The instant he did, four of the six seers standing behind Dehgoies dragged him roughly backwards, thrusting him behind them as they stepped forward, guns raised, forming an uncompromising wall. They aimed their guns expertly, covering the entire clearing, and I couldn’t help but be impressed with their reaction times, as well as the shield they threw up around Dehgoies’ light, blocking him from all of us, but especially from Terian himself.
The moment had passed.
They wouldn’t let anyone in our group get that close to the ex-Org operative again.
I found myself thinking that was the last time they would let Dehgoies play the role of diplomat where Org agents were involved at all.
Terian himself barely seemed to notice.
I watched as the auburn-haired seer sheathed the knife he gripped in one hand, leaving it bloody as he shoved it back into place at the small of his back. Terian’s jaw remained hard as he turned away from Dehgoies and the other six Adhipan seers entirely.
When he next spoke, he didn’t turn his head. Even so, I and everyone standing there knew his words were aimed at Dehgoies, even before he said his name.
By then, the Adhipan seers were moving backwards in a silent, synchronized set of movements. Dehgoies was being disappeared into the shadows of the trees that stood outside the dual rings of greenish light thrown by the sparking yissos.
“We’ll meet again, Revi’,” Terian said, still facing the opposite way. “You know we will. In this life… or the next.”
My eyes darted to Dehgoies, who had a pale, long-fingered hand pressed to the cut on his throat. His eyes looked cold once more, angry, but he didn’t answer Terian at first. He’d already finished re-buckling his belt by the time he allowed himself to be led into the dark by his armed escorts.
Just when I thought he wouldn’t speak at all, Dehgoies raised his voice.
“Stay the fuck away from her, Terry… and me,” he said. “The next time I see you, I’ll kill you. Penance or no, I’ll fucking kill you, Terry, if you come near me or mine again. Assuming your precious ‘Org’ doesn’t do it for me.”
Terian smiled at that, turning his head.
But Dehgoies, along with his Adhipan escort… was already gone.
I thought that was the end of it.
I was already lowering my gun, exhaling.
I was already thinking about how soon we would be picked up, whether they would return us to Guoreum first, or take us straight to Manaus, or Bogata… or even Rio.
I heard the retreating footsteps grow faint as the Adhipan and Dehgoies must have broken into a run once they reached the furthest edges of our clearing.
My light had already started to cycle down, to pull itself off of high alert.
Therefore, I flinched as violently as the rest of them when a shot rang out in our small clearing.
I barely registered who’d pulled the trigger until it was over.
I saw it happen, though.
I was staring straight at Terian’s profile when the bullet from Varlan’s rifle blew out the back of Terian’s skull only a few yards away from where I stood.
I leapt back, crying out in shock.
My aleimic light coiled out in a hard arc, densifying into a shield separate from the construct over our strike team. I reacted in pure reflex, shock pooling in my gut, tightening every muscle in my chest. I sent up a flare, alerting the infiltrators back at Central to the danger, as well as those at the work camp outside Manaus.
I did all of that, even as I swung my own rifle back up, aiming it at the tall, violet-eyed seer who stood there, his long, antique-looking rifle still smoking in the stark light of the yellow-tinted yissos that surrounded where we stood.
Varlan didn’t move, though.
He just stood there, his violet eyes calm, but holding a dense vibration of silver light, light that even I recognized as Galaith’s, if only because that same frequency had been all over Dehgoies’ light, only a few moments before.
I imagined I saw regret there, too.
Or maybe I felt that from the silver light as well.
Then my eyes shifted downwards, taking in the sight of Terian crumpled on the jungle floor. Somewhere in that, the reality of all those images and sounds met in the forward area of my mind, and I suddenly understood what I was seeing.
I screamed in disbelief, lurching towards the seer’s broken body, the face now flecked with blood and bone chips and brain matter…
…but I was already too late.
Terian lay motionless on that dark earth.
Well, not motionless entirely.
He lay there, his irises flattening rapidly, his light lifting up from a body that I had only just begun to get to know. I watched that body twitch as it bled out, as those eyes lost more and more of their light, as the handsome face went slack, not even holding surprise anymore, or that sharper thread of anger, confusion and grief.
The rest of my pod stood silently with me, among the ferns and clumped grasses.
I could barely see them, though, or feel them with my light.
I could only stand there, watching in disbelief, as Terian breathed his last.
Seventeen
The Stars At Night
An unnamed beach
Cabo San Lucas
Baja California, Mexico
April 27, 1954
The cold woke him, leaving him shivering under the salt-smelling wind.
He stared up at a moonless night sky, at a wash of stars so vibrant, so dense, their beauty caught his breath. His back lay on a bed of blankets and sand, his mouth tasting of an unpleasant mix of three kinds of alcohol, salsa, chocolate, refried beans, fried fish, stale hiri.
He lay there, swallowing to clear that taste, listening to the sound of waves rolling up the sand, extending his aleimic light to the land around him.
Immediately, aleimic light grew brighter behind his eyes.
