The Abyss of Time

Chapter Twenty Eight

The crossing of the river was fraught and dangerous. The rocks were smooth and covered with slime while the water splashing over and between them was fast and furious.

Miller and Pangiran went over first, steadying each other when they came close to falling, and they took a rope with them which they tied to a columnar plant of some kind when they reached the other side. With the aid of the rope the others had an easier time getting across, with the strongest helping the weakest over the most difficult and dangerous places.

As Miller helped Felgin across he looked up into the criss crossing canopy of branches that hid the sky from view even here, desperately hoping not to see a drone watching them. Even though the cyborgs had moved on, it would have been fully in character for them to leave a few drones flying up and down the river on the off chance. Maybe they did, but if so they saw any trace of one. It was a long river, after all. The cyborgs couldn't watch all of it.

When they were all gathered on the other side Miller send the electronic command for the mules to follow them. He had hoped that their size and weight would give them some protection against the force of the river, but they were still pushed sideways along the gravelly river bed in the places where the water was deepest. They all watched in tense apprehension as mule two slipped nearly fifty metres downriver, carrying equipment and supplies absolutely essential for their survival, before it reached a shallower patch where its six wheels were once again in contact with the river bed. It scrambled gallantly against the force of the water that splashed and crashed against its steel sides until it eventually climbed up the shallow slope back onto dry land. When it did, Miller was astonished to see several dents in its casing where rocks and small boulders being swept downstream by the river had crashed into it. Any one of them could have damaged the delicate electronice inside if it had hit in the wrong place.

The quads, in contrast, had a much easier time getting across, their riders taking them back into the jungle so they could get up to their maximum speed before hitting the water, allowing their momentum to carry them across. Miller imagined Jaime yelling in jubilation as he rode his quad up the opposite bank, then doing a victory lap around the Orchid crew as they clapped and cheered. He looked at Yonel, and the look of grief on his face told him that he was thinking the same thing. The lad had had so much life, so much energy, that it made Miller feel the depth of the tragedy in a way it hadn't the day before, when the shock had still been too great.

This planet wants to kill us, he thought grimly. We're intruders. It hates us and it wants us gone, but we're not going anywhere. This is our home now and the planet's just going to have to get used to us.

"Watch out for the plant that attacked Jaime," he told the others as they prepared to move on. "Matthews described it as having a bulbous base with long, whiplike branches growing from the top. The whole thing was bright yellow. If you see one, keep well away from it."

"Actually, I don't think it was a plant," said Felgin, though. "I took a good look at the parasite we removed from Jaime's body and I'm pretty sure it was an animal. I think the parent organism was a sessile animal, like a sort of sea anenome..."

"I don't care what it was," said Miller impatiently. "Just watch out for them and keep well clear of them."

"We should bear in mind that everything here is potentially dangerous," said Felgin. "If we focus too much on one thing, we risk overlooking something else."

"Yes, of course," said Miller irritably, but then he looked alarmed as a thought came to him. "What did you do with that parasite?" he asked.

"It died just a couple of minutes after we removed it," Connie replied, coming closer to join in the conversation. "We threw it away into the jungle."