Free Deucalion by Brian Caswell

rescue teams an hour ago. I’d just about given up on me. In fact, I was almost beyond thinking. By that time – what was it, three hours after the crash? – I was four parts delirious. I’d stopped sweating; there was no more water left in my body. My lips were cracked and my tongue had begun to swell. It stuck to the top of my mouth, until I felt I was about to suffocate. I told myself to stay calm, breathe through my nose. Someone would come soon.
    Who was I kidding ?
    No one was coming. Whoever had planned the crash – and all my training convinced me that it had to have been planned – was too smart to allow the chance of anyone arriving in time.
    Then I heard it. A tiny voice. ‘Is somebody there?’ it said. ‘Is somebody still alive?’
    I wanted to shout out, to scream for help, but I could make no sound. My tongue refused to move, the sound locked in my throat. I tried to shake my head, but the crash-bars held it rigidly in place. I made one last, pointless effort to free my hand enough to push the cage-release. I scraped at the sandy soil with the toe of my boot, trying to make a sound that might attract the voice’s attention.
    Nothing.
    In panic, I took a giant breath and forced it out through my parched throat. For a moment nothing happened, but then it came. A faint, rasping groan. Not a cry. Not loud enough to reach the ear of anyone more than a couple of metres away. Anyone human, that is.
    One thing not many people know about the Elokoi is just how acute their hearing is. I found out later that they must have been the best part of 30 or 40 metres away when I called for help. But it didn’t matter. They heard, and in a couple of minutes I was free, sitting in the shade of one of the boulders, drinking a can of something warm and wet they’d managed to salvage from the wreckage.
    And sitting next to me was Elena. She was in shock – even I could see that. But she was alive, and so was I. And that was more than could be said for anyone else.
    I’ve never believed in destiny. Fate. Karma. It was only coincidence. Pure and simple.
    Simple? Deucalion is a big place, and this particular piece of mountain was at least 1,000 clicks from my rescuers’ home Reserve. But here they were. And here I was. We’d had the whole of the Roosevelt Ranges to crash into, and they’d had the whole of the east coast to run away to. Yet we’d all ended up here.
    Maybe fate isn’t such a bizarre idea. Who knows?
    It had been the best part of a year and a half, but there was no doubting who the two of them were.
    Cael, the young male (we managed the introductions this time around), was almost entirely silver-grey by now. He’d lost nearly all his adolescent mottling, grown a few centimetres, and was just about fully mature. But there was no mistaking him. The white ‘headband’ I’d noticed that time in Neuenstadt still stood out clearly. And besides, there was paint on his hands.
    Saebi had taken control. Once you get used to Elokoi ways, that’s a perfectly natural situation, of course. She made sure that the whole area was searched thoroughly. Just in case.
    I could have told her it was a waste of time. You could see that there was no chance that there was anyone left alive. And yet . . . there were two of us sitting with our backs to the boulder who should have shared their fate. We were still alive.
    I tried to get up and help them search, but my legs wouldn’t take my weight. I think it was the shock setting in, on top of a dose of heat exhaustion. So I settled for trying to comfort Elena.
    She was very young. I guessed about eight Standard. Since I’d sat down, she had said nothing. She just sat staring into the distance, rubbing the corner of her collar between her finger and thumb, and rocking slightly.
    I spoke her name, but she gave no response. I guess it was her way of shutting out the horror she had lived through. I