I made a simple red circle on the mental copy of our map for Daniel.

< Got it. In other news, I’m pretty sure I know what’s got me disappearing. For real this time. >

I had a revised theory too.

We both thought at each other.

I sent.

< It’s your reaction to them. > Daniel confirmed. < Adrenaline pumps, your brain kicks into ‘fight or flight’, and it pares down anything else. >

I’d conflated his disappearances with the Nai’s powers because they seemed like the common denominator. Every time Daniel had flicked out of existence, either the Nai or an otter had materialized something to threaten or attack me. I’d gotten caught up on the ‘materialized something’ part and passed over the much more basic ‘threaten or attack’ part.

He was in a good mood despite our dire straits. I almost snapped at him about it, but it occurred to me he wasn’t only trying to improve my mood, but his own too. It was a bit easier to take his levity in stride with that in mind.

< And it takes an idiot of a higher order to retain their composure in the face of alien killers? >

I replied.

< Does it feel cool figuring out how your mind works? >

< Oh yeah, patch that up. Tear up something in the backpack. Makeshift bandage is better than open air. >

< I have no clue where to start. We’re making the assumption we even can change what kind of matter we create. > he sent.

I dug into Titus’ backpack and pulled out a pair of socks. They were the only thing I had that could be tied around the shoulder to get pressure on the wound.

< Disinfectant is a good idea, but Stalker is the more immediate threat. I’d hate to watch you bleed out thinking ‘thank goodness we cleaned the wound, though.’>

< I’ve got two actually. One is pretty lame, but if you find a good stick, we might be able to create a spearhead to put on the end of it. >

< Almost certainly not. But on the off chance it does work, you’re going to love the irony. >

< The first time we realized the otters created something from nothing, if we can make a flashbang like that otter stunned you with… >

That would be some choice irony.

< I’ll try to figure out the flashbang. >

Daniel sent me a nonverbal agreement in my mind and we both got to work.

I wanted to be ready for Stalker when it came for us again.

Both of our tasks were doable in transit though. I kept my eyes peeled for a tree branch worth carrying, and in a corner of my mind I couldn’t totally see, I could feel Daniel try to imagine materials that would ignite in a flash. Tasser finished his own preparations with his map and gun, and we got moving again.

It wasn’t a minute later, though, that we heard the distant crack of gunfire in the direction of the trail up the mountain.

That couldn’t be directed at us; it was too far away. Who was shooting? It seemed feasible there might be people at the building Tasser had pointed out on the map, but we were still a ways from there if how far we’d come already was any indication.

But then, it hadn’t been that long since Stalker had managed to separate Tasser and I from the other two. It had come at us pretty hard, but maybe we were putting up more of a fight than the otter had bargained for.

The only remaining possibility was that Stalker had peeled off us and gone for Nemuleki and the Nai.

·····

Stalker reentered my range from uphill. With gravity on its side, it could close the distance between us faster.

< If it had a firearm, we’d be dead already .> Daniel observed.

He was still around. I checked the stopwatch in my head Daniel had made and focused on keeping my breathing steady. Heart rate down, keep your cool .

There was an enemy nearby though, so urgency was paramount. I turned down the cliff and hissed, “Tasser!”

Only the faintest hint of my alien ally was visible below the cliff’s shadow, but I had a good enough view to make sure I didn’t accidentally poke him. As quickly as I could, I knelt low to the ground and thrust the heavy stick I’d found just within Tasser’s reach.

I’d learned Casti were much lighter and athletic than they seemed, despite their somewhat rotund appearance. Almost the exact opposite of the gorilla-like otters. Still though, Tasser’s bolt-rifle weighed a hefty amount. I grunted with effort hauling him up the last few feet up the cliff, but we both managed to get our feet under us before Stalker showed itself.

Finding a way up the cliff face had been difficult in the darkness. The sun had set a while ago, and only faint blues and yellows tinged the sky near the horizon.

I could sense Stalker as it moved around unseen, and it was the only method we had to detect it. In the cover of darkness, Stalker’s ‘cuttlefish armor’, as Daniel put it, was more effective than ever. As night fell, the otter could move much faster and still remain unseen. I didn’t even so much as catch a glimpse through the trees from where I sensed it. But I imagined the otter cloaking itself in darker and darker forms of camouflage, leaping from shadow to shadow ready to plunge its knife into us.

Tasser, thank God, had proved to be adept at inferring information despite having almost no language in common between the two of us.

I’d thrust a stick near their face, and they’d understood to grasp hold; that I would pull them up faster. It was also following my cue when I sensed Stalker approach.

