Guessing

Being on the move again was reassuring.

There weren’t any vehicles intact back at the mining facility, so there was no chance Trapper would be pursuing anytime soon. That was reassuring. Tasser and I hadn’t taken the risk of checking where Trapper landed. Better to get out while we could.

It was still brutally cold. Despite the sun peeking through a few points in the clouds, it was an overcast day on this alien planet. The only thing making the ride more comfortable was the absence of wind. Our truck crunched through the snow at a middling pace.

Every thirty seconds or so there was a pop a few feet off the back of the vehicle.

I was making explosions. Very small ones, but explosions, nonetheless. We were experimenting.

< You’re sure it’s the mass? >

I wanted a bit more boom; a heavier impact than anything I could inflict on my own. There was no chance I’d be able to replicate the high explosive mines that Trapper had used. Not from the back of a truck. Not improvising like this.

I’d need… well I didn’t know exactly what, but I knew I didn’t have it here.

That was assuming I could even make a molecule as complex as high explosives.

< That’s assuming we’re even making molecules. > Daniel said.

< I only ask because I don’t know the chemical composition of our flashbang, and I’m pretty sure you don’t either. >

He was right about that. I didn’t. I had a pattern in my head, a very abstract pattern that I couldn’t begin to put into words. But I understood it. I could make a sphere, and fill it with that pattern.

< Probably, but do you even know the atomic number for phosphorus off the top of your head? How many neutrons it has? >

I did not.

The flashbang still followed chemistry though. I could tell that it reacted with the air to burn… to me that proved it was indeed matter we were creating.

Talking about chemistry again refocused me on our experiments.

Trapper had shown that it could make huge firebombs or the more impactful explosives. When Daniel and I had first coordinated on the flashbang, we’d managed to make something that burned and sparked, but not something that actually exploded.

It hadn’t been our goal, but we’d made something that burned more than it blew up.

That was the difference between Hollywood fireballs, and actual ordinance.

If we could actually tweak the formula, we could actually end up with an actual weapon. Less burn would mean more boom.

Tasser was watching the experiments I was conducting with an expression that, on a human face, meant awe. But the Casti’s body language didn’t match.

For whatever reason, body language was much easier to read than facial expressions.

Daniel thought it was because our bodies were fundamentally similar. Torso. Two legs. Two arms. Similar configurations communicate similar things.

I didn’t think it could be that simple, but I didn’t have a better theory. And that was all it was, really. Theory.

Posture. Expression. Science. Even what little I knew of the language was built on sand. We just didn’t have any information we could count on. We were just guessing at everything. What else we could do?

So far, we’d leaned more on blind speculation rather than proper hypotheses, but that was exactly what we were trying to correct now. We had a quiet moment to actually try and stress test the conclusions our observations had pointed us toward.

Daniel had been diminished when I’d created the stun bomb against Trapper, which meant that even if he wasn’t assisting me in the creation, it still wore on him. And if that was the case, what incentive did we have for him not to assist?

< The distance is the interesting part to me. > Daniel remarked, having taken visible form. He was hovering a few feet above the snowy road behind the ruck. < You managed to create the flashbang against Trapper several feet away from yourself. But earlier, you mentioned how you made it in your hand against the first Vorak. >

I felt like I’d seen it before.

Wait…

I had seen it before! It had been the first thing we’d learned about Daniel’s specks. His ability to manifest them followed his image.

I recalled.

< …my range is your range. > he concluded.

It was a good thing too. If I’d had to create our little experiments in the palm of my hand, I don’t think any of my company would have put up with it.

We’d reduced the mass of our creation by as much as we could justify, down to the tiniest amount of mass we could still perceive. In addition to not bothering the driver as much, less mass and energy at work meant our trials didn’t tax Daniel much either.

So, the truck rolled carefully through the heavy fresh snow and every minute or so a small pop sparked a meter or two off the back bumper.

Only the further we got into it, the more duds we got.

I complained.

I was trying to make something blow with enough force to maybe knock an otter off its feet, but somehow, we’d gone in the opposite direction and now they weren’t exploding at all.

< Have we somehow run out of energy? >

< I’m not sure how much we can lean on chemistry here. It sure seems like it’s supposed to spontaneously ignite on contact with air, but I don’t actually know the reaction.>

< Not the oxygen gas in the atmosphere? >

< We’re also at altitude. Less air means less oxygen. >

Effectively, there wasn’t enough combustible material to react spontaneously with the sparse oxygen in the air. I made a bigger speck, almost a full gram. It gave a satisfying crack as it blew itself apart.

Going too small had its own problems.

< Where does it go? > Daniel wondered.

