Survivor (17 page)

"Okay, something simple," Codon said.

"A leaf," she replied.

"No, that's no good. It has to be something
else. We don't know if the leaf was a default or something."

"Um." She tried to push her brain, but it
just kept circling to leaf. Of all the objects in the entire
universe, she couldn't think of anything other than a stupid green
leaf.

"How about a handful of sand?" Codon said.
"This planet is covered with it so it shouldn't be too hard to find
some."

Nova nodded. She closed her eyes and thought
about sand. She saw individual grains in her mind's eye. She
pictured their many-faceted surfaces, the way each grain had its
own colour. She thought about how every grain was made of atoms
that had once been part of the big bang. The one she'd seen. She'd
witnessed matter coming together and forming neutrons, protons,
electrons. She'd seen these join together and make atoms and then
molecules, until finally they culminated into a grain of sand, an
insignificant and yet vitally important grain of sand.

She imagined how the sand would feel between
her fingers, clenched inside her fist. She could even taste it on
the tip of her tongue; the rough grains filled her mouth with
salt.

She lifted her hand. It shook, but she
couldn't see it from behind her closed eyelids. She reached out,
stretched her arm until it was held in front of her body. She
imagined her hand disappearing.

She moved her hand from side to side,
scanning the new world for any trace of sand. She couldn't feel
anything; even the rubbery leaves were gone.

The ground!

Nova cursed herself; of course the sand was
going to be on the ground of the planet, not floating around in
mid-air. She lowered herself onto her knees and leant forward. Her
hand stretched down and patted around the ground. It felt strange,
cold and smooth. It certainly didn't feel like sand. She tried to
close her hand around it, to take a sample, but she couldn't. It
was too smooth.

It felt like metal.

"What the hell are you doing?" Codon' s
voice shattered Nova's visualisations.

Her eyes popped open. She was on her hands
and knees on the floor of the ship. Her hand opened and closed on
the smooth metal floor. Codon stood over her, his boots beside her
hand.

She looked up; her eyes followed his legs,
all the way to his face. He stared down at her, a frown plastered
over his features. His face was redder than usual and dominated by
a deep frown.

"I was looking for sand," she said.

"It would defeat the purpose if you found it
right where I'm standing!" Codon said. His nostrils flared.

"It doesn't make any sense," she
whispered.

The voices were back. They muttered just at
the edge of her hearing. Sometimes she caught words or phrases but
mostly it was a continuous buzz of conversation. She looked over
her shoulder to try and see where it was coming from. What did
grains of sand matter when she could hear voices?

"You're falling apart," he said. "You need
me to keep you together and I need you to focus."

She nodded at his words.

"I have something that might help. Then you
can relax and we can work it out together."

Codon's voice was smooth, calming. It flowed
over Nova's crazed thoughts and soothed them. He was right; if she
was left on her own she'd likely shoot herself just to be rid of
the voices.

"Here you go." He handed her a small white
pill. She clutched it and tossed it to the back of her throat
without a second thought. She pinched her eyes shut, hoping that
the voices and shadows would disappear.

"There's a design flaw," she whispered as
she waited for the drug to take effect.

"What do you mean?"

"Their helmets. There's something wrong with
them. They don't seal properly so if you shoot them right, they pop
off." It was an effort to talk but at least the words made sense.
Talking helped her keep a grip on her sanity.

"A design flaw."

"Yes."

"Are you serious?" Codon said.

"Yes." Her reply was less sure, barely
audible.

"You expect me to believe that the secret to
destroying an ancient alien race is a design flaw in their helmets?
I'm just supposed to take the word of an insane hunter?"

"I didn't ask for this!" Nova yelled,
getting to her feet. Her own anger and frustration boiled to the
surface. "I'd be just as happy if you'd been the one zapped with a
time vortex. Then you'd be trying not to go mad while a thousand
voices whispered in your head."

