He felt a sharp nudge in his bruised ribs. “My god,” Conrad gasped, sitting up. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“See?” A slight, bright-eyed man was looking down at him, stick in hand. “Quite alive, my little friend.”
He heard the comforting sound of Argus’s familiar roar at his side. “Argus,” he said, and felt a paw come down on his shoulder. “Where are we?”
“You’re on Pac Ishi,” said the would-be medic. “It’s a good day, all in all. Temperatures were above freezing when you landed.”
“Pac Ishi?” He ran his hands over his chest. No major injuries that he could tell—no open wounds, no broken bones. “What happened, Argus?”
“We went through the portal,” Argus said simply. “But we did not return to Xin Caledonia. We are… on the far, far side of the galaxy. Twice as far from Sanctuary as we were before.”
Conrad groaned. “We’re even farther from home?”
“That would seem to be the case.”
This is my fault, he realized with a stab of guilt. Conrad drew on the foggy memories of their passage into the portal. It was the longest stretch of time he could remember spending inside. So many paths. And he’d chosen the wrong one, at random.
Without him, Argus and the La Paz would have safely returned to Xin Caledonia. Instead, he’d done something during transit, and now they were someplace completely unknown.
“Who is he?” Conrad looked at the man, dressed in green and brown rags. He was thin, and his face was smeared in grease. A furry brown hat was perched on his head.
“My name is Baltasar Zeph,” he said brightly. “I rescued you—you and your hairy friend here.”
Conrad looked to Argus for confirmation. The Kazhad nodded. “The La Paz,” he said. “What kind of shape is she in?”
“Your ship’s never going to fly again,” Baltasar replied. “The automated perimeter field killed your engines, I’m guessing. The way they designed this place, you see, is that they don’t like people they send here getting off the planet. Either you crash and die, or you crash and live, and then die. Your friend landed her as best he could, about a mile from here.”
Mile. Conrad dimly recognized the word. It’s an old measurement, isn’t it? Like pound or foot or inch…
Argus held out a scorched, black sphere. “I managed to save the memory core,” he said, almost apologetically.
“You stirred up quite a commotion outside,” Baltasar continued. “No one’s ever seen a ship like the one you came in on. It’s a rough old thing, isn’t it?”
“The ship’s had better days,” Conrad agreed wearily, looking around. They appeared to be in some kind of den, crusted with ice near the makeshift windows and doors. There was equipment strewn on the floor, some of it rusting; he was lying on a bed of torn and tattered blankets piled on top of wood scraps. There were jars of herbs teetering on shelves above him.
He got to his feet unsteadily. Baltasar placed a hand under his elbow, helping him up. “You have a mild concussion,” he said. “Far as I can tell you’re healthy and whole, excepting that hole in your temple that I filled for you.”
Conrad reached up to touch the wound. It was filled with some sort of numbing gel.
“It’ll heal right up in a week or so,” Baltasar added. “It’s the same stuff I use to seal up gashes in ship engines. Nice and strong. Your body will absorb it as you heal.”
Conrad squinted at him. “Are you a medic or a mechanic?” he asked.
Baltasar shrugged and grinned. “Why not both?” he said. “Bodies and ships function on the same principles. More or less.”
“Are we stuck here?”
“You’re free to go whenever you like. I’m no jailer. But you may not want to go right now.”
“Why not?” Conrad walked haltingly toward the door, a heavy metal slab laid into the dark earth of Baltasar’s den.
“Eh—come back here,” the man said. “Don’t go out there. “I’m telling you. They’re waiting.”
“Who’s waiting?” Conrad demanded, as he pulled the leaden door open.
“Oh,” he said.
A crowd of fifty non-humans stood at the door. They were dressed just as shabbily as Baltasar was, if they were dressed at all. Even without knowing a thing about their biologies Conrad could tell they were a sick and worn-down group of beings. Five were carrying what appeared to be makeshift electric torches. Conrad could see that there were at least ten with weapons.
He heard a rustle and took a step back as those weapons were pointed at him. Flurries of snow blew into the den.
