Rystole’s had a hard conversation with his father and it’s clear what he’s got to do.
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Night had washed over the entire settlement. The second moon had risen in the sky, a waxing crescent. The first one had set hours ago, as Rystole had made his way into town.
It was strange to see Dale Cannon from this angle. He remembered looking down on the planet from orbit. It was impossible to see the settlement with the naked eye but an enhanced video feed showed the colonists where they were landing.
Back then it’d been a ready-made town built by large concrete printing rovers that’d been sent ahead of the colonists. The town followed a grid pattern with the town hall in the center and tall walls in an oval shape around it.
Back then the submatter radio tower hadn’t even been erected next to the town hall. The colonists had done that themselves in the first weeks.
Looking through the metal grate that Rystole stood on he was closer than the satellite feed. And the town had changed significantly.
A few buildings were missing in the grid system, well-trodden streets ran through them for convenience. Signs were posted on the road and a few wooden extensions had been added to the premanufactured concrete houses.
But the biggest difference Rystole noticed was how easy it’d be to fall off the submatter radio tower. You didn’t get that sensation from looking at a satellite image.
No one would find him until morning. Who knows if they’d be able to identify him once he hit the ground.
But it wouldn’t be hard to figure out who it was. There was only one person bold enough to climb up the submatter radio tower in the middle of the night. Only one person was willing to do what needed to be done.
Rystole found a climbing harness and rope at the bottom of the tower in a locker with no lock on it. The belt fit fine but the straps around his legs were a bit tight. Two carabiners that were attached to the harness let him clip into a safety line when he climbed up the metal rungs embedded into the tower to form a ladder.
A belay device, made up of a complicated set of pulleys, would let him lower himself on the rope if he needed to. But he’d prefer to just climb the ladder down. It’d be slower but safer.
The only other thing he carried up here was a bag of tools he’d scrounged from the ranch. A drill, screwdriver, an array of wrenches and screwdrivers.
At the bottom was a hammer. In case things came to that.
He didn’t know what he’d run into up here. The colony’s technician manual that they studied in school was lacking in details when it came to the innards of the radio.
Luckily he didn’t have to understand the radio to know how to break it. He just hoped he didn’t do anything irreversible.
A cool breeze passed by him but it felt refreshing on his face. He was wearing a tan canvas jacket with a thick lining on the inside. It was nice for the walk into town but after climbing all the way up here he was sweating and warm.
The submatter radio equipment was stored in a metal cylinder cabinet that started at about Rystole’s knee and stopped at his chest.
Above the cabinet, a pole extended another two meters with a horizontal ladder-like antenna at the top. A flashing red light blinked just under it, for if, or when, people started flying vehicles around this planet.
The cabinet itself was, surprisingly, locked with a circular padlock. Rystole was surprised considering security on the colony was pretty relaxed. With only a few hundred people and an interdependence on each other for survival, it wasn’t advantageous to steal from your neighbor and betray their trust.
And then there was Rystole who was about to betray the trust of every one of those citizens. Maybe those who had family members in comas would be sympathetic to his cause. Maybe a few more could empathize with him. But he didn’t expect to be winning any popularity contests for a while after this.
He didn’t care.
He wanted his mother conscious again.
Rystole pulled the drill out of his tool bag and went to work on the lock. It didn’t take long, the security was only there to keep unmotivated people out. And right now that didn’t include Rystole.
Inside of the metal cabinet, embedded in a poster-sized circuit board, the submatter crystal glowed purple. This crystal was bigger than any that Rystole had seen.
It was about the size of Juniper’s head. Certainly, it was larger than the ones Bert had worked with to make the gun or the translation radio.
He didn’t want to touch it. He didn’t want to do anything irreparable.
Rystole pulled out a pair of wire cutters and started snipping the green, white, and black power lines that were hooked into the bottom of the circuit board. Sparks flew as he cut into the first two. It startled him but didn’t stop him.
At least without power removed he wouldn’t fry anything on the circuit board.
He stared at the board trying to decide what to remove next.
A siren went off.
Rystole jumped then grabbed onto the open door of the cabinet to steady himself.
The pulsing of the sirens disturbed the once-quiet night.
They’d caught onto him. He wouldn’t be able to do anything else to the radio. It’d be fixed by morning.
Looking down dot-sized people came out of their house to look around. A few guards, volunteer ranchers, that were posted started running towards the tower.
Rystole was busted.
He had no time to climb the ladder. They’d surely spot him during his slow descent.
He looped the rope around the sturdy ladder rung and fed the tail ends of the rope through the belay device following the instructions engraved into it.
If he wanted a chance at escape he’d have to quickly lower himself down. And even then he might not be fast enough.
Holding onto the top ladder rung with both hands Rystole took a deep breath and sat back in the harness.
