Deviation (30 page)

Kate squinted at him in disbelief. After a quiet moment, Myron shrugged and looked away from her. Rain started, all at once, a loud and startling bombardment against their weak little canopy. Kate tensed and scooted closer to him, watching the ties strain against the added assault and counting the seconds before they would be inevitably drenched. Myron muttered something that she couldn't make out over the din of the storm.

Another sound caught her attention. At first she thought she'd imagined it but then she saw Myron unholster his weapon. His jaw set tight and his gaze narrowed at the left opening of their flimsy tent. Kate looked past him, squinting to try and see what he saw and then she felt her stomach knot with shock and fear.

One large, taloned hand curled around the lip of their haven as the Dromodus' head slowly came into view. She suppressed the instinct to scream and forgot to breathe instead.

Myron took aim and fired.

The creatures head snapped back and it lost its grip on the tree. She felt its thunderous crash onto the ground reverberate through the tree and scrambled to her feet. Myron was up beside her, scowling and quickly surveying the situation.

"Climb!" he shouted.

"What?"

He pointed upward, "You have to climb! It's our only advantage!"

For all her training, Kate couldn't move. She heard the Dromodus' ascent as it hurried back up the tree, knew it was coming with a vengeance, and couldn't get her feet to move. Myron heard it too, took her by both arms and shook her until she blinked at him.

"Don't make me lose her twice, Kate! For God's sake, move!"

Still mostly dumbfounded, Kate scurried up the tree trunk and began to climb. It was slick and impossible and she jammed nearly every finger and toe that she had, but she kept going, fueled by the constant hum-crack of the R413 just behind her. The large, tubular branches were not helpful in her ascent and she vaguely wondered what she was supposed to do when she reached the top.

Hooking her left leg around one great branch, Kate muscled her way upward. The moment her right foot left the anchoring branch below her body began to slide. It wasn't a slow slide either, one moment she had a mostly certain grip on the tree and the next, her left leg lost its hold and she found herself dangling. She glanced down, gasping for breath and immediately regretted it. There were many, many branches hiding the distant ground and none of them were near enough for her to safely find an anchor again.

Her fingers began to slip.

Kate tightened her grip on the branch and made one desperate effort to get her leg back around the thing. But it was the wrong move. Her soft-toed space boot barely grazed the underside of the branch just as her fingers lost all purchase and she began to plummet. She caught a scream in her throat and tried to prepare herself for the first hit, but her body jolted to a stop, a vice-like grip holding fast to her left wrist.

She heard the loud clatter of the R413 as it hit just below her and realized that Myron had dropped the weapon in order to catch her. Which immediately reminded her of the Dromodus. Kate looked down again, just in time to jerk her legs up and away from the sudden snap of teeth and jaws.

Its teeth made a distinct cracking sound as it missed her body, falling back several feet onto the next level of branches.

Kate looked up at Myron's tense face as he swung her away from the Dromodus. At his farthest reach he let her go and she was airborne. Behind her she felt and heard the clack of the creature's mouth again, narrowly missing her spine. But she was too focused on trying to catch herself to worry about how close it had been.

Her stomach hit the branch first, pushing air out of her lungs and stunning her for a moment. Kate felt herself begin to slide again and managed to hug the tree close enough to stop.

For one breathless moment there was only the loud, rapid beat of her heart in her ears and the sturdy feel of bark under her left cheek. And then she saw a flash of movement on the ground far below. Myron had made it down, was grabbing his weapon and steadying himself for a further fight.

Apparently sensing its advantage, the Dromodus had abandoned her and was intent on Myron. Kate watched as the creature swung its tail, grazing past Myron as he ducked and weaved away. The yellow spikes crashed into the base of the tree with enough force to make it shake. She held on tight and prayed that she didn't fall.

She wished for some form of weapon. Any kind of weapon. Myron would not be able to kill the thing on his own that much was clear to Kate.

The Dromodus screamed at Myron, its tail embedded in the tree trunk, momentarily immobilizing it. Myron took the opportunity to run, disappearing around the base of the banyan tree. Kate breathed a small spurt of relief and then realized that she needed to move.

