SNAFU: Unnatural Selection Read online

  “Ted.”

  Murray’s voice came from my left. I turned my head and immediately regretted it. My head swam with vertigo and I tasted bile. I tried to focus through my left eye.

  “Lisa,” I said, “what happened?”

  “Don’t know. Something took us. Your eye? Can you see out of it?”

  “Not especially. Does it look as bad as it feels?”

  I got a vague sense of movement and interpreted it as a nod. “It’s swollen and there’s a crusty scab on your cheek. Is this the first time you’ve gained consciousness?”

  “As far as I can remember. You?”

  “I woke… a while ago… to someone screaming in the distance. I panicked and tried to pull free of these vines. I guess I exerted myself too much. Tunnel vision then I passed out. I woke up a few minutes ago and have been calling to you.”

  I had a touch of tunnel vision myself and the pasty taste in my mouth had me on the edge of throwing up. I flexed my arms. There was a little give, yet not enough to work my hands free. Besides, with each flex the nettles bit into my flesh, telling me that struggling was not in the cards.

  “How many of us are here?” I seemed to be the end of the line, if there was a line, with Murray and any others to my left, invisible to my swollen eye. “More than just you and me?”

  “Falstaff is a little ways off. Kind of by himself. The rest of our soldiers are farther away – those that are still with us, anyway. There’s only six or seven. The captain’s at the very end.”

  “That’s all?” Thirty-six people had broken camp that morning. “Jesus. Did you get a look at what attacked us?”

  The vision in my left eye was starting to clear. I could actually see her nod this time. “I mostly saw their handiwork. Jesus, Ted, they tore our people apart. Private Ho was just ahead of me before that fog rolled in. She screamed. Jesus. Then… pieces of her started hitting me and landing all around. Half of Private Martinez hit the ground next to me. His mouth was still moving. Something like a lobster claw pulled me to the ground… then I woke up here.”

  “A claw? Like a crustacean?”

  “Yeah. Like a crab or a lobster or the Kiloko people on Chara. Only bigger than any claw you’ve ever seen.”

  “I was taken down by a tentacle.”

  “A… tentacle? More than one species? Working together?”

  I could only shrug.

  “Lisa? All of my stuff has been arranged near my feet. I can’t see too clearly over your way yet. Is everyone’s gear down by their feet?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “It’s weird. It’s so neatly stacked. The soldiers’ armor and weaponry are separate from their food and kit. My clothes are apart from my notebooks and recording equipment and from what I can tell one of my voice recorders is missing. It looks like Falstaff confused them a bit.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, it looks like we’ve been grouped by function. The soldiers with their armor and weapons are all in one group. You and I – the record keepers and note-takers – are over here. But Falstaff is all by himself in the middle. He wears armor and a uniform like any soldier and they’re piled like everyone else’s armor and uniform. His food and kit are stacked to one side. In the middle, where the other soldiers have weapons, Falstaff has that marking stick you make him carry, those beacons of yours, some iron spikes, a hammer and a big empty waterproof case.”

  “Empty? My camera was in that case.”

  “That’s odd. Two different types of recording devices are missing.”

  I shifted, trying in vain to become more comfortable. Impossible. I forced my left eye to open wider. I was rewarded with pain and added focus. I nodded.

  “I can see a little more clearly now,” I said. “Do you think that whoever took us understands how to use our devices?”

  Murray nodded.

  “I’d bet money we’re being recorded right now.”

  “By who? Whom?”

  “Whom. And that’s the question.”

  The days on this planet lasted just over thirty-eight earth hours. The sun stood high in the sky when the captain finally regained consciousness.

  Captain Najafi, after straining heroically against her bonds with no success, ordered a roll call.

  “What do we know, people?”

  Each of us relayed our experience prior to capture. Each described an attack by a different creature, though barbed tentacles seemed a common theme. Captain Najafi listened without comment until Murray mentioned our missing equipment.

  “We’re obviously dealing with intelligence. Specialist Murray, do the actions of our abductors jive with what we know of the indigenous people of this planet?”

