Bonita … damn … I’d have been safer hunting the Ursa.
And then he was out.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It is Gash.
It does not call itself that.
It has no name for itself.
It has no awareness of itself.
It has no capacity to wonder what is happening on this world or ponder why it has come to this place and this time.
It only knows what is hardwired into its very essence.
It knows that it must eat.
There are others of Gash’s kind around. They are hunting in pairs for the most part, but Gash hunts alone. The others irritate Gash. Gash is bigger, stronger, faster than any of them. They slow Gash down. They diminish him.
At the moment, Gash is curled up in an alleyway, shaded from the warmth of the twin suns overhead. Gash finds the warmth irritating. Its skin ripples several times, from head to tail, trying to shake off the annoying sensation, yet it cannot seem to do so. Some of the time the heat vanishes, the lights in the sky departing to whatever holes they emerge from, so that Gash may be provided some temporary relief.
Gash hates this world. The world Gash had before was contained and dark and quiet. The world Gash had before was the epitome of peace.
Then Gash was evicted from that world and thrust into this one.
Here it is hot and irritating. Here it is painful. Gash’s long tongue emerges from between its lips and slides across the injuries it has sustained, particularly the long, blistering slice across its skin that has earned it the name it doesn’t know it has.
It received the injury—the gash—in an encounter with the smell things. That is how Gash has come to think of them. If a thing smells a certain way, it can be eaten. It is therefore Gash’s quarry. If it does not smell a certain way, it can be ignored.
But the smell things do not allow themselves to be eaten without a fight. They try to hurt Gash. The last time Gash ran into them, Gash believed it had found easy prey. Gash had killed and begun to consume two of the smell things, one of them very small and unsatisfying, before a third one attacked Gash.
That was the smell thing that dealt Gash its injury. It hit Gash with a terrible force, a force that made Gash stumble and fall. But only for a breath. Then Gash recovered its senses and killed the smell thing. Gash—
—freezes in place.
Another of the smell things is nearby.
Whether it is looking for Gash or not is completely beside the point. It is meat. It smells like hunger abated.
The smell thing draws nearer. Gash realizes there is a second one with it. Two smell things are even more irresistible than one.
Gash waits until the first one is almost on top of it, and then Gash is on its feet, letting out a thunderous roar.
The smell thing has seen Gash, heard Gash. Gash is certain of it. Gash has a clear “view” of its target, “sighted” to within eighty percent of certainty. But eighty percent isn’t good enough. Gash wants more.
So Gash advances toward the smell thing before Gash bellows its defiant cry. The thing’s aroma is now so pronounced that it is driving Gash to the brink of madness.
Gash runs it down. Gash rips it apart. Gash devours a mouthful of it, blood and flesh and bone all at once.
The other smell thing—there are two; Gash was correct—seems unable to move. Gash leaps, its paws out and forward, and lands squarely on the smell thing’s upper body. The smell thing is screaming. Gash pushes down hard, and its front paws crush the smell thing’s upper torso. It crunches like a brittle stick, and there is blood everywhere.
Gash laps up some of the blood. Then Gash proceeds to devour the rest of its two victims. Eating the corpses of these revolting creatures is the one thing on this world in which Gash can take pleasure.
Once Gash has finished, it settles in. It will digest its meal and then will continue on its way.
It will head toward the sources of meat.
And it will consume them one by one.
Because that is the only thing it can think of to do.
Theresa Raige had been on her knees in a tiny stone room praying for the salvation of Nova Prime, just as she had prayed the day before and the day before that, and so on, ever since the coming of the infernal beasts known as the Ursa, when she heard the announcement that there were Rangers in the building, seeking asylum.
The building—a towering spire of rock called the Citadel—had been home to the Primus and the augury since the Arrival. In all that time, no Ranger had set foot in it. If they were doing so now, there had to be a good reason for it. Theresa, whose prayer room was on one of the Citadel’s highest floors, hurried down the long, winding stairs of the immense retreat to its ground-level entrance hall. There she saw the ones who had sought asylum.
The Rangers were covered with bruises. Several were bleeding from cuts on their faces. Uniforms were torn, and one Ranger was moaning softly, clutching at a shoulder that clearly was dislocated. Two of them looked dazed, as if they weren’t quite sure how they had gotten to the Citadel in the first place.
Theresa couldn’t help looking around to see if one of them might be a member of her family. Though poor Bonita was gone, her brothers and her nephew were still fighting the Ursa. But as it turned out, neither Frank nor Torrance nor Conner was among the half dozen Rangers she saw scattered on the floor, lying on blankets brought to them by augurs who were already attending to their injuries.
Nonetheless, she knew one of them: Marta Lemov, who had gone out with Torrance at one time and was serving under him the last Theresa had heard. Marta’s head was bandaged, but it looked far more professionally done than anything they could have accomplished at the Citadel. It was obviously an older injury that medics elsewhere had attended to already.
Marta was sitting on the floor, utterly unmoving, staring off into space. Her eyes might have been open, but she was clearly looking inward. Theresa approached her tentatively and whispered her name.