“Whoa now, boys and girls,” he heard Baltasar pipe up from behind him. “What are you worried about, eh?”
A hulking creature covered in gray feathers waved its gun at Conrad’s head. “He’s human!”
Baltasar ducked under Conrad’s arm and stepped in front of his patient. “Ah, yes. So he is. So am I.”
“The only humans that ever come here are Imperials,” the creature said, leaning on the word Imperials as if it disgusted him. “He’s one of them!”
“Look, gentles,” Baltasar said, holding his hands out. “Am I one of them? Aren’t I the one who fixes up your equipment, patches up your guns, eh? We humans aren’t all bad, are we?”
A fleshy, pink-and-orange alien spoke up. “We all know you, Zeph,” it said. “We don’t know him. For all we know he’s here to kill every one of us.”
“I’m not here to kill anyone,” said Conrad, in a low and careful voice.
“I don’t believe you,” the first creature said. “Just look at him. That face and that pigment in his head feathers and the color of his eyes. No good can come of one of them here.”
The hair on the back of Conrad’s neck prickled. One of them? What’s the thing talking about?
“I’ll prove it to you,” said Baltasar. He pushed Conrad aside, and gestured behind them toward Argus, who was standing behind them. “Look at that!”
Argus growled, his default response.
At the sight of the Kazhad the aliens made noises of surprise, and then began babbling amongst themselves, casting uneasy glances at Conrad and Argus all the while.
“That’s right, gentles,” said Baltasar, more confident now. “That was his copilot. He was sitting right there in the cockpit when they landed. In fact,” he said, even more animated, “our hairy friend here was flying the ship himself. Landed it, too, all on his own.”
The aliens looked incredulous.
“It’s true,” Baltasar insisted. “I saw it with my own eyes. You, beast,” he said to Argus. “Say something. This one here’s not your master, is he?” He waved toward Conrad.
“No,” rumbled Argus. “Certainly not. He is my friend. My brother. My equal.”
The aliens fell silent. Conrad had the distinct impression that they were astonished—or perhaps disappointed that they wouldn’t get to tear him apart.
“Now,” said Baltasar smugly, “would a non-human ever say that about an Imperial? I think not.” He turned to the feathered alien. “You’ve got it all wrong, my dear,” he said. “He really doesn’t have the right phenotype for what you’re suggesting. Trust me. I served in the Fleet. I would know what one of them looks like. Stick to your own kind, Oya.”
The aliens slowly and reluctantly turned away from the den door. Conrad watched as they shuffled off into the snow, casting uncertain glances at him and Baltasar as they left. Oya the feathered alien in particular seemed to have doubts. She turned and looked over her shoulder more than once, her long, elegant neck twisting as she stared at them.
Then, finally, they all wandered away.
Baltasar stood there until they were all gone. Then he whirled around and grabbed at Conrad’s shirt, yanking him down until they were eye to eye.
“You really are one of them,” he said with wonder and glee. “And you’re my ticket off this hell-pit!”
Conrad pried Baltasar’s fingers off his shirt. “One of who?” he demanded, beginning to feel
irritable.
“Come on, then,” Baltasar said, darting over to a table made of rocks piled on top of more rocks. He grabbed what looked like a roughly welded-together pot and poured a stream of amber fluid into a metal cup. He leaned down and picked up a loaf of dense, sticky bread, slamming it down on top of the flimsy table. “You’ll feel better after you eat, won’t you? There’s no ready meals here. We’ll have to make do with what I got from trading.”
Conrad picked up a chunk of the strange-looking bread. It crumbled to bits in his mouth but melted on his tongue. Argus came up next to him, taking a pawful of the bread. He took a sip of the fluid from the cracked metal cup. It was overwhelmingly sweet, as if he was drinking a watery honey.
He tossed it down, poured himself another cup and poured it down his throat. The ache in his head began to fade for the first time since they’d gotten off the Secace.
