Tyger Burning

by T. C. McCarthy

  “I thought you hated me,” said Maung. “When did you become so nice?”

  Nang paused. “Not hate, Maung. Just instinct. I’m not that easy to get to know and sometimes it takes a long time for me to decide if I trust someone. I don’t know. After seeing what you did on the ship, by patching that pipe? You’re OK.”

  Maung smiled back but not broadly; he wondered what she would say if she ever learned what he did after that, to the Chinese vessels, as well as how he did it.

  The guards wore unsealed vacuum suits with soft armor plates, and carried emergency helmets for use in case of decompression. Maung had never been on an asteroid. Despite the low gravity, it was like being inside the caves he used to play in as a child, long before the war—wide mountain caverns, into which Maung made sure never to go too far because the darkness threatened to swallow him. Maung couldn’t imagine how far they’d gone and soon lost track of time, passing intersection after intersection. They reached another intersection and someone called out. Nang laughed and then hugged a guard who sailed toward them, and Maung still marveled at how graceful she was, able to counteract the man’s inertia at the last second by pushing off his shoulders with a nudge.

  She has friends; it hadn’t occurred to him before. Maung clenched his fists with the realization that not only would they be separated, but that Nang would be too far away for him to keep her interest—an interest that this one had somehow already earned. The man hugged Nang again. Maung was about to say Come on, Nang, let’s keep going when two more guards arrived, both of them white. They stared at him and from the looks on their faces he decided Nang was probably right, that everyone already knew who he was, and he nodded at the pair with a smile. Finally the man said good-bye and the three guards continued on their way, pulling into a side tunnel and out of sight.

  Nang stopped and looked at Maung. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Let’s just get our gear.”

  A bald guard stood next to him, and a small bot hummed near Maung, who was now naked; the room was cramped and cold, and the rock nearly froze Maung’s feet so that he barely stayed in one spot, having to grab ceiling straps to keep from bouncing away.

  “Stay still, dammit,” the guard said. His face looked Korean but Maung couldn’t be sure. “If you move you’ll have to do it all over again.”

  Now the bot raised a limb and scanned, playing a cold laser over Maung’s body as it spit air from maneuvering jets to move around him in a perfect circle. Its measurements were critical. His dimensions would be used to fit a vacuum suit and to provide proper weapon sizes, neither of which he could survive without, so Maung fought the urge to shiver and did his best to stay still. He sighed with relief when it ended.

  The guard handed Maung a roll of something and Maung asked, “What’s this?”

  “Undersuits. They’re made from superconducting fibers that will link to your suit’s environmental controls, to keep you warm or to cool you off. There are flaps for where you need to connect waste tubes.”

  “Waste tubes? Like the ones in vacuum suits on spacecraft?”

  The guard laughed. “Where you’re going, Tatmaw, there aren’t going to be many toilets and drifters won’t hold your willy for you. Your suit will be your home, your kitchen, and your bathroom.” Maung was about to ask What are drifters? when the man continued. “Get one of those on and then come outside; I’ll take you to get your vacuum suit and weapon.”

  Maung slipped on an undersuit. The synthetic fabric scratched, and he wanted it off even before he got it all the way on, and the clinginess made it hard to adjust so that by the time he finished, Maung spun in midair from contorting in low g. The other undersuit was a spare; he rolled it up, tucked it under an arm, and palmed the door panel, scooting through as soon as there was enough room to exit.

  The bald guard moved out as soon as the door shut, and Maung struggled to keep up. Here, corridors were barely wide enough for one. Maung and his escort elbowed through crowds of officers moving in the opposite direction. In crowded spaces, the lighting made it hard to see. Tiny LEDs set in the rock provided just enough brightness to see the handholds, but Maung couldn’t make out any of the faces he passed and he worried he’d never see Nang again and would never get to the point of knowing his way around. And the smell. In places it got worse but sometimes it almost went away before returning unexpectedly, forcing Maung’s eyes to water.

