Having relieved himself in the stream (so as not to leave a scent) Marcus chose to leave the water while wearing his boots. If a predator were hunting by scent, it would probably be harder for it to follow his trail than if he walked barefoot. At least he wouldn’t be leaving the scent of meat. On the other hand, the boots made a stronger impression in the mud and grass: a tribal hunter would find tracking him easier than if he took off the boots. Marcus sighed to himself. The more he was enjoying this youthful body, the more anxious he became about his immediate future.

Back in their den, he proposed to Sina that they sleep in shifts during the coming night and that they wear their full space suits: again, so as to limit the spread of body odour and reduce the chance of being detected by their scent.

When the sun went behind the mountains, the evening sky turned a fabulous indigo and the first of the stars appeared. None of them were familiar, of course. Lying in his lean-to, Marcus anticipated that he would find it hard to sleep. There was so much to think about, so much to plan, so much to learn. What was he feeling? He’d been so constantly attentive to his surroundings that he hadn’t really taken stock of whether he was angry (a little, that someone would forcibly wrench him from his accustomed life); amused, that the thief would be in an aching and aged body; happy, to be young again; or frightened. Now that the light was fading, it was fear that was becoming his dominant emotion. The AI had said they would die once found by predators.

Even with all these thoughts flowing rapidly and at cross-purposes, Marcus found that exhaustion was more overpowering than anxiety.

He was dreaming. Decades ago, there had been a gallery owner in Dublin who had wanted Marcus to hold an exhibition. For some reason Marcus thought of that man now. Dressed in a garish silk waistcoat, the gallery owner was advising Marcus in a kindly fashion, unashamed about the fact that although he intended to make a lot of money out of Marcus, there was no harm in this. It would suit them both and also the buyers. The owner was convinced the art would gain in value over time. It was spears that the man wanted; spears that were unusual in the bizarre twists of their metal points.

Suddenly conscious that his neck was in an uncomfortable position, Marcus woke with a start. Opening his face mask, he breathed fresh air that had a tang of salt and the mouth-watering scent of wild onion. Having crawled outside of his lean-to, Marcus was disappointed that the sky had clouded over and he could not study it properly. There was a moon overhead, it was a ring of grey. But the stars were gone.

‘Are you awake?’ whispered Sina. It was impossible to see her by staring into the darkness, but if he looked downwards, then a hint of moonshine from her suit was visible at the edges of his vision.

He came close, so that she would hear his hushed response. ‘I am.’

‘I hate it here. Listen.’

Silence, but for a faint background rustle of a breeze among the bushes. Then a ‘hoo, hoo’ call came from the direction of the forest. Like that of an owl, but louder and deeper.

‘Caw, cawwww!’ A voice, somewhat human and angry-sounding.

‘Gorrrabbbb!’ Another, deep and loud, as though issuing from the mouth of a frog the size of an elephant.

A dozen more alien creatures filled the unfathomable night with their shrieks and Marcus understood completely why the princess was afraid and unhappy.

‘I wish I was home in bed,’ she said.

‘Me too,’ said Marcus, and he realised it was true. For the first time since this adventure had begun the negatives outweighed the positives. A horrible sensation swept through him: that an attack upon him by a savage, dinosaur-sized monster was imminent.

‘It’s not a nightmare is it? I’m not going to wake up?’ From the disconsolate tone of her voice, Sina didn’t need him answer. All the same.

‘It’s real. Want me to pinch you?’

‘I do not.’ The sounds of the creatures around them died away for a moment, only to start up again and with a tone that was more threatening than before. ‘This is going to sound ridiculous, but I’m worried about what she is doing with my body.’

‘Who?’

‘The woman who swapped with me,’ Sina raised her voice impatiently. ‘I made sure to drink four litres of water a day and walk fifteen-thousand steps. Will she keep that up?’

What was the spaceman doing in his old body? Breaking it, probably. He wouldn’t be used to it: to having to take small steps; to not having a steady sense of balance. It was safer to move from a frail body to one at peak fitness like this one than the other way around.

‘And what’s she posting on Insta? I made my own Instagram posts. Everyone said my P.A. should run my account. I didn’t agree. I felt my followers would know the difference. And I think I had an eye for a good picture.’ Sina’s voice was tremulous and she was sniffing heavily. It occurred to Marcus that the princess was probably crying.

