The Oldest War (To Brave The Crumbling Sky Book 2)

by Matt Snee

  Jennifer was silent. Captain felt a heavy sadness. “Why did she come if she knew she would die? How can you see the future?” he asked persistently.

  “I do not see the future. I am informed of prophecies. There is a difference. Jupiter spoke—and I listened.”

  “But why did she have to die?” Captain could feel the loss of the girl.

  “Because that was her sacrifice for the tribe. For Passion. For the new life that will come. For all of us on this journey. The universe revolves around oblation. We all play our parts.”

  Captain nodded. Jennifer had told him the Delphiniums were fatalistic. “What was she like?” he inquired.

  “Cammie?” Tess interjected. “She was… resonant.”

  “She was born on Earth,” Passion said, her hand on her belly. “She ran away from abusive parents when she was nine years old.”

  “She found her way to Ganymede, like so many do,” the Seer said. “She found her way to us.”

  “We've always accepted the unwanted,” Tess proclaimed.

  “I still don't understand why she had to die.” Captain was adamant. “If you knew she was in danger, you shouldn't have let her come. You should always choose life.”

  “She chose life,” the Seer spoke carefully. “Just in a different way than you or I.”

  “But to just give it all up at that age.” Captain had to have an answer.

  “I would not expect you to understand the gravity of this mission,” Tess said. “You've seen the No-Shape in person. You've lost kin. The whole Solar System is in danger. What's one person in the middle of all this?” A tear fell from her eye.

  “A lot,” Captain said, noticing the tear, but still angry. He felt Jennifer's touch on his wrist.

  “It's okay, Lewis. It's their way. It's been like this for a long time, ever since Queen Eleanor sacrificed herself.”

  “If one person can save another, then she must,” Tess said, proud and mournful. “Cammie understood that. We should all understand that.” She seemed angry. She turned her back to them and stared into the distance.

  Captain turned to Jennifer; she grimaced and shrugged.

  “It's their way,” Plerrxx thought to him.

  That wasn't an answer. Captain turned to Plerrxx and shook his head.

  “You may never understand,” Tess said abruptly. “Let's go.”

  They started down the hill, saying nothing more. The ground beneath them became mushy making walking tricky. They stumbled, reaching down to support themselves as their knees collapsed, and they slipped in bursts down the slope. Courage helped the Seer, but the roughest job went to Calm and Wisdom, who often fell as they carried down Cammie's body.

  Captain's mind again went to his past with Gail. He wondered now why he couldn't get her out of his head.

  I've been waiting for you. Waiting for you here.

  Gail? Her voice was so distinct in his mind, as though she was standing right next to him. He looked back to Plerrxx, but the Mmrowwr just watched the ground as he negotiated the hill.

  Lewis?

  Gail? Is that really you?

  Who else would it be?

  Captain wondered. Jennifer had warned him of hallucinations. Was he hallucinating? Why would he be hallucinating about Gail? It wasn't the first time he had heard her voice in his head, but now it was so loud. He lost his footing, tumbling back to the real world for a moment. Jennifer turned and nodded at him. Should he tell her he was hallucinating? No. He was just—thinking. No need to concern her.

  Lost in reverie, he remembered her pale, freckled skin. He thought about the unique curve of her dot of a nose and the way her red hair would cloud around her face. She had brown eyes, like dark wood. They had really had something together—hadn't they?

  He didn't know anymore. It felt more than memories now; he could almost feel her presence walking behind him.

  The hill became steeper, but he could see the bottom, hundreds of feet below. The hydrogen ocean he had heard about rippled and shone in the death-light that awaited them.

  Gail suddenly became stronger in his head. The idea of her completely soaked his brain. He closed his eyes so he could see her smiling at him, beyond his touch.

  I've been waiting for you. Waiting for you here.

  She had said that before, in that dark stretch of years before she had left him, when it had still been good. An astonishing pain grappled his waist. He fell to his knees down the hill. Thoughts of Gail expanded in his mind. She was all he could think about.