  “What’s that stink?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It was bad when I first got here and every once in a while we try to figure it out but we never have. It’s like it comes from the asteroid itself. You get used to it, though; I don’t even smell it anymore, Tatmaw.” The man stopped in front of a beaten metal door, bits of yellow paint still clinging to it in spots next to faded white letters that spelled supply. “Go on in. Once you’re outfitted someone else will escort you to the transport, which takes you to the other side.”

  “There is no training?” Maung asked. “No briefings?”

  The guard chuckled. “Training? You must think you’re on Earth; we don’t have a training budget out here. I don’t know how they handle it where you’re headed but here on Sunny Side we usually assign a mentor; you tag along until someone higher up decides you can work alone. Or until you screw up and go to the big resting place. See you around, Tatmaw.”

  The door rumbled open. Maung stepped through into a tight space, a narrow slot that faced a counter and over it a wire grate, beyond which was another tunnel—a wide cylinder filled with rows and rows of vacuum suits and racks of coil guns. One man bounced there, behind the grate, smiling. He glanced at Maung and then gestured.

  “Your suit is right there. Beside you, near the floor.”

  Maung glanced to his left. An old suit drifted against the wall and at first he thought the man must be joking, that it must be the source of his grin, because the suit should be white like the new ones on racks but instead was gray—red in the places where it had been patched. He tried to hand the suit back.

  “I don’t know much about suits but this one looks like it won’t last for long. What about one of the new ones?” He pointed behind the man. “One of the white ones?”

  “No. I got your measurements from the system. That’s the one that fits, Tatmaw—that one right there. The white ones are for Americans and allies only.” The man must have seen his expression, Maung guessed. “Don’t worry. It’s vacuum-tested, prison-approved gear, better than the ones we give the drifters.”

  “What’s a drifter?” Maung asked.

  The ventilation system rattled overhead and a cold breeze pressed against Maung’s neck, hard enough that he grabbed the grate to keep from moving. The suit rubbed against his face. Maung bristled at the humiliation, but the focus needed to put on the suit helped him forget and he tried to remember what he learned about gearing up, going over the procedure for making proper seals and connecting the waste hoses.

  “Drifters work hard, Tatmaw. You’ll like them, almost as much as you’ll grow to like that suit.”

  Maung pulled the thick fabric over his stomach when he noticed something. “You spelled my name wrong, here on the ID patch.”

  The man shook his head again and slipped a coil gun with two magazines of needles and a utility belt through a slot. “It’s close enough and nobody needs your name anyway. Take your weapon and have fun over there but I’m telling you now: It’s nothing like the jungle.”

  Maung finished suiting up. He took the gun and strapped it over a shoulder before buckling the belt and shoving the magazines into a pouch. He was about to leave when the man stopped him.

  “One last thing,” he said, sticking a fat hand through the grate and handing a data chit to Maung. “This is for you. A message from Earth. When you get on the transport they’ll provide you with a helmet and you can review it then, in private.”

  Maung nodded, took it, and slid it into his belt. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me, Tatmaw. I hope you freakin
g die.”

  A Korean guard waited outside, talking to Nang. Maung froze. He was happy that she had found him again, before he had to depart, and was about interrupt them when Nang glanced over, covering her mouth with a hand to laugh.

  “What are you wearing?” she asked.

  The Korean guard laughed too and tugged at a strap on Maung’s suit. “It’s so old that the fabric is turning to dust—a good suit for a Burmese.”

  Maung stared at Nang. Slowly, she stopped smiling and he stared for a moment longer.

  “Sorry, Maung, I didn’t mean—”

  He cut her off. “It’s OK. I know what you’re thinking: the perfect suit for the idiot from Myanmar.” Maung couldn’t hide his anger and his face turned red from embarrassment. His gut and chest tightened with shame but also with sadness—that he was about to leave Nang and the good-bye had been ruined. All he managed was “Good luck with your friends, Nang.”

  Nang said, “Maung, wait a second,” but he ignored her.