The darkness, as it turned out, was at least partially to our advantage. Tasser’s sizable eyes were not just for show. And though it seemed that the otter’s own night vision was better than mine, its vision still suffered.

Our best course of action had actually become hiding until I could point out the direction of Stalker’s approach. Then Tasser could take a shot with its ludicrous weapon.

I knelt low behind a tree with Tasser standing just behind me. Keeping most of my body behind the cover of the trunk, I pointed with my heavy stick where I sensed the otter.

Stalker was keeping its distance though. I’d reshaped my sensory beam back to the spherical shape, but I didn’t have it perfectly centered on me though. I’d shunted the better part of the volume uphill toward Stalker.

When I used the beam, Stalker ducked out of it too quickly to keep track of it every second. It was too easy for our enemy to close ground, so the increased range the beam offered went wasted.

This way, I could cover a wide area and make sure it didn’t manage to sneak too close.

Still, in this case, we actually wanted Stalker to draw closer. Right now, Tasser couldn’t shoot what he couldn’t see.

< It’s testing your range. > Daniel realized, < That’s why it went after you first. It knows you can track it somehow. If it takes you out, then our side loses its ability to detect it at all. >

< They’re definitely still alive. > Daniel asserted, < If Stalker had managed to kill them, then it would have their gun and it would be shooting at us. No, I think it went for you first because it realized you can ignore its camouflage. Then it repositioned uphill and took a swing at the Nai because it’s weakened. It was repelled, so now it’s coming around for another shot. >

Daniel had not managed to make a flashbang. But that didn’t mean he’d made no progress.

He could not make the same amount of material I could. And while neither of us was creating halberds, or torrents of plasma, there was still a huge difference between what the two of us could do.

If I focused and painstakingly took my time, I could make about a quarter pound of matter. It was about the size of a tennis ball, and after paying close attention to the composition of the material as it formed, I could intuitively tell that my tennis ball sized lump was completely inert. Its molecules didn’t react with anything. Nothing reacted with it. It just took up space.

Daniel on the other hand, couldn’t make more than a kidney bean’s worth of matter. But he could change what kind of matter he made far more easily than me. During the car ride, it had taken a dozen attempts just to barely change the color of what I made. Even now, I still wasn’t sure how I’d done it. And I knew I couldn’t repeat the change without much more practice. Daniel had made something flammable on the second try.

It had taken a short series of experiments on the move to make something that ignited with air. But even with that development, Daniel had still been limited to a pitiful amount of material.

If I hadn’t been freezing and probably about to die to an alien otter, I would have burst out laughing at our solution.

< Do it.> Daniel thought. But he left the thought open, like it wasn’t finished. His thought, his thinking, needed to blend into mine. He was in my head after all.

‘Put our heads together.’

Under any other circumstance, it would have been hilarious. But there was no joke about it in this case.

I put my own mind behind Daniel’s.

Our preliminary experiment had been a relative success, even though it hadn’t yielded a proper flashbang.

I felt Daniel’s image of intersecting points merge with my own visualization of trillions of tiny explosions. I supplied the mass; Daniel supplied the properties we wanted that mass to have.

Working in tandem was harsh. Our minds grating against each other. But we pushed through the obstacle, and our creation flashed to life.

A plum sized ball of clay flickered as the surface of it spat sparks in every direction. It didn’t explode. It was more firework than flashbang, but it would do for now.

We’d created it mid air off to the side of the tree and it began falling as soon as it appeared.

I gripped both hands on my scavenged stick, and the sparking ball fell right into place. I swung my makeshift bat and hit the sparking ball careening in Stalker’s direction.

Flickering yellow light lit up the trees as it flew between them. It glanced off a tree, deflecting into a pile of snow where it sputtered before extinguishing itself by melting the snow.

But as the light it gave off faded, my eyes caught a dark figure passing over a bright patch of snow.

If my eyes picked it up, then– CRACK .

Tasser’s rifle let out a deafening blast and for a moment, the whole slope was illuminated by the shot.

Daniel’s and my firework had cast a few shadows, but the muzzle flash from Tasser’s weapons went ten times further and brighter. Long channels of light cast even longer dark shadows where they struck the trees, but for a split second we had an illuminated view of everything within our line of sight.

Stalker was camouflaged for darkness, but its dark outline stood out under the bright light. It froze with one arm covering its face from the flash.

Tasser had missed by only a few inches–an amazing shot in the dark, as far as I was concerned.

But he’d still missed.

Tasser immediately turned around and started putting distance between us and Stalker. I followed close behind. The path we took wound up and down the slope. Ducking back and forth like this would make it harder for Stalker to know which exact direction we were going.

