The gulock gates rose before her, formed of jagged metal and draped with human skins.
Ayumi stumbled along with the others, so weak she could barely walk.
The deathcar idled on the rocky ground behind her. Ayumi had only just emerged from that hell. How long had they spent crammed into the deathcar, transported like cattle to this world? It seemed like eras, like she had aged years. Yet now she craved to return into that dank, hot ship. It seemed like shelter compared to the nightmarish gates before her.
Ayumi had never known coldness. She had been born and raised on a warm, sunny world, but here was a dark, freezing wasteland. Was this a planet, a moon, a mere asteroid? Ayumi didn't know. Icy wind sliced through her, freezing her bones and organs. Her bare feet ached on the rocky ground, and sharp stones cut her soles. Clouds hid the sky, grumbling, thundering, shedding flakes of black snow like ash. On distant mountains, fires blazed.
But more than this frozen, dark, rocky terrain, the gates before her terrified Ayumi.
The gates to the underworld, she thought. The skins hung from them, eyeless faces staring, toothless mouths screaming silently.
Once more, Jade's words returned to her. I want their skins!
"Move, maggots!" a scorpion hissed.
As more humans emerged from the deathcar, famished and trembling, scorpions moved alongside. The creatures raised crackling, electric whips.
"Move, damn it, though the gates!"
The humans shuffled forward. Too weak. Too slow.
The whips lashed.
A thong slammed into an old woman, and electricity raced across her. She fell, screaming. Another lash hit a young mother, electrocuting both her and her baby. When the baby stopped breathing, the mother wailed, only to be stung again, again, until finally she limped forward, weeping, her child dead in her arms.
Ayumi walked with them.
They headed toward the gates.
"That's right, into your new homes, worms," said one of the scorpions, raising a crackling lash.
We have to fight, Ayumi thought. We'll be slaughtered in there. They'll skin us alive. They—
"Move it!" a scorpion screamed and swung his whip at Ayumi.
The lash hit her, and electricity coursed through Ayumi's young, frail body.
She screamed.
She fell onto the rocky ground, bloodying her elbows. She gasped for air, and her eyes filled with tears.
The scorpion scuttled toward her, raising his whip again.
Trembling, barely able to breathe, Ayumi rose to her feet. She passed through the jagged gate, under the curtains of skin, and into the gulock.
Hell spread before her.
A nightmare, Ayumi thought. It must be a nightmare. It can't be real.
Yet the pain was real. Her hunger and weakness were real. The screams around her were all too real.
This wasn't just a prison, wasn't just a concentration camp.
This was a factory.
A gravelly road stretched ahead, leading toward a brick building with tall chimneys, taller than any building Ayumi had ever seen, as tall as the pillars of creation. The chimneys pumped out black smoke that unfurled skyward like demons waking from slumber, spreading wings, opening black jaws. Here was an inferno that could burn nations, that could swallow worlds, that spread across the sky with black shrouds. Standing before these chimneys, Ayumi felt smaller than a mouse, her soul crushed, her consciousness shattering until she was like a fleck of ash.
Huts lined the roadside. Hundreds of huts. As Ayumi walked, she saw aliens cowering within. They were pathetic figures, a race she did not recognize. Their skin was rubbery, sallow, clinging to bones. They were barely more than skeletons, bald and withered, ribs prominent, eyes sunken in dark sockets. Then Ayumi realized: these were humans. These were humans ravaged, starved, beaten, tortured, reduced to animals, to barely more than quivering remains of flesh, to primal fear wrapped in skin and desperate to hide within hutches of bones.
This is what I will become, Ayumi knew.
With scraping claws, with cracking whips, the scorpions drove Ayumi and the other prisoners forward.
The scorpions herded them past the huts and into a courtyard. Poles surrounded the square, and chains stretched between them. On these chains hung human skins. Hundreds, maybe thousands of skins, drying in the cold air. The skins were intact, still with faces and limbs and hands and feet, lurid laundry billowing in the wind. And beyond them—the piles of skinned corpses, some still twitching, and Ra above, some still whimpering, begging. Ayumi saw prisoners collect the writhing, skinned victims into carts, then haul them into the brick building, and the smoke rose from the chimneys, and this had to be hell, hell or a nightmare, and Ayumi fell to her knees in the courtyard and prayed.
