Balance of Terror

by K S Augustin

“As always,” she answered through gritted teeth.

  He laughed and turned his back on her.

  The two giant gates that Moon had noticed when they first approached Gauder’s compound was not the only way to leave. She had wondered how their host was going to manoeuvre a pair of ungainly vehicles out of Colken South but shouldn’t have worried. With a flash of his teeth, Gauder whipped out a small control unit, pointed it towards the opposite fence and pressed a button. The entire border slowly sank, the metal disappearing into the ground. And beyond it….

  The Velvet Storm’s shuttle didn’t have sightseeing on its mind when the crew dropped Moon and Srin at the Toltuk docking pad. All the pair had seen of Marentim was a patch of fast-approaching urban centres, joined by ribbons of rails and commerce. They hadn’t known anything else about the planet and, frankly, hadn’t cared.

  But, as the fence slowly disappeared into the ground, Moon gasped and took an involuntary step forward. A little right of centre, Marentim’s sun was slowly disappearing behind the horizon, throwing red streaks into a huge bowl of darkening sky, and turning the undersides of thin streaks of cloud into pokers of fire. But the wonder of it was, there appeared to be nothing between her and the planet’s primary star, merely an expanse of ground so flat and even that it could have been the surface of a reflection pond, broken up in the distance by the dark jagged silhouettes of mountains. It was primal, savage, and indescribably beautiful.

  She hadn’t noticed Gauder moving up to her until she heard his characteristic growl close to her ear.

  “Magnificent, ain’t it?” he murmured. “Marentim in the raw. Disrespect her and she’ll chew yer up and spit yer out like so much clawfoot fodder. Once she gets hold of yer heart, though, she’ll never let go.” He was silent for a few moments then slapped his hand against a thigh, making her jump. “C’mon, let’s get out o’ here.”

  Chapter Seven

  Srin felt so useless. He thought back to the young man he knew, a youth who would have resented depending on a woman as fully as he was now depending on Moon. In all honesty, twenty years older, his masculine pride was still pricking.

  He sat next to Moon in the second, older, tank – driving behind and to one side of Gauder to avoid being caught in the lead vehicle’s dust trails – and felt as if his body was still aching from that first day’s labour, shifting boxes and barrels into the vehicles’ holds without the help of any lifters or anti-grav units. He was ashamed of the weakness that caused him to half-collapse after an hour, a burning mortification that was magnified by Moon’s understanding solicitude. The primal ape inside him wanted to stand straight, beat his chest and bellow that he was capable of doing twice the work Gauder had set for them, but it was a lie, as everyone knew.

  Looking out at the horizon, he tried computing the distance to reach an arbitrary spot, based on their current rate of speed. No, too easy. How about adding a second variable of a crashing meteorite? That made the equations a little more interesting, but no more difficult. Srin thought about adding a third variable, then a fourth, before realising that the medication he was on, contrary to expectations, hadn’t significantly impaired his thinking. If only he could talk Moon into adding another drug to the mix – a stimulant or even a cognitive enhancer, to keep him awake for longer – he might even begin to feel normal.

  “Tell me about the Differential,” he said.

  Moon, who had admirably mastered how to drive the giant metal beast, glanced over at him. “The Differential?”

  “There’s always an element of, wistfulness in your voice when you speak about it. The problem is, I can’t remember any of it. Was it a sad time?”

  Moon laughed. “Sad. Happy. Both.” She looked at him again. “You used to say that you get glimpses of the past, as if a vid is haphazardly playing behind a thick veil, but you really can’t remember that ship?”

  “I get fragments,” he conceded, “but there’s not context around those fragments. I can remember an interior of a ship, but I don’t know whether it was the Differential or another vessel I might have been on years before that.”

  Moon was looking through the windscreen, its curved corners caked with thick dust. She nodded. “That’s a good point.” She took a breath. “Okay, the Differential. What would you like to know?”

