Logbook, Day 131: Our journey continues with approximately 400 miles remaining. Probable window of opportunity : 7-10 days. Anecdotal evidence from marooned Soviets indicates combination of geographic location and favorable seasonal atmospheric conditions regarding area in question allowed radio transmission and reception via Soviet Space Command. (Refer to Day 88 for calculations re: current magnetic field/solar cycle predictions.) Still continuing a daily check of our own instruments, however radio silence continues.

"So that has to be it." Clark indicated deadfall number four, a dozen yards southeast. "Another ribbon, anyway."

"Even if the color did all leach out, why so many? It's not making sense."

"Especially when there's nothing to find."

"Last one," Bruce said, handing Clark the note and heading for the pile of brush. "If there's nothing here either, we have to move on. We lost yesterday already."

Yesterday hadn't been wasted, but it's not as though it mattered at this point, and Clark nodded distractedly, staring at the words on the page in his hand. Did Koslov lose it? Was this the point the Soviet, alone on an alien planet, injured badly enough to break a bone, had gone insane? Left a note saying one thing, then left four similar symbols, each marking nothing? He squinted from where he stood, eyeing the pile of brush and wood beneath a misshapen pine, branches splayed at crazy angles, logs piled on logs, the whole thing topped with a small drab bow torn from some part of the guy's uniform. But the note said orange. An orange ribbon. He watched Bruce squat down at the deadfall, then went back to studying the words on the page in his hand, thinking. The guy left behind some supplies, because he had enough food. The heavy things, canned goods, probably. They wouldn't even have had to be that heavy if he left them behind because of his broken arm. And Koslov'd had enough food, because he'd been laid up with the arm. He'd stayed here, in this area, stocking up on game and fish. There were plenty of fish here, they'd proved that yesterday, and maybe lots of game too. Caught on poles and in weirs and traps and… suddenly it made some kind of sense to him. Some reason a man might mark a pile of logs, and not because he'd hidden some cans under it. "Bruce!" he yelled across the ten or twelve yards that separated them. "Wait!"

Bruce, still crouching and digging, was just turning his head to respond, but he didn't move away from where he squatted, and Clark watched in horror as everything seemed to move in slow motion: the visible movement in the brush beside Bruce, a jolt of something within the pile of rubbish, the horrible sound of a metal spring catching somewhere deep under the branches, and finally the spike of rusty iron slicing through greenery, sending leaves and pine needles flying as it arced up, the thing causing Bruce to finally stop looking at Clark and look down just in time to see the spike coming right at him. Eyes flying open, he twisted his body but it wasn't enough, and the metal barb slammed into the meat of Bruce's right thigh, his whole body bucking with the impact as the weapon embedded itself with a sickening squelching noise, accompanied by Bruce's pained scream.

Clark ran to him, tripping over his own feet to get there. The spike must've been something Koslov had scavenged from the wrecked aircraft, and though it was rusted by the weather, it was still sharp enough, it's spring mechanism still strong enough, that whatever Bruce had done to activate the thing had made it work just as well on him as it would've on the big game Koslov had set it for. He was impaled on the thing, now not making a sound at all, though his mouth was open, gasping. His face was white, all the blood draining out of it and down his thigh, soaking the flight suit around the place where the horrible spike pierced his leg, black and rust surrounded by Bruce's blood, too much and a bright, frightening red. He was shaking, in shock as Clark neared him, falling to his own knees at Bruce's side.

"Bruce," Clark said, barely a whisper. He took it all in as quickly as he could, Bruce speared on something like the spike of a crude pitchfork, helpless to move in any direction lest he put more pressure on his leg and the metal impaling it. Clark sidled up behind him, on his knees. "It's okay," he lied. "It's okay. Lean back, I've got you, Bruce."

Bruce didn't, though, or maybe he couldn't. His mouth worked and Clark thought – hoped he might pass out but he didn't, so Clark had to pull him, Bruce's back to Clark's chest, to take pressure off of the wound while he tried to figure out what to do next. Even that movement made Bruce cry out and shake more and without even thinking Clark's hand shot out to the base of the trap, the thing like some kind of long-abandoned pitchfork from a horror movie barn. Only one of the tines had pierced Bruce's leg, it and three others extended from a perpendicular bar that had been spring-loaded. Or did extend, until Clark snapped the whole head of the thing right off, sending up a cloud of rust-flakes that he barely noticed as he guided Bruce to sink back against him so that he could take more of his weight.

Now only the base of the pitchfork was attached, the main bar and four tines, including the one in Bruce's leg, buried at least halfway in. And although its tip wasn't visible, buried deep, the ends of the other three were, and they were barbed. He grimaced, shifting Bruce against him to hold him still. "I'm going to try to break off the others, Bruce," he said, "don't worry, I'm not pulling it out yet, just getting the rest of it off you," and Bruce made some sound but Clark didn't even know what it meant. He held Bruce's body against himself, bracing with his forearm across Bruce's chest while still using both hands on the weapon. Please, he thought to himself. Please, just this. And miraculously, he did it again, and it snapped in two, so that now the only thing attached to Bruce was the one spear cutting through his thigh. Just that, he thought to himself before realizing how bad it was all over again, pressed behind his nearly unconscious partner with his forearm against the man's thudding heart.

