A Far, Savage World

Out the viewport, the blooming blue jungles and endless deserts of the planet Ferus invite us down to their countless deathtraps and exotic wonders. The planet stands out in the void of space like a sandy, blue star. Before the ship’s Virtual Intelligence calls out in her artificial, human female voice that we’ve arrived, I decide to wake Xander. I inject him with a small dose of stimulants, an easy process since I’m attached to his left arm and have been granted full control of his body’s systems while he is in stasis. He jerks awakes with a yell and nearly falls out of the pilot’s seat, then scrambles to scratch his body as if an Entarian Bloodworm were crawling through his veins.

“Damn it, Vayl! I told you before I nodded off…” Xander checks the clock display on the pilot’s console, “three weeks ago to let the VI wake me. You know how itchy stimulants make me while I’m asleep!” Xander heaves a big breath and settles into his seat, his itches clearly satisfied.

“I’m sorry, Xander. Do you forget I have no mouth? The last time I screamed in your mind, you told me it gave you nightmares for a month.”

Xander sighs and slicks back his black bangs, then fingers through his now three-week old beard. “I guess I shouldn’t expect a Turoid to understand my—”

“Captain Hunt, we’ve arrived at the planet Ferus.” The computerized voice of the VI announces. I scream in his mind.

He winces. “Hey! Nightmares, remember? What was that for?”

“If I am to use your body to pilot the ship and keep you alive while you spend all your time sleeping and discharging flatus — which thankfully I can’t smell — I request that you have the decency to trust me to command the ship and turn off that horrible VI! She isn’t… human.”

“You look in the mirror lately, bub? Neither are you. You’re just a fleshy blob with a lumpy head-bulge and a buggy eye on top.” Xander shoots me that sarcastic smirk of his, so I toy with his nervous system and wait for him to stop spasming.

“Remind me why I let you bond to me, again?” Xander asks with a grimace and looks out the viewport at the planet.

“You know why.” I want him to understand why it’s so important for me to have bonded to the greatest huntsman in the known galaxy. He’s actually the 4352nd greatest, but I think he has more heart in him than all those piratical Tidarians and hypersensitive Valusians. Heart counts for a lot when one carries powerful weaponry and must decide the fates of others. Anyway, I’ll earn status amongst the Turoid Council if I help him accomplish greatness. Attaching to productive beings is the goal of every Turoid, and Xander is quite productive. But, our relationship is more than that. Symbiotic, even. I keep his body performing at its peak with my Turoid chemicals and abilities to link to his body systems and mind. We are friends. I realize he knows all this already, and I’m only annoying him by being ornery. I can’t read his mind, but my link to his nervous system tells me this. “I’m sorry Xander. I shouldn’t betray our bond. I’m just cranky from the trip. May we focus on the mission?”

Xander winks at me. “It’s okay. You were just being human, as it were. I think I might be rubbing off on you.” He pats my body and winks. “Besides, I guess I can get a bit stinky myself. Ha! Get it? Flatus… Stinky?”

If I had an eye capable of rolling, I roll it.

Xander clears his throat. “Anyway, there it is, Vayl. Ferus. Somewhere on that godforsaken planet is the Ferusian mimic ol’ Vantric Donovan’s paid us to nab. Nobody’s ever caught one of those beasties before, or returned from the hunt for that matter. Think I should turn back?”

“Vantric would kill us both. We’ve both already spent our down-payments on Alicia’s care. Besides, we can do this.” I sense stress and concern in his brainwaves and nervous system. Alicia, Xander’s daughter, is the only reason either of us took this job. There is also the fact that Vantric Donovan owns the hospital she is being treated in and he has us in a bad contract. He pays us just enough to pay him for her treatment and a “fee” that amounts to us being in eternal debt. Not the best situation. Xander looks down and I feel his emotional levels increase.

“I suppose. I just… I want to get back to her in one piece. I can’t keep paying the doctor bills if I’m dead.” I inject a small dose of serotonin into him to calm him.

“Hey, stop messing with my mood. Being human is about ups and downs, okay?” Xander grabs the ship controls and checks the ships displays, then smiles down at me. “But thanks for the boost, eh? Let’s go.”

