The Bug Hunters

By Edward M. Erdelac  

Considine opened one eye.

The other was swollen shut, but he could see dim artificial light through the slit of his puckered flesh, so he knew at least the eye was still there.

He saw the source of the light, a buzzing lumidome set into a permiform ceiling. There was a constant rattling and sifting of blowing gravel and a howling wind outside, so he knew he was still on Eclectia.

He tried to sit up but could do no more than touch his chin to his chest before he was overcome by muscle pain. He hurt all over. He tried wiggling his toes and fingers though, and was relieved to find everything in working order.

There was a slight figure seated just behind his feet, which were hidden beneath a coarse blanket.

It was a girl with dirty blonde hair and striking blue eyes. She was young, but swaddled in dirty robes and an exposure suit, with a cracked bandolier over one skinny shoulder. She had a long pike across her knees, the sort he’d seen the bug hunters carry.

“Daad!” the girl called over her shoulder. “He’s awake!”

A curtain was swept aside and a tall, rough faced man entered, a metal plate of steaming food in one ash-blackened hand.

“Just in time for breakfast, mister….?”

He let the question hang and raised his eyebrows.

“Considine. Inspector Scanlon Considine.”

“Dressler,” the man said, and laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “My daughter, Lyn. Why don’t you go fix yourself a plate, honey?”

Lyn rose from the stool and handed the pike to her father, who took it, along with her seat.

He laid the plate of food on Considine’s legs, and Considine’s belly growled. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten.

“Go on, have at it,” Dressler said.

Considine sucked in his breath, coughed the hard air, and groaned with the effort of sitting up.

“Sorry,” Dressler said, pushing the plate closer. “Didn’t think you were that banged up. Hardly a mark on you, except for that eye. You got lucky. My partner and I saw you crash. You’re not much of a pilot, are you?”

“No,” Considine grinned, “I suppose I’m not. How long have I been out?”

“Only few hours. You say you’re an Inspector. Where at? Avenir?” he glanced up at the ceiling.

Considine picked up the plate of brownish looking food and dug in with the fork, chewing ravenously before he could answer around the mouthful.

“Zirconia. As a matter of fact, I have to get back there as soon as possible.”

“I can take you to the sub-ferry. We’re only a few hours in from the shore by rover. Just waiting for my partner to come in so we can leave.”

“You’re a hunter?”

“Yep. That’s fresh bomber-egg you’re eating. Cut from the sac just this morning.”

“Thanks for taking me in. I’ll see my office reimburses you for fuel and time,” Considine said, though he thought, if they don’t arrest me when we get there.

Dressler waved him off, then perked up.

“Sounds like Yulaura’s back.” He stood up. “Sure you don’t wanna rest up some?” He stopped then, and cocked his head.

“What is it?” Considine asked, scarfing down the last of the bomber-eggs.

He heard a new sound weaving through the constant blowing grit rattling against the domicile. A whirring, the sound of engines, but too smooth and refined for a land rover.

Then the wall of the room blew apart in a burst of fire and permiform.

Inquiry

Inquiry

By Travis Perry

“You seen this man?” The woman asking had a definite no-nonsense presence—titanium patching on her face, a robotic left arm and left leg. The glossy she held in Jax’s face looked familiar.

“Uh, maybe. I see lots of people.”

“There’s a substantial bounty on this one—the biggest I’ve ever seen. If you know something leading to the arrest of Ernsto Mons, that would be worth five thousand credits to you.”

“Ernsto Mons—that’s the guy in the picture?” Jax looked up at the woman’s face. Her non-robotic parts were actually quite attractive. He felt embarrassed to notice, and it formed a painful reminder of his wife separated from him on Avenir, but in fact he hadn’t seen a lot of women of late—other than Maddie, of course, and some old hag who did cleaning. But the blaze in her eye told him she was even more no-nonsense than his first impression would indicate. Her dog eyed him with a tilted head, as if suspicious.

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“What’s he wanted for?”

“About everything—theft, smuggling, murder, human trafficking, insurrection, plotting to assassinate an Avenir government official, plotting to overthrow the Avenir government.”

Jax let out a low whistle. “Whoa. So what’s five thousand credits? Like ten percent?”

The woman nearly smiled at him. The expression sent a chill down his spine. “Why? Are you going to try to haggle for a bigger cut?”

“No—I mean, no, ma’am. Just, er, wondering…” his voice trailed off.

“Look, do you know something or not?”

Jax had already decided what to do. Whatever else he had done, Ernsto had kept a coriander beetle from attacking him from behind while another attacked from the front. Ernsto had also helped move the beetles into the trading camp, yielding a good haul, though he had insisted on staying outside himself. Jax owed him. “Er, sorry. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Hmmm,” she replied, studying him. “Well, if you change your mind, ask for me at the trading post. Everyone knows my name there.”

“Which is?” When her fierce eyes met his own, Jax added, “…er, ma’am…”

“Zana. That’s all you need to know.” And then she turned away.

Bounty

by Travis Perry -

Jax ran after the headless coriander beetle that dragged Ernsto under its body. The spear would not be effective against the thick shell at the rear of the creature, but he thrust it anyway. Perhaps some sort of pain reflex would slow it down…

The beetle’s hindquarters twitched when Jax jabbed, but otherwise the spear point had no effect. A streak of dark human blood flowed behind the dragged human, from Ernsto’s back.

“Help! Help!” Ernsto barked as he helplessly kicked and punched upward. Jax briefly considered pulling his scythegun. It would ruin the value of the kill, but it certainly would stop the beetle’s forward motion. He hesitated, concerned the blast might also injure or kill the human underneath the beetle…

Before he could decide, the beetle’s headless—but still running full speed—thorax pushed into the sandy patch where Ernsto had hidden. In the sand, Jax saw him push hard with arms and legs and disengage himself from the bug’s undercarriage, the softer ground allowing him to succeed in pushing himself down and away. The decapitated beetle kept moving forward until it impacted a boulder on the other side of the sandy patch. Its way blocked, it still tried to move ahead, its legs vainly scratching the rocky ground, the headless torso pressed into the boulder too big for it to budge…

“You all right, pal?” asked Jax, standing over the motionless Ernsto, who had rolled over to his stomach on the sandy ground. Quite a lot of dark venous blood oozed from his back, all over the back—the wounds in fact seemed deeper and more extensive than what he could account for based on the recent scrape along the ground.

“Just give me a minute,” said Ernsto. “I’ll be fine.”

 “We need to get you to a doctor,” Jax replied. “With this bounty of a harvest—three corianders in good condition—we should be able to pay the medics for some treatment.”

“Bounty,” muttered the voice below him, “That’s an interestin’ choice of words…there’s a bounty on my head that’ll make your notion difficult to carry out…”

“Don’t worry. Nobody checks that sort of thing at the Palmer trading camp.”

The man chuckled bitterly. “If only you knew.”

Uncertain Injury

by Travis Perry -

 “Front or back?” demanded Ernsto in a low voice.

