by S. J. Madill
Zura straightened her bare legs out on the bed; her right knee stabbed her with a spike of pain, causing her to take a sharp breath through her teeth. Both hands went to her knee, feeling the familiar scars under her fingertips as she massaged the throbbing joint. "'Nsal 'neth," she hissed.
The stupid story she'd been reading seemed far away now. Nothing worked like pain to bring a wandering mind back to the present.
Muffled through the walls of the module, she could hear the sound of her shuttle taking off. The incoming vessel was intending to land on the colony's only pad; human-built machine intelligence had come a long way, but machine-guided ships still had a tendency to bump into things.
Zura swung her legs out over the side of the bed, gingerly rising to her feet and heading to the closet.
The first few days on the colony had been busy enough. Every human who had an agenda strong enough to overpower their fear had come to speak with her. Or, in some cases, speak at her. But now, everyone who had wanted to speak with her — who just wanted to get a close look at her — had done so. When she had gone outside today, to enjoy her coldsuit-encased walk around the colony, only two of the humans had spoken to her at all. One was the doctor, who greeted her in passing, and the other was Councillor Miller, who had again tried to remind her to 'be more social'."
Zura pulled on her breeches over her undersuit, then stepped into her boots. They silently sealed themselves around her feet and legs.
The novelty was over, she expected. The humans were back into their routines, and she was just another piece of furniture in their lives. A piece of furniture they didn't want, and couldn't get rid of.
She put on her uniform coat, fastening the belt as the coat's seams pulled together. She'd slid into a routine of her own. Her life was about routine, and moving to a new colony was only a slight adjustment. Daily reports with Captain Upara. Reviewing any detected intrusions into grave-world systems. Setting patrol routes for the three ships in her squadron. Then, the rest of the day busying herself with the endless administration tasks of managing 1746 uninhabited star systems. Mostly uninhabited, she corrected herself.
Fastening her gold chain at her neck, Zura grabbed her gloves and headed across the apartment, through the sitting area and out the door. Taking a deep breath, she started down the stairs, leaning on the railing with every other step. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, the front door opened for her and she stepped through.
Night had turned the world into a shade of the deepest blue. The small moon was full, its scarred grey face brilliant white with reflected sunlight. Deep black shadows hid behind the residential modules. Overhead, the broad carpet of stars covered the sky, and the galaxy's thin glow stretched up from the horizon. The humans called it the 'Milky Way', which seemed curious. Her own people had long known it as Iyel Yaal Putama, the 'Realm of the Gods'. A home for the Divines, woven from the stars themselves.
Down at the distant landing pad, shadows were moving around the landed ship. Zura stood quietly and waited. Before long, a group of people started making their way up the hill together. They were talking in quiet voices, carrying someone on a stretcher. Someone small.
The shadows resolved into individual people: Roche, Miller, and two colonists she didn't recognise. Doctor Singh was walking alongside, holding some device over the patient. They approached the stairs to Singh's clinic, awkwardly jostling to ascend the narrow stairs together while holding the small body laid out between them.
Singh held back while the other four carried the stretcher in through the door. "Thanks for the heads-up, General."
Zura nodded. "Kahala Hila has a medical team ready. Do you need them?"
"Not unless they can raise the dead," said Singh, her face grim. "Three dead, one survivor."
"Understood," said Zura. She felt she should say something more. "Sorry to hear it."
"Yeah," replied Singh, who then disappeared into her module.
Leaning on the railing, Zura descended the steps to the ground. As the silent soldier fell in behind her, she set off down the hill in the direction of the landing pad.
* * *
The small human vessel had landed perfectly in the middle of the pad. It was an older model, squat and round, its once-red paint long since faded. Markings had been repainted on the hull — by hand, it seemed. The engines had recently shut down, and ticked loudly as they cooled.
The side hatch was open — it folded down to become stairs — and wisps of fog curled out through the opening.
