8FOLD/ACRA: Orphans of Mars: To Bell The Cat # 4

[Tom Russell]

Danalee crouches near a well-knotted tree about half a kilometer from
the destroyed remains of the ancient ship. She runs her fingertips
back and forth through the dirt, then knits her brow and sighs.
   "Lost the trail?" says Quasha.
   "There wasn't a trail to begin with," says Danalee. "That's the
problem with beam pistols, Quasha. Give me a dagger and a throat to
slit any day. Bug with a beam, the wound is cauterized instantly. It
may never cease to burn, but it also never bleeds, and never leaves a
trail."
   "I'm not overly fond of them myself," says Quasha. She touches the
patch over her eye.

EIGHTFOLD PRESENTS [8F-117]
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 /    / _)_ // _// _   / )__/  EPISODE FOUR
( () / _)(-((  //)(-  (__(//  BY  TOM RUSSELL

Ress finds Nerrine and Petara in the apostate's wood-walled garden.
The enclosure was built just off of the ruined exhaust vent.
   "Speak of the viper, and it strikes," says Petara.
   Ress ignores her. "May I have a word, Imperatrix?"
   Nerrine nods, and waves a dismissive hand to Petara. Petara raises
only an eyebrow in protest, then starts towards the vent-cum-entrance.
   Alone with Nerrine. Suddenly the blood pounds in Ress's skull, and
her fine little fingers throb and twitch. She speaks almost in a
whisper, in a borrowed voice. "I'd rather Petara stay."
   "How gracious of you," says Petara. "Imperatrix?"
   Nerrine nods.
   "A thousand thanks, Ress," says Petara. "To be allowed to stay in
my own garden."
   "I'd also rather you didn't talk," says Ress, having regained a
modicum of her composure.
   Nerrine nods again, and Petara crouches back down in the dirt with her spade.
   "Kellin has come to you with her special project," says Ress.
   "The tracking device," says Nerrine. "For the old rex. Yes, she has."
   "And what, what are you thinking about it?" Ress doesn't look at
Nerrine. She can't. Instead she stares past her, studying one part of
the enclosure. The grain of the wood. The thickness of the cord and
the skill of Tandra's rope work.
   "I have not yet made a decision. My thoughts are my own, Ress."
   "Of course. Sorry." She closes her eyes as a reflex, almost
defensively. Upon her eyelids she sees Nerrine beating her again,
ripping the clothes from her body, pinning her against the bed. When
she opens her eyes, Nerrine has grabbed a hold of her by the
shoulders.
   Ress screams and throws herself back, landing in the dirt. "Don't touch me!"
   Nerrine pulls back her hands and steps away.
   "What are you doing?" says Ress.
   "She was worried," says Petara. "You've been standing there,
crying, for over a minute now."
   "I wasn't crying." But she can feel the tears streaking across her
cheeks, wet and hot. "I don't cry. You withered old bitch."
   "Of course," says Petara. "Of course you don't."
   "Ress," says Nerrine. She sits in the dirt. "Was there something
you wanted to tell me? About Kellin? Some counsel you wanted to offer?
I would be glad to hear it."
   "Yes," says Ress, swallowing. "Yes. That's what's upsetting me. I
don't think we should do this."
   "I can't believe it," says Petara. "We agree on something."
   Ress snaps. "I thought I told you to shut your mouth."
   Nerrine glares at Petara and nods her assent. Then, she looks at
Ress. Ress doesn't look back at her, but she can feel Nerrine's eyes
on her. "You don't think it's a good idea?"
   Ress is glad Nerrine asked the question, because it allows her to
fall back on what she had practiced. (You're here for a reason, and
it's not to cry and scream like a child. Get the job done.) "Oh, I
wouldn't say that. It's a brilliant idea. All my sister's ideas are
brilliant." Especially when Ress gave it to her. "If we can get the
tracker attached to the rex, we would know where it was, could track
it with ease, kill it with ease, and then Jarissy's spirit would be
avenged." She feels uneasy speaking of Jarissy's death. Strange. "It's
a perfect plan. But."
   "It's if we can get the tracker on the rex," says Nerrine. "And
that's a big if."
   "It's a dangerous if," says Ress. "Too dangerous. In my opinion,
Imperatrix. Anyone you send on this mission, you send to certain
death, and certain failure. Life is the word you have chosen for us.
So please, do not send anyone on this mission."
   "Thank you for your counsel, Ress," says Nerrine gently. She
stands. "I will retire to give it thought. Why don't you stay here a
while with Petara as she tends to her garden?"
   Nerrine takes her leave. Petara continues her gardening, silently.
And Ress dwells on her performance. Shoddy work. Certainly not in her
usual form. But it's Nerrine that's the problem, not Ress. Once
Nerrine is removed, Ress will once more be operating at the height of
her considerable powers. And even diminished and sloppy as this was,
her words were still well chosen. Anyone you send on this mission; do
not send anyone on this mission. The idea has still been planted. In
good conscience, Nerrine cannot send anyone on this important suicide
mission. She cannot ask the others to risk their lives.

