Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra (48 page)

He was outside the tent on the sand next to one of the skimmers. The bottom half of his body was still trapped in a grotesque purple-black and marbled yellow casing that looked disturbingly like charred flesh—puffed up like a marshmallow held too close to the flame. The cocoon was at least three centimeters thick over his entire body. The shapes of his legs could barely be discerned as individual objects; they were joined from hip to knee. His feet were lumpy mounds.

Treet beat on the shell and broke it apart with his hands, freeing hips, thighs, and knees before kicking his feet out. He stood slowly, unsteadily and leaned against the skimmer.

It was then that he realized his skin was completely healed. Holding his hands before his eyes, he marveled that the skin was smooth and supple, slightly moist. His body hair curled in ringlets, holding tiny beads of moisture like pearls. There was not a trace of a blister or scab anywhere. The skin of his arms, legs, and torso was also uniformly without blemish. As far as he could see, there was not a mark on him. He had emerged whole and unspotted from the ordeal.

He snatched up a helmet from the seat of the skimmer and held its faceplate in front of his face to see himself in its smoky reflection. His bearded features appeared not only unharmed, but youthful. From what he could tell, there was not a line or wrinkle showing on his face.

As the awareness of this miracle broke over him, he was overwhelmed with giddiness—an intense, nonsensical desire to dance and sing, to prance and cavort and abandon himself to sweet, reckless joy.

He threw back his head and laughed, thinking, How wonderful to be alive! I am reborn!

Not a sound came
from the tents. Treet didn't think the others were dead, but the possibility crossed his mind. The day was new, the sun not yet beyond the first quadrant. A partial breeze stirred the tent flap and lifted the hair on his rejuvenated skin, and Treet remembered he was naked.

He went to his tent and peered cautiously inside. Crocker's and Pizzle's grotesquely bloated shapes were stretched out like obscene vegetables, swollen and discolored, or like the ghastly larvae of some gross, monstrous insect. With more difficulty than he would have imagined, he dragged the unwieldy sarcophagi from the tent and into the open air. Then, after a moment's consideration, he did the same with the bodies of the two women.

Next, he fished his soiled jumpsuit from the heap outside the tent where they'd discarded them. It stank with a powerful, nose-shriveling stench and was so besmirched with urine, blood, and ooze that the cloth was stiff as cardboard. There would be no wearing that singleton again—best just to bury it, or better still, burn it. Burn them all.

He remembered Pizzle saying something about spare jumpsuits in the carry compartment of one of the skimmers. He tried the nearest one and, underneath some hastily folded yoses, came up with a new red singleton nearly his size. He climbed into it and then turned his attention to the bodies arranged before him. They looked like effigies sculpted in plastic foam and then baked in a fire pit, the scoring of the flames still evident on the tough shell.

Of the two women's shapeless forms, he thought he could tell which was Yarden and decided to free her first. He knelt down and lifted his fist to smack the shell, then hesitated—what if she was not ready? What if freeing her too soon would somehow interfere with the healing process? It was best, he decided, to wait until he detected some stirring from within. Then he could help and know it would be all right.

He had just settled himself to wait when he heard faint scratchings from one of the cocoons. He bent over the nearest one—Calin's he thought. There was movement inside. With the palm of his hand he pounded firmly on the shell high up on the chest just below the base of the throat, cracked it, and then worked across and down the left arm.

In moments a soft, bronzed-skinned limb came forth, its hand scrabbling and grasping. Treet caught hold of the hand and squeezed it. “Calin, can you hear me? Don't worry. I'll have you out of there in a second.”

He fell to the task with restrained fervor, smacking the hard carapace carefully so as not to injure the body trapped within. He heard a muffled yelp when he pressed too hard in removing the headpiece. But when he lifted it away, Yarden blinked and smiled faintly up at him.

“Don't look at me,” were her first words. “I must be a horror.”

