Transformation Space - Marianne de Pierres [62]
Using the bark, he gouged near the tree’s base, searching for its roots. They were shallow, and pliable enough for him to break off a piece. He brushed it off and bit into it. It was hard and earthy, but he forced it down, gagging on the taste of dirt.
For a moment his stomach rebelled, the pod’s stimulant effects rejecting the notion of food, but he swallowed repeatedly until the sickness faded. Within a short time, he began to focus better, and his limbs gained strength. He was able to stand and reach for a lower branch. Tearing it off, he broke the twigs from it, modelling it to the size he needed. It seemed strong enough to take his weight and balance him against the lack of sensation around his knee.
Satisfied that it would do, he hobbled to the edge of the grove. The moon was high now, and lit the direction he wanted to go. He glanced back to the spring and the rocky overhang, memorising the surrounding landmarks.
Innis Mulravey’s ill intent had brought some reward with it. They could have searched for weeks before locating this spring, which was hidden beneath the rock. Now they wouldn’t have to descend the mountain to the beach spring and risk encountering the giant ligs.
Trin grimaced. He wouldn’t let the discovery count in Innis’s favour. Attempted murder of a Principe required a dire penalty. The carabinere would see to it.
Determination settled in his belly, but as he began to limp forward, something glanced against his face. His dashed it away and walked on. Within a few steps, though, it happened again, and again. He caught one of the objects and examined it. Lig.
He heard a noise, a kind of crackling accompanied by a hiss. A shadow appeared over the mountain top, obscuring the moon, and then descended in jerky stages. A swarm of normal sized ligs, heading directly for the grove in which he stood.
Instinct drove Trin to the ground. He lay on his stomach and covered his face, but the ligs engulfed him, crawling inside his robe and hood, all over his skin, searching and probing between his closed fingers.
He forced himself to breathe slowly and evenly; they were mere insects, he reasoned. Nothing dangerous like the giant ligs from the spring at the bottom of the mountain. They will move on.
And they did, lifting from his body at some unheard signal, leaving him itchy and shivering.
He sat up and peered behind him into the grove. The moonlight was enough to show black clusters of the insects, which covered the branches of the trees like gloves. He groped for his stick to help him stand, only to drop it as ligs moved beneath his fingers. The stick was covered, like the tree trunks in the grove. He poked it with his shoe, and most of them rose and flew off.
He reached for the stick. The sap was gone, leaving only a trace of stickiness.
He wondered if there was there a connection between the giant ligs near the beach and this swarm. He’d never seen so many. It was not normal for them to behave this way.
He levered himself up and began the laborious climb. There was plenty to contemplate on the trip back to the cave.
TEKTON
From the safety of his cabin, Tekton used Lasper Farr’s device to run near-future prediction scenarios. The data stream led repeatedly, and almost exclusively, towards the annihilation of the OLOSS worlds and their allies. There were survivors, but the residual pockets of life were gradually snuffed out through loss of contact with the wider worlds; trade was impossible, and the communities lacked the infrastructure to self-sustain.
In nearly all its long-term projections, the device gave a dismal prediction for the longevity of the humanesque species and other alien sentients. Tekton witnessed the end of his kind through Lasper Farr’s DSD again and again, and after several days of it, fell into a terrible depression.
As an antidote to his misery, he developed cravings for both a lotion bath and sex. Neither seemed a remote possibility, so instead he lay curled on his bed, moving only to relieve himself