With no other options, Kate scrambled up and started to climb again. Rain continued to dump on her, sluicing over the tree and soaking through her suit. Under her hands, she could feel each time the Dromodus yanked on its tail, trying to dislodge itself from the trunk.

She wondered if Myron would abandon her, if he already had, and couldn't really blame him if he did.

"
Don't make me lose her again
!" he'd said.

Kate grunted in effort as she pulled herself further into the wet, massive tree, and wondered if Reesa realized that Myron had been in love with Mesa. It seemed like something an author should know about her characters. But then again, Reesa hadn't known about Celeocia's plans.

Kate faltered at the idea that maybe Celeocia had been right.

Maybe Reesa had been more than a science fiction author. Maybe everything Reesa had written was really some sort of future divination, construed by her friend and their capitalist society into nothing more than fiction.

Kate panted and swallowed, pausing long enough to make certain that the Dromodus was still stuck to the tree. She shut her eyes in defeat as the next thought crashed into her with a wave of despair.

If this was the future, Kate doubted very much that she would ever see home again.

"After the announcement and subsequent attack on Thursday afternoon, officials have confirmed that a special detail of Field Arcs have been sent to the Novo Femina Temple on Mars to ascertain the situation. The identity of the woman presented as unaltered is still in speculation. Some fear that the woman's disappearance is a sign that the terrorist attack on the temple was successful." - A.P. Saturday, November 24, 2998

Celeocia hadn't slept in thirty-seven hours. She stood stationary in the communications room on board the Citadel, relying mostly on the robotics built into her. A vague part of the woman was awake, but it was that level of consciousness between dreams, the twilight of the mind, and the robot had control instead.

"We've found traces of blood ... " Captain Bonsway reported. Her voice was hushed in the speaker, a reminder that the group was in the middle of the Martian Night. "DNA processing cannot confirm the victim."

"Keep looking," Celeocia said. Her voice was a quiet mumble, a sleepy murmur, and from the corner of her eye she noted Eanmar's uncertain frown.

"There is a Dromodus nearby," Bonsway reported. "The girl is likely dead."

"Find me proof, Captain," Celeocia said. "Borden's ship is still in orbit. Find the Fomorri. They are looking for the same thing."

There was silence before the response; "Yes, Priestess."

Communication was severed with a blip of static and Celeocia exhaled through her teeth. Thirty-seven hours and counting. She let the robot take over and drifted to sleep, her body still standing vigil in the center of the room.

***

Kate clung to the banyan tree as it shuddered and swayed under the might of the Martian beast. The rain had lessened some but that hardly seemed to matter. The edges of her space suit were leaking, allowing water to slip under and soak her arms. The leak had not managed to roll past her elbows, however, so the chill was tolerable. Her face and hair, on the other hand, were soggy to the point of irritation. She could feel water pool together on her scalp and roll its way down toward her neck.

Several feet below her, the Dromodus had managed to free itself. She'd thought for a moment that the creature would run off to pursue Myron, but it hadn't. It was steadily climbing the tree, its reptilian nostrils flaring for her scent and its massive weight breaking past most of the branches it encountered.

The weight issue seemed to be the only reason she was still alive. It would climb, put its feet to a branch, snap the branch and plummet back down. The only problem was that it kept trying.

And it gained an inch or so with every attempt.

There was a rustling in the branches to her left, a level above her head and moving her direction. Kate held her breath and clasped the branch tighter to her chest. As of yet she hadn't spotted any more Martian wildlife but she knew there had to be some. She just wasn't certain if something more or less dangerous than the Dromodus lived nearby. The rat Myron had cooked was more than a foot long, and that was after it had been skinned and cooked. She hated to imagine what a living one looked like.

Whatever it was stopped just above her and she spotted a flash of white between the branches. The leaves parted and Myron grimaced down at her, snapping a small twig out of his view.

"Comfortable?" he asked.

Kate breathed in relief.