I sensed the otter take a parallel path to ours, putting Stalker uphill again. It was trying to position itself for height. It could leap quite the distance, with the slope and gravity assisting it, we might be vulnerable even now.

It would help if I could see the terrain Stalker might approach from.

I started, wanting to make another firework, only to feel that he had vanished from my mind again. Had I gotten too worked up? I thought I’d stayed calm enough to keep him around.

He also vanished when we broke out of the cell. Creating the pebbles took more energy than he had. Our firework must have been similar. It was the most refined thing either of us had created, and even if I was supplying the mass, he still had to alter all of that mass.

He might be out for a while.

I was on my own with Stalker and Tasser for the foreseeable future.

There was no time to delay then, we needed to reload the rifle to keep Stalker at a manageable distance.

I reached out and grabbed the collar of Tasser’s poncho, stopping them. Immediately, they checked which direction I was pointing and ducked behind the opposite side of a tree.

There was a mechanical click , followed by a ping from Tasser ejecting the spent bolt. In the same moment, I felt Stalker move.

I realized a moment too late that the otter didn’t need to only rely on sight to track us. There were two of us, and compared to Stalker, we were clumsy and not at all stealthy. But more importantly, we were loud .

It had timed its attack by waiting for the sound of Tasser to reload the rifle.

The attack came higher than I expected. I didn’t zero in on Stalker’s precise location until it leapt several feet above my head. It was jumping from tree to tree! It could change the texture of the cuttlefish armor it created, it was probably using the same trick to help it grip the bark.

I swept my branch blindly up through the darkness. I connected a glancing blow with something dark and heavy.

Stalker tumbled to the ground close enough that I could see it. The otter scrambled upright, trying to get around the tree Tasser was behind. It wanted to take out our gun.

It must have realized, even if I could detect it, Tasser was the real threat it faced.

It was my turn to jump at the otter. Stalker reacted to my attack, swaying out of the way of what it thought was my fist. But even as it danced out of arm’s reach, I swung my stick at it.

I had a lot of practice swinging sticks.

My blow only clipped its shoulder, but the blow still had enough force to put Stalker off balance. The moment was enough for me to adjust my grip and follow up with a sharp jab, using my stick like a quarterstaff or spear.

I couldn’t tell exactly what body part I connected with, but the otter yelped, letting out the first sound I’d heard from it in an hour. I followed by bringing my staff up with both hands to try and bash it overhead, but my swing only hit air. The alien could see my attacks in the darkness better than I could aim them.

It was too hard to keep an eye on the alien. Every time it moved it shifted the dark colors splaying across the cuttlefish armor. I hadn’t taken my eyes off it, and I’d still misread the shapes in front of me.

Click .

Time was up though.

Tasser’s rifle snapped shut, and the sound marked the Casti being ready to fire again.

Stalker recognized the sound too and immediately bolted.

The otter had gotten within just a foot or two of its target, and my intervention hadn’t pushed it aside more than a yard or so. It could have pounced for Tasser again. But it would have been risky.

From its perspective, it had to be because of the Nai and Nemuleki somewhere out there. If it took that risk, and lost? Even if it managed to get both Tasser and I, if it died in the process, then the two of them still escaped. It needed to stay alive more than it wanted to kill any one of us.

Sounds of branches snapping and rocks clattering faded as a two-hundred-pound otter practically dove through them down the slope. It was considerably less stealthy on the retreat. I was getting a sense for its game plan though. Go up the mountain to attack, and flee downward.

Was it really that tough? I couldn’t believe it could just hurl itself down the mountain with no injuries. Maybe it wasn’t just using its camouflage for armor, but cushioning instead.

I couldn’t see it at all, but watching it run away again bolstered my mood. I was freezing, it was so dark I couldn’t see my footing, and I’d managed to slip the makeshift bandage off my shoulder in the scuffle. But I couldn’t help but enjoy the sounds of Stalker running away.

It hadn’t been a win. It was still basically unharmed, and it had probably learned more about our limits. But it hadn’t been a loss either. This was the second time Tasser, and I had repelled Stalker, and this time it hadn’t been just wild flailing on our part.

We didn’t speak ten words in common between us, but they and I had stood our ground and fended off something more dangerous than any wild animal.

It made me feel like we could do it again.

There wasn’t time to revel though. It hadn’t been dark that long, but even compared to just a few minutes earlier the temperature was plummeting. While it had still been light, I would have guessed it was somewhere close to forty degrees, but the air was already below freezing now. I could feel the sweat freezing my hair stiff in spots on my head. A thin line of frost was forming around the edge of my air mask where the moisture of my breath accumulated even the slightest bit.

We needed shelter as soon as possible.

