Aftermath

“No,” Vel answers simply. No elaboration. No false promises.



He and I have seen some troubles since he first tracked me to New Terra, but this caps them all. I can’t motivate myself to get up from the makeshift stone table. I’m tired, dirty, and dispirited.



“At what point do we stop walking and start building?”



“I cannot answer that. I only know we will die if we stay here. There is no food to be hunted.”



“There were animals in the jungle, but they wouldn’t stop trying to eat us.” Not a place to call home.



“Irrelevant. You will not give up, Sirantha. I have never yet seen you broken.” To be honest, he has more confidence in me than I do.



As I stare at the stone surface before me, it registers—these are scratches, and they form a pattern. While I can’t be sure about the nature of the trenches, I’m positive about this. Someone engraved these marks, which means there’s intelligent life on this planet, somewhere. Or there used to be, at least.



“Look,” I say.



Vel kneels to examine the carvings. “It appears to be cuneiform writing, but I do not recognize the language.”



“Me, either. But that’s a good sign, right?” Hope buoys me up, and I shove to my feet, eager now.



“I would say so.” He’s cautious in offering an opinion, as always, but I recognize the marks of equal excitement in him. Between the flex of his mandible and the angle of his head, he might as well be whooping with glee.



For the first time since we arrived here, I feel like we’re heading somewhere particular instead of wandering blind. “Let’s look for more of these markings as we travel. Maybe they’re like signposts?”



“An excellent idea.”



This give me the energy to move, and I fall in beside Vel. A while later, I spot another stone table, and this time, I suspect it was built on purpose. I climb up to take a look, and, sure enough, this one bears more symbols.



“I think this might be directions.”



After a short scrutiny, he inclines his head. “This way.”



From here, we angle again west—for lack of true directional—and find four more stone tables before nightfall. Each bear the familiar sigils along with a stylized line crowned in a triangle, something like an arrow, but not exactly. It’s close enough to make me think we’re on the right track, however.



I trudge on, weariness so deep in my bones that I don’t know if I could swing the knife Vel made for me if it came down to it. We cross farther until the grim landscape before us offers something new. At first I can’t believe my eyes, so I glance at Vel for confirmation. He’s stopped moving, still with shock.



“You see it, too?”



“It is . . . magnificent.”



Rising before us are the ruins of an unimaginably immense city, the architecture of which defies description. Even at this distance, I can tell it’s ancient, probably dating back to the Makers themselves. Over long turns, we’ve found artifacts and scattered ruins, but nothing like this, not on this scale.



Anticipation takes hold, then, for I live to blaze new trails. Without waiting for Vel, I break into a run.



[Vid-mail from March, recorded during the search for Jax]



I never told you how I wound up on Lachion that first time, did I, Jax? The swamp here on Marakeq reminds me of Nicu Tertius, bringing back all those old memories, and as we search—and find nothing—I’m possessed of that same despair. So I’m going to tell you a story . . . because I need to feel like you’re with me. I’m going to pretend you can hear me.



[Muted sounds, rustling, unsteady breath]



The air was thick with clotting blood, the ground a morass of churned mud. Blueflies droned in the distance, laying eggs in the corpses of men I called comrade. This plan had been doomed from the beginning, and if I owned anything like a conscience, I’d have told the soft little Nicuan nobleman where he could stuff his credits because clearly he already had his head wedged up there.



Instead, I checked my account to make sure I received payment, then obeyed his orders, no matter how stupid they were. That was why I—and a handful of my men—lay pinned atop this hill, having failed to take the property our employer wanted sacked. Success or failure; it was all the same to me. I got paid regardless, as I never took a job without money up front.



The only time I worked on down payment was if my employers gave me complete latitude. If they didn’t care how I got the job done, then I gave them a little financial leeway. On Nicu Tertius, that didn’t happen much. These empire-bred pussies were all convinced they were the next great military genius and only needed one good battle to prove it. They didn’t care if they sacrificed real soldiers to test their half-assed theories.



Of the forty men I led to the Ja-Win estate, only five remained: Buzzkill, Ringo, Surge, Vikram, and Franken. Faces smeared with blood and Thermud, they looked to me for guidance, so I took stock of the situation. The mission could only be deemed a complete failure. Ja-Win defenses had proved much more robust than the idiot who hired me had believed. At this point, we could only hope for a successful retreat.



The men’s thoughts whirled nearby, shrieked and prodded in my head until I was bombarded with a white-hot noise that crossed the threshold into pain.



Oh, Mary, I may never see Kora again. Should’ve woken her before I left.



When I get back to town, I’m shoving a shiv through his eye.



If I live through this, it’s time to retire.



Fucking March, I’ll kill him nice and slow.



I’d lost the ability to tell who was thinking what. It all blurred together in a nauseating ball of fear, pain, and anger. At least I could use the latter.



