THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST Page 9

  Nev Reoh tried to pull away. “If we follow this canyon, we should meet up with the one below the sick-camp.”

  “No, we need to get higher,” Bobbie Ray insisted. “We’re easy targets down here.”

  “It will take extra time to climb to the top,” Nev Reoh said patiently. “Can’t we follow the canyon a little ways to where the walls aren’t so high?”

  Bobbie Ray wasn’t looking forward to scaling the cliffs either, but he wasn’t in the mood for arguments. “I’m not leaving our ropes here.”

  “Why not? We’ll have to come back again to get more water. We’ve got three more days left of the survival test.” Before Bobbie Ray could veto his suggestion, the Bajoran added, “And if we can find a way through the bottom of the canyon, we can carry Puller here. That way we won’t have to keep taking the water to him.”

  The threat of having to plod back and forth every day between the sick-camp and the seep was enough to make Bobbie Ray agree. But as they made their way down the canyons, he kept a wary eye out for the stalker.

  Nev Reoh kept pointing to rock outcroppings and shimmering heat distortions, asking Bobbie Ray what they were. The Rex mostly ignored the Bajoran, focusing outward, refusing to believe that, like Reoh, his own paranoia was making him see and hear things.

  The first warning came almost subliminally, a subtle whine carried with the wind. Then a distant wail that rose and sustained, raising the hackles on his neck.

  Reoh’s eyes grew round as Bobbie Ray tensed, instinctively bracing himself for an attack as the wail ended in a shriek.

  “What was that—” Reoh started to ask.

  “Hsst!” Bobbie Ray cut him off with one firm swipe of a paw just millimeters from his face. Nev Reoh looked as if he swallowed his own tongue, but he was quiet.

  Bobbie Ray paced around the other cadet in a tight circle, looking upward as another wail began to rise, echoing back and forth against the canyon walls. His tail kept twitching and his fur told him there was something moving nearby, but they saw nothing.

  After that, it was easy to convince Reoh that they should take to higher ground. The nearby wall was fortunately broken down at the confluence of the two canyons. Bobbie Ray could have scrambled up in minutes, but he had to go slowly and practically drag Reoh to the top of the plateau. They kept the canyon close by so they could see into the bottom—both to make sure there was nothing moving down there, and to see if it was possible to transport Puller to the seep.

  They reached the edge of the plateau directly across from the sick-camp just before sunset. Signaling to the others that their mission had been successful, they started down into the ravine. Near the bottom, as Ijen was descending to help them carry the canteens, she suddenly screamed and put her hand over her mouth.

  Silhouetted on the plateau above them, against the ruddy sky, was a massive, hulking form, pacing from side to side as only a hungry animal would. A low wail began to rise again, sending a shiver response down Bobbie Ray’s back. They couldn’t see what it was, but it slowly rose on its hind legs, lifting its arms as if in attack position.

  “It’s huge,” Nev Reoh whispered in fright.

  As the wail rose to that distinctive, soul-shrinking shriek, Bobbie Ray could only agree. “Maybe that’s why we haven’t found Starsa.”

  “Don’t say that!” Nev Reoh quickly denied. Ijen joined them in the bottom, panting in fear as she stared up at the plateau where they had been not long before.

  All three cadets scrambled up the opposite wall as fast as they could to the sick-camp. They weren’t sure if the silhouette could reach them before they made it to their ledge, and they didn’t know how many companions it might have.

  “What else could have happened to her?” Bobbie Ray asked Reoh on their way up. “She’s either lying at the bottom of one of these canyons, like Puller, or . . .” he drawled, nodding toward the disappearing silhouette. “We better make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to us.”

  They reached the camp, where Reeves was using a scope to see across the ridge. As the last light was fading from the sky, Bobbie Ray seized the scope from Reeves, focusing on the lurking silhouette. It took a moment for the image to clearly resolve, and then he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “It looks like him,” Reeves said ominously, pulling away from Bobbie Ray.

  “Like who?” Nev Reoh asked, not understanding.

