It took me a few hours to fix up my suit. The outer layer was basically scrap. The inner insulation was still fine for the most part but that was the part focused on keeping warmth in. The exposed plates that kept the cold out looked like they’d been hit by a group of rapid piranha. The worst part was that a lot of the clasps that joined the layers had been damaged. Normally it would have been easy to undo them with the suit’s onboard computer. Now I had to twist and pry them free. That was especially difficult for the ones on my back.
Fixing the air bike’s long range communicator didn’t take as long but was just as frustrating. The bike wasn’t exactly the height of technology. Testing its communicator required turning on and off other parts of the bike that were completely unrelated because of the way the power flow worked. And the parts I was using as replacements had to be jury rigged to work at all. Almost nothing on the bike was being used for its original, intended purpose and that meant a lot of switching between settings to make sure that the changes I made to any given system hadn’t also affected another system in some unforeseen way.
But once both were finished I felt something I hadn’t realized was lurking behind the tasks. Dread filled me. Ai was definitely right about one thing. This was a horribly risky plan. Repairing the two things that would make it possible to pull this off just forced me to think about how delicate those things could be. Thinking about that put the weight of mountains on top of me. It felt like I was staring at an oncoming avalanche.
But I couldn’t outrun this one. It was coming one way or another. I just had to hope I could still climb out once the snow settled.
By the time I’d finished all of my preparations and couldn’t find any more excuses to put it off, the daylight was only halfway gone. Which meant I had plenty of time to make the first leg of the journey. Ai had even helpfully accounted for the amount of time I’d have leftover and selected a suitable place to spend the night. Dammit.
So I got on my bike and fired it up. It’s roar filled the hangar, echoing off of every wall. Ai’s holographic form appeared near the exit. As I leaned down against the bike to get out she raised a hand to me, waving goodbye. It felt a little strange to say goodbye. Almost all of our communication came through the suit I wore so in a real way we weren’t any more separated when I was gone than when I was there. All the same, I waved back and felt a twinge of something sharp as I did. Maybe she was worried I’d never come back too.
The sky was about as clear as it ever got, which meant the sky was closer to white than steel grey. The sun was something that you could see with reasonable clarity though that was partly because it was close to noon. Well, mid-day anyway. I wasn’t sure if planets that didn’t have a twenty four hour day night cycle had a noon, and I didn’t want to ask Ai while Cyrus could listen in and make fun of me for not knowing.
The day's trip was largely uneventful. Cyrus and I played tic tac toe, checkers and chess to pass the time. He beat me every single time in all three games, though I did have to drive at the same time so it wasn’t getting my full concentration.
The cold wasn’t pleasant, but with the replacement parts the suit was enough to keep my extremities from going numb, even after nearly six full hours of travel. Even so, when I finally got to the location that Ai had found for shelter I groaned with happiness at the idea of getting off the bike. The whole thing shook constantly while it was in motion and it was exhausting to hang on.
The place Ai had found was a cave. It sprang up from a rocky outcropping and yawned like an open mouth. I pulled the air bike up close to the entrance, set it down and just looked into the darkness.
“Ai, how sure are we that nothing lives in there?”
“Unfortunately, there is no way for my scans to garner that type of information,” she said, tone mildly apologetic. “The only way to know for sure is for you to check.”
“Oh. Awesome. Is there a plan for if there is something in there that wants to eat my face?”
“I suggest running away.”
Cyrus made a disgusted noise.
“Kid, you got this. That suit practically makes you into a damn super hero. Get in there and see what’s what. Odds are there’s nothing in there to worry about.”
“Easy for you to say,” I muttered but he had a point. If I went ahead and got it over with I’d have more daylight to try and make it back to the Ariel.
I got down from the bike and moved towards the entrance. The suit adjusted light levels so that I could see farther down into the cave than I should have been able to. All I saw was cold, hard stone and descending darkness that even the suit’s vision couldn’t penetrate at the end.
“Ai, can you adjust the suit’s sensory levels to prioritize any ambient noise that I’m not making? If something is in there, I don’t want it sneaking up on me.”
“Of course.”
The speakers in my ears kicked on and though they didn’t produce any real noise there was a light humming that told me she’d done something.
“Kid, if you give me administrator access to some of the suit’s functions, I should be able to use the cameras it activates for stealth mode to watch your back for you,” Cyrus said.
“I am not sure that is a good idea,” Ai said immediately. The offer seemed odd to me as well.
“What exactly are you going to do?”
“I used to write code for power suits that are pretty similar to the one you’re using. I can’t do much from here but there are workarounds I can use to add some functionality to your suit. I mean that one is what, a mark IV? If I remember correctly that was made back with the Von Werner’s were in control of the company and their work was less than stellar.”
