The Glaciermen #43: Symbiosis
Early access prepublication manuscripts of "The Glaciermen"
Hey everyone,
Apologies that no segments of The Glaciermen have come out in the last few weeks. I’ve been taking a short break from Substack.
It would be convenient to say I did it for the Holidays, but the real reason is that I got addicted to Substack Notes (Substack’s twitter clone, if you don’t know).
I was groveling on my phone like some kind of troglodyte flicking a lighter over and over—I don’t do well with addictive tendencies. So I uninstalled the app and took a step back for a few weeks to let my mind reacclimatize to not being a dopamine fiend.
But the show must go on! And by the show, I mean The Glaciermen. So here’s what I’ve got at this point. I’ll do my best to keep it coming weekly through the end of the story (we’re three to five segments from finishing), but I want to really make sure they are up to snuff—it is the finale, after all.
Without further ado…
(P.S. If you haven’t already checked out the free books available through BookFunnel—no account required—you can find them here or at the bottom of this post.)
(Here’s the previous segment if you missed it, and the first chapter and index, if you’re new).
Recap (spoilers!): Tyra got captured, and Aguta got burned at the stake by a pogrom of villagers led by Muktuk. Lee tried to stop it, spearing Mutkuk in the shoulder, but there were too many, so he fled into the tunnels, eventually arriving at a cavern with a mysterious cable hanging down from the surface. Next, we jump back to the present.
Chapter 10: Convergence
Symbiosis
Amanda wiped the nervous sweat off her forehead as Rolf injected Mikkel with morphine from the emergency medical kit. Mikkel’s torso was wrapped in layers of blood-speckled gauze, covering the horrific wounds where the tunlaq creature-man had ripped his skin open with its bare hands. Luckily, the gashes did not penetrate Mikkel’s diaphragm, or they would have been wrapping his corpse in a blanket instead of bandages.
“We’re out of time,” Lee said, leaning against the doorframe to the bunk room, arms crossed. He had retreated there once Mikkel had passed out from the pain and he was no longer needed to hold down the large man’s jerking limbs.
“These two were just scouts. That means they know you’re here—a fresh harvest for their collection. More hunters will be coming when they do not return as expected.”
“So what do we do?” Amanda asked.
“Save Runa. Kill glacier men,” Rolf said, reminding the group of his kidnapped sister.
“Rolf is right,” Lee said. “The only option now is to go on the offensive—sow chaos among their ranks and get your people back fast. Otherwise we can expect a full hunting party to come up here in force and overrun the station.”
David burst into the room, interrupting, “Eureka!”
“What now?” Amanda said.
“I’ve done it!” David exclaimed, “I know their secret!”
“What are you talking about?” she replied.
“While you all were fooling around with Mikkel, I analyzed the bioluminescent coating on these fascinating specimens.”
“You mean these monsters?”
“Precisely. Lee’s description of the effects of this substance were too fantastical not to investigate—a psychedelic stimulant that supposedly bestows magical powers to shoot lightning? I thought it was absurd at first, but when I looked at it under the microscope it all became clear: electrocytes!”
Amanda was confused.
“Electrolytes? You’re telling me they’ve got sports drinks rubbed all over them?”
“Not electro-lytes, electro-cytes! Cells that generate an electric current—the same type that electric eels have. And there’s billions of them in that little sample alone. This explains everything!”
“I still don’t get it, what does this explain?” Amanda said.
“Everything!” David continued, “All of it. The substance itself is a regular old psychedelic fungal discharge—plenty of funguses cause psychedelic effects, so that was no surprise—but Lee here described it in such a way that included powerful stimulant effects and even those ridiculous-sounding lightning powers. But I can explain even that!
“This gelatinous medium is home to a symbiotic microorganism that is essentially a single-celled electrocyte predator. This explains the stimulating effect when combined with a food-source such as animal blood: millions of tiny electric charges zapping the muscles of the user. I imagine the feeling is quite literally electrifying!”
“But what about the lighting?” Lee asked, now intensely interested.
“I’m still not sure, but I believe that shaman character you described is somehow able to activate a cascading chain-reaction discharge among these microorganisms all at once. I suspect his staff is more than mere theatrics, but in fact functions something like a lightning rod, giving the electric charge a directed path to follow. Indeed, this would explain the tribal scarring patterns as well. Once you know what to look for, they appear almost like a circuit across the skin, a guiding path to direct all of the discharge into one place.”
Mikkel groaned, returning to consciousness.
“This is all fascinating,” Amanda interrupted, “But how does it help us save Runa and Erika?”
“I’m glad you bring that up,” David replied. “On a hunch, I exposed the sample to an open flame, and the microorganisms died almost immediately. It seems they cannot survive much past human body temperature, and I would guess they prefer it even colder, given that their natural habitat is within the glacial environment.”
“Fire kill blue man?” Rolf asked, accent thick.
“That’s a simple way to put it, Rolf, but yes.”
Mikkel spoke up, words wobbly with the effect of the morphine, “The base should have a propane torch for melting ice.”
“You’re saying we have a flamethrower?” Amanda asked.
“Not quite—a true flamethrower shoots liquid fuel in a long stream, sticking to whatever you shoot at. Ours is merely an overcharged gas torch, so it will only blast a hot cloud of burning gasses,” Mikkel said.
Amanda turned to Rolf, “Can you rig it to be used as a weapon?”
Rolf nodded, a dark smile forming on his lips. “Put second nozzle. Mix liquid kerosene.”
She turned to Mikkel, “Could that work?”
Mikkel merely shrugged. She turned back to Rolf.
“Do we have any explosives?”
He nodded again, smile widening.
“Good,” she said, then turned to Lee. “You said you know how to navigate those tunnels. Is there another entrance nearby? And once inside, can you lead us to where they are keeping Erika and Runa?”
“I couldn’t say for sure about another entrance, I’d need a better idea of exactly where we are, but once we’re inside I can follow the markings.”
“Could you tell from the air?”
Lee nodded.
She turned back to Mikkel, “Can you still manage the chopper?”
“Yes,” he said, “Everything hurts like hell, but another shot of morphine should do the trick.”
“Perfect,” she said. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna blow that shaft so no more of those bastards can come up after us, then Mikkel will get us airborne. Lee will guide us to the nearest entrance then take us through the tunnels to our people… and Rolf, you get to fry anything that comes in our way.”
Until Next Week (ideally)
Thanks for reading! I’ll try to post another segment by next Tuesday, so keep an eye on your inbox.
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– Xavier Macfarlane
Author, The Glaciermen
©Xavier Macfarlane 2024. All rights reserved.
That's a really cool 'magic system' for lack of a better word. Absolutely awesome!