Saturnius Mons (Ruins of Empire Book 1) Read online

  “Viekko.” said Isra, “Progress report.”

  Isra’s requests were curt, demanding, and getting more so, but they carried an amount of weariness with them now. Plus, they were getting a tad ridiculous.

  Viekko didn’t look at his computer but pointed to a tree a hundred meters behind them, “There. That’s where we were when you last asked. We were there. Now we’re here. That’s your progress.”

  Isra grumbled and kept walking. She must have been more exhausted than she let on. Her breathing was labored, she was caked in dirt and sweat and, if Isra Jicarrio didn’t have enough energy for a retort, she was about ready to drop.

  Althea didn’t look much better. She was driving the crawler but she had spent her fair share of time on the end of a tow cable trying to dislodge it from whatever unpleasant situation it found itself in at that particular minute. The only one of them that escaped mostly unscathed was Cronus, still breathing through a plastic mask.

  The pain forming in his muscles kept his mind focused on the world around him. Maybe it was his tolerance or maybe it had something to do with the amount of oxygen on Titan, but the Haze was hitting faster. He found himself forcing his mind to concentrate on the situation in front of him. The trees, ferns and undergrowth were all blending together. He’d lost Carr’s scent and he wasn’t sure if it was because they’d shaken him or if Viekko just wasn’t sharp enough now.

  Viekko shook his head and forced himself to focus on his surroundings. The forest really was beautiful. Everywhere he looked, Viekko saw and felt nature. Not the fenced-in, domesticated nature that he sometimes found on Earth. And not the harsh, unforgiving bitch that was the wilds of the Martian steppes. Up above, a tree practically exploded with red and blue flowers and buzzed with insects. There were vines heavy with deep red fruits. Here, the flowers almost masked the petroleum stench near the Ligeia Mare. There was something nurturing about this place. Innocent. Primeval.

  As they continued, the largest trees disappeared and were replaced by smaller, younger ones that were still as high as a two or three story building. A few minutes later, Viekko emerged into a narrow clearing. For the first time since they walked into the thick of the forest, Viekko could see the sky, the sun hanging close to the eastern horizon and Saturn in its spot almost directly overhead. Seeing the wide open space, Viekko felt his own fatigue kick in.

  Isra paused to lean against a tree. “Progress report,” she demanded but in a tone that suggested that she, like the rest of them, was ready to collapse.

  Viekko sat on a rock near the edge of the clearing, “Isra, it don’t do no good to be shoutin’ for a progress report every fifteen minutes. I take no pleasure in saying it, but I was right. We weren’t in no shape to cross through the forest. We’ll get it done, but it ain’t gonna happen quick.”

  Isra’s eyes narrowed, “We need to keep moving then. Come on.”

  Isra started a determined march across the clearing but Althea, in a stunning display of protest, shut down the electric engine.

  Isra stopped and turned around. “Althea. What are you doing?”

  Althea stepped out of the crawler. “Isra, we should rest. Take a minute, maybe eat something. It won’t do us any good if we stagger into harm’s way totally spent and starving.”

  Isra was about to say something but Cronus moved the mask to the side, gave several good coughs and followed it up with a pathetic little wheeze.

  “And I should check his blood again,” Althea added. “See if anything particularly nasty is happening to him.”

  Isra flashed a look at Viekko maybe hoping for a bit of solidarity or maybe just expecting one more person to let her down.

  Either way Viekko went with the latter.

  “She’s right,” said Viekko, reclining on the rock, “We ain’t had anything since we left the LZ. And, like you said, the sun ain’t setting on this rock any time soon.”

  “What about the soldier? The one tailing us?” Isra insisted.

  “Hard tellin’. I haven’t picked up any signs of him lately. Probably he’s keeping his distance and following our tracks. Or maybe he’s given up and gone back to camp.”

  Not likely, thought Viekko, but if Isra bought it, all the better.

  All Isra did was slowly blink and say, “Fine.” Viekko heard a whole encyclopedia of annoyance expressed in that one word, but that was it. Isra walked back to the crawler and said, “I will pull some rations for us.”