When it was clear the rope and belay device were capable of holding him he let go of the ladder.
Using the lever of the belay device he lowered himself as fast as he could stand without his stomach coming out of his throat.
Cold night air rushed through his hair and up his jacket. It didn’t stop his nervous sweating.
More people were rushing to the tower. He lowered himself as quickly as he could get away with. Strangely no one seemed to be looking up or circling around it. There might be a chance to escape.
When Rystole’s boots finally touched the ground there was not a ring of volunteer guards surrounding him. Grisham hadn’t been roused from bed to figure out what was going on.
Rystole was lucky. For now.
He slipped out of the harness but left it all hanging there. It was clear that someone’d messed with the tower. No point in hiding the evidence and delaying his escape.
There was one thing worth doing to delay his escape.
Rystole slipped into the town hall. The alarms had caused the doors to unlock. It was the shelter location for situations when the alarms went off.
Rystole made his way towards the infirmary. He wanted to use the slug that was in there to heal his mother before he slipped out of the town.
He entered the infirmary and was shocked by who he found in there.
A half dozen people, including his mother, lay in beds unconscious. In the center of the room, next to the glass tank that held the captured slug, stood Bert. He was playing with the translation radio.
“What are you doing here?” Rystole asked.
“What are either of you doing here?” Dr. Yu asked from behind Rystole.
The doctor wore a wrinkled lab coat and an oversized sweater under it and held a radio in his hand that was full of garbled chatter from panicked townsfolk.
The doctor must have heard Rystole’s heavy boots in the hallway.
“Hay for brains shut off the radio tower setting off all the alarms,” Bert said. “I’m here to make sure the slugs make good on their end of the bargain.”
“How’d you know I—” Rystole started to ask.
“The alarms are going off because the slugs are attacking the town,” Dr. Yu said.
“Oh,” Bert said sounding a little shocked and very concerned.
“Why are they attacking?” Rystole asked.
That wasn’t what was supposed to happen. The beasts were supposed to cure his mom not hit them while they couldn’t call for help.
The slugs had betrayed them. And Rystole had been complicit in the scheme.
“We are here,” the chorus of voices said from Bert’s radio, “to ‘make good on our end of the bargain,’ as you say.”
A gunshot rang out through the halls and over the radio. Rystole shivered. If someone was resorting to firearms it’d be bad.
“Where’s that boy’s gun?” Grisham said over the radio. “The one I have isn’t working on them.”
“They’re in the auditorium!” someone else said.
“That’s where everyone’s sheltering,” Bert said.
“It’s touching my leg. Elder’s please,” someone pleaded.
“I touched one, I’m not unconscious,” another voice announced.
“We mean you no harm,” the chorus of voices said. “Did you not tell your limbs we were coming?”
“I thought I could use the one in the tank,” Rystole said.
“That limb of ours does not have the resources. It has not eaten to replenish itself.”
“You haven’t fed it?” Rystole asked.
“I didn’t know what it ate,” Dr. Yu said a little ashamed.
“You could’ve asked,” Bert said gesturing to the radio in his hand.
“Communication is not your species’ strong suit is it?” the chorus of voices asked.
Before any of the humans could reply slugs entered the infirmary.
At first, it was one. Then a half dozen. But in a matter of seconds, the entire floor was covered with the goopy beasts.
Some crawled up the tables. Others crawled on the medical equipment or the walls.
They brushed past the tops of Rystole’s boots. As more flowed in he could feel them brush against his leg despite the thick canvas of his pants.
They were squishy and slimy and left trails of goop on the walls. The room was flooding with them soon the pile of slugs would be up to Rystole’s waist.
The slugs brushed past his hand. Despite the touch being harmless he jerked away in shock.
He waded through the tide of slugs towards his mother’s bed. Patients were waking up with gasps and screaming in shock at the slugs.
Dr. Yu tried to reassure his patients over the chaos of the radio, the beeping medical equipment, and the screaming patients. His words had little effect.
A slug crawled across his mother’s arm. Rystole reached for her hand. The pool of slugs seemed to push him towards her faster.
His mother gasped awake as he clasped his hand around hers. She looked at him panicked like she was facing down a buffbull.
“It’s okay,” Rystole reassured her, resting his hand on her arm. “Everything’s okay.”
The tide of slugs receded from the room slipping out thin cracks in windows, air vents, and the hallway. They disappeared faster than they entered.
In a moment they were all gone. Only a thin residue of slick slime covered the floor to prove they’d been there.
His mother and every other patient in the room had a dozen questions. Before Rystole or Dr. Yu could answer them Grisham stood in the doorway.
Two ranchers stood behind him. Grisham had a blocky pistol in his hand.
“Rystole Whitman,” the town’s speaker said, “you’re under arrest.”
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