For an instant, Jax wondered front or back what? But then his mouth said, “Front,” and he stepped forward with the spear, eyes searching for any bit of rock he could quickly scramble to the top of to lure the beetle coming down the draw into a standing position, exposing its lungs.

A quick glimpse cast backward showed the man he’d just met pull himself out of the sand, moving backward toward the aggressive male coriander on the rock pile behind them, his very large knife gripped in his right hand. Snapped back forward, his eyes registered the beetle from above now charging down the draw, grunting in rage.

Many possible rock formations lay in view—all good, none great. With reaction time running out, Jax charged a fractured boulder to his left and leapt upon it in a single adrenaline-fueled bound. He just managed to raise his hands over his head as the beetle hit the rock. It paused a moment then flipped up to a standing position, the four lower legs on the ground, its pinchers and upper two legs clawing at its higher opponent—Jax.

The edge of the book lung showed itself near the bottom of the beetle, close to the ground, close to the boulder. It would have been relatively easy to miss the target for someone too nervous or plain terrified. But Jax had done this many times before…his pulse pounded and his body trembled with the rush of fight-or-flight chemicals that naturally flooded into his bloodstream, but his mind was focused and clear—the spear flew down in a very short throw, sinking straight into the lung with a psssh of releasing air.

The mortally-wounded bug was not dead yet. It shook, as if with rage, and dropped back down on all sixes and charged up the boulder, pinchers hammering together. Jax lept backward, landing on hands and feet just behind the rock. Before him he witnessed the butt of the spear wedge into a crack of the boulder as the massive beetle plowed forward. Its inertia only drove the spear deeper into its body. It twitched but stopped moving forward, its yardball-sized head advancing no further than just beyond the boulder’s peak.

“Help!” the voice came from to his left. Glancing that way, he saw a headless coriander beetle that clearly had kept charging forward after its decapitation, which must have impacted into Ernsto and knocked him down because now it was dragging him forward, pushing him by the beetle’s undercarriage, its headless neck gushing fluids on the human’s face as it plowed Ernsto forward nearly at full speed, tearing the man’s back across the ground.

This was bad. Jax knew a coriander beetle could live a long time without its head.

Surprise

by Travis Perry -

                    

Jax often hunted alone. He’d tried partners and had found that while there is safety in numbers, there was the downside that a lot of these hunters were bugscat crazy—and dangerous. And when hunting alone, he got 100% of the haul, every time.

This blazing fiveday Summer afternoon, out on his own, he stood with a rock formation behind him. Temporarily he leaned his spear on a rock as he pulled loose the drawstring on his rucksack made from a membrane found on the inside of the pinto beetle shell. He reached in and pulled out a wet gland, one he’d taken on a hunt just three days ago. This contained the musk of male coriander beetle. He squeezed the gland, expressing pungent fluid on his hands. He wiped his forearms in the smelly goo and held his arms upward in the air, letting the hot wind spread the odor wherever it whipped in this narrow rocky draw.

He’d learned from experience that male corianders were aggressive and territorial. One strong whiff of a rival and they’d come charging from all around, spoiling for a fight. In practice this may not work so well, since there wasn’t always one in the range of the scent. But he’d spotted several in the area before he came down the ridge covered with broken black basalt into this claustrophobically tight, sandy-bottomed draw.

Another problem came from the fact the beetles could charge in from any direction—that he’d accounted for by where he placed himself. Within the high rock walls on either side, there was only one route in—the natural rock heap behind him covered that route to his rear, so any bug coming after him would have to charge down the draw from the ridge, the direction he was facing, one at a time.

The rocks helped him with another potential difficulty—male coriander beetles usually charged in low, pinchers first, making a poor target for a spear attack, which ideally hit the book or bellows lungs under the belly.  If a beetle charged him here, he could back up the rock pile a little bit. Almost every time the corianders would raise themselves up on their four hind legs when facing an enemy on higher ground, giving a perfect shot at the lungs. Though sometimes they didn’t slow down at all, charging straight up, slamming their heavy sharp pinchers together in the attack. Times like that were a little more challenging…

He heard scurrying from the ridge before he even had time to retrieve his spear. Spear newly in hand his eyes caught a coriander as it shook its head back and forth, sweeping its antennae. It audibly grunted from the top of the draw, just over one hundred meters away.

“Right down here, buddy,” Jax said. “Come on down.”

Within seconds the obedient bug charged down the draw, straight toward his position. It was a healthy young male, larger than average. It would bring a decent price.

Crossing the sandiest patch in the draw, the bug suddenly stopped and squealed. Its legs thrashed but something from underneath held it in place. It attempted to pivot its pinchers underneath its body, a position anatomically impossible for it. It thrashed over on its side, legs twitching.

Bug flipped over, Jax now saw an arm, a human arm, holding a large knife that had pierced the bug’s lungs—sticking straight up from the sand. The patch moved and suddenly a man stood up from it, huffing and blowing sand from his mouth.

“Hey you, on the rock pile,” croaked the voice. “I’ll split the kill with you if you can give me a hand.”

Jax moved forward. He didn’t know whether to be more annoyed at the loss of his kill or amazed by the means by which he’d lost it.

The man’s legs were still buried in sand. “I figured one would come by sooner or later,” he mumbled.

“Sooner or later?” exclaimed Jax. “How long were you buried there? I’ve been in the area for a couple of hours and I didn’t see you at all.”

“Ah…it’s been about two days I think. It was fiveday Winter when I dug in.” The man tried to spit but nothing came from his mouth. “You wouldn’t happen to have any water, would you, pal? That’s the main thing I need.”

“Sure,” said Jax, more astounded than before. The dark-haired man took a long drink from his waterskin and reluctantly handed it back.

“So now what do we do? This is my first kill.”

“Your first?” Jax scratched his head. “You came out here with just a knife?”

“Yes. Yes I did.”

“Dear God—who are you?”

“Ernsto—last name doesn’t matter.”

Jax couldn’t help but chuckle. “You must be the craziest man—” he cut off when he heard new grunting from the top of the ridge. Another coriander beetle, this one bigger than the last, stood at the top of the draw.

And then he heard grunting from behind. He whipped his head back and saw another big male waving antennae. From the top of his rock pile.

Firebug

by Jeff Chapman -

“The way I see it,” said the young, bearded man, “that old crone owed me a favor.” He rotated his spear, turning the mammothbug steak skewered on the end, cauterizing the edge of the meat in the flames of a lavabush fire.

The other man sharing the campfire raised his eyebrows. He was older. His brown hair was receding to gray and he boasted a scar that began at his forehead and crossed his nose before wrapping around his cheek. “I guess you’d have to see it that way, Jack.”

“That bug came within a few meters of smashing her,” said Jack.

“But you both made the kill. You’re lucky she didn’t ambush you.”

“I thought of that.” Jack leaned over and poked his companion in the ribs. “You don’t get to be old without thinking like a hunter, right, old man?”

