She couldn’t stay still any longer and rose and began to walk. She would go a short distance only. It wasn’t like a maze; she could find her way back. Once she got moving, she felt better. She was accomplishing something, putting one foot in front of the other. She walked for a while before realizing there had been a tiny red dot in the corner of her film this whole time.
A notification. Messages. People. Oh, thank you. She activated it and found two clips awaiting her attention: one from Anders and one from Gilly.
She was so awash with relief that it took her a moment to remember that Gilly was supposed to be dead. He had died on the ship. Then Anders was filling her view, standing on a landscape of blasted rock.
“Beanfield,” he said. “I’ve got a ping on Gilly. He’s alive.” He pointed at something in the distance, a smudge like a low hill. “There’s an entrance to a burrow. I’m going to try to get him out.”
She blinked. First, that didn’t sound like a good idea. Anders hated confined spaces. She wondered if it was too late to do something. Get Jackson on the line, tell her: Do not let Anders enter a burrow. Second, could she get some elaboration on the part about Gilly? Because as far as she knew—
“Jackson’s dead.”
Her heart jumped. Anders kept talking. Something about a salamander, a chase, the gun. She couldn’t get past the first two words. How could Jackson be dead? She was bigger than that.
“I have to take the matter converter. I’m sorry. It’s our only chance. Stay put. If Gilly and I make it out, we’ll find you. If we don’t . . . well, I’m sorry I was such a shit to you, Beanfield. I always liked you.”
The recording ended.
She felt like: Excuse me? That couldn’t be it. You couldn’t abandon someone on an alien planet and leave them a message like that.
She swept her ping again. Nothing.
It occurred to her to check the timestamp, to establish when Anders had sent this message. When the number came up, it was six hours ago.
Time distortion. Her suit was confused. The days were longer. It was the time zone. Did they do daylight savings here?
If Anders had sent that message six hours ago, he wasn’t coming back.
A trembling began in her legs. She flipped to Gilly’s message. It was enormous, with multiple parts and what seemed to be days of video. She couldn’t make sense of it. She skipped ahead, but that was even worse, so she rewound to the beginning.
“Hi, Beanfield.” Gilly. Definitely alive. Somewhere dark. Not on the ship. Behind him was shadowy orange rock. “I’ve been trying to ping you, but we’re too far apart for a synchronous connection.” He glanced at something in the background. A slumped form. She already knew what he was going to say and turned away but of course the projection followed. “Anders found me. But he didn’t make it.”
The timestamp. She backgrounded the vision so she could expand the message details. Five hours ago.
“I’ve been documenting what I’ve seen. It’s useful intel, if you can get it home. I guess that’s impossible. But I figure you’ve got a better shot than me. I don’t have enough time on my core to get out of here, Beanfield. But Anders and I might have figured out how salamanders breed, and I’m going to see if I can stop them.”
She shut off the recording. She wrapped her arms around her head and keened.
Everyone is dead but you.
Go.
In the ravine, something scraped against rock. She raised her head. She rose and hobbled ahead to the next turn of rock. At first there was nothing. Then a salamander appeared, picking its way through the fissure toward her.
She began to retreat. A soldier, she thought, an enormous black salamander as big as a bear, and she moved as quickly as she could but her legs were shaking and if she put her foot in the wrong place, she would slip and fall and that