He felt the stars, the wind, the clouds… crabs in the rocks and sand, sleepy birds perched and huddled on the cliffs, fish dozing as they were pulled to and fro by the waves, grasses and trees ruffled by the cold wind.
Up above, he felt houses and humans, village fishermen and their wives asleep in their beds, their children in nearby rooms, their dogs, goats, cats, chickens, and horses dozing and prowling and sleeping and hunting outside.
Then the wind shifted and he smelled it.
A wafting cloud from a hiri stick, coming from somewhere much closer.
Before he could turn to look, fingers slid into his hair, caressing and pulling through the strands, pausing to rub his scalp with gentle, firm strokes.
The other male’s touch soothed him, closing his eyes.
“Are you cold, brother?” a voice murmured.
The voice was deep, with a German accent.
Terian shivered, as much from what he heard in that voice as the night air.
“Come here,” the other coaxed, soft.
Terian barely hesitated.
Sitting up, he slid further up the blanket, climbing halfway into the other seer’s lap.
Strong arms wrapped around him, cradling him up against a broader chest than his, pulling him into the curve of his body. He waited for Terian to find a comfortable position, and then, once he was situated, Dehgoies drew a coarse, woven, thick, Mexican blanket around his shoulders and back.
Terian snuggled deeper against that larger body, breathing him in and exhaling when the other male settled more comfortably in his seat, wrapping his arm tighter around Terian’s back.
“Better?” that deep voice said, soft.
Terian nodded, exhaling in a sigh. “Much.”
For a long time, they just lay there.
Dehgoies continued to smoke, his breaths making slow, lazy, sweet-smelling clouds in the night air.
Rather than try to go back to sleep, Terian arranged his head on that broad chest, gazing up at the night sky, now that he could look at it from a position of warmth and comfort.
He d
idn’t want the moment to end.
It was so new still, this thing with them.
It was so very, very new.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Dehgoies commented.
Terian glanced up, and saw Dehgoies staring up at the same stretch of night sky.
Looking at that angular face, at the glass-like eyes reflecting starlight, the narrow mouth pausing long enough to take a drag off the hiri, Terian nodded.
His eyes never left the other male’s face.
“Yes, brother,” he murmured. “Yes… it is beautiful indeed.”
Eighteen
For The Good Of The Race
Adult Pens, East Paddock
Parvat Shikhar Work Camp
The Kingdom of Sikkim, Northern India
March 13, 1979
I stood at the edge of a teeming crowd, in a different work camp, in another part of the world.
Months had passed since I left South America.
I ran my own pod now.
Even so, I hadn’t been to a work camp since that time, and some part of my light recoiled at being in one now.
I’d done everything I could to get that taste out of my mouth, to forget those scenes burned into my brain from that jungle north of Manaus, but somehow, the scents lingered, cloying, impossible to untangle.
I dreamt of Terian’s hands on me, his mouth, his light.
I imagined I could even feel that light at times––on the very edges of the network while I hunted, woven into mine when I woke up with an erection, in the lingering light-resonances of my dreams.
I could still taste his light.
I could still sense it somehow, along with Dehgoies’, resonating at those higher-level frequencies, twisting through regions of the Barrier I couldn’t consciously see.
Pushing both of them from my mind, I felt my jaw harden.
I focused on the scene in front of me.
Unwashed bodies slammed up against the chain-link fence, shouting, wearing worn furs and sheepskin vests and in some cases not even that much.
I’d seen females who were as good as naked, countless scarecrows of all ages and sexes wearing little more than cotton trousers and shirts despite the snow and frozen earth. They shivered without shoes, huddled in groups like animals inside windowless shelters on the other side of the wide exercise yard of frozen, bare, black earth.
Some talked or bartered their way indoors to the heated housing units, I knew, to keep the guards warm at night, along with themselves. Some of the more attractive camp rats, male and female, found their way into officer’s quarters, as well, where they were fed on officers’ scraps, clothed with castaway clothes, even showered and allowed to stay through the warmer days.
Some were bought or freed outright for such services, especially if they latched onto a seer with enough power to bend the rules.
Most, however, did not have this luxury.
Most fended for themselves and one another via body heat and less savory forms of trade.
I knew all this. No part of the reality here was new to me in any way, but for some reason, it bothered me more now.
Maybe I was having a harder time believing the “work camp” euphemism, as opposed to what it really was––a slave auction and holding center, and for the Org, a means of recruitment, extraction, even medical experimentation.
They were concentration camps. They weren’t much different from what the German humans did to us in the war––and to members of their own species.
Varlan was right; we were all responsible.
The crowd shrieked louder as I frowned at the beleaguered fence.
Their voices shouted at me, spewing insults that blurred to noise. They continued to threaten and cajole in my direction until a sudden panic at one end of the fence had them scattering like flightless birds.
I turned in time to see one of the guards tasering bodies and exposed skin with a long-handled prod through the holes in the fence.
