Authors: Roxanne Smolen
I
mpani leaped up, gawking at the hysterical woman. These people looked like colonists. What was going on?
Kkrick stood. In one fluid movement, he vaulted over the table and shoved the woman backwards. She slammed against the wall then sank to her knees, holding her head with a dazed expression. Impani stepped forward to help her but became suddenly aware of the ants watching as if appraising her reaction. She stood where she was.
The man rushed to the woman’s side. “Marie. Are you all right? Can you stand?”
Kkrick grabbed the man by the scruff of his coat and tossed him so that he landed near Trace’s feet. He clicked, “Respectkk your handlers.”
The man shuffled forward on his knees. “Help us. Please. No one leaves this place.”
“What are you talking about?” Trace pulled him to his feet. “Who are you?”
“I am Avid McCleary, hydroponics engineer of Colonization Project Number B1X-39-4A. We came to this planet because the Colonial Scouts said it was uninhabited.” He gave a barking laugh, tears flowing. “Uninhabited. They didn’t know, didn’t take the time.”
“Colonists?” Trace asked. “How many?”
The man’s face contorted. “They keep us in the paddock. They feed on us. Like cattle.”
Impani touched his shoulder. “Mr. McCleary, how long have your people been here?”
“Five years,” he said dully.
Impani stepped back. Five years. Five years of terror, of watching those closest to you die, all because a Scout made a mistake. Because of incompetent reporting.
Tears stung her eyes. She slid back her mask and ran a hand over her face.
The room erupted.
“You are not handlers!” Kkrick chattered, pointing at her. “You are otherskk. Like them!”
And Impani realized why they had been treated with deference. Kkrick had mistaken their skinsuits for exoskeletons. He thought they were a new type of ant, probably feared they were on the brink of war for feeding on the colonists without permission. He thought they were in charge—like him.
With a wave of his many hands, Kkrick directed several ants into the room. Each carried a spear. Impani reached for her gun, but they were on her, their bulging, glassy eyes close to her face, spear points at her throat. Their horrible clicking voices echoed in her ears. They yanked her arms behind her as they propelled her body forward. She glimpsed the other ants at the table still watching. Glimpsed the woman propped against the wall.
Avid McCleary’s terrified wail came behind her. “Don’t leave us! Don’t leave us!”
Impani struggled to look around. All she saw were bobbing spearheads. “Trace?”
“I’m here,” he called, his voice strained.
“Can you reach your gun?”
He hesitated. “No.”
Her eyes widened. Don’t panic, she told herself. Remember your training. But she couldn’t recall a classroom lecture that covered man-eating bugs.
She stumbled out onto the terrace, her hands wrenched painfully behind her back. The ants moved faster than she could walk, and they half carried her through the city. Their limbs were twig thin and stiff.
Her flesh crawled. They ate people. Colonists. She pictured the platters of cooked meat, the bones upon the table. What if she and Trace had eaten at that feast?
She gagged and nearly fell. An arm tightened around her waist. She felt herself lifted into the air and carried into a tunnel. Darkness closed around her like a fist. She sensed the ceiling scant centimeters above her face. Her eyelids fluttered, and she must have fainted because the next thing she knew she was being carried feet first up a narrow incline.
Cold air slapped her awake. She struck the ceiling. Dust and pebbles rained into her eyes. Light gleamed upon the ants’ heads as they swarmed beneath her. Their wretched two-fingered hands pinned her arms, her legs, as they bore her out of the passage.
Stars twinkled above. Impani gulped fresh air as if she’d been drowning. She lifted her head, trying to see where they were taking her.
Spotlights streamed upward like a halo around the shadowy outlines of Quonset huts. People moved within the light. Colonists. She thought of the woman’s reaction to seeing two Scouts after five years on this world.
Suddenly she was propelled through the air, thrown into the compound. She rolled with the impact, pulled her stat-gun from its holster, and pointed it at the ants.
But Trace was already up. “Bugs! I hate bugs!” He fired his weapon, strafing the night with electric-blue discharge.
Impani played her wrist lamp over the empty plain. The ants were gone. What sort of creatures could move so fast? Then she heard voices behind her.
“They’re Scouts,” someone said. “Come and look. It’s not Avid and Marie at all. It’s two Scouts.”
“Colonial Scouts?” a woman asked.
“Holy seas. It is.”
Impani turned to face a dozen colonists. She holstered her gun then spread her hands, trying to think of something to say. But she remembered the despair in Avid McCleary’s words. What could she tell these people?
The colonists clustered around them in a semi-circle, their faces stark in the spotlights.
“Come back to admire your handiwork?” snarled a man.
“This is your doing,” said another.
“Stop it!” A woman swatted him. “Don’t you see? They can send help.”
“Is that true?” A man stepped forward. He had a thick scar across his cheek. “Can you get a message out?”
Trace stammered, “W-we’re not in contact—”
“But you’re Scouts. Someone must have sent you.”
“What’s all this?” A woman bustled toward them through the streaming light.
“Newcomers,” said the snarling man.
“Soldiers brought them.”
“They’re Scouts, Missus. They’re going to help us.”
“Is that so?” Missus said.
Impani had the sense that she was being appraised. She decided anything she said would make the situation worse, so she stood in silence at Trace’s side, glancing from face to face.
Finally, Missus said, “It will be lights out soon. Get on home, all of you. There will be time enough in the morning to discuss who will help who.”
With excited whispers, the crowd disbursed. Missus walked up to Impani and Trace.
“You’re not real Scouts, are you?” she asked quietly. “You’re children. Here by mistake.”
