They collapsed into each other—two withered, boneless bodies melting together. Two overwhelmed, exhausted, depleted minds with so much to say and no energy or desire to say any of it. So they sobbed and their chests quaked and the sounds of pounding waves seemed all too fitting.
Their grips gradually eased and Minnie peered up at Aether’s face. “That was from John.”
Aether choked a little, nodded and blinked rapidly, lips curling and compressing, fresh tears streaming down frosty trails. Her lips were turning purple; her whole face was a bit blue.
Minnie let go, picked up Aether’s helmet, and helped her put it back on. “You need to warm up.”
Intense eyes glued to Minnie’s, Aether wiped away the tears and lowered her visor until it was open just a crack.
“Hey, Minnie,” Pablo said.
Pablo!
She felt awful. She’d forgotten he was there. “Come here, you!” She threw her arms around him and he lifted her off the ground, waving her left and right. “So good to see you… and not just ‘cause you’re here to save my life.”
He chuckled. “Well, we’ll see how much saving—ho hey-hey-hey, what’s this?” Pablo set her down and tried to check beneath her cap. The gauze over her ear must have been peeking out.
She smiled, grabbed his hand, and squeezed it lovingly. “A little project for you. But later.” She turned back to Aether, whose focus had shifted southward, down the beach.
“Where’d your friends go?” Aether asked.
Minnie cocked her head to the sea. “I was literally about to ask you the same thing.”
Aether cast a scowl to the horizon. “Biggest hole you’ll ever meet, and they put her in charge of our afvrik. She’s gone and not coming back.”
Minnie pointed past the surf. “What about that one?”
Aether spun round and spied the other afvrik that had been hanging out since the first one left. “Tunhkset! She stayed!”
The afvrik’s handler made a gesture Minnie recognized at once. “Come now.”
Lined up in one row across the bobbing creature’s back, the rest of the Threck echoed their leader, “Come now.”
Pablo clapped his gloves together. “Ha! She actually stayed!” He grinned, astonished, as he shook his head. He clapped once more and eyed Minnie. “Soooo… You happen to have a skimmer parked around here somewhere? I’ve got a pregnant girlfriend waiting back home.”
Minnie blinked. “Wait, what?”
Epilogue
Magnified through a biotherm optic, a parasitic worm clings to a brain’s limbic cortex, two rows of tiny barbed appendages anchoring the creature to the organ. When the host moves, the parasite writhes subtly. A horror scene.
Zooming out from the brain, outside the host creature’s body cavity, an intelligent lifeform—a distinguished member of her society and the head of her civilization’s revered assembly of philosophers—stands proudly before a new structure that exemplifies her people’s accomplishment. A scene of accelerated evolution.
Floating upward to a bird’s-eye view, pointing downward, the leader is seen extending an arm to another intelligent lifeform—a distinguished member of a different society, recently rescued and returned from a dangerous land—and the pair exchange words of praise. A scene of peace, optimism, and potential.
Zooming out again, beyond the bustling construction site, beyond the adjacent field of emerging crops, and across an ocean to another land, the view descends on a shaded patch of coastal vegetation, and a frenzied pack of massive predators ripping plants from the soil. As they claw at the entrance to their prey’s burrow, a red cloud of disturbed fungus spores drifts about, sticking to the beasts’ mouths, and flowing into their windpipes. Another scene of potential.
And finally, zooming out once more, past the clouds, past an orbiting field of debris in the thermosphere, the planet shrinking from a globe, to a ball, to a speck, to nothing. Zooming out farther still, farther, and further.
Acknowledgements
Editing services provided by the keen intellect of Kristina Circelli from Red Road Editing. As always, these stories would be nothing without my growing list of amazing beta readers: Alyssa W, Angela P, Bill H, Bill R, DeeDee B, Eric D, Jessica B, Joe S, Karen L, Laura B, Laurie J, Lori W, Pascal B, Scott K, Stacey L, Venture C, and Vicky W—thank you all! Further thanks to Hugh Howey, John Chiu, Mary Roach, Jon Reiner, Eugene Mallove, Gregory Matloff, Kevin Fong, M.D., everyone else who took the time to answer one or more of my silly questions over the past two years, and, of course, my wife, Ana, for all she does, and all she puts up with.
About the Author
Michael Siemsen lives in Northern California with his wife, three kids, dog Brody, cat Atom, several fish, two chupacabrii, and one pesky demon. He continues, as we speak, to spill his guts for your entertainment.
Connect with the author:
twitter: @michaelsiemsen
A Warm Place to Call Home (a demon’s story)
The Many Lives of Samuel Beauchamp (a demon’s story)
The Dig (Book 1 of the Matt Turner series)
The Opal (Book 2 of the Matt Turner series)
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locations are used factitiously. Other names, characters, incidents, and places are the products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Michael Siemsen
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof.
FANTOME and logo are trademarks of Fantome Publishing, LLC.
Editing services provided by Red Road Editing/Kristina Circelli
ISBN 978-1-940757-22-3 (Trade Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-940757-21-6 (epub)
ISBN 978-1-940757-20-9 (Kindle)