They made it up to the mine, and she had her second get Andy.How would she tell him this?She'd better figure it out quickly because here came Andy, looking a little worried, like he thought he was in trouble.
“I'm sorry to tell you this, but something attacked your wife, and she is in medical.Just take off so that you can sit with her.”Victoria would let his wife tell him about the pregnancy because that was the way it should be.
Now, she and Oret needed to go and make some changes for better security.As they approached the camp and she looked around, she knew it was going to be a long night.She was giving the guards directions when she heard a scream cut off quickly, and she headed in the direction it had come from.It was one of the tents that should have been empty but clearly wasn’t.As she stepped into the tent, she saw the monster holding a teenage girl.That wasn’t going to happen.Victoria had a special non-lethal gun, and she aimed it at the monster’s head.
“You won’t dare!”The monster said.
“Don’t be so sure,” Victoria replied.
As she pulled the trigger, the monster turned slightly, and it hit him in his back, which should have brought him down.He dropped the girl and loped away, obviously hurting, but it hadn't injured him as much as it should have.Those monsters were tough, and on the moon that might be a good thing, but down here in the colony it wasn't.She hurried to check on the young girl who was crying and screaming.Victoria needed to get her to Doctor Daisy so she could calm down.It was a lot for a young girl to go through.By the time they got there, the girl was in a daze, and Daisy put her on a bed and gave her something.
“What happened to her?”Daisy asked.
“The monster attacked her and was going to carry her away.I hit him with my rubber bullet, and it didn't have much effect on him.I'm not saying it didn't hurt, but it should have knocked him out, and it didn't.”
“That isn't good.Perhaps we should work on a dart to throw at him.I can find something that will knock him out.”
“Do that so we'll have it if we need it,” Victoria directed.
They needed to find this monster and put him somewhere where he could do no harm.She wasn't even sure that the monster moon would want him, but he was one of their kind, so they would have no choice.From the report Radvar had received, their monster had not been on the ship legitimately.He'd snuck aboard and entered their bay.Normally, all the oxygen was sucked out before they took off, so they had no reason to be concerned about hitchhikers.This time, the monster had broken the equipment, and the oxygen had stayed.
Just what they needed, a smart monster.Had he handled things differently, they might still not have known that he was there.Ardeth had surprised him, and at that point, regardless of what he did, they would have known he was there.The fact that he kept returning to their area to try to steal things and harm people was not a good decision, and eventually, he would pay for it.Fenwik had opened a crate of non-lethal weapons, and almost everyone had one except the young children.Rules were in place, and no one was to go anywhere alone or without a weapon.The mine had security; two older people guarded the entrances for twelve-hour shifts.They would find him, but in the meantime, they would limit the damage he could do.
Victoria had to get back to work, but she knew better than to go alone, so she needed to find someone to walk to the mine with her.It was a good surprise when Oret happened by.
“What are you doing here?”She asked.
“I came by to see what you were up to.I heard about another attack, and I wanted to ensure that you had someone with you to take you wherever you needed to go.Someone said you had been walking around alone.”
That was just her luck that someone had seen her and reported her, but at least she had her mate to take her where she needed to go.
“Who has been walking around with you?”
“Fenwik dropped me off here and headed to find his mate.I assume that you want to go to the mine?”Oret asked.
“I need to because all this nonsense has gotten me behind.If it continues, the Chief may lose his patience.”
“That is unlikely.He understands what is happening here, and the monster coming here was not our fault.You have extra miners right now that are training, which should make it less likely that you get behind anyway.”
They were headed up the mountain as he continued to try to calm her.It wasn't helping because things weren't going the way that she wanted them to.Nothing he said was going to make any difference unless she hit the levels she had planned.Some would say she was a perfectionist, but she didn't agree with that.She set high standards and wanted to ensure that she met them.In a colony, it was even more important that the work be done, or the colony could fail.Victoria refused to allow the area she oversaw to be the reason the colony failed.The mines were what kept this colony going until the other necessary developments were properly established.Eventually, she thought that farming and other activities, such as the industries that would eventually be developed, would play an equal part in the success of Mars 2.
Oret was too relaxed sometimes and not always as ambitious as she was.In general, that was a good thing because he kept her calm and didn't add to her stress.That wasn't working today because she was extremely stressed, and part of the problem was that she felt eyes on her.Someone was watching, and for the life of her, she couldn't figure out where they were watching from.Perhaps that was no surprise, given that they were heading up to the mines and surrounded by miles of countryside.Victoria had the niggling feeling that it was the monster that was watching them, although she wasn't sure why.Normally, that wouldn't have made her nervous, but she had never been watched and felt like prey.That was the feeling she was getting right now, that she was being targeted for something.
There had been an earlier discussion about whether the monster was evil.Victoria didn't think so; he was just selfish and didn't care about others and what they wanted or needed.His only concern was what he wanted or needed, and how he could obtain it, even if it meant taking it away from others who also needed it.That was clear in the fact that he was raiding the tents that belonged to others.The two females he attacked showed that he had a biological urgency to mate and didn't care who he mated or how they felt about it.One of those females was a fourteen-year-old, which most societies considered far too young, but he apparently had no problem with it.Even though he possessed a certain type of intelligence, reasoning about what he should do and his risk of being caught was not part of that intelligence.
Two days passed without a monster sighting, and everyone wondered where he was hiding and what he was doing.Roll calls were taken every day in every section to ensure that no one was missing.That still left small children up to the parents to safeguard, but from what she had seen, he wasn't interested in the little ones.That's why it was shocking when a little one went missing.The search parties immediately gathered, dropping everything, and began looking.It was both a relief and an aggravation when the child was found hiding under a tarp outside her home.Both parents were terribly embarrassed.She was sure that they would be more careful with their little one since it was the only one they had.She wasn't surprised that the scare had happened, only that more of them hadn't happened sooner.People were on edge, and the stress was starting to show.All they had to do was last another week, and the ship would be here.It was a ship that could scan for the monster and remove him from the planet.It was unfortunate that only the original ship that the chief had come on had that technology.
“What are you thinking?”Oret asked.
“That someone watched us as we made our way up.”
“I sensed that too.We will have to be extremely careful.He is hunting us.”
“Hunting us or hunting me?”Victoria wondered.
There was nothing else to do but get to work, so she and her mate got ready and went to work.It was amazing to see the difference two experienced, capable people could make in just a few hours.That didn't get them completely back on track, but it helped.They quit at supper time when everyone except the guards headed down to the cafeteria to eat.The food was good, and they ate with the others in the dining room, which was unusual.Everyone seemed to be ignoring the elephant in the room and trying to pretend that the monster was not lurking out there.What else could they do?They would be careful, and they would continue living their lives and doing the best that they could.When an opportunity arose, they would address this issue.That opportunity might not occur until the ship is in orbit.
“You’re gone again,” Oret observed.