  Althea ran her hand through a bush and pulled a fruit that looked like a strawberry except it was longer, bright orange, and the size of Althea’s palm, “I’d like to take a moment and analyze some of the fruit, nuts and seeds I’ve seen along the way. This planet is full of them and I’d like to see if any of it happens to be edible.”

  Viekko nodded and said, “I’ll scout ahead. See how big this clearing is and if I can find an easy way for the crawler.”

  “You do know what a rest is, right Viekko?” asked Althea, pulling a handful of berries off a vine.

  Viekko shoved his hand in his pocket and felt the little glass capsules of triple-T. “It won’t take long,” he said.

  The clearing was about fifty meters wide and curved to the left. He followed it, keeping close to the trees, until he was well out of sight of the crawler. As he walked, he noticed the clearing getting wider and that the grass had a distinctly traveled look it. From the broken branches and scratches on the trees, it was fair to say whatever came through this way last was both big and vicious.

  He found a tree with a convenient root and sat leaning back against it. He closed his eyes and just enjoyed the silence for a moment. His hand slid into his coat pocket and selected a shard of ’T.

  In a moment, the world would be even clearer and sharper. He would feel as good as he did when they first landed. It was for the good of the group, after all. He couldn’t protect the others if the Haze started to hit. Hell, he couldn’t protect himself.

  He slid the glass capsule in between his molars and bit down.

  Once again, the world became sharp. He could parse out the cacophony of the forest and pick out the individual sounds; the buzz of a large dragonfly-like insect in a flowering bush, the call of a bird high in the trees, a strange trumpeting sound like an elephant’s call in the distance. The individual odors of the forest each became prominent and, at the same time, distinct. There was the sweetness of the fruit hanging in the trees, the earthy musk of animal sweat in the distance and the echoes of Carr’s aftershave still casting an unnatural shadow over the place. Even the less tangible feelings became as sharp as broken glass. For example, the feeling that Althea was closing in on his position.

  He jumped back to his feet, spat out the shard and wiped the blood from his mouth just as Althea appeared.

  “Viekko!” shouted Althea at a full sprint with her medical bag in hand. “What happened?”

  Viekko tipped his hat back and, with a voice as nonchalant as he could physically manage, said, “Hiked up a-ways. Looks to be easier goin’ this way, although…”

  Althea damn near tackled Viekko to the ground when she got to him. “Sit down before you bloody well collapse.”

  He sat down hard on the tree root and, a few moments later, he was squinting into the bright light of Althea’s retinal scanner. “Jaysus, Althea. What in tam-iin khaalga is wrong?”

  Althea turned off the retinal scanner and just looked at him in the eye as if she expected to find something not-quite-human behind them. “Were you stung or bitten by anything? Or did you eat or touch a strange plant just now?”

  “No stranger than anything here, I suppose. What exactly are you getting at, Althea?”

  She searched her bag for something, “Did you fall or cut yourself? Sprain an ankle… anything?”

  “Damn it, Althea, ain’t nothin’ happened. What exactly are you gettin’ riled up about?”

  Althea produced a syringe containing a beige liquid, “Just a few minutes after you were out of sight, I got an alert fro
m your medical regulator. Your brain chemistry went totally bonkers. Your endorphin levels went off the charts, your dopamine shot up, your serotonin tanked…take off your jacket.”

  A surge of fear crossed Viekko’s mind as he eyed the syringe. “Just hang on a moment, I don’t know what’s got your horses all reared up, but I ain’t takin what’s in that syringe. Ain’t nothin wrong with me.”

  Althea leaned close, “We can’t know that. A change this drastic in your body could mean anything. You might well be poisoned by the same thing that’s affecting Cronus, but there’s no way to tell until I can sort through all the other noise. This will help regulate your brain chemistry so, hopefully I can see what’s wrong. Now take off your jacket and turn around.”

  He found himself doing exactly as she said even though he knew that he should just come clean, dig the capsules out of his pocket and show her.

  “Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?” said Althea approaching his medical regulator with a syringe.

