by Peter Nealen
The thought gave him a curious sense of distress.
[They have families of their own to see,] Blue Moon Above the Salt Cliff signed. [Tribesmen who may or may not still be alive.]
Gaumarus nodded. He felt a brief flush of shame. He had been too worried about his own family to think of the indig’s.
Together, human and indig neared the crest of the ridge. Gaumarus felt his anxiety rising, wondering what he would see.
23
The M’tait had definitely been there.
The destruction was by no means total. In fact, the buildings seemed mostly intact, except for the outbuilding where much of the heavy equipment—and therefore the weapons—had been kept. That had been leveled.
More scorched, blackened skeletons were scattered around the grounds. Most were horse bones; there were no comparable creatures among Provenian animals, and it had been found early on that there were times when animals were preferable to machinery that could break or run out of power. There were certainly vehicles available on more prosperous and established worlds that could outperform a horse, but they were expensive to begin with, even more expensive to ship across the gulf between suns.
Other bones were distinctly human. And, like the two down in the draw on the other side of the ridge, they had clearly died slowly and in a great deal of pain.
Gaumarus’s throat went dry, and his knees threatened to collapse. He started to sprint down the hillside toward the house, but Kan Tur caught him up with an iron grip on his arm.
“Slow and careful, Gaumarus,” the Knight said. “The M’tait may have left some unpleasant surprises. Keep your weapon ready and your eyes open.”
Gaumarus gulped, even as he resisted the urge to rip his arm away from Kan Tur’s grasp. That was his home down there, and that could be his family lying burned and mutilated. He felt short of breath, and he had to fight down the urge to rip his ventilator off so he could breathe.
But past the rising panic, he knew Kan Tur was right. He’d seen enough of the M’tait’s sadistic viciousness over the last few days that he was sure it was entirely possible, even probable, that they would leave traps, or even some sort of nasty biomechanoid behind, just to cause a little more harm to anyone investigating the ruins they had left in their wake.
Provided there was anyone else left. That thought echoed in his mind as he started down the slope, his powergun in his shoulder. He’d seen what was left of the knob that the indig had dug into. What if they’d blanketed the whole planet with such strikes as they’d risen into the upper atmosphere? Some of the indig might well have survived, underground. But the humans…
He didn’t want to think about it. He needed to find out what had happened to his family.
Keeping his powergun pointed toward the house, he knelt beside the first of the huddled, blackened skeletons. It was smaller than the others nearby, and he suddenly, horribly, thought of Whenna. Only when he remembered that she was nearly as tall as he was did he start to breathe again. He still thought of his sister as the little girl she’d been most of his life.
So who was this? He suddenly remembered that Audramnus, the foreman and one of his many Pell cousins, had a younger son named Boso. The bones were about Boso’s size.
He stared down at what was likely all that remained of his cousin, knowing that he should feel something. But the dread and borderline panic that was threatening to close his throat drowned out everything else. Rising, he started moving toward the house.
Kan Tur and Verheyen kept pace with him. Blue Moon Above the Salt Cliff had held back, just below the ridgeline, his repeater held ready, though he had little ammunition left. The indig must have held the Pell farm in some respect, dating back to the old days, if Waldenius’s stories were to be believed.
Chauwens was coming too, though he was moving rather more slowly. Exhaustion had taken its toll on the heavier man, and he was stumbling, barely holding his powergun up.
The door had been torn out of its frame, lying shattered on the ground in front of the house. The house itself had been built of native stone, carefully cut and fitted together. It was a fortress, and the light, sandy-colored stone showed signs that the Pells had put up a fight. There were darkened scorch marks on the stones where those M’tait beam weapons had swept across them, and parts of the stout windowframes had scars that suggested borer strikes.
There was a dried stain from some kind of fluid not far from the door. Gaumarus hoped that it was from a dead M’tait.
“Friends!” Kan Tur boomed, his amplified, translated voice making Gaumarus flinch. “The M’tait have left! We mean you no harm.”
As surprised as he had been, Gaumarus had to admit that it was a good idea. If anyone was left alive in there, it seemed quite likely that they’d take a shot at a silhouette suddenly appearing in the doorway. The horrors they must have seen…
If any were still alive.
They waited, listening, weapons slightly raised, straining their ears to hear the faintest of cries for help. Or, worst case, the noise that might herald a M’tait nightmare surging out of the wreckage.
But all was quiet, except for the whisper of the wind through the rubble.
Kan Tur started to move forward, but, armored or not, Gaumarus stepped up to cut him off. “It’s my home,” he said, his own voice sounding muffled in his ears through his ventilator. “I should go first.”
Kan Tur simply nodded and let him go.
He stepped over the wreckage of the door and into the entryway.
The entryway was trashed. Huge holes had been blasted or smashed in the closet and the walls, and the walls themselves were crisscrossed with more beam weapon scorchmarks. Half the ceiling had fallen in, leaving dust and shattered ceiling tile scattered across the floor. The dust was spattered with blood, and drag marks led deeper in. The greatroom lay beyond, but it was dark, as if all the lights had been either turned off or smashed.