< The products. Reactants aren’t destroyed, even in the explosion. So where do they go? >

I focused and pinched a thin strip of metal into existence. Well, strictly speaking, I didn’t actually know what it was. I called it metal, but I knew in my head it couldn’t really be metal.

Even stable metals reacted with things. But having created it myself, I had some ineffable insight into its characteristics. I could tell there was nothing that would react with the slip. It was a noble solid.

I could also tell it wouldn’t stick around. After a few seconds it would…dissolve into…well, nothing . Even as I watched it happen, I couldn’t explain it. Not even in the generalized abstract way I understood how it was created.

< If we’re already violating the ‘cannot be created’ part, I guess it follows that ‘cannot be destroyed’ would go out the window too. >

< That’s the fun with stuff like this. > Daniel smirked, < Up until a few days ago, we would have called all this ‘theoretical physics’ .>

I finished.

I shared his enthusiasm, at least some of it. If we managed to get out of harm’s way, I’d probably enjoy the opportunity to learn more for myself.

We still weren’t making any progress though. As much as I wanted to apply science to these creations, it wasn’t so easy in practice. Huddling under a tarp in the back of a run-down alien truck through subzero weather was hardly ‘laboratory conditions’.

It was time for a break.

I wondered.

< Nemuleki got hit with a bomb, and Nai is…still completely unconscious. The two—three?—of us are riding in the back because we’re actually in better shape. >

Daniel was right, though I didn’t like it.

Nai was responsible for helping us against Stalker. But even if the grey-blue alien was technically an ally, it was still hostile toward me. It was hard to describe the certainty I felt. From the first moment I’d met it, Nai had been ready to kill me.

I liked to think I was friendly. Given how well I felt like I was getting along with Tasser, I felt like I’d done a pretty good job of being friendly with the aliens so far. Vorak notwithstanding, of course.

Trouble with Nai was that it didn’t just feel hostile. Every time it looked at me, I was struck with the quiet certainty that it made sure it was ready to incinerate me at a moment’s notice. It went beyond hostility. It was barely restrained animosity. Enmity.

I was an alien to it; was it literally xenophobic?

It seemed to get along with Tasser and Nemuleki well enough, but they wore the same uniform. If that was the only reason it had, I was going to be pretty irate.

Enmity alone wouldn’t concern me.

But combined with capability?

The way Nai carried itself slinging its teal cosmic fire… it was experienced. Nai was not a stranger, blindly groping through the dark like I was. It knew its powers. It probably knew more about my powers than I did.

Now that I had a bit more time to think about it, it was a small miracle I’d been able to fall asleep at all near it. If it had been awake, and registering on my Enumius radar, I would have been up all night.

It was capable of killing me with a thought. So much more than the icy weather, that made my blood freeze. With friends like it, who needed the Vorak? At least Stalker and Trapper had been unambiguous.

Nai felt just as hostile, but it was capricious. Like it might smite me later, whenever it was more convenient.

I asked Daniel.

< I don’t know if it’s quite to the intensity you think it is, but you’re definitely not imagining it. >

< Hard to say for sure. I think it definitely doesn’t like you, but you met under some strenuous circumstances. >

< …Not unless you secretly swung by a spa or something when I wasn’t up and about. >

< What are the odds the Vorak are hunting you by smell? > Daniel chuckled.

I wondered.

< Moot point, hermano. These are aliens that just happen to look like otters. They might not have been big swimmers for a few hundred thousand years.>

That got me thinking about just whose planet we were on. I doubted it could be the Vorak’s planet. What few glimpses I had of the settlements and towns we’d passed through were entirely Casti.

But every time we’d been anywhere near a town, Tasser had made sure that Nai and I were both low and out of sight in the back of the vehicle.

< You and the blue-meanie stand out. > Daniel guessed, < I assume we’re trying to keep a low profile and avoid otter attention. >

That was solid reasoning. Once the tunnel had come down behind us, Tasser had been laxer about the riding arrangements.

Of course, if I understood correctly, bringing the tunnel down was to bar pursuers. But we’d already run afoul of two otters, with more guaranteed to follow.

< Actually… isn't it kind of crazy it’s only been two? >

< But we haven’t seen any other aircraft. >

< We ran into two Vorak in less than a full day. You really think they don’t have an idea of where we are? >

< I think there’s only a handful of them. Three to five. Six tops. I’m guessing on the area here, but if there were any more of them, they wouldn’t each be alone. They’d be in pairs or teams. >

Even as I said it, I knew it didn’t fit.

< They were in squads up there. > Daniel reminded me.

