Colony by Benjamin Cross (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📗

lingered in the cold. Then, to everyone’s surprise, she began to laugh.

“What is funny?” Darya asked.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that the more I think about these creatures, the less surprised I am that they’ve survived, you know?”

Callum hummed agreement. “Such a versatile species, it’s strange that they’ve never made it off the island.”

“Who’s to say they haven’t?”

There was silence once more.

“You think they have?”

“I think it’s entirely possible. But no, as it happens, I don’t think they have.”

“If it’s possible for them to leave then what’s stopping them?”

“Perhaps nothing’s stopping them,” she replied. “There’s nothing stopping me from stripping down naked and doing a handstand right here and now.” She smiled wryly. “But you’ll agree that there’s a big difference between what’s possible and what’s desirable.”

Callum thought about replying, but in the end he just smiled back.

“Of course it’s possible for these creatures to have left Harmsworth,” she continued. “You said that you’d observed them swimming.”

“You make it sound as if they weren’t trying to kill me at the time.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Okay, yes, Darya and I observed them in the water.”

“So even without the pack-ice land bridge, the fact is they could’ve left anytime.” She paused then added, “But the real question, Doctor Ross, isn’t why wouldn’t they leave, it’s why would they? They’ve evolved to exploit this very particular environment. They’ve got everything they need to survive here.”

“You think they’re territorial?”

“I don’t think it’s as simple as passive genetic attachment to a home range. I think it’s based on active decision-making.”

“You give them great intelligence,” Darya said.

Ava nodded. “I think they’re probably incredibly smart. Smarter than some people I’ve known, that’s for sure.”

Darya looked as unconvinced as ever. “Do you get this from the size of the brain? Because this is not always reliable.”

“It’s not just that,” she replied. “I mean, let’s look at the evidence. The creature that attacked us in the tent came in through the door. But Lungkaju closed it after he left.”

Callum shuddered at the memory of turning to see those bottomless eyes staring across at him, appearing to read and reread his thoughts. “It undid the zip.”

“It unfastened the zipper,” Ava repeated. “It could’ve slashed its way in, but it was smart enough to know that it could get the drop on us better if it entered the same way we did.”

“So it is work out how to operate the zip,” Darya said, unimpressed. “But many animal species are problem-solving: primates, chimps, orangutans, gorillas. Also dolphins and the octopus are very intelligent problem-solvers.”

“Am I right thinking that all of those creatures learn by mimicry?”

“This is true,” Darya said. “It is the same for human beings when they do not have direct instruction from another. They copy those around them.”

“I don’t think it was trial and error,” Callum said. “The zip slid open nice and smooth. At first I thought it was Lungkaju.”

“So that leaves mimicry,” Ava said. “Mimesis. The creature must have seen the zip being operated, learnt the process and remembered it.”

“How could this be?” Darya asked. “This is the first time anybody uses their tent on the island.”

Ava’s silence brought a chill to Callum’s chest. “You think it was watching us, don’t you? Studying our behaviour.”

“I think it saw Lungkaju leave, yes. And I think it saw how he operated the zip.”

Darya frowned. “If it saw Lungkaju leave, why did it not attack him? Why would it just let him walk away?”

“Precisely,” she answered. “It discerned. And that’s the one thing above all else that convinces me we’re dealing with a highly intelligent animal here. It didn’t just savage the first one of us that it saw. It watched. It waited. It selected a target. Again, that would require an active, decision-making intelligence. Much like ours.”

“It reacted when you pointed the rifle at it as well,” Callum said. “It knew that the rifle represented danger.”

“Perhaps this is why it is not attack Lungkaju in the first place,” Darya added, “because he carries rifle.”

“And the fact that it saw the rifle as a threat suggests that it must’ve seen one before,” Callum said. “It must already have had a run-in with the soldiers.”

“Or maybe it is watching when the polar bear was killed.”

“Either way, it’s learning,” Ava said.

Darya cast her eyes around the undulating rock that stretched up the valley-side in either direction. “Do you think that they are watching us now?”

Ava: “It’s possible. But by now I think it’s pretty clear that they only attack when our vision’s impaired.”

“You mean when there is mist.”

“Since it’s cleared, we haven’t seen a single one, have we? Again, it’s the most intelligent behaviour. Exploit our species weaknesses, in this case our over-reliance on sight.”

“They attacked me and Darya in broad daylight,” Callum said.

“Yes,” Ava admitted, “but on that occasion, I think it was you who took them by surprise. They weren’t actively hunting you, they were fishing.”

“You think that they were just protecting their young?”

“Makes sense.”

Lungkaju had stopped on a ridge of high ground. As the others arrived at his side, he was busy surveying the route ahead, rifle draped across his forearm, hood fastened tightly around his face. “The compound is only two hours from here.”

Callum was surprised at the familiarity of the way ahead. From the gradient, to the meandering channel gouged into the valley bottom, the landscape triggered something. “Why do I remember this place?”

Lungkaju looked thoughtful, as if trying to remember something very specific. Then he replied triumphantly, “Palaeochannel! Doctor Ross, it is the old riverbed.”

Before Callum could say anything else, Darya asked, “This is the channel that leads to the tunnel? To the ice mummy?”

He nodded.

Ava looked confused. “What in the hell are you all talking about?”

With everything that had happened, she still hadn’t heard the story; the discovery of Ngana’bta; the link they’d made between the mummy and the creatures.

Together, he and Darya filled her in.

“You think this guy was killed by the same creatures?” she said. “What, thousands of years ago?”

“All the pieces seem