Jack’s harsh cackle grated on the older man’s ears.

“I took the long way out,” said Jack. “Never saw her again.”

“You weren’t really gonna shoot her were you?”

Jack Shadrow touched his steak to test its warmth then thrust it back in the flames. “Don’t know. A scythegun would have made quite a mess of her.”

Carl Bonhom rotated his steak a quarter turn. The fire snapped, leaping to snatch the dripping grease. He wondered how far he could trust Jack. Should have let the woman have the legs. Hunters needed friends, not enemies.

The two men rested in a shallow recess below a lava rock outcropping, their backs to rock, their faces to fire. Parked to their left was a biodiesel lava-rover with a trailer hitched to the back. Ropes secured a pile of neatly wrapped bundles--the edible parts of two mammothbugs. The pile swelled higher than the roof of the rover. Jack and Carl had done well.

Beyond the fire’s halo loomed the cold blackness of a winter night. Neither hunter had ever trekked out this far, but the abundance of an untapped hunting ground justified the expense of the truck and the fuel and the risk. Tomorrow they would start home, a three-day journey over rock, through drifts of ash-stained black sand, and around crevices to the Palmer Trading Company camp at Adagio, where they would trade the squishy meat for solid coins. Jack would get drunk on his earnings at Maddie’s—if she would let him—and Carl would get tipsy and they would point at landmarks on a map as they planned their next foray. At least that’s what Carl expected to happen. He chewed the cooked edges of his meat while he pretended to listen to Jack prattle on about his exploits in an Adagio brothel.

“You should join me,” said Jack. “There’s a couple mature ladies there that I’m sure you would enjoy.”

Carl grunted. Jack was such an idiot, but he handled a scythegun and power saw with such consummate skill that Carl would be more of an idiot not to partner with him. “My daughter’s tuition at Trinity is due soon. I can’t afford to waste any money.”

“As much as we’re going to make on these hauls, you could send a few of the brothel girls to university. Give your daughter some company.”

Carl scowled at the association.

Jack cackled but a moaning somewhere out in the blackness cut the laughter short. A punctuating shriek brought both men to their feet.

“What was that?” said Jack.

Carl absently allowed his steak to sink into the fire where the edges of the meat bubbled and blackened. His chest tightened and every experienced nerve in his aging body told him something was wrong, that there was something to fear.

“Sounded like a mammothbug,” said Carl.

“Can’t be. They’re diurnal.”

“I know.” Carl sensed movement to his right. “Aaiiieee!” A biscorpiabug--the length and thickness of a man’s thigh--scurried toward the fire. The red, venomous stringers on the ends of its bifurcated tail arched over its body. Carl slammed his spear down on the intruder, scalding it with the hot meat. The bug stung the steak as it writhed to escape until Carl skewered its abdomen with the spear point, putting an end to it.

“So much for that dinner,” said Jack. “Those things are afraid of fire.”

Carl stared at the dead bug. Dark yellow juice oozed from its splintered carapace. He’d heard that these bugs added a new segment to their length as they grew. This one had lots of segments, an old mature one, kind of like him, and you didn’t get to be old doing stupid things like running toward a fire.

“They are,” answered Carl. Sweat slicked his skin which stuck to his clothes. “Or should be. Something’s wrong, Jack.”

The shriek sounded again, but closer, streaking through the darkness like the bolt from a crossbow. Both men grabbed their scytheguns.

The Hermit's Cache

By Jeff Chapman

Elihu’s eyes darted from the blanket hanging across the cave’s entrance to the hearth. That groan didn’t sound like the wind. He sat perfectly still, holding his breath, listening. He knew he should grab his spear and prepare to fight whatever might be coming, but after finding some comfort from the storm, the last thing he wanted to do was fight. The struggle to keep his family alive weighed on his soul and the addition of his congregation’s troubles nearly crushed it. He’d stumbled into a black pit with no bottom and no rope. Every day he fought the good fight and every time he coughed and saw the ash in his phlegm, the circle of light at the top of the pit contracted, but somehow he held everyone up.

Strength swelled in his core, as it always did, thank God. His fingers curled around his spear.

The pile of blankets stirred, a faint ripple, but enough to trip his tightly strung senses. Another groan. He saw it now--the feet, the bent knees, the torso--a human form curled beneath the blankets. He folded back the top edge of the covers. White hair streaked with gray crowned an old man’s head and brushed his shoulders. A white beard covered his face and neck, trailing down to his chest. Something hard and cylindrical rolled beneath Elihu’s knee, the old man’s spear. Of course, he would sleep with it, thought Elihu. There was no more need to worry if someone would come back.

Elihu gently shook the man’s shoulder. The old man groaned. Some kind of hermit, Elihu thought.

“Hello? Are you sick?”

The old man’s forehead felt hot and dry. Elihu poured some water from his canteen into a bowl. Cradling the hermit’s head in the crook of his arm, he dripped water on the man’s cracked lips. The hermit licked the moisture. Elihu persisted in dripping water until the old man opened his mouth enough to drink in short sips.

“I don’t have much water,” said Elihu, “but you’re welcome to what I have.”

The hermit’s eyelids fluttered across steel-gray irises. He nodded then sank back into sleep.

Elihu sighed. He possessed the will to help without the means. He decided to make a travois with the two spears and the blankets and drag the hermit to Tube Hill when the storm passed. Not that they could do much for him there, but he couldn’t leave him here. Elihu folded a blanket into a pillow and placed it underneath the wadded blanket on which the old man’s head rested.

Elihu’s eyebrows knitted in surprise when his fingers brushed a bag of metal pieces that moved and clinked under his touch, coins. “What’s this,” he whispered. He pulled two items out from beneath the old man’s pillow. A drawstring cinched the pouch whose bottom bulged with the coin’s weight. He pulled it open. Gold, silver, and platinum coins--more money than he had ever seen, more than would pass through his hands in a lifetime--winked at him in the lamp’s dancing light.

He glanced at the old man whose chest rose and fell with the shallowest of breaths. Was this the cache of a lonely bug hunter? His gaze passed over the glittering walls and what at first escaped his notice, the gouges of a chisel, shouted at him. “What have you found out here?” he said to the old man.

Elihu remembered Elsa begging for scraps at his doorstep. With these coins he could feed his family and Elsa’s family, his congregation, his entire village for years. He could move his family to Zirconia, buy his children hope, and rekindle the sparkle in his wife’s eyes.

What sort of man sleeps on a hoard like this in the midst of such suffering? Stories of dragons came to mind. If the old man died, he thought. And then he recalled what happened to those who coveted a dragon’s hoard and took the dragon’s place atop its pile of shiny things. Elihu cinched the pouch and flung it against the rock wall. It landed on the second item from beneath the old miser’s pillow.