“Aye, Captain.” I say.

“Allura,” Xander says to the VI and punches in coordinates into the console, “Scan this region for an 800-square foot clearing in the jungle.”

A short moment later, the VI says, “I have found five clearings in the canopy matching your specifications. Putting them on the display now.” A digital topographic map appears, overlaying the viewport. The five clearings are marked by blinking lights on the map.

Xander and I scan the map. “Well, from that data Vantric got from those Apzi hunters, the Ferusian mimics make their home around these odd, rocky spire clusters in the deep jungle. I think this location is the most likely to lead us to a mimic.” Xander points to the southeasternmost clearing. “Take us there, Allura.”

“Aye, Captain.”

***

“That was a bumpy ride,” I say as we land in the clearing. Xander didn’t hear me. He is too enthralled by the image out the viewport. I take the opportunity to see it through his eyes by focusing my link to his optic nerve. The clearing is carpeted with tall, blue grass rippling from the ship’s thrusters. A dense wall of blue-leafed trees—as fat as Vantric Donovan and as tall as the starscrapers blanketing the capital city on Valys V—surround the clearing. The bark on the trees is segmented, like an Earth palm tree—I only know that through pictures in Xander’s book, Encyclopedia In Memoriam of Earth—and a huge bulb of gnarled bark and jagged teal fronds roots each tree to the ground. Small, leaf-shaped birds with azure feathers zip around the trees almost as if they are teleporting from branch to branch. Phasewings. Gnat-like insects swarm the ship, poking at the viewport with their dart-like proboscises, and strange molds hop toward us on their mushroom-like stems. I felt Xander’s wonder turn to dread at their sight.

“Well Vayl, as expected, they’re all hungry to meet us. Better fog the windows.” He chuckles and flips a switch, triggering a mist of insecticides, fungicides, and animal repellants that sends the fauna packing. “Damned Leaping Rot and Sapflies. You read the info on them Vantric provided us?”

“No. I’ve been too busy navigating and keeping you fed while you slept. You’re the expert on wildlife.”

“Well, let’s just say, neither of us want to meet our new neighbors. The Apzi might be the largest and scariest-looking predator on Ferus, but Leaping Rot and Sapflies can even bring them down. Sapflies are poisonous to touch and a swarm can suck your blood dry in five seconds, and don’t even get me started on Leaping Rot. That thing hops right up to you and sprays you with necrotic spores. Then it just absorbs what’s left of your wilted husk.”

I feel what Xander calls apprehension. “Let us not meet our neighbors, please.”

“Love spooking you, buddy,” Xander says with a playful grin. “Don’t worry so much. I’ve considered the wildlife in our strategy.” Xander unbuckles us from the pilot seat and heads to the cargo area of the ship. We walk past the kitchen and I can feel his stomach rumble. “Man, haven’t eaten real food for three weeks! That slop you inject me with— well, I didn’t expect to be fed through a tube til I was an old fartbag in a rest home.”

“I could have let you starve.”

Xander raises an eyebrow. “Too true. Now, let’s stink up, fill up, and gear up before heading out there.”

***

We emerge from the ship clad in his SABRE (Strength-Augmenting Buckminsterfullerene Reinforced Exoskin) suit complete with an oxygen filtration system and tactical helmet; dowsed with insect and animal repellants; and wrapped in a carbon nanotube cloak that allows us to blend into our surroundings. Xander once told me the SABRE Suit makes him look ridiculous—like a B-movie space man from Earth’s 1950s era. Perhaps his odd sense of humor came from that pre-apocalyptic period as well. Anyway, I think he looks fine. In fact, he modified the suit to add a Turoid pocket on his arm which adds a certain appeal to me, at least. I have my own custom exoskin fabric suit overlaying my body around his wrist, and a little bubble to see the world through. I believe we both look quite fashionable. Maybe I know nothing about fashion, so I ask him. “Does this armor make me look… fashionable?”

“You’re a real lady-killer, Vayl.”