  “You must be my escort,” he said to the Korean guard. “I hear there’s a transport waiting for me. Let’s get going.”

  “You got it, Tatmaw.”

  Maung followed the guard into dark tunnels amid the crowds; behind him Nang shouted, “Wait!” but he kept going. Maung did his best to ignore a realization that Nang meant more to him than he had appreciated. Feel nothing, he thought, repeating the phrase until she left his thoughts.

  Maung considered the data chit from Earth; he couldn’t wait to be alone. The chit probably contained a message from the Old Man but might also contain news of his son—maybe even a message from his mother. He hadn’t heard any news from Charleston in so long that Maung didn’t care what it was or who it came from.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Maung’s heart raced when he spotted the “transport,” a tiny carbon-fiber elevator cage into which the Korean shoved Maung before handing him his helmet; it took a minute to get the thing sealed. Then a minor leak formed in Maung’s forearm under a flexible plate, and the Korean fixed it with a tube that shot sticky fibers into the gap, a kind of plastic that hardened in a second. Maung mentally corrected himself: There was no real up or down in the tunnels so calling it an elevator meant almost nothing. On the other hand, there was no time to figure out a new name for the thing. Without warning it moved. The elevator accelerated at half a g so that Maung struggled against slight gravity and he checked his suit systems, which indicated that his surroundings were pressurized. He linked his suit with station communications and almost immediately an automated voice clicked onto his headset.

  “Welcome to Karin Prison,” it said. “Time to destination is fifteen hours, thirty-seven minutes.”

  “Is this the only way to the other side of Karin?” he asked.

  The computer took a moment to answer. “No. The main transport runs parallel to the shaft you currently occupy.”

  “I’m not in the main transport?” Maung asked. “What transport am I in and what’s the difference?”

  “You are in the prisoner transport pod. The main transport is a larger vessel, which seats eight and has reclining seats so the occupants can sleep on the way.”

  Maung promised to get the Korean guard, too. He slapped the chit into his suit computer and snapped, “Play,” hoping to hear the voices of his family. But a second later the Old Man’s voice disappointed him: “Meet with a guard named Nam Su Thant and follow his orders as if they were mine.” The message ended with a hiss and Maung cracked the chit in half and then slipped it between the bars—careful not to catch his fingers on the rock as it screamed past.

  He was alone. The urge to again merge with the semi-aware assaulted his consciousness and although there was a chance the activation would go undetected he couldn’t be sure, so he abandoned the thought. Instead Maung counted the lights as they blinked past his bars, hoping that it would put him to sleep—a sleep that evaded him because he had to stand in the small cage, trapped upright for fifteen hours.

  “Can I get electronic cigarettes?” he asked the computer.

  “Electronic cigarettes are prohibited on Karin; see corporate policy manual one-A section five point two.”

  “That figures.”

  By the time he reached the other side, Maung’s legs had gone numb and he gritted his teeth at the stabbing pain that came from trying to move. The door slid open. A man helped him exit the cage and Maung heaved into the tunnel where he floated for a moment, which relieved the pain in his limbs; soon, though, muscles in both legs cramped and refused to relax. It took Maung a moment to work the pain out, after which he grasped that the man waiting for him was another guard and had been asking questions Maung hadn’t heard. The language—Burmese—brought a grin to his face.

  “You awake?” he asked. “Are you Maung?”

  Maung’s throat was parched. He bit the plastic tube inside his helmet, drawing on it to drink water for so long that he stopped, gasping for air.

  “Anyone home?” the guard asked. He knocked on Maung’s helmet. “You there?”

  “I’m here. Can you show me to my quarters so I can get some rest? That was a long trip.”

  “Nah, kala. Sorry. Someone hates you already on Sunny Side; it was cruel to send you here in that cage. It made you late and now Nam is pissed off. So you can’t go to your cube until your shift is over.” The man held out his hand. “I’m Than. You’ll be shadowing me until Nam is convinced that you got it.”