  Bobbie Ray lowered the scope, feeling dazed. “It’s another Rex.”

  Starsa couldn’t go very far with the stasis restraint locked around her ankle, keeping her within a couple of meters of the Rex. He never paid much attention to her, seemingly content with having her nearby as they hiked over the rough desert and started climbing down into one of the ever-present canyons.

  She had tried talking to this Rex, as well as the other Rex who regularly appeared and disappeared as they descended to the bottom. But without universal translators, they couldn’t understand her. She could understand a few words of what they were saying, but the problem was, they didn’t speak very much. Mostly they seemed to communicate through body movements and subtle posturing that she couldn’t begin to understand.

  She had been captured remarkably easily, giving herself up before she realized the Rex had hostile intent. Her first night had been spent alone, curled up between several boulders on the edge of the largest plateau, wondering where Bobbie Ray Jefferson and Nev Reoh could have possibly disappeared to.

  When she woke in the morning, the Rex was leaning over her, and at first she had smiled in greeting, saying, “Bobbie Ray! I’m so glad you found me.”

  But it wasn’t Bobbie Ray, and the Rex had clamped one sharp-clawed hand around her ankle, locking on the stasis restraint before she knew what was happening.

  Once they reached the bottom of the canyon, the Rex took her to a space shuttle that was stashed out of sight in the bottom of the canyon. He locked the stasis restraint to one of the bunks while he and his partner went exploring. Starsa could hear the wails and cries of the other Rex over the comm and with the words her universal translator could understand, it sounded as if the other Rex shuttles had drawn off the Starfleet cadet ship. She wasn’t sure if they had attacked the ship, but from the viciousness of their language, she wouldn’t have been surprised.

  One thing she knew, these Rex weren’t anything like Bobbie Ray. They looked alike—tall, broad-shouldered, with blondish-orange fur. But these Rex wore their hair longer, teased up in decorative tufts. Their teeth also seemed bigger, and their claws were much longer, sharpened to a microfine point.

  At first they went out and explored the terrain together, and she could see them through the view portal at the front end of the shuttle, curved and offering a nearly 300-degree view around the sides of the shuttle. The Rex ventured out in ever-widening circles, starting off and returning to home base, as if extremely cautious about leaving her there.

  Starsa was mesmerized by the view, but it was also incredibly disorienting. After several hours, she actually had to turn around, it had given her such an ungodly headache. By then the Rex had begun to split up and disappear for longer periods of time.

  Starsa absurdly wished one of them would stay. She hated being alone. Her one night on the rocks had been the longest amount of time she had ever been completely by herself.

  On Oppalassa, her homeworld, no one was ever alone. She came from one of the most crowded environments in the galaxy, averaging almost 100,000 people per square mile on the islands that were scattered through the shallow seas. But her people had been living under those conditions for seven centuries. She missed having her extended family just beyond the walls around her, but the Academy Quads were so similar that her heart, as well as her body, had soon gotten over her first fierce bout of homesickness.

  But now she was forced to stay alone in the darkened shuttle, shackled to the bunk. She couldn’t reach her bag with her gear to try to short out the stasis, and she couldn’t get anywhere near the control panels of the
shuttle. The interior of the shuttle was so confusing that, even if she did get loose, she wasn’t sure she would be able to fly the ship. And that was saying a lot. Prior to this experience, Starsa would have said she could pilot anything that was capable of becoming airborne. But this ship was different. The dark gray bulkheads bulged outward, and there seemed to be control units and readout screens on the walls and ceiling as well as the floor.

  All Starsa could do was wait, biting her nails at her inactivity, wondering if the Rex would ever return for her. She drank the last of the water from her canteen and her stomach was trying to twist out of her body in its demands for food. She wished she had eaten more last night before the Rex took away her bag, but she remembered Nev Reoh’s caution just before they beamed down that they would have to conserve their supplies.

