After Earth: A Perfect Beast (16 page)

As Torrance came to that understanding, Mayweather dropped to his knees beside him and flipped open an emergency medical kit. Taking out a compress, he pressed it against Torrance’s leg to stop the bleeding, which was substantial. Torrance’s entire pants leg had been dyed crimson.

Morales approached Rios, or what was left of him. “Help her,” Torrance said, gesturing for the others to pitch in.

As badly as Rios had been ripped up, they couldn’t just leave him there. He was a Ranger, after all. They had to pick up what was left of their comrade and take it back with them.

“It’s deep,” Mayweather said. He had picked up the compress to inspect his superior’s wound. “We’d better get you to a medicenter.”

Torrance laughed bitterly. “Assuming we can find one that’s still open.”

When Lyla Kincaid got the message on her home screen that the Savant wanted to address every engineer on the planet, it came as no surprise to her. After all, the colony was in crisis mode. It only made sense to enlist the expertise of Nova Prime’s science corps in the defense effort. Lyla and her colleagues were nothing if not problem solvers, and the Ursa represented the biggest problem the colonists had faced in centuries.

What
did
surprise Lyla was the sight of Leslie Vincenzo’s long, stern face filling the screen instead of Donovan Flint’s. Though Vincenzo was nominally Flint’s second in command, she seldom seemed to step outside her office.

I guess she made an exception this time
, Lyla thought.

“I don’t need to tell you how serious the problem is,” said Vincenzo. “The Ursa, as they’ve come to be known, are destroying us one by one, and the Rangers, despite their best efforts, haven’t been able to stop them. That leaves it up to us to devise a solution.”

The mention of the Rangers made Lyla think of her brother. Last she had heard from him, he was going out on a civilian control mission. She forced herself to believe that he had come back from it.

“For hundreds of years,” Vincenzo continued, “fusion
burst was all we thought we needed. Then came the first Skrel attack, with its shielded ships, and we had to come up with an alternative to fusion burst. That was when we invented F.E.N.I.X. tech.”

Lyla knew a lot about F.E.N.I.X. tech, including what the acronym stood for, which many in the colony seemed to have forgotten. The first two letters,
F
and
E
, were the chemical symbol for iron since iron atoms were the basis for the device’s nuclear power. The last three letters stood for “Novan Instrument of Execution.”

But then, she had reason to know more about F.E.N.I.X. tech. It was her ancestor, Jack Kincaid, who had invented it hundreds of years earlier, employing magnetic fields to transform a projectile made of thousands of steel filaments into different shapes that in sequence could penetrate a Skrel craft and then tear it apart from within, shields or no shields.

“Unfortunately,” Vincenzo said, “neither technology seems to work very well against the Ursa. On occasion we seem to be able to frustrate the creatures with our fusion-burst hand weapons, but with our limited ordnance we can’t muster the force necessary to damage them. Our F.E.N.I.X. projectile cannons failed to take down any Ursa outside the city limits, and we can’t use F.E.N.I.X. tech in the streets. Even if we miniaturized the cannons, there’s not enough time for a projectile to morph at close range.

“So we need something new: a weapon designed not to repel Skrel spacecraft but to kill or at least disable an Ursa. It must take into account not only the creature’s anatomy but also its behavior—its hunting style. And it must lend itself to a mass-production schedule that makes use of what manufacturing resources we have, or can reasonably expect to have, at our disposal.”

“Is that
all
?” Lyla said out loud.

“You’ve all been working on projects with defense implications,” said Vincenzo, “at least in theory. I want you to focus on those implications and give me something
that can be used with consistent effectiveness at a distance of ten feet or less. I’d give you a deadline, but I don’t think I need to step up your sense of urgency in this case. Colonists are dying every day, and you don’t want your loved ones to be among them.”

But no pressure
, Lyla thought.

She imagined her fellow engineers thinking the same thing—but not for long. Being the problem solvers they were, they already would have begun to look at the projects they were working on in a new light—in terms of whether they could be repurposed to kill Ursa.