  “There’s a special tone you use whenever you mention the captain.” Srin suppressed the demon of jealousy that began pounding on his head, threatening to give him a headache. If Moon had loved the Differential’s captain, he reasoned, then that’s who she would have been with, not driving halfway across a desert world with a savant who had serious health issues. But the primitive caveman in him refused to be mollified.

  “A special tone with Drue Jeen?” Moon repeated, breaking into his thoughts. “Well, only because we owe him our freedom. He could’ve turned us in back on Slater’s End, you know. We had hidden out in a small miners’ town just as a sweep team landed. Drue himself led that team and he discovered us crouching behind some equipment in a shed.

  “You know, I often think about that moment. What was going through his head? Did he pretend he didn’t see us because Consul Moises had humiliated him on his own ship? Was he trying to somehow follow in the footsteps of his rebel grandmother who had been sentenced to Bliss? I never thought I’d say this about a Republic Space Fleet captain, but I always felt that there was a core of decency in Drue. Maybe, at that moment when he had to decide whether to help or arrest us, he discovered that too.”

  “Mmmmm. And have you always been this philosophical?”

  “Only since I met you,” she said with a grin.

  “Me?”

  “You turned my entire world upside down, Srin Flerovs.”

  That was only fair, Srin thought, because Moon had done the same to him.

  The tank ate up the kilometres as Srin slowly pried more recollections from the woman beside him. She told him about how surprised – “No, that’s the wrong word. You staggered me with your abilities” – she had been when they first met. Her confusion when he failed to recognise her the following day, and her horror when his handler, Hen Savic, explained how they kept Srin’s abilities under control through the use of amnesiac drugs. She spoke of how it ripped her apart when, like clockwork, he would ask her out to dinner every two days, and how she fell deeper and deeper in love with him as the weeks progressed.

  She laughed when she recounted a frantic session of love-making and Delfin whisky in her quarters, sobered as she recalled how Srin had saved her from a soldier’s assault and accusations that she was trying to kill everybody aboard the ship with her research. She smiled again, and sighed several times, when relating the story of how they had planned their escape from the Differential, and how close they came to not being able to pull it off at all.

  “That time, we had Moises herself to thank for us getting down to Slater’s End.”

  “The Consul you told me about? That Moises? But I thought you didn’t like her.”

  “You’re right, I didn’t. I don’t. That puffed-up ego-driven bitch made our lives hell for the entire time she was on the ship. She made Drue’s life hell too. But she was so addicted to her power, so ready to show it off at the slightest opportunity, that she overrode Drue’s concerns about the both of us shuttling down to the planet together. Left to proper protocols, only one of us would have made it to the surface. And once they discovered the scramble-bombs I set through all the data and library units, it would have been obvious that we had been planning some major sabotage.

  “But then, just at the right moment, at the very doorway of the transport shuttle, Moises swaggered up and made a snide comment about letting us spend some quality time together. Faced with her authority, Drue had to let us go.”

  Srin listened carefully and tried to commit every word to memory. They might be nothing but anecdotes but, to him, they were the threads of his life, weaving together whatever disjointed memories he held in his head.

  Differential – expe
riments – Slater’s End – Lunar Fifteen

  Srin dutifully ran the sequence over and over in his head until he thought he got it right.

  “Do yer know much about Marentim?”

  Moon had been looking up at the night sky and at a Milky Way that appeared so close she had to stifle the urge to reach out and touch it. At Gauder’s words, she shifted her gaze, staring at him over the top of a pyramid of licking flames.

  “Not much,” she admitted.

  Everything had seemed strange to her that first week. She had got used to the bumpy ride of the tanks, only to be confronted by the stark harshness of the landscape. Had come to grips with that, only to deal with Gauder disappearing every few days to hunt for meat. Actually hunt! Was finally wrapping her head around that alien concept, only to cope with outdoor fires, camp ovens, and tendrils of smoke wafting up to the sky as if in sacrifice.