He picked up a sheaf of stiffened bristle fabric cut into rectangles and knotted together with twine along the left edge, a homemade book. The beige cover, splotched with darker shades of brown was blank. Elihu turned back the cover. Small squiggles in a dark-yellow ink--bug blood, he well knew that stain--sprawled across the pages. Thumbing through the book, he found page after page of tightly packed markings. The last three pages were blank. He laid the open book on the cavern floor in front of the hearth and knelt over it, puzzling over the characters which flowed across the page in an unbroken stream, line after line. The script could be very ancient or very new, he thought, or nothing. Someone at the university or the monasteries might know.

Elihu studied the old man, wondering what sort of man creates a book that no one can read. One of the traveling ministers could arrange passage to the Abbey of Francis. And what would become of the rest of those coins, barring a miraculous recovery? He knew better than to hope for a windfall for Tube Hill. Brother Trollope might direct some back to Elihu’s congregation, but not the others. The whiskers on the old man’s lip trembled with his breathing.

Elihu bit his lip in anger. “Perhaps I should throw lots to see who gets your money and possessions?” Better to remove temptation than struggle to fight it. That’s what his father always used to say. He tucked the coin pouch under the hermit’s pillow, to remind himself of its owner.

Shelter from the Storm

by Jeff Chapman -

Elihu poked the oval shadow with his spear, but unlike the other shadows, which had been indentions or shallow fissures, this one swallowed his spear head and all the shaft he fed it. The cave entrance rose from the crevice floor to his waist. Maybe it ballooned farther in or tapered to a crack. He couldn’t tell without crawling inside. Much too small for a mammothbug, but he had once seen a black spider with orange splotches dotting its abdomen lunge from one of these holes to snatch a powderbug that he had been stalking.

The pastor-turned-hunter swallowed hard, jabbed his spear into the hole twice and then jumped back to a crouch, holding his breath, listening, his spear poised to skewer anything that emerged. Nothing came. Only the soughing wind overhead and the settling ash pecking against the dried lavabushes disturbed the quiet. No skittering legs or clicking pincers against rock.

He broke three of the thickest branches from a lavabush and then stripped the lower branches until he could hold the three together like a bouquet. Taking a lighter from the inside pocket of his coat, he clicked the trigger, igniting a mixture of burnweed and fish oil that flamed yellow and blue. Burnweed grew in the ocean shallows and, in bulbs that studded the long olive-colored leaves, held an oil that was toxic to eat but highly flammable. Strange, he reflected, that sources of fire came from the sea.

The dried bush caught and crackled, bathing his face with heat and yellow light. The smoke scent and flames reminded him of drinking tea with Sarah after supper. She would nurse the baby and he would talk and when he stopped to sip his tea he would ponder his child’s future. Sarah would worry, but he had been gone overnight before. He thrust the torch into the cave. Bugs feared fire.

He expected smooth walls fading to blackness or a pair of eyes the size of his head retreating from the flames that glittered and repeated across purple and yellow compound eyes. A bristle blanket, or something like it, hung across the tunnel no more than two meters in. Could be spider silk, he thought, some sort of trapdoor or cocoon. He lit another torch, laid it on the tunnel floor and prodded the flaming bush into the tube with his spear, following behind on his hands and knees. The weave in the cloth stood out, a beacon of friendship or at least common species. He sighed, letting go the tension. “Thank you, Lord,” he muttered. “Thank you.”

“Hello?” The flames collapsed to orange embers. “Anybody in there?” He listened. Nothing. “This is Elihu Simmons, pastor at Tube Hill. Just need some shelter for a bit, from the storm. Hello?”

He crawled backwards out of the tunnel. The gloaming weighed on him with its uncompromising edict, the doom of darkness when the biscorpiabugs woke and unfurled their bifurcated tail and stingers, and all the other bugs he couldn’t see pushed out of their holes. The ash-gray sky had faded to charcoal overhead and black along the eastern horizon. This tunnel had to be the one, he told himself. Might still be a spider or bug inside--only the cautious survived in this world--but already he was thinking how this ordeal might complement a Bible story. David found refuge in caves.

He entered the tube with a larger torch clutched in his left hand and in his right gripped his spear together with two more unlit torches. Heat singed his face and smoke stung his eyes in the cramped tunnel  He poked the blanket with his spear tip and lifted the edge. Minerals glittered in the rock wall opposite the entrance. A cavern. He might be able to stand up. He thrust the torch past the threshold into the chamber, following close behind.

A domed ceiling sparkled with flecks of minerals embedded in black rock, stars in a night sky, as the Milky Way galaxy would shine down on Eclectia if the curtains of ash fell aside. The lava here held riches of minerals the likes of which he had never seen. Elihu shook his head to clear his thoughts.

The stars dimmed as the flaming bush starved for fuel. He stuck the other torches into the embers of the first and they roared orange and red. To his left a lone table fashioned from fist-sized chunks of dolerite and a slab of stone held a lamp and a hodgepodge of bowls and to his right a pile of blankets covered the floor and a niche in the wall appeared to serve as a hearth.

Liquid sloshed inside the lamp when he picked it up and held his torch over the wick, which caught and burned at the center of an orange halo, the same halo that lit his wife’s face when she checked on the baby long after dark. Her face would be creased with worry tonight. Hunting was no job for a family man and no work for a pastor.

He stuffed what remained of the torches inside the hearth. A crack the width of two fingers snaked up the wall from the hearth and disappeared into the ceiling. He gathered more bushes from outside. The woody stems at the base of the plants, some as thick as Elihu’s wrist, burned slowly, and in the light from the lamp and hearth fire, he plucked seeds from the lavabush branches, dropping the kernels into a blackened carapace bowl for roasting. A hymn of thanksgiving thrummed at the back of his throat and the repetitive picking and hulling lulled his mind.

A groan snapped his senses awake.

A Fortuitous Stumble

by Jeff Chapman -


Another gust pelted Elihu Simmons’s goggles with ash grit, each tiny speck clicking against the translucent saucers of scuttlebug shell and gouging a new pit that he would have to polish away. He thanked the good Lord that Sarah had chased after him with the goggles he had forgotten. He made a mental note to thank her--passionate kisses or watching the baby--when he got home, if he got home. He hadn’t seen this storm coming. It might exhaust itself in an hour or expel its fury for days.

The gray dust cut his vision to a few steps. The scuttlebug shell blurred what remained, reducing his perception to shapes and shadows. Got to find shelter, he told himself, before you’re hopelessly lost.

A bandanna woven from powderbug bristles wrapped his mouth and nose. Dust clogged the fabric where the moisture from his breath dampened the cloth. Grit stung his left ear. Another blast scratched the sliver of cheek exposed above the bandanna. He cursed creation and then asked forgiveness before he’d sucked another bitter-tasting breath through the bristle cloth. Struggle, curse, and beg forgiveness, his daily mantra and all for what: to keep Sarah and the baby alive and offer a few souls a grain of hope. If this was the Lord’s gift, He could have it back. Elihu begged forgiveness. “Service and humility over pride. With humility comes wisdom,” he repeated. “The Lord sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground.”

