Eithos

Time didn’t matter much on a world that didn’t have days, but for the sake of his rescue, Pyry checked it the moment he woke up. It was 0400 Earth time, which meant he’d been down for about five hours. It was more sleep than Pyry had expected to get, he hadn’t died, and his supplies weren’t missing, so all that considered, things were looking pretty good.

He shut the screen off on his watch and rubbed his face. “Basket,” he said through a yawn. “Right.”

Pyry reached beside him only to touch dirt. Eyebrows knit, he sat up on his elbows, cringing at the lingering pain in his shoulder, and turned to see that his basket was closer to his burnt-out fire than he remembered. Not only that, but it was finished.

“The hell?” he wondered, pulling the basket into his lap for examination. He didn’t remember finishing it, but it was finished, all right, and judging by how loosely woven and damaged the twigs were around the halfway point, he must have been damn tired when he’d done it.

The scientist didn’t think much of it and only shrugged before setting the basket aside. Since he didn’t have that to do anymore, he struck a new fire and he pulled his pack over, spreading the contents of it out atop his bedroll. Yesterday he hadn’t been too focused on figuring out exactly what was in the bag, but he needed to make that a priority right now.

“Okay,” he said as he picked through everything. “Yeah, no med kit. More rations, though.”

On top of the seven days of rations that Pyry knew he had, he found three extra day’s worth. Besides that there was a second survival knife toward the bottom of the pack, two flares, and a portable water filter. The boiler pot was on the fire and he had pocketed the tinderbox he’d used the previous night. Other than all that, there was just his watch, a convenient bit of tech that would have been more convenient if it were adjusted for the Amazon.

Pyry rearranged everything in the pack, placing his flares and one of the knives near the top of it and his rations in the pouches made into its walls. He already had a knife on hand, but with this setup he was guaranteed to have any rescue- or survival-relevant items on hand when they mattered most.

Supplies catalogued, Pyry dragged his radio closer and cleared his throat. “Pick up, pick up,” he said loudly into the mic. “This is Dr. Pryr Ronan of the Marksman, assigned to Colonial Campaign…”

He recited all of his information once, then nibbled at half a ration bar. After fifteen minutes of silence he repeated himself to the same end, and after a half hour it became apparent that his luck hadn’t changed. Deciding not to linger aimlessly, Pyry picked up his shoddy basket and slipped through the trees to harvest more wood, tinder, and weaving materials. There was a plant he was interested in examining more closely—a reed-like thing that might prove to be useful in his weaving. After gathering, there would be nothing left to do besides babysit the radio and hope.

When Pyry got back after a ridiculously short amount of time he found his shoulder sore and the rest of himself fidgeting. There really was nothing to do, and he wasn’t accustomed to that. When you worked in a lab stuffed with nanomachines, something interesting was always happening—AI was unique that way. Here, in the jungle, though, there was only the woody stems in his hands that proved to be far more fragile than Pyry had hoped.

Another basket wouldn’t be too useful, so he decided to just use the stems to weave an entertainment item—a ball, this time. A few minutes in he wondered about the eithos that had been tailing him yesterday. He hadn’t seen or heard a thing from it since he’d woken up, and that was unusual, but probably very good. The relief that it had likely gone made the thoughts of the eithos flit out of Pyry’s head almost as soon as it had come, and he let his mind get lost in the tangle of branches slowly forming a shape in his hands.

When the ball was finished it was about the size of both of Pyry’s fists combined, and for a while Pyry tossed it up and caught it, smiling at his handiwork. Once he got tired of that he set it near the fire and tried the radio again, which turned out about as well as he expected, so he set a little more water to boil and took another nap.

Two hours had gone by when he woke next, and sitting beside his ball was a more poorly woven, damaged copy roughly the size of his head. It was at that point that Pyry realized that he really hadn’t finished weaving his basket, and, swallowing hard, he looked around the clearing and into the trees only to find nothing. There was no one there. At least, there didn’t seem to be anyone.

“Hello?” he said, and winced at the way his voice cracked. If there was another survivor out here, what motive could they possibly have to keep themselves hidden? He would pray it was a survivor; the alternative was far too unnerving. “If someone’s out there, come out!” I see you… made a ball.” He picked up the construct and presented it while scanning the area, but the only thing that greeted him was a rustling in the trees.

Fuck.