“Can’t disagree there,” I said, grimly.
“So let me help you. Look you’re doing me a favor as much as anything. If I can get a little more functionality out of that suit for you it only increases my survival chances.”
I was quiet. I still didn’t like the idea of giving someone else access to the suit’s coding. There was a lot that could go wrong even without malicious intent. What if he accidentally erased the bits that controlled air flow in the suit? Or worse, liquid flow. Now that was a horrifying idea.
“Look I hate that I’m stuck up here while you’re down there risking your life to save me. Let me do something to feel like I’m contributing.”
Well, crap. How was I supposed to say no to that? I tried. If anything I wanted to more now. But I couldn’t. I’d been helpless too often to let someone else feel that way.
“Yeah alright. What do I need to do?”
A few minutes later after diving through about a hundred menus, Cyrus had full access to the suit’s systems. And about two minutes after that he had rigged the suit's cameras and screen to give me a little unobtrusive window that showed what was behind me, like the rear view camera on a vehicle. There was something unprofessional in the look of the window, something I had trouble putting a finger on but it worked and frankly, that was all that mattered.
There was nothing left but to go forward, into the darkness. I steeled myself and stepped forward, sure that at any moment, some terrible, slavering creature would come rushing out to devour me.
But it didn’t. In fact, the cave was empty and not all that deep. It only went back about sixty feet. There might have been more to it than that, through a hole I found at one point maybe forty or forty-five feet back but it was so small that I couldn’t have put my hand through it if I’d tried. And I definitely wasn’t going to try, even though Cyrus begged me to. I’ve seen movies. That’s how you lose an arm to some weird monster. Probably one with tentacles.
With all that done, all that was left was to find whatever passed for the warmest spot and bed down there. I couldn’t bring very much with me on the air bike. Every added pound slowed it down, so all that I had for bedding was a thick tarp that I folded over itself a few times to keep myself off the ground. I didn’t need much to be relatively comfortable though. The suit was designed to be slept in and one of the things it did surprisingly well was help a person get comfortable in just about any sleeping position. It did that by moving the material of the suit in small ways to give support to different parts of my body. I guess sleeping was an easier situation to test and program for than most. Or maybe the people who made the suit just liked sleeping a lot.
Either way, it didn’t take me long to fall asleep. I was colder than I would have liked but what else was new? In fact, when I woke up, I thought it was because I’d gotten too cold.
“Euclid, wake up,” Ai’s voice was saying.
“Wassit?” I asked in a blearly slur.
“Something is moving near the entrance to the cave,” Cyrus said, even his voice serious for once. Sleepiness fled from me.
“How long was I asleep?”
“Only an hour or so. Night only fell seventeen minutes ago. It is possible that something is returning to its home after a hunt,” Ai said.
“Shit. Okay, stealth mode.”
At my words the suit became invisible and I got to my feet in perfect silence. I could hear it when the suit’s audio sensors shifted around, the odd tinny buzzing shifting up and down octaves until I could hear sounds at the front of the cave. It wasn’t hard for me to figure out what they were. I’d heard the sounds only a few days ago.
There was a troupe of yeti hunters just outside the cave.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Through the suit I could pick out at least three distinct voices, all hushed speaking in a way that seemed rapid to me. One voice, deeper than the rest, cut through the noise with what I took to be a single word. It then spoke, slower and with more force than the rest.
I stepped out around the corner of the alcove I’d been sleeping in and saw them. There were four that I could see immediately. One, bigger and wider than the rest was pointing into the cave with a spear. Despite their fur, the creatures wore heavy, thick capes that bulked up their already enormous figures to the point of terrifying immensity. The four of them moved towards the cave as one, creating a lopsided V shape with the largest yeti at the point. And once they’d moved to that position I could see past them.
A smaller shape lingered outside the cave. It stared up at my air bike in what instinct told me was wonder. The face of the small yeti that had watched me as I flew away from their village leapt into my mind. And then, the yeti at the head of the group barked at it.
The little yeti jumped and nearly fell in the snow. It had to lift its cape so it wouldn’t drag through the snow as it hurried into place to complete the V with its fellows. It looked unsure of the spear in its hand and never quite achieved the same steady pace as the rest of the yetis, constantly making the form of the V seem subtly off.
“Euclid, you cannot leave this cave.”
“What? Why?”
“There is nowhere close enough for you to shelter for the night. The temperature outside is falling rapidly now. You would die of exposure before you could reach any other location with greater than a point zero five survival rate.”
I bit down on a curse. There was nothing else for it then. The yetis were almost certainly here for the exact same reason I was. They were looking for shelter for the night. I was going to have to spend the night with a cave full of murderous yetis.
