by D L Frizzell
“I guess that makes sense,” Alex replied. "Do you know anything about the smell, then?"
“That was the musk of a cave bat,” Seneca told him. “I wasn’t sure at first, since Redland was all I could smell when we first got here. They are the only creatures on the planet that make that smell. They love it, but no other animal wants anything to do with them. It's an aphrodisiac for them, plus an effective repellant against predators."
“Let me guess,” Alex said. “It's an old garden keeper tactic?”
“You catch on fast,” Seneca replied. “I’ve seen it before. A garden keeper will set booby traps to identify an enemy, not kill him. It’s useful for tracking them back to their base. As you've noticed, the smell travels well. About the only thing that compares to it is the bog-dog slime that Redland was already covered with."
“So, Norio knew someone was coming after him before they showed up?” Alex asked.
“It seems so,” Seneca replied. “Judging from what happened today, I’d say his suspicions were well-founded.”
"Norio's been here for eight years," Alex said. “They’ve been looking for him all this time and just now found him?”
"We know he’s not the only reason the Jovians came here," Seneca said. “The Guile rarely does anything for just one reason, and this is evidence of that."
“I thought their leader was called a Sophic or something,” Alex said.
“That’s what they used to be called,” Seneca acknowledged, “until this one came along and changed everything. He’s the reason for the Jug invasion ten years ago.”
A vague memory flashed in Alex’s mind. He remembered watching his father wave from his horse as he led the garrison out of the city gate. A few weeks later, he was dead.
"I was the only one who knew Norio was anything more than a refugee when he came to the city," Seneca explained.
"Why didn't you tell Redland before today?" Alex asked. "He probably should've known."
"Things are not as simple as that," Seneca explained. "Redland is employed by the Alliance Council in Ovalsheer. They have their own interests, their own agenda. To be honest, we don't have the strongest of friendships with them. The only thing that keeps the Alliance together is the threat of war with the Jovians and the Jugguards."
"They won't like it when they find out you've kept this secret from them," Alex said.
"Oh, they have secrets of their own, believe me," Seneca said. "We can talk about that another time. For now, let's take a look at that cellar."
"What cellar?" Alex asked innocently.
"The one in Norio's closet."
Alex tried to feign his best look of ignorance.
Seneca laughed. "You left the trap door open, remember? Relax, I've known about it for a long time. I closed it so Redland wouldn't see it."
"You didn't want him to know about it?"
"Not right now, at least." Seneca opened the trap and pointed down the hole. "Look, someone left a lamp burning for us. After you, Alex."
Alex grabbed the lamp on his way down and cast a wary eye on Seneca. Seneca followed down the ladder moments later and met Alex at the bottom. He looked around at the collection of items that were stored there, then noticed the glow at the far end of the cellar. "That where you came in?"
"Yes."
"I'm going to have to teach you to cover your tracks better," Seneca said.
Alex watched Seneca examine the digging tools on the table. "Why is Norio digging a cellar?" he asked.
Seneca put down a chisel he was holding and brushed his hands off. He walked to the wall and ran his hand across the smooth surface. He didn't answer the question.
Alex stared at Seneca. There had to be reasons for what was happening, but he didn’t have all the facts. Redland wasn't what he appeared to be, and neither was Seneca. Maybe Norio wasn't, either.
"I need answers,” Alex said.
"To the point, as usual," Redland replied. "I'm very careful with certain topics, just so we understand each other."
"Does Norio work for you?"
"That's not the kind of question I expected," Seneca replied.
"It's where everything starts," Alex stated.
"Ah, I can see how you'd think that," Seneca conceded. He didn't reply right away. "No, he doesn't," he said. "However, we do have common interests. It's better to say we work together."
"You trust him?"
"Let me ask you a question," Seneca said in response. "Since you've known him, have you ever seen Norio without his gloves on?"
"No."
"Next time you see him, ask why he wears them. He will tell you, and you will know why I trust him."
"Do you trust Marshal Redland?"
"Aren't you going to ask me about the cellar?" Seneca picked up a fragment of blue metal and held it out.
Alex waited.
"Fine. Yes, I trust Redland - to a certain extent. He's a good marshal, very skilled at his job and a strong fighter. I'd rather fight alongside him than against him. He's what we call a loose cannon. Like I said before, he works for the Council. They focus on what's important to the Sheers Territory, and they pay him to move their agenda forward. He can be a bug mule’s ass, but I can get along with him when I need to."
"Do you trust me?" Alex asked.
Seneca looked away. "Again, straight to the point."
"That's not an answer."
Seneca rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, then looked around the cellar as if trying to find the answer. "I don't know. Here's the thing - when you don't interact with people, it stands to reason that they don't interact with you, either, right?" Alex nodded slowly. "I'm an unknown to you. Likewise, you're an unknown to me."
"You know I want to help," Alex pointed out. "You saw what I did today. You said I did a good job. That has to mean something."
"Alex," Seneca said, holding up his hand. "The only thing you should worry about is your graduation next month. After that, go back to the Upright Meadowlands with Cale. Live your life for a while before you go looking for trouble. You've got a longer path ahead of you than you realize, and jumping in before you're ready would be…" he paused to choose his word carefully, "dangerous."