He had nothing to offer her and so he remained silent.

‘Then there are my friends too. She doesn’t know them at all. They are going to think I’ve gone mad. I’ll probably come back to find they all hate me.

‘Oh God, what if she … you know, sleeps with someone. She could ruin my life and damage the whole family. It’s difficult enough justifying monarchy, even when we are doing our best for the country. What’s she going to say in public? She’ll bring us into disrepute and father will think it’s me. That I’ve failed him. That I’ve forgotten everything he taught me.’

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It surprised Marcus that someone as smart as Sina would assume that she could return to Earth. The craft and the technology that might allow for this had exploded. And what had the AI said? The nearest source of assistance was seven light-years away. Really, Sina shouldn’t care about all those things any more. They were gone for good. And what the spacewoman did with her life on Earth didn’t matter in the slightest.

‘Princess,’ Marcus reached across and patted her. ‘Let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about what we know about this world and how to survive in it.’

After a moment, Marcus heard his companion draw a deep breath. Then another. ‘Very well. In fact, I was waiting for you to wake up because I have found a new menu you might not have seen yet.’

‘Oh, what?’

‘If you open your character sheet and flick both your eyes to the right, you can see your inventory.’

‘Inventory?’

‘Just try it,’ she whispered tiredly. So he did.

Personal Inventory

Space suit (worn) 96% Degrading very slowly (environment resistant materials)

Parachute 92% Degrading slowly (outdoors)

Timber, 3 units 87% Degrading quickly (outdoors, damp ground)

Rittle Berries, 1 unit 84% Degrading quickly (outdoors, damp ground)

Storage

‘I see it.’

‘We should build a storage area for the timber and any other resources we obtain.’

‘Perhaps in the morning; but I think we should look for metal from the crash as our first priority.’

For a long time, Sina did not speak and Marcus too remained silent, listening to the disturbing cries of the night. Sometimes he thought he heard a creature moving nearby, though the faint rustling sound might simply have been a consequence of a gust of wind. There was pressure on his shoulder. It was her helmet. Sina had leaned over to rest her head on him.

‘Go to your bed and try to sleep?’ suggested Marcus.

‘I’m not going to be able to.’

The dark hours were long. The sense he had, of being about to fall victim to a sudden outburst of carnivorous violence, however, receded to the point that Marcus was drowsing when a whole new cacophony of sound made him sit up, alert. It was the dawn and the birds of the forest were awake and celebrating.

***

It took them three hours of walking to find the wreckage of the spacecraft. Since the stream flowed from a source that seemed to be in the right direction, Marcus had followed it until seeing a much brighter patch of forest to their right. And having left the stream to aim for that area, they emerged from the treeline to look down at a huge rip torn into the forest floor.

‘My God!’ exclaimed Sina and Marcus nodded his head.

A hundred metres or more of ground to his left had been torn up by the incoming craft, which seemed to have pushed a wave of dirt ahead of it and then exploded at the end of the trench it had dug. Black, charred metal about ten metres below them marked the final resting place of the spacecraft: the coach-sized lump of debris was so distorted that it would have been hard to identify it had he not known it for what it was. ‘Poor AI.’

‘Imagine; we were in there just a few seconds before it crashed.’

‘I’m going down. Do you want to look around for sharp pieces of metal up here or come with me?’ Marcus asked. Almost nothing would have survived the crash but the metal of the craft and even that had been partly burned up.

‘I’ll come with you.’

Neither of them had their mirrored visors closed and Marcus could see the anxiety on Sina’s face. He would have reassured her if he could, but what could he say? ‘Let’s be as quick as we can. If there are any of the tribespeople nearby whom we were warned about, they might want to find out what the crash was.’

Having spoken, Marcus immediately regretted his words. If it were possible, the princess looked even more sick with worry, her cheeks were nearly green.

Although steep sided, the gully cut into the ground by the spaceship was rough and easy to scramble down. Metal of all shapes and sizes was embedded into the earthen banks and Marcus began pulling out pieces that might make for effective spear tips.

Sina had wriggled out of her parachute, which she had carried over her back, and was arranging it on the ground, so that they could pile up the metal on top and carry it back to base. Careful not to tear the thin material, Marcus started placing his best finds on it.

