Fire and Ice

Darby could hear people running through the jungle; searching for her, following her trail. She hesitantly glanced back through the forest and could see a deep rivet cut through the trees the path that she had forged. Her arms and legs ached with the effort and her hands throbbed remorselessly from her escape. She hurried through the trees and continued to push a path through the undergrowth and glanced at her wounds running across her hands. They were red from the pain and stained with her own blood and her mind was thrown another question, could her pursuers be following her blood trail? What could she do? How would she hide? The abandoned buildings of the ‘lost’ colony was her only choice.

She darted around one of the smaller overgrown buildings and crawled through a hole in the crumbling wall, almost falling down into a black void as the floor fell beneath her feet. She clung to a snarl of roots with all her remaining strength and concentrated on slowing her rasping breath and as panic and fear threatened to overcome her. She could hear a small voice echo in her head, telling her to let go and succumb. Darby shook her head of the thought and clung desperately to the vegetation and allowed her body to swing in the cool air of the drawing night as it closed about her. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could make out what was left of a metal staircase hanging at an odd angle close to what she assumed was the main door of the building. It hung from the wall and weaved its way long the side of the building as though it was itself desperately holding on to the side of the building as she was. She could see the oxidised metal and a series of missing steps along the spiralling staircase. Maybe she could get her foot over there and climb up a little farther out of sight, it was a risk but she knew she had to try. She couldn’t hear her pursuers at the moment and hoped they had lost her trail, so holding her breath Darby swung her legs and body toward the steps, stretching her body in ways that it complained about. Pebbles and bits of earth shook loose from her handhold as she moved her body in the direction of the stairs and she cast her gaze downward and listened to the descent of the debris into the darkness of the pit. She breathed quietly as she counted under her breath and after a few seconds hit something far below. No, she thought resolutely she didn’t want to fall, that was a long way down and judging by the rate of descent coupled with her present condition she couldn’t be sure she would survive such a fall. She stopped her attempt and took stock of her surroundings looking for another way up.

Darby’s eyes followed the skeleton of the metal stairs up to an opening in the ceiling high above her. That’s where breeze was coming from and through the open wound in the skin of the building she could see the star covered sky. She looked around what was left of the building and frowned, what a strange place, no signs, no diagrams or information boards, no equipment of furniture or signs of any kind of life. This was no living quarters she decided, maybe it had been a factory or warehouse. She inched sideways slowly, abandoning the idea that her best route was the staircase and carefully she gripped the roots with her hands, her fingers curling around the thick vines. She moved her legs across the curved wall of the building and felt the edge of the wall and scrabbling with her shoes against the foliage, until her foot reached a ledge. She rested some of her weight there, easing her bleeding hands one at a time. She paused briefly and listened to the still air around her; still no sound from her pursuers she thought and considered waiting for a moment before moving again. She knew they wouldn’t have given up that easily. Maybe they were waiting to pounce on her as soon as she climbed back out. She decided that despite this sudden thought she had to push forward.

She explored the ledge with the toe of her boot and found that it widened further to the left and pushed her body in that direction. She kept inching that way, hoping the vines and roots would hold her weight and refused to look into the inky depths below. After what felt like an eternity finally she was able to rest both feet on the ledge and she struggled to stand upright, pressing her frame against the edge of the wall and wrapped the vines around her wrists and ankles and allowed her breathing to stabilise. She stood for a few minutes as she continued to look around the building, her eyes finding each hidden corner and empty niche. There were no windows that she could see and the main door seemed overgrown and completely blocked, that just left the crumbled hole that she had crept through or the open gap high above her head. So she either had to go into the dark void below and risk there would be a way out below ground or climb up through the opening in the ceiling.

