The Prodigal Sun (14 page)
Authors: Sean Williams,Shane Dix
Tags: #Science Fiction, #Fiction, #Space Opera
“I’ll look forward to it.”
“Will you? I hope so. We need allies desperately.”
She shivered then, catching herself by surprise. Night had fallen rapidly, and the temperature with it. Her survival suit’s heating system had not yet responded to the change.
Emmerik noticed the small movement and nodded. “We should be going.” He turned back to the others. “Veden, are you and Maii ready to move?”
“Almost,” replied the Eckandi, opening his eyes as though stirring from a deep sleep. Rising to his feet, he stretched his legs experimentally and rubbed his hands. “Give me a moment.”
The reave’s words whispered through Roche’s thoughts. Her voice might have belonged to the wind, it was so faint, but it was definitely there.
“How long have you been... ?” Roche stopped, unsure how to phrase the question.
The burly man nodded awkwardly. “Thank you. I hope you will forgive me for the way I mistreated you.”
The Mbatan grinned, although the tone underlying her words was ominous. “I can believe it. Veden has warned me that you’re not to be underestimated.”
“Then here’s to the former.” Emmerik slapped his hands together. “And to our journey. We still have far to travel before we can resolve our differences. I think we should get moving.”
“So let’s go,” Cane said. “Do you want me to lead the way again, Emmerik?”
The Mbatan shook his head. “No, I’ll lead. You can take the rear, or wherever you feel most useful. I’ll leave it up to you. Just keep your eyes and ears peeled. They won’t be far away.” He glanced at the ring of faces surrounding him. “That goes for all of you.”
“Understood. Whether we like this or not,” Roche said, deliberately catching Veden’s steely eye, “we’re in it together.”
* * *
The night deepened with unnerving speed. The only light came from the Soul and its constantly changing colors. The last dregs of the dust storm gusted through the valleys and ravines of the foothills like short-lived ghosts, robbing warmth and occasionally blinding them. Roche quickly learned to anticipate their arrival, as Emmerik did, by the distinctive whistle each gust made, and bunched closer to the others to prevent losing them.
Conversation was hesitant, confined mainly to Emmerik’s infrequent lectures on the vagaries of the weather. Dust storms had been known to last for days at this time of the year. Although the foothills were catchments, with a rudimentary vegetation and a small amount of insect life, the moisture-stealing wind made life difficult even for the hardiest of species.
Roche listened to him with half an ear, expending the remainder of her concentration on her surroundings. Occasionally flyers buzzed overhead, scanning the area, and a couple of times she even noticed the distant flicker of lights lower in the hills. Enforcers, Emmerik had told them, searching for evidence of their passage. Pursuit was never far behind, it seemed, and constantly at the forefront of her mind. She swore to herself, and to her distant superiors, that she would not let herself be captured.
That she was trapped on a prison planet many light-years from her destination with, as yet, no concrete plan to reach a communicator didn’t deter her. There had to be some way left to complete her mission. The Box was too important to be allowed to fall into Dato hands.
The others, with the possible exception of Cane, seemed to share her tight-lipped determination. Veden kept to himself, his expression stony and unapproachable. Maii walked with a stubborn independence, as though the time spent severed from her secondhand senses had humiliated her and left her needing to prove her abilities. Emmerik plodded steadily onward with the sure footing of someone who knew his way well.
Cane just walked, silent and pensive, taking in everything around him.
After an hour or so, the foothills steepened into a mountainside with paths that doglegged through crevasses and gullies. Roche’s side and shoulder began to ache again, but she didn’t allow herself the luxury of complaint. She simply bit down on the pain and kept walking.
Then, after three hours, a warning from Maii:
The reave’s words were cut with urgency.
“How near?” asked Emmerik, keeping his voice low.
“Very well.” The Mbatan scanned their surroundings. “Over there—in that small niche. We’ll rest there.”
They did so, squeezing awkwardly into the narrow split in the rock. Something crawled across Roche’s hand, but had disappeared by the time she reached down to brush it away.