Standing next to the hatch was one of her other soldiers — Antur — with his weapon on his back. He came to attention, giving a sharp bow of his head as Zura approached. "Mahasa. The ship is secure and shut down. Squad Leader Pelaa is inside."
"La," replied Zura. She approached the stairs, grabbing the external bars and climbing up the steps. Even through her gloves, the bars were very cold.
The air inside the vessel's cramped interior was below freezing; when Zura exhaled, she could see her breath.
Cold water dripped onto her head from above, making her shudder involuntarily as it ran across her scalp and down the back of her neck. The interior of the ship was covered in a thin layer of frost on every surface, and it was starting to melt. The sound of dripping water was the only sound inside the ship.
To her left was the cockpit. Pelaa was inside, standing between the two seats. The windows were iced over; a body was slumped in the left-hand seat, dusted white with frost.
Pelaa saw her and came to attention. "Mahasa." He gestured at the small console on the left wrist of his armour. "Telemetry says the vessel lost life support at the same time as other failures. The pilot engaged the autopilot before freezing to death."
"La," grunted Zura. "Any logs? Any indication why the pilot didn't change course and land elsewhere?"
Pelaa shook his head. "Unknown, Mahasa. I am still trying to access the computer."
"No secondary heating? No use of reactor heat?"
"Mahasa, the secondary heating appears to have failed. Reactor heat diversion also appears to have failed."
Zura just nodded. Turning aft, she had to shuffle sideways down the narrow passageway. On both walls, the coating of frost had begun to melt. Droplets of water trickled down the panels and across antique equipment. Cold water continued to drip on her head, and was pooling on the deck plating underfoot.
A small opening to one side led to a cramped kitchen space. Another hatch lay open across from it, a toilet within. She continued aft.
Farther back, the air was noticeably colder; the night's warmer air hadn't come this far in. The sound of dripping water was accompanied by the ticking of the engines outside the hull.
Behind her, a small cabin with a tiny bed attached to the wall. The sheets were missing from the bed.
Ahead of her, an identical cabin. Zura slid the half-open door the rest of the way open.
On the floor, a body reached up toward her. No, she corrected herself: two bodies, frozen together. The two were on their backs, one beneath the other. The bottom one was embracing the top one, and the top one had its arms partly outstretched, elbows bent as if it had been supporting its own weight.
Zura looked at the wall. Another tiny bed: empty. A mound of tangled blankets were pulled aside. Some were frozen, covered in frost; others appeared cold, but not frozen. Numerous small white discs were scattered around the empty bed.
Pelaa appeared in the passageway outside. "The survivor was found in the bed, Mahasa. Covered in blankets and those heat-emitting chemical discs." He pointed at the frozen bodies. "Those two were on top of the survivor. They had to be pulled off before the child could be removed."
Zura didn't look up. "Child?"
"Yes, Mahasa. A child was the only survivor."
"La." She knelt in front of the frozen bodies. "So," she whispered, looking at the woman's frost-covered face. "You died to protect your child, then?" Despite all their many glaring faults, humans cherished their children.
Her people, who no longer had children, could only try to empathise. "Well done."
"Mahasa?"
Zura stood up, straightening her uniform. "Nothing," she said. "Don't interfere with anything. We'll let the humans deal with this according to their customs."
Pelaa ducked aside as Zura entered the passageway. "Yes, Mahasa. We will render assistance if requested. Which beliefs do these humans follow? They have so many."
Zura kept moving down the passageway. "They all serve the same function, Pelaa. Trying to make sense out of things like this."
Chapter Nine
Rain was a mystery to her. Zura knew what it was; she understood the concepts of evaporation, and clouds, and precipitation. She'd walked in the rain, slept in it, fought in it, bled in it. But it was still a foreign thing. Back when she'd lived on arid Tal Minda — up until she was eight — she'd never once seen rain. Occasional snows had dusted their small village, but never rain. On Tal Minda, water was a precious resource and was carefully managed. Despite all her years, there was still something alien about water falling from the sky. Alien enough to keep her looking out her office window long after her morning's tedium had finished. When the rain began to taper off, she got up and headed to the front door.