“There it is,” said Baltasar, nodding at him with a satisfied look. “Shiroppu. The last jug of shiroppu I’ve got. It’s full of natural painkillers, you see. This stuff is military-grade, not the watered-down cartons you’ll get at breakfast in a civ café, even on Albion Prime. When I was still Fleet, infantrymen got a full bowl every morning. It wears off in about sixteen hours, but it was enough to get the average soldier through his day.”
Conrad lowered the cup of shiroppu at the mention of the word soldier. “Albion Prime?” he repeated, questioning.
Baltasar looked at him with sudden concern. “That concussion got you good,” he said.
“It’s not the concussion,” Conrad said. “My copilot here—Argus—he’s never heard of Albion Prime either. We’re not from around here.”
Baltasar scoffed. “I don’t care where you’re from. Not knowing what Albion Prime is—that’s like forgetting how to breathe. It just doesn’t happen. Especially to someone like you, I’ll wager.”
Conrad swallowed the last of his shiroppu and wished there was more. Baltasar was as good as his word. His headache had disappeared, and he was beginning to feel wide awake, warmth flowing through his veins.
“Someone like me?”
“What Oya said,” said Baltasar, tossing a chunk of bread into his mouth. “Your face, your hair—everything. You’ve got some serious Satori in your blood, my concussed friend.”
Satori. Captain Heik had mentioned that word too, referencing his family and his bloodlines, when he thought Conrad was there to test him.
Bloodlines… bloodprints.
“No one’s ever told me that,” he said.
Baltasar looked skeptical, even as he ate more of his bread. “Right,” he said.
“What is Satori? What the hell is Albion Prime? Explain it to me like I really am a concussed idiot. ” Conrad said. He heard a snicker from Argus and elbowed the Kazhad in the ribs. Even at a time like this, he still can’t give me a break.
“Put simply, friend,” said Baltasar, “the Satori rule the Empire. And they rule it from Albion Prime.”
Chapter 15
They trudged through the snow. It fell so quickly and so thickly that they had to wear special goggles Baltasar had made to see where they were going. Not that Conrad or Argus knew. They trailed behind their strange host, struggling to keep up as he leaned into the snowstorm.
Thanks to the shiroppu, Conrad felt the cold but it didn’t bother him in the slightest; he thought he could lose a few toes and still feel completely fine. His thoughts were clear, and his focus was on Baltasar.
I’ll prove it to you, the medic-mechanic had declared, jumping to his feet after they’d finished the bread. I’ll prove you’re Satori!
Without another word of explanation he’d pushed them out into the storm, coats made of layered rags wrapped around their bodies.
Conrad peered into the falling snow, a sulphur-scented cloth wrapped around his face. He’d better know where we’re headed, or we’ll all be dead as soon as the shiroppu wears off.
Thirty minutes later, Baltasar halted in front of an enormous snowdrift and then dove into it, using his gloved hands like shovels until he’d dug a narrow passage through the snow.
“Come on then,” he said, gesturing to Conrad. “You first.”
Argus followed close behind him. “Do we trust this man?” he murmured quietly into Conrad’s ear.
“There’s no other choice,” he replied. “And he’s already saved my life once. I don’t think he’ll try and hurt us until he gets what he wants, at least.”
Argus made a sound of warning. Conrad patted his arm, then sidled into the passage, glimpsing something dark and solid at its end.
A door, he guessed. He leaned his body against it, testing its strength. It was solid and smooth, impervious to the hostile environment.
Baltasar came up next to him and seized Conrad’s hand, tugging off the ribbons of cloth that covered it. “Hey,” he said, surprised.
“You’ll see,” said Baltasar, and pressed his hand against the left side of the doorframe.
Conrad felt the light touch of a needle. He tried to move his hand away but Baltasar held it firmly against the door. “It will heal your skin if you wait another three seconds,” he said.
When Baltasar released his wrist Conrad looked down at his hand. The skin was unmarked, as if it had never been pierced.
Baltasar was watching him. “Lords of the Dark, you really don’t know anything, do you? You’re not just faking it.” He shook his head with wonder.
The door clanged from within. Conrad took a step back as the heavy slab of metal slowly opened.
