Children of Zero

by Andrew Calhoun

  “Oh.” The younger Marine didn’t sound convinced. “Because you know Saeliko’s going after him, too, right? I’m not sure if you guys have noticed, but life around Saeliko is pretty painful. I’d rather not get stabbed anymore.”

  “Haley’s right,” Kettle told him. “We have to find Radovan.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s from Earth.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “You heard Saeliko’s speech before the Black Star found us, and you heard the reaction among her crew. The mushroom cloud, the radiation burns. Radovan Mozik set off a nuke. He has to be from Earth. No one from this world could create a nuclear weapon; they’re still using flintlock pistols.”

  “Okay, sure, I’ll buy that,” Soup admitted after ten or fifteen seconds thought, “but I also heard those women call him the Madman of Laventhene. That doesn’t sound promising. With my luck, he’ll probably stab me as well.”

  “Madman or not, he’s from Earth, which means there’s a chance he could get us home again.”

  “Or,” Haley interrupted, “at the very least he can give us some answers. After all this, that’s the least we deserve.”

  “That’s all just dandy,” Soup said, “but I feel like I’m the only one who sees the obvious problem with your plan. You and Saeliko are going after the same prize. Even if she were by herself and unarmed, which she’s not, I don’t think the four of us could take her in a fight.”

  “We might not have to,” Kettle offered. “Maybe Saeliko will let us talk to Radovan.”

  Soup let out a sarcastic chuckle. “Or she’ll decide she doesn’t need us anymore and try to kill us.”

  “My man has a point,” Dallas said, finally entering the discussion. “What happens then, Kettle?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Think about it, dipshit. Let’s say the harker wants to put a knife in Soup’s shoulder again, or maybe his heart or his face. What are you going to do about it? Are you just going to let it happen and say sorry again?”

  “No. Okay, I see your point. And you’re right. You’re completely right.”

  “I know I’m right.”

  “Learn to take a compliment.”

  “Bite me.”

  Kettle ignored him. “We need a plan, or at least a general idea of what we’re going to do when we find Radovan and Saeliko.”

  “Agreed,” Haley said.

  “So let’s think,” Kettle went on. “Saeliko is going to storm through Maglipan and start sticking that scimitar of hers into people until she figures out which one of them is Radovan. And she has to do it quickly because there’ll probably be seven or eight dozen Lavic pirates from the Black Star chasing her down before too long.”

  “We could use that to our advantage,” Soup pointed out. “We could try to make friendly with the Lavics. Join their team, so to speak. Then we’d have numbers on our side.”

  “I don’t think that’ll help us in the long run,” Kettle said. “The bigger problem is that Saeliko and the Lavics both want to use Radovan for their own interests. They’ll try to make him build a nuke for their own personal use. Or the Lavics might just want to just kill him for setting off a nuke on Lavic territory in the first place. Who knows. But they’re sure as hell not going to just hand him over to us so that he can escort us back to Earth, if that’s even possible.”

  “So what do we need to do?” Soup asked.

  “Rescue him,” Haley said.

  “That’s right,” Kettle agreed. “We need to liberate him. I mean, if you think about it, we actually have a moral obligation to rescue this guy. We blew his cover and brought two ships full of angry and excited pirates to his doorstep.”

  “Inadvertently,” Soup said.

  “Granted, but in hindsight, we shouldn’t have blabbed his name the first chance we got. Anyway, leaving ethics aside, the pilot on the plane wanted us to find Radovan Mozik, and there was probably a damn good reason for that. I’m guessing he would have told us that reason if it hadn’t been for the inconvenience of falling out of the sky and crashing into the sea.”

  “And dying.”

  “Yes, and dying. But given that he knew my name, and Haley’s name, I’m guessing he thought it pretty important that us two in particular found our way to Radovan’s doorstep. He had a purpose in getting us here, and if we don’t have Radovan to ourselves, we’ll probably never figure it out.”

  “I don’t think it was just the pilot,” Haley said.