Treet swallowed and whispered, “You are beautiful.” He touched one flawless cheek with a finger and let it trail down along her throat. It was true—Yarden was even more beautiful than before, if that was possible. Her fine skin had lost none of its silkiness, and the tiny laugh lines at her eyes and the corners of her mouth had been erased. She appeared years younger.

She blushed under his gaze, a rosy tint spreading from throat to cheeks. He pulled away the cracked encrustment over her torso, allowing her to sit up. She shrugged her right arm free and brought it over to cover her breasts demurely. Now it was Treet's turn to blush. No stranger to female anatomy, he nevertheless turned away and handed her a yos to put on, keeping his eyes averted.

“How long have you been up and around?” she asked. “You can turn around again. It's incredible we're still alive.”

“Not more than a minute or two.” Treet bent to finish freeing her from her crumbling prison. She kicked her legs, the cocoon shattered, and she stood up.

She looked at her hands, legs, and arms with wonder. Treat followed her gaze, drinking in the glowing freshness of her body. She had never appeared more lovely, more desirable than at that moment. He felt a pressure in his chest, and his throat constricted. He couldn't speak.

“Ahhh!” yelped Yarden amiably. “Oh-h-h, it feels so
good
to move, to be alive!” She burst out laughing just as he had done, then shook out her hair, brushing away the clinging pieces of crust. Treet watched her with utter fascination.

No woman has ever had this effect on me, he thought. It's like I've never seen a woman before. I feel like an awkward kid.

“What's wrong?” asked Yarden, her eyebrows arching gracefully. “You're looking at me funny.”

“I—I am?” Treet blustered. He turned away. “I feel a little funny.”

“Come on, let's get the others out of those horrible body casts!”

Together they worked at pulling Pizzle, Crocker, and Calin from their loathsome cocoons and finding the newly-released captives something to put on. When all were presentable, they stood around gazing at one another, beaming foolishly, grateful and happy to have survived, and full of the wonder of the transformation each had undergone. Even Pizzle's looks had improved; he appeared less jug-eared, his features less haphazard than before. His straggle of beard had thickened out, and the little bald spot on the top of his head grew new hair.

“There's no explaining it,” said Treet. “We can't even begin to know what happened to us. Even if we could explain it, I'm not sure I would believe it anyway—it still seems far too incredible. By all rights we should be moldering corpses. Instead, we're all standing around fresh as baby's breath, looking fifty years younger.”

“An exotic virus or bacterial infection—” put in Pizzle.

“I don't care,” said Crocker. “I'm just glad we survived. Did any of you others have dreams?”

“Did I!” Yarden said. “They were terrible. I've never had such bad dreams.”

“I know—maybe an enzyme of some kind,” continued Pizzle, shuffling away deep in thought.

“How long do you figure we were out?” wondered Crocker.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Treet answered. “I have no idea. The last thing I remember is getting up to get a drink. That was maybe two days ago. At first I thought it was a dream, but I woke up out here on the sand, so maybe not.”

“You got a drink?” Something in Pizzle's tone made them stop and turn toward him. He was staring at the skimmer with the water supply.

“Yeah, I think so. Why? What's wrong?” Treet exchanged a quick glance with Crocker.

“Then this is
your
fault …” Pizzle turned to the others, his face grim, the light dying in his eyes.

“What's my fault?” Treet moved toward him, then froze. The waterbag was limp, deflated. “No!”

Pizzle spoke softly, but his words boomed in their brains. “It's all over now. We've had it. We're out of water.”

“We can't be!” shouted Crocker, dashing forward. He stopped in his tracks when he saw the tent, now flaccid, its mooring straps hanging loosely, the whole thing collapsed. The inner flap that had sealed in the water gaped, having been carelessly ripped open and not closed properly. The seal had dropped below the waterline, allowing the water to leak away. The sand beneath the skimmer was a shade darker, still damp from the water it had absorbed.