It was brilliantly lit inside the room hidden in the snowdrift; the light blinded Conrad for a moment as Baltasar bolted in. “Get in here!” he called. “Before the door closes!”
Conrad and Argus hurried to follow. The door shut behind them, but Conrad barely noticed. He was staring at what was inside.
They stood at the top of a facility that ran deep underground. He peered over the railing. Beneath them were hundreds of shelves filled with equipment, weapons, and tech that he couldn’t even guess at. The floors were spotless but Conrad could see dust motes in the light. Wherever they were, no one had been here in a very long time.
Baltasar glanced back at him triumphantly. “You see,” he said. “Satori!”
“What is this place?” wondered Argus.
Baltasar walked to the opposite end of the room, where there was a small break in the floor, and gestured for them to join him. “Come on, I’ll explain everything,” he promised.
Argus and Conrad complied. The platform they were standing on suddenly whirred and began to lower them. “This is a Fleet storehouse,” said Baltasar. “They build these on unpleasant little planets like Pac Ishi because they know no one’s going to survive here, and that no one’s going to try and settle on a place like this.”
Conrad stared in amazement at the sheer density of the supplies stored in the racks before them. The Corps had its bases, of course, but it was nothing like this. He looked down into the depths of the storehouse. The bottom was nowhere in sight. It seemed as if they were descending into an abyss.
“Now, most of the storehouses are unmarked and buried, like this one,” he said. “For when the Fleet needs reserves on its way to whatever conquest they happen to be making that week. We got lucky. This one’s untouched,” he said with a wide grin.
“Tell us about the Satori,” said Conrad.
“Ha.” Baltasar folded his arms and leaned against the back of the lift. “If your planet doesn’t know about them yet, they’ll know about them soon,” he said cynically.
Conrad glanced at Argus. The Kazhad sent him a look that warned him to proceed with caution. “We’ve heard whispers,” said Conrad. “People talk about something that’s coming. But no one really knows what it is.”
“If you’re hearing whispers then it means they’re already on their way to you,” replied Baltasar, sending a chill through Conrad. “No military in the history of the galaxy has ever defeated the Satori Fleet. Sure, som
e planets and systems resist for a year or five or ten, but they all fall in the end.”
Conrad looked up. The top of the storehouse was rapidly fading from sight. Lights strategically placed up and down the walls followed the lift, flickering on as they approached and turning off as they passed. He marveled at the storehouse’s flawless organization, not a single gun or part out of place.
“It’s not all bad, mind you,” Baltasar said, philosophically. “Some of these people are savages, and Satori influence is good for them. They send their local notables to Albion Prime for education and then come back to rule as Satori regents. Their people get access to Satori tech—well, the non-military stuff—and they can join the Fleet same as even a person born and raised on Albion Prime. They’ll never be captains, but they can serve.”
Conrad remembered the way Heik had stressed his Satori pedigree to him. “The Satori are—human?”
Baltasar smiled humorlessly. “Indeed they are,” he said. “They are the most human among humans. They are the original people who seeded this quadrant of the galaxy. And therefore the most powerful and the most advanced.” Conrad strained to hear sarcasm in Baltasar’s voice.
They’d come to a hub resembling a massive cogwheel beneath the many floors of racked equipment and supplies. Baltasar touched a control panel on the lift’s railing. It suddenly moved horizontally into the dark, entering another tunnel.
“Are you Satori?” Conrad asked. If Heik had been Satori, why not this man?
Baltasar guffawed. “Lords of the dark, no. Anyone with Satori heritage would never end up in the engine room of a ship, even if it was the damn Imperial flagship. Satori blood means command, my friend.” His eyes glinted in the dim light. “And you have it.”
“I don’t know how that’s possible,” Conrad said, slowly. His father had been a no-name trader. That much he knew.
“I don’t know either,” said Baltasar with a shrug. “But that’s not going to stop me from taking full advantage of this most, ah, fortuitous situation.”
Sanctuary's Soldier: The Darkspace Saga Book 1 Page 9