Marta’s gaze flickered over to her, and at first she didn’t seem to recognize her. Then her eyes widened and the edges of her mouth upturned ever so slightly. The lower half of her face was bruised—someone clearly had punched her in the side of the jaw—and there was a dark red spot on the bandage that Theresa thought might actually be widening. “Hey. You look good,” she told Marta.
Recognition dawned in the Ranger’s eyes. “Really? You look like crap on a crap cracker.” Then she chuckled softly, which set off a coughing fit that took thirty seconds to get under control. Once she had managed to do so, she put out a hand. “Good to see you, Theresa.”
Theresa knelt beside her and took her hand in hers. “What’s happening out there?” she asked. In other words: Why are you here?
“Insanity,” said Marta. “Madness. People going crazy.” Disgust was etched on her face now. “It’s unbelievable. We’re destroying one another. We should be united against the Skrel, and instead we’re ripping one another apart. And some of us are too stupid to …” She growled low in her throat, like an animal. A caged animal.
“Too stupid to what?”
“To realize how much the others hate us. Your brother Torrance fought right beside me, and he wound up here along with the rest of us. And with all his injuries, he refused to stay here. Right now, even as we speak, that blind fool is out there, determined to keep fighting back against those devouring animals. Fighting against them in order to save a bunch of traitorous bastards who aren’t worth saving …”
And then another voice spoke.
“Losing faith?”
Both Theresa and Marta looked up in surprise.
Primus Leonard Rostropovich was standing a few feet away.
Marta, who had shown very little interest in moving until that point, was suddenly on her feet so fast that Theresa was almost knocked aside. “You! This is all your fault!”
Had it not been for Theresa, Marta would have been across the room and upon the Primus in a heartbeat. And it was onl
y because Marta was in a weakened state that Theresa could stop her, grabbing her across the chest and around the shoulders and pulling back as hard as she could. If Marta had been herself, there would have been nothing Theresa could do.
Still, Marta struggled. Theresa pleaded with her to stop even as Marta kept bellowing, “Your fault! Yours, you sanctimonious prick!”
The Primus didn’t move, didn’t even look surprised. Instead he simply stood there, his fingers interlaced in front of him.
“Marta, calm down!” Theresa chided, and then, with even more force, she shouted, “Calm down!” and jammed her knee into the back of Marta’s leg. Marta went down, Theresa on top of her, trying to immobilize her.
She could not, however, stop Marta from blaspheming against the Primus. “You’re the one who turned the people against the Rangers!” Marta snapped. “You’re the one who kept telling everyone we weren’t needed! We’re being eaten alive out there! By those creatures! By one another!”
“Devoured,” the Primus said mildly. They might have been having a purely academic discussion for all that he showed of his emotions. “Devourers. Isn’t that what some people are calling them?”
“Let go,” Marta said to Theresa between gritted teeth. “Let go. I’m gonna—”
“Attack me?” The Primus’s face remained impassive. “You have taken an oath to protect humanity. Is this how you’re going to fulfill it? By assaulting someone who is just standing here?”
Before Marta could respond, they heard the sound of approaching voices—belligerent voices, presumably those of belligerent individuals—coming from the direction of the Citadel’s front door. The injured Rangers in the room looked at one another with concern and alarm, because the repeated refrain from outside was “Bring them out! Get them out here!” And there was little doubt as to the identity of the “who” that was being demanded.
A couple of augurs came running up to the Primus, clearly agitated. They talked over one another, competing to explain to their leader that a mob was outside the Citadel, a mob that was insisting that the Rangers be turned over to them.
Marta was still on the floor, her body entangled with Theresa’s. With cold fury, she snarled, “The Skrel are out to destroy us, and thanks to you, Novans are blaming us for it. Congratulations, Primus. Because of you, down is up and black is white. Why not go out there and take a bow for your mighty achievement?”
The Primus, unfazed by the pure, shocking hatred in Marta’s voice, said with seeming indifference, “I believe that’s an excellent idea. Wait here.” Theresa noticed the arrival of the Primus’s guards, who were armed and ready to defend the guardian of Nova Prime’s soul. However, the Primus casually waved them away and, when they appeared dubious, was more insistent. “Stay back,” he said. “I will attend to this. And you,” and he turned to Marta.
Then he hesitated.
“Me what?” Marta said challengingly.
The Primus bowed slightly. “Thank you for your service.”
As Theresa watched, he went to talk to the people.
Farmers, the Primus thought as he looked out on the gathering protesters who were angrily demanding to be allowed entrance to the Citadel.
The Primus’s guards who were customarily on duty outside were still at their posts, warning the crowd to stay back. Thus far the farmers had attended their cautions even though they far outnumbered the guards. They didn’t look like they meant to rush the Citadel, although they seemed to harbor quite a bit of hatred for the Rangers who had been dispatched to guard the colony’s emergency food stores.
And whose fault is that? Whose fault?
Even though the mob wasn’t trying to force its way in, it was still making a hell of a ruckus—right up until the Primus made his presence known. The moment he did that, everyone immediately fell silent.