"Please, ancient ones," she whispered to the spirits her father had worshiped. "Please, descend from the Empyrean Firmament. Please help us."
A scorpion scuttled toward her, laughing. "No help will find you here, daughter of man. If you are lucky, you can work the carts or ovens." He sniffed and licked her. "Though your skin is soft."
The scorpion ripped off her clothes. Ayumi whimpered, tried to keep the scraps of cloth on her body. But the claws were relentless, stripping her naked, cutting her skin. Across the courtyard, other scorpions were undressing the other prisoners, and the aliens burned the clothes in a pile.
Their hair was next. The claws grabbed, sheared, tugged, ripped, until the prisoners were bald. Ayumi trembled as the claws sliced her hair, sliced her scalp, leaving her bald and bleeding.
A few prisoners had tattoos. "Skin them, skin them first!" the scorpions said. "Beautiful rugs with beautiful art!"
A striker tore through the sky, roaring, and spiraled down, leaving a corkscrew of fire across the sky. This was not a warship but a small, agile starfighter, a triangle of black metal and roaring heat and thrusting cannons. Belching out flame and smoke, it landed in the courtyard, an angel of retribution descended from the sky. The prisoners recoiled from the smoldering triangle of metal. The stench of burning oil and sulfur filled the air.
A hatch on the striker opened, and she emerged.
Jade.
She wore her garment of black webs, and a thin smile danced on her white face. Ashy wind gusted, billowing her long blue hair. She wore a cape of human skin, the leather dyed black and painted with red scorpion tails, sigil of the Hierarchy.
"Hello, humans!" Jade cried, arms spread out. She inhaled deeply and sighed. "Ah! The delicious smell of death. Savor it, humans! It's the smell of our glory."
Jade walked across the courtyard, smiling, her cape fluttering. Her boots crushed bones, and the implants on her skull shone and buzzed and spun. She was a creature of glory, of luminous white skin and glass and metal, magnificent in her triumph, while at her feet groveled the wretchedness of man.
As she walked through the crowd, Jade pointed at one human after another.
"Skin this one! Make a coat. Skin this one! Upholstery. This one is wrinkly—put him to work. Skin this one, skin, skin! This one is too frail—to work, to work! Skin, skin, sweet skin!"
One by one, Jade separated the humans into two groups. Some—to the right. Others—to the left. Some—to be skinned. Others—to toil. All the while, the implants embedded in her skull shone bright blue, turning, humming, buzzing with electricity.
The group on the right—those to be skinned—was far larger.
And the work began.
Ayumi had not even been sorted yet, and already she watched the scorpions begin their grisly work.
The claws gripped people's skin and began to peel. Screams filled the gulock.
Ayumi wept. She looked away.
The scorpions laughed as they worked. One child tried to flee, and the scorpions grabbed him, tore him in two as his mother begged. One father fell to his knees, crying out for mercy. The scorpions began torturing his children slowly, removing bit by bit of flesh, until the man agreed to slay them himself with a ro
ck for the amusement of the aliens. A few scorpions tossed human babies back and forth, skewering them on their stingers, forcing their parents to watch. A scorpion mounted a human girl, copulating with her in the dirt until she died. All the while, the skinning continued, and the skins were hung on chains.
"To skin, to skin!" Jade was walking between the last few prisoners, sorting them. "To toil—to work the ovens, the carts, to mop, to work, to serve. Skin, skin! Toil, toil!"
Finally the strange woman reached Ayumi. A woman? No. Jade was not human, could not be human. She was part machine, wrapped in alabaster skin. A creature. A monster. Madness in her eyes.
Ayumi looked up into Jade's eyes.
But there is some humanity there too. Evil, twisted humanity. But humanity nonetheless.
And that terrified Ayumi more than anything.
Jade walked toward her, eyes narrowing. She reached out to caress Ayumi's bleeding scalp, then licked the blood off her fingers.