  Murray shook her head. “Not at all. These are a peaceful, timid people. They’re not aggressive at all.”

  “So we’re looking at another race?”

  “Another species. More than one. But it doesn’t feel right.”

  “What do you mean, Specialist?”

  “My experience shows that where two sentient species evolve on the same planet, there’s more similarity – in culture, behavior and physically, as well – than we’ve seen here. It’s almost as if we’re dealing with something alien out here.”

  As it turned out we were dealing with something alien, but not in the way Murray meant. Between the people trussed up in that clearing we had over two hundred years of experience in a score of disciplines honed on over five dozen planets. None of it prepared us for what happened next.

  A patch of bog a dozen metres away began to pulse with a glow usually reserved for the bioluminescence of a creature dwelling in a very deep ocean. The ground heaved, accompanied by a mucky sucking sound. The air seemed charged with ozone and a metallic taste filled my mouth. A leathery grey hand rose from the centre of the pulsing patch of earth, each of its eight long fingers ended in a dirt-crusted claw. A narrow, lanky arm followed the hand. Another hand and arm followed. Then another. In all, six spidery arms and hands reached out and dragged the creature from the ground.

  Spindly and creased, it towered over us. Folds of seemingly mummified skin stretched over bones that looked as if they’d snap with any hint of pressure. Four fleshy legs coated in a layer of sickly yellow quills supported a torso that looked more insect than animal. Each leg ended in what looked like a cloven hoof.

  Atop the torso was a tapered, scaly head. Filled with needle-like teeth, a vertical maw opened and closed with the same rhythmic pulse as the luminescent earth. Lining each side of the maw were four unblinking eyes, glassy as marbles and as black as space.

  Head pivoting on a pencil-thin neck, the gaze of those eight eyes settled first on the captain, then on Murray.

  Sounds, harsh and crisp, slid past all those wicked teeth. It sounded like the language of the villagers only with a hard edge, decidedly nastier.

  Murray’s eyes grew wide. Clearing her throat, she answered in the natives’ language. Anticipating everyone’s unasked question, she supplied a translation.

  “It asked me if I was the one who was good with language,” she said. “I told it I was.”

  The creature rattled off more words and gestured toward the captain with half of its arms. Murray spoke considerably less. If a smile is possible on a vertical mouth, the thing grinned and made a sweeping gesture that encompassed all of us.

  “It… it encourages me to translate everything. It seems interested in the captain. It wants to know if you are our chieftain, Captain Najafi. What should I tell it?”

  Najafi sat taller. “Tell it that I am and I demand to be released. That all of us must be released. Now.”

  Murray spoke the words. The top and bottom of the maw curled, showing mottled gums. A rapid string of words was followed by the clacking of the claws on one of the creature’s hands.

  As Murray opened her mouth to translate, a ball of dark fur about a metre in diameter fell from one of the trees that surrounded the clearing. It landed silently, then chattered as dozens of hook-footed legs pushed out o
f the fur. The feet scuttled it closer to the captain. As it turned, the fur parted, revealing a thin-lipped mouth lined with broken, jagged fangs. It stopped just short of Najafi and snapped those teeth twice in her direction.

  “It says… it says you will be freed, Captain. I’m assuming this other… lifeform is to free you.”

  In a blur, the furred creature sped around the captain, snarling and snapping. Like a flea, it hopped back. The vines securing Najafi lay in tatters around her. Naked, she rose defiantly to her feet.

  The spindly creature smacked its top two fists against its torso and spat a handful of words. Then it gestured to the ground in front of Najafi. The head pivoted to Murray.

  “It says that it is chieftain of its people as you are of yours. It wants you to put on your… the word it used was the one the villagers use for the thin fibre wrap they wear, but I think it means your armor. It wants you to put on your armor.”

  Captain Najafi glared at the creature.

  “Specialist Murray, do you know the local vernacular for ‘go fuck yourself’? Tell it I do not take orders from aggressors.”