To the east, we had Ja-Win gunmen. To the north, the compound defense grid. To the west, fuck if I knew what. To the south, jungle. After no more than a few seconds’ consideration, I rotated my fingers, giving the silent order to move out. I’d take the dangers of the jungle any day; the terrain would make tracking us a bitch, and it would give us the guerilla advantage when it came to taking greater numbers.



We slithered down the hill on our bellies, staying to the tall grass that yielded to swampy ground heralding thicker undergrowth. Tangled greenery provided much-needed cover as the Ja-Win gunmen charged the hill, only to find their quarry gone. I heard their shouts in the distance. We had to get into the trees before the enemy tracker took a good hard look at all that churned earth. Their trackers would figure it out sooner rather than later, and we needed a head start to survive this brutal game of hide-and-seek.



I motioned to Surge to take the lead. He fell behind the last man, Franken, and aimed toward a distant hill. I only used this as a last resort, but we needed the time. While my men disappeared into the trees, I fired in the opposite direction. When the holo shell hit, it broke wide open and showed the streaky movement of men running covertly. As I’d hoped, it drew the attention of the Ja-Win gunmen. This thing wasn’t widely available yet; I bought mine on Gehenna, and I’d be pleased to report its success to the inventor, who’d given me a discount for proving its combat viability.



As I ran, the heat hit me like a closed fist. Nicu Tertius had only two seasons, hot and wet, which made fighting on the ground a bitch. I tried to avoid it whenever possible, but the pay for this job was too good to pass up. That should’ve tipped me off.



I swallowed a curse as I heard the sounds of pursuit, booted feet splashing through the wetlands behind me. The enemy’s thoughts assaulted me as well. Outrage, indignation, bloodlust. Gonna slice up the leader, make him bleed out ...



More and more back then, I felt like I was losing my mind. It got harder and harder to push everything back, focus on what came from my own head instead of everywhere else. Pure will let me do it that time, but I didn’t know how much longer that would hold.



Dammit, I hoped to buy more time. With no hesitation, I gave another silent signal, telling my men to scatter. Four of them vanished immediately. Only Surge hesitated, then he, too, melted into the thick tangle of undergrowth. We had a greater chance of reaching civilization separately.



Some people might say I abandoned them, sending them off as bait to better my own chances. Well, that would be true, too. I crept through the trees, pausing here and there to listen. Distant laser fire and screams of pain came to me on the wind. I recognized the voice. Franken, down, but it sounded like he’d taken a few Ja-Win with him.



In a way, I wished I hadn’t taken credits from Pilatu. The mercenary code prevented me from killing the guy for being an idiot; otherwise, I’d never get work again.



Shit, movement nearby. I dropped to my belly and stilled. The thoughts that filled my head then could scarcely be called that, more impulses, urges. Hunger. Food. Not food. I lay there, hardly daring to breathe. A marsh cat. That thing would rake out my intestines and eat them without a second thought. I avoided it narrowly, sensing the animal’s fierce hunger moving off, becoming distant, then vanishing as it moved outside my range.



I only encountered one enemy on my way out of Ja-Win territory. Bad luck for him, the merc was facing the other way. I could have shot him in the back, but I didn’t want the noise. A mental lance through the guy’s frontal lobe solved the problem. The man’s expression went slack as he dropped face-first into the mud. Most likely he’d drown before his unit found him. Doubtless it would be kinder to snap his neck, but I wasn’t feeling kind, so I stepped over the body and onto the road.



Hours later, I finally reached the place where I’d hidden a rover in case things went bad. On Nicu Tertius, you had to have a backup plan.



Empty.



“Son of a bitch.” I stared down the muddy track. In some ways, I preferred being out in the middle of nowhere. It left my mind quiet at least, devoid of the pain that had become a constant companion.



Well, there was no help for it. I’d have to walk.



I stayed to the trees, dodging Ja-Win patrols looking for survivors making their way on foot. More than once, they forced me to my belly and left me wishing I had the mental power to blast them all at once. Their thoughts bombarded me: some banal, some vengeful, some so vapid I was amazed the asshole could hold a weapon.



Damn, but I’d love to see them drop at the same time, drooling and brain-damaged. But if I hit one, they’d snap alert and start looking for their attacker, even if they didn’t understand how I’d killed. With a soft sigh, I let them pass unmolested and resumed my journey.



It took me all night to reach a village, where I could hire an autocab to take me to the city. By the time I got to my flat, I was ready to blow the shit out of the entire planet. My head felt like molten metal, searing with the effort of trying to block when I was so tired. I wasn’t very good at it at the best of times, and I never hated anything the way I did Nicu Tertius.



With shaking hands, I shot myself full of painkiller. That chemical cocktail balanced the crazy in my head, kept things quiet. The bad news? It was hellishly addictive, and the more I used, the more I wanted. Chem would kill me if this lifestyle didn’t. But I couldn’t shoot up when I worked. It slowed my reflexes too much.