  “Why do you ask?” said Viekko.

  “Because this is going feel a little weird.”

  Althea plugged the syringe into a port in the back of his regulator and twisted. She touched a few icons on her EROS computer. Then it felt like the entire world spiraled right out from underneath him. His whole body felt dizzy and nauseous like he might try to purge all his guts in one go. At the same time all his skin tingled the way his arm or legs did when they went to sleep. Then he wasn’t. For a moment he was standing. He saw Althea kneeling over a body helping them lie down. The body wore white khaki pants and a suit jacket. Then the world faded to white and black.

  The next thing he knew he was looking up at Althea’s retinal scanner again. She leaned back and checked the data being downloaded to her EROS computer. A look of growing concern spread across her face every moment she spent working on it. Finally she turned off her screen and said, “Your brain chemistry isn’t leveling out. Your endorphins are still dropping. I don’t understand this at all. Tell me again what you were doing?”

  Viekko swallowed hard as he tried to think of a lie. There was nothing out here besides more trees, bushes and…just then, he heard a sound like a low moaning trumpet. Althea heard it too and stared off in the same direction.

  “I was scoutin’ ahead,” said Viekko sitting up.

  Althea put her hand on his chest and gently tried to get him to lay back down, “Viekko. Be careful.”

  Viekko pushed past her light resistance until he was sitting upright. Somewhere in the distance he heard an animal trumpet. “I was scoutin’ ahead and I was just about to investigate whatever the hell that sound is.”

  Before Althea could say anything, Viekko got to his feet. He wobbled a moment and then started walking with Althea tailing behind. The path went up a small rolling hill. The calls got louder and more frequent as he got closer. The low, barely audible moans and higher trumpets made Viekko picture a large herbivore. Something like a buffalo or an ox or possibly an elephant.

  Viekko reached the top of the hill first and knelt down. Partially because his brain still hadn’t cleared from whatever hellish serum Althea shot him up with. And also because he wasn’t sure how to process what he just saw on the other side of the hill.

  Althea caught up, knelt down next to him and gasped, “Oh my God. Viekko.”

  The valley on the other side of the hill was filled with animals. They were basically elephants except much larger, much hairier, and they hadn’t been seen outside of a museum for tens of thousands of years.

  “Mammoths,” whispered Althea, watching the herd of approximately thirty animals. “How is that even possible?”

  “Not sure,” said Viekko. “I suspect that when they was colonizing the planets, they brought a few useful animals with them. In particular, those that would best survive the climate. Those that didn’t exist, they created. Or recreated, as it were.”

  A high, nasally, mucus-coated voice made Viekko jump. “Isra wants to know what you two are doing.”

  “Ta nar bogood ergu teneg, bi chamain kharaah,” said Viekko cursing in his native Martian tongue, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Cronus took a few deep breaths from the plastic mask and pulled it away. “I am not here to be carried. Isra is busy so I came to help. I can walk. I can—” Cronus's words were cut short by another coughing fit. He slapped the mask back over his mouth and nose.

  “Yeah but you can’t breathe, now can ya?” berated Viekko. “Be quiet now. No tellin’ what those things are capable of.”

  “What are they?” said Cronus.

  “Mammoths,” said Viekko, “That’s as near as I can figure, at least. I’m open to suggestions.”

  Cronus looked for a moment and, given the situation, gave the most unimpressed “oh,” imaginable.

  “Oh?” said Viekko, “That’s all you got? You’re lookin’ at animals that should, by all reason, be extinct and the best you got is, ‘oh’?”

  Cronus took a few deep breaths from his breather and pulled it away, “It makes sense to me. It’s cold here and they would thrive and humans thrive from them. Life consumes life. When programming a system, you write the code that serves the function, not the function to the code. What is Althea doing?”

  Viekko looked down the hill. Somehow, Althea was already halfway down and heading directly for the largest bull mammoth a couple hundred meters away.

  “Teneg okhin!” Viekko activated the radio on his arm and, fighting to keep his voice below a whisper, said, “Althea what the… what are you doin’?”

