John Hemry - The Rift

The river proved just as impossible to miss as the sergeant had predicted, meandering across their path, perhaps fifty meters wide but apparently shallow all the way across. As everyone drank their fill through filter straws, Singh studied the terrain. “The map showed some ridges on either side of the place we’re looking for.”

Johansen looked up and down the stream. “The bluffs beside the river course are just mounds along here. It looks like they’re higher upstream.”

“Yeah.” Sergeant Singh gazed up at the sun. “I figure we’ve maybe two hours of sunlight left.”

“The night vision gear was all built into the armor.”

“Yeah,” Singh repeated. “We don’t want to be stumbling around in the dark. Let’s get moving, people. We need a place to fort up by nightfall.”

As they moved back into the tree line, Goldera paused to look around.

“You see anything?” Johansen asked him.

“Nah. Haven’t seen anything but what passes for birds and squirrels here.” Goldera hesitated, scanning the horizon. “Still feels like they’re out there, though.”

“Keep an eye out,” Johansen said, then moved alongside Singh long enough to pass on what Goldera had said. Singh only grunted in reply, and Johansen fell back again as the tiny column reached the trees and then turned to move upstream.

They found it when the sun was only a short ways above the horizon. The bluffs on either side of the river’s lowland had risen enough to form a rift between them. The woods dwindled near the edge of the rift, leaving an area almost open along the sides before the land fell away abruptly into bottomland with the river snaking along roughly through the center. Singh and the others wormed forward on their bellies toward one edge of the rift until Singh could raise his field glasses to examine the small cluster of buildings constructed to human standards, while they all lay as concealed as possible by the sparse vegetation.

After a moment, the sergeant cursed softly and lowered the glasses. “Power focus. Great stuff until the power dies. Anybody got charged batteries?”

Without rising, Archer held out one hand toward Burgos, who took what she held and passed it to Stein, who handed the batteries to Johansen who gave them to Singh. After the sergeant replaced the batteries in his field glasses, he passed the worn out batteries from them back along the chain until Archer got them and slid them into charging slots on her comm unit.

Focusing again, Singh stayed motionless for a long time, then finally passed the glasses to Johansen. “What do you think?”

Johansen focused, trying not to expose himself too much to any watchers. “It looks intact.” The compound was dominated by a low-slung one-story structure that apparently combined living quarters and offices. From here that main building looked substantial, with thick walls of compressed dirt and a heavy roof of reinforced metal with built-in solar cells. The rest of the buildings, including a small livestock shed, were of much simpler construction, just stamped metal set on concrete pads.

“See any sign of Izkop?”

“No. No sign now, and no sign they’ve been there. Maybe once the civs left the Izkop didn’t bother with it.” One of the doors to the main building swung idly in the wind. “It looks abandoned… or someone wants it to look abandoned.”

Something moved among the buildings and Johansen stiffened as he watched, the others falling into tense silence. As the thing moved fully into sight, Johansen almost laughed with relief. “A cow. There’s still a cow alive down there.”

“A cow.” Singh made it a statement, gesturing for the return of the field glasses, then studied the animal. “A cow,” he confirmed, lowering the glasses. “Not one of the local herd beasts. A milk cow, Earth-livestock.”

“Milk?” Adowa did laugh very softly, her face lowered into the dirt to muffle the sound. “Too bad I’m lactose intolerant.”

Singh didn’t smile in return. “A milk cow. Abandoned here. It wouldn’t have been milked for some time. But it seems content.”

“You know cows, Sarge?” Goldera asked.

“My family’s neighbors had some.” Singh looked at Johansen. “After only a few days, an unmilked cow would be very uncomfortable.”

“Somebody’s been milking it?”

“Yes. Would an Izkop do that? Could an Izkop do that without the cow panicking? Stein, didn’t your family have a ranch?”

“Yeah, Sarge.” Stein’s large face creased slowly in thought. “No. If what the briefers told us is right, cows wouldn’t like the Izkop, and cows can be damned skittish even with people.”

“Could there still be people down there?” Archer asked.

“Either there are, or it’s another Izkop trap,” Johansen said. “You’ve still got nothing on the comm unit?”

“No. If any civs survived, they’re staying si-lent.”

Singh looked back at them all. “We go down there, or we go on.”

“Go on? Where?” Nassar wondered.

“Nothing any better than this, and nothing we can reach with less than another full day’s walk, if we could find it.”

Johansen sighed and checked his weapon. “I’m getting tired of walking, and it’ll be dark soon. We might as well see what’s here.”

Burgos licked her lips, her eyes fever bright. “If there’s Izkop, maybe it’s just a small force. We can wipe them out.”

Singh pointed one finger at her. “Or there’s ten thousand of them within sound of a shot. Nobody fires without my orders.”

“Yeah, Sarge,” Burgos muttered, her expression sullen.

“You go spindizzy on me and I’ll shoot you myself, got it?” Singh kept his eyes on her, hard and demanding.

Burgos flushed. “I said yes, sergeant.”

Fortunately, the compound was on this side of the river so they didn’t have to splash through the water and mud. Tired as they were, the soldiers still moved carefully toward the buildings, only two moving at a time while the others covered them. Once inside the bluffs the flatland around the river was covered with short, round bushes with sparse leaves that caused Stein to mutter “tumbleweeds,” but the area inside the human-built compound had only short grass growing.

Johansen came up against the main building, his rifle at ready, his back to the wall right next to the open doorway where the door still swung lazily in occasional gusts of wind. Adowa crouched on the other side of the door, raising her weapon questioningly. Johansen shook his head, then looked back to where Singh and the others were lying in the grass, their weapons aimed at the windows and doors of the building. He pulled out his combat knife, took a deep breath to fight down a wave of fear, then spun around the corner and inside, once again planting his back against the wall with the knife at the ready before him.

A figure moved, jerking to one side with a gasp of fright. Johansen swung the knife’s point that way even as his mind shouted human. “Who are you?” Johansen demanded.

Instead of replying to his question, the figure rose, resolving into a woman who stared at him in disbelief. “Are you a soldier?”

“Yes, ma’am. Any Izkop here?”

“No.” She looked anguished for a moment, then swallowed and steadied. “We haven’t seen any here since the recall. We’ve been unable to contact Amity since then.” Her expression changed. “We heard what sounded like explosions in the distance this morning. In the direction of Amity.”

Johansen just nodded. “We? You’re not alone here?”

“No. There’s two other adults and ten children. The others are in the back rooms.”

Finally relaxing, Johansen leaned out the door to wave an all-clear and beckon to the others.