  “What do you mean?” Kettle asked.

  “Okay, hear me out. I’ve been wondering about this for a while now, and I’m pretty confident that we’re part of a very big operation here. The more I think about it, the more I’m certain that you and I being on the same airplane together wasn’t a coincidence, which means that we were brought to Diego Garcia for a reason.”

  “But we weren’t brought to DG,” Kettle said. “I wasn’t, anyway. I came of my own volition.”

  “Really? You decided to isolate yourself on a dot on the Indian Ocean out of your own volition? Come on, why did you take that job?”

  “Well, okay, the three hundred percent rise in salary was a pretty big motivating factor. So you’re saying that someone lured me out to DG by offering me a bunch of money? That seems unlikely. There would have to be someone embedded in the US government with enough influence to dictate the distribution of contracts.”

  “I thought it was crazy at first, too,” Haley said, still walking forward through the water. They had almost reached the base of the waterfall and she was moving to the left side of the stream with the intention of finding the first rope ladder. “But Ockham’s razor and all that. The simplest explanation is the right one. There are just too many coincidences for there to have not been a conspiracy to put us together on that airplane. Think about it. The US and British governments suddenly change their mind about the ‘no civilians’ policy on DG and invite a bunch of ornithologists to come stay on the atoll. And then, once we’re both there, you get a sudden transfer order and I get a dodgy visa problem. Lo and behold, an unmarked airplane shows up.”

  “That would mean a whole group of powerful people manipulating things behind the scenes. That’s a bit into wacko Illuminati territory, don’t you think?”

  “Kettle, we’re not on Earth anymore. I think we’ve already gone through wacko territory and come out the other side.”

  “Touché.”

  “I think it’s not too far a stretch to imagine that someone planned this.”

  “All right, even if we were on that plane for a reason, why you and I? There’s nothing special about us; I manage waste and you study birds. It’s not like we’re titans of industry or great scientific minds. We’re not really Earth’s elite.”

  “That’s why we need to find Radovan,” Haley replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “Even if he can’t tell us how to get home again, he can at least tell us what’s going on.” She stopped at the base of the cliff and looked at the ladder bolted to the rock. “Soup are you going to be able to do this with one arm?”

  “I think so,” the younger Marine said, “but I’m not going to be very quick about it.”

  “Maybe we should split up,” Kettle suggested. “We need to find Radovan quickly, right? The longer we take to find him, the greater the chance Saeliko finds a way to get him off the Skag and leave us here to rot. Dallas, you stay with Soup and help him up. Haley and I will run ahead and scout out the situation.”

  “And what are you going to do after you ‘scout out the situation’?” Dallas asked.

  “No idea,” Kettle admitted. “Depends on what we find when we get to Maglipan. If we’re lucky, what’s left of the Epoch’s crew will be dealing with the Black Star’s crew, and we can grab Radovan when no one’s looking.”

  “Not bloody likely.”

  “Well, Dallas, if you’ve got a better plan, I’m all ears.”

  Instead of answering, Dallas shook his head, smiled and laughed.
r />   “What’s so funny,” Haley asked after letting him carry on for a while.

  “The irony, honey. This here is what we call an infiltration and extraction mission. Among the four of us, we’ve got two Marines who are trained for exactly these types of situations. Instead, we’re going to send the garbage man and the egghead.”

  “Well, when you put it . . .”

  “But no, I don’t have a better plan. First of all, I’m not leaving Soup behind. And second, Haley’s right; you’ve gone right through wacko territory and you’re not the same as you used to be. You aren’t United States Marines, but you’re not babies in a jungle, either. So you two go right on ahead. Scout it out for us and see if by some miracle you can find this Radovan bastard and pluck him out of the clutches of our Saffisheen friend. Then we’ll worry about getting off this island.”

  “Sound okay to you?” Kettle asked Haley, who in turn nodded and wordlessly began climbing the ladder. After ascending about fifteen feet, Kettle grabbed the rung in front of him and prepared to follow her. Then he paused and looked back at Dallas. “Hey,” he said.