Just as Lyla was doing, only she was giving the Savant’s deputy half her attention.

“What are you waiting for?” Vincenzo asked. “Get going. Your colony needs you.”

Lyla didn’t need to be told twice. Her lab was just a couple of blocks away. She could call for a Ranger escort, but there would be engineers all across Nova City doing that. The drain on the Rangers’ already stretched resources would be considerable.

I’m young
, Lyla thought. Her lab was close. She could go it alone.

Days passed and Trey Vander Meer knew what people would think of him.

They would think he was crazy for venturing out of his house to broadcast a special edition of his program when the streets of Nova City were full of biological killing machines. And maybe he
was
crazy.

But he was also driven by the notion that the people of Nova Prime
needed
him—needed him now more than ever. He felt like a hero braving the trip to his studio to keep their spirits up. After all, who else would do it? Not an official source like Wilkins, certainly. She might be fine for the Rangers, but her bedside manner was nothing like Vander Meer’s.

And there was plenty for the people to be upset about. The death toll continued to rise, albeit more slowly now than at first, each death stirring the coals of the colony’s fear and keeping men and women from finding comfort or rest. Children woke screaming from nightmares. Insomnia plagued the adults.

Nor was it all the Ursa’s fault. Food and water were becoming tougher and tougher to come by. The demand for a safe delivery method was growing. In fact, Vander Meer had prepared notes for a commentary on that very topic. He wanted to hold the government accountable for its failure to maintain some kind of infrastructure during the crisis.

Yes, the people needed him. And when it was all over, he would get credit for his heroism. He had no doubt of
that. He would be remembered as the one who bolstered the colony’s morale in its darkest hour.

Of course, there hadn’t actually been any Ursa sightings in his neighborhood. Therefore, the odds were good—no,
very
good—that he would get to his studio and back without coming within three or four kilometers of the monsters. But that was a detail that could be left out of his autobiography.

“Trey,” said his wife, her face streaked with tears, “I wish you wouldn’t—”

He held up a hand to stop her. “My dear, we’ve already had this conversation. You agreed that I should go.”

“I gave in,” she said. “That’s not the same.”

It wasn’t easy to leave her like this. But he was sure that other great journalists had made sacrifices. He would have to do the same thing, tears or no tears.

Vander Meer took one last glance at his children, who were sitting together in the family room, watching the official Ranger feed because there was nothing else to watch.
I’ll change that
, he thought.
And in the process, I’ll show Michael and Elena that their father isn’t the ghoul they thought he was
.

Elena had been the most anxious of them, of course. She wanted to be with her boyfriend, but Trey and Natasha had refused to let her go. She was reduced to speaking with Derrick through the vid system despite the difficulty of finding a measure of privacy for their conversations.

“I’ll be back soon enough,” he assured Natasha. “See you then, my love.”

Then he unsealed the door and cracked it open, looking straight, then left, and finally right. The streets were quiet, not a bird or insect in evidence. If anything, the utter silence was a bit unnerving. Nova Prime City had a distinct sound, a sound filled with life, and it was absent now.

“Lock it,” he told his wife, feeling a sudden chill. Then he stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

He waited a moment for Natasha to do as he had asked. When he heard the last of the dead bolts they had added slip into place, he was satisfied. Taking a deep breath, he began his walk to work. It was a hot day. Before he had gone fifty meters, he was sweating. By the time he completed his journey, he would be a dishrag. Good thing he had a change of clothes waiting for him at the studio.

Vander Meer had barely reached the end of the block when he heard the growl. It wasn’t the kind a dog made. It was too deep, too prolonged.
Ursa
, he thought.

But there wasn’t an Ursa around, at least none that he could see. Then he realized that the growl was coming from behind his neighbor’s house. The house right next to
his
!

I’ve got to get back home
, he thought.

But he couldn’t move. He was frozen in place, rendered unable to speak or even breathe by the terror that took crushing hold of him. As he stood there, helpless, he saw the Ursa after all.