“Wait here,” Emmerik said when they were settled. “I’ll go look around.” Cane followed him out of the niche, moving, Roche noted, with all the soundless grace of the silver dust-moths she had chased as a child on Ascensio.
Roche leaned into the rock and breathed deeply, cautiously, feeling the pain in her ribs but thinking through it, trying to negate it by willpower alone. Years of advanced medicine had undermined her basic survival training, however; the twinge in her bones refused to fade. At home, or on almost any other civilized planet in the galaxy, relief would have been moments away under the care of an automated medkit. She was slowly learning that, on Sciacca’s World, access to such fundamental medical treatment would have been a luxury.
She wondered how Emmerik could stand it.
Roche glanced at the Surin’s blindfolded, unreadable face. She found it ironic that one who could appear so closed, so isolated from the viewpoint of others, could have such intimate access to her thoughts.
“No, I—”
Roche gritted her teeth. She knew it was nothing more than her personal aversion to epsense that had made her react badly to the Surin, nothing to do with the girl herself.
“Because you
do
have control. It’s not like any other sense. And I—I guess I find the power unnerving.”
“You’re wrong—”
A Surin woman with pendulous breasts bent over her, touching her, pleasing her, in a town called Erojen on an outpost far from the heart of the Surin domain, where outriders and social outcasts came for shelter, where those on the edge of society sought succor, where the normal could find what the rest of the Caste rejected—where anything that had a price could be bought. Yet somehow, in the squalor and perjury, was a strange dignity, a perverse pride, and dreams too, of betterment, profit, and sometimes, revenge...
...a place of passion, of vivid memories...
...a Surin adult taking her hand and leading her from her mother, her tears staining the front of her white smock, the world seeming so large and awful everywhere she looked, through ten kilometers in a jeep to the sanctuary, then the soft snick of the lock to her room sealing her in...
...in the hospital...
...learning to use the implants, with their gentle, cajoling voices, learning to avoid the discipline if she somehow got it wrong, learning to know what the doctor wanted in advance and what the treatment involved (if not what it meant), learning not to be afraid (or at least bottling it up where no one else would see it, where not even she could feel it, unless she wanted to), learning to forget what she had been, to concentrate on the now...
...feeling the sharp sting of the needle, feeling the voice of the doctor vibrating in the electric tingle of the implant (rather than hearing it pounding on her now-sensitive ears), feeling darkness creep over her from her toes up, feeling nothing in the end but an echo of the fear, and then feeling nothing at all for a very, very long (and yet somehow timeless) single moment...
...then... awakening to nothing. Her higher senses—visual and aural, not the primal, animal senses of touch, taste, and smell—were gone, as was her ability to talk. The implant could still communicate with her, but it did so reluctantly, to quell her overwhelming panic, and then only via the bones in her skull, tapping out words of instruction and guidance into the outer layers of her brain itself. It monitored her every neuron, testing, probing, rearranging, rebuilding, using the tissues that had once belonged to her severed senses to rebuild a new sense, a new ability, one that (it said) would make her more valuable than anyone else on the planet.
She was the first successful outcome of a new procedure, one that could replicate in months what years of training could only hope to achieve. A procedure that was both illegal and immoral—in that it could only succeed when applied to children in their prepubescent years—but one that had the potential to increase her worth by millions after one simple operation.
All this, and more, she learned from the doctor in the spectacular moment her mind first opened—when, effortlessly, she reached into him with an invisible hand, searching, feeling, sensing, and leaving nothing but a burned-out ruin in her wake.
She was a reave. And she had been
made
that way.
It took time—and practice—to come to terms with this wondrous new ability of hers. And in a way it was perhaps fortunate for her that of every ten subjects she practiced upon, nine of them died. Had the doctor lived, and the process been completely successful, who knew what might have happened to her, to whom she might have been sold?
Even as her control improved—and she came to realize that the years of training endured by naturally occurring psychics were not necessary so much to develop the power, but to control it when it finally appeared—she understood that they would never use the process again. Not only had much of the theory gone with the doctor, but the risks were too great—the risk of creating a monster, of creating a failure, of being caught. Of creating another
her,
whom they would have to get rid of somehow, without her realizing it.
