Michael Siemsen - Exigency

She fired a single shot, non-lethal, toward the space between their joggling rumps. The multiround exploded behind them, casting forth blunt fragments. Projectiles struck home, eliciting pained warbles, tripping their pace, before they galloped on with no sign of slowing.

Minnie blew the muzzle tip, mock twirled the weapon around her finger, and shoved it into the holster. She refrained from an ill-fated “They won’t be coming back,” shut her visor, and headed west toward the shoreline.

The frozen white surface gave way to mossy permafrost, sloping gradually upward to a dwindling cliff above the beach. Minnie glanced down the shore to the skimmer’s little yellow dot (still there), then slowly scanned the horizon from end to end. Still no sign of Aether’s rescue team. They were just taking a bit longer than they’d thought. Just had to fight against tougher opposing tides than usual. No reason for alarm.

She sat down on the cliff edge, cracked her visor open to invite in some misty sea air, and broke off a handful of frozen soil, playing with it in her lap.

There was reason for alarm. Without a PCU or the other gear that fell from John’s skimmer, she had no way to connect to the supply pods. No way to confirm receipt of a message that ended with “Confirm.” No way to see if a new message had been uploaded: “Dear Friends, hurricane wiped out area. Not coming yet. Standby for 90 days.” Had she known, she would’ve defied the blizzard and stopped to pick up the gear. She could have gone back, though. She should have gone back. When she found out at the waterfall, only a day trip away, that’s when she should’ve backtracked for the PCU.

And then the bigger cause for concern: the predictable return of Minnie’s HSPD. With her glands and levels nearly normalized, good old Uncle Huspid would come knocking again anywhere from tomorrow at the earliest, all the way to an optimistic ten days out. Without some kind of sedative—hell, any meds whatsoever—averting an attack in the next seven days seemed pretty implausible. Maybe they’d show tomorrow, Pablo handing her a nasty trial med milkshake of fungus spore. He’d tell her to drink the whole thing, warning her not to puke, because “That’s all there is right now.”

She should’ve gone back for the medkit.

Impossible, Minnie scoffed. To discover Aether was alive and probably already waiting for her on the coast? Given this revelation, Minnie was supposed to fly in the opposite direction for supplies? Yeah, right.

Minnie reclined onto the mossy ground cover and looked at the stars. The sun was in the right spot to catch a supply pod, but in that moment she preferred the organic calm of nature—Threck constellations—the Great Afvrik, descending on a small cluster of crustaceans. The tip of one fin shared the double star, Mintaka, with Orion’s Belt, but from this perspective, one would never guess. The remaining stars of Orion were irrevocably scattered into other images.

Aroused by hunger pangs, somehow still unanticipated, Minnie sat up, edged over to a safer drop-off spot, and leapt down to the slope of decaying sandstone, surfing the last few meters. From cliff to shore, the beach was coated in tide-smoothed rocks. Each crashing wave clattered and cracked as if not water, but stones, made up the ocean.

When she finally reached the skimmer, Minnie peeked at the status panel. Beacons still beaconing. And plenty of juice to last well beyond sunrise. Time for food.

Remembering the heater she’d left on, Minnie stepped back to the skimmer and reactivated her optics. She faced her camp, verifying the heater was as obvious as she’d earlier assumed.

Oh, dammit.

She had guests, and not the slender little human kind. The warm blobs of three riverbears merged and warped around the heater’s static glow. They better not have gotten into her damned food, or she’d be replenishing her stockpile with fatty riverbear meat.

MW in hand, she scuttled up the crest. Upon reaching the peak, she saw her heater’s glow illuminating the megabulb tops, also spotting the stretched shadow of a soon-to-be-crapping-itself riverbear. Down the slope she ran, dodging around a young bulb, and into the grove. She slowed a little as she neared, noting that they weren’t exactly rifling through her things, just sort of hanging around. Maybe they just liked the heater. Cold wanderers happening upon an abandoned smoldering campfire.

‘Happen upon.’ Keep telling yourself that, idiot.

The heater’s glow was visible from every part of her little valley, and from every surrounding ridge. It’d been stupid to leave it on.

With only a few bulbs between her and her camp, Minnie raised the MW before her, inflated her lungs, opened her visor wide, and burst on the scene with her fearsome, anti-riverbear shriek. “Haauuurrrgh!!”

She skated to a stop at the edge of her camp clearing. Her mouth clamped shut, a small residual howl croaking in her throat. Her eyes darted around the site, a thumping bass drum in her ears.

Two of the three immediately rose from their huddled positions. The third lay slumped on its side, close to the heater, slack-jawed and panting, with semi-conscious eyes.

Not riverbears.

The two standing Hynka stared at Minnie as she stared back. Both appeared to be calculating as Minnie calculated. Her little thumb was always just out of reach of the MW’s lethal toggle. She’d have to run backward, reach up quickly with her other hand, or slowly shift her grip until her thumb reached. It’s how she usually toggled it, but her hand didn’t feel all that keen on loosening.

The one standing to her left—fingers twitching as it stink-eyed her—was less than a Hynka stride away. If it moved now, before she could switch to lethal, she wouldn’t have a chance. The other, a pace and a half. She couldn’t wait for them to make the first move.

“Ayk-yra,” the farther muttered.

The closer shot a glance at the farther, then back at Minnie. “Arp tprik khoh.”

Minnie recognized the word. Khoh. Stop. They were discussing the situation, assessing, probably wondering if she was a threat. She’d come screaming before them like a looner and had yet to run away.

Remaining still, she fumbled through her fone to activate Livetrans.

And then the one on the ground spoke, faint and gargling, as if it was dying. “Ha-aykh… uh-possyr.”

The other two looked at the third, startled, as the translation popped up in Minnie’s app.

LIVETRANS: No kill. It [unknown].

No kill sounded good. Minnie allowed herself to breathe and took the opportunity to slowly shift her grip, sliding her thumb over the toggle. The little indicator light changed from orange to red. Now she could most likely take out both primary threats.

She studied the visitors. All three wore multiple riverbear furs over their heads and shoulders. Though not visibly connected to each other, the furs overlapped and made up a sort of hooded cloak. Hynka had never been observed with any type of clothing. Then again, as she’d erroneously consoled herself earlier, they’d also never been observed anywhere close to this far north. Yes, Hynka stretched their boundaries in search of food, but these three would’ve found food aplenty—and certainly better weather—2,000K south of this place.

Whatever the motivation, once they’d reached this latitude, it certainly made sense to stick around. Those bulbs didn’t grow anywhere else in the world, and nothing else grew in this region for hundreds of kilometers in every direction.

Bulbs drew the snake things to their root system.