Redland rode up to the cargo door on the Celeste and tied Jaeger to an exposed beam near. He patted the horse's neck and offered him a sugar cube.
"I'm a damn fool, Jaeger," he told the horse. "Shouldn't have lost my temper like that." He tried a drink from the canteen on his saddlebag and spit it out. "I'm tired of stinkin' and stuff not tastin' right." He put the canteen back and pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket. As he stoked it to life, he scowled and spit again. He stamped it out and put it back in his shirt.
"Better get this over with," he told himself. "I need to get a bath and drink something stronger than water." He scanned the horizon once, then grabbed a torch from his saddlebag and walked through the cargo door.
It wasn't hard to find the tracks within the Celeste. The torch lit the corridors well enough, and followed the tracks left by a stampede of Jugs, dumb kids, and who-knew what else, although he was careful not to leave any of his own tracks as he went. He stepped on bare deck plating whenever possible and climbed over debris rather than taking the faster route through dirty areas. This was all done to make sure that nobody could follow him. He even made sure to double back a few times and wait quietly in the shadows until he was certain there were no unnatural sounds within the old ship.
The information Alex had given him was surprisingly detailed coming from a kid, so Redland made good progress. He took a roundabout path, still finding it easy to stay parallel to Alex’s trail. Seeing as magnetic quakes rarely hit the same place twice in quick succession, he felt reasonably confident he would not have to worry about dealing with one. With that in mind, he explored a little while he was there.
When he made it further into the Celeste, he found there was little dirt to leave tracks in. This allowed him to walk at a normal pace. It wasn't that
he was interested in exploring the Celeste; it was just a buried scrap yard in his opinion. This was a precaution he took whenever he entered a new place. Knowing the lay of the land was crucial to avoiding capture by an enemy. Ever the cautious man, he pulled out a fresh piece of vellum and a pencil to make a map for himself. He found an empty footlocker to sit on and retraced his route from memory. Satisfied that he could find his way back out, he continued deeper into the spaceship.
Redland did not follow any particular course; he just let his curiosity lead him. He frequently checked his torch to ensure it had plenty of sap left, deciding to head back when he had used up a third of it. He didn’t find anything except empty corridors and staterooms. It had all been pretty well cleaned out when the Founders evacuated the ship. Still, he knew there would be things left behind, maybe some things of value.
Then he noticed the scratches.
It was luck that brought them to his attention. The fire on his torch flickered at just the right moment to show a glint of silver in the corner of his eye. Five scratches with different lengths were etched into the wall at a junction in the corridors. At first, he assumed they were made by an animal. The lines were too thin to be claw marks, though, so they had been made by some kind of tool. There was no rust in the exposed metal, either, which meant they were fresh. Deciding they were important enough to investigate, he drew a copy of the scratches on the map where he found them. If there were scratches here, it stood to reason that there could be scratches elsewhere. He began to walk up and down the corridors to find more. Soon, he found the second set.
These scratches were not exact duplicates as the first set he found. They were the same height, vertically oriented, but different lengths. Redland puzzled about them, marking the new location and scratch design on his map. He realized the second set was along the same hallway as the first set, at a junction in the corridors. From that point, he set up a search pattern of checking the corridors from each junction, checking them in clockwise rotation, until he found more. After he found the third and fourth sets, he began to pick out a pattern – they were pointers, giving direction and distance to the next set of scratches. But where would they lead?
Redland ran from junction to junction, searching quickly now that he had the method established. He found two more sets of scratches, marked their locations on his map, and copied the lines in exact detail.
Fifteen minutes later, Redland realized he’d used up nearly half the sap in his torch during his search. The search would have to wait for another time.
It wasn’t long before Redland found himself avoiding loose dirt again, feeling a breeze that verified his map was true. He found Alex’s tracks and made haste towards the medical area on the ship.
He noticed a stark difference in the condition of the Celeste’s wreckage when he made it to the hospital wing. Erosion had been worse in this area of the plateau, and it showed in the tangled mess of steel around him. He also found traces of water and rot along the floor; a sure sign that groundwater accelerated the ship’s decay even further. It only took a few minutes to find the surgical room from there, with the empty operating table standing in a beam of dusty sunlight. Fresh blood crusted on the ripped upholstery, while a large pool of dirty water lapped at the base. He picked up the mop handle that Alex had forged into a weapon and examined it. He hadn't seen anything like it before. Damn, the kid had been resourceful.
Redland froze when he saw ripples in the water. Someone had been there when he arrived. There was also the smell of something in the air. Burnt cloth? He spun as he reached for his pistol, only to find the tip of a sword against his stomach. Before him, surrounded by shadow, was a fat man with scorched armor on.
"Step into the light," the hoarse, lisping voice said.
Redland put his hands up, backed into the bright area around the operating table, then took his hat off. The shadow followed him into the light and lowered his sword.
“What took you so long?” Benac asked.