It was slinking along the side of his neighbor’s house. Nor was he the only one who had spotted it. From behind not only his door but others as well, he heard the rising swell of panicked voices. He could imagine the debate—run or stay put—each answer bringing its own complications and dangers.

I have to find a place to hide
, he thought. Otherwise, he would be the easiest prey the creature had ever had. But he couldn’t ask someone to open a door or a window for him to find safe haven in that person’s home. He could feel cold sweat run down his back like a river, and his heart was beating so hard that it hurt.

Before he could figure out what to do, he heard another sound—not a growl but a human scream. And it was outside, not muffled by protective walls. The scream of a little girl. And there was a word in the scream, a word he could make out all too well:
“Dad!”

It took him only a fraction of a second to process that it was Elena’s voice, which made no sense since she had
been inside the house when he’d left. He had hugged her good-bye after breakfast. She was safe.

Then it came to him: the boy! He lived a couple of blocks away. She had waited until Vander Meer was gone and then slipped out the back door.

Again the scream, this time louder and longer and higher in pitch:
“Dad!”

It was mingled with the Ursa’s growl as it moved back along the side of Vander Meer’s neighbor’s house, retracing its steps, and vanished around the corner into his neighbor’s backyard.

Time slowed for Vander Meer. He imagined that he could see the Ursa catching sight of his daughter. There would be nowhere for her to hide back there. He had torn down the swing set months earlier, having seen that even Skipper was too big for it. Not even a shed, though he had planned to erect one after Michael’s birthday.

Elena!
he thought, tears running down his cheeks. She was trapped outside the safety of the house. Although she might try to plead for her brother to let her in, Michael wouldn’t do so—not when he knew full well that it would expose him and Skipper and Natasha to the same danger.

Vander Meer heard screams of pain. His baby was being killed, torn apart, and he couldn’t move to help her. He
couldn’t
no matter how hard he tried. He was rooted to the ground.

But it was what he heard next that truly stunned him, that awakened depths of horror in him that he didn’t know he had. It was Michael’s voice, bellowing a challenge. Michael’s voice, cursing the monster in their backyard.

Oh, no
, thought Vander Meer.
No no no no no …

Michael had opened the door, perhaps to distract the Ursa in an attempt to save his sister. The monster roared even more loudly than before, and a male cry of pain was added to the hideous, discordant opera playing out behind Vander Meer’s house. A thud. A series of wet
chomping sounds. In his mind’s eye, Vander Meer saw the Ursa feeding on the remains of his son.

Please
, he thought, not sure whom he was pleading with.
Please let me go back to them. Please let me get back inside without the monster catching sight of me
.

Then he heard plaster and metal splinter. Glass broke. The creature was attacking the house itself or had crashed into it. Whatever was happening, Vander Meer knew the Ursa was after Natasha and Skipper.

His wife’s cry came as a grim confirmation.
Run
, thought Vander Meer. But no one ran out of the house, and the creature didn’t come out, either. At least not until sometime after someone had gotten hold of Vander Meer and dragged him away.

His family. His flesh and blood.
No
, he thought.
It can’t be
.

Trey Vander Meer wept, great sobs of pain erupting from his chest, and kept on weeping for a long time.

Bonita Raige’s squadron arrived too late to help the family whose home the Ursa had invaded. She could see that as they arrived in their vehicle. The creature was busily consuming the remains of its victims, half in and half out of the ruined house, seemingly oblivious to everything else.

However, they could help the man who was standing in the middle of the street, staring at the house, frozen by fear. It wasn’t until they had dragged him inside their vehicle and begun treating him for shock that Bonita realized who he was.

Trey Vander Meer. The guy who had started the movement to pare down the Rangers.
And here the Rangers are, saving his skin
. The irony didn’t escape Bonita.

Vander Meer moaned something she couldn’t make out, at least partly because she was keeping one eye on the Ursa. “What did he say?” she asked Yang, who was administering to Vander Meer.

Yang looked up at her. “My wife …”