The Perimeter Read Free Page A

Earth was, how proud they should be of their native world. If it was so fucking great, why had her grandparents left?
    The parasite raised its sickening round head from where it had been resting on her collarbone. She tried to close her eyes, but it saw she was awake. It prodded her to get up.
    “I’m too tired. I need more sleep.”
    It pinched her with a dozen legs.
    “Please. I need to sleep.”
    It stung. Blinding pain. Pain shooting off pinwheels beneath her clenched lids. She howled like a wounded rabbit, leaped to her feet. On the way out she grabbed her backpack and swung it gently over her shoulders, trying not to disturb the parasite.
    It steered her away from the fence toward the wild. Phillipa stumbled into the dark, gasping in pain, terrified beyond belief. No one went into the wild except heavily armed teams, and there was no one waiting outside her hut to go with her. The security people were at home in their warm beds.
    The landscape dropped steeply into pocked, black rock jutting from pools of brackish water. Here and there, stubby yellow shrubs clung to cracks in the rock. The parasite goaded Phillipa to leap from rock to rock.
    The light of the settlement receded. Plopping and groaning rose from the pools while screeching and chittering drifted from farther off. Every time Phillipa jumped over a pool she expected a thick tentacle to lash out of the water and grab her ankle, then pull her down into some unseen mouth.
    They passed through copses of jagged unzi trees, their branches like lightning strikes and roots running over the rocks and into pools. Occasionally, she heard a snuffling among the rocks, and she would draw the pistol as the parasite steered her away from the sounds.
    When the city was a distant glow, the parasite stopped her beside a tiny pool, little more than a crack between two rock formations, then inched her toward the edge. She tried to move in another direction, but it held her there, pushed her toward the water like a skittish horse.
    “I’m not going in there. Please.”
    The pricking got stronger. The stinging would begin soon. Panting, trembling, Phillipa took a step into the pool. She plunged into the dark water, chest deep, felt something slimy and tubular squirm under her feet. She squealed, clawed at the rock, trying to pull herself out, but the parasite stung and she stopped struggling. She clung to the rock, sobbing, trying to avoid the thing in the water.
    The parasite’s head disappeared below the water’s surface. Its neck swayed from side to side; then she felt a jolt, as if the head had suddenly extended. It was feeding.
    The slimy thing under the water slid along her ankle; Phillipa jerked away but immediately pressed up against another or maybe part of the same one. She held perfectly still then, barely breathing while the parasite shifted and bobbed, feeding on whatever was down there. Finally its head emerged from the water; it prodded her. She frantically clawed her way out of the pool.
    Gasping for breath, Phillipa tried to rest, but the parasite wouldn’t allow it. It pushed her on, choosing ever-harder routes, goading her to leap between rocks that were five or six feet apart. As she jumped, Phillipa thought of how it had made her run. Had that been practice for this? If so, it had no idea how long it took to get a human body conditioned. She glanced down at its ugly round head, at those strange, eager little eyes. God, she hated it.
    As if reading her thoughts, it turned her toward what was easily a ten-foot jump. Phillipa balked. “It’s too far. I can’t jump that far.”
    The legs squeezed.
    “I can’t .” She eyed the pool of thick black water a dozen feet below. Before it started stinging, she backed up as far as she could, ran, and leaped.
    She landed on the slanted face of the rock, her feet scrabbling for purchase as her forearms scraped the rough rock. Straining with all her might, she pulled herself up an inch, then another, until her foot