"You're an interesting one," Jade said. "Not as cowardly as the others. Not yet broken. What should it be? Skin or toil, skin or toil . . ."
"Toil," Ayumi whispered. "Please, ma'am. Let me toil."
Don't skin me alive. Please. Please. Ayumi could hear the others screaming. Smell the stench of it. From the corner of her eye, she could see the skinned humans being carted—still alive!—into the merciful furnaces.
"Toil," Ayumi repeated, tears in her eyes. "Please. I'm not afraid to work hard."
I must live, she thought. I must see Earth. I cannot die. I cannot die. Please. Please, ancients.
Jade caressed Ayumi's cheek, her claws sharp and cold and scraping her skin.
"You're not yet broken," Jade said. "Not yet insane. I like breaking my victims before skinning them. Should you toil at the carts, loading the dead? No, you're too thin for that. Should you work in the crematorium, perhaps the tanneries? No. You're too delicate a flower for such dirty work of ash and blood." Jade tilted her head, eyes narrowing. "I think, for you . . . Ah, yes!" Her eyes lit up. "I know. You, child, shall go to the doctor."
Across the camp, prisoners glanced at one another. A whisper rumbled through the crowd.
"Doctor Death."
"The White Angel."
"Mercy!" An old woman ran toward Jade and fell to her knees. "Spare her. Take me to the doctor. Not her. Not one so young . . ."
The scorpions dragged the old woman away.
Jade laughed. She placed her hands on Ayumi's slender shoulders.
"Yes, the doctor will be pleased with you." Jade leaned closer, cruel fire in her eyes. "In the Red Hospital, he will break you, child. When I see you again, it will not be you."
The scorpions grabbed Ayumi.
They dragged her away from the courtyard and down a dirt road.
Cackling, they pulled Ayumi toward a red building behind a black fence. The Red Hospital.
Prisoners stared from their huts, eyes sunken in their gaunt skulls. They reached out skeletal hands.
"Mercy," they pleaded. "Spare her."
But the scorpions dragged Ayumi on toward that waiting red building, and she was too weak to struggle.
As they drew closer, Ayumi sang softly.
Someday we will see her
The pale blue marble
Rising from the night beyond the moon
Cloaked in white, her forests green
Calling us home
Calling us home
From across the camp, the others sang. The song called Earthrise. The song of home.
The scorpions shoved Ayumi into the red building, and the door slammed shut behind her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They flew over Elysium, fabled planet of the first weavers, seeking the mythical Weeping Weaver Guildhall.
"Is that the guildhall?" Brooklyn asked, pointing a laser beam to the surface.
"That's a mountain," Bay said.
"Is that the guildhall?" Brooklyn asked, moving her beam.
"That's a tree," Bay said.
"Is that—" Brooklyn began.
"Brook, shut up!" Bay said.
For long moments, the starship was silent. They kept flying through the atmosphere, watching the landscapes roll below.
Then: "Is that the guild—"
"Brooklyn, shut up now, or I will shut you off!" Bay said.
"I'll be good!"
Finally she shut up.
Bay looked at the landscape rolling below. Elysium was a verdant world. Forests covered most of its surface, giving way only to rivers, lakes, and the poles. There were many kinds of trees here. Near the equator, the trees had broad, bright canopies. Near the poles, the trees soared, tall and thin and dark green, reminding Bay of the pines he had seen in the Earthstone. He saw no sign of civilization. Not even old ruins. It was a beautiful world—a world of misty valleys, snowcapped mountains, icy rivers, and rolling wilderness. Yet there was a quiet loneliness here.
All this beauty and nobody to see it, he thought. This world is pristine, while we humans suffer in the darkness.
He wondered. Should humanity even seek Earth? They said Earth lay in ruins. Civilizations had been fighting for that world for thousands of years. The scolopendra titaniae, giant centipedes from deep space, had attacked Earth long ago, humanity's first contact with aliens. Since then, it seemed, the attacks had never stopped. The marauders—giant spiders. The grays—wretched humanoids. The Hydrian Empire—a cruel civilization of monstrous squids. Even after humanity had fled the ruins of Earth, aliens kept fighting over the smoldering planet. Even now, they said, the Basiliska Empire ruled over what remained of Earth.