"Bruce," he said. "Can you hear me?"He shuffled backwards and let Bruce lie down on the grass. The bleeding out had slowed, but Bruce's face was ash-white. "You with me?" Clark glanced at their packs, behind him, between them and the river. "I'm going to get some—I'll be right back, Bruce." He fumbled, moving away long enough to grab their supplies and get some water. Some of it made it into Bruce's mouth, or at least near it. "Bruce, talk to me," he said, pulling out first aid supplies. Bruce's eyes had glazed over, staring at nothing, and he snapped his fingers in front of the man's face. "Talk!" There was no response, and Clark watched Bruce's eyes, a cloud, the only one in the wide blue sky, reflected in the blue there, all the while fighting the urge to panic. "I'm going to shoot you up with some morphine."

This, finally, got a response. Bruce blinked, Clark saw it as he dug in the pack.

"No." Bruce's jaw was tight and his voice was nothing but a hoarse whisper. "We only have one left."

"You shouldn't have used so many on me, then." He popped the top and aimed the needle.

Bruce's eyes closed as the syringe plunged into him and then he was quiet and still while Clark cut away the leg of his flight suit. For a long stretch the only time he made any sound, just a moan, was when Clark pulled the cloth away from the actual point of entry. So Clark was surprised, as he lifted Bruce's leg to get the last of the fabric away, when Bruce spoke, soft and shaky, head lifting off the grass. "What are you doing?"

"Getting this out of the way."

"How bad is it?"

"The bleeding's let up some."

"Can you get it out?"

"Yeah…"

"The bleeding'll start up again when you do. Better be ready."

"Yeah, I will. The thing is…"

"Go ahead."

"It's bad news, Bruce." Clark took a breath. "It's barbed."

Bruce let his head fall back, and his eyes closed. "You're going to have to push it through."

"The alternative…" Clark knelt beside him on the grass, unwinding guaze.

"Is not practical."

"I could cut it out, but I think you'd lose a lot more blood."

"Push it through."

Clark barely heard him, talking more to himself than anything else. "It'd tear you up worse than if we can… If I can—just push it through, though. It…"

"How are you going to cut the barb off after it's… after."

"I don't know." Clark dipped a piece of gauze in water and wiped Bruce's face with it. "I broke you off the rest of the thing, though. Has the morphine taken effect yet?"

"I—" Bruce tested, tried to move his leg, and gasped.

"Bruce, don't."

"I think it's working. Better go ahead."

Clark positioned himself at Bruce's thigh, propping it up a bit with his own knee to give him room to work, and tried not to think past just getting this over with. He put his hands on the end of the spike. "Do you want… in the Westerns, they give you a belt or something to bite."

Bruce snorted, although there was absolutely no humor in it. "You're not cutting off my leg. Yet."

"There's that optimism," Clark said, hoping that the fear he felt didn't show on his face. "Ready?"

Bruce nodded, jaw set, and both hands on the spike, Clark took one last look at his face before he pushed. Bruce's entire body seized, and his face went dead white. The flesh under Clark's hands made a tearing sound and the spike descended maybe an inch and a half, but then his hands, sweaty with fear, slid down the length of metal to slam into Bruce's leg.

Bruce cried out and Clark froze in horror. "Oh God Bruce, I'm so sorry."

"Finish it," he gritted out between clenched teeth.

"I don't think I—"

"Just finish it," Bruce whispered, tears streaming out from under tightly shut eyes. "Just finish it, Clark."

Clark swiped at the wetness on his face. "I'm turning you over. It'll hurt but I think it'll make this…" He didn't finish what he had to say, focusing on turning Bruce first on his uninjured side, despite Bruce's initial protest. The final quarter turn had Bruce on his stomach, and then Clark turned his leg, wedging his thigh so that the metal tine was pointing down. He grabbed a flat rock and shoved it under the end of the pole and then poised himself above Bruce's leg. There was no way he was going to articulate what he was about to do: it was too awful. He didn't ask Bruce, just knelt beside him, although Bruce knew what was about to happen because he raised up long enough to look over his shoulder before putting his head down again, lying his face on his forearm in the grass, and that movement alone made something inside Clark break. "It's going to be okay," he said uselessly, and guided Bruce's free hand to his own knee, because that's all he had to offer. "Hold onto me, Bruce," he said, and it was a sad substitute for any kind of comfort, but Bruce did grip him hard, harder still as the seconds ticked by.

Clark took a breath, then bore down, throwing all of his weight into it, pressing Bruce's leg down to press the spike through. The noise was more horrible than last time but Bruce's own body weight and Clark's shove downward combined to move the spike further than before and Clark watched in horror as he waited, praying, and finally ifinally/i the tip of the tine pushed through Bruce's skin, popping through with a nauseating wet sound to reveal the bloody barbed point of its tip.

"Bruce," he said, clasping the hand that up until a breath ago had been digging bruises into his skin. But Bruce, thankfully, had passed out, and for a brief moment Clark curled his body over his friend's, pressing his forehead to Bruce's shoulder, before sitting up, wiping his eyes, and finishing the job he'd begun.