The Vorak on the space station had been working in teams. There was more than enough evidence to nix the idea that they were solitary fighters. They wore uniforms, they had standardized equipment. There was infrastructure and organization to these otters.

I recalled.

< Huh. Stalker had the knife, but what are the odds it was created like Trapper made the crossbow? >

Okay now I was really curious.

< Simplify the question first; why would soldiers not carry weapons? >

His tone told me he wanted me to spar ideas—see what possibilities survived scrutiny. I tried to rattle through the possibilities that sprang to mind.

< All of them? Come on dude. >

< Better to have it and not need it then need it and not have it. >

< Hard pass. They’re uniformed, actively hunting us, and using explosives. If they had guns, they’d use them. These guys aren’t playing in the woods. >

Playing in the woods? What if they were? Trapper seemed to have stolen this vehicle, which was visibly made for Casti occupants. These Vorak were scrounging for resources to hunt us with, just as much as we were to escape.

The possibility was not comforting. How did the Casti fight against these things? Without support or even weapons, just two otters had nearly killed us. And each one of them had been on their own!

< Stalker and Trapper were both empowered. Maybe you don’t bother carrying weapons when you can create them? >

< Not without an equalizer. >

< True. A different angle then. Instead of asking ‘why’, what about when? >

< My best guess is that these guys were off duty or something. I’m imagining a uniformed squad driving from Camp Pendleton up to Beale, or the otter equivalent. They wouldn’t necessarily be armed if they weren’t acting as soldiers at the moment. >

< I mean, you’re kidding, but wouldn’t it have to? I’m pretty sure even the Mongols had leave. >

< But over the course of a few hours communication trickles out and down, and an off-duty squad ends up being the spear of a manhunt. >

< That’s kinda reductive, isn’t it? >

< Everybody’s an idiot, including us. So, glass houses, you know? > I weighed his point, but he wasn’t done. < I didn’t mean the army though, I meant the Vorak. >

< You’re right, we don’t know anything about them or what they’re capable of. You’re taking that to assume Stalker and Trapper were just grunts. But for all we know, these guys could be way further up the totem pole.>

< No, but that’s my point. They’re fucking lethal! Instead of thinking that we’re barely surviving against their faceless mooks, treat it like we’ve gone 2 and 0 against aliens that would reshape warfare as we know it back home. That’s a pretty good track record. >

< It’s why we have to keep focused on what’s in front of us. So far, compared to wimpy Caleb, Stalker and Trapper were fucking monsters. And we didn’t die. Keep that in mind. >

I protested.

< I know for a fact that yesterday’s evening stroll was the furthest you’ve walked in weeks. >

I rolled my eyes. We’d probably hiked three or four miles in the cold last night, and I’d been dog tired by the end of it. But it wasn’t my fault. I’d been cooped up on a spaceship for a few weeks. There hadn’t exactly been room to run.

Something stuck out to me about what he said though.

I noticed.

< What ?>

I repeated, differently.

< What about it? >

< Huh. > Daniel noticing the incongruity. < Bear. Bare .> He experimented. I could tell which one he meant. I could even tell that he hadn’t meant the big animal, but rather the verb meaning to carry or hold a burden.

I said.

< I guess it begs the question how you and I actually communicate like this. Because we already know it’s not sound. >

< You know, broadly speaking, I’m pretty sure this qualifies as telepathy. >

I snorted,

< I’m thinking of other parallels. If we really think about it, you’re not the first human being to say they have a second person in their head? >

< Dissociative Identity Disorder. > Daniel corrected.

< But I mean DID. > Daniel said, < Because you’re not hallucinating, not really. I remember reading that what few DID patients have been studied in depth, most of them weren’t aware of their alters egos — as in, they couldn’t talk with them in their own head. >

I said, following his logic,

< I’m not trying to write a textbook; I’m just trying to put some if it into words. This shit’s insane. >

I thought, glancing at Tasser.

< Oh that reminds me, try to ask Tasser about why they’re unarmed. > Daniel suggested. < We shouldn’t jump to conclusions just because we had something that survived a few minutes scrutiny .>

I was eager to know more about the Vorak hunting us too, so I pantomimed the question to Tasser, motioning a gun.

“Vorak. Ala…” I pointed back and tried to make gun sounds. “ Pew. Pew. ”

< Oh my god, I wish I could record this .>

I grumbled.

Tasser, unfortunately, did not understand. He didn’t even bother saying anything back, maybe on account of the cold. Instead he gestured toward the bolt-rifle.

“Yeah… Su. ” I said. Uhh…

< Mmm… oh shit, I know we heard that one. Why didn’t we write it down? > Daniel flipped through the mental journal.

