Michael Siemsen - Exigency

Accessing her surface probe catalogue, she filtered down to visuals, and bumped four units onto the large, movable screen to her right. She pinched the panel’s edge, angling the screen toward her. Her eyes locked in on the upper-right quarter where a probe lay on the ground outside a tall hut, pointed into a dark doorway. She tapped the black area inside the hut. The camera’s exposure corrected. Inside, now visible, a clan chieftain lay atop a bed of stacked Hynka skins. Ish leaned closer to the screen, bumped away the three other quarters so the doorway filled the display, and zoomed the camera until the hut’s outer walls disappeared.

She moved her face nearer still, her fone auto-compensating for focus, and watched for a while as the chieftain nibbled on a tiny bone.

John and Aether stepped out of the CO, quietly chatting. Only “Minnie” and “insisting” were audible. John noticed Ish coming up the hall and touched Aether’s elbow.

“Hi, Ish,” he said. “I just started going over your most recent report. You mind if I get back to you Wednesday? If that’s not enough time, you can absolutely add it to Thursday’s package as is. You know I trust you.”

“It’s fine,” she replied, stopping in front of them. “You caught that missing reference vid last time. I always appreciate your help.”

John returned a smile and modest shrug. He turned to Aether. “After group?”

Aether nodded and faced Ish as John slipped behind her, into the common room. She put her hands on Ish’s shoulders, lowered her chin, explored her eyes, a warm smile. “Talk to me.”

“What about? All is well.”

Aether wasn’t buying it, but she didn’t press. “You know we haven’t hung out in forever, just us? Besides one-on-ones, you know? If it’s my quarters—if it’s Minnie—you know I can come to you. Or,” she raised a conspiratorial eyebrow, “I could always kick her out of our room.”

“Sure, that sounds nice.”

Unassuaged concern weighed on Aether’s face. “You know I love you, beti.”

“You, too.”

Aether clearly wished to embrace her, but others had entered the hall from both ends. Aether waved Ish into the common room where group would soon begin.

John and Zisa sat at opposite sides of the big round table, while Minnie filled a cup of water from the dispensary. John and Zisa both had the telling, zoned-out faces of fone rapture. Ish sat down as others streamed in, talking too loud for the quiet room.

Suddenly, Zisa blurted out, “What the pip?” silencing the room.

Minnie snorted. “Pip? Is that what people are saying? ” Minnie liked to mock Zisa’s obsession with Earth pop culture. “Or rather, what they were saying?” Everything they received was nearly two decades old, and likely obsolete, but Zisa loved it all and tried not to be bothered by the slights.

“Shut up,” Zisa said, her gaze still fixed on a blank wall. “The pod!”

Ish’s focus snapped from the table to Zisa.

“What about it?” Qin said as he mounted a stool.

“I’ve been going over the manifest,” Zisa replied. “There’s a song—a number-one hit—called Rape Dance .”

Gasps and laughs.

Minnie plunked down beside Zisa. “That’s amazing. Who’s the artist?”

“Um… oh, well, it matches… The Tampon Fuses .”

Everyone cackled, even John, but Zisa didn’t appear so amused. “Guys, how is this funny? Think about what this means. Think about what it says about Earth culture if the majority of people were into a song like this.”

“Come on, Zees,” Tom said. “It could be satirical. You have no idea.”

“Yeah,” Pablo said. “Plus it’s twenty years old. We’ll just have to wait for the pod to get here and all listen to it. Hey, let’s open next week’s group with it. But nobody gets to listen to it before that! It’ll be a bonding experience.”

Zisa’s gripes and the others’ chuckles slowly faded from Ish’s ears as the game loaded in her fone. She focused her eyes on the bare wall between Tom and Zisa, and enabled her avatar.

Flinging aside the weighty fur blanket, she rose from the bed.

Ish set down the helmet beside the utility belt on the supply boxes, and pulled her hair out the back of her suit. She slid off the hairband and shook her head, fluffing away the oppressively taut ponytail she’d worn for so long. Her curly locks drank in the humidity and would soon swell into a striking headdress.

As she hiked through the underbrush toward the great city of Er Khosh, she severed her gloves from the suit, pitching them into bushes without a backward glance. She unzipped the top of her survival suit down to the waist, leaving only her halter bra above the waist. Cool air grazed her bare midriff, shoulders, and arms.

Set to autoglide, her optics transitioned through spectrums. Foliage shifted from white to orange, from purple to black, red-outlined, translucent, entirely invisible. Still strolling at a leisurely pace, she flipped back to biotherm, having caught sight of a distance lifeform. 10 o’clock, 33m ahead… a false alarm. A large carnivorous plant. Her pace quickened.

Mapping guided her along a route she’d planned weeks ago, circumnavigating the bone-laden shrine of Hwahxo, two kilometers along the sundrenched crest of a hidden pass, and then a half-K down to an unobstructed overlook of Er Khosh.

As she sauntered to the overlook’s tip, a growing panorama broadened before her. Hundreds of strident Greaters and timid Lessers hustled about the barren field, unaware of her presence. At the cliff’s edge, she slid her palms up her sweat-glazed forehead into her frizzed hair, filled her lungs as she hurled her arms out before her, and called to them.

“Greaters!”

Those nearest halted first, scanning about for the strange voice’s source. Just as their gazes found her, the next farthest cluster froze, and then the next, until time had appeared to stop across the entire expanse. She looked out at the hushed masses, hearing only the sigh of a gentle breeze.

“Know all! Fear all! Here Shroosh!”

The congregation dropped to their backsides in succession, like dominoes. Muted chatter bustled through the electrified horde.

“All change! Er Khosh change!”

Submissive heads sneaked upward glances at the Goddess of Floods incarnate, no doubt pondering whether the deity they so feared would choose to bless them, or choose to damn.

Shroosh lowered her arms to her sides and stepped back from the precipice. With regal strides she returned to the slope, descending the foothill’s gravelly base, boots sinking in the scree as she slid. On firm soil, she continued on toward her docile subjects. With heads still hung close to the ground, their uneasy eyes glinted from the shadows while tracking her progress.

She paused a stone’s throw from the first line, sizing up the nearest Greaters. A young adult male caught her eye. Unlike the others, he wouldn’t dare behold the visage before him. His focus gripped the ground as Shroosh sauntered his way. Without hesitation, she stepped right up to him, wiry shoulder hairs prickling her bare abdomen. The young Greater flinched as Shroosh laid a hand on his back. She inhaled a deep, intoxicating breath, caressing her subject’s skin, his hairs gathering between her fingers and brushing beneath her palm like sapling pine needles. Her eyes wandered down his back to the intact cloacal pouch.

“Move no,” she commanded as she leaned forward, her hand sliding toward the virginal slit.

“Shroosh you?” the male quietly asked as Shroosh’s fingers explored the pouch’s shallow crevice, in search of a weak spot to breach.