  His body became heavier. His breath became uncertain.

  * * *

  Fear is a highly radical compound. It infests and ripens. By now Jennifer was confused with sorrows and forgotten worlds. Hers were more distant; she thought of her parents and her early winters on Jupiter. It had always seemed like the most magical place to her, the sum of all things and all places. She had read about Earth in books, and her parents had told her about that blue world, but she hadn't been interested. She had only dreamt of Jupiter.

  It was easy to underestimate the divine vastness one sometimes encounters in life. Jupiter was beyond divine—it was a god, like the myths said. It lived, just differently. Here they could feel it, his breath, his heartbeat, metaphors, avatars, representations of impossibilities.

  Jenn?

  It was her father's voice. She shook her head, trying to free herself from the spell. She looked back at Captain and saw he was having as difficult a time. How could she have led him into this? He was crazy to follow her here. Why did he care so much?

  Jenn.

  Dad. She closed her eyes and she could see him before her. In her mind he sparkled, his skin looked warm, he stretched his arms to her.

  No. It wasn't real. She wondered how the Delphiniums were doing. They would not meet her eyes—not even Tess.

  They were in serious danger. Her father's voice banged against her head again.

  Jenn. Come here.

  She was dizzy. She wondered if this was the end. Why had she even tried?

  She heard a noise behind her. She turned and saw Captain had collapsed. This knocked her back to reality. She rushed over to him and knelt beside him on the hill. His eyes were closed. He was unconscious. Was he breathing? Yes. She took his head in her arms.

  “Lewis?” she pleaded. “Lewis!”

  Tess's voice sounded behind her. “If we stop we'll all die here.”

  Jennifer, her blood already enflamed, turned to the girl.

  “Then the Solar System dies with us!”

  15. The Terrors

  Fate is not as cruel as memory—fate is free of malice and ulterior motives, and a memory is more often than not in love with its own pain, which is an engine that plies one through the reality of day.

  –Gail Hannely, “The Ceasing” (unpublished manuscript)

  This is autumn in Kalansket, Indiana. The trees rise tall in the pale skies. The red and orange of their leaves throw flaming confetti across the town. The air has a certain scent to it that adorns September, once the last muggy days of summer finally depart. The sun begins to rise later and set earlier, casting an impatient darkness above the people where once it had continued to shine late into the evening. The traffic thickens. Vacations are over, the children reluctantly are sent back to school, their parents back to work. College kids descend in anticipatory droves back to campuses. As the temperature drops, pants are chosen instead of shorts, long-sleeves show up again, and the young women drape thin jackets over their narrow shoulders. It isn't time for scarves or hats yet. It is a middle place, a time between times, where the world hesitates in a kind of hideously certain way. Winter awaits. Spring is so far away, almost impossible to imagine. Now, this is autumn, and there is nothing else like it.

  Captain enjoys the fall. He enjoys the weather. School starting again truly raises his spirits. He teaches at the local community college. He loves it. He doesn't have a Master's degree, so he can't teach at a university. He can teach adults interested in unaccr
edited “Academic Enrichments” in the comfortable low-pressure environment of the community college. Captain has published many books, never a bestseller—but he holds an accomplishment that the students dream of. Every year they come to listen quietly to his supposed wisdom on the matter. He doesn't consider that it is truly any sort of secret that he imparts to them, but a simple tradecraft he has taught himself over the years. He emphasizes one simple principle above all others – discipline. A work ethic that doesn't wait for muses. Simply a habit of writing that can accomplish anything. From there, he tells them, all else comes.

  Most writers, or most people considering themselves writers, don't actually write; they have ambitions of writing, of spilling their stories into the world like friendly animals, but they do not put pen to page. There are those who know the discipline, but they are outnumbered by the dreamers. Those who want to know not how to write, but how to get themselves to write; to defy the empty space of the blank page, and thunder in ink with courage and conviction, rather than being stared down and frightened away. Again, for this Captain insists on discipline. He tells them that writing can't always be an ecstatic experience. Most of the time it has to be more like brushing your teeth or doing your laundry, rather than anything glamorous. The excitement comes not from writing, but from the results of writing, from bringing something into the world where nothing existed before. That is the key.