Would that distant planet never know peace?
Bay spoke softly. "Why should we return to Earth when a pristine, untouched planet awaits us here? We could use the planetary shield to protect us from our enemies. Why fight and die and suffer for Earth, when we can settle Elysium?"
Coral sat beside him in the cockpit. She looked at him, a strange glow in her eyes.
"This planet is holy to weavers, Bay. Its song called me here from the darkness. But it's not holy to humanity. Humans are not merely creatures of logic, nor of animal instinct for survival. Humans heed the songs of their hearts. And Earthrise, our song, calls us to our home. To Earth."
Bay frowned. "Even if thousands die fighting for Earth?"
"Millions are dying now," Coral said softly. "In gulocks across the galaxy."
"I know." He lowered his head. "And I want to save them. To give them a homeworld. We need to unite, find a planet of our own, defend ourselves from the bastion of a world we own. So long as we live in hiding—in space stations, asteroids, caves, and enclaves—we'll be weak. But Coral, this can be our world. Elysium can be our planet. Earth lies beyond thousands of light-years. Beyond evil empires. And even if Leona can reach Earth, can form a colony, it would be a life of war. We'd have to defeat the aliens who control that sector of space, maybe many other civilizations who would come after. But here? This place? This is a planet on the edge of nowhere. Forgotten."
"Not forgotten," Coral said. "Not by weavers. Not by the striker that attacked us here. And many more strikers will arrive."
"So we will fight them! We have the shield!"
"Bay." She placed a hand on his knee. "There are millions of humans who might still be alive. But they're scattered across thousands of colonies. They will not follow your father here to some distant world, no matter how fair. They will follow him to Earth. The world all humans have been dreaming of for generations. Our homeworld. Even if thousands die for Earth, even if millions perish, even if Earth is a wasteland, as ugly as Elysium is fair—that will always be our world. Our birthright. Stories matter. The heart matters. That has always been the way of humanity."
"Sometimes the heart can get a whole lot of people killed." Bay sighed. "My dad has always been good at this. Contemplating future paths. Doing the math. Sacrificing some lives to save others. He made a choice long ago to abandon a community of humans. He enlist
ed those who would join him. He left the others behind. He could have stayed on their world. It was a peaceful world. But he left them." Bay lowered his head, eyes stinging. "They died. All those he left behind. My father let them die, because he had a dream of saving many others. Of finding Earth. He let some humans die to save humanity."
Coral was gazing at him with soft eyes. She placed a hand on his knee. "Somebody you loved died there. On that world you father left."
He nodded. His throat was tight. "Her name was Seohyun. I loved her. I understand the math." His voice caught. "But it still hurts when the sacrifice is somebody you love."
"I'm sorry, Bay." She embraced him. "You're a good man."
Brooklyn cleared her throat—or at least, made the appropriate sound.
"Is that the guildhall?" the starship said.
"Brooklyn, I told you to shut up," Bay said.
"But Bay!" she said. "I really think that—"
"Brooklyn, be quiet!"
"But—"
"Brook!"
The starship groaned. "Fine! But I really think this time it is the guildhall, and if you insist, I'll shut up, but you're going to miss something that's almost certainly not just a tree."
Begrudgingly, Bay looked down at the planet surface. He narrowed his eyes.
It almost looked like . . .
"Brooklyn, can you zoom in?"
She was silent.
"Brooklyn!"
The starship said nothing.
"Brooklyn, I told you to—"
"You told me to shut up, Bay," she said. "And that wasn't very nice."
"You're right." Bat patted her dashboard. "I'm a horrible, hideous ogre. Now can you please zoom in?"
"An ogre that smells bad," Brooklyn said.
"Not that you would know, not having a nose, but okay."
"And an ogre who probably has ants in his hair, and who spends far too long in the shower, and really needs to learn how to chew more quietly, and—"
"Brooklyn, zoom in or I'll shake all my ants out!" he shouted.
"Zooming in!"
The viewport zoomed in on a cliff below. Coral and Bay both leaned closer, eyes widening.
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