Stepping carefully, his powergun leveled and his light cutting through the dimness, Gaumarus followed the drag marks.
He found where they ended, just beside the great fireplace. He fell to his knees, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
Dagarius and Rothardae had been dead for some time. Both were nothing but charred bone from the feet to partway up the ribcage. They’d died in each other’s arms on the floor, as the M’tait had stood over them, burning away their flesh.
As for the M’tait, it was immediately obvious why they had not finished their grisly work. Two of them lay on the floor near the mangled bodies of Gaumarus’s mother and father, their stony armor smashed, pale fluid dried to a crust on their corpses. Something heavy had done that, and Gaumarus thought he knew what.
“Grandfather?” he called. “Grandfather Waldenius?”
There might have been a faint groan from somewhere back in the shadows. Stepping over more of the wreckage of the furniture, Gaumarus swept his light over the kitchen.
Half of the bar between the greatroom and the kitchen had been obliterated. And from under the rubble, the faint groan was repeated.
He had to move several slabs of native rock off his grandfather’s shattered legs before he could lift the old man into a sitting position. Kan Tur helped him, the Knight’s considerable strength seemingly unflagging even after the trials of the last few days. Verheyen and Chauwens stayed on guard, watching the doors.
Waldenius’s eyes fluttered in the light from Gaumarus’s and Kan Tur’s weapon lights. He seemed only barely conscious; in fact, he was barely clinging to life. His legs were crushed, he was covered in blood, and his breathing was rapid and shallow.
“How long has he been under there?” Kan Tur asked. There might have been awe in the man’s voice. As for Gaumarus, it didn’t really surprise him that Waldenius Pell of all people had stubbornly stayed alive when he should have been dead. There was no give in the man.
Dagarius had once said of his father, in a moment of despair, “The softest part of him is his teeth.”
“Dagarius?” Waldenius whispered. “Is that you, boy?”
Gaumarus tried to swallow the hard lump in his throat. “No, Grandfather,” he said. “It is Gaumarus.”
Waldenius’s eyes seemed to sharpen, focusing on the alien shape of Gaumarus’s face shield and ventilator above him. “Gaumarus,” he breathed. “Yes, I remember now. Dagarius…” His body shook silently. “I made them pay,” he said, patting the VT-7 autocannon that he’d kept hidden away for “emergencies” for years. “But it was too late. My son…”
Suddenly, his hand shot up and he grabbed Gaumarus around the back of the neck. Even on the verge of death, there was an awful strength in his grip. “Your sister,” he hissed. His breath gurgled; there must have been blood in his lungs or his throat. “They took…your sister.”
Gaumarus’s blood ran cold. Whenna had been among those hundreds being herded toward the Hunterships?
What if she was still in the open when the blast went off? His vision almost went black.
Maybe it would be a mercy if she was. Maybe it would be better to be snuffed out in an eyeblink, turned into a shadow on the ground, than subjected to whatever horrors they inflict on their “cargo.” But he couldn’t think that way.
He stared down at Waldenius, who was now peering at him with that accustomed blazing fire in his eyes. “You go after her, boy,” the terrible old man rasped. “Prove yourself a Pell. My gentle son couldn’t protect her. So, it falls to you.”
How can I do that? She may be dead. If she’s on one of those ships she’s as good as dead.
As if he could read Gaumarus’s mind, Waldenius’s grip tightened on the back of his neck like talons. “Don’t you think of weaseling out, boy,” he hissed. “You’re a Pell. Act like one. She’s your sister. That bond goes beyond any meager responsibility you think you owe to those sniveling Latecomers and their sympathizers in Capitol.” He ran out of breath and slumped backward, closing his eyes.
“Find her, boy,” he whispered. “Do your duty.”
And then he was gone.
Gaumarus looked down at the still, frail form that had been the man he’d feared most all his life, feared more than he’d ever dreaded Verlot. Despite himself, tears welled in his eyes.
That terrible old man, for whom nothing had ever been good enough, to whom everyone around him was a sniveling weakling because they had not fought the indig and the other Families tooth and nail from childhood, had dragged an autocannon he could barely lift out of hiding to shoot the monsters off his son, who had by then surrendered to death. His last act was to try to save the very son he’d treated with contempt for all of Gaumarus’s life, and to charge Gaumarus with an impossible rescue mission.
How dare he ask that of him? Had he seen what Gaumarus had seen those last few days? Had he had any conception of just what he was asking? It was impossible. No sane man would ever even think to try to rescue a single prisoner from the M’tait, or even to pursue them.
And yet…
As he stared down at that creased and bloodied face, still set in bitter lines in death, it seemed almost as if those bleary eyes would snap open and stare at him accusingly if he did not acquiesce. What Waldenius had asked was impossible. But he still feared the old man enough to say, “I’ll try.”
He was casting about for a shovel when Verheyen interrupted him. “We cannot stay here, Gaumarus.”
Gaumarus stared at him. “I am going to bury my family,” he said flatly. “The M’tait are not here. Why should we hurry away?”
“These ventilators won’t last forever, and I’m worried about Chauwens,” Verheyen said. “And we have a duty to report back to whatever is left of PDF headquarters.”