The tree shook and they both looked down at the Dromodus. It had leapt onto the trunk again and was clawing its way upward.

"Please tell me you have a plan," Kate said.

He thrust his hand down, bracing himself on the upper level and prepared to take her weight. "You're so demanding, Kate. When did I have the time to become brilliant?"

She grasped his arm and cautiously straightened her back, straddling her branch for added support. "I ... thought you'd be long gone by now," she grunted and got one foot underneath her.

"I'm not in the habit of leaving pretty women to die," Myron grunted too. "Especially when I can see all of their assets."

Kate faltered and blinked up at him. "We're about to become lunch meat and you're flirting with me?"

He flashed an irreverent and entirely boyish grin. "No sense wasting time, eh?"

The tremors in the tree spiked to an alarming rattle and she glanced down in time to see the creature's taloned left hand grab onto her branch. A split second later it shifted its weight and the branch splintered, snapped and fell away. Her breath caught in her chest as Myron's hold jolted her body to a stop.

Below her, the Dromodus fell one level, dug its talons into the trunk and steadied itself.

Kate looked up at Myron as he began to pull her up, one handed, every muscle in his body going taut with effort. Slow, steady and sure, the biceps of his right arm bulged into the curl just as the next level of branches came within her reach. Kate had just grabbed hold of the tree again when the hum-crack of many weapons resounded beyond the howl of the storm.

The creature screamed in pain and went crashing to the ground.

"Never thought I'd be happy to see the Fomorri," Myron steadied her with one hand and squinted down at the fight.

Several armed men boxed the Dromodus into a staggered, star-shaped trap. The creature took several more rounds, furiously screeching at its attackers. It whirled in a chaotic, disoriented movement as though trying to pick a target among the many aggressors. The men surrounding it were armored in a manner that looked high tech even from her distant perch. Their grey-green segmented plates looked almost grafted to their bodies, hinging off at all of the right joints to allow for free movement.

"What does it take to kill that thing?" Kate shouted over at Myron.

"Several frag grenades and a lot of ammo," he shouted back.

A massive explosion rocked the tree. There was a blur in her peripheral vision, but Kate was too busy holding tight to the slippery branch to focus on it. Her ears popped as two more explosions made a deafening cacophony around them. Myron slipped, shouting a curse as he caught himself. Dangling from the limb, he locked eyes with her as the tree itself seemed to groan.

She thought to reach out and grab him but he shook his head, reading her expression. Several deep, sharp cracks shuddered through the limb under her chest. Kate felt her stomach flip as the great tree teetered, swayed, and began an agonizingly slow tilt toward the ground.

Myron hooked his legs around the branch and secured himself. "Hang on!" he shouted.

Kate choked on a scream and hugged the branch with everything she had. She tried to resign herself to the fact that there was about to be a lot of pain, but when the first impact crunched her nose against the branch she still wasn't ready for it. For a dizzy moment her grip slipped but she clawed herself back down. Her broken nose made her vision swim, which might have been a blessing since she was fairly certain she was about to die and didn't really want to watch.

The branch that was just beside her was suddenly above her, the world having flip-flopped with the fall of the banyan tree. It would have been all right if that had been the only branch, but it wasn't. All around her was the snap and crash of the tree, the crush of too much weight against her body. Her left leg wedged between two branches and she tried to jerk it free. The branches recoiled against her pinned leg and she felt it snap, sharp and quick, under the pressure. Something hit her at the edge of her right shoulder blade, dangerously close to her spine, and she was assaulted with a wash of heat just before she lost all feeling in her body.

Her grip slipped completely, but was held so snug between the branches that she couldn't fly anywhere. The tree rebounded once, slamming her anchor branch back into her chest. Her head smacked against the hard surface and she was overwhelmed by piercing lights.

She couldn't see Myron.

But then, she didn't really believe there was a point anymore.

Because what she could see, but still couldn't feel, was the large splinter of wood sticking out of the left side of her breast. She was in shock and she knew it, but it still seemed unfair that she was awake. Kate frowned at the bloody bit of wood and tried to will herself into passing out.