Nerrine knows that she cannot ask the others to risk their lives. But
she can risk her own. She gathers her spear, her dagger, her quiver
and her bow. She fills her blood bottle with clean fresh water and her
pouch with a mud that will mask her scent. She braids her long yellow
hair behind her head into a tightly-wound circle to keep it from being
snared or caught.
   She does not waste a single breath. She must leave now. She cannot
wait for Quasha and Danalee to return from their hunt for the
Titanian, for surely the Oathbreaker-- vengeance-starved and still
desiring of death-- will go after the old rex herself. She cannot ask
Quasha to risk herself, cannot stop her from going, cannot count on
her to be cautious, cannot count on Danalee to restrain her. The only
one Nerrine can count on, the only one she's ever counted on, is
herself.

Ress hugs her knees in the small, bucket-like tub. The water has gone
tepid, and the soap-foam had dissipated until a few islands of bubbles
remain. She calls for her sister.
   Kellin enters, standing at the door. "You've been in here a while.
Everything alright?"
   "Yes. Just thinking."
   "Was there something you needed? I have a lot of work."
   "Scrub my back?"
   Kellin seals the door behind her, and sits down beside the tub. She
rolls up her sleeve and dips the cloth into the water. Coarsely it
rubs against Ress's smooth pink back.
   "Thanks," says Ress.
   Kellin hangs the cloth over the edge of the tub. "Anything else?"
   "Rub my shoulders," says Ress.
   "I really do have a lot to do..."
   But she's saying it, and not doing it. And that's because she wants
to be here. "Rub my shoulders," says Ress. "I didn't ask, I was
telling you. My word is the law."
   "Yes, Imperatrix," says Kellin with a roll of her eyes. She grips
Ress's shoulders in her hands.
   "Imperatrix Ress," says Ress. "I like the sound of that, don't you?"
   "Not particularly," says Kellin. "I don't know how long you'd stay
in power if you made everyone scrub your back and rub your shoulders."
   "Not everyone," says Ress. "Just you, Kellin."
   "Gee, thanks."
   "No one touches me like you do," says Ress.
   Kellin freezes, her hands still on her sister's shoulders.
   "No one..." Ress swallows. "No one touches me like you did. On our
last night on Mars."
   Kellin pulls her hands away, stammering. "I, I have to get back,
back to my work... I..."
   Ress turns to face her and stands.
   Kellin stares at the wood of the tub. Its grain and texture. "Ress, I..."
   "Kellin. Sister. More than sister." She steps out of the tub, naked
and wet. "Kiss me."
   Kellin looks at her. "I have always regretted that night."
   "I know," says Ress. "I see the way you look at me. The guilt. And
the longing underneath it. And it hurts me to see you suffer. To see
it consume you."
   "I'm guilty about a lot of things," says Kellin.
   "But not about this," says Ress. "Please, not about this. About me.
You want me. You've always wanted me." She blushes. "And I've always
wanted you."
   "You don't know that," says Kellin. "You're confused, you're..."
   "I'm a woman, now, not a child," says Ress. "For a long time, yes,
I was confused. About me and about you. About what I wanted, and what
I didn't want, and what was right, and what was wrong. But on my
teneve, I was alone, and I was scared. And I thought I might die that
night, and I knew then what I had always known. That I love you. And
what a waste it would be if I was to die only your sister, and not
your wife. That if I lived, I would waste no more of my time on guilt.
And that neither should you.
   "I know you, Kellin. I love you. And you love me."
   "Yes."
   "As a sister?"
   Kellin kisses her with her hungry mouth.

