Impact (4 page)

Gradually, the slope gives way to more level ground.

We're on the edge of a vast, uneven plateau. Behind us, a peak rises to the sky, its tip buried in the clouds. The air is hazy, but I can make out smaller hills around us, their surfaces barren.

I have to keep my eyes on the ground. There's plenty to trip over down there: slippery rock, patches of crusty ice, those weird scrubby plants with their brittle tendrils. Syria is almost a dead weight, barely conscious. I'm shivering–the adrenaline is draining out of my body, and it's beginning to wake up to how cold it really is out here.

Should we go after the Earthers? Try join up with any that survived the explosion? But even the thought of trying to get Syria back up that slope is too hard to take in. As it is, each step is a small miracle. I try to push myself into a rhythm, the same rhythm I used when I was a tracer:
stride, land, cushion, spring, repeat
.

“Stay with me, OK?” I say to Syria. He doesn't respond.

The fire might be burning hot, but it's not spreading. After a few minutes, it's a distant rumble, and the insane heat fades. I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other.

We're on Earth.

The thought forms slowly. It's hard to take in. A few days ago, I was on the station, the only home I'd ever known. Every second of my life had been spent inside a metal ring, and I never once thought that I'd step outside it. It wasn't even something I took for granted. It just
was
, a fact of my existence that was never going to change.

I can't even begin to understand how this place exists. The whole planet was meant to be a poisoned, radioactive wasteland. Humans were supposed to have been wiped out. And yet we're here, out in the open. There's sky and clouds and ground and a horizon, stretching out in front of me.

Fear starts to gnaw at me. Just because we're walking around on Earth doesn't mean it isn't killing us right now. I could be breathing poisoned air, bathing in radiation, and not know until it was too late.

Of course, there's not a single thing I can do about it. If it's true, we're all dead anyway.

The light is changing. I raise my eyes skywards, and the strangest thing happens.

I see low-hanging grey clouds, growing dimmer as the sun sets beyond them. They run from one end of the horizon to the other, flat and unbroken, featureless, capping a world of distant, snowy peaks and barren rock. But everything is much too bright. I can't focus on things, and trying to do so plants the seed of a headache behind my eyes. I screw them shut, try a second time. Same result. It's like I've put on someone's glasses–someone with much worse eyesight than mine.

I decide not to look at the sky again.

We enter a shallow depression in the hill, bordered by more rocks, and that's when Syria's legs finally give out. For a moment we're locked in a crazy dance, as if he's my partner and I'm bending him over in a complicated move. But he's heavy, way too heavy, and he goes down, thumping face first into the dirt. That's when I get a really good look at his back

It's as if an amateur artist tried to mix red and black paint to create a new colour, and didn't quite manage. Most of his jacket is gone. Parts of it are fused with skin, melted onto it, along with his shirt. There's a large, undamaged section of it near his waist, flapping loose, but even that is only hanging on by a few burned threads. The skin itself is crusted black; the burned area runs all the way from his lower back up to his neck and across his shoulders. If I hadn't climbed down onto the slope first…

Don't think like that. You can't. Not now.

I don't know a lot about burns, but even I'm aware just how easy it is to get them infected. And we're out in the middle of nowhere, with no supplies, and the sky growing darker by the minute.

I need help. But any Earthers who were in the
Lyssa
are long gone, and Prakesh is—

Prakesh. Carver.
The longing I feel for both of them at that moment is almost indescribable. I don't even know how to start looking for them–they could be on the other side of a hill, or on the other side of the world.

My thigh spasms. I bite back a scream, my fingers straying to it, finding the hard thing again. With the adrenaline draining away, I'm starting to feel more pain, and even touching my thigh sends a thin whine hissing through my teeth.

At first, I can't figure out what's wrong. I'm feeling a hard edge, but I can't see anything, just—

Then I see. There's a piece of metal embedded in my thigh. Shrapnel from the crash. Has to be. It's two inches long, almost flush with my skin, hiding under a thin slit in my pants fabric. The wound is on the inner curve of my thigh, a few inches below my pelvis.

I can't leave it in there. If it starts festering, it might stop me walking, and if that happens I'm as good as dead. I won't be able to help myself, let alone Syria. My mind takes this thought and amplifies it.
Take it out, take it out now.

I slip my pants down, the cold raising goose bumps on my flesh. The fragment is deep, but there's enough above my skin for me to grip onto. It doesn't look too big–I should be able to yank if out in one movement.