  The grass was well trampled by the animals but Althea crouched and moved slowly through the remaining strands. She paused to activate her own radio and whispered, “I want to get a closer look.”

  “You’ll be lookin’ at it from the end of its tusk if you ain’t careful!” said Viekko forcing a whisper.

  “You said yourself that they were bred here. If they were raised that would require a lot of human interaction.”

  “You’re gonna go and base your survival on the baas that comes out of my mouth?”

  Althea didn’t respond. Viekko could only watch as she crept down the hill. At the bottom, she caught the eye of the large bull. He stopped lazily picking leaves off a fern tree and looked at her. Althea remained motionless for a moment. Viekko’s mind worked frantically to figure out what to do if the massive animal charged. There wasn’t any cover for quite a distance and they’d be staring down four meters of ivory moving at high velocity. His survival would be a sheer matter of chance and there was nothing he could do for Althea.

  She stood up. Viekko watched the mammoth’s reaction and it seemed totally disinterested. It regarded Althea for a moment and, deciding she was no more a threat than your basic insect, went back to the fern tree. And Althea, being the type who couldn’t leave things alone, moved closer. She stopped less than a meter away, reached out and ran her hand through the mammoth’s fur. He looked back at her a moment, let out a low moan and went back to his meal.

  “It’s okay,” said Althea over the radio, “They are quite tame.”

  “Great,” whispered Viekko to himself more than anyone else, “Just peachy. Now get back up here before somethin’ terrible happens.”

  There was another trumpet sound, this time from the northwest, the direction they were traveling. This one had a loud, piercing quality to it. It didn’t sound like it came from another mammoth; it was fake and electronic, as if it was made to sound like it came from the mammoths. Only louder. So loud that it echoed off the mountains in the distance.

  “That sound” said Cronus peeking up his head, “From the direction of the city. A call. The city calls to them.”

  The herd started moving. It was slow at first like a lazy river that was just hitting a patch of whitewater.

  “Althea!” Viekko yelled.

  Althea became aware something was wrong. She started by backing away from the bull and back up the hill to where Cronus and Viekko were w
atching. But as the herd became more and more agitated, Althea pivoted right and sprinted. But it was already too late. Before she could get out of the way, the mammoths were in full stampede.

  “Uh, Viekko…” said Cronus with rising concern.

  Viekko could only see her in short bursts in between the mammoths stomping past.

  “Viekko…” Cronus said with a touch of panic.

  And then Althea was gone. She dove to the ground just as another mammoth ran by or, Viekko felt a little sick at the thought, over her. And that seemed to be it. She was lost in the dirt and dust as the whole herd ran behind the big bull male.

  “Viekko!”

  Right up the hill where they were standing.

  “Don’t go and wait on my account!” yelled Viekko. “Run! Damn it! Run!”

  Viekko and Cronus turned and bolted down the other side of the hill back in the direction they came and away from the stampeding animals. With every step, he could feel the EROS suit resisting his movements. He couldn’t run as fast as he knew he could. The Corporation wanted Titan to feel more like Earth. For a moment, Viekko imagined dropping whatever idiot designed this hellish contraption right in front of the stampede.

  Viekko pushed harder. He took longer strides taking extra advantage of Titan’s gravity.

  He had a good turn of speed by the time he was at the bottom. He could feel the EROS suit tearing as it fought against his muscles. He sprinted a few meters and angled left for the tree line. The herd would keep to the clearing. At very least the trees would slow them down and give him a fighting chance to escape. At that moment, just a few meters from the safety of the dense forest, he heard Cronus.

  “Viekko!” Cronus wheezed. “I can’t breathe! I can’t run!”

  Viekko spun around. Sure enough Cronus was clutching his chest at the bottom of the hill just as the first mammoths were cresting it.

  Viekko sprinted back, grabbed Cronus by the arm and pulled him toward the tree line. The deafening drum roll of mammoth feet got louder with each passing second. A momentary glance to his left told him that he was out of time. A medium-sized but imposing cow was close enough that he could see the determined look in her eye.