Her hands clenched into fists. She was
furious; Codon had no idea what she was going through. It was hard
enough to concentrate on something as simple as a grain of sand in
the best of conditions, let alone with people moving and talking
all around you. Worse still was the embarrassment. She thought of
how ridiculous she must have looked, crawling around the ship with
her eyes closed, blindly tapping her hand along the metal
floor.

Why would I give a damn? She thought to
herself.

"Try again," he said.

"I can't," she said. "What if using it makes
it worse? I'm sure they're getting louder."

She shivered, silently begging Codon for a
different answer, an escape plan. "We have to find another
way."

"I am not going out there to face an entire
horde of ancient aliens, armed only with a plasma pistol," Codon
said. "Now get yourself under control and try again. I gave you
medicine so you can focus, don't make me regret it."

Nova's blood boiled. How could he make her
so mad?

Her face was red and she deliberately
slashed her hand directly for the doctor's face. A part of her
hoped that she could reach past him, ideally into a pile of sand.
Another part of her didn't really care, because if it didn't work,
at least she'd get to punch him in the face, and have a
semi-reasonable excuse.

Codon flinched and ducked out of the
way.

Her hand disappeared.

Nova's eyes flickered wide but this time the
shock wasn't as overwhelming. She scrounged around, moving her hand
left and right.

Her hand was warm, hot almost. It felt like
she was holding it above a fire. A new panic rose in her throat.
What would happen if she thrust her hand into the heart of a sun?
Or into some poisonous plant? She had no idea where she'd end up.
It could be deadly.

The sudden panic was enough to make her draw
her hand back. She whipped it to her chest with viper-like speed.
She clutched her hand and looked at it. There didn't seem to be any
damage and the heat was gone. Still, she couldn't help wondering;
what if?

"Well? Did you get it?" Codon asked. He'd
taken a few seconds to recover from her fist slamming towards his
face.

She let the fingers of her right hand
uncurl. There was nothing in her palm.

"What the hell, hunter?" Codon said.

"It was hot," she replied.

"Well of course it was damned hot, it's a
desert!" Codon thrust his hand out and vaguely gestured to the
outside of the ship.

She cursed herself. She felt stupid and
slow; her brain refused to think straight. It was so hard to focus
with noises hammering at her eardrums. On any other day, she would
have realised in an instant. A desert.

"Do it again."

"I really don't think I can," Nova said. The
rollercoaster of emotions and the struggle to cling to her sanity
was all taking a toll on her body. Now all she could think about
was curling into a ball on the floor and sleeping for the rest of
her life.

"I don't think you've got much of a choice,"
Codon said, nodding to the screen behind her head.

She turned to look, not really caring what
she saw, and came face to face with a monstrous armoured Ancient
with glowing yellow eyes. It stepped out of the tomb and surveyed
the other Ancients spread out around it. They turned to face the
new-comer, each of them bowing their heads.

"Do you think that's their leader?" Codon
asked.

"I've seen him before," she whispered.

"Well that's dandy. You were down there for
a damn long time," Codon said.

"No, in a dream."

"You saw a giant yellow-eyed alien in a
dream?" Codon said. "Whatever crazed hallucinations you've had, I
really don't think they're going to help us now. Look at that
thing, I bet he's armed to the teeth."

"You don't understand," she said, clenching
her jaw. How could she explain that the dream she'd had wasn't
really a dream? That somehow her dream had led her out of the maze
and that she'd watched this alien enter the tomb centuries
before.

"Back in time," she whispered, finishing off
her line of thought.

"What?"

"I saw when they were first locked in
there," she said, excited.

"How?"

She shrugged. "How can I reach through time
and pull back leaves? But I saw him. There was another one. They
were talking about a plague, something was threatening them."

"So they hid away here until what? Until we
happened to find them?"

"I think it was meant to be a time capsule,"
Nova said. "In case the rest of their species died out there would
always be this group, waiting until someone freed them."