“Duty?” Gaumarus demanded. Waldenius’s last words were weighing on his mind, and as he sifted through the remains of what had been his home, he remembered other things. Things that had gone wrong, things that increasingly filled him with fury. “Duty? To what? To the same fools who threw us at the M’tait as if they were a pack of lowland indig? The same ones who left my family on the far side of the line for the M’tait to prey on?”
Verheyen just stared at him for a moment. Gaumarus realized that his fists were clenched, and his voice had become a snarl. He carefully forced himself to relax.
“I know, Gaumarus,” Verheyen said after a moment, stepping a little closer. He sounded a little apologetic, though his voice was pitched low, as if he was worried about the men hearing. The fact that “the men” consisted only of Chauwens, who was sitting against the wall a hundred meters away, seemed to go unnoticed. “I’ve been out here too. I was in charge of Colonel Piett’s security detachment, remember? If ever there was a more useless, cowardly slug of a man, I don’t know of him. But we can’t just say that the war’s over and that means our obligations to the PDF are over. If anything, they’ll need us more than ever now. We’re the combat veterans, we’re going to be the ones that have to build the new PDF, one that might actually be able to defend the planet.”
Gaumarus wasn’t looking at him, but he was listening, or trying to. His mind was whirling. What Verheyen said was true, and he knew it. He also knew that the odds of actually finding his sister out there in the black were literally astronomical. And Waldenius was dead. He could not enforce his last command.
He doesn’t have to. She’s your sister. He could see the old man’s burning eyes boring into him, even though he lay on the ground, a sheet covering his face, not far from where Dagarius and Rothardae lay, still clasped in each other’s arms.
She’s your blood. Do you really owe the PDF more than you owe her?
He couldn’t make up his mind. He just stood there in the wreckage of the shed, looking for a shovel that he couldn’t find, because he could barely see what was in front of him.
“It is not too much to ask to bury the dead, Sergeant Verheyen,” Kan Tur said. He loomed in the splintered doorway. He stepped in past Gaumarus and stooped to pull a shovel out of a pile of wreckage that he had been staring at for the last five minutes. “It is not possible to leave the planet from here, even if you should decide you desire to do so, Gaumarus,” he said. “We will bury your family, then head for the nearest city. If it is intact, then we can make contact with your PDF and my Order, and determine our future actions from there. There is too much we do not know to make plans.” He put a heavy hand on Gaumarus’s shoulder and handed him the shovel. “One thing at a time.”
Gaumarus couldn’t speak. He took the shovel, nodded his thanks, and stepped outside the shed, not looking at either the Knight or the sergeant.
One of the family’s vehicles, a balloon-tired cross-country crawler, was still intact enough to run. It had been damaged, but they could do without intact windows and an entire door. The engine still started, and all of the carbon-fiber-weave tires were in one piece. All four humans and Blue Moon Above the Salt Cliff, who had come down the hill alone, piled into the passenger compartment and started on their way.
Gaumarus drove. He didn’t want to look back; he didn’t want to be tempted to look back. His home was still a wreck, scattered with the charred bones of their animals. Graves formed small mounds in what had been the front yard.
He didn’t know if he’d ever see it again. He almost wished that he’d burned it to the ground, even though most of the buildings were built of stone.
Vatuse was the nearest town. It had been the nearest town.
A few of the older stone structures near the edges of town were still mostly intact, though even they were scorched, half-collapsed, and scarred by fragmentation and high-energy weapons.
The center of Vatuse was a crater.
“I think this was one of the M’tait’s parting gifts,” Kan Tur said grimly. “There is no way that was wrought by any ground fighting.”
They stared out through the crawler’s shattered windows at the devastation. The sky above was still wan and dark, stormclouds mixing with the swirling dust from the fusion bomb and the strikes from above. Dirty
rain was already starting to patter against the vehicle’s roof.
“Now what do we do?” Verheyen asked into the sudden quiet.
“We keep going,” Gaumarus said, putting the crawler back into gear. “Cators might still be intact, but I think we should head for the Casca Plateau base.”
“That’s almost three hundred fifty kilometers away!” Chauwens said. He didn’t sound good; there was an unhealthy gurgle in his voice.
“And in this crawler, we should make it before dark,” Gaumarus said. “It’s not that bad. And it’s far enough from the landing zone that something might be still intact.” There was no telling; the comms in the crawler had been silent ever since they’d started, and the personal comms they carried were all short-range. It didn’t sound like anyone else near the Monoyan Plain had survived, or if they had, they weren’t talking.
Gaumarus thought of what would happen next. He remembered the stories about life on Gdan after the M’tait had raided that world. The population had been reduced to a third of its original size, and much of the infrastructure destroyed. Half the planet was still a wasteland, those people who had not reverted to desperate savagery trying to survive living clustered around the three surviving cities. Was that to be Provenia’s fate?
It was a testament to his frame of mind that he could think of that possibility without feeling anything as he drove away from the ruin of Vatuse.
24
His time estimate had been slightly off. It was after dark by the time they approached the base.
Or, rather, what was left of it. The fence was still intact, but much of the base was burned out, with another still-hot crater sitting where the headquarters building had stood.