Despite the setback, I tried to stay focused on the actual goal—asking about the Vorak guns and lack thereof.

Except once again, I failed to elicit the right response. Because he cracked open the rifle, retrieved the round still loaded into it, and pulled three more from a pouch beneath its poncho.

Wait, we only had four shots left?

< You were wondering how the Casti keep up with the Enumius stuff. Those bullets are powerful. Makes senses there wouldn’t be an infinite supply .>

I confessed.

Suddenly, I wasn’t in such a rush to confirm why our enemies weren’t more able to kill us.

Neither Daniel or I was up to continuing our Enumius experiments for the present, so I settled in and tried to rest while we wound through the mountain roads.

The ride was quiet, and I made some miscellaneous observations and notes in the journal.

Things like… ‘there don’t seem to be pine trees, trees here are the same from where we landed.’

‘I can still get sunburned from an alien sun.’

‘How many calories are in one of these stupid protein blocks?’

‘After everything that’s happened, physically, I should feel like a 2/10. But instead I’m at a 4 or 5/10. Is the lower gravity really that less stressful?’

Things like that.

Daniel was deep in his own thoughts as well when Nemuleki slowed the truck down and we actually turned off this road and onto one that went further east.

I was scanning the woods when I saw some movement far up the road we’d just turned off.

Some figure was surging through the woods, cutting the corner.

It was fast too. The snow didn’t seem to do a thing. I couldn’t tell if it was running toward us by coincidence or on purpose. But once it arrived at the break in the trees, it fixed its gaze on us and started after us.

It was far enough away that I didn’t think it was particularly dangerous. At least, I could tell it wasn’t a Vorak. It wasn’t big enough.

The animal was somewhere between a hyena and panther, but it had unbelievably thin limbs. Like a greyhound. There was a thickness through its shoulders and neck that was reminiscent of a lion’s mane, but it wasn’t that overstated.

It was black. Or dark grey. It contrasted so much with the white snow it was hard to tell.

A second one joined in soon after, coming from the opposite direction we had.

It seemed totally possible the animals were just following the road. I knew deer did that back on earth. Especially with our truck flattening some of the loose snow. We were carving some nice channels for any wandering wildlife to have some easy migrating through.

The two animals actually kept pace with the vehicle fairly well, hanging back a few dozen yards. They were almost bouncing through the snow, going up and down.

< Should we be worried? >

< I mean… they are chasing us. Right? >

“Tasser.” I said, pointing.

We came around a bend in the road that put the alien hounds out of sight for a moment. Tasser gave me a glance, likely a suspicious one, but in a second…

The hounds came around the corner and Tasser stared out at them for a second. His eyes twitched, focusing in on them for a second.

Tasser hissed a single word. Some kind of Casti swear?

He shrugged the tarp he was keeping warm under off and banged a bulky hand on the roof of the truck. He wanted to make sure Nemuleki saw them?

No, he wanted to make sure our driver saw that he was getting out the big gun.

He shouted something to the other Casti and began retrieving the bolt-rifle from the tarp he’d wrapped it in.

Tasser recognized these animals, clearly. They were either dangerous enough to shoot… or they were enemies.

< Caleb ,> Daniel said, < Look closely at their torsos. >

It wasn’t easy at this distance. They were just distant black dogs bobbing up and down out of the snow.

Except… upon further inspection, what appeared to be solid black fur was actually interrupted by a certain familiar shade of dark green. It was the same dark green canvas material that Stalker and Trapper’s body suits had been. The hounds were wearing Vorak vests.

< They look more like big cats to me, but I think the difference is academic. We couldn’t be the only species in the universe to have the idea to domesticate animals. >

I took a deep breath, steeling myself. We’d known Trapper wouldn’t be the last. Maybe I should feel lucky that I’d gotten the reprieve that I had.

We’d gone through two Vorak already. I could make it through one more. I had to.

One more hunter to beat. First Stalker, then Trapper. There had to be a Vorak directing these animals. One that was a hunter too, leading a pack of hunting hounds.

< Courser .> Daniel decided.

< Coursing is a specific word for using animals in hunting though. >

I wasn’t in the mood to argue.

In everything but words, Trapper had screamed that it had help coming. And here help was. Too late for Trapper, but not late enough. There was something different this time. A light at the end of the tunnel.

Stalker and Trapper had both already been in our path.

Our own route had delivered us to them.

But we hadn’t run into Courser. It was catching up to us, from behind. It was the one chasing us now. It meant we’d gotten past them. If they were having to chase us now, then maybe it meant there weren’t any more Vorak in our way. We were close to evading them for good.

< One more. > Daniel said.

“One more.” I agreed.