But isn't there an artery in the leg? Doesn't it curve around the area the shrapnel's in? I think back, trying to recall everything I know about how the human body works.
Prakesh, where are you when I need you?

I take three quick breaths, grasping the ragged edge of the metal. I'm on the verge of stalling when my fingers act on their own, ripping out the fragment.

I don't hear myself scream. But I do see all the colour in the world drain away. Everything goes grey, the pain so sharp that I almost pass out.

Somehow I stay awake, looking down at the piece of metal. It's long and thin, no more than half an inch wide. It was embedded lengthwise in my thigh, the wound a shallow cut. My fingers stray to my skin–there's blood, but nothing like the amount an artery would pump out. I hang my head, sucking in deep breaths through my nose.

The wound still hurts like hell, but it's a manageable pain. I rip a length out of the bottom of my shirt, binding the wound tight. That makes everything go grey again, but only for an instant.
You can deal with this. You have to.

That's when I hear it.

At first, I mistake it for the noise of the fire. But that faded long ago. This is different: a distant rushing sound, so quiet that I think I've imagined it at first. But then I get a fix on it.

That's water. There's water near here.

Syria is awake again, groaning. I crouch down, resisting the temptation to put a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey,” I say. “Can you hear me?”

His voice, when it comes, sounds as blistered as the skin on his back. “Where are we?”

“I don't know. But I'm going to get you some water, OK? I think there's some of it close by.”

“Hurts,” he says. “Hurts bad.”

“I know. Just… hang in there. I'll be back as fast as I can.”

I walk a few steps, picking my way up the edge of the depression, and stop.

How am I going to find my way back here? It's all very well heading for the water, but I don't know how far away it is. I could get lost on the return journey–there are no landmarks here, nothing but rocks and dirt. Syria would…

Syria. That's it.

I turn back, kneeling next to him. Then I snag the undamaged part of his jacket, working it loose as carefully as I can. It would be better to use my own clothing, but the bright red cloth will be easier to see in the fading light–and since I used a strip of my shirt to bind my thigh wound, I might not have enough.

I'm a little worried about hurting him, but the piece comes away easily. I start tearing it into strips. They don't need to be that big, and soon I have a dozen or so in my hands.

“Just hang in there,” I say again. It's all I can think of.

I climb over the top of the depression, clambering over the rocks. One of the plants is there, its branches trembling in the frigid wind. I take a strip of fabric, and tie it on. It's caught by the wind, a bright red flag, easy to pick out even in the gathering dusk.

There are other plants dotted here and there. I make my way down the slope, skidding every so often as I lose my footing on the rocks. Just when I'm about to lose sight of the first strip I take another and tie it onto a second plant.

I don't know what'll happen if I run out of strips before I reach the water.

But the sound is louder now, somewhere ahead and to the left. My legs are shaky and uneven, and I'm conscious of how hungry I am. Cold, too, with every breath showing itself in a puff of white vapour at my lips.

My dad's ship crashed in eastern Russia. I don't how close that is to where we are right now. He spent seven years trying to stay alive, desperately trying to get back to us. I had to destroy his ship to save the station, and, in the few minutes I had to talk to him, he told me about where they landed. Kamchatka, it was called. Cold, barren, hostile to life, the air a toxic soup, the environment battered by deadly dust storms. The craziness of this entire situation crowds in on me again–how am I able to walk around out here, without freezing solid or suffocating? How am I even here?

I take a deep breath, pushing back the panicky thoughts. I don't know where I am, or what I'm dealing with. I can only focus on what's in front of me.

The slope steepens slightly. I have to place my steps carefully, stopping every so often to tie a strip of fabric to a branch.

Soon I'm down to three pieces of the fabric. A few more steps. The slope is getting even steeper now. Two strips.

I stop, listening hard. I've been heading towards the water for the longest time, but now I can't place the source of the sound. It's coming from everywhere, as if the boulders themselves are picking up on it, twisting its direction.

I look back. The third-to-last strip of fabric is just visible, flickering in the dusk.

I head to my right, where I think the water is. But the sound doesn't change. If anything, it gets even harder to figure out its location.

With a shaky breath, I tie the last strip of fabric onto a plant. I can go a short distance from here, but not too far. If I get lost, I'm finished.

A few more steps. A few more. The sound is really loud now. I have to be close. But where is it?

Come on.

And then I step through a gap in two boulders, and see the stream.

