Tritium Gambit (Max and Miranda Book 1) (18 page)

I reached another chasm with a fallen bridge, this one small enough to leap across. When I landed on a smooth stone, I realized I was standing on top of a broken building of some sort. I knew I had made it to the Magnoculous’ nearest village. There was an arrangement of other small, broken buildings made of stone with ornate carvings along the crumbling doorways.

A force struck me from behind just after I landed and threw me forward. I landed hard on the paved ground several feet below and rolled to my side as a bear crashed to the ground next to me. I scrambled backward, trying to regain my feet. The bear roared, showing black fangs and white saliva, before charging.

I didn’t have time to regain my feet, and so I prepared to use my legs in a hopeless attempt to push back its massive body, but a shadow passed over us and the bear faltered. The beast looked up and snarled. In a massive swipe, a four-fingered, bone-white hand came down and pummeled the bear against the building, and then the hand picked up the broken body. I followed the arm to a Wendigo, who was biting into the bear like a plated sandwich. I scrambled away and into the jungle. I heard the yelps and howls of other bears as I ran.

I realized that, in my panic, I had lost the village and the road. I hadn’t seen snakes in the village anyway, and so I would have to continue to the Magnoculous’ next ancient village, which the Poobah had said was larger and my best hope of finding snakes. I weaved my way through the jungle, trying to veer toward where I believed the road to be.

I had traveled miles when I came to a river. I stopped to drink from it, but then I saw eel-like fish the size of city busses swimming about in its depths. I didn’t think much of the idea of swimming, and the idea of swimming with those things was out of the question. I’d take my chances with the bears first. I followed the riverbank hoping to find the road again. The suns were now high in the sky.

As I fumbled my way through rocks and vines along the shore of the river, I noticed small chitinous animals scurrying about carrying strands of thin vines. They were roughly the size and shape of squirrels, but these creatures were covered in mottled green armor. I deemed these the toughest squirrels I had ever seen. Clearly, this planet was a rough neighborhood.

One thing I hadn’t seen since coming to this planet was any form of flying creature. Maybe needing to be so armored made it unlikely that anything on this planet would ever evolve to fly, the armor simply too heavy to get off the ground.

When I finally came to the road, I almost passed it because the stones had been shattered and strewn about. I could make out parts of the bridge scattered on the ground near the river’s edge. The road I needed to follow was now on the other side of the river, but the bridge was long gone. The river was narrow but deep. Over the millennia, it had cut deep into softer rock and left the harder rock on its shores smooth. I wasn’t going to have to swim very far, but if there were any of those massive eels lurking in the depths, I would be fish food. I pondered for a moment whether drowning beat being eaten, but then I noticed that the current looked fast here. I worried I’d be swept downstream before I could make it halfway across.

I tossed a few large rocks into the water to see if I could disturb anything in the depths. I wanted to know what hid in the murk, but nothing moved or stirred that I could see. After several tense moments of staring into the water, I steeled myself, took a running start, and jumped as far as I could into the river. When I hit the cold, dark water, I kicked as hard as I could. Five minutes of abject terror passed as I crossed the remaining distance.

I hauled myself onto the shore and collapsed. When I was more cold than tired, I pulled the microfiber towel from my back pocket, wrung it out, and dried myself off. I felt invigorated, more because I survived than because of the cold swim.

I had to walk upstream a few hundred feet to find the road again because the current had carried me downstream. As I walked the road on this side of the river, the giant woody vines gave way to a light carpet of smaller vines. It was sort of like walking through a field but more difficult because my feet were constantly getting tangled in the weave of vines. Thankfully, cairns marked the road or it would have been excruciating to follow.

I reasoned that whatever threats I might encounter would either be small or I’d see coming from a long way off. On the flip side, there was nowhere to hide, and any predators would see me from a long way off too. I wondered if this world had anything like savanna lions.

As I walked, I pulled up a small vine and smelled it. It smelled amazingly delicious, so I chewed on it. I was starving, and I wanted to see if it was edible. I liked the taste, which reminded me of mild cinnamon and sugar, but the texture left something to be desired. It was stringy and rather tough. I decided not to eat much in the event it was poisonous. My system could cope with most toxins, but I didn’t want to push my luck with unknown alien substances.

Hours passed as I walked over rolling hills and through valleys of the same vines. Still hungry, I ate another vine. This one’s flavor reminded me of chocolate and raspberries. Out of curiosity, I pulled another vine and took a bite, and it tasted like cookies and cream. Delicious. The next tasted like vanilla, and the following was exactly like spearmint. The more plants I tried, the more flavors I discovered. Eventually I came across really weird flavors like spaghetti and even gravy. I began feeling drowsy and very full.

I needed to sleep, but I knew that I had to finish my mission. Besides, the suns were still in the sky. Then I heard footsteps behind me. I turned and saw Tyler following behind me.

“
You can’t win,” Tyler said.

“
You’re dead,” was the closest to witty I could manage.

“
Not as dead as you,” he replied.

I looked down at myself and saw that I was wearing white robes. That’s odd. I thought I had a T-shirt on. “I’m dead?”

“
Sit for a little bit, and I’ll explain it to you,” Tyler suggested.

