Page 99 of Pets in Space 10

He hadn’t looked so good.

“I am well,” he said. “Your friend is heading back and says we need to talk.”

“I’ll head back, too,” she said, if she could find her way back.

She glanced behind her and realized that the walkway was collapsing.

She could only go one way. On the inner side of the membrane, her Vorthari “friend” was gone.

In fact, she couldn’t see any Vorthari now.

She pressed forward, but slowly so that her suit’s camera could continue to get footage of the story etched into the outer wall.

That other dig, she had to reach deep into her memory because it hadn’t been a memorable dig, one of their techs had found a piece of metal with symbols like this.

They hadn’t been able to make much of it with such a small sample.

But now that she had a bigger picture, the story was taking a darker turn—if she was reading it correctly.

What jumped out at her first was the fact there were no depictions of the “shattercrawlers” that she’d seen so far.

She stopped in front of one section, trying to figure out what was happening and realized that her safety zone was shrinking towards her.

When it didn’t look like the shrinking was going to stop, she started again, walking faster now.

She touched her comm. “Father, everything okay out there? Did Miles make it back?”

There was no answer.

***

It felt like it was taking a long time to get back to the entrance portal. Miles checked the time on his suit and frowned. Of course, it was a big habitat, but it hadn’t taken him this long to get to that spot where he’d interacted with the Vorthari. And why that spot?

If they’d wanted to produce a screen for contact, why not sooner? As he continued to traverse the outer perimeter, he glanced at the sinuous forms of the Vorthari tracking along with him. They kind of reminded him of a bacteria blob from a horror movie. But nicer looking.

Now the Skaridrex, they weren’t pretty, but they did seem to be highly functional, based on how panicked the Vorthari seemed to be. As a geologist, function was more his jam. He would have liked to study them more closely. There wasn’t much of the Vorthari to get his head—or his hands—around.

But Lira’s father seemed certain the Vorthari were the good aliens. And he’d spent more time with them.

He suddenly wished he and Lira hadn’t split up. It felt like a rookie mistake that the “too stupid to live” characters in a sci-fi movie made right off the bat. They were almost instant fodder. And he didn’t have a real hero waiting in the wings to avenge his death and end the threat.

He considered Harold. It was hard to pin his hopes of being avenged on Harold. Speaking of Harold, he pressed his comm button.

“Harold? Come in, Harold.” It felt stupid to say “come in” when that was literally Harold’s only option, but it was the ‘done’ thing, at least in the movies.

Only Harold didn’t come in.

For no reason he could quantify, Miles triggered his headgear. He was just in time.

***

Lira’s suit automatically triggered her headgear to deploy, even as it sent an oxygen depleting warning. The membrane that had created her walkway, stopped creating, though it hadn’t shrunk yet.

Yet? Why had she thought that?

A tremor shook the habitat, sending her to her knees.

She stared down through the transparent floor at floating sacks with—she activated her zoom—inside each sack was a Vorthari.

Or at least, that is what she thought they were, but they seemed to be inactive.

She expanded her view again. There were hundreds of the sacks, possibly thousands.

The Vorthari in the sacks were curled into balls, with only the faintest of glows in the center.

And she saw something else. Below her and ahead of her, Miles was also on his knees as they both rode out the tremor.

If he’d look up, she’d feel better about what was happening. Still not thrilled but better.

She tried her comm again, but it still wasn’t working. Blocked? Did the Vorthari have that technology? Or was it something caused by the Skaridrex?

She stared at Miles, willing him to look up. The tremor didn’t completely subside, but it did begin to get less…insistent.

And then he did look up. She saw his head swivel, then track her direction and stop.

He waved at her.

She waved back.

For now, they were both still alive.

He began to look around again, but she sensed he did it with more purpose. She didn’t see how he could get to her. Could she get to him? How durable would her suit be if she were to lose the protective bubble that encased her?

Were the Vorthari protecting her with the bubble? Or imprisoning her?

She felt along the surface beneath her. It felt pretty solid, but there was some give there. She crawled to the edge and probed the sides of her bubble. She wouldn’t call it a prison yet.

It had more give.

She had a weapon. Had the Vorthari realized she carried a weapon? She knew Miles did, too.