I don’t believe him, and not just because I can feel the sarcasm in his mind. Human deception is something I’ve grown accustom to with Xander Hunt. I also haven’t killed any ladies, but I understand his slang expression. I compliment him in return. “You kill ladies as well.” Just as we are about to enter the jungle, I remember our last disaster. “Did you remember the chemical packets? I don’t want to run out.”

“Think I want to die, today?” He opens the cloak and pats a small pouch on his utility belt, “I even brought packets of Apzi pheromones, just in case we need to bait one.” then he clicks his tongue and we step into the dense foliage of the treeline.

The sapflies and thunderbugs nearby scatter. The loud clicking of the thunderbugs’ legs hurts my eartube and I understand how they get their name. We travel further into the foliage; the way is thick of bushes and lit only by struggling rays of light. Xander crashes through the bushes like a blind oaf for a moment, drawing who knows what kind of horrors to us. He switches on his night vision while I focus my link to his optic nerve, giving him sharper sight. I feel his stress melt away. “Thanks, Vayl. You know, the small prongs on the needle-like bushes around us sting and immobilize like the tentacles of an Earth jellyfish, then the plants just absorb their prey’s flesh through little acidic roots scattered around in the soil.”

“Are you trying to make me give you a heart attack?” I say to him, and again, he chuckles. It’s his nervousness again. Of all the amazing beings I’ve bonded with, this human has been the most fearful, but in paradox, also the most strong-willed. That is one reason why I like him so much, apart from his relationship with his daughter.

A howl pierces the dark above us, and the entire canopy quakes, dropping thousands of leaves and several small, smooth-skinned animals around us into the deadly bushes. If I could wince, I do.

“That’s why they call ’em catcher bushes. Winds are picking up above the canopy. We should hurry or we may need to spend the night with these bushes.”

I think of being digested alive like those poor animals and decide I agree with him. “At least night isn’t for another Valysian week. I hope we aren’t here that long.”

We continue northwest to the spire clusters where the mimic is said to dwell. The jungle canopy lets in more light in this area, and we can see our surroundings much easier. The humidity is quite high in here, so I regulate Xander’s body temperature to make him comfortable, which in turns dissipates my body heat.

Xander switches off his night vision, but I keep his eyes well-replenished, just in case. For a few hours our carbon nanotube cloak seems to hide us from the dangers around us. I have to respect Xander’s kind. They are great inventors. We pass a colony of Ferusian dartweed—tentacled land-mollusks that look like foliage and spit poisonous darts—and a pack of four Harguin—four-legged, bird-like pack hunters with long, spear-like tongues, three sets of teeth, knife-like beaks, and feathery, snake-like bodies—picking at a fallen Apzi. We think the Harguin don’t see us, but Xander’s lack of attention to his surroundings leads him to shuffle into a loud patch of fallen leaves.

“Damn,” he whispers as the Harguin look our direction, “give me a reflex enhancer.” I shoot him up, and he jumps, pulling out his ray gun. “Too late!”

The Harguin are fast. They slink unhindered through the paralyzing catcher bushes around us and trill at us, falling into a low posture. I believe they are going to pounce.

Xander blasts at the nearest one with his ray gun and ducks another’s tongue as it whips out and stabs at him. The stunning effects of the ray gun don’t seem to faze the Harguin, so Xander tunes the gun’s hexawave modulator to produce electrolaser rays rather than the standard sonic reverberators. Dodging another tongue, he fires at a Harguin that has flanked us and the beast shrieks, falling to the ground. Another Harguin flees at the power of Xander’s ray gun, and Xander’s adrenaline bursts with his excitement.

“No time for a victory cigar yet,” he says. I don’t smoke, but I agree. The other two Harguin whip their tongues out. One catches Xander on his right shoulder and bounces off the SABRE suit, but the other strikes the ray gun he’s holding near my body, knocking it out of his hand and nearly striking me as well. It surprises me and I nearly spurt my remaining reserves of chemicals into Xander. The gun flies off into the catcher bushes and Xander looks around for an escape route. “Any ideas, Vayl?”

The Harguin continue to snap their tongues at us, and one of them tears into the cloak and catches, ripping a large segment off as the Harguin pulls it back into its mouth.