  “What now, garbage man?”

  “I have a daughter.”

  “Good for you. What’s your point?”

  “I’ve never met her.” He turned away from the ladder and looked straight at Dallas. “I got a girl pregnant when I was nineteen. She was engaged to another guy, so I agreed to walk away and say the baby wasn’t mine. That was fifteen years ago, and that whole time, I was too much of a coward to track her down.

  “Then about three weeks before we got on that airplane in Diego Garcia, I got an email from a girl saying she was my daughter. She wanted to meet me, but for three entire weeks, I was too chicken shit to even reply. It took three whole weeks just to summon the courage to answer a fourteen-year-old looking for her father.”

  “Yeah, none of this is surprising,” Dallas remarked. “You’re an absolute tool. Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you were right about me. Everything you said when we were swimming to shore. You were completely right. I never own up to my mistakes. The more I screw up, the more I put the blame on fate and chance instead of trying to make it right. I’m a shit human being, Dallas. I screw up, say sorry, and then move on until I screw up again.”

  “I know. And now you’re probably going to tell me that you’re going to turn over a new leaf, right? That you’re going to change your ways and be a better man?”

  “Umm, yeah. That’s kind of what I was going for.”

  “Okay.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Okay.”

  “Yeah, ahh . . .”

  “Get the fuck on with it, garbage man. You can stand here and talk about it all you want, but nothing’s going to change until you actually do something about it. You can’t just talk the talk; you gotta start walking that fucking walk.”

  “I will.”

  “Good.”

  “Thanks, Dallas.”

  “Go.”

  Kettle nodded, but before he turned back to the ladder, he stuck his hand out. Dallas looked at it for a moment, rolled his eyes and then extended his own hand. The two men shook hands firmly, if not a bit awkwardly. Kettle nodded once more and let go.

  He was a good twenty feet up and moving quickly when he heard Dallas say, “Hey, Kettle.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Good luck, dipshit.”

  “Thanks.” He thought there might have been a hint of fondness in Dallas’ voice, though he might have been mistaken.

  Kettle hefted himself up the ladder as fast as he could without risking a fall in order to catch up with Haley, who was now well ahead of him. There was a point about half way up the cliff face, just before a decent-sized ledge, where he found blood stains on the rope and rock. He looked up in a moment of concern to see if Haley had had an accident, but she was still climbing steadily and without any signs of distress. He wondered whose blood it was, but there was no way to tell, so he put it to the back of his mind.

  After reaching the top of the final ladder, they saw a plateau full of loose rock and boulders, following a windy trail that eventually led toward a forest. They ran the trail. It wasn’t a jog; it was a full-out run with occasional leaps over the larger rocks that had tumbled onto the trail. Their pace continued unabated once they hit the tree line, winding their way through the woods.

  They only stopped when they came out of the trees and saw the village of Maglipan. At its edge, a group of about a hundred Lavic women stood with cutlasses and pistols in hand. An old woman with long grey hair and a cane – presumably a villager – was pointing toward the rocky hills that ran along the coast.

  Within moments, the pack of pirates began heading in that direction.

  “Well,” Haley said, still breathing heavily, “I guess we know which way Saeliko went.”

  4.5 SAELIKO

  “How is that even possible?” Brenna asked. They were marching up the trail to Radovan’s (Jaskin’s) house, re-entering clusters of the scraggly trees that made up what passed for forested land on the Skag, punctuated by great clumps of jagged rocks that reached skyward like fingers trying to pick at the clouds.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Saeliko responded.

  “Well it’s sure as shit curious. Never mind getting off a deserted island, how did they get here?”

  “Brenna, two things. One, if you wake up to find there’s a viper slithering in your bedsheets, you don’t spend the first few minutes of your day wondering how it got there. You get it out. There’ll be plenty of time for thinking after the deed is done. Two, this particular viper has had two full days to set traps on this trail, so I suggest you start focusing on the now rather than the past.”