The Primus scanned the audience with an air of indifference, as if he could not possibly have cared less whether they were there or not. As a mob they are formidable, unthinking. Break them into individuals. “Farmers,” he said quietly after a long pause. “Service workers. Artisans. So many of you, from many different disciplines. What would you have me do?”
There was hesitation. Then one of them managed to cobble together some arrogance. “There’re Rangers hiding in there!”
“They are within, yes,” the Primus said mildly. “They are guests of the Citadel.”
“They attacked us!” shouted another, and choruses of agreement sounded from within the mob.
“How now? From my understanding, you attacked them first.”
“We want justice! They were keeping us from what was rightly ours!”
“Rightly yours?” The Primus insinuated a sharpness into his voice that hadn’t been there before. “We are as one on Nova Prime. The resources provided by one serve all. You know that. You all know that. So by what right do you demand to take back that which you provide by custom and law?”
“Things are different!”
“Because the devourers have come,” said the Primus.
They didn’t have to ask to whom or to what the Primus was referring. They knew all too well. They nodded almost as one.
The Primus took several steps forward, his hands draped casually behind his back. The crowd took the same several steps back.
“When the Skrel attacked us in force,” he said, “we pulled together. All the factions of Nova Prime were as one. Together we were unbeatable. And now here we are, turning on one another. The Skrel sent the devourers, and we wind up devouring each other. I suppose, in a way … they followed us. Followed us from Earth. Followed us from the earliest days of our people.
“It’s all there in the old writings. I’ve studied them, you see. I’ve studied them all. Christians routinely referred to Satan, the ultimate evil, as the Devourer. But it goes back even farther. Ancient Egyptians had a creature they called Ammit—a beast composed of equal parts lion, hippo, and crocodile. I suppose, in their fear and superstition, they chose those three because they were the three most fearsome, voracious animals in their experience. And Ammit, well … he was the guardian of their place of death.” The Primus’s voice rose and dropped steadily in a singsong tone that he customarily adopted when he was acting in a teaching capacity. “When the dead would arrive for judgment, the Ammit would determine whether or not the deceased was worthy of advancing along the path to their version of heaven. And if they were found unworthy, why … the Ammit would devour their hearts. The Egyptians called it the second death.
“And we should know about second deaths, should we not? After all, our planet died. Earth died all around us because we were greedy and uncaring and faithless. Our souls”—his voice began to soar—“were traded for credits, our aspirations replaced by rapacious greed. Our better angels were destroyed by our inner demons. And God saw that we were no longer deserving of the paradise that He had given us, and God drove us away. We were punished for all that we had done wrong, and we deserved that punishment.
“And after centuries of wandering we were brought here because God forgave us. He saw our penance and was pleased, and so He delivered us to a new world. Not a paradise, to be sure”—he looked around ruefully—“but we did not deserve to have paradise handed to us, for we had failed to protect the one we had. So instead we were given this world to make into a paradise. That was the new mandate, the new goal for humanity.
“And now look. Look at what has been sent down upon us.
“Devourers. As voracious as anything the Egyptians could have concocted. As evil and devoted to destruction as Satan ever was.”
The Primus abruptly pointed a finger at the crowd, his voice rising with loathing and condemnation, as if the crowd were an abomination in his eyes. “The explanation is obvious! We have failed in God’s eyes! He has looked into our souls and found us wanting! He has sent us a test, and we have failed! And you dare—YOU DARE—to come here to the Citadel and demand justice of me? There is your justice!” He turned his finger upwar
d and stabbed it at the heavens. “There is your justice, for He is bringing His heavenly retribution down upon us, and instead of standing here like mewling sheep, you should be at home with your families, praying for forgiveness! Now go! Go to your homes and pray for God’s mercy, for you all know in your hearts what sins you have committed to warrant His fury! Go, I said!”
They went. A few hesitated, but they saw the anger in the face of the Primus, and none of them was strong enough to stand up to it. Within moments the entire area in front of the Citadel was devoid of people. Even so, the Primus stood there for long minutes, saying nothing, doing nothing.
Then he turned and walked back into the Citadel.
“The mob is gone,” he said to everyone within hearing. “You are free to leave if you so desire. Or you may stay here for as long as you wish. Either choice is acceptable.”
He started to head up the stairs toward his sanctum, and then the Ranger named Marta called out, “Not that I’m knocking the fact that there’s no longer a bunch of people out there shouting for our heads, but telling them they brought this all down on themselves? That’s rough. You don’t think it would be better to tell them something that will give them hope at a time like this?”
The Primus studied her silently. “What would you have me say? That I hope their deaths are quick and easy?”
Marta had no response to that, and the Primus went upstairs in silence.
* * *
Conner’s squad, in which he was one of only two cadets, was patrolling the North Side, where an Ursa had been sighted by his father’s pilots only minutes earlier, when he saw a cageball court up ahead.
It caught him by surprise.
Conner had been focusing on rooftops and alleyways, anywhere an Ursa might hide. Not the street ahead of him. And surely not the open area of a cageball court, where nothing could conceal itself.
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