  Then she started to wonder if something had happened to the Rex. Maybe she was stranded. She knew better than to panic, certain that the cadet ship would not be kept long from the planet. Someone would arrive to save them—she just needed to hold on. But her fear of being by herself, of hearing nothing but her own heartbeat, was beginning to drive her crazy. She tried singing to herself, but she had a terrible sense of rhythm and her attempts offended her own ears.

  Long after it had gotten dark, both Rex returned about the same time. Starsa could see them through the front portal as they approached and softly bumped heads in greeting, a quick rub before twisting away. When the door opened, she could hear their slow, chirruping noises. Mainly it sounded like queries, questioning each other about what they’d seen, what to do about it. They both grew agitated, their tails abruptly slashing back and forth as one or the other would snarl or reach out with a sharp swipe.

  They kept mentioning “Rex.” That was one word familiar to Starsa because Bobbie Ray often dropped his native name into conversations. Women seemed to love the rumbling murmur, and Starsa had sometimes teased Bobbie Ray by mocking him with the sound in front of another one of his girlfriends.

  Now, Starsa thought she would try it out for real. “Rum-murrow-ah,” she murmured in a low voice, trying to catch that precise rise at the end that gave the Rex name such a lilting, enchanting flair.

  The two Rex stopped short, looking at Starsa with almost comical surprise. She laughed out loud, unable to stop herself. Then they looked annoyed.

  “No, I’m sorry,” she tried to tell them. But she couldn’t help giggling again at their affronted expressions. They looked exactly like Bobbie Ray that time she put double-stick tape on his sleep cushions.

  The slightly smaller Rex let out a short, sharp note, very high, while the other gave a plaintive, high-to-low tone, much lower-pitched. Starsa’s translator beeped and gave a literal interpretation, “Indignation! Protest!”

  “All right,” Starsa told them, raising both her hands. “I said I’m sorry.”

  Grudgingly, the Rex gave her a twisted piece of some kind of dried flesh that she had to gnaw on. They also gave her water, which she was properly grateful for. She banged the dried meat against her bunk a few times before dunking it in the remains of the water to soften it. She hoped they would get the message, but the Rex were concentrating on their shuttle controls.

  Soon after that, a thrumming sound began to vibrate the bulkheads. Then she understood why her bunk was padded both below her and along the curved bulkhead. As the ship lifted off the ground, she felt a subtle pull toward the hull. She realized the gravity generators were situated so the hull was “down” from every direction. The Rex moved easily around the interior, using the controls on all four of the curved walls, resting casually on the small bare platforms and protruding benches.

  Suddenly, the engineering puzzle became clear and Starsa understood how the Rex could pilot their strange craft. They leaped from one control to the other, defying the gravity to twist and turn in the air, landing exactly where they intended. It was so effortless that it looked like a beautiful dance.

  The shuttle lifted out of the canyon, rotating as it cleared the top of the plateau. Starsa felt her stomach heave against the lazy turn, jostling the food and water she had eaten too fast. At first she swallowed, maintaining control, but when the ship seemed to fall sideways out from under her—while her eyes told her they were flying straight up—she let out an unattractive burp.

  Both Rex swiveled their heads around to gape at her. Starsa held onto her stomach, her eyes bulging expressively as she hung on.

  The Rex showed by every stiff motion that they knew what was going on. Their ears were twitching rapidly back and forth as they gently slowed the motion of the shuttle, giving Starsa’s body time to adjust.

  They seemed annoyed at having to move at a crawl, but Starsa thought that it served them right after leaving her alone all day. Defiantly, she took another bite of her meat stick. Maybe if she disgusted them enough, they would toss her back where they found her.

  As the shuttle began to descend, she thought her idiotic plan might actually be working. But the wicked glare in the Rex’s eye as he leaped toward her told her otherwise. Then he touched a hypospray to her neck and she dived into blackness, her hand still clenched around the half-gnawed meat stick.

  At first Starsa thought she was dreaming, then from the brightness against her eyelids, she realized that time must have passed. She could hardly move at first, and had trouble convincing herself that she had been knocked out all night. It felt like only a second, and she was very groggy, as if she had spent the night walking around and around the shuttle. But according to the deep crease in her arm from the half-eaten meat stick, she had been lying there like a log for hours.

