I looked around, and I still saw the rolling hills covered in vines. “Yes.”
“
Well, I don’t think you are hallucinating. You need to finish your mission. We need to get back to Earth. You probably shouldn’t eat anything else you find on this planet.”
The hallucination Miranda had tried to get me to sleep. This Miranda wanted me to get my job done. That was enough for me. “Yes, ma’am. Max out.”
“
Miranda out.”
I began to jog toward the next cairn, which was on top of a hill not far away. I didn’t know how much time I had lost, but I wasn’t going to lose any more. When I reached the top, I saw a deep valley filled with crumbling low stone buildings, fountains, and roads. Vines had taken over parts of the city, but I could still imagine the place in its former glory.
A crumbling aqueduct entered the valley from the far side. I scanned the city for massive snakes but didn’t see any. But nothing is ever straightforward in this damned job, I told myself. The Magnoculous had said that the snakes might be near the city, not in it. I looked at the aqueduct again and saw a sparkle of water even from this distance. I was dreadfully thirsty and decided that I would make a quick pit stop before continuing my search.
The city was bigger than I first thought, and I had to run through the entire town to reach the point where the aqueduct was still carrying water. Despite being abandoned, I could imagine little porcupines carrying out their days on those paved streets. Maybe there was a grocery store somewhere amongst these buildings that sold fungus and psychedelic vines. Maybe one of the buildings used to be a shop that sold really sharp rocks. One thing that struck me was the silence. I heard no animals, and the wind was still. This really was a ghost town.
When I reached the far end of what had once been a Magnoculous city, I found a spot where water was trickling from the stone and drank for a long time. I couldn’t remember ever being this thirsty before. I stopped drinking when I heard the crunch of gravel behind me. I couldn’t see anything, and so I listened, but now the only thing I could hear was the gentle trickle of water from the aqueduct.
I walked quietly toward the nearest building. I heard another soft crunch from inside. I pulled out my sharp rock, a pathetic option but the only one I had. Whatever was lurking inside wasn’t large. The building’s door was only four feet tall, and I crouched down and peered inside the doorway.
A figure sprang at me. Training and instinct kicked in and I tumbled backward, using my legs to toss my assailant overhead. I came up on my feet and stared down at my little attacker, a gray and brown Magnoculous.
I dropped my sharp rock and held up my hands. “Wait! I won’t hurt you.”
“
I will gut you,” the little female said in crude Intergalactic Common. She held her own sharp rock warily in front of her but made no motion to attack.
“
I’m here because your kin from underground sent me,” I said soothingly.
“
I have no kin underground!”
“
They live about…”
“
They are cowards. They are dead to me.”
“
Why don’t you just put your…um…weapon down and we’ll talk,” I suggested. “I really don’t want to hurt you.”
She looked defiant. “So, you think you could hurt me then?”
“
That’s not what I meant. I’m only saying that I’m not your enemy. I’m just looking to bring some baby snakes back to the other Magnoculous so they can come back out here.”
That seemed to give her pause. She studied me. “They intend to return?”
“
They want to,” I said. “They believe they can’t though unless they have the snakes.”
“
They fear the Wendigo.” She spat.
“
You don’t?” I asked.
“
The Wendigo haven’t been here in many years. They are a myth.”
“
Oh, I’d bet… In fact, I
have
bet my left arm they aren’t a myth,” I said. “They’re still out there, about a day’s travel from here.” I pointed to where I had come from.
“
Did you lead them here?” She suddenly sounded afraid. Maybe she wasn’t convinced the Wendigo were only a myth after all.
“
I think I would have seen them if they were following me.”
“
Legends say they are clever. They might have let you come here to see if you led them to more food.”
“
Much of my journey was over terrain where I could see for miles in all directions, and I didn’t see any following me.”
She started running away, and I followed her. She glanced back at me. “Stay away from me. They’ll follow your scent!” She sniffed me. “You smell like a Magnoculous. They will hunger for you.”
“
Can’t you just tell me where to find the snakes?” I pleaded.
She stopped and looked back. “We have not seen Spearbacks in generations, but maybe you should look in the Valley of the Lost.” She pointed toward the aqueduct. “It is a day’s journey that direction.”
“
Why there?”
“
Because it is the one place my kind would never go.”
She turned and ran off into the maze of buildings. I was suddenly angry. “Why is everybody on this planet crazy?” I shouted after her. Maybe they were all eating the stupid vines because there didn’t seem to be any other food on this stupid planet.
I didn’t bother looking for the little psycho doom bringer. I turned the way she had pointed and started to jog again. It might take her little legs a day, but I was going to find the Valley of Doom and Gloom tonight.