Tasser and I pushed onward. Staying on the move would keep me warm for a little while. But as we went higher on the mountain, it became much harder to keep an invigorating pace. Even though we’d made it up over the cliff, we’d still been forced off the path. The terrain was rough, and as it got steeper, rocks and dirt would slip out from underfoot more easily. We had to slow down, and I felt the numb creep into my toes.

The environment was every bit as dangerous as Stalker was. One wrong step could send me slipping down the same rough slope, and unlike the enemy otter, I couldn’t forge armor to protect me on the way down.

Well, maybe eventually I could learn. But for now, it remained dangerous. More than once I slipped on one foot and my weight came down on the walking stick. Luckily, it dug into the dirt well enough to hold me in place, and I didn’t go tumbling to my death. I noticed, despite the width of Casti feet, Tasser could find steady footholds without fail. The Nai’s ears reminded me of a goat or sheep’s, but the way Tasser moved on the mountain was like a ram or a mountain goat.

Our pace slowed to a painstaking crawl as we reached the crest of the ridge. We emerged from the tree line and picked our way up to the trail tracing the ridge’s spine. Leaving the trees behind put us back under the stars proper.

I’d occasionally heard the phrase ‘it’s always darkest before dawn’, but it didn’t seem to be true on this planet. In the minutes following sunset, the mountain had been plunged into near total darkness. But it was growing slowly brighter as more and more stars began to emerge above the sky.

The view was incredible. The valley was dissonantly bright. The yellow and pink colors of the trees gave the impression that they glowed faintly in the night. I couldn’t see it directly, but I could make out a gap in the trees blanketing the valley where a river cut through the mountain.

That stream had probably carved the whole of this mountainside.

It was night; it had practically been pitch-black minutes ago! My eyes had adjusted as much as they could. I started to think something had happened to my eyes, but seeing Tasser’s gaze look up instead of down at the valley, I was reminded of the other view.

Miles from any civilization, with no moon reflecting a sun, there was no light to compete with the starlight. There weren’t even any clouds to spoil the view. The whole valley was filled with starlight and suddenly I wished I had a camera.

I’d never forget the image. If I could keep a notebook in my head, I could keep a picture.

But I wouldn’t be able to share it with anyone. It was the kind of thing best shared. But not even Daniel was here to appreciate the splendor.

For a moment, I forgot everything and just stared upward at a vista of stars I’d only seen once before. The view from the spaceship had been technically superior, through the windows in the ship Daniel and I had been overwhelmed by the sheer number of faint stars that were visible that deep in space.

But seeing them with my feet on the ground like this gave it a sense of natural elegance that the spaceship’s view simply lacked. I’d hiked up a mountain and twice fought off a murderous alien, and this wasn’t a half bad reward.

I was caught off guard by the view. An otter was out for blood, and I was freezing. I shouldn’t have given it any special attention.

But I was a tired, cold, and miserable person right then. So I stared at the sky for a moment.

But Tasser was not so willing to linger.

While it might be getting easier to see, it was getting colder with every moment. Worse still, we had a ways to go. Tasser knelt on the ridge trail and pulled out the map. Under the starlight, it was possible to make out the lines and colors of the paper.

Tasser ran their finger along one of the trails, and gestured to us. That was the ridgeline we were currently standing on. They pointed to our right, the northeast of the ridge as we came over it.

“The Nai & Nemuleki.” I said, pointing to match their indication.

Tasser nodded and pointed almost directly north, indicating the building we were going toward. The structure was actually plainly visible in the distance, settled on the other side of the new valley we’d crested, high up on the opposite ridge. It was much taller than I expected. On the map, it was just a single rectangle at the end of a road that snaked its way up the valley.

But the truth was it was a series of buildings tucked closely together built directly into the side of the mountain. A pair of dormant thick smokestacks poked up from one of the buildings, giving off an odd industrial vibe. It stuck out compared to the untouched nature in every direction. The way the buildings met the slope gave the impression that the structures continued underground.

It’s a mine , I realized. It was the only kind of industrial facility that would be shoved deep into a mountain valley. The smokestacks were probably for a furnace or machinery for processing rubble and metal.

Though seeing our destination renewed some of my strength, I had badly overestimated our progress, or maybe we’d been forced further off the trail than I realized.

It was at least a mile away. Depending on how you judged where we started exactly, we were barely halfway there.

Even accounting for the fact we were moving downhill, and therefore faster, now, there was no way we would make it that distance without Stalker taking at least one more swing at us.

I thought at him, trying to rouse him. <<< Daniel!>>>

I wanted him active again. Our firework had been helpful, but we’d shown our hand. If we wanted to beat Stalker for a third time, we needed to have something to surprise it with.

We needed that flashbang.