  “We should’ve killed her when we had the chance.”

  “Yes, I’m acutely aware of that, thank you.”

  “Or at least cut off the other hand as well.”

  “Brenna?”

  “Aye?”

  “I’m going to cut off both of your hands if you keep talking.”

  The qarlden closed her mouth, allowing Saeliko to return all of her attention to the trail in front of them, but nugget of uncertainty had lodged itself in the back of her mind. The further up the trail they went, the larger that nugget grew. There should have been traps. Why are there no traps?

  Janx was Saffisheen, and the Saffisheen were trained in the art of killing. She knew how to collect venom from tree frogs and create hidden spike traps on forest floors. She knew how to rig a crossbow to autofire when a tripwire was triggered. She knew how to hide blade snares designed to mangle a woman’s lower legs and tendons. She knew a dozen other methods of hobbling an attacking force.

  Why are there no traps?

  She had to entertain the possibility that Janx had already taken Radovan off the island. Before heading up the trail, Saeliko had pressed the old grey-haired woman in Maglipan for information. Allegedly, a ship had dropped Janx and her companion off and sailed away within the hour, and the village elder had also asserted that after the two visitors headed up the trail to Jaskin’s house, they hadn’t returned, insinuating that they were still up there. However, Janx could have stolen one of the local fishing boats under the cover of darkness and taken her chances in the open seas. It would be a dangerous voyage, but not impossible.

  Saeliko doubted it. Janx would want revenge. She would need revenge. She would spend every waking moment plotting ways to carve Saeliko up into little pieces. She wouldn’t care that she had already claimed victory by reaching Radovan first. Radovan would be a side benefit to Janx, an ancillary bonus. No, Janx hadn’t left yet; she was still on the Skag.

  But why hadn’t she set any traps?

  It dawned on Saeliko that fate – not that she believed in such things – had reversed course. Back on Butterfly Island, Saeliko had set a trap for Janx, knowing full well that the time pressure prompted by the Epoch’s impending departure would force the deposed harker into launching an ill-advised a
ssault. Now, here on the Skag, it was Janx with the opportunity to lure Saeliko into peril’s gaping jaws against the backdrop of the impending pressure triggered by the Black Star’s crew. Janx had failed to see the trap on Butterfly Island, and Saeliko was increasingly worried that she was failing to see Janx’s trap.

  “Oh,” Jren said suddenly and pointed. “There it is.” The trail had popped them out onto an upward slanting plateau with a structure on the far side.

  Radovan’s house was impressive at first glance. A two-story cabin propped up on one side against a vertical karst formation and boasting a fenced off yard on the other side. A trio of goats chewed the clumps of grass in the yard, unaware the havoc that was about to descend on their scenic home. The backside of the cabin, which they could only see a portion of from the position of their arrival, had a veranda that was perched atop an apparent cliff that descended to the sea. The view was marvelous.

  All around the home were signs that its owner was indeed a lover of tinkering. A workbench sat squat outside the front door, tools and bits of wood and metal scattered here and there. An elaborate birdhouse with a blue shingled roof was perched atop a pole near the goat enclosure, and two more birdhouses had been nailed to nearby trees. The steps leading to the cabin’s front door were guarded on either side by blocks of wood sculpted into a pair of regal looking cats. There were also constructed devices whose purposes eluded easy detection. A small windmill had been built a good twenty paces away from the main house, but the mill’s spindle contained a half dozen gears of different sizes and two metal shafts running down and disappearing into a big wooden box. She had no idea what it was all for.

  None of this was of immediate interest to Saeliko. Her eyes took in all of the visual data and registered it in her brain, but the heart of her attention was centered on the man standing next to the goat enclosure. He was staring right back at Saeliko and her fifteen-woman crew.

  “Fuck me,” Brenna mumbled in surprise.

  His floppy mane of hair fluttered gently in the breeze coming off the ocean, but otherwise he stood still. His right hand held a bucket; it looked like he had been getting ready to milk the goats. His left hand, of course, was gone.