So she escaped. And entered the real world. And came to realize that what she had was even less of a gift than she had thought.
It wasn’t sight—not sight as she had once known it, but an impression of sight, sight with all the baggage. Someone saw a knife and thought of a lost lover; buildings evoked memories of people long dead, of past events that had no relevance to her, the observer. Sounds were even worse, bringing unwanted impressions of voices, songs, screams, and sighs. Her world was secondhand, passing through the filters of other peoples’ minds and emerging tainted rather than purified. She began to lose her own voice in the relentless ambience of echoes, overwhelmed by a world full of other peoples’ thoughts.
But she maintained, grew bolder, traveled...
...received guidance from a bonded reave on Fal- Soma, many light-years from home...
...worked ...
...and...
...returned with no thoughts left for herself. Not for a long while. All she saw—through her own eyes, her own sense of touch—was the orange-grey shelf of rock before her and the grit of dust on her fingertips.
Roche. Not Maii, the child sold, the experimental subject, the wanderer—the young Surin woman sitting opposite her, her mind elsewhere, far away and unreadable—whom she
had been
for an instant. Not Maii, not anymore.
All Roche felt was herself.
* * *
When Emmerik returned, he was pale-faced behind his beard. Cane followed, as soft and as silent as the Mbatan’s shadow, yet full of the same vitality Roche had glimpsed earlier.
“Did you find them?” asked Veden.
Emmerik glanced at Cane and did not reply immediately.
“We found them,” said Emmerik softly.
“And?” Veden prompted.
Maii said.
“We should keep moving,” said the Mbatan, shifting his pack awkwardly, impatiently. “More could be following, and the Cross isn’t far away now.”
“Good.” Veden was on his feet before Emmerik had finished speaking. “We’ve wasted enough time for one night.”
In a wordless silence broken only by the crunch of their footfalls, they filed out of the niche and headed up the path.
8
Sciacca’s World
Behzad’s Wall
‘954.10.31 EN
0325
The wind picked up as they crested the ridge of the mountains and rose above the dense layers of the storm. From the ridge, illuminated by the Soul, a wide plateau stretched below them: a deep bowl ringed by cliffs, perhaps an ancient, collapsed volcanic crater, with a small town in its center, too far away and too low in the dust to be seen clearly. The uppermost levels of two thin towers connected to each other by walkways were the only obvious detail.
“Houghton’s Cross,” said Emmerik, speaking for the first time in almost an hour.
“
That’s
where we’re headed?” Although he hadn’t said so, Roche could tell that the town was dead, and had been for many years.
“Yes. The others are waiting for us there.”
“Haid?” The name had been mentioned a couple of times earlier, in a context suggesting leadership or at least some sort of coordinating role. If Roche was ever going to find help getting off the planet, she guessed that he was the person she needed to talk to.
“Maybe. Depends what’s happening in the port.” The burly Mbatan shifted his pack into a more comfortable position. “We’ll talk when we arrive. Let’s keep moving.”
They descended along a thin path barely wide enough for one person. An avalanche of dust falling through a dip in the ridge enveloped them, reducing their line of sight to the back of the person in front, but at the same time effectively hiding them from the eyes of anyone in the area. If the air within the crater was as gloomy as it appeared to be, they would be invisible to Enforcers standing on the ridge.
Roche walked grimly onward, the pain somehow keeping her focused on who she was and what she was doing. The straps holding the Box to her back were like whips in slow motion, digging into her bruised and battered shoulders with each step she took. The valise itself had been attached to her for so long that it was starting to feel like an extra limb—and a useless, hindering limb at that, dragging as it did behind her. In a way it seemed more of an inconvenience than her strapped left arm, yet without it she doubted she would ever feel complete again.
That thought depressed her more than any merely physical pain. That, and the still-ringing echoes of Maii’s life.