The plain is open, hot, and blistering. Nerrine longs for the shade
and cover afforded by the trees in the forest, but she certainly
doesn't long for the raptors that wait there in ambush.
   Carved into a boulder are the marks: Sister of Battle, Shield of
Tharsus, Cudgel of Earth. This is the spot where Jarissy died. The
spot to which the raptors led Jarissy and the Twain. The last place
any of the Daughters beheld the old rex, and the place where the
raptors knew he would be nearby.
   Hunting grounds? A nest? Nerrine cannot say, but with nothing else
to go on, this will be as good a place to start her search as any.
   Soon, she finds a likely candidate for one of the rex's victims.
The beast was covered in plates when it was alive. It's been cracked
open by big, powerful jaws. There's no meat in there any more, just
bones, most of which were broken by the killing wound. It's been
picked clean and dry, either by the rex or later scavengers. It stinks
of death, but not of meat. Maybe a few days old, maybe more. But
recent. Recent enough to confirm that the rex is still coming here.
   If Nerrine doesn't find his trail this day, she'll need shelter for
the night. With a liberal application of the masking mud, she can
climb inside the corpse without too much fear of attracting
scavengers. Still a risk, but less of a risk than sleeping out in the
open.
   The wind shrieks above her. Nerrine turns and stares, her mouth for
a moment held agape. A huge beast is falling towards her, dropped from
the sky, back talons curling, its long pointed toothless mouth open,
its huge forearms stretching out from either side to form a line six
meters long, some kind of magnificent webbing running from arm to
body.
   Nerrine stands frozen in disbelief at the weird creature falling
out of the sky. But the Imperatrix hesitates for only a moment. She
leaps backwards, using her hands to propel herself over to the other
side of the corpse.
   The falling creature stops falling in mid-air, instead soaring over
her head. The pteranodon bears itself upwards with another screech.
   "Bitches of shit!" sputters Nerrine. "It swims through the sky!"
Like the creatures in children's stories. The dragons.
   And now it dives at her again. No time to ready her bow or nock an
arrow. Nerrine aims her long spear for one of the wings and prays that
her aim is true and the point is sharp.
   The creature is quick for its size, twisting itself in the air like
a beautiful viper in the grass. The spear sails past it and begins its
descent to the ground. The pteranodon changes direction, diving after
the spear, and clutching its three meter shaft in its claws. It
squeezes, easily snapping it into three pieces. It opens its claws,
and the pieces of the spear spin and twist harmlessly to the earth.
Even if Nerrine was to get her hands on the pointy end again, it
wouldn't be long enough to keep any distance between her and those
talons. Quick and clever.
   But Nerrine didn't just stand there and watch and wait for the
beast to turn its attention back to her. She used the time to circle
round to the other side of the corpse, providing her some cover. She
had pulled out her bow and, setting down the rex tracker to give her
free access to her quiver, nocked an arrow. Never for a moment in all
this did she take her eyes off of the pteranodon, or off her beloved
spear (now she knows full well Jarissy's grief for her cudgel).
   The pteranodon twists towards her, and the arrow digs into one of
the leathery wings. It shrieks and it bleeds, but it is like a tiny
prick against the skin. Nothing that's going to take it out of the
air. Nothing that's going to keep Nerrine alive.
   She fires the arrows anyway, some missing, some hitting, but all of
them annoying enough that the beast makes an effort to dodge them.
Annoying enough to buy her some time. But time for what? The open
plain affords her no cover from the sky-swimmer, and the arrows are
not enough to kill the thing. The spear might have been, if it had hit
its mark.
   And it might yet. Nerrine knows better than to make a mad dash for
the spearhead. She can't outrun the pteranodon, and the only thing
slowing it down is the suppressive fire of her arrows. So she'll keep
it up. Moving cautiously, methodically, eyes always on her foe. Steady
and calm. There is much one can accomplish if one remains steady and
calm.
   Nearly there. And nearly out of arrows. (She'll have to gather up
the strays and pull out the others from the sky-swimmer once she kills
it.)
   It's circling around now, back towards the corpse. Probably going
to build up some kind of momentum for its attack.
   No matter, Nerrine has the spear head now. What remains is now a
little shorter than an arrow, but it remains as sharp as ever. She
nocks it, and prepares for the beast to charge again.
   But it's not charging. It has dropped down behind the corpse, and
is now taking aloft again, flying not towards Nerrine, but away from
her.
   In its claws, it clutches something.
   The tracker.