It's barely worth the name. It's a trickle of water, a foot wide, narrowing to inches in places. The noise is coming from a waterfall, maybe five feet high, spattering onto the rocks from a hollow in the slope. The rocky surroundings amplified it, made the noise sound as if it was a gushing torrent.

I stare at it, feeling absurdly cheated. And yet, as I do so, the oddest thought occurs. It's still more water than I've ever seen in one place.

Thirst claws its way up my throat. I scramble across the rocks, dropping to my knees at the edge of the water, ignoring the pain in my thigh. The water is so cold it stings my lips. It isn't like the water on Outer Earth–it's sweeter, somehow. More full. I almost laugh when I realise that, for the first time, I'm drinking water without a single chemical in it.

None that you can taste, anyway.

The thought makes me lift my mouth from the water, but only for a second. I have to use the water–and not just for my thirst. I need to clean the wound in my thigh. I debate leaving it, but decide that it's more important to flush out the dirt from the wound than worry about chemicals that might not even exist.

I unbind my wound, wincing as I splash ice-cold water on it. The cut itself looks deep, despite the tiny size of the fragment that hit me. I have no idea if the water will help keep infection away, but it's all I've got.

I pat it dry and bind it up again, then sit back. Syria's still out there. I have to get this water back before it gets too dark to see.

But how? I don't have a canteen, like I would on Outer Earth. I'd give anything for my tracer pack right now, with its water compartment.

Inspiration hits. Working quickly, I strip off my jacket and the shirt beneath it. The cold is harsh enough to make me gasp. I put the jacket back on, zipping it up all the way. It's not nearly as warm as it was before, but it'll have to do.

I make my way back to one of the plants. Their leaves are small and waxy, sickly green in colour, but it looks like there are enough of them. I strip them off the bush, grazing my hands in the process. My fingers, I notice, are getting slightly numb at the tips.
Not good.

I head back to the stream, carrying my bundle of leaves. The shirt itself is long-sleeved, made of stretchy nylon. I turn it upside down, and tie the sleeves tightly around the front below the neck, as if the shirt is wrapping its arms around itself. I stuff the inside of the shirt with the waxy leaves, pushing them down, trying to cover as much space as I can. There. A vessel, with the shirt's hem as the lip.

But will it hold water?

Only one way to find out. I crouch by the pool again, and drag the shirt through the water, open end first. A bunch of leaves float out, and when I lift the shirt up water cascades through.

I force myself to stay calm, retrieving the leaves, packing the shirt again. When I lift the container out of the pool, my hands all but frozen, there's nothing but a few steady drips leaking out of the bottom.

I breathe a shaky sigh of relief. OK. Now I just have to get it back to Syria. It's grown even darker while I've been working, and for a second I forget my rule about not looking up. The sky is turning black, with a thin band of grey on the horizon as the day fades away. Then my vision goes wonky, like it did before, and I have to look down.

It's hard to carry the water. The vessel is heavy, and I have to hold the fabric on the shirt hem tight in both hands. The fabric of my jacket is waterproof, near enough, but the shirt is still soaked through, and before long the top of my pants is dripping wet.

I can barely see the ground. The slope is steeper than I remember, and my legs are already aching. I have to concentrate hard to spot my tags. The water swings back and forth in my hands, pattering on the dirt. Apart from the slowly fading sound of the waterfall, it's the only sound.

My thoughts turn back to Prakesh, to Carver. Are they safe? Did they land close to us? I have a sudden image of them being drawn to the stream, looking for water, just like I did. I half turn, but the thought of abandoning Syria is horrifying. I stride forward again, furious with myself. I can't leave him. I won't.

That's when I realise I can't see the next tag.

I swing round, looking for the last one I passed. There. Just visible in the fading light, wrapped around one of the thin plants.
That means the next one should be visible from here.

But it isn't.

I backtrack. Panic is sparking in my chest, tightening around my lungs, but I push it away. I look left, then right, then turn a slow circle.

Nothing. I can't see it. Did it come loose? Did the wind take it? I look downhill, but I may as well be staring into a black hole. There are nothing but shadows down there.

All I have to do is head uphill.

I keep walking, still looking for the tag, checking back over my shoulder for the previous one. And just at the point where I can't spot it any more, the slope changes. It's as if I've walked over the crest of a small hill, because the ground drops downwards again. I didn't see that on my way to the stream.

I keep going–and walk right into a wall of soil. Part of the slope is exposed, with roots poking through it, scratching my face.

“Syria!” I shout. My voice echoes into the distance.