Long seconds passed before anyone spoke. Treet stared in disbelief at the empty tent, his face ashen. Pizzle and Crocker turned on him as one. “You did this!” they accused. “Because of you we're all going to die!”

“I—I'm sorry … I didn't know …” Treet mumbled, stunned.

“It's all your fault,” said Pizzle darkly. “This whole expedition is your fault—it was your idea in the first place. We're going to die out here because of you. We can't last even three days without water.”

Treet bristled at this. “What choice did we have? You tell me that.”

“We could have stayed in the colony. We could have hidden somewhere and been safe,” snapped Pizzle.

“That's crazy!” Treet turned imploring eyes on Crocker. “Tell him it's crazy, Crocker. We had no choice.”

Crocker scowled darkly. “What's crazy is being out in the middle of this wasteland without water. He's right, it's your fault.”

“Stop it, you two!” Yarden charged into the middle of them. “It is
not
his fault. How dare you blame him? He was out of his head with fever—as we all were. He didn't know what he was doing. Besides, we don't really know what happened at all. It could have been any one of us. Maybe
you
didn't close the seal properly, Pizzle!” She thrust a finger in his face.

“Me!” Pizzle flapped his arms in exasperation. “He's the one that got us into this mess. Why are you defending him?”

“No one got us into this predicament. We all went willingly. Only Treet had the courage to follow his instincts. Let's forget about laying blame and figure out a way to survive.”

Pizzle crossed his arms and stalked away.

Crocker fumed for a while, but eventually came to his senses. “We just got a little panicked, that's all. It's a bad shock.” He looked at Treet with raised eyebrows. “No hard feelings?”

Treet nodded, accepting the apology. “Pizzle's right though,” he said glumly. “We won't last three days without water. What are we going to do?”

“Maybe Nho can help
us,” suggested Crocker. He glanced around quickly. “Hey, by the way where is Calin?”

“She was here just a second ago,” said Treet. “Check the tent.”

They searched the tent and the immediate vicinity. Treet turned up some footprints leading away from camp. He found Calin sitting hunched up in the sand at the foot of a dune, head down, her arms drawn around her knees. He sat down beside her.

“We've been looking for you, Calin,” he said gently.

She made no answer.

“If it's the water you're worried about—”

“It's not the water,” she said, her voice trembling.

He waited, but she did not continue. “What then?”

“It's Nho … I can't—he's …” She raised a round, tear-stained face, lips quivering. “He's gone!”

Treet sat looking at her for a moment, then put his arm around her shoulders. “Hold on now,” he soothed. “What do you mean he's gone? Where could he go?”

Calin shook her head in dismay. “I don't know, but it happens sometimes. I've heard of it before. The psi gets angry and leaves, and the powers vanish. There is no way to get it back. I've been trying to contact him, but …” Her voice quivered, and the tears started again. “I'm not a magician anymore!”

Treet pulled her close, feeling a little foolish. How do you comfort someone whose psychic entity has disappeared into astral never-never land? “There, there,” he said. “Maybe he will come back. Maybe you just need a little time to recharge your batteries, you know? You've been pretty sick. Maybe that has something to do with it.”

They sat for a long time clinging together. Treet surprised himself with a sudden outpouring of tenderness for the stricken magician. She was weak, vulnerable; she needed him. He rather liked the feeling, liked the yielding nearness of her.

“I think we better go back now,” he said finally. “I'll tell them about Nho if you want me to. Crocker won't like it, but there's nothing anyone can do. We'll just have to wait and see.”

Only Yarden was cheered by Calin's loss. She took her shoulders and looked her in the eye. “Don't you know what this means? You're free!”

“Yeah,” griped Pizzle, “and we're history. We have no compass anymore. No water. No nothing. We're sunk.”

“Squelch the doom forecasts,” said Crocker. “I've been assessing our situation. We didn't lose all the water. While you've been bellyaching Yarden and I measured out what's left. We've got about twenty liters, by our best estimate, besides what's in our emergency flasks.”