The Return of the Grey

by Robert Lee Henry

  The last sentence was a lie. He had never stopped caring. They had been his first friends in this strange new life. Exile from all that he had known before. Service until death. Pretty grim when you thought of it yet they had made it worthwhile. Rich even. Friends, reputation and if you were lucky a good story when you died. That’s all you could achieve here but it was enough. His friends’ story was magnificent and Trahern had brought it back, given it life.

  He found that he liked the Grey, more than that, he felt bonded to him. That was what Celene had warned him about. The odds were stacked against Trahern. One way or the other, he would probably be broken. Worst was, he didn’t seem to care.

  Tollen looked up at the Box. Trahern did not know why he was still alive. That was a bad question to take into the Box. The Box could sort that one out for you real quick.

  Something hit him on the shoulder. He jumped. A rock? Sure enough, there was Tracka-dan by his fence. Long throw for an old man. But the old man wasn’t jumping about or laughing. He just kept repeating a pointing motion. At Tollen’s feet. The rock, okay, I'll get the rock. He picked it up and mimed giving it back but this only resulted in a disgusted shake of the head and more pointing. Oh, you want me to keep the rock. Okay, I’m keeping the rock. With exaggerated care he put the rock in his pocket.

  The old cadreman shook his head and walked back into his yard.

  Tollen spotted the squad and picked a new line to meet them before the Box. I hope I don’t get as foolish as that when I get old, he thought.

  He received a few apprehensive looks when he joined the squad. He’d set them off at a trot and their pace was well below that now. They’d slowed for the burdened man who was labouring. It was a long way to carry a man, let alone trot. Tollen got more worried looks when he called a halt. The one carrying the injured man dropped to his knees, two marines close by his side catching his comrade as he went down.

  ‘You’re slow. Now we’ll have to run it in.’ His words drew a gasp from the exhausted marine and a growl from the rest of the squad. The squad leader started to square up in front of him. That motion and angry words from the others died as Tollen swung the injured man up onto his own back. ‘Peg, you keep both your legs out of my face or your bad one will be your good one. Got that?’ Stepping clear and shrugging to settle his load, he continued. ‘A man on either side of Sunny. Rotate as you tire.’ To the amazed marine on the ground he said, ‘Sling your weapon. Run your hand through the shoulder strap of the man on each side. Do you want someone to take your pack?’

  ‘If you can run all the way in with him on your back, I can carry my pack.’

  ‘That’s the spirit.’ To the whole squad Tollen said, ‘Straight past the Box. Let’s let them know we’re coming.’

  *

  Mike’s eyes opened when he heard the song. He was sitting with his back against the wall next to the door on the north side of the Box. The metal was warn and helped to ease the ache in his shoulders. His bones were fine. Aesca had done a good job on them. All the pins were out and the grafts grown over. ‘Stronger than before,’ she told him. But he had lost muscle tone during the healing and he had been working hard since to regain his strength. Big men have to be strong. Everyone expects it of them. Big men are strong, small men are fast. Thinking of fast he looked for his friend.

  Gati leaned against the wall a few paces away with his usual boneless ease but the tilt of his head, ear up to follow the sound, betrayed his alertness. The marines soon came past; Tollen, with a man on his back, bawling out an old marching song, the rest of the squad on the chorus.

  ‘I thought he was supposed to be training them,’ commented Gati as the squad faded into the distance.

  ‘He’s having fun,’ said Mike.

  ‘A couple of them didn’t look too good,’ said Gati

  ‘Better to learn some lessons down here,’ said Mike.

  The two men were silent for a while.

  ‘Must be a good squad for Tollen to be in amongst them like that,’ said Mike. Mike had not been assigned to a squad for some time. He missed the tight camaraderie. Marine command had been rotating him through all the units, short assignments, just long enough to become familiar with the specialties but not to become a regular part of the teams. He knew what they were up to, either a transfer to training, like Tollen, or a shift into command itself. He was not sure he was ready, or ever would be, for the latter. He had enough trouble looking after Gati and Trahern. A marine looking after a cadre, now there is something new. A cadre of only two men, another first for Base. Getting Gati to join up had been a good move, about the best thing Quartermaine could have done for Trahern, maybe the only thing.