Quietly, and with an efficiency Marcus was pleased with, they walked towards the ruined craft at the end of the tear in the ground, stopping to examine debris and keep the items that looked like they might be useful. Wiring, thought Marcus, might be invaluable in the future and he gathered several cords, each of which was over a metre in length.

‘Look at this, Marcus.’ Sina had gone close enough to the final resting place of the spacecraft to be standing among shards of the glass-like material from which its windows had been made. She was holding up a piece and it had a wickedly fierce appearance, like a shark’s tooth.

Marcus walked over, careful about where he placed his boots and even more careful when he took the glass from her. ‘Now this is perfect. Just as hard as metal and even sharper! We can make knives and spears with this.’

The princess had a little more colour in her cheeks now and Marcus was about to make some kind of cheerful comment when a dozen or more purple-breasted birds fluttered into the air, their wings clapping louder than their shrieks.

‘What was that?’ Sina asked.

With a last glance at the wreckage – he could still make out the approximate shape of the cabin and it seemed like it might to be worth exploring further in there – Marcus hurried back to the parachute and began folding it carefully over their stash, before tying it tight with the cords. ‘Something disturbed those birds,’ said Marcus quietly.

‘Here,’ she handed him a cylinder of metal that was about the length of a baseball bat, albeit one that had a twist in it.

‘What about our items?’ Marcus wondered aloud.

‘Leave them for now. Let’s get out of here.’

‘We need them.’

‘We need to get away,’ Sina said firmly. ‘It’s too bulky.’

‘Help me get it onto my back.’

‘No. We need to leave now.’

Marcus was glaring at the princess and he knew it, because she had closed her visor and there was his unfamiliar face in the reflection, teeth clenched, eyes narrowed.

Sina was already climbing up the bank, one hand on an S-shaped pipe, the other helping her balance. With one last look at their haul, Marcus followed.

At the top, the princess waited for him and as soon as he was up, she ran to the nearest large tree and stood against it. Then Sina beckoned him with urgent motions of her arm. Looking all around – and seeing nothing untoward – Marcus went to her side.

‘Listen, you’re okay now. And we need those items. I’m going back for them.’

‘If you leave me now, I’ll never forgive you.’ She spoke so fiercely, it was clear to Marcus she really meant it.

‘It could have been anything that startled the birds.’

‘There!’

On the other side of the scar in the ground was a four-legged animal the size and colour of a donkey, but much more muscular and with the unmistakable fangs of a carnivore. It was watching them with unwavering black eyes.

Marcus shifted his grip on his metal stave.

‘Oh God,’ muttered the princess.

‘I used to cycle,’ said Marcus, not taking his eyes from the monster.

‘Why on Earth would you share that particular piece of information at this moment?’

‘And I had a little book of information for cyclists.’

‘If there’s a point to your anecdote, you should make it quickly.’

‘There was a sub-heading: dogs. And it advised that if attacked by a dog, you take the pump and as the dog opens its mouth to bite, ram the pump into its throat as far down as you can.’

‘Oh God. And did you do that?’

‘The opportunity never arose. But first, the book said, try to scare the dog away by shouting and throwing rocks.’

‘Shall we?’

‘We shall.’ Marcus looked away only for a moment, in the hope of finding some metal to throw and sensed from the edge of his vision that immediately the monster was on the move, racing sleek and fast around the crater.

Helmet open, Sina began screaming at a pretty decent volume and Marcus joined in. He found a rock to throw too and although he missed it caused the monster to swerve and stop. It was only ten metres away now and Marcus could see now that instead of whiskers it had thin tendrils of flesh, like worms, which were swaying and reaching out as if searching for scents. A strand of saliva slid toward the ground from its sharp-toothed mouth.

‘Check your quests!’ the princess said urgently.

‘Now?’

‘Yes, now!’

Quest: Otaxel Pet

Tame an Otaxel.

Requirements: Animal Handling 1; meat.

Reward: A useful guardian and companion.

‘We don’t have meat, or the skill.’ Marcus prepared himself to meet the monster’s charge.

‘All the same, don’t hurt it.’

Looking at the powerful jaws of the monster and sensing its capacity to tear out his throat with one bite of those sharp teeth, Marcus found himself laughing derisively at the words of the princess. And then his laughter became more heartfelt. For with a snort, the creature suddenly turned away and bounded off out of the far side of the clearing.

‘It’s so good to be alive,’ he exclaimed, ‘you young ones don’t appreciate that enough.’