The floor of the crater was relatively flat and composed of a loose, grey dirt. Although the soil here seemed as parched as that of the neighboring foothills, hardy weeds grew from it, clinging to the ground in a desperate embrace against the severe winds. They crossed an unused road at one point, then a wide, flat area that might once have been a landing strip. An abandoned machine—an ore carrier—loomed out of the gloom, rusted and hulking, left to the elements centuries ago and now barely recognizable. Dust had sanded its paint and windshield back to bare metal, which itself was scored and pitted. A ragged hole in one side offered a mute explanation for the neglect, although Roche was unable to tell if the hole had been caused by an internal malfunction or external interference.
Closer to the town, the crater floor undulated in a series of low dunes, possibly a forestalled attempt at irrigation. Something glinting in the dirt at the bottom of one of the trenches caught Roche’s eye, and she stopped to pick it up.
It was a silver coin, heavy in her palm, with a bold “U” on one side. She didn’t recognize the denomination.
“Except to deal with outsiders,” she muttered.
Roche glanced at Veden, whose back was receding up the slope of the trench.
Emmerik glanced back at her as she approached. “Don’t wander,” he said. “We’re almost there.”
Made curious by the forbidding tone in his voice, Roche obeyed but kept her eyes peeled. Another road crossed their path, and Emmerik turned to follow it. The brown, stony surface was cracked and split in places, and puddles of sand had collected in the cracks, making footing treacherous. The ever-present dust allowed them to see no more than six meters in any direction; even via infrared, the world was dim and featureless. Roche wondered how Emmerik could tell their position relative to the town.
Then, rising out of the haze, shapes appeared lining the road and spreading off into the distance: a field of posts, perhaps, barely a meter high, or the trunks of long-dead shrubs, stripped of their branches. Roche couldn’t tell exactly what they were, except that there were a lot of them. The wind moaned eerily through them, making the hair on the back of her neck rise.
She approached the edge of the road to look closer at one of the objects. Through the haze of dirt, she recognized the dull sheen of blackened metal and the sweep of a stock, sight, and barrel. It was a weapon, buried barrel-first in the dirt.
She crouched down to study it more closely. She hadn’t seen a HFM peace gun outside the Armada Museum, but the distinctive line of the trigger guard, designed for digits larger than her own, confirmed that the Box was right at least about the Caste that had built it.
“Roche!” Emmerik’s warning snapped at her.
She glanced guiltily upward. An indistinct figure was moving toward her through the gloom from deeper in the field, a vaguely Human shape wrapped in rags, hissing menacingly. She jerked upright, reaching automatically for her empty holster.
The figure stopped in its tracks and stared at her. Two more approached out of the dust, and stood on either side of the first. She stared back, mystified, waiting for them to make a move. It was only when Emmerik’s gently restraining hand came down on her shoulder that she realized they would approach no closer while she stayed away from the rifle.
“Leave them alone,” Emmerik said from behind her. “We have no right to interfere with them, and what belongs to them.”
“Who are they?”
“Caretakers.” Emmerik’s hand, now on her good arm, led her away from the edge of the road. “They preserve the killing fields.”
“The guns?” she said.
“No,” said Emmerik firmly. “This is neither the time nor the place to discuss what happened here, Roche.”
Roche opened her mouth to speak, but Emmerik was already moving off down the road, into the dust. She followed slowly after him, her attention caught by the three ghostly figures disappearing once again into the gloom. The movements of one of them disturbed her a little. With each step it took, its garments moved in such a way as to suggest that it had more than one right arm.
When the three figures completely vanished into the haze, Roche hurried her pace to catch up with Emmerik.
“How many?” she asked, coming to his side. “The guns, I mean.”
Emmerik kept his attention on the road ahead. “Not now, I said.”
“
When,
then?” she snapped. “I’m sick of not knowing anything.”
“When we meet the others.”
“You keep saying that.” Roche fought to control her anger, but she could still hear the snap in her voice.
“Not far now,” he said, adjusting his dust-specs. “The town’s just a little further on.”