  A clang from the end of the building drew his attention.

  ‘Do they remind you of vultures?’ asked Gati. ‘They remind me of vultures, flapping about in that black.’ He pushed off the wall to stare at the collection of caretakers at the far corner. Mike leaned out to look around his legs. The caretakers weren’t flapping about now, they were dead still, staring back at the two by the door.

  ‘They look like something from the Rim to me,’ said Mike. ‘I wouldn’t leave my back to them.’

  He and Gati had walked out to the Box before dawn and settled by the door. The caretakers had come around the corner at first light with their grav work platforms but stopped suddenly on seeing them. The caretakers had come no further since. There had been a lot of ducking around the corner, and some muted argument on and off through the morning, but no approach.

  Although Gati was the one glaring, Mike was the one concerned. The caretakers repaired sensors, retrieved beams and sometimes bodies. They worked in the Box between tests, with special lights and eye shields to isolate them from the patterns. The work was light and the crews rotated through this duty were made up of disabled or recovering cadremen and soldiers. This raggy black they were wearing was new, though, at least in his recollection. He was surprised that they hadn’t been called up on it. And he was positive that no one was allowed in the Box during a test. This lot sure looked like they were headed for the inside this morning. A good thing that Gati was with him because he had decided early he wasn’t going to let them in. That comment about the Rim was no joke. This whole thing gave him that twisted feeling.

  *

  Gati relaxed back against the wall. He felt like going to the corner and stirring things up but Aesca would kill him if he got into another fight, especially if Mike was involved. He tried to think of something else. ‘I could use a real drink,’ he mumbled after a sip from his near empty water bottle.

  ‘That’s what got us here, wasn’t it?’ said Mike.

  Gati couldn’t help but smile. Brandy and trouble went together, especially if a Gati Chiatos was added to the mix. But Bacchus must have been looking after him. To have friends again and a place to belong. The new Grey, they called him.

  The fight in the tavern had bound the three of them, him, Mike and Trahern. He owed them. People said ‘A life for a life’ often on Base. He’d had to use his knife more than once on his journeys but he owed no-one for that. Mike and Trahern had given him friendship, that was the debt he had to meet, and it was greater than his life.

  CHAPTER 4: IN THE BOX

  High inside the Box, very high, there is a section where the framework closes in. So tight that the caretakers’ grav platforms can’t gain access. So tight that even the little light there is has trouble getting through. A dark zone believed to be impenetrable. Trahern now knew the falsehood of that. A body could squeeze in. Once in, a narrow tunnel-like passage, sometimes two bodies wide, allowed further progress. He knew that the passage he was in was two bodies wide because he was lying next to one. His beam separated them, otherwise they would be touching, almost embracing.

  Trahern had lain there in the near dark for some time, maybe hours, comfortable on the closely-spaced steel. The dead man was trying to tell him something and he could not make it out. The stretched jaw was surely locked in a last shou
t. What was it?

  It was the third day. He’d climbed through two nights. The nights were good. The patterns had less effect then. Dawn was the worst, the light almost strobing in.

  This high, the patterns were as bad as any he had encountered in the Games. Some he was sure he had seen there. The cruellest work of man, the Games. But here he marvelled at the design and functioning of the Box. The multitude of holes and slots in the walls created beams of light which interacted with the framework through all the sun angles of the day, and he was sure, of the seasons. Differing patterns focused on different points, some only becoming effective as you moved at certain speeds, in certain directions. He didn’t tally the effects. He isolated himself from them, a trick he had learned in the Games. This design was too complex for man. Only AI could do this. If the designs here were theirs then what about the Games? But the Games had no point, only debased entertainment. AI always had a purpose.