"Friend Quasha, would you stand downwind, please?"
   Quasha balks. "My scent is of sweat and battle. The true and
glorious stench of a true Daughter, as sweet to the nostrils as blood
is to the tongue."
   "Are you finished?"
   "...Yes."
   "Now stand downwind."
   Quasha harrumphs but does as she was asked.
   Danalee sniffs the air.  "Yes, as I suspected. The Titanian came this way."
   "You can track her by her scent?" scoffs Quasha.
   "Not exactly," says Danalee. "No Martian nose is that fine. But I
can smell the coolant she's hemorrhaging. Lingering and stale. Her
system's been compromised. It can and it will give, and since she's
used to temperatures some two hundred degrees colder than this, she'll
fry when it does."
   "You seem troubled by this," says Quasha.
   "Aren't you?"
   "That she might die before I can run her through with my blade in
sacred battle with a worthy foe? That I might be robbed of my
birthright as a daughter to cleanse perhaps the last of her accursed
race from the stars? Yes, it troubles me. But I did not think it would
trouble you, sister-of-shadows. You itch not for combat. I would think
that this would be glad tidings for you."
   "What, that we might simply wait for her to die?"
   Quasha nods distastefully.
   "Her life might be measured in minutes, in hours, or in days," says
Danalee. "Given the age of the tech she was wearing, I doubt even she
knows. That makes her, as Lask sensed, desperate and impatient. And
thus far, far more dangerous. Too dangerous to wait."

Nerrine tracks the pteranodon. It's not easy; it doesn't break
branches underfoot and doesn't cease its flight to piss. But after an
hour, she finds herself at the shores of a wide, seemingly endless
sea. The pteranodon keeps flying, and Nerrine sees that it is not
alone; others of its kind fly in the same direction. They must have an
island just out of sight, a few kilometers off the shore.
   The bow will be of no use to her once she's had her swim.
Reluctantly, she leaves it and her quiver on the shore. Likewise, the
pouch of masking mud. All she has left now is the dagger, and the head
of her spear. They'll have to do. She grips one tightly in each hand,
and dives into the sea.

Ress watches her sister-lover sleep. There's something oddly
satisfying about it. It's not that her scheme worked; her schemes
always work, and especially where her idiot sister is concerned. Her
favorite and most predictable puppet. Not so much a sister as an
extension of her own will.
   For some reason, this reflection is troubling, and she finds
herself unable to look at Kellin. Or maybe it's not that at all, but
that she can't bear the thought of Kellin looking at her. At seeing
her. At knowing her for what she really is. Because if Kellin knew,
wouldn't she pull away from Ress? Wouldn't she hate her? And Ress
couldn't bear that.
   But why? Why would it matter to Ress if Kellin should hate her?
   There's a knock at her door. Ress quickly wraps a blanket about
her, careful not to disturb Kellin. She opens the door; it's Fenn.
   The dancer's eyes goggle at the thin blanket that clings to Ress's
gentle curves.
   "If you're quite finished," says Ress with a knowing raise of an eyebrow.
   "Have you seen your sister?" says Fenn. "She's not in her room or her lab."
   "She's sleeping in my room tonight," says Ress. She thinks for a
moment to offer an explanation, but decides to let Fenn's imagination
run wild instead.
   "There's a problem," says Fenn. "With the tracker."
   "For the rex?"
   Fenn nods. "An error in the calculations."
   "My sister's calculations..." begins Ress.
   "She's been overworked and under-slept for a long time now," says
Fenn. "Which is why I'm helping her. It's a small error, but it's
fixable. I can fix it. If we can get to Nerrine before she finds the
rex."
   "We?" says Ress.
   "I doubt it'll consent to any modifications afterwards."
   "We?" repeats Ress.
   "No one's your better with a beam weapon," says Fenn.
   "And Quasha and Danalee are gone."
   "And Quasha and Danalee are gone," says Fenn.
   "Alright," says Ress. "Let me get dressed."
   "You can go like that. I wouldn't mind."
   "I'm sure you wouldn't," says Ress. She turns back into the room
and lets the blanket fall carelessly to the floor.

