” He’d never come this close to one before, but he had a plan. He always had a plan.

  The worm plunged into the sand. It charged at him like a shark cutting through water, the sand shifting above its path in heaping mounds.

  There was no sense in running. Not now. He’d seen the worms overpower the raiders, and their skinny lizard legs could sprint far faster than any man’s. He held up the rod and waited.

  Just as he’d expected, the worm reemerged four feet away, bursting through the sand with its jaws open, ready to swallow its prey whole. The beasts had excellent distance judgment but weren’t one hundred percent accurate. As it snapped its jaws shut on nothing but air, Striker drew his arm backward, then threw the rod at its hide.

  To his satisfaction, the pointed end of the stick pierced the outer layer. He’d only seen them from afar and had been guessing at the thickness of the hairy skin. He ran toward the worm, grasped the end of the rod, and pushed it in harder, applying his weight.