“I’m out of chemicals relevant to our current situation, but I have prepared a steroidal booster for your leg muscles in the reserves.”

Xander reaches the arm I’m on down to grab the pouch and as he detaches it from his belt, both Harguin tongues stab into his chest, knocking him on his buttocks. The chemical packet flies off into a patch of bushes. Xander curses as the Harguin stalk toward us, their long bodies swaying from side to side. Xander strains to reach the Arc Rail rifle on his back, but just as he is about to turn it on the Harguin, the first one pounces, forcing him on his back and pushing its full weight on his chest.

Xander gasps for air, and I can feel his heart and lungs straining. I try to boost his vital systems with my remaining stimulants, but the second Harguin pins Xander’s arm and starts to crush me. Their tongues flick at his suit, trying to find a weak spot to pierce. I hear Xander grunt. “We… may be… done… Alicia….” Tears stream from his eyes.

Alicia… She will die without him. Her condition is so expensive to treat, and without his income and mine… She’s the only person other than Xander that didn’t look at me in disgust the first time she saw me. She… smiled. Accepted me, even. Said that if she ever got out of the hospital, she’d grow up to be a scientist and invent a Turoid Interface that doesn’t hurt so I can speak to others without being attached to them. Most Turoid interfaces are so painful to wear. She told me before we left for this trip to take be safe. If I could cry, I am right now. I can’t let her die. I won’t. But I believe this Harguin is killing me. I wish it’d get its disgusting claw off me. I’d overload its heart if I could just attach to it. I decide that if we get out of this, I’m finding a way to get Xander out of Vantric’s debt, “respect be damned,” as he would say. We’ll find another way to treat Alicia, but first we need to live. But how can I save us? I’m just a blob attached to a man’s arm. Then I remember what Xander said earlier. “Apzi capsule,” I tell him. Understanding undims his fading eyes.

He slowly reaches his right arm down to detach the Apzi pheromone capsule in his belt, but his strength fails him and his arm drops. He’s eyes roll up into his head, and I feel his heart slow and lungs spasm. I decide to take control of his arm without his consent. It violates our bondcode, but he’ll thank me later—if we get out of this. I control his arm and grasp the pheromone capsule. His finger tendons are a bit hard to manipulate since I’m weakening from the Harguin’s weight, but I finally click the release switch on the capsule and see the little red light on the silver tube turn green, then I fall unconscious myself as I watch the Harguin peck and bite at Xander’s chest.

***

A terrible, shattering roar wakes me. I feel my body ripple in its sonic might. The Harguin look up. I notice they still haven’t been able to tear into Xander’s SABRE suit and feel relieved. Xander’s vitals aren’t good. The Harguin that was crushing me no longer stands atop me, and runs in circles a short distance away. The other one trills and calls out for help. I inject Xander’s heart with the last of my stimulants and try to stabilize his vital systems. The trees around us quake, and the sounds of bramble and branch tearing and shredding close near. Four more Harguin appear from the jungle, and I despair. Xander is regaining consciousness. I should thank his God that I am able to stabilize him. His moaning sounds like an oversexed tarq-ape during mating season, but I don’t tell him that. The Harguin seem to have lost interest in us. Not sure that’s good.

“What…what’s going on, Vayl?”

“Good morning, starshine.” If I could laugh, I just did. I’m definitely happy to see Xander alive, bad jokes “be damned.” He smirks at me, and I accidentally inject a large dose of endorphins into him. His body goes limp and he sighs. “Sorry,” I say.

“Apzi!” Xander shouts. I see it. The creature is a massive armored reptile with a broad, gaping maw holding six sets of sharp, rowed teeth. Four massive legs ending in razor-clawed feet carry the beast forward. It has two raptorial forelegs, made for slashing at plant-growth and flesh like a human farmer reaps grains. Looking through Xander’s eyes, it is hard to see the beast fully due to pigments in its skin—this predator must have inspired Xander’s cloak design. The newly replenished Harguin pack surrounds and strikes at the Apzi with spear-tongues whipping. The massive predator bellows a dull, screeching roar and charges forward, tearing into them and swinging its massive forelegs.