Elihu held his spear in the crook of his arm and reached behind his head to adjust the knot and raise the cloth to shield his cheeks. The next gust caught him standing straight and off balance, punching him in the chest. He stumbled backwards and to his right and then took an extra step to regain his balance, but the ground he sought was not there. He tumbled over, thinking his appointed day had come. Sharp rocks, a cluster of beetles. He saw them both in his mind’s eye and both would tear him to shreds.

Twigs snapped as they poked his hands and arms. He landed in a prickly bed of lavabushes, on his stomach. The impact knocked the wind out of him. Perhaps the Lord had more for him to do. Something moved beneath him. He ripped off his goggles to see a horde of scuttlebugs burrowing into the ash beneath the bushes, kicking up plumes of dust as their wriggling bodies disappeared. About the size of his palm, the critters lived off lavabush seeds near the bottom of the food chain.

Walls of black lava rock, rippled with vertical crests and troughs, towered on either side of him at least seven meters and tapered until they met five meters ahead of him like the prow of a boat, an ark of shelter. Ash swirled into the crevice, but the deep, narrow crack offered protection from the blasting wind. Behind him, the crevice extended as far as he could see. In a cave here he might wait out the storm, protected from the wind with plenty of lavabush to fuel a fire and its seeds to roast and eat. If he conserved his water, he figured he could last for days.

Elihu found his spear lying atop the tangle of lavabushes that had been tumbling across the waste into this crack for tens of years. Already a layer of dust coated the shaft and blade of his spear. He strapped his goggles across his forehead. He needed all his vision to watch for signs of a cave. With his spear thrust forward, he crunched through the knee-deep lavabushes, which stuck to his pants, requiring him to stop every few meters to knock the bushes loose. He crept forward, listening and studying the walls. “Though I walk through the darkest valley,” he whispered, “I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” If he ever needed to believe those words, it was now. An occupied cave could be worse than none at all.

Diligence

by Travis Perry -

The four grandchildren lay next to one another on the fiber mat on the cave floor, wrapped around by two thin blankets. While they slept sound after their first meal in days, bug leg soup, Elsa reevaluated her life. She couldn’t hunt forever; there was no doubt about that.

She seemed immune to ash lung; she thanked God for that, unlike her son and daughter-in-law, both now dead. But her strength had faded from what it used to be and she wasn’t getting any younger.

Hunting had changed, too. Once mainly the livelihood of families determined to strike it out on their own and be independent in this harsh land, it had become a commercial enterprise. Hunting bugs, taking parts back to the new camp in Adagio with all its tents for paid shipment to Zirconia or up to Avenir, was a business that paid poorly, poor enough that usually only desperate souls turned from whatever they had done before to hunt bugs here. But it used to be, it never paid at all. It used to be that nobody came here from elsewhere. Back then, none of the hunters had fancy weapons like those scytheguns…

Hunting had changed, continually filled by a fresh pool of hungry young men. An old woman just could not compete.

Tears streamed down her face when Elsa understood what that meant. She would have to abandon the cave, an ancient lava tube into which her great-grandfather had hewn out a door by hand. The family would have to move into the tents of the new camp, with all its crime and debauchery. Lord, lord, oh lord, please give me the strength.

In the morning she hauled up a fresh bucket of water from the well carved out by decades of work by her grandfather. A hot spring filled the well, so the bucket steamed in the cool morning air.

The youngest child, Misha, age 5, was already awake and beaming at her with joy. “Dear child,” she said, kissing the curly locks of his head.

She woke the other three, having them wash their faces and hands in the warm, mineral-bitter water. They ate the breakfast she’d warmed of leg soup. By then the bucket water had cooled enough for drinking, and all of them took long draughts.

They loaded up all their kitchenware—the pot, two knives and a ladle, and bugshell plates and bowls. Elsa added the household goods, the one precious family Bible, the blankets, the mat, and the cannon, along with a single old spear. The children carried each one a portion of the goods, but Elsa reserved the heaviest thing, the cannon, for herself.

After the long walk of nearly a whole day from Tube Hill, tears rimmed her eyes to see the beaten-up tents of Adagio, their new home. She sold most of their goods, especially all the metal. She found work cleaning the tavern floor, in exchange for paltry broken pieces of bugshell, even though her people had always frowned on all forms of liquor and any association with it.

She labored late into the night, exhausting herself in the twilight hours, forming shells’ bits into little bowls and plates and smaller items. She exchanged her few goods for bigger pieces, enough to eat off of, and with discipline and diligence, there was enough left over to sell to the Zirconia Trading Company about once every other week, many dozens of hours of toil for a few small copper coins.

She saved her coppers and her one silver piece, struggled to trust the Lord to not worry about camp robbers and what the hunter men might try to do to her one granddaughter, and prayed and prayed and prayed for her grandchildren every waking moment and sometimes in her dreams. The grandchildren helped her in her labors, even though none of them knew why she was working so hard to save coin.

Insight, from the Lord no doubt, had told her that she would not live long enough to see the grandchildren reach adulthood. She had to provide for them past her own life, even if the life she gave them would be strange, dangerous even.

All the copper she saved, all the continual ache and pain of her endless handiwork, all served one purpose: to pay the passage to send her grandchildren to the orphanage in Zirconia.

Hospitality

by Travis Perry -

Elsa studied the grim face of her pastor, Elihu Simmons.

“Elsa,” he said with the raspy wheeze of the early stages of ash lung, “You know I don’t get paid hardly a thing by the congregation, that I hunt bugs to make my living, just like you.”

She stood at the entryway to his cave. He leaned on the chiseled doorway as he spoke with her, looking down at the ground, his face tinged with red, framed by his ash-flecked beard and graying mane of hair. His gaunt wife in the room behind him cast uneasy glances her way.

“That’s why I haven’t asked you before now, Preacher. I know our church isn’t rich—we’re lucky to have a church at all in this place. The rich churches build their universities and cathedrals but don’t do anything for us—”

“Give ’em credit,” he interrupted, “They send travelling ministers on a regular circuit. And give out things. Like old clothes and such—”

“But you live with us. You’re one of us and share our troubles. That’s why I’ve always respected you, Preacher. That’s why I’ve been a faithful member of your congregation. And never asked you for any help…until now.” Tears clouded Elsa’s eyes.

Simmons cleared his throat, still looking down. From somewhere behind his wife a baby began to wail. “Sarah,” he said after turning his head back. “Please fetch all the bug legs we’ve got on the shelf. I can always go back out for more.”

His wife’s eyes showed the whites of her astonishment, but she arose without a word. In less than a minute she was at the doorway, handing them over to Elsa in a rough sack woven from the long fine bristles that line the legs of powder bugs. The sack held six scrawny legs.

“Thank you so much, preacher. God bless you,” sang Elsa.

Pastor Simmon’s face flushed a deeper red. “I’m just sorry I couldn’t give you more, Elsa. Very sorry. Would you like to come in for some tea?”

