Walk the Plank Read Free Page B

at a time.
    GANAS: What do we do if one of the search teams happens to find the Erie Morningstar survivors?
    EL-MASRI: Note where they are, but steer clear of them for now. If we find the cargo containers with our supplies, we can go back and deal with them. But for now, let them be. We have other priorities.
    GANAS: Here, Aurel. Make sure to record everything Malik says.
    SPURLEA: Will do.
    EL-MASRI: All right, let’s get back in there.

     
    [Door opens, closes.]

     
    DAMANIS: I thought you had forgotten about me.
    EL-MASRI: We wouldn’t do that, Malik.
    DAMANIS: That’s good to hear. I’m sorry to take up so much of your time. You must be busy as colony leader.
    EL-MASRI: Well, talking to you has been helpful, and you can be a little more helpful to me still, Malik.
    DAMANIS: How can I do that?
    EL-MASRI: I need you to tell me everything you can about where you landed and how you got here from there. That will help us find where you land, and might help us find the rest of your crew.
    DAMANIS: I’ll tell you, but I don’t think you’ll find the rest of my crew. I think they’re all dead.
    EL-MASRI: You said that at least a few of your crewmates were alive when you landed. You’ve survived so far. So it stands to reason some of them might have as well.
    DAMANIS: Unh.
    EL-MASRI: Why are you shaking your head?
    SPURLEA: Malik, did something else happen to your crew before you came here?
    DAMANIS: Yes.
    EL-MASRI: Tell us about it. It could be useful to us.
    DAMANIS: After we landed, those of us who were mostly uninjured started helping those who were worse off. There were about ten of us at that point. We went back into the container so we could see who was living and who was dead. The dead we moved to one side of the container. The living we moved out of the container so we could see how badly they were injured. About half had broken bones but were still conscious or still able to move around. The rest were either unconscious or not able to move because they were too injured or in too much pain. We went back into the container and took the clothes off the dead to make slings and braces, and to make bandages where people were bleeding or had open breaks.
    SPURLEA: So, ten relatively uninjured, about ten or fifteen somewhat injured and the same number severely injured. The rest dead.
    DAMANIS: Yes. May I have some more water?
    SPURLEA: Of course.
    DAMANIS: When we were done with that, those of us who were still uninjured got together to discuss what to do next. Some of us wanted to find your colony. We knew it was down here because that’s why we were over your planet in the first place, and we knew you couldn’t be too far away. But none of our PDAs survived the fall and we couldn’t signal you, or use them to keep track of whoever wandered off. Most of us wanted to build a better camp and get ourselves squared away, find some water and some food before we did anything else. I said we should move the dead out of the container and the living back in, so they would at least have shelter. One guy, Nadeem Davi, started talking about how we should consider the possibility of using the dead for food. We argued about that so long that we didn’t notice what had happened to the forest.
    EL-MASRI: What had happened?
    DAMANIS: It had gone dead silent. Like it does when there’s a predator around, right? Everything that could get eaten just shuts up and hides. We finally noticed it when we all stopped talking. It was dead silent except for our injured. And then—
    SPURLEA: And then a pack of animals was on you.
    DAMANIS: You know about these things?
    EL-MASRI: We just call it “the pack.” We don’t call them anything else because we’ve never caught one by itself. You don’t see them, or you see dozens of them. There’s nothing in between.
    DAMANIS: I didn’t know that. I saw them coming out of the woods and they reminded me of the stories my grandmother told me of hyenas in Africa. There were just so many of them.