  She felt as if she was marooned in a land lost to primitive rituals and customs and, conversely, wasn’t sure that she was so eager to escape it. Life had devolved to a kind of simplicity that didn’t demand much, only that she live within the moment. A day could have passed, or a week. In the open spaces of Marentim, the kind of schedules and deadlines that Moon had once been driven by ceased to exist and, if she was honest, shewasn’t missing them as much as she thought she would.

  “This world was only discovered by the Republic a coupla centuries ago. Not too long by an empire’s reckoning. The Republic came down in their big ships and took over. Seemed simple enough at th’ time. They had technology, weapons. All the slant-headed natives had was their planet.”

  Gauder chewed reflectively on the end of a stick and spat into the fire.

  “Sounds simple, don’t it? But the natives weren’t the simple-minded peasants us humans thought they were. They had millennia of livin’ on this rock. Of huntin’ under a sun that’ll sear yer to yer bones. Of survivin’ in a climate where yer very breath is prized for its moisture.”

  The words were grand but they didn’t move her.

  “The Republic’s still here from what I can see,” she commented, her voice dry. Recollections of Security Force vehicles on slow patrols and officers hanging by a public terminal bumped around in her head.

  “Hah! Ye’d think so, wouldn’t yer?” He lifted a thick finger. “But ye’d be wrong.” His brows beetled. “What did yer say ye were? Yer occupation, before yer took to runnin’.”

  “I didn’t think I did,” Moon replied, “but I was a scientist.”

  Was? Was that true? What did that make her now?

  “Peerin’ through microscopes and the like? Tryin’ to decipher the secrets of the universe?”

  She shrugged, reluctant to share much of her past. “Something like that.”

  He held his hand up, the back of it facing Moon. “Can’t see what’s right in front of yer eyes.” His hand dropped away and he grinned. “Not even when ye’ve lived in it.”

  If possible, Moon’s voice became even chillier. “I don’t think I follow you.”

  “The cities, lady scientist. What did yer notice about them?”

  Moon cocked an eyebrow. “You mean, besides the fact that they’re hot and crowded?”

  “They pack ‘em in like fish in a net, don’t they? Then wonder why people turn on each other. I’m still not sure whether it’s stupidity or cunning.”

  “Cunning? You mean it’s a deliberate policy on the part of the Republic?”

  Gauder tsked. “How many humans did you see in Toltuk, lady scientist? Or in Colken?”

  Moon blinked. “I’m not sure I could say.”

  “A lot o’ humans?” Gauder prompted.

  She thought about it. “Yes. Certainly more than half the population.”

  He nodded. “That’s where they run, to the cities. Humans that try to come out here – to the real Marentim – die, simple as that. Even the almighty Republic doesn’t dare send more than an occasional patrol to traverse the Open.”

  “Is that what you call it, this desert? The ‘Open’?”

  “That’s what the natives call it and if it’s good enough fer them, it’s good enough fer me.”

  “Yet you come out here maybe twice a year, you say,” Moon remarked. “Is that why you travel in a tank? So the natives can’t attack you?”

  Gauder threw his head back and laughed. “The tank’s not to protect me from the natives, lady scientist. Oh no. The tanks are there to protect me from me competitors. Believe me,” he lowered his voice, “if the people of this planet wanted me dead, I’d be nothing more than a bleached skeleton by now.”

  Was Gauder trying to converse with her? Or threaten her with what might happen if she and Srin decided to make a break for it?

  She looked up from the campfire embers to see him regarding her intently, his eyes glittering as they reflected the flickering coals.

  “There’s a tree out here,” he said, his gaze never leaving her face. “The natives chew on it. It’s a bit sweet. Relaxes ye a bit.” He broke a short length off his stick, half-rose and offered it to her. “Looks like ye might be needing some o’ it.”

  Moon mirrored his action. As she reached for the wood, his fingers brushed hers. She sat back down and looked at the thick curl of bark in her hand.

  “For relaxation?” she asked.

  “Aye. Not that your friend seems to need any of it.”

  Startled, she looked at him. He had the same inscrutable expression on his face.

  “But I reckon ye might.”