  Murray swallowed, then spoke to the creature. It bobbed its head, curiously like a nod. It clacked its fingertips together.

  From the darkened edge of the clearing, one of the shadows detached itself from the others and slid silently across the ground. As it grew closer the shadow coalesced, drawing darkness into itself and taking bipedal form. Featureless at first with tar-like glossy black skin, it took on approximately human proportions. On feet that didn’t seem to quite touch the ground, it strode over to Corporal Tsang. Silently, the shadow creature grabbed Tsang’s hair with one hand and peeled off his right ear with the other. As Tsang screamed, ink black fingers flung his ear to the ground. Before it landed, the furry creature skittered and leapt, catching the ear and devouring it with a snap and a snarl.

  The chieftain spat some words at Murray.

  “Captain,” she said, “it wants you to put on the armor. It says… it says that Corporal Tsang has lots of parts that might be ripped free if you decline.”

  Najafi was already reaching for her breastplate. As she strapped on her armor, Najafi glared at the chieftain. After pulling on her helmet, she glanced at Murray.

  “Fine. Now what does this son of a bitch want?”

  Murray translated.

  The chieftain pointed with half its hands at Captain Najafi’s rifle. It made a motion of grabbing and pulling. It spoke, but Murray hardly needed to translate.

  “It is telling you to take your rifle.”

  Najafi smiled, showing teeth.

  “Big mistake.”

  She casually walked toward her gun. At the last second she rolled, scooped up the rifle, knelt and fired. A burst – six or seven rapid shots – blasted the chieftain off all four feet. Najafi turned her sites on the shadow creature. Before she could fire it dissipated, like smoke caught in a sudden gust. In a heartbeat she sought and found the furred creature, firing a pair of shots at it as those dozens of tiny legs launched it into the foliage.

  “Chew on that,” she said. “Keep calm, Corporal. I’ll have you all freed in a jif—”

  The captain fell silent. A series of rapid huffs came from the prone chieftain. The huffs became louder and more frequent.

  “Murray,” I said, “is that thing still alive? Is it having trouble breathing?”

  Murray’s face was slack. She bit her lip and hung her head.

  “It’s laughing. Jesus Christ, Ted, it’s laughing at us.”

  The staccato of exhalations grew louder as the chieftain rose. All six of Najafi’s bullets had found their mark, leaving considerable holes in the creature’s carapace-like torso. Black ichor oozed from the wounds. When a viscous dollop hit the earth, the ground smouldered and the vegetation nearby withered. As we watched, the ichor congealed at the edges of the wounds, sealing them.

  The chieftain raised all six arms. Now it sounded like laughter to all of us. The tapered head turned to Murray and barked a few words.

  “We are tiny,” she translated. “Tiny and weak.”

  Captain Najafi emptied her clip.

  A standard issue assault rifle holds thirty-eight shots in its clip. Najafi was so close that the remaining thirty must all have struck true. Throughout the barrage, the chieftain stood its ground, all four legs bracing and straining against impact. When the echo of the last gunshot faded, amid the shifting smoke of gunpowder, impossibly the chieftain still stood.

  Its torso, head and arms were a slaughterhouse of trauma. Like a hypnotised person, I watched slack-jawed as all of that trauma folded in on itself and healed. The chieftain laughed and barked a single word, then it launched itself at our captain.

  Nanocarbonfibre armor – a miracle material that requires extreme temperature and special tools to cut – lay shredded on the ground. All of the claws on the ends of all of those fingers on each of those six arms surrounded Captain Najafi in a whirlwind of motion. Before Najafi began to scream, the chieftain stepped back to regard its handiwork with those eight hard eyes.

  In less time than it took to shred her armor, the chieftain had flayed our captain. As I reflect, I like to think that shock took her, then and there, shielding her from the agony. I like to think that. I just wish I could believe it. I can’t. As she fell, I saw her eyes.

  Before she hit the ground, a carpet of things rattled from the tall grass at the edge of the clearing. No two seemed exactly alike. Some slithered faster than any snake. Some scuttled, sideways and crablike. Others lurched, or crawled or scampered. However they moved, all were lightning fast and all shared a common goal.