  Neither of the Rex were in the shuttle, and moving to the furthest reach of the stasis restraint, she still couldn’t see them outside. The shuttle was resting in a different canyon now, aimed toward a sort of oasis along one wall. It was the first truly green vegetation she’d seen on this planet, but then, she hadn’t had a chance to see much.

  Her canteen was nearby, so she drank some water to clear her head, then finished off her meal from the night before. When she had drunk as much as she could, she considered what to do with her only tool. Tightening the cap, she took aim and hurled it at the main control panel. The canteen bounced against the plassteel, but there was a reassuring crunching sound from one panel.

  Unable to reach her canteen for another throw, Starsa spent her time dismantling the supports of her bunk. It was like a compulsive action, peeling the cushions off the base and wall, shredding them as she did. But if she stopped, words and images swirled around in her head as if trying to fill the void. She almost longed to be knocked out again. She had never woken up alone before, and it was deeply unnerving. The silence spoke too loudly, telling her that she wasn’t there if no one was able to validate her existence. Life was interconnected—she was nothing, yet she couldn’t be nothing, and she had to do something, anything to prove she was alive. At least the destroyed bunk was a testament to her will.

  She noticed immediately when one of the Rex came down the rocky wash at the bottom of the canyon. He dropped down to one knee and perked his ears at some sound. Her only warning was a slight sideways flattening of his ears as the other Rex leaped out from behind a pile of jagged boulders that had fallen from the wall. Starsa thought they were fighting, but the bigger Rex rose up on his toes, dodging back before darting in to give the smaller one a few solid bats on the side of the head.

  The smaller Rex bared his teeth, then, with a huge leap, he crossed the gap between them, grabbing onto the big Rex like a wrestler. They tumbled over the sand and rocks until the smaller one suddenly darted off. The big Rex let him go, shaking out his fur before opening the door to the shuttle. The chirping he was making sounded like he was laughing.

  Then he saw the pile of bunk shreds scattered throughout the shuttle. Starsa looked around with him as if she had never seen it before, either. Actually, she hadn’t realized how much damage she had done, and it looked even worse than it was.

  T
he Rex made high-pitched, sustained noises aimed in her direction. He never stopped scolding her as he gathered up some of the shreds, dismayed by the extent of her work. Starsa had to cover her ears at the incessant, infuriating sounds, and she almost didn’t realize how much the translator was catching.

  “Pestering little female! Useless! Get rid of it,” he muttered, giving her a murderous glance.

  The other Rex appeared in the doorway, his ears up and alert. Their argument over what to do with her came through loud and clear. After listening to their plaintive whines, she realized how Bobbie Ray came by his fastidiousness.

  Starsa didn’t care—at least she wasn’t alone anymore. Even better, while one of the Rex removed her restraint from the bed to his own ankle, Starsa managed to grab the tiny tool kit that was hooked to the flap of her bag. The two Rex were squabbling so hard that they didn’t notice as she slipped the palm-sized kit into her pocket.

  Before she could congratulate herself, she was jerked along with the Rex as they left the shuttle. She hated having to run to keep right by his side as she stumbled over rocks that he treated like smooth pavement. Climbing while restrained was even tougher. It took a great deal of time, but she managed to get up the side of the cliff, slipping more than once in what would have been a deadly fall. Every time, the stasis restraint caught her ankle and held her dangling until the other Rex could lift her up so she could grab hold of the rocks again. She felt like a toy bobbing on a string, and she began to wonder why they were bothering with her at all.

  She found out when they staked her to the top of the plateau. She had a clear view of the oasis down below. The two Rex climbed back down, nearly to the floor of the canyon.

  She thought they were leaving her there, exposing her to die. Her initial flush of indignation seemed absurd in the light of attempted murder, but she was comforted by her kit resting snugly against her ribs. All she needed was a little time with her tools, and she would be free of the restraint.