  AI was borne of man. Maybe a few atoms of evil had gone with them. It was a new thought for Trahern. The monsters in his life had been human. He had never had to look further.

  He had spent his first few hours in the Box on the ground, walking under the framework, studying routes up. His perception had changed since his time in the deep. The area between girders and beams was not empty. Air and light, and sometimes very fine dust, flowed through the space around the thin metal struts. He saw it like water. Many streams offered a route up. He had marked several that joined again at the limit of his vision, in a ‘pool’ that allowed a number of options for continuation. A lesson learned in the Games, do not let choice be taken away; once gone, your path is determined.

  The floor had been clean. A change from the other times he had been in the Box. Back then, pieces of concrete chipped out by falling beams almost covered the floor. Over the centuries they had built up into little piles and berms. On his previous visits, Trahern had studied them. They gave a crude guide to problem areas above. This time he had used the dents themselves. Deeper dents from more forceful impacts, although rarer, gave evidence of higher difficulties. He added these considerations to the sense he had of the framework above him to create a model in his head which extended far beyond his sight.

  After drinking deeply, he had climbed the remainder of the day and through most of the night, all the way through the lower and middle levels. As a precaution he lodged his beam in framework and left it to come back down to the floor before the dawn. Rested, well watered and unencumbered, the climb back up had almost been a pleasure, appreciated once he regained his beam and continued the gruelling ascent.

  Midday was the best time to climb. The roof was an unbroken sheet and for a short time most of the framework was in shadow. The patterns faded. Trahern moved his beam up the path plotted in his mind. He ascended quickly, slowing only when his touch detected a gritty surface on the usually smooth metalwork. Another change? Leaving his beam in a corner, he investigated. Spatters of metal increased up the side of a vertical member. Where this member met the next set of crossbeams he could feel the remains of a girder, cut close to the vertical and ground down, but still evident to his fingertips. Trahern was not aware that the framework had ever been modified. The Box was thought to be the most unchanging thing on Base. The clean floor was new. He felt that this was new also.

  He had waited for the light to return then studied the change. The gap from the missing beam did not impose on his path but he could see it cut many others, forcing them to the route he had chosen. Why is this like the Games? It wasn’t before.

  He retrieved his beam and moved ahead cautiously. The trap lay where the conjoined routes could again diverge. Crossbeams on the path of his choice, back toward the centre away from the bright patterns, had been sharpened. The tops of the I beams had been ground away leaving a knife edge all the way across to the next join. He would have missed it if he had not been searching.

  His chosen path. If he placed his beam across the two sharpened crossbeams and hung from the middle he might be able to shift the beam across by swinging his body. Little hops. But the beam barely made the span. It would slip off if he did not move both ends exactly the same. He leaned down and checked the bottom of the beams for a lip. But these had been cut off also. It would have to be by the other route. He could not wait for dark. He knew he could not last another night.

  He looked to see what he was being forced into. The patterns beat at his mind. He ignored them. The framework opened up towards the wall. All the available routes ran up through this area, exposed to the multitudinous lights for a long twisting ascent. I can beat it. I will find a way. I must go up.

  That he could simply leave his beam and climb down did not enter his mind. The patterns had already taken this thought away. He would climb to the top or die.

  He had ascended, moving as close to the wall as the support of the framework would allow. Maybe up close the patterns will fragment? But smaller perforations and slots became evident, cut in between the larger. The patterns felt stronger than before.

  The Greys died for you.

  No, they did their duty!

  The Greys died because of you.

  No, the action was correct!

  The Greys died without you.

  Yes.

  All of them gone. Only you to make it complete.

  Yes.

  Trahern froze. He had trained himself to avoid this line of thought. What had triggered it now? A pattern! He was caught in a pattern. He’d been caught in the Games; built up to rage, built to lust, to killing frenzy. He’d learned that their hold couldn’t be broken but they could be bent, to your aims. To survive in the Games. What here?