So, the question was, she decided, was the viscous stuff thick enough for Miles to “swim” up to her? Was it too thick for the planet’s gravity to help her descend? And if she got down to him, what then?

She pushed that last one away. Right now, she needed to focus on them getting together, then they could figure out the next step. Or die together? That was a chilling possibility.

She hesitated, her hand on her weapon, wondering if she has something else she could try first. She did a mental inventory of her pockets, wishing she had Miles’ hammer thing.

She had a small tool kit that she used in the field and always carried, because it also worked if her runner engine developed a fault. She pulled it out and removed an extraction tool. It was long and then and very sharp. It worked well on artifacts.

She felt along the seam between the base and the side. There was a gap there. She slid the extractor into that gap and tried to pry it up.

And then the bottom fell out of her bubble.

***

Miles could tell that Lira was doing something. He caught a glint of a tool. She was trying to get out of the—what were they in? A protective bubble or a trap? He leaned toward trap, but that could be his movie history.

He looked around. The choice was to sit and wait or try to get out into whatever was out there. In the movies, it never went well to sit and wait. Of course, trying to do something didn’t go well either, but that was just a plot device.

He pulled out his rock pick and followed Lira’s example, applying it to what felt like a seam between bottom and sides.

He wasn’t sure what made him look up. A prickle along his senses? Whatever the reason, he looked up just in time to see Lira drift out the bottom of her jail. Yeah, he was going with jail.

He applied more pressure to the seam, the urgency to get to her ramping up exponentially. And then his bottom slid out and he sank into the goo.

***

Lira flailed for a few seconds and then realized she wasn’t falling. She was drifting. It was still unnerving. There was no sign of any of the Vorthari. It seemed to be getting darker, so she turned on her suit’s light and pointed it down toward where she’d last seen Miles.

He was out of the cage, too. He was moving his arms with purpose. His legs, too.

He was swimming, she realized.

She tried out her arms and legs, trying to dive down toward him. It felt instinctively wrong to go what felt like deeper into the murk, as if she were diving down into the ocean.

You can breathe, she reminded herself.

It took effort, but she began to angle down in Miles’ direction.

And he was coming to her.

It helped steady her, though she had no idea what they’d do next.

She kicked harder because it felt like they needed to go down.

Miles had turned on his suit’s light too as the murk around them got darker.

And then the area around her brightened as Miles reached her.

His hands gripped hers. She gripped his back.

And then they were face to face, with darkness around them.

Still no comms, but eye contact had been made.

She pointed down with her free hand and he nodded.

The murk around them felt as if something rippled through it, but it was muted.

A tremor? Or more of Harold’s subsidence?

Miles’ look of worry deepened, and he kicked harder, pulling her down with him. And then, his light stabbed through the murk. They were at the bottom of the habitat and right over one of the dark spots where the Skaridrex worked to get in.

He was trying to reach the nanite barrier, she realized. It truly was their only option. But if they broke through, wouldn’t that let the Skaridrex in?

She wanted a pause to think, but Miles pulled her down toward the dark spot in the otherwise beautiful habitat.

***

Miles felt a slight resistance from Lira as he kicked to reach the Skaridrex intrusion, but then it stopped.

She was trusting him. Should she? He wasn’t sure he trusted himself.

He just knew it was the only way out. They couldn’t hope to break through the outer shell of the habitat expect in a spot that had been weakened.

Lira began to add her kicks to his and they moved more quickly. He reversed position and felt his feet touch down on the bottom. Lira settled next to him.

He moved her hand to his shoulder, felt her grip and then lowered himself to his knees to feel the surface. The tremor that had started above was stronger here.

He had a chilling thought. Were the Vorthari using what he’d told them to solve their Skaridrex problem? If they were, their “thank you” lacked warmth.

He rubbed his gloved hands along the darkened surface and dark pieces of material rose up into the goo, swirling in the motion possibly caused by the tremor.

If they were getting ready to flood the area around the habitat, they needed to get out now. He pulled his weapon, looked at Lira. She nodded and pulled her weapon.

Miles lifted himself just off the surface, aimed and fired. Light flashed around them as Lira fired, too.

***