“No thank you. Have to get back to feed the grandkids! They haven’t eaten in three days.” On an impulse she kissed his cheek. The pastor’s face somehow looked even redder, glowing like the ruddy sunshine during a dust storm. His wife first was astounded, but then she smiled—perhaps because she saw no threat in a woman more than twice her age.

Elsa turned away, striding back toward her home. She knew there wasn’t much meat in these half-dozen gangly legs. But it was more than a day’s worth, which was more than she had any right to expect. For the Lord had taught the disciples to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Contact

by Greg Mitchell -

“Somebody help! We need help over here!”

Trebs was growing pale, his lips turning purple, his skin sallow and thin. Dressler struggled under the other man’s weight, barely able to breathe after their long journey. After the beetle attacked out on the field, Dressler had done his best to make a tourniquet for Trebs’ pierced thigh, but without medical attention his co-hunter was going to die.

“We need a doctor!” Dressler shouted once more.

“No, Daddy…” Trebs mumbled through cracked lips. “It’s too dark, Dad…too dark…”

By time they reached the infirmary tent back at camp, another sand storm had picked up. Waves of hard grit felt like needles on Dressler’s face. He had his goggles on, his kerchief over his face, but the heat was blistering. Trebs slipped in and out of hysteria, sometimes whimpering like a child, other times shouting at the air, cursing his father.

Medics hurried out of the tent, fighting against the high winds to reach Trebs.

“He got hit by a bug,” Dressler shouted over nature’s roar. “He’s lost a lot of blood. He’s delirious.”

Two strong medics, decked in thick coats, caps, and goggles, hefted Trebs between them and dragged him toward the tent. Dressler followed, feeling like he’d just lost a hundred and seventy pounds. His arms tingled as he moved them again, and he looked down to see he was covered in Trebs’ blood.

Dressler pushed his way through the tent, instantly relieved of Eclectia’s cruelty. His hearing returned, his breathing slowed, and he removed his goggles and facemask. Surgeons apprised themselves of Trebs’ condition, cutting away his pants and stripping them off of him with a wet slap. Dressler glimpsed the wound, pumping blood like a volcano. Doctors hurried to stop the bleeding, beginning their operation.

“You’re going to have to leave,” one of the doctors ordered Dressler. He obliged, feeling unwanted, and retreated back into the storm.

Against the harsh winds, he crossed the camp to another, larger tent. Entering, he saw other dirtied bug hunters eating, drinking, laughing. Dressler dragged himself through the slop line, craving a little R&R at Maddie’s Pub back in town, but the mess tent would have to do. Nobody said anything to him as he gathered his plate of goop and found a seat at a nearly vacant table. Nobody knew what he’d just been through, the attack, that Trebs was fighting for his life.

He and Trebs weren’t friends, not in the traditional sense. He knew almost everything about the man, but that came from years together chasing beetles for meat. Alone out in the sands, there was little to do but talk. Get to know one another.

Except, Dressler hadn’t told Trebs about Edilyn. He’d not told many, except his sister. Dressler’s daughter Edilyn was diagnosed three weeks ago with ash lung. Only three Foundings old and the “experts” had given her two to six months to live. Edilyn was holding up, putting on a brave face for her dad, or perhaps she didn’t realize what she was facing. Only a child, she didn’t know the things she’d miss—school, growing up, making friends, falling in love, starting a family. Common human experiences that nearly everyone took for granted, but Edilyn would never have that chance. Dressler knew that even after she was gone, he’d celebrate every birthday, imagine every milestone that would have come. He’d continue to think about her life and what it could’ve—should’ve— been, long after she’d stopped living it.

It was his curse to bear.

One other hunter sat along the table from him. They were alone, the two of them. Jax was a strange one. He seemed different than the others. Quiet, withdrawn, like he was always thinking about something. The other hunters had given him a wide berth ever since his recent arrival, whispering about where he came from or who he was before he became a hunter. Most of Dressler’s ilk was born into this trade, learning to use a spear and rifle as soon as they could pull a pacifier out of their mouths. It was their culture—the mark of true manhood. Bug hunters took great pride in their work, telling stories of daring adventures against bug-kind. They were a loud, conceited sort, and Dressler might have joined with them not too long ago. He would have laughed and drank and shared wild tales, but Edilyn…

“Hey,” Jax spoke, breaking Dressler’s thoughts. Dressler regarded the other man, surprised. Jax’s face was pensive, his tone soft but distant. “You okay?”

Dressler remembered he was painted with blood—both human red and bug yellow. But he wasn’t the confiding type. “Yeah.”

Jax gave him a doubtful look then resumed his fabled deep thinking, continuing to eat. Dressler stared at the mound of nutritional slush on his plate, but had a hard time bringing himself to consume it. He thought of Trebs, of Edilyn, of his life on this ruined rock, and held his face in his hands.

“Excuse me,” a timid voice interrupted.

Dressler saw one of the camp nurses standing over him, her gown splattered with blood. It was then that Dressler realized how quiet the mess hall had grown all of a sudden, as everyone watched her and, by proxy, him. The nurse wrung her hands and Dressler prepared himself for the news that Trebs was dead. He’d have to tell the man’s family.

“Your friend wants to speak with you,” the nurse said, biting her lip. Her face was a mix of worry and fear.

Dressler stood. “He’s alive?”

She nodded. “We’ll talk more…in private.”

The nurse left him there, throwing conspiratorial glances over her shoulder. The men watched Dressler, mumbling gossip amongst themselves. Dressler felt out of place and looked to Jax for support, though he had no idea why. At last, he followed the nurse outside. She waited for him at the side of the tent, away from the hunters. The storm had subsided now, the breeze caressing the desert sands.

Dressler approached the woman, and she whispered, “He’s…he’s healed.”

“Okay,” Dressler said. “I’m glad the doctors were able to get to him in time.”

“No,” she corrected. “He’s healed. The wound is gone. It’s like he was never attacked.”

Dressler’s mind went blank. “I…I don’t understand. He lost so much blood.”

“He died on the operating table and then he just…woke up. The wound closed up on its own. There’s not even a scar. Not a scratch.”

“How is that possible?”

The nurse leveled her eyes at him. They were filled with a quiet terror. “It’s not. But…he wants to speak with you.”

At once, Dressler tromped across camp, headed for the infirmary. With force he pushed open the front flap, and gasped. Trebs was in a gown, sitting up on the bed, the medical staff pressed to one wall of the tent, talking heatedly, their voices low. Trebs turned to Dressler and smiled.

“Hey, Dress.”

Doctors and nurses halted in their debate, eyeing the visitor. Dressler wanted to talk to them, to find out what had happened, but Trebs was focused on him, his face passive and full of light.

“Hey…Trebs,” Dressler greeted awkwardly, not knowing what to say. Hesitant, he walked closer to the hunter on the cot. “They, uh, they said you wanted to talk to me.”