I glanced back at the space I’d been sleeping on. The tarp was still there. Nothing I could do about it. There was nowhere to hide it. But I needed to get out of that nook. Once the yetis spotted it there was no way they wouldn’t search more carefully in there and I couldn't be sure I’d be able to avoid them in those cramped confines.
I stepped out of the cave and had to decide quickly. I could go back further into the cave or I could try and slip past the yetis. I clenched my jaw and stepped carefully in the direction of the oncoming spears.
Everything in me was screaming to run to the back of the cave but it was very possible I’d just get trapped back there. But by walking into the danger I had a chance. Not a good one but a chance. I just had to be careful, calm, and a little bit lucky.
“I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die,” I found myself repeating over and over as I stepped carefully forward. The tiny yeti was my only chance. Even though it was small compared with it’s compatriots, it was still big enough to fill up most of the space between the yeti on its right and the wall. But it wasn’t very good at moving smoothly in step with the others and there were tiny gaps I could exploit if I just timed it right.
I moved to a point where I was only a pace or two in front of the yeti and began to back up, waiting for my moment. It came as a small outcropping forced the yeti to pause and it opened a gap in their formation just large enough for me to slip between them. I held my breath and walked forward, trying to be smooth, quick, and silent. I nailed it. My timing was perfect. I was calm as I did it, despite my hammering heart.
Which made it all the more frustrating when the tiny yeti tripped on his own cape and toppled into me. It didn’t fall entirely on top of me, but it let out a yelp and every single one of the other yetis turned to see what had happened.
The little one could have just grabbed hold of me and there would have been nothing I could have done about it. But it seemed to be just as scared by the contact as I was and it leapt back off me. I scrambled away down the hallway faster than I should have. Even the suit’s excellent stealth technology couldn’t completely muffle the sounds of my movement if I wasn’t careful, and I was way too freaked out to be careful.
Thankfully the sound of the other yetis laughing covered the sound I was making. The little one scrambled back to its feet, reaching out with its hands like it had suddenly gone blind as it tried to find me. I was well out of reach though and it soon stopped, and looked at the other yetis before hanging its head in shame.
I hadn’t realized it at first but they weren’t all laughing. The largest of them had never taken its eyes off the back of the cave and still held its spear at the ready. It let out a single, chuff of a word and the yetis calmed down. Once they had their spears ready and were facing the right way again, the big yeti turned its head to look at the smallest. It didn’t make a noise and its expression was blank as far as I could tell but between the long moment of looking at its silent turning away, I sensed a well of disappointment. And from the way the little yeti looked as it fumbled with its spear and cape and got back into line, it felt it far more keenly.
“Poor thing,” Ai murmured .
“All of the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names,” Cyrus whispered in a sing-song voice.
“Shut up.” It took me a moment to realize I’d spoken; another to feel the rage that coursed through me at Cyrus’ joke.
“Oh come on. That was a good one.”
“No. It wasn’t. Now be quiet,” I spat.
“Geez, tough crowd,” Cyrus muttered but he fell silent after that.
The five yetis swept the rest of the cave without further incident. There was some chatter when they found the tarp I’d been laying on but none of them seemed to be able to make anything of the situation. The little yeti hung back and when they found the tarp it raised its hands and opened its mouth as if it was going to say something but darted a glance at the largest yeti and wilted.
The yetis set up in the same nook that I had. With the yetis fairly sure they were alone I was able to move more or less freely among them as long as I was careful. One of the middle sized yetis sat outside the nook where it could look towards the cave entrance while the rest settled in. One of them pulled what looked like a stone box out of its pack and after setting up a bowl poured glowing red coals from the box into the bowl. They also used my tarp to cover the entrance to the nook and keep the warmth in and the temperature in the nook shot up. I had no idea where they’d gotten the coals from but I was glad they had. The nook was large enough that I was able to sneak in and find an unobtrusive spot to sit and bask in the first real warmth I’d felt in months. The coals didn’t give off a huge amount of light and so the suit’s stealth mode barely had to use any extra energy to keep me hidden. I almost felt like I was a part of their little family for a moment.
After that things weren’t nearly so bad as I’d expected. They all bedded down, rolling out thick furs to lay down on and went to sleep. I couldn’t sleep easy myself but I dozed off and on. A few hours later, the yeti that had been guarding outside came back into the nook and woke the largest yeti.
The big yeti rolled to a sitting position and let out a yawn that showed me some huge and surprisingly white teeth. It nodded and got to its feet while the yeti that had been standing guard went to lay down. The large yeti went to stand its watch and before long I found myself drifting in a very light sleep.
Movement made me stir. The large yeti had come back into the nook. I thought at first that it had come to switch with one of the other guards but the clock on my HUD said that it hadn’t even been a full hour. It came in and stood over the smallest yeti and for a moment I felt my whole body growing tense.