The outside temperature was 11C. A day without the coldsuit was a small victory to be relished. Zura tugged on her uniform coat to straighten it, her chain and decorations jingling, and stepped outside.
She stood on the tiny landing outside her door, at the top of the stairs, and breathed deeply. The smell of the sea, and of wet ground, filled her senses. Even the sounds were different, changed by the damp ground and wet structures.
A short distance away, Doctor Singh was on her own landing, leaning against the front of her module, arms crossed over her chest. She saw Zura looking, and raised one hand in a tired wave. "Good morning, General."
"Huh," grunted Zura. "You humans always say that. How do you know it is a good morning?"
Singh just shrugged. "We hope it is."
Hope. "Is the child alive?"
"She is. Lower body temperature kept her alive. She's a hybrid, General. Said she grew up in a Palani orphanage; just got adopted two weeks ago. Now she's an orphan again."
"Unfortunate," said Zura. She started down the stairs to the ground, hand on the rail, wincing at the tiny stab of pain with each step.
"General? Come over some time, and let me look at that knee."
"Perhaps some day, Doctor," Zura called back. Teams of Palani surgeons had made multiple attempts; it was unlikely a human doctor on a remote world would have anything to offer.
"Let me know if you change your mind, General."
"Yes, Doctor," sighed Zura, fighting the sudden urge to snap back at her. She turned and started walking up the gentle slope, inland and away from the colony. Without a word, the armoured soldier took up a position a few paces behind.
Zura passed by the silent defensive turret, up over the ridge to the west where the trees began. Underfoot, the rain-soaked ground was already drying. Moving through the sparse red grasses, the leaves flicked water up on her boots and breeches, where it beaded up and slid back down to the ground. As she walked, her silent shadow was never more than a few steps behind.
She reached the top of the ridge, and turned to look back. The hills fell gently away toward the sea, with the colony nestled in the last flat plain before the cliffs. Rolling hills were covered in a thin carpet of red fuzz, that shimmered as it was moved by the breeze. To her left and right, the line of cliffs extended into the distance, and beyond was the sea. The dark, swelling sea, infinite and full of menace.
Zura turned around, her back to the colony, and looked over the ridge to the west. The ground swept down into a broad valley, before beginning the long, steep rise up to the tall hills of the island's windswept spine.
In the valley, the old roadway curved up from the south, headed north toward the cratered remains of the city of En-Insille.
To one side of her, the past: cracked and abandoned. To the other side, the future: disorganised and uncertain, full of humans and hybrids.
Hybrids. That's what the mighty Palani had been reduced to. The Temple's centuries of genetic meddling had let them approach perfection — to defeat death itself — but had left them sterile. Saved, ironically, by another of the Temple's grand scams: the 'Prophet', a perfect Palani cobbled together from the DNA of ancient saints. A few short clips of human DNA had made the test-tube prophet viable, and fertile. In their stupidity, the Temple had stumbled upon salvation. In order to avoid becoming extinct, the Palani would instead become impure.
The Temple-created Prophet had mated with a human woman, creating the first hybrid child. Once the Temple had realised the child was a success, they'd embraced her. Called her the 'First Child', and made her a Pentarch. Temple laboratories began brewing up hybrids as fast as they could. The best results were quickly adopted by grateful Palani, able to realise their dreams after centuries of frustration and disappointment.
The less Palani-like hybrids were made available to human families to adopt. Hailed as marvels, celebrated as living examples of Palani/Human oneness. A convenient way to dispose of the less racially pure. As if that sort of thing could be — what did the humans say? — 'swept under the rug' forever.
Such was the future of her people. Either that, or fade into extinction, leaving more empty roads and abandoned towns. Silent ruins to speak of what once was.