“Not me,” Trebs chuckled softly. “Through me, but it’s someone else who has something to say. Come here.” He lifted his chin towards the professionals huddling in the corner. “It’s not for them.”

Dressler did as requested, a foreboding dread gnawing at his gut. As he drew near, Trebs leaned forward, excited. “I saw them, man.”

“Who?”

“The angels.”

Dressler shook his head. “No.”

“Yes. I was dead. I was in the black…Then one of them came to me, glowing and warm. He, it, whatever, said that he would send me back. He’d heal me. He said I had good to do in my life. Hah, can you believe that? My old man,” Trebs trailed off, his eyes glistening with tears. “…he never thought I’d ever be any good…but I’ve got work to do, the angel said. And the first thing to do is talk to you.”

Dressler exhaled, realizing he’d been holding his breath. “Why me?”

Trebs looked to the floor. “Is, uh…is something wrong with Edilyn?”

Dressler felt as though a weight had slammed into his stomach, punching out his breath. “What?”

“The angel told me. He knows she’s sick, man. She’s dying. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I…”

“It doesn’t matter. The angel wants to help. He said that he knows your kid believes and that ‘believers get rewarded’.”

Feeling faint, Dressler braced himself on the cot, trembling.

“You gotta go down there, though,” Trebs said. “I’m just the messenger. He said he can help you, but you’ve got to go down there. Under the water.”

Dressler wanted to protest. Why? How? The angel had healed Trebs—brought him back from the dead—from all these kilometers away. Why did Dressler have to brave the waters in order for Edilyn to be saved? It wasn’t fair. “Why can’t he heal her like he did you?”

Trebs shrugged. “I don’t know, Dress. I should’ve asked, but I was so grateful. You don’t know what it’s like when you’re around those guys. I felt it, man. It was like…joy. Pure joy. But you’ve gotta go to him.”

Dressler considered for a long moment, his mind filled with doubt, confusion, but most of all, hope. He spotted the doctors waiting on him, to hear his decision, and he would not keep them waiting any longer.

“Yeah. Okay. Where do I start?”

Forgiveness

by Travis Perry -

The fist-sized cannonball made a neat puncture in the seam that ran down the middle of the mammothbug’s exoskeleton. Dazed by the blast of the cannon as she was, this was not the first thing Elsa noticed.

The first thing she realized was the bug charging her way, roaring in pain. It wasn’t until long moments afterward that some detached and objective part of her brain realized the shot actually had been in the right place, it should have hit the bug’s heart, killing it instantly…

Her mind pondered but her body scrambled up the rock face immediately behind her, knowing the bug would come straight after her and was a poor climber. She moved as fast as her elderly frame would bear, the bug roaring behind her—too close. The only thing that soothed the bitter certainty that she would die was the fact she had been certain of her own death before—and lived.

“Help, Lord!” her mouth said, it in turn operating independently of her slow-moving body and shot-critiquing mind. She found hand-and-toeholds and moved upward, not fast enough, she knew, as the bug’s roar drew terrifyingly near.

But then from behind her came the muted crack of a scythegun followed an instant later by the roar of its projectile breaking the mammothbug’s back. Elsa glanced down and saw the bug’s last twitching movement before death. Its carcass was not even two meters from the rock face.

Behind the bug’s body, she saw her savior, a grim-faced bearded man, in new-looking clothes, about a hundred meters away. “Thank you, young man!” she shouted and waved, feeling her face spread in a wide smile.

He approached without saying a word until he was close. By then, Elsa had recovered her cannon and her skeleton saw. She would have to cut the carcass in pieces and carry it bits to get it home. She’d be lucky to get it all back before the scavengers arrived, but once she returned with the first piece, the children would help with the rest. She began her work, starting to saw off the right front leg.

“What are you doing?” said the man, now only meters away, his weapon not quite pointed at her but not quite pointed away, either.

“Oh, taking home some of this kill for my little ones.” Observing his scowling face, she added, “Since you were so kind as to help me, perhaps you would like to take half for yourself?”

Now the weapon pointed itself directly at her. “This is my kill. Move along outta here.”

“Surely there is enough here for both…perhaps you would like to take three-fourths of the beast? I really need at least a small part for my family…you see, one of my sons abandoned us long ago and the others have died in the hunting, the last leaving a very pregnant wife and five little ones behind.” She smiled as sweetly as she knew how, trying her best to appeal to his sense of human decency.

“My kill, old woman,” his voice growled, not sounding particularly human. “Shove along. NOW.”

She moved, bitter tears streaming down her face. Why, dear God, she thought, would you save me from a quick death only to let me die a slow one?

She glanced back behind her and saw the man carving her bug into neat slices with a powered blade, paying no more attention to her at all. And it came to her in a flash of insight what she should do. There were a whole series of little ridges in this narrow valley—she should duck behind one, reload the cannon with the last of her powder and the last cannonball and kill the man stealing the food from the mouths of her little ones.

Behind a ridge no more than twenty meters from her intended prey, the powder and cannonball in place, heavy guilt flooded Elsa’s soul. This is wrong, she acknowledged and knew with bitter resentment that no matter what it would cost her, her God demanded one thing from her: forgiveness.

Elsa wept bitterly.

Maddie's Pub

by Grace Bridges -

Hinges creaked. Maddie glanced up in time to see a bedraggled huntsman drag himself inside. He kicked the door to ensure the rubber seal took properly.

Good. She didn’t want more wind-borne ash in here than was absolutely necessary. Only the newbies to Eclectia’s harsh land would leave any door or window open. She’d trained her regulars well.

Maddie turned back to the open fire, fueled by scrubby brush—the only stuff that grew here. She poked at the meat stew in the cauldron, and its pungent aroma released into the room. She frowned. If only she had a potato to put in it—that would make a dish fit for a wizard. But no wizard had ever set foot in her establishment, and potatoes only grew in the underwater gardens—out of reach for any grit-breather unless he was filthy rich, but the rich folks didn’t live here. Here, they had to make do with the bitter leaves and seeds of the lavabush—both for bread and ale—and the third-grade meat plentiful in a hunting village.

She ladled stew into a bowl and made her way between the tables to plunk it before the hunter. “Here you go, Jax. Good hunting today?” He stared blankly at the food for a moment, then nodded with the weariness of one who had shot a giant beetle and hauled it back to town. Maddie knew that look very well. She gave him a friendly whack on the back, waited till he let a small smile slip out, then headed back to her kitchen across the room.

The earth rumbled and the building shook, its flexible mortar and light pulpblock walls absorbing the shocks. Maddie clutched at the counter to prevent herself from falling. Her guests looked up from their meals. The quake settled and the murmur of conversation started up again.

Maddie bowed her head for a moment before going to pour a lavabush ale for Jax. She thought she might need one, too.

In Your Staterooms

by Jim Tesla -

I really don’t care what they call me: butcher, baker, bug-steak maker. Who’s to say the crunchy carapace I lance and drag for miles isn’t worth it? They who eat its contents and live? Use its remains to make shelter or medicine?