  Survive the Box, concentrate on the Box. Link your thoughts. Greys. Friends.

  Gati?

  Gati had gone through the Box a week earlier. Trahern, as commander, had viewed his results. Moderate level only, and that mainly by perseverance. Too many risks, almost a record number of drops. In the end, he had not left his beam lying on the framework at all, but in anger had jammed it in the wall in one of the slots.

  Mike? Tollen?

  Both had achieved high results for marines and were infamous for their near vertical routes, almost straight up on bull strength.

  Something here, something to use. Go straight up against the wall. But the framework was too open, sparsely placed horizontal girders connected it to the wall, no verticals. Jam it in! Use the patterns, use the holes. So close that you can’t see the patterns.

  It had worked. Better than he thought. Using the perforations for hand and footholds, with the beam clasped one-armed across his chest, he had been able to climb quickly. Best of all he could see out through the openings to the plain of Base beyond, all the way to the horizon. The grip of the pattern lessened. He jammed the beam in the wall when he needed rest. When his strength faded he adopted a technique of standing the end of the beam in a slot with it leaning out against the cradle of his body, climbing a few steps then lifting the beam to a new position. Slow, but it gained him full ascent of the patterned section. When he ran out of handholds he moved back into the framework. In the dark dense section he had found a place to rest and his new friend.

  The dry air of Base had mummified the body. No crows to pick these bones clean. Strangely dressed, in dark cloth, synleather and light body armour. Armour in the Box? Breastplate, armguard and greaves, decorated with raised scrollwork. The outline of thin jack plates in the synleather over the thighs. A wide belt with loops and pockets, all empty. He tilted the corpse. Only a narrow plate on the back. Not very functional. Ornate. For show. Trahern was thinking slowly, glad of his quiet company, content to work out this puzzle. Dress armour. No one had worn dress armour since the War of the Crosses, at least not in the Guard. Are you that old, friend?

  Trahern laughed. The sound echoed around him, tossed back as if the steel wanted nothing to do with it. The Mad Command. So we are alike, you and I. What more could they do to us here? Lay illusion upon delusion until under the
burden we bend their way. He studied his companion. Were you meant to be their leader? Your mind hammered with strange visions to forge your will white hot to their task. To look out over the plain of Base while your legions cheered.

  He could hear the song drifting up from the plain. But it did not fit the image of perverted glory in his mind. It jarred him from his reverie. Marines? He sat up as much as the framework would allow. The pain from his tired muscles and from blood flowing into steel-imprinted flesh brought consciousness of his body back. The marines’ marching song swelled again from some fluke of the Box.

  Time to move on. Move or die. His mind was clear but he was reluctant to go on. He was sure there was a message here. He studied his companion one last time. The eyes had dried to black discs deep in the skull. No help there. Maybe the desiccating muscle and tendon had pulled the jaw open. No, that look of anguish was real, matched by the arms, one gripping the framework still, the other outstretched. The armguard was missing from the latter. Fallen off. Fallen! Your beam. Where is it? Gone. You didn’t drop it then crawl in here to die. No. You lost it here, just past your fingertips. And your life went with it.

  Leaving his beam where it lay, Trahern inched past the corpse, testing each bit of the framework, feeling for edges, for solidity, gradually increasing his weight on the bearers as he moved forward. In the poor light he could just make out the paler bars of steel. At two metres his hand passed through the bearer. Nothing, no metal. His hand swept side to side in a weak band of light. The same thing as far as he dared to lean out. A simple trick of light and shadow, like those in the lower levels, but repeated here in this dark tight womb of steel, deadly.

  CHAPTER 5: THE END OF THE TEST

  ‘He’s moving!’

  Aesca swung around at those words, along with everyone else in the room except for Quartermaine and the Scholar. The Base Commander stared ahead fixedly. The Scholar seemed to be unaware.