"Well, I'll be damned," Codon said.

"Yes, so all we have to do is find out what
threatened them back then."

"And how are we supposed to do that? There
aren't exactly any records from that time."

"No, but the other aliens, the ones that
left, never came back for these. So that means they probably died
out," Nova said.

"Makes sense."

"What if one of them was already infected?
They were here on the planet's surface. The answer could be
here."

"Where?" Codon asked.

"No," she replied. "When."

"Look, I appreciate that you're trying,"
Codon said. "But that's a fool's mission."

Nova's sprits fell. Codon was right. There
was no way she'd be able to sift through the entire history of the
universe for a tiny bacterium. It couldn't be done. She sighed.

"I guess we're back to my first plan. We
shoot for their helmets and take them out that way."

"Look how many there are," Codon said. "We'd
be dead before we had half a chance."

"Well then, please make a suggestion because
I'm all out," Nova said, slouching down into a nearby chair. It was
soft and spun in a gentle circle.

Codon slumped into his own chair and they
stared at separate parts of the ship. They were trapped here.

Nova tried to push herself to think, to come
up with ideas, but it was no good. The very last bit of energy was
gone from her mind. Her eyes flickered closed and she drifted into
sleep.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

When she opened her eyes, she was surrounded by darkness. It
was impossible to make anything out in the gloom. Nova sat up in
her chair and squinted. She reached down and squeezed the soft ball
she kept clipped to her belt. It started glowing.

The glowball emitted a dim yellow light and
lit up the command centre. There was no sign of Codon. The
equipment was already starting to rust; red chips flaked off and
landed on the floor as Nova brushed past.

She walked back the way she'd come. She
called out softly for Codon, but daren't yell. She had no idea what
kind of technology the Ancients had.

She tiptoed through the darkness, her hand
resting on the wall. The glowball's light created a dim circle
around her, which lit up the dented and broken walls. The air was
stale; it smelled of dust and decay. How quickly things could break
down.

The glowball cast shadows on the walls and
ceiling. The broken debris made shapes in the darkness. Heads
reared up and threatened to consume her. Monsters leapt from shadow
to shadow, always just out of sight.

The voices followed her.

…
No more… I don't see
why… I'm over here…

She jumped and turned, but only empty
shadows were following her.

She made it all the way to the outer door
without seeing Codon. The door hung open from its hinges, sand
piled against it.

Nova frowned. She was sure she'd closed it.
There was no reason for Codon to go out into the night without
telling her. Even he couldn't be that stupid.

She glanced behind her, but there was no
sign of the doctor. She checked the gun at her belt and pulled her
jacket tighter around her shoulders. She braced herself and stepped
through the doorway, into the darkness beyond.

Sand slid away under her feet. There was a
massive dune built up against the side of the ship, lit by the glow
of a single lonely moon. Nova stared at the sand; it had already
covered most of the ship's side. If that's what could happen in one
day, then she couldn't imagine what might happen in a week, let
alone a year. There would be no evidence that the Confederacy had
even been here.

She looked away from the sand dune and
stared towards the oasis, expecting to see lights and Ancients.
There was nothing.

The blue moon lit up the trees well enough;
they looked bigger in the darkness than they had during the day.
There was no sign of the Ancients anywhere. A brief hope fluttered
in her chest that somehow Codon had got rid of them.

Her heart beat faster and she jogged down
the sand dune towards the oasis. The other smaller ships of the
Confederacy fleet were gone, buried under sand, along with the
bodies of the workers.

She tripped in the sand and fell. When she
landed, the sand parted before her. It gaped open and drew her in.
Grains poured into her nose, mouth, ears. Her eyes were scraped
with crystals. The sand continued to open. A sinkhole. She was
being sucked down into the planet. Nova struggled to get free,
tossing out her hands and clutching for something, anything, but
she was surrounded by loose sand which cascaded into her grave.