Something caught Zura's eye. A straight line in the grass. Nature abhorred straight lines and square corners. She walked along the edge of the ridge, her gaze down toward the ground.
Fifty metres from where she'd crested the ridge, she found it: a perfect half-metre square of crushed grass and pressed-down ground. Two more such squares were nearby, arranged in a perfect triangle.
"Antur," she said aloud.
The armoured soldier stepped nearer. "Mahasa?"
"Mark this location on the map. Landing site of a small craft." She sucked at her lower lip, forming an estimate in her mind. "By the landing gear, maybe a human 'North Star' class." She knelt down, leaning her weight on her good leg. Reaching out with one hand, she nudged at the crushed plants. There was the hint of new growth where the leaves had been folded. "One to two weeks ago, I estimate."
"Yes, Mahasa."
"La," she muttered, shoving on her good knee to get back up. Even so, she was rewarded with enough of a stab of pain to make her take a sharp breath.
"Are you injured, Mahasa?"
"No," she replied testily. It was irritating to be constantly asked about the same thing. Mostly, she was irritated that she'd let it show.
With a touch of her gloved fingers, her uniform coat unfastened itself. Zura unclipped her chain, taking off her coat and carefully folding it. Underneath, she wore the short-sleeved top of her undersuit. It was snug, but it stretched and breathed. The cold breeze washed over her skin like a winter's day, making the skin tingle on her bare arms. At last she was outside, in the open air, with no coldsuit. She wanted to make the day last as long as she could.
"Here," she said, handing her coat to the soldier. "Put this in your pack. Set your armour to camouflage mode. I don't want to see or hear you." Zura looked at the distant road in the valley, stretching off to the north. "I want to be alone."
"Yes, Mahasa."
The soldier poked at the controls on his left wrist. The white-and-blue images on his armour plates shimmered, the solid colours fading away and being replaced by grey rocks covered in a fuzz of red grass. Looking down, Zura could see the valley on Antur's legs. The line of the distant roadway ran across his calves.
"La," she said, and started walking over the back edge of the ridge and down the slope toward the valley beyond. The armoured soldier faded into the background. Even if Zura knew Antur was there, somewhere nearby, she could feel alone. Just her, and the wind and the hills and the trees.
In her mind, she could remember driving this very road. Ju
st her and two other cadets, headed to the seaside to relax. Long ago, back when they still had a future.
* * *
She'd turned back a little earlier than expected. In the distance she'd seen the ruins of a small seaside villa, but the day was getting warmer. By the time she'd come back up the cracked and abandoned roadway, she was sweating and feeling lightheaded. The gathering clouds came as a relief.
For all the centuries of abandonment, the roadway was in good shape. She wondered if the seaside villa might be in similar condition, and determined to make it there on some future outing. She could see the colours on the ground near the villa: the blues and yellows of Palani crops, long since grown wild.
Zura climbed the ridge, coming up behind the turret. The pain in her knee had subsided, replaced by a throbbing ache that was easier to ignore. She expected she'd pay dearly tomorrow for overusing it today.
A few tentative drops of rain fell as she reached the top of the ridge. The droplets trickled down through her hair, their coolness making her scalp tingle.
Through the walls of the turret building, Zura could hear something thumping. It was regular, like an unbalanced wheel. As she walked around the side of the building, the noise intensified. She could make out other noises, like someone angry shouting in time with the thumping. She couldn't see her camouflaged soldier, but knew he was somewhere nearby. Motioning for him to come closer, Zura soon heard footsteps on the broken ground behind her.
Reaching the front of the structure, the noise was louder still. It sounded like someone was wringing out a shrieking vanara, yelling angrily about it as they did.
She stepped into the doorway, and saw Roche sitting at a workbench. He was hunched over a disassembled mess of parts, nodding his head in time with the sounds of some animal's distressed wailing.