No, they look at their fat little children and thank me. Their fat little children with their spider-hair clothes. If only they knew…

“Tane, bring us more scorpions; higher prices paid.”

“Tane, some government fat ass’ wife wants a caterpillar rug.” A caterpillar rug, for gosh sake?

“When can you get those fire ants, Tane? We hear they’re great marinated and batter-fried.”

And Tane, when will you lasso the Whale Star and drag it down to us? We want a night light to comfort us while we sleep on our soft-pillowed beds.

I’ll lasso your star when justice has been done. And when all you idiots wise up and realize what’s happening here, the corruption of one group and the misplaced trust of another. But why worry about that when you can sit in your staterooms and circle this planet? Your staterooms with private bars and movies, games. Or sit in your protected cities under the sea, the children close by while mama watches—beautiful mama…while beautiful mama watches, with her beautiful blue eyes and silken brown hair…

Why would you worry? We’re the hunters; we’ll find the good deal for you. Count on us to keep the food coming, the food for your healthy fat children, the food for their mama…in your staterooms…

Patience

by Travis Perry -

One advantage to getting older is patience comes easier. The thought seemed to come from nowhere, interrupting Elsa’s rambling talk with God. “Now where were we, Lord…” but she fell silent when her eyes caught movement.

Beyond the pile of black volcanic rock that served as her hunting blind, she saw the movement in the lure she’d been waiting for. Back toward the cave. The mammothbug was about to come out.

Elsa glanced down at the wick of her bronze cannon. Its white tuft stood straight up, still in place, still dry.

Months ago her family had run out of the money required for the ammunition for their modern weapons. But she still knew how to mix black powder, keeping the cannon handed down through her grandfather’s line the only viable hunting weapon the family had.

The bug pushed its massive hairy head out of the cave, its bulbous red compound eyes glimmering in light of the setting sun. It had pulled back its “trunk,” the hairy bug-like lure it had laid out in front of its cave, which it would wiggle seductively to draw in lesser bugs, as preparation for its once-in-five-to-eight day walk outside to regurgitate the exoskeletons of its prey.

The head hesitated a moment at the entrance, as if it knew Elsa were there. She held her breath and waited, unmoving. Finally, after what seemed to be endless minutes of motionlessness, the creature the size of a small house pulled itself over volcanic rubble, rumbling out of its lair.

She gently lifted the heavy butt of the cannon, lining up the shot. The bug’s death would bring food and clothing to her little ones. But with the cannon, she had only one chance.

At just the right moment, she flicked the lighter and touched it to the wick. Thunder roared in the narrow valley as the cannon threw Elsa back.

Only the Strong

by Greg Mitchell -

“It’s just a fact of nature,” Trebs said in a hush, watching through his set of green-tinted binocs over the ashen terrain.

Dressler kept his eyes forward, likewise watching the battle from the safety of the makeshift roost. Up ahead, two dominant beetles tore apart their weaker brother. Even from here, Dressler heard the shrill cries of the thing, and felt pity.

“It’s the Rule of the Strong,” Trebs added as one of the larger bugs tore a leg off the smaller. “Those that are strong make the rules, you get me?”

“I get you,” Dressler grumbled, wishing Trebs would quit talking. That was always the worst part when their shifts fell together. Despite the dangers, hunting bugs for meat was usually a time for quiet reflection—a time Dressler desperately needed since the doctor diagnosed Edilyn with ash lung.

“If you can’t hack it,” Trebs droned on, as the lesser insect finally fell in a spray of yellow gore, “You don’t deserve to live, know what I’m saying?”

A warbling shriek filled Dressler’s ears. He clutched at his head, startled.Trebs did the same. Deadly pincers pierced the scrap metal roof and tore it back, red sands and heat pelting the humans inside. Another bug—one they’d not previously seen—reared up on its back crawlers, its throat emitting a high-pitched rattle.

Trebs screamed, “It’s calling the others! We—”

The beetle that towered over them dropped its foreclaw like a pick axe, piercing the meat of Trebs’ thigh. He fell back, blood gushing everywhere, and hollered in anguish. Dressler reached for his spear and jabbed at the thing, searching for the exposed underbelly.

With its other claw, the monster slapped him away and Dressler crashed through the rough wall of their roost, landing in a plume of sand. He stood, disoriented, no clue where the spear had gone. Fear took hold of him and shook hard, the sounds of Trebs struggling for his life mere feet away. Dressler dropped to one knee and brought out the rifle slung on his back. A thunderous crack echoed across the canyon as Dressler’s shot struck the beast in the eye. It howled in pain, raining yellow blood on the ruined roost, and backed away.

The gunshot had scared off the other bugs, a prime reason why most hunters used spears. Even though they lost their catch for the day, Dressler was relieved. He rushed to the rubble, where Trebs was alive and in pain.

It’d be a long, miserable hike back to camp.

Bedtime Stories

by Greg Mitchell -

“Daddy? Tell me about the angels.”

Dressler pulled the covers to Edilyn’s neck, red light from the small bunker window painting her face in harsh contrast. The sound of dirt and grit scraped against the pane glass, a constant white noise that Dressler had all-but tuned out.

“Come on, Lyn,” he sighed. “Not tonight. You really need your rest.”

Through bleary eyes, she beseeched him. “I feel fine, Dad.”

A sharp pang pierced his spirit.

Three years old and she’s braver about this than I am.

“I don’t really want to,” Dressler grinned, his nose and eyes burning with tears that he kept barred.

“Please, Daddy,” the little girl begged, reminding him of all the little things in life she’d begged for. New toys, a special treat. A million trivial things he’d taken for granted. Things that would be left behind when she was gone.

Dressler cursed in his heart. Better do it. Better savor these moments. You won’t have much opportunity before long.

“Okay,” he relented, and the girl’s feet squirmed under the covers, her face brighter than 94 Ceti. “The angels are beautiful creatures that live in the ocean depths.”

“How did they get there?” she immediately asked her usual question.

“I don’t know. Maybe they’ve always been there. Maybe they came from somewhere else.”

“A boy in my class said they have magic,” she nodded eagerly. “Is that true, Daddy?”

“That’s what I hear, but I’ve never seen one for myself,” he chuckled. “I guess that’s why we have stories. Sometimes believing in a thing is more important than the thing itself. Does that make sense?”

She shook her head no.

“Yeah,” he huffed. “Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me most of the time, either.”

Pausing, Edilyn furrowed her brow, the soft shush-shushing of the windswept sands comforting, even in Eclectia’s tumultuous storms. “Daddy . . . Could the angels make me not sick?”

Dressler’s chest tightened, his breathing short. He bit on his lip, forcing his emotions back. He’d cry later, after Edilyn was asleep. He’d cry ‘til morning. “I don’t know, Lyn,” he whispered in a raw croak. “But I’d like to believe.”