The huge figure crouched down low over the smaller one. I had no idea what it might do but my legs curled up beneath me, ready to launch my body from its hiding place. Whether to run or to defend the tiny yeti I don’t know. I didn’t have to find out.
Very slowly and with extreme care, the huge yeti reached out and brushed aside a few of the long hairs covering the small yeti’s face. The little yeti sighed and snorted but continued sleeping. The huge yeti put down a hand and sat next to the small yeti, near its head.
Then it just sat there, looking down at the small yeti and though it was almost completely still, I thought I saw emotions playing across its face. Pride, worry, fear, satisfaction, a fierce desperate hope. All these and more all rolled across its face like tides and I suddenly understood their relationship. The huge yeti was the little one’s father.
The realization sent a spike of pain through my chest, hot and stinging. I had never known my father or mother. I’d grown up on the streets of a city on a planet far far away from here. I didn’t know who they were. I didn’t know what had happened to them. I didn’t know what name they’d given me, if they had. And I didn’t know if they had ever sat and watched over me while I slept.
And I never would.
That simple fact set my soul on fire. It was a good thing the suit was so well insulated against sound. I hoped Cyrus was asleep and that AI wasn’t listening. I didn’t need them to hear me crying.
Eventually the large yeti put out a hand the size of a dinner plate and held it over the little yeti’s head. It’s lips moved but if it was speaking, I couldn’t hear it. After a time it stopped and then, its prayer complete, it moved through the curtain in silence and resumed its watch.
The coals had burnt low by the time I woke up next. I must’ve missed a shift change or two because my internal clock said that dawn was coming in just a few hours.
One of the medium sized yetis was nudging the smallest one with a foot. When the little yeti didn’t wake up it nudged harder until the little one grunted and opened its eyes. The medium yeti sniffed and waved towards the flap outside and the little one nodded and got to its feet. They got the coals going once again and the little yeti walked out for its watch.
My own alarm went off a few hours later. My plan was to leave before the yetis woke. As long as I was on the bike while they were still in the cave, I could be long gone before they’d ever have a chance to catch up to me.
Walking out of the nook was nerve wracking but I made it without waking any of the yetis. In fact, I didn’t even wake up the small one sitting outside the nook. It’s head hung down on its chest and a little bit of drool fell from its mouth into its fur.
My first thought was relief at the perfect opportunity. My second was a memory of the disappointment on the larger yetis face when the little yeti had tripped the night before. I knew that when the other yetis awoke they were going to give the little guy a hard time. But if I woke it up and it realized it was me then there was a chance I’d get killed. Saving the little yeti from a bit of embarrassment, especially embarrassment it had rightfully earned in falling asleep, wasn’t worth that risk.
And yet, I found I couldn’t move towards the bike. I stood there in indecision for a long moment before I noticed something at the yetis feet. Basically everything the yetis had brought with them like their capes and packs had been some sort of animal byproduct. Even the few things that hadn’t been like the coals and their stone carrying case were still natural.
The thing at the little yetis feet was metal. And not only that, it was familiar. A small black badge with exposed wires.
I reached for the nano immunizer just to be sure it was what I thought it was. And as my hand got near to it, the little yeti’s not so little hand covered mine.
It didn’t move fast and when it grabbed my basically invisible hand the movement was so smooth and so calm that I didn’t jerk away. Something in the motion perfectly bypassed my brain’s fight or flight response and left me frozen like a rabbit that isn’t sure if it’s been seen even though it’s out in the open and something is staring directly at it.
My eyes rose up to meet the tiny yeti’s and I saw something on its eyes. It wore a pair of goggles that clearly hadn’t been made to fit it’s face since they were held together with leather straps. But the lights blinked on it and I knew it could see me.
It smiled at me. It wasn’t a vicious smile. It wasn’t a smile that promised me pain.
It was just a happy smile, joyous that it’s plan had succeeded. I felt the tension sink out of my body at the sight and it let my hand go. I should have run away but I found myself just staying there looking at the yeti, wanting to respond somehow to it. We stayed that way for a long moment, neither of us truly sure what to do next.
A sleepy grunt from inside the nook shattered the brief moment before either of us could decide. The little yeti waved its hands at me in a shooing motion. It pointed back towards my air bike emphatically and silently.
There was nothing else to do. I nodded and turned away. I was at my air bike in moments and though the cold wind whipped at me, the tiny dot of light that was the sun was beginning to push back the darkness.
As I flew towards the next rest stop Ai had found for me I had to wonder what the little yeti had been thinking. But what dominated my thoughts was the hope that the other yetis wouldn’t be harsh on it after my escape woke them.