* * *
The field of rifles petered out after a hundred meters. Moments later, a large shape appeared through the dust, glowing with the remnants of the day’s heat: a wall, natural for the first five meters, then artificial above. Exactly how high it rose above the floor of the crater, Roche couldn’t tell, but it showed no sign of ending at the limits of her infrared vision. She supposed that the builders had situated the wall, and the city within, on the central peak of the ancient impact crater to thereby gain the strategic advantage that would give the town. Higher than the crater floor, it was well placed to repel ground attacks—the unbroken expanse of the floor itself gave little cover for an attacking army—and the ring of mountains was far enough away to reduce the accuracy of sniping.
The road came to a halt at the base of a gentle ramp, which led to a wide pair of sliding doors set into the natural base of the wall. The doors were firmly shut, and looked as though they weighed tons. A sign on the door proclaimed a brief message in letters almost too faint to read, in a script Roche recognized but could not decipher.
<‘Ul-oemato,’> read the Box.
<‘Founder’s Rock.’>
Roche absorbed this information while Emmerik approached the massive doors.
Roche nodded.
Roche glanced at the Surin, who had spoken even less than Emmerik since their brief break in the mountains. The girl shivered deep in her survival suit—which had turned a deep, gloomy grey, mirroring both the night and Maii’s mood.
said the reave.
, jezu...> The explanation ceased the moment Roche’s confusion cleared.
sickened.
By something.
A deep, bone-jarring rumble distracted her. She looked up in time to see the mighty doors slide open a meter, then crash to a halt. Emmerik slid his bulk through the crack and gestured that they should follow. Cane did so first, sniffing at the air before entering the darkness. Veden and Maii went next, leaving Roche alone in the chill night air. If it was a trap, she reasoned, better to face it with the others than alone.
Darkness overwhelmed her as she slipped through the narrow space—a deep black broken only by the faint heat profiles of those ahead of her. Echoes told her that the passage was slightly wider than the doors, and barely as high. She was reminded of their earlier journey through the tunnel leading from the ravine. This passage seemed more oppressive despite its greater width—perhaps because it was designed to be lit, and was not.
Several minutes passed before anything changed. Veden grunted with surprise, and Roche tensed. Then she realized that his heat image was rising, as were those of Emmerik, Maii, and Cane. A second later, she too hit the ramp and began to climb. The passage had been designed to accommodate wheeled vehicles, not pedestrians, for the slope was steep and the walls lacked handholds. She maintained her balance carefully, conscious that if she slipped she might not be able to arrest a slide back to the bottom with only one arm to stop her.
The ramp leveled out after twenty paces, and reached another set of doors. Emmerik again approached them, and manipulated the controls of what could only be a magnetic lock, although one of ancient design. Roche felt the tingle in her implants as powerful fields shifted to a new configuration and the heavy barrier slid aside.
They stepped out of the tunnel into a square on the edge of the town.
The pearly sheen of the Soul, diffused though it was by the dust-laden air, seemed bright in comparison to the interior of the tunnel. Roche glanced behind her, and realized that their journey had taken them only as far as the inner edge of the wall, the base of which must therefore have been nearly thirty meters thick. Its top was studded with ramps and walkways, and sturdier emplacements where weapons might once have peered over the wall at the crater below. Every fixture seemed perfectly designed, intended to last centuries—as it seemed they already had. Roche could only admire the builders of the wall, and the military function it performed so well.
The square split traffic from the tunnel into five wide roadways that diverged as they led deeper into the town. The buildings were uniformly squat and solid, with rounded corners and domed roofs—an architecture common to Dominion military emplacements. Apart from the efforts of wind and time, not one of the buildings appeared damaged in any way. Every door was open, and the few windows were utterly black. In the absence of wind, the square seemed unnaturally still.
Raising her eyes from the buildings before her, she saw the two large towers at the heart of the city: the only buildings higher than two stories. From this close—less than two kilometers—they were far more impressive. The shorter stood at least one hundred meters high; its taller twin might have reached one hundred and twenty, although dust hazed its upper limits. They stood roughly ten meters apart with a tracery of scaffolding connecting the two, as though they had been undergoing repair when the town had been abandoned.