“I think this party’s over. Let’s try not to end up as dessert,” Xander says. The Apzi chomps into one of the Harguin and slices another in half with its forelegs. Xander winces and staggers to his feet. “Where’s the chemicals?”

After a moment of searching we see them in a catcher bush. Thankfully, the SABRE suit protects us from bush’s stings as we retrieve them. We also find Xander’s ray gun a short distance away and retrieve it.

Xander checks the digital compass on his belt, and turns back to watch the savage battle. The Apzi finishes off the last Harguin and tears into its flesh. “Time to go.”

We sneak through the jungle away from the Apzi, heading for the spire clusters. I worry the Ferusian mimic will make our last trial seem like a day of recreation.

***

We arrive at the spire clusters about two hours later. Xander seems to be tiring from lack of sleep. The days here are so long, and he’s used to a human sleep cycle. He fed me the chemical packets a while ago, as we traversed the jungles, so I am able to keep his mind awake via my new reserves of stimulants. He’s a bit more aggressive and annoyed, but maybe that will help him capture the mimic.

The spire clusters are a fascinating site. The jungle gives way to a circle of huge stone mounds pocked with dozens of what looks like vacuous pores. Out of each pore, a jagged spear of stone rises high above the surrounding canopy. I don’t want to think what lives between down inside the pores between these stones.

“The mimic must live in those crevices,” Xander says, almost as if he were taunting me. He reaches over his back for the Arc Rail rifle and holds it snuggly in his arms near my body. I feel its humming energy as he activates it. Xander told me before the trip the Arc Rail rifle was the perfect weapon to hunt a hard-to-track creature like the mimic. He said the rifle “paints” a target with a laser, and its special computer-guided slugs—one can buy a fridge and a month’s worth of food to fill it for the price of a bullet—seeks the target no matter how bad Xander’s aim is. Alternately, the weapon can discharge whipping rays of electricity or sonic waves in order to shock or stun its painted target. The rifle’s ray barrel glows blue with electricity, and I shudder at its power.

Xander sneaks to the nearest mound and climbs it, keeping watch for any movement. He places his hand on one of the spires and looks up, squinting at the sunlight, then looks into the pore below. I feel the stone’s grainy roughness and pulse through his hands. Wait. Pulse?

“Xander?”

“Quite a site, eh, Vayl? Not much room in those pores for—”

“Xander! Step away!”

Xander thankfully listens to my warning, covering our retreat from the spire with the Arc Rail. “What’s wrong?”

“That spire had a pulse.”

“A pulse? You’re sure it—” Xander pauses for a second, then jerks into an aiming posture and paints the spire using the Arc Rail’s scope. The spire doesn’t like that.

It starts crumbling, falling in on itself, and rocks fall all around us. Xander dives off the mound to the jungle floor. He lands hard and starts rolling, landing us both in a patch of catcher bushes. I scream in Xander’s mind. I can’t help it. Those bushes give me what Xander calls, “the willies.” He scowls at me and sighs, then stands up and rubs his side, rolling his neck. “You okay, Vayl?”

I feel a phantom stinging sensation, as if the bushes had pierced the exoskin around me. “I’m… fine. You okay?”

“Yeah.” Xander turns around and his eyes widen.

The spire is a pile of rubble. In the middle of the rubble stands an ethereal being. It looks more like a crude mass of polygons made out of spider-silk and light than a humanoid figure. Where its stomach must be, we see an odd bulge. The bulge spits out a rock and the being starts writhing as bloody, flesh-like sinew spits out of the bulge and begins to cover it.

Within minutes, we see the being take a humanoid form as more sinew and flesh surround its original polygonal shape. It looks… like Xander. Naked. Yuck. Hair sprouts from its head and chin, perfectly mimicking Xander’s current unshaven caveman style.

“Fascinating,” I say.

“No… way,” Xander says as the naked form “grows” a SABRE suit and tattered carbon nanotube cloak. Interestingly enough, the creature does not replicate me on its arm. After it has become a perfect copy of Xander, the creature regards us.

“I think… you should do what we came to do.”

