Chronicles of Chiron: Excising Arx | Scene 36

I hurt. A lot. All over. My eyes flutter open, and I find myself on the ground. Unthinkingly, I make a move to sit up, which sends a shock of pain through my unresponsive left arm. My stomach drops. No. No no no no. Not another limb smashed beyond utilty. A shiver runs down my spine, flaring all the sore muscles in my back. My vision dims, first just at the edges, but soon into complete confusion.

My arm is broken—the hillside is a shattered, shroom trees cast down, all the flora torn up.

My back burns with pain—fungicide scours a field, razing the xenofungus and its companions to the ground.

My pain and the planet’s are commingled. I can’t make sense of anything. There’s no distinction between my own sensations and what is being transmitted through the fungal network. I don’t know where I am or what is going on. It’s dark and damp and there’s bone jutting out and blood. And no one is coming. I start to cry, overwhelmed by fear, loneliness, despair. And once I start, I can’t stop. The sobs rack my body, which just intensifies all the different sources of pain.

“Mariah.” Cleve’s steady voice cuts through my confusion. “I’m not going to lie: you’re hurt. But you’re alive. We’ve got you. We’re going to get you back, don’t worry.”

Lousia’s adds, “Mariah, I know you’re strong. I know you can get through this. Let your friends help you.”

I feel something settle around my shoulders, and Takuto is there, crouched next to me. My surroundings come into focus. I’m sitting outside atop a blanket on soft ground, not on the basement floor of a rusted out factory. Cleve’s kneeling in front of me, watching me with an earnest expression. Louisa hovers behind him. I’m not alone. And it’s not so dark anymore. The suns are setting, but dusk still lights up the sky. I catch my breath, mindfully slowing it to a five count in through my nose and then out through my mouth, as I’ve been taught for dealing with anxiety. There’s still so much pain, but now at least I’m only dealing with my own. The world tilts a little; it’s the vertigo I associate with prescription-strength pain meds, so before long these sensations will be somewhat muted. There’s a light at the end of this tunnel. I pull my scattered wits together and focus on Cleve. Voice hoarse, I thank him for getting me out of danger.

“Hang in there, buddy,” he tells me.

I don’t want to jar myself by looking around, so I just ask, “Ah, is Mr. Fuzzy still here?”

“Yup, you got him. No one left behind.”

“Good,” I whisper. “I did something right.”

Summoned by his name, Corazon’s pet pads over. I flinch away from his lick at my left hand, and he circles around to settle at my right side. I pet him with my right hand, and he licks at it, the tongue surprisingly soft. I’m not influencing him at all; he seems to have decided for himself that we can be friends now.

“Is the siege worm no longer trailing us?” I ask Cleve.

“He seems to have lost interest. Fingers crossed,” he tells me. “I figured out the rover has a lower gear that has less vibration. And it seemed like he wasn’t able to keep a lock on you, if it was you.”

“Okay. Can I just sleep, then?” I ask wearily. “Here?”

“Yeah,” Cleve tells me. “Your bone was sticking out of your arm; you can have anything you want.” He lets me take some sleep aid pills so I have a chance of getting rest despite the pain I’m in. I gingerly lay myself back down on the blanket here, and Mr. Fuzzy snuggles in closer. As I start to drift off, Cleve metes out camp assignments. He trusts Louisa to take her own watch now. Takuto and Arx volunteer to take a shift together as well.

When Cleve seems hesitant to accept that, I rouse myself to offer the opinion that both of them can handle it. “I don’t just mean responsibility-wise. Their lungs are up to it.”

Cleve nods. “All right. You don’t have to though,” he tells them. “Arx, you were just in a hospital. If you need your rest, that’s fine.” 

Arx is insistent, and I back them up. “If you’re worried about miasma rolling through, Arx has their own filter mask. I’ve got one in my satchel that I certainly don’t need out here, if you want whoever’s on watch to be wearing one just in case.” We should still have my satchel, since I left it in the footwell when I got out to chase down Mr. Fuzzy. My cane, however, is long gone.

Cleve agrees to those terms. “But no one’s getting my rifle,” he tells the group. “If there’s a problem, wake me up.”

But as it turns out, I get woken up, too. Sometime during the night, filter mask on, Takuto gently disturbs my sleep. “There’s some miasma rolling this way,” he tells me. Arx is over at the rover, alerting its occupants to stay inside.

“You two should get in the rover, too,” I tell him. “The less exposure you have to it, the better. I’ll try to clear the area.”

I sit up with my back to the oncoming miasma, and I concentrate on diverting its course. As it reaches me, it forks around me like water flowing around a stone, leaving clear air for our encampment. The mist has a soothing coolness to it, and it sparkles and glows purple as it comes into contact with me. I take a deep breath in and feel my eyes light up. The knots in my back where the siege worm’s second strike hit me undo themselves as the inflammation there fades.

As Takuto is getting into the rover, Louisa’s voice floats out to me. “He’s like some kind of alien…” she says with awe. Then she reflects, “Well, I guess he is from Earth.” To Chiron I’m an alien, though maybe only partially. There’s got to be some sort of symbiosis going on within me. Maybe this all just boils down to having the right gut biome. Hopefully the Stepdaughters of Chiron will be able to shed some light on that when they have a chance to look at both me and the medical records we recovered.

The miasma eventually dissipates, with no threat to my friends. This is the longest I’ve spent sitting in it and really paying attention to it. The general low level of fungus material in the air on this planet, that is no threat to me. But miasma is a complicated substance with many layers. It has elements of toxicity, as well as healing properties. Like any drug, too much of it would be dangerous to me, but I’m learning how to walk that line. The science of it all… yet another thing I need the help of the Stepdaughters of Chiron for. And honestly, it would really soothe my soul to see Deirdre again.

In the morning, we load up the rover and continue the rest of the way to Data Haven. Everyone is nervous, and the ride is pretty miserable. Every jostle is painful for me, and the teens are crammed in the back with both wolf beetles since I cannot handle one sitting on me. I don’t feel well enough to try to ease our passage through. I didn’t even shave this morning.

Although our original agreement with Louisa was to take her to an intermediate location, that plan is long since abandoned. I’m in no shape to play intermediary between her and Marina, so we just go straight to Data Haven, taking her with us. This is the longest Louisa’s ever been out of a dome, and she has a hacking cough by the end of the trip. I wonder if that changes her opinion of the fungicide air scrubbers used in the Morgan domes. That’s a question for later, though. I’m not up for philosophical discussions of that nature right now. I’m barely up for anything beyond walking, and even that I’m nervous about without my cane. It is, quite literally, a crutch to me.

Takuto and Arx enter the code to summon the elevator. Five humans and two wolf beetles shuffle in once it arrives. It’s been a long journey, but we’re home. And there’s an army on the way.

Fin