The long brightly-starred night falls on this ancient Earth as Nerrine
emerges, half-exhausted, on the shores of the pteranodon rookery. She
takes a moment to catch her breath, then sets to work on her eyeglow.
Gradually, the dim, pale yellow of her eyes becomes yellower and
brighter, brighter and yellower. If she did it quickly, the light of
her eyes would flash on and possibly alert the pteranodons to her
presence. So she does it slowly and cautiously, by increments and
shades, taking five long minutes.
   Now she can see them. By the light of the stars and moon and her
eyes, Nerrine counts fifteen of them. They're big, all of them, but
most are smaller than the thief. Her first instinct is that they must
be younger, but then she remembers that the other Earthlings have at
least two sexes. There could be two sexes here, with one being bigger
than the other.
   She sees the thief now. He clutches his prize in one claw.
Nerrine's arrows still stick in his wings. She'll let him keep those
to remember her by. But the tracker shall be hers.
   He waves it about in the moonlight, cawing and shrieking with
delight. Nerrine knows the purpose of the display; she saw its like
often enough on Deimos. The newer whores would wear fine garments and
jewels, and make a conspicuous show of them. Trying to impress
prospective clients with the beauty of their accoutrements when they
were insecure in the beauty of their own bodies. In her time, Nerrine
was worse than all of them.
   The females in attendance are impressed with the strange object the
thief clutches, and perhaps also with the arrows and the long
irregular blade of his crest.
   Less impressed is another male, who challenges the thief with a
shriek of his own. The harem is unimpressed; the challenger has no
glittering tracker, his wings are free of arrows. They are content to
ignore him.
   The thief is not. He drops the tracker and flies at the challenger,
talons bared and wings beating against the windless dark.
   The upstart for his part flies towards him, head bent, his thick
knobby crest pitched forward. A moment before impact, he rolls to the
right.
   The thief had not been expecting this, and starts to sail past him.
   But the challenger is near, and as the thief's wing passes him by,
he clutches the arm in his talon. The challenger twists in the air,
whirling around in two and a half circles, swinging the thief like a
sack. And then he lets go.
   The thief disappears into the night, but not into the waves, and
before the challenger can sell the harem on his many exemplary
qualities, the thief comes shrieking back into view.
   The young male is caught by surprise, and as Nerrine knows too
well, surprise is often a fatal thing. Before he can react, the thief
has hold of him.
   The thief pulls his challenger up into the air, laboriously beating
his wings to compensate for the extra weight. Then, once both are
several meters high, they come crashing down into the rocks. Blood
squeezes out on impact from the challenger's face and belly like
juice.
   The pretender scrambles and screams, but the thief isn't done yet.
The lesson must be taught. The thief again brings the two of them into
the air, higher this time, his rival twisting and clawing frantically.
And again they come down in a sickening crash of bones and flesh.
   Again they rise. Perhaps now the challenger realizes the stakes of
this are higher than reproduction. He fights just as frantically as
before, if not more, but Nerrine knows there is nothing he can do. His
only hope is for the thief to make a mistake.
   Luckily, he does; his grip loosens, and the challenger breaks away.
   But the hope is false. He does not fly but fall. His wing is
broken. And though none of the harem would have such a pathetic mate,
the thief will not suffer his rival to live. Soon, the battle is
rejoined, and finished.
   Only the thief rises into the moonlight. Arrow-winged,
resplendently-crested, tested in battle. He lights upon the rock where
he had left his prize. The rock is there, but the prize is not.
   On the far side of the rookery, Nerrine curls up in a nook in the
rocks barely big enough to contain her. She hears the thief screaming
as she hugs the tracker close to her stomach. Part of her wants to
wait an hour, then steal back to the sea, swimming back to the shore.
But so far from shelter, or even a clean-picked corpse to crawl in,
she'll be safer waiting here until morning.
   She thinks.

COPYRIGHT (C) 2014 TOM RUSSELL.

NOTE: Regarding the bit about Nisja being used to temperatures a
couple hundred degrees colder, this is given in Celsius. Obviously our
Martian friends have a different scale, but just as with measurements
like a meter and a minute, I have chosen to give familiar Earth
equivalents.