Chapter Nineteen
Alex went to the garrison the next day to follow up with Colonel Seneca, and was directed to the duty desk in the command building. He didn't recognize the two soldiers behind the desk. He guessed from the suspicious looks he got that they knew who he was.
"Please tell Colonel Seneca that Alex Vonn is here to see him," Alex said as politely as he could.
"Your name isn't on the visitors list," one of them said.
"I'm sure he's expecting me," Alex replied.
"You have to be here on authorized business; otherwise we can't let you in."
"I report to the Colonel on matters of security around the city wall," Alex said, and pulled his orders from Seneca out of his pocket.
"No can do, sir," the soldier said, not bothering to look at the order. "Your orders do not state that you report directly to the garrison commander, just to the senior non-comm."
"I am a member of the team that uncovered important intelligence for the colonel," Alex stated, "and I need to speak to him right away."
"Sorry, sir."
Alex fumed.
"Are you in trouble?" the other soldier asked. The first soldier glared at him.
"No," Alex replied, "but I could start some if it would help."
"This young man's with me," a booming voice announced behind the soldiers. They both stood up to acknowledge the big man in a buckskin duster.
"Sorry, marshal," the first soldier said. "I don't have Mister Vonn on my visitors list."
Alex stared at Redland. He hadn't recognized him without mud covering him from head to toe.
"Son, that's because he works for me," Redland gave the soldier his most disarming smile. "And I am on the list, is that right?"
"Yes, sir," the soldier said. His words sounded like an apology.
"Don't worry, it's alright. Come along, Alex," the marshal said. "The colonel is waitin’."
Once they were out of sight of the guards, Redland pulled Alex aside. "We better take an alternate route to the briefing room," he said. "If the colonel sees us in the hall, he might send you back out. Better if we sneak in through the back." With a wink, he led Alex down a side corridor.
Alex hadn't seen the corridor before, thinking at first it might be an entrance to the chapel. When he stepped over a threshold onto a well-kept carpet, he paused for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. A warm glow diffused throughout the room from filtered windows placed around the edges of the ceiling. Though it kept Alex and the marshal in near-darkness, it bathed the walls in a soft light that revealed hundreds of framed photographs. Some were official, showing different places and events, but most were of people taken in candid moments. He noticed a timeline running along the bottom of the collection, starting with a brass plate labeled ‘The Founding’.
Alex stared in disbelief. For the first time in his life, he saw an actual picture of the founding fleet. A large print framed in gold, it showed all six city-ships orbiting a gaseous blue planet. Around two of the ships, dozens of smaller vessels floated near open doorways. They were tiny compared to the city-ships, so Alex had to lean in close to make out their shapes. He realized they were the fleet's perimeter landing craft, which the colonists used to establish different outposts around Arion. One of them was still in use at the Upright Meadowlands, though for a much lesser purpose; it housed livestock. Alex bristled at the waste of such a technological accomplishment.
"Is that the Celeste?" Alex asked, pointing at one of the city ships.
"I suppose so," Redland answered. "And the other one would be the Nakajima. This is where they disbanded the fleet over Delphinus."
"What happened to the other four ships?" Alex asked.
"No idea," Redland shrugged. "It's all ancient history to me."
Alex moved quickly from one picture to the next. The photos chronicled the Founding of Arion, the establishment of Celestial City as the capital of the Plainsman Territory, and numerous events since that time. One picture showed how the Celeste looked on
the plateau before magnetic quakes took their toll on her. She sat, held up by a landing cradle on the unbroken plateau. She was a long, elliptically-shaped vessel with no definitive bridge or extended superstructures, smooth except for the navigational arrays that protruded along her length. There were two hulls; an upper and a lower one. Both were somewhat flattened, held apart by forces Alex did not understand. He saw no actual girders or cross-members connecting the two halves, so the upper part seemed to float above the lower, separated by a hundred meters of empty space. The only place the two hulls approached one another was in the gimbaled machinery surrounding the vortex drive. Itself built as a pair of opposing hemispheres, the drive sections did not touch one another, either. All Alex knew about the technology was that they created some kind of magnetic flow that allowed the ship to ride atop the fabric of space like skis gliding across snow. Since he had never seen snow up close, it was a difficult concept to understand. Seeing the vessel in its pristine condition boggled his mind. The Celeste's paint was still white with only minor discolorations, a testament to the Builders; these ships had crossed thousands of light years in only a decade's time. People looked like ants, bustling about beneath the hull as they unloaded their cargo. Alex wished he had lived at the time of the Founding, to see the stars and feel the incredible experience of traveling across the galaxy.
Alex continued looking at the images of history along the wall, and eventually found himself at the most recent pictures. He was standing at the end of the gallery when he caught sight of a caption that read "Governor Vonn decorates a young officer with the Award of Outstanding Service". In the picture, his father was pinning a medal on Colonel Seneca, who was only a captain at that time.
Alex had little memory of his father but recognized him instantly. "I guess I do look like him," he said. Then he saw his mother in the picture’s background. He couldn't see her face, as it was shielded by an oversized sun hat, but knew it was her.