Exhaling a cloud of steamed breath, I glanced up at the snow-covered peak in the distance, frowning at the glare of sunlight glinting like diamonds just above, even as the UV protection of my goggles kicked in, shading that glare through a polarized lens that saved my eyes.
This place reminded me of Candar, another of these mountain prisons.
I blew on my gloved hands.
The snow and ice had gotten worse in this part of the world as the climate patterns shifted. Most of the world had gotten hotter, but not these mountain ranges attached to the Himalayas, whether on the Western or Eastern edges of Asia. They’d turned into frozen deserts, dry but colder than the coldest hells, and with even less to eat.
Where I was now was practically part of Tibet, just east of Nepal.
The land here was pretty––I suppose that was something.
The sky shone a crystalline blue when I crawled out of the jump seat that morning, and I couldn’t help taking deep breaths as I stood there, relieved to be out of the crowded and dusty cities for a change. We’d spent the last six months quelling unrest in Mumbai and then Cairo, where race riots raged around some bullshit prophecy being put forth by a new group of Mythers who called themselves “Evolutionists.”
Everyone seemed to be talking about intermediaries these days.
That was especially true of those who awaited the return of the Bridge, the one said to end the human dominion over Earth.
Grimacing as the thought brought back flashes of Terian and Dehgoies, I pushed it aside, scowling at the unrest that continued at the fence.
Up here, the religious fanatics called themselves “The Rebellion.”
We were told Galaith worried this new cult was recruiting––and spreading––which is part of why my pod was sent here.
They’d been experiencing sustained and methodical construct and perimeter breaches over the past two weeks. Those breaches had been causing unrest in the stock, but most of the internal problems struck me as less about politics and more to do with food shortages and not enough blankets to go around.
Unrest always seemed to worsen once the weather began to improve; in the winter, everyone was too focused on just staying alive.
The guards told me they’d caught a number of would-be rebels up in the mountains a few weeks back, and locked them in the paddocks with the other political prisoners. They thought it likely that the problems stemmed from their comrades trying to free them, in part by cracking the construct periodically and inciting violence from within.
The seer guards also feared the imprisoned rebels were taking the opportunity to recruit new members from among the other sight-ranked prisoners.
So yes, a potential disaster could be in the works here, if they didn’t find the agitators and quell the unrest before it got out of hand.
Really, I blamed the administrators here for not isolating the rebels from the beginning, and for scrimping on food rations because they enjoyed their kickbacks and skimming more than they did their peace of mind… or their karmic health.
In fact, I pretty much placed the blame squarely on a handful of greedy hunters and slavers who appeared to be working the camps on the fringes, trolling for their own stock and recruits while paying off the local guards.
I knew exactly what those fuckers had been doing up in rebel territory.
They’d been trying to pull a few extra commissions to fatten their coffers by dragging in ranked stock. I couldn’t exactly blame the rebels for fighting back, or for wanting payback in blood.
Fucking slavers didn’t give a damn about anything.
The Wvercian scum who dominated the slave trade in this part of the world were the worst of the lot.
The rebels had grown increasingly bold, anyway. Between them and the Mythers, the fringe elements seemed significantly better organized of late. They also seemed better equipped, better funded… and, yes… increasingly bold.
According to the official briefing I got, Galaith wanted the rebels placated, not hunted or wiped out. He wanted m
e to identify all of those who remained imprisoned at the camp, and release them as soon as possible. The rumor was, he’d been in negotiation with the leader of the Rebellion off and on for years, and was trying to keep those relations civil.
I understood that.
In theory at least, we were all on the same side.
Galaith had a talent for keeping the wackos and extremists appeased in general, but lately, I wondered if it would be enough.
“Over here!” Cat called, jerking my eyes and head to the right.
I wondered why she hadn’t used the Barrier.
Then I felt it.
Whoever was helping to incite the riot within the camp walls had breached the construct again. Cursing, I began walking towards Cat’s side of the fence.
Cat was my second-in-command.
Sight rank 8.6, potential.
6.9 in actual.
She was good with a gun, too, and had a natural affinity for tactical.
Spoke at least six human languages. Could pass as human with contacts. I also checked IQ scores, and Cat had been the clear front-runner. She’d clocked nearly twice as much time in the field as the next runner up, despite her relatively young age of 175 years.
Frowning, she pinged my light, pointing at the upper fences.
Outside the main perimeter, those fences were electrified and had razor-wire above and below to discourage tunneling or climbing in the event of a power outage––which wasn’t likely anyway, given the number of back-up generators, or the fact that the generators themselves were protected by razor wire and high-voltage fencing, in addition to land mines and a number of traps, including live-capture variants.
I could feel what Cat wanted me to look at, though.
The construct had a line to it.
Even as I focused on it, it vanished.
The construct here was more than decent, maintained remotely by a cadre of Black Arrow infiltrators. The Barrier defenses were dense, multilayered, and filled with a number of dump-trips that could down a full-grown seer instantaneously by flooding their structures with toxic frequencies of light.
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