From where she stood she could now reach out and touch the rust encrusted staircase. How solid were they? She pushed hard against them with her foot, her back braced against the wall. It didn’t move and she considered for a moment whether they would take her weight. Darby wished she had a light or a rope but all their supplies had been taken or left on the ponies. The light was dwindling and it was becoming harder to see in the building and she knew if it became any darker travelling through the building would become dangerous and almost impossible to transverse safely. Taking a deep breath she lunged her body across the opening to land on a spiralling stair case. Her limbs screamed in pain as he body rammed the edge of the railings, and Darby flung her arms desperately around flaking metal surface, her lungs exploding as her legs flayed in the open space below her. She grimaced and tasted the oxide steps as she hauled her body over the railings and listened to the strain of the staircase against the wall of the building and held her breath, eyes closed praying to a god that she didn’t believe in to protect her. She half expected a nasty, rusty, metal screech then a plummet into the black void, but the stairs were solid and eventually she realised they had held. Slowly, Darby made her way up the staircase, testing each step and listening to the complaints of the metal rungs with every move before trusting her weight to it.

With her stomach tight and sweat running down between her shoulder blades, she cautiously pushed her body further up into the building until finally she pushed her way through the small opening in the ceiling and emerging into another round room. This one was brighter due to a row of small windows circling the entire space and enclosed from the danger of the floor below. A soft green light filtered in from the surrounding jungle and offered a source of natural fluorescent light. A grey metal door was immediately ahead of her at the top of another thin staircase. Darby peeked out a window to see where it went and her eyes followed the path of a walkway leading to another building. She smiled inwardly to herself, this could be her escape route and a way back to the ground she thought, but first she wanted to look around.

Unlike the room below, this one had plenty of signs of human life and she wondered why it hadn’t been stripped like the one downstairs. The room was full of the remnants of desks, tables, chairs, and computer equipment. She picked her way across the floor of the room, stepping over the overturned furniture, pausing to examine various pieces and lift fallen chairs to a standing position. This had been some kind of control centre or maybe a laboratory she decided, as her eyes traced the line of computer banks as they ran along the edge of the far wall. She walked through the mess looking for anything that might give a clue as to their purpose here, but if there had been any paper it had long since rotted away or used for nests by some jungle creature. The only thing she could see were large letters painted on the wall above a pile of computer equipment. The letters drew her attention and she ran her hand along the form of each letter spelling out most of a word with her fingers...c...o...u... … ...d... ...w...n, she frowned as she looked at the letters carefully and whispered to herself as she traced the red paint, “countdown”. She eyes scanned the wall looking for any other clues anything that might give her an idea of what was happ...what was that? She thought suddenly, holding her breath.

Voices! She dropped into a crouch and crept to the nearest window and pressed her back against the wall, daring not to breath as the voices drifted up. She couldn’t make out the words, but the tone was raised and imagined they were arguing. Cautiously she peered out of the broken glass to see a group of her would-be captors milling at the edge of the colony, pointing in various directions. Even at this distance, she couldn’t hear their voice, but she could understand their body language, they didn’t want to come any closer that much was obvious...were they scared of the old colony she wondered as she watched their actions. The head warrior was angrily pushing them along her trail but they lowered their spears and after another angry exchange, shook their heads, and slunk away into the jungle. Soon the head warrior was the only one left and he stood silently listening, head cocked and watching. Finally he turned and faded away into the trees after his colleagues. Darby couldn’t believe her luck but knew he would probably be back, with a better group of hunters. She had to find a safer place.

She sighed and knew this was not a safe place to hide and reluctantly stood and watched the last of the warriors as they disappeared into the forest. If they were scared of the colony, then this could be the perfect place to hide, just not in this building. When all was clear she would come back to this room and search it thoroughly she decided and cast her gaze back to the letters sprawled on the far wall. “Countdown” she murmured, What was going on in this place? What were they doing that caused a countdown? What happened to the colonists? Where did they go? The colony had thrown up some questions to their mission, but also had answered some...there was a colony and maybe the answers she found here would help her understand what was happening to her crew mates and even this planet.