  Moon brushed imaginary dust from her trousers and got to her feet. There was something in the air that upset her equilibrium. Was the brief physical contact between them inadvertent? Was there rebuke for Srin in Gauder’s voice? Who exactly was Gauder anyway, someone who loved Marentim, or someone looking for any way to exploit it?

  “Thanks for the conversation,” she said, “but I really should get ready for sleep.”

  Was she running away? Absolutely.

  “No problem, lady scientist. Sleep tight now, ye hear? And pleasant dreams.”

  Chapter Eight

  “If he’s a trader, he doesn’t appear to be trading very much,” Moon commented.

  As per Gauder’s standing instructions, she and Srin were a little behind and to the left of the lead vehicle.

  “I’m sure he has a select clientele,” Srin answered. He was reclining in the seat, taking in the expansive view with narrowed eyes.

  “I’m glad you mixed in those uppers,” he added, after a short pause. “I still feel like I’m pulling 5g but at least I think I can help you out a bit more.”

  “Just remember that I did it under duress. It was a sheer fluke I decided to buy some before we left Colken.” Her eyes on the horizon, Moon sighed. “The benzodiazepine is already stressing your system. I don’t even want to think of what my new mix is doing to you.”

  Srin breathed in deeply and tried to sound upbeat. “I doubt a few more weeks of drug abuse, on top of what I’ve already suffered, are going to do me much harm. Besides, this way I remain lucid and get to build up a whole new set of memories. That’s like diamond dust to me.”

  She glanced at him in exasperation. They had left Gauder’s compound almost four weeks ago, and Srin’s hair had become longer and shaggier. A short beard and moustache also obscured his face. Too tired to confine her hair in its customary sleek bun each day, Moon had likewise relaxed her own rules. Her roughly brushed wavy hair fell to below her shoulders, with dark tendrils curling around her face. She doubted either ofthem looked very much like the more polished fugitives who’d escaped from Slater’s End a lifetime ago.

  “Do you have any idea what he’s trading?” Moon asked.

  “Oh yes.”

  Moon straightened in her seat. “Care to share the secret with me?”

  “Weapons, my darling. Our host is a dealer in contraband Republic weaponry.”

  “Ugh. You went and looked in the boxes, didn’t you?”

  He shrugged. “Of cou
rse I did. You would’ve done the same if you didn’t have to spend so many hours driving this wreck.”

  She didn’t want to ask but couldn’t help herself. “What kind of weaponry?”

  “Mostly small stuff, from what I’ve seen. Hand weapons, grenades, a few heavier systems but not many.”

  “I wonder who he’s selling it to.”

  Srin sat up and leant forward. “I think,” he said, peering through the windscreen, “we’re about to find out.”

  Moon squinted through the dusty panel. True enough, they appeared to be approaching an encampment of some kind. Gauder’s vehicle swerved and slowed down and Moon did the same, matching his speed.

  Moon had to admit that she would have missed the array of huts completely if it hadn’t been for Srin’s comment and Gauder’s change of direction. The fine dessicated soil of Marentim made the sky look clear but, in actuality, veiled everything in a thin layer of washed-out colour. An entire army could have been stationed a kilometre away and she wouldn’t have noticed.

  At almost walking speed, they passed through two rings of guards – natives swathed in light-coloured robes watching them without expression – before reaching the edge of the circle of buildings she had barely seen from a distance. The structures were single-storied and looked semi-permanent, made of something that resembled timber. That they had been here for a little while was evidenced by the waves of sand that curved up against the bottom of the walls.

  The first tank revved, then shuddered to a halt. Moon, not sure what to do, kept the engine of her vehicle running. Gauder strolled over, climbed up to the cabin and knocked on one of the side windows. With a flick of her finger, Moon lowered the screen.

  “I’ll go and do some talkin’,” Gauder told them. “Switch yer engine off but keep alert. I’ll signal if there’s any problem.”

  He jumped back down to the ground and sauntered towards one of the larger buildings. Moon kept the window down and killed the engine. Suddenly, they were engulfed by silence.