I wanted to be angry at him, but I was groggy and sitting sounded like a good idea. I rubbed my eyes, and when I opened them again, Miranda was sitting next to me.

“
You did a really good job,” she said. Her brilliant smile was as dazzling as ever. “You can rest for a little bit now.”

“
I can?” I asked. I shook my head to try to clear the fog.

“
Please, lie down for a moment. I’ll keep watch. You’ve earned it,” she said.

I looked down at the vine in my hand, which I did not remember I was holding, and dropped it. I struggled to my feet and staggered. I blinked slowly, and when I reopened my eyes, John was standing in front of me.

“
You’re going the wrong way,” he said. “You are supposed to go that way.” He pointed the way I thought I had come from.

“
I am?” I asked. I looked at my hands and saw that I had vines in each of my hands but didn’t remember picking them up.

“
Yes, you are going the wrong way. Turn around,” John urged.

I ignored John, and as I rose to my feet, I realized I didn’t remember sitting down again. I walked in the direction I believed was correct.

“
Are you sure that’s the way?” John asked.

I stopped and looked at him. “John doesn’t ask questions. Questions are for pussies. Who are you?”

John blurred in my vision and I saw Miranda again. “I think you are just a little confused,” she said.

I needed my sharp rock. I went to reach into my pants pocket when I remembered I was wearing white robes instead. This wasn’t right.

I pretended to stand there confused for a moment while Miranda walked closer to me. “Don’t you want to sleep?” she asked.

I lunged and pounded my fist into her throat. She gagged for a moment and then blurred into a new form. Suddenly I was face-to-face with one of the green chitinous bears. I smashed it in the face with both hands, and it staggered. I kicked the bear in the chin, and it rolled backward. I pounced on it, and suddenly I was grappling with a Wendigo. I gave it a head-butt, and it swayed. I didn’t relent. I clobbered it in the face repeatedly with my fists.

I kept pounding until I realized my fists were bloody. I rubbed my eyes again and my vision seemed to clear. I was lying on a pile of rocks, and my fists really were covered with my own blood. The rocks had been a cairn. I had kicked the crap out of a pile of rocks.

I noticed that the suns had nearly set, and ahead of me was a desert that I didn’t remember being there.

Chapter 21. Max

If you are ever tempted to walk into a desert when you are uncertain of your mental state, don’t. Lie down and take a nap. You’ll thank me for that advice. Of course, that isn’t what I did. I followed the cairns right into the endless sea of sand.

The deserts on Earth are dry and hot enough with one sun, but a desert on a planet with two suns is intolerable. My skin ached and was in a constant state of repair, and I was thirstier than I had ever been in my life. I knew that soon my skin would be unable to repair itself if I didn’t get some fluids in me even as I followed the cairns further into the desert, deeper into an unknown land where there seemed no possibility of water.

In fact, there weren’t any signs of life, only vast stretches of rocks and sand. Finally, I saw a patch of green amid the gray and black and ran toward it. I thought that, if there were plants, there would be water, and I desperately needed water now.

I was right. A pond lay in the middle of the small patch of green. I ran to it and knelt. The water felt cool and tasted earthy and delicious. I drank and splashed water on my face and in my hair. I was so relieved to find water that I didn’t hear the subtle shifting of sand behind me until it was right next to me.

I rolled to one side as giant fangs slashed the air where I had been lying a second before. The mother of all snakes extended her hood above me and bared her fangs. She had pure black eyes, like other creatures I had seen on this planet, and tan stripes on an otherwise white body. The line of spines on her back confirmed that she was the mother of the snakes I was looking for. She hissed at me and I crouched, ready to leap to the side.

Her strike was lightning fast, and I tried to jump to the side, but her fangs sank deep into my leg. Fire erupted through my body and my muscles cramped. My vision went blurry and darkened. I don’t know how long I was out, but when I managed to open my eyes, I wasn’t in the desert facing mama snake but wrapped in a thick layer of vines. I struggled against the strands, and they constricted tighter. I lay still for a moment, letting the vines loosen just a little as my muscles went slack. Then I managed to reach the sharp rock in my pocket and started slashing through the vines, gashing my own skin in several places in my haste, but I didn’t care. I just had to get free. The vines retreated from my ferocity.

I stood and looked around. I was still in the rolling hills where I had taken my first bite of the vines. Apparently, they bit back. Then I wondered if I was hallucinating this too. How does one know if they are awake or asleep?

I pulled out my com link. No hologram appeared when I called the ship. “Miranda?”

“
What’s your status, Max?” she asked.

“
I might be hallucinating. I need you to prove that you are real.”

“
Why would you be hallucinating?” she asked.

“
I ate a bad vine,” I said.

“
I believe that.” The com link was silent for a moment. “Max, I want you to look at your hand. Are you holding a com link or a rock?”

“
Look at which hand? I’m holding a com link in one and a rock in the other.”

“
Look at the com link. Is there anything about it that looks suspicious or wrong?” she asked.

I looked at the com link, which looked like any com link I had ever seen. There wasn’t anything suspicious about it. “It seems normal,” I responded.

“
How about the rock? Do you remember picking it up? Do you know why you have it?”

“
The Magnoculous gave it to me. I am holding it because I needed to cut free of the vines.”

“
Look around. Does it look the way it did a few moments before?”