Peter David - After Earth

Kitai steadied himself, took control. He wasn’t going to panic, wasn’t going to let his emotions get in the way. He was going to keep a cool head no matter what. He was tired. He was lost. But it was going to be all right. Figuring the bird would know where to find a warm spot, he took off after her.

It wasn’t easy keeping up with something that could fly, but he did his best. Sprinting through the jungle, he moved toward what he hoped was a geothermal zone or at least some kind of shelter. All the while, the sun dropped through the sky like a stone.

Cypher, trapped in the ship’s cockpit, felt a wave of panic wash over his battered body as the connection with the naviband was terminated abruptly. Something had happened to the device or, worse, to his son. Furiously his fingers tapped controls, checked probe after probe. Images blasted at him—of mountains, of jungles, of beaches—but Kitai was nowhere to be seen.

He has to be somewhere , Cypher thought. “Come on,” he said out loud, his voice cracking with the strain. “Where are you?” He scanned a stretch of plains covered with herds of evolved bison, clefts full of twisted foliage, a rushing river that churned through a pine forest. But try as he might, he couldn’t come up with a sign of his son.

Please , he thought, be alive. Be alive…

As Kitai ran through the jungle, the plants on either side of him began to close up on themselves. The world was frosting over again. Kitai looked left and right for shelter but didn’t see a single possibility. Then he caught a glimpse of a small hoglike creature running just in front of him. As far as he could tell, the hoglike thing didn’t seem worried or lost. It seemed to know exactly where it was going.

Bereft of any other viable options, he decided to follow it. It wasn’t easy. He had to use all his quickness and agility, scramble under bushes and leap over piles of rocks, swing around tree trunks and crash his way through branches heavy with leaves. Finally, Kitai saw the creature burrow into a hole in the ground. A moment later, three smaller specimens of the same species followed it.

The ice was like a tide, crackling its way across the landscape in his direction. In a matter of seconds, it would be on top of him. Kitai didn’t hesitate. He tried to dive into the creatures’ hole. Unfortunately, he was a lot bigger than they were. As the frost crept over him, he picked up a flat stone and used it to start digging to make the hole bigger. His fingers growing colder by the moment, he dug for all he was worth. Finally, the hole was big enough. Just in time, Kitai slid his body into it.

He thought he would find a hollow where he could curl up with the hog creatures. Instead, he started sliding along something slick and wet. Not just a little, either. He must have slid ten meters before he came to something soft and grassy. Not that Kitai could see down there. He was just going by the way it felt.

Need light , he thought, and hit an area on his lifesuit. Instantly a section of the suit lit up, dispelling the darkness, and he saw that the hog hole was actually a cave with smooth stone walls. Kitai moved between them. The light from his suit illuminated the stone surfaces, revealing a collection of beautifully colored cave paintings. One of them showed herds of bison. Another showed flocks of birds. Still another showed a primitive hunt.

Kitai wondered how old the paintings were. Many thousands of years, no doubt. A particular painting caught his attention. It showed a man, sleeping apparently, surrounded by different animals.

Despite the crudeness of the technique, there was a beauty and a majesty to the place. As he caught his breath, he admired everything around him, appreciated it for what it was: a window into the way the first men looked at their world. Down below the cave, which was really just a slanted pocket in the earth, a tiny rivulet of lava could be seen moving in the darkness. Kitai nodded to himself. That’s where the warmth is coming from .

Suddenly, he heard a noise, a scratching sound. Following it to its source, he saw a snake emerge from a seam in the cave wall. As he watched, it spread the skin on either side of its body into what looked like wings. Then it rose up and floated through the cave.

Kitai shrank from it, pressing himself as far back into the stone wall as he could. But the snake didn’t seem to take an interest in him. Instead it landed on a rodent that was scurrying in the darkness. With blinding speed, the snake coiled itself around the rodent and crushed the life out of it. Then it flew away with the limp little carcass.

Kitai moved closer to the warmth of the lava thread. His cutlass at the ready, he found a good spot and hunkered down. Finally, he could rest his body. But it wasn’t so easy to rest his mind. He had to remain watchful there, like anywhere else on Earth. It became harder when the light from his lifesuit dimmed and went out.

Delirious, Cypher continued to search his probe cameras for a glimpse of Kitai. But as many probes as he checked, over and over again, he didn’t see a thing. Not even a hint that Kitai was still alive. Then Cypher saw him—or thought he did. But no. It was just that he wanted to see Kitai so badly, he convinced himself for a second that he had.

I’ve lost him , Cypher thought. Lost him . And he cracked. The weight of it, everything he had been through—everything he had put his son through—was too much for him. He had sacrificed both of his children on the Raige altar of pride and service.

He fought the collapse and turned back to the search for his boy. “Come on,” he whispered fervently, “come on! Where are you?”

It was no use.

Reluctantly, his fist shaking, he hit the stud that activated the cockpit recorder. “General Cypher Raige,” he groaned. “The mission with Cadet Kitai Raige was a failure. I—”

He tried to go on, but he couldn’t. With a sigh, he looked down at his tortured legs, at the blood running down them and collecting on the deck. When he looked up again, his tone was different. Softer. More human. “This is a message for my wife.

“Faia, I have lost our son.”

She would find that shocking, no doubt. How could the general not know what to do?

But Cypher didn’t feel like the general anymore. He felt helpless, unable to help his son or even himself. His eyes, the eyes of a father, began to fill with tears.

Kitai didn’t know when light began to filter into the cave. After another sleepless night, time blurs into one endless mess. He realized that he could see without the help of his suit. His cutlass sat on the ground beside him along with the rest of his gear. Only one vial of breathing fluid remained to him.

Kitai looked at the cave paintings and felt a spurt of inspiration. With the help of a rock, he drew a picture of his own—a huge map that covered an entire wall—and traced his journey step by step since he had left his father in the ship. When details became fuzzy, Kitai found himself hearing his father’s voice in his head, guiding him as he labeled every location: Dad. Baboons. River. Waterfalls. Nest. I am here, I think . And finally, Tail somewhere here in a huge open area on the map.

As Kitai worked, he developed a plan.

He didn’t stop until he saw the hog family start to leave the cave. He quickly gathered his things and followed them out into the sunlight. Once he emerged from the hole, the mother pig looked back at him as if to say “You’re welcome.”

He was still marveling at the creature’s intelligence when a huge shadow fell over him. Shading his eyes and looking up, Kitai saw the mother condor creature circling overhead.