Before Xander reacts to my suggestion, the Ferusian mimic screeches like a Harguin. Xander jumps when we hear trilling responses from the jungles around us.

“Oh crap.” Xander aims at the Mimic tries to re-acquire the target with his laser scope, but then the mimic speaks to him in his own voice.

“I wouldn’t do that, Xander.”

“You… sound just like me. How?”

“Because I am you, down to your very atoms. I even have your memories. I’m a perfect replica.”

Xander’s heart skips a few beats and I realize this revelation’s implications. The Ferusian mimic can copy matter and become whatever it desires.

“But how?” Xander asks.

“You’re too primitive for me to explain, just know I can take in matter and reform it.” The mimic smiles at me. I wish I could hide. “I know why you’re here. Now give me a reason why I shouldn’t feed you to the jungle like all the other hunters who came for me through the ages.”

Now we know why nobody has returned. I prod Xander to respond because he is still processing everything. I hear rustling all around us, and a large pack of Harguin—must be at least twenty—emerge from behind us and surround us, trilling and snapping with their whip-like spear-tongues. A few Harguin jump toward the Mimic and sit by its side, like pets.

“I sent the Harguin to kill you earlier. You proved more… resourceful than I originally expected. Brilliant move, drawing that Apzi to you. I have no control over those creatures.”

“Thanks, I guess I would compliment myself.” Xander snorts and rubs his beard. “So, you knew we were coming? Some hunter I am.” Xander frowns and lowers the Arc Rail.

“You were always the prey, Xander. What could you expect from Ferus? This planet is death. You knew that coming here, and yet, you risked that for your defective daughter anyway.”

Xander grimaces and points the Arc Rail back at the mimic. “You cross the line, mimic! I know I’m outmatched here, but I will put a bullet in you before I go down if you ever talk about my daughter that way again. I promise you that!”

The mimic sighs. “Listen well, Xander. I can go on for another thousand years killing every laughable hunter that comes here looking to ‘bag a mimic.’ Now, give me a reason to spare you.”

Xander thinks for a moment. “Why? Why don’t you just finish me as you say you are so capable of doing?” He regards the mimic a bit longer and his eyes light up. “You want something, don’t you?”

The mimic doesn’t respond.

“Xander, maybe we should lower the gun and try to make a deal.” I suggest.

Xander nods and drops his gun. The mimic glances at the gun, then back at Xander.

“Alright, mimic. Tell me how we can help each other. I need to bag you so I can get paid. You know why. So, maybe we can make a deal.” The mimic scoffs. “What deal?”

“Well, what do you want more than anything?”

The mimic pauses for a moment. “Nothing.”

I don’t believe the mimic.

Xander laughs. “Nothing? The universe is big, and I got a ship. There’s gotta be something you want.”

“I could just take your ship myself.” The mimic looks unsure. Xander and I both pick up on this.

“But?”

“I’m scared to be alone out there.” The mimic frowns.

“Well, you got me. Heck, you are me.” Xander grins and winks at the mimic.

The mimic laughs for the first time. I start to feel comfortable with how Xander is dealing with the mimic.

“Maybe we could go hunting together across the universe. After all, you caught me. You can’t be too shabby.”

The mimic laughs. It’s definitely not as confident as Xander, even if it has his memories.

“I want to see worlds. I want to see the stars. Not be stuck on this planet alone with primitive beasts I can’t converse with except through shrieks and trills. I am tired of ruling a small jungle.”

This gives me an idea that will benefit all of us. We will be rich. Xander can watch over his daughter and pay for her medical expenses. I will become greatly respected, and the mimic will have millions of people to converse with and the means to explore the galaxy. It’s perfect, so I suggest it to Xander.

“Fantastic idea, Vayl!” Xander is beaming from ear to ear. “How would you like to rule a galactic jungle, mimic?”

The mimic looks puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Come back to the ship with me. I’d like to introduce you to Vantric Donovan, my soon-to-be former employer, and the richest guy in the universe. He has a fleet of ships and owns PanGalactic Industries, the largest corporation in the galaxy. He’s also a crime lord and a scumball. See what I’m saying?”