“We’re cadets,” Trace told her.
“We were in a training session,” Impani said. “The Impellic ring malfunctioned.”
“I didn’t think they’d resend Scouts to such a thriving community.” She chuckled without humor. “I’m Cassandra, but they call me Mrs. Fixes. I’m the maintenance mechanic.”
“I’m Trace, and this is my partner, Impani.”
Missus nodded. “Like I said, it will be lights out soon. Best get you to shelter.” She turned and addressed a shadow within the light. “It’s all right, kids. They’re harmless.”
A girl stepped into the open. She carried a young boy, but he wriggled from her grasp and ran toward them.
Missus scooped him up. “My son, Timothy.”
Impani’s stomach dropped. “There are children here?”
“Timothy’s the first to be born on this planet. We were so happy. That was before the soldiers came.” With her son in her arms, she headed toward the huts. “I’ll put you in a storage shed with a portable heater. It’s going to get cold.”
Impani couldn’t imagine it getting much colder.
Trace said, “We haven’t eaten and…”
“Well, food is one thing we have plenty of. Lathi, why don’t you bring over some of that leftover stew?”
The girl’s face lit, and she ran off. She was barely in her teens. Too young to live with such horror.
Missus yanked open the door of a domed shed and strode inside. She pulled several thick blankets from a shelf. “Sorry I can’t offer you a bed. We’ll see to better arrangements in the morning.”
Would they still be there in the morning? She wanted away from this terrifying world.
Then Lathi came in with two covered dishes.
Trace took the plates from her. “Thanks.”
“Lathi, take Timothy and get straight home,” Missus said. “I’ll be there shortly.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lathi took the boy from his mother’s arms and rushed out of the dome, letting the door slam.
Missus dragged a battered cylinder from the corner and knelt to toggle a switch. She struck a panel with the heel of her hand, and a light blinked.
Impani felt a rush of warm air. “Is Lathi your daughter?”
“She is now,” Missus said. “Soldiers took her parents.”
Dread filled Impani’s stomach. She moved nearer her partner. Trace handed her a plate and lifted the lid. Steam burst upward. Impani stared at the dark stew.
“Vegetables,” Missus said, seeming to read her hesitation. “From the hydroponics lab. I don’t know what we’re going to do now that Avid is gone.” She stood and brushed her knees. “Stay inside. You don’t want to be walking around the paddock after lights out. I’ll see you in the morning.” With a nod, she walked into the night.
“Sounds ominous,” Impani said. She’d meant to be flippant and was embarrassed by the quaver in her voice.
Trace stared at her. “Are you all right?”
“Why doesn’t the ring come?”
“It will. We’ll get out of this.”
She bit her lip to keep the fear within her from finding its way out. Replacing the lid, she set the plate on top of the heater. “Did you hear what she said about them not sending Scouts to an established colony?”
“I suppose they think there’s no need.”
“But don’t you think they should? Just to be sure everything’s going well?”
“Expensive.”
“Not as expensive as human lives. These colonists are right. Scouts are responsible.” She looked at him. “But you’d think they’d fight back. They must have weapons.”
He spread a blanket before the glowing heater. “Come eat some of this food.”
Impani cringed. She sat beside him and stared at her plate. Trace ate as if ravenous. She tried not to watch. With the tip of her tongue, she tasted the stew. The gravy was rich with savory herbs. She bit into an unrecognizable vegetable. Chewing woodenly, she glanced around at the shed.
The metal walls were scuffed and battered as if the hut had been moved several times and hastily put back together. Rows of shelves stood from floor to ceiling, all of them crammed so haphazardly with crates and equipment she wondered how anyone could find anything.
Abruptly, the lights went out. She stiffened and nearly choked on another bite. In the dark, the coldness intensified. The frigid air laced with waves of heat and gave the semblance of a breeze.
“I wonder how long night lasts,” Trace said.
The question dug a hollow in her stomach. She set down her plate. “I can’t eat.”
He drew the edge of the blanket around them. She was aware of the nearness of his body, and found herself trying not to move so he wouldn’t lean away.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “You told me that climbing down that hole was a bad idea. I should have listened. I could have gotten us killed.”
“If we’d refused to follow them, they just would have realized we weren’t ants that much sooner.”
“What do you think they’ll do with us?”
“I don’t know,” she said. But she knew very well what they were going to do. They were going to roast them until their legs curled and serve them on platters. Why didn’t the ring come? She hid her face in her hands.
“Cold? Here, lean against me.” Trace slipped his arm around her.
She pressed against his shoulder, but no warmth seeped through his skinsuit. She tried to relax but shivered instead.
“They must be looking for us,” he said. “I know my father wouldn’t give up. I’m sure your folks won’t either.”
Impani blushed. She felt like she’d been caught in a lie. What would he think if he knew what she was, where she’d come from?
He said, “You never told me why you hate enclosed spaces.”
She pushed away and looked at him.
He smiled. “It’s pretty apparent.”
“I was a kid,” she said, the words out before she could stop them, “and I was looking for food. I got trapped in a trash compactor. The lid snapped shut behind me. I spent the better part of a day and a night in there, darkness pressing down on me, things skittering over my arms. Next morning, they started up the compactor. Luckily, they heard my screams.”
Trace chuckled. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“But you said you were from the city.”
“City streets. I don’t have a home or parents. I was abandoned as a newborn—something I will never understand or forgive. An old woman found me at a bus stop. She said she’d thought I was a kitten. I’d been making mewing sounds. So she named me Impani after a cat she’d once had. We lived in a cardboard carton.”
“You were homeless?” Trace frowned.