Chapter 22. Miranda
If Max was questioning reality, then he needed help and I needed to pick him up, but we were low on fuel and our next trip into the atmosphere would be our last. With the ship held together by duct tape, I was a little nervous about reentry anyway, but it was a risk I’d have to take. It seemed unlikely he would finish his task without me. I tapped the console to engage cruise drives to navigate toward Zeta-Terra.
The ship computers went offline. There was no warning message, no blue screen of death, no spinning beach ball—the computers just went offline. “Super advanced technology at its best,” I grumbled.
John looked at me with an expression of concern on his face. “I will assume you meant to do that, even though I can’t imagine why.”
“
Yes, I’m a very mysterious woman. Please, go fetch me a pair of wire cutters and a screwdriver so that I can torture this computer into coming back online.”
John walked out of the cockpit shaking his head.
I didn’t actually know if I needed the wire cutters or the screwdriver. What I needed was time to find the damn power switch to restart it. I didn’t know the first thing about the ship’s computer, but I figured it must have a way of rebooting. Then I saw what I needed at the back of the cockpit. I went to the back wall and a panel that housed a hard reset switch. I hit it, and the entire ship’s power went out. Even the segmented electrical backup systems showed no signs of activity. We needed power for the life support as well as the computers.
I sighed and put my hands on my hips. “No need to panic,” I declared to the dead circuitry. I flipped the switch back on. Nothing happened. No clicking, no humming, nothing. I took a deep breath. This wasn’t even the first time that day life support systems had been threatened, I reminded myself. I wondered whether one would eventually become desensitized to the constant threat of annihilation. I must have liked the risk, because I didn’t take the cushy desk job at a Stellar Command orbital command center working on a computer. Though that job was looking better by the day.
There was a tap on the airlock door, and I realized that, without power, the door wouldn’t open. If I needed a screwdriver or wire cutters, I wasn’t going to get them any time soon.
“
Maybe I need to toggle the switch more than once.” I toggled the switch again, then tried a few more times. I flipped it into the position I had initially found it and sat back in my chair. I’d just be patient and give it time to warm up.
As I sat in the pilot’s chair, pondering my doom, I heard a buzzing sound like electricity humming in high voltage lines. For the briefest moment, the lights came on and the airlock door sprang open.
John stepped into the cockpit. “I couldn’t find a screwdriver, but here are some wire cutters.”
“
What the hell was that?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I have a way with electrical devices. I don’t know if that the door will ever seal properly again.”
I hung my head. “I screwed up,” I said.
He walked over and handed me the wire cutters. “You didn’t screw up. When you’re an agent, shit storms find you even if you’re not looking for them.”
“
You talk like you’ve been there,” I said.
“
I have. I used to be an agent. I retired.”
“
You retired? Why would you do that? There are so few agents and we need every one of them.”
“
Look, I know it sounds bad to you, but not everybody is thrilled to risk their lives day in and day out for a planet that is too busy trying to destroy itself to notice the bigger picture.” He sighed. “When I was your age, I wanted to make a difference. I was cocky and arrogant and sure that I could change things. When I became an agent though, all I saw were horrible ways to die—and nothing has changed.”
“
If you’ve given up on the humans, why did you stay on Earth?”
“
I still want to make a difference, but rather than save an entire world, I just needed to be there for a county. Rather than merely surviving another encounter with Virrean Wolves so that I could then withstand some other alien onslaught, I needed to find a place in this universe where I could fight a winning battle. I picked a small quiet town because I wanted to be on the winning side for once.” He exhaled and looked me in the eye. “Unfortunately, once you’re an agent, the bad luck follows you. Here I am, still fighting a losing battle for a cause that I gave up on years ago.”
The lights flickered on and the computer began to hum. I thought about what John had said while I pulled off the access panel and began looking for the cause of the crash.
Chapter 23. Max
I ran over unmarked and unremarkable fields of vines through the afternoon and into the evening. The ground rose steadily in front of me, and in the distance I could see purple mountains. I pushed on, catching second wind for the umpteenth time even as I found my stride. When the larger of the suns set, I ran on by the blue light of the smaller sun. When I reached the crest of the hill I had been running up for miles, I looked down a deep crag into a valley obscured by dark swirls of fog. The smell of rotten eggs nearly overpowered me. I sighed. Par for the course that my destination should stink.
I considered trying to find an easier way into the valley than falling down a cliff, but it looked like it stretched miles in either direction and I wasn’t assured that it would get easier. Why the hell would anything live down there?
I pulled out my com link. “Miranda?”
A moment passed before she answered. “I’m here.”
“
Can you do a scan for life forms around me?”
“
Sure thing.”
I started figuring out the best way to climb down. It was a long fall onto a very hard surface. Even I probably couldn’t survive.
“
Okay, I see bio signatures within three hundred yards of you. They are either some very large life forms or some densely packed small life forms.”
“
Let’s hope they are really small then,” I answered.
“
Oh, Max?”
“
Yes?”