Peter David - After Earth

Unfortunately, he had to come up for air. When he did, the creatures unleashed another volley. But Kitai dipped down deeply enough into the water to avoid this one, too. Finally, he reached the other shore. Wading out of the water as quickly as he could, he cast a single glance back to see if anything was coming at him. Nothing was. Then he continued his frantic flight.

“Cadet,” said his father, “they are no longer in pursuit.”

But Kitai didn’t register his father’s words. He barely noticed that his lifesuit was its normal rust color again.

“I say again, they are not following you. Over.”

Kitai kept sprinting. He couldn’t stop. He didn’t dare .

“Cadet, you are not being followed! Kitai, you are running from nothing!”

There was a clearing up ahead. As Kitai reached it, he pulled his cutlass off his back and held it out in front of him. Then he made a 360-degree turn, prepared to fight anything in his vicinity.

“Put my damn cutlass away,” his father said. “Take a knee, cadet.”

Kitai forced himself to obey. But he still searched the edges of the clearing, looking for evidence of the baboons.

Cypher regarded the image of his son on his probe monitor. Kitai was wide-eyed, hyperventilating, frantic. The general had to get him to calm down.

Cypher rubbed his eyes. He was tired and getting more so. But he wasn’t going to let fatigue stop him. Suddenly he heard a beeping sound. Kitai’s vital signs… He checked the readout.

“Kitai,” he said, “I need you to do a physical assessment. I’m showing rapid blood contamination. Are you cut?”

His son didn’t respond. He looked shell-shocked, not at all like a Ranger cadet. Hell, he seemed like a child. And his lifesuit was fading to white. Not good , Cypher thought.

“Kitai,” he said sternly, “I need you to do a physical evaluation. Are you bleeding? Over.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, Kitai regained control of himself. Responding to his father’s command, he began to check his body. Of course, the evaluation required him to stand up, but when he tried to do so, he looked unsteady.

Off balance , Cypher thought. “Kitai?”

“I’m dizzy,” said the cadet.

“Check yourself!” Cypher insisted.

Kitai looked at his hands. On the back of his left hand there was something Cypher couldn’t make out at first. Then he zoomed in and saw what it was: some kind of leech. Or, rather, what leeches might have evolved into.

Repulsed by the sight of it, Kitai tore it off. But in doing so, he tore his skin. Instantly, a livid rash blossomed across the damaged skin. It can’t be allowed to spread , Cypher thought. It had to be tended to immediately.

As calmly as he could, he said, “Your med-kit, Kitai.”

His son snatched his pack off his back and fumbled around blindly in the med-kit. He looked worried. After all, he could see the rash, too. Kitai started to sway.

“I can’t stand up…” Still, he managed to open the med-kit.

In a clear, measured voice, Cypher said, “You have to administer the antitoxin in sequence. Inject yourself with the clear liquid first. Do it now.”

Kitai took the first hypodermic from the med-kit and popped off the protective cap. His hands were trembling.

“Dad,” he said, ignoring his father’s earlier admonitions to call him General or sir, “I can’t see.”

Cypher wanted to help his son, to administer the drugs himself. But he couldn’t. He was sitting in the cockpit of a ruined ship, his legs broken, and Kitai was too far away.

“The poison is affecting your nervous system,” he said instead. “Relax. Stay even.”

Kitai fumbled with the needle—not once but twice. He stopped, looked up, looked around, his eyes dilated and swelling shut. Cypher could see his son’s panic deepening. The veins of Kitai’s hand began turning black.

“Dad,” he pleaded, “please come help me. I can’t see! Please come help me!”

“Stay even,” Cypher said. “Inject yourself directly into the heart with the first stage now!”

Kitai took a deep breath, struggling to remove the top of his lifesuit. He couldn’t control his fingers, which he couldn’t see, and they shook from fear. He was running out of time and needed to do this quickly no matter how sick he felt. As he exposed his chest to the warm sun, it was hot to the touch and slick with sweat. He shook with increasing violence and just had to inject the antitoxin. It sounded so simple, but he was shaking so hard. Finally, he gritted his teeth so hard that they hurt, grimaced, and finally stuck himself with the hypodermic squarely in the chest. Then he pressed the plunger.

“Now the second stage,” Cypher said. “Hurry.”

“Your left,” Cypher told him. “To your left!”

Finally, Kitai’s fingers seemed to find the second hypodermic. But by then, his eyes were swollen closed. His hands shaking, he removed the protective cap on the hypodermic. Then he stuck himself with it. But he couldn’t press the plunger. His thumb looked like it was too swollen to move.

“I can’t feel my hands!” Kitai groaned. “I can’t—”

Suddenly, his eyes rolled back in his head. His eyes flickered. He fell to his knees, on the verge of losing consciousness.

Cypher got an idea. “Press it into the ground! Kitai, roll over on it and press it into the ground!”

For a moment, he didn’t know if his son had heard him. Then, with a final effort, Kitai threw himself forward. The plunger on the hypodermic pressed against the ground as he slumped over. After that, his limp body lay motionless.

But had he pressed the plunger? Had the hypodermic released its payload into Kitai?

Cypher watched the holographic monitor. Come on , he thought. Work, damn it .

Then, ever so slowly, Kitai’s blood contamination levels began to change, to decrease slowly. The red beeping lights turned to yellow, signaling the gradual return of his vital signs to normal. Cypher sat back, relieved. “Great work, cadet. Now you’re going to have to lie there.”

Of course, Kitai couldn’t hear him. He was unconscious. But Cypher kept talking as if his son were still awake because it felt better than talking to himself.

“The parasite that stung you,” he said, “has a paralyzing agent in its venom. You’re just going to have to lie there for a little bit while the antitoxin does its job.”

Cypher glanced at the feed from Kitai’s backpack camera. It captured the grotesque doughiness of his badly swollen face. A single tear rolled from the corner of his misshapen eye. For Cypher, it was an excruciating experience. There was nothing he could do to help his son. Nothing . He thrived on control, insisted on control, but in this situation control eluded him.

Compared with the forest in which Kitai had collapsed, he looked pitifully small. And the sun, Cypher noticed, was starting to slip past its apex. Cypher glanced at his timer. It would take a while for the contents of the hypodermic to do their job, but Kitai didn’t have forever.

As the sun dropped in the sky, approaching the horizon, the temperature began to drop as well. Cypher didn’t like it. He could see plants withdrawing into themselves, closing up to conserve heat in anticipation of what would be a brutal nighttime chill.

But Kitai couldn’t close up. He couldn’t protect himself. And Cypher couldn’t protect him, either. He could see that his son’s face was getting better. The swelling was gone. But he still lay unconscious, his eyes closed, his lifesuit pale.

“Kitai,” Cypher said.

No response. A gentle dusting of frost began to form on and around Kitai’s weakened frame. Cypher wanted to wake him, needed to wake him. He could hear the wind howling around his son, see the edges of the furled leaves flutter ferociously.