  * * *

  Jennifer shivered as she held Captain's body in her arms. The Terrors howled over them, alien ghosts shrieking in hunger – things that fed on fear. Captain had been unconscious for twenty minutes, with no signs of stirring from his fright-induced stupor. Had she been a fool to bring all these people here. Him especially.

  He was all she had.

  “How is he?” asked Tess.

  Darkness crowded them.

  “I don't know,” said Jennifer.

  “The girls can keep the Terrors at bay with their plasma whips. But there's nothing we can do about his mind. The Seer – she prays to Jupiter.”

  “I know, I see,” Jennifer replied.

  “If we don't move soon,” Tess started. “If we stay here, we risk others falling to the scare fever.”

  “I don't care,” Jennifer told the girl. “Without him we have nothing. He is the key.”

  * * *

  One of his students this semester is named Gail, a woman who is a few years older than him. She seems nervous but worldly. She is a widow. Her eyes are fiercely sad, and Captain connects with her instantly. She is pretty, with pale red hair and green eyes. Just the nearness of her body sparks oceans of fire within him.

  He falls in love with her almost immediately. She is very sweet to him, asking perceptive questions about his books, and always asking about himself and his mother. She smiles at him in a peculiar way that he interprets as desire. He never says anything, or does anything, and remains pragmatically distant. He drives Gail home every night, hoping, wanting. He starts to imagine a more intimate relationship with her, even though he would never act on these feelings, especially because she is his student.

  She acts in his stead.

  One night he informs her that he is going to stay late after class and can't take her home. She smiles and nods. A few hours later after he has finished tutoring a lagging pupil and emerges outside of the school, he finds her sitting upon the front stairs of the building. He asks her what she is doing there.

  “I've been waiting for you,” she says, eyes glinting, smile mischievous. “Waiting for you here.”

  “I'm sorry,” Captain tells her, only half-suspecting her intentions. “I didn't mean for you to have to wait for me.”

  “It's okay, I wrote a story while I waited.”

  As they walk to the car she asks him if he is hungry. He admits he is. She suggests an all-night diner she knows that's close. Captain, tired from working, agrees quickly, thrilled to spend more time with Gail, thrilled by the possibilities of what this could mean. At the diner they order late suppers and drink malted milkshakes under fluorescent light. Captain looks deep into Gail's eyes. Confidence boils up in him. Soon their bellies are full and they pay their bill. Outside, Gail lingers, staring up at the sky.

  “It's amazing, isn't it?” she asks him.

  “What?”

  “The cosmos. I mean—what's out there?”

  Captain smiles, elated. “I don't know. Beauty, at least. Spectacle.”

  “Spectacle,” she repeats. “Like what?”

  “Like the mountains of Mars. Or the winds of Jupiter.”

  “But it's all so empty and lonely.”

  “We just need to fill it up,” Captain replies, with glee.

  Later Captain will realize she is reluctant to get back into the car. They continue on their way through the quiet streets of Kalansket. There is an awkward silence, and Captain turns on the radio. Folk music fills the air of the car. After a minute Gail reaches over and turns the volume down, inhaling deeply before she speaks.

  “Sorry—I mean, I like talking to you. The music is loud.”

  He tells her that's okay. He notices that she tightly clutches the car around her, like as if in fear of crashing. She asks, “Do you like me, Lewis?” He likes they are on a first name basis.

  Captain is caught off-guard. “Of course,” he says, chuckling.

  “I mean—you know, I like you. Do you know that?”

  “Yes.” Captain answers seriously. His mind races while he maintains careful control of the car.

  “I think you're beautiful,” he says, a new courage taking over him.