  Maung blinked rapidly, trying to keep his eyes open. “Just Than?”

  “Just Than.” The man beckoned for Maung to follow. “Come on, kala. We have work to do, this isn’t Sunny Side, we earn our pay here.” When Maung unslung his coil gun Than waved his hand. “Nah, kala. Keep that on your shoulder for now. You won’t need it and I don’t want to end up dead.”

  Kala. Maung noticed the word for the first time and it surprised him that he’d been speaking English for so long that he had to search for its meaning. Outsider. Here, just like in Charleston, he was an outsider and Maung kicked off the wall, reaching for handhold after handhold in an effort to catch up with Than, who now yanked himself down a narrow tunnel so quickly that he threatened to disappear into the dim light ahead. Maung was too sleepy. He missed one handhold, which sent his back scraping against the tunnel wall, and in order to prevent himself from spinning he tried for another but missed. Maung remembered what Nang taught him. He put his hands and feet out, spread eagled, to stop himself with friction, stopping just in time so he didn’t barrel into Than at an intersection.

  “I thought I’d lost you,” the guard said.

  Maung asked, “Where are we going?”

  “To the spaceport.”

  “Spaceport?” Maung tried to remember all he’d learned from Karin and he couldn’t recall any details about the dark side. Than pushed off again and Maung kept up. “What spaceport?”

  “You’ll see, kala. They only allow Burmese to work there, only us. The Americans don’t want word to get out about how badly we got our asses kicked.”

  “Who?” Maung asked. “Whose asses—the Burmese and Chinese?”

  “No. The human race’s ass. You got a lot to learn so shut up. We’re almost there. Once we go through the airlock I want you to do exactly like I do, and keep your mouth shut because nothing you’ve been told up until now is even close to being true. Understand?”

  Maung shook his head. “No. I don’t understand. I—”

  “Good. Because you’re right, you don’t understand anything; not yet. Set your visor for starfield dimming so the stars don’t mess with your head because you don’t want to go all dizzy, not where we’re headed, and make sure you clip in your suit exactly the same way I do mine.” Maung figured Than must have seen his mouth start to move because he held up a hand. “Just watch. Since you’re late, there’s no time to explain anything but I’ll try to go slow and maybe you’ll live. Day one is always when we lose guards. Drifters, though? The damn things seem immune to this crap; who w
ould have thought?”

  There was nothing but space. Maung almost somersaulted when they vaulted through an airlock exit and onto a steel platform set in a cliff, far above the bottom of a crater, and overhead the sky was black. It was not really a sky, Maung told himself. His helmet faceplate turned everything luminous into a black dot so that the darkness almost enveloped him, pressing down from above and forcing him to look away because he understood there were stars there, millions of them that tried to shine through with a reminder that he was insignificant. Maung didn’t need the reminder; he believed it already, figured that until he turned on his systems and kept them on, he’d always be slow. Stupid. Someone who Nang would never take seriously.

  The bottom of the crater seemed almost a mile below them and Maung whistled.

  “How far is that?”

  Than was trying to secure a pouch that came loose on his belt. “Fifteen hundred meters, give or take.”

  Maung saw it—a spaceport completely unlike the one in Charleston. Missile pods encircled the crater rim and most of them looked charred and blackened, the remnants of their frameworks the only thing telling him what they once were. And there were towers—at least what remained of them. Massive tubes ran up the center of what remained of the towers’ framework, tubes that once carried plasma from fusion reactors for a point-defense network that no longer existed. The tubes now looked like segmented earthworms—frozen in a position of raising their heads to the sky. Maung got dizzy again and looked down.

  Below lay more wreckage, a sea of bent steel and titanium, and Maung recognized the remains of ruined warships, cradled in what was left of the port’s docks so that they looked as though they slept; he imagined that someday the ships could wake up and move again, but Maung knew it would never happen because of the black holes along their sides, where Sommen weaponry had punched through and melted their guts.