  The creatures converged on Captain Najafi, blanketing her in an undulating, writhing, nightmare mass. Her muffled screams ended, replaced by crunching and the unwholesome chewing sounds of a thousand tiny mouths. We sat in horrified silence until the mass of creatures swept back to the tall grass, moving across the ground like a blanket of cockroaches confronted by a sudden light.

  Not content with simply eating Captain Najafi, the creatures left an oval depression where she had fallen, devouring every hint of her, down to the tiniest drop of blood that might have soaked into the soil.

  When I looked at Murray, she was shaking. All of us were. From the IPLO and the mapmaker, to the battle-hardened soldiers, each of us wept. Corporal Tsang, his lost ear forgotten, stared at the shallow void where our captain had been. Next to him sat Private Verne and Private Jimenez. Too far apart for physical consolation, they stared at each other, trying to give emotional support. They tried to be brave, but their features betrayed them. Fear was winning.

  I didn’t really know the next three privates. They’d rotated in a month ago, just before we’d been dropped on this world. I wish I could tell you their names and what sort of people they were in life. I can’t. I can only tell you they died as well as circumstances allowed, which wasn’t well at all. Terrified and crying and often on their knees, they begged for mercy from the merciless with exactly the results you’d expect.

  Falstaff, segregated for no reason other than his equipment, suffered alone, waiting for what came next.

  In a daze, I asked Murray a question.

  She turned to me. “Wh-what?”

  “Before… before what happened… the chieftain… it said something. It sounded like just one word.”

  “I don’t want to say, Ted. Really. You don’t want to know.”

  “Please. Share it, Lisa. Tell me and share it. What did that thing say just before it skinned our captain?”

  “Jesus, Ted. I’ve only heard that word a couple of times among the indigenous people and only ever among the children.”

  “The children…”

  “Once in a while, one of the privates will share some chocolate ration or a cookie pack with one of the indigenous kids. That thing over there said the same word the children say when they’re anticipating a treat.”

  “Share it, Lisa. What did that thing say just before it
tore into Captain Najafi?”

  “It said ‘yummy’.”

  * * *

  The chieftain refrained from dirtying its hands murdering any more of our number. Instead, it whooped and laughed and clapped as every few hours a fresh nightmare would detach itself from the shadows, slither from the grass, drop down from the trees, rise from the fetid swamp or crash from the jungle into the clearing. Starting with Corporal Tsang, these new creatures, each just as horrible and twisted as the next, worked their way down the line of soldiers. Twice, the kill was as swift as Captain Najafi. The rest were not so fortunate. One of the privates I didn’t know must have taken an hour to die, all the time tormented by a tentacled thing whose touch burned like acid.

  Each time a new horror entered the clearing, the chieftain spoke to Murray. It told her the rest of us must watch. If we looked away, the shadowy thing reappeared and began slicing off pieces of the next person in line. When the last private finally died and was devoured, the chieftain strode across the clearing to Falstaff.

  It took his face into one of its eight-fingered hands. It seemed to size him up, then looked down at his gear. It turned to Murray and spoke.

  “It says you’re different from the other soldiers, Falstaff,” Murray said. “It is asking me why you wear armor but carry no weapon.”

  The chieftain nudged the hammer and stakes with one of its hooves. Murray barked a long string of words.

  “I just told it those aren’t weapons. That they’re used to mark location – territory is the word the indigenous people use. I told it you assist Ted, Falstaff. I don’t know what it wants.”

  The chieftain approached me. The maw opened and closed as it drew near. The fingertip claws clacked with each step. It regarded me with those cold, glassy eyes. I felt like some scientific specimen wriggling on a pin. It levelled a claw in my direction and spoke at length with Murray.

  She nodded at the end and took a deep breath.

  “These creatures did take your camera and my voice recorder. When I asked it why it said, ‘So that we can relive the moments again and again after you are used up.’”