  “Thank you,” she says. “I think you're handsome and kind.”

  A happy silence. “I can take you out sometime,” Captain suggests. “Anywhere you want to go.”

  “That'd be nice,” she says. It's all very rudimentary and innocent. They reach her street, and Captain stops the car in front of her building. Gail unbuckles her seat belt and turns to him, leaning toward his body. The instant flashes for a moment and then he kisses her, in a kind of pleasant salutation with rumored heat. She says goodnight. “Goodnight,” he responds, breathless.

  It has started.

  * * *

  “It has started!” Tess yelled over the wind. “The Terrors are silent now. They are feeding on him!”

  This, Jennifer knew. All she could do was hold him. What fears did these creatures suck out of Captain? Why would his soul rather wallow in pain than be conscious and alive?

  “Is there nothing we can do to kill them?” Jennifer asked the girl.

  “Nothing that I know of,” Tess replied.

  “God is testing him,” Jennifer tells herself.

  “Soon, he will be testing us all, once the Terrors gain strength and numbers.”

  “What do you want us to do?” asked Jennifer. “He is the most important.”

  “I don't care about the No-Shape,” said Tess. “I don't care about your alien prophecy. I only care about Jupiter and my people.”

  “Then you are a fool,” said Jennifer. “There are larger worlds around you.”

  “That may be so, but it's the right now that I can understand. That's all I understand.”

  “I know.”

  * * *

  They are married nineteen months later, after what Captain considers to be a magical year. It is a perfect spring day, devoid of any clouds in the sky and punctuated with a gentle breeze that flows in from the east. Gail looks beautiful in a flowing gown and Captain looks sharp in his tuxedo. The day hangs above them like a rocket ship, and the potentialities of their lives throb in front of them. Captain can't help but smile. He finds his bride-to-be the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. I'm so lucky, he thinks. Things have finally changed.

  They invite their family and friends to watch them take their vows. Captain's mother does not get along with Gail; however, is still immensely proud of her son, and watches the proceedings through teary eyes.

  The true miracle of the day is the temporary release of Cap
tain's father from prison. He was given reprieve to witness his son's wedding. His father has not seen the true light of day for nearly ten years. He has a sentence thrice that.

  When Captain sees his father dressed in finery and removed from the confines of his cage, he is overwhelmed by the heavy ink of time, and his heart does circles as his stomach does flips. His father looks just like him, but older, with a sharper nose, thinner lips, and lighter hair streaked now with gray.

  “How are you son?” Captain's dad asks him.

  “I'm great, dad.” It is as though the past never happened.

  “I'm proud of you son. She's a real looker.”

  Euphoria runs through Captain's veins. “Thanks, dad.”

  Gail's family is a little upset about the policeman and the convict at the wedding. Captain doesn't acknowledge their disappointment.

  Captain's best man is his oldest friend, Jack, a mortgage broker who suffered a fall he suffered in his late teens rendering him paralyzed from the waist down.

  “What the hell?” Jack asks, sardonic. “You've gone square, my brother.”

  Captain laughs.

  Under the compassionate eye of the priest, Captain and Gail take their vows, staring at each other like no one else is in the room.

  A shock inches up his spine. This is my wife, he thinks, and I love her. As they exit the church, the sun drapes their happiness. People passing by on the street applaud.

  At dinner, Captain and Gail sit with their parents. Conversations and laughter flutter around the room. Alcohol starts to flow. Old friends and family come up to them and congratulate them on their marriage, mentioning old times and how far they have all come. Captain and Gail cut the cake and dance.

  After more felicitations, they depart for the airport, where they catch a plane to the Gulf Coast for their honeymoon.

  That night, Captain lies awake, fatigued but evangelical. He thinks over the day and wonders, Is it all for real? What happens now?

  * * *

  “What happens now?” Plerrxx had come to check on Captain. “How is he?”

  “Not good,” Jennifer answered. “Can you hear him?”