After Earth: A Perfect Beast

by Peter David Michael Jan Friedman Robert Greenberger

  It wasn’t the court where he had seen Lyla Kincaid, but it might as well have been. He thought about the way she had looked that day, the way she had smiled when she watched her twelve-year-old client dribble the length of the court. It made him smile, too, even now, even in the middle of a perilous hunt for a deadly predator. He wished she would have stayed a little longer.

  But he understood why she had bolted. She was Lucas’s sister, and Lucas hated Conner’s guts. And the shock of recognizing Conner after all those years …

  He must have changed. She had—that was for sure. She wasn’t a skinny kid with scabs on her knees anymore. She wasn’t running to her parents, tattling on Conner and Lucas for getting into some scrape.

  She was … pretty. Really pretty.

  Too bad, he thought.

  Suddenly, Conner’s squad leader got a call on his comm unit. “Rivers here,” he said. “Uh huh. Right. Copy that.”

  Everyone in the squad looked to him.

  “Our Ursa’s been spotted heading south,” said Rivers. “Too far from here for us to pick it up. Another squad’s been assigned. Looks like we’re off the hook for now.”

  Everyone in the squad breathed a sigh of relief. It was noticeable even though none of them would have wanted anyone to notice it.

  “We continue to patrol the area,” said the squad leader. “Just in case. Slowly. With eyes open.”

  The rest of the squad nodded or muttered in agreement.

  “Let’s go, then,” said Rivers.

  Everyone fell in, Conner included. He took one last look over his shoulder at the cageball court and remembered the color of Lyla Kincaid’s eyes. Then he left it all behind.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Cecilia Ruiz hated every moment of being where she was and doing what she was doing, but she had absolutely no choice.

  She had no idea if she was wasting her time. Everything she had heard, everything she had done, had been through third parties and even some outright rumors. People might well have lied to her. Perhaps she had walked into a setup. Perhaps the man she was supposed to meet didn’t have the goods. It was simply impossible to tell until it actually happened.

  The spot where she was supposed to be meeting her contact was on the western border of the Inner Wilderness. The terrain was fairly flat; it was easy to see in all directions. That was by design as far as her contact man was concerned. Being able to see for kilometers in all directions reduced the likelihood of his walking into a trap.

  “A man in his line of work is, naturally, concerned about that,” is what Cecilia had been told. She had nodded. If anyone was going to understand that, she would.

  As Cecilia paced back and forth at the meeting place, her movements displayed an almost balletic grace. She had a head full of thick black ringlets; she’d actually been rather surprised when her hair grew in that way. She’d had a buzz cut for as long as she could remember, and every so often she would run her fingers through her hair in wonderment, as if she had accidentally put on someone else’s head that morning. Her face was angular and an odd combination of dark skin and freckles.

  She was wearing very tight black shorts, an undershirt of such thin material that it was practically see-through, and a pair of boots that reached to midcalf. The outfit made her feel extremely self-conscious. Even on the hottest days Nova Prime had to offer—and they could pack some formidable temperatures—Cecilia wasn’t accustomed to displaying that much skin. But she’d had no choice; it had been mandated by the man she was meeting. He wanted to make sure she wasn’t packing any weapons out of fear that she might try to rob him.

  “Be happy he didn’t make you show up naked,” she’d been told by the contact who had set up the meet.

  It was an effective strategy. Her old pulser was much too big for her to carry and have it remain unseen. Such weapons were designed for power, not concealment. It didn’t mean that she had to go into the situation completely unprotected, though. She had a long serrated knife concealed in the top of her boot out of habit. It gave her some measure of protection against her contact should he try something, plus she had her Ranger training.

  However, she wasn’t sure a knife would do a thing against an Ursa (not even pulsers appeared to be accomplishing anything). And it seemed lately that the damned things were everywhere. Even that impression, though, was taking a toll. On hot days when the air would shimmer, as it was wont to do, it was easy to be startled because it seemed that one of the beasts had appeared and was about to charge. On dark nights, as the shadows would stretch, it often seemed that an Ursa was concealed in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

  Cecilia leaned against the landmark the man was supposed to be using to meet her: a single spire of rock that through happenstance of nature stretched ten feet in the air like a dusty red monument. She kept glancing around, Ursa on her mind. What if one attacked her now? She wouldn’t last a second against it. She’d never return home. “What happened to Mom?” her children would ask, and her husband would have no answer. They might find some tattered remains of her body, but there was no way to be sure of that. Her disappearance would simply be another unanswered question in the history of Nova Prime.

  Then, in the distance, she heard a whistling of wind. She turned immediately to face it and saw a skipjack heading her way. A skipjack was a single-person vehicle, similar to an Earth bicycle except airborne. It was extremely maneuverable and solar-powered, and so it was very quiet and, thanks to its size, not easy to spot. Consequently, it was a favorite of black marketers because it was easy for Rangers’ scanning equipment to miss.

  There was a man astride it with a pair of goggles drawn over his eyes. Even more encouraging, Cecilia saw several large sacks dangling off the back of the skipjack, as if the fellow were some sort of bizarre latter-day Santa Claus. She waved to him. He didn’t wave back. Instead he executed a slow circle, doubtless making sure that there was no one within the area.

  Once he was satisfied, he glided to the ground and settled in. Then he swung his leg around and off the skipjack and stood to face her. Cecilia was pushing six feet, but this guy was taller than that. Slowly he walked toward her, taking measured strides, seemingly appraising her with every step. Cecilia could feel her heart pounding in her chest. He didn’t need her, but she sure as hell needed him and didn’t know what she was going to do if this didn’t pan out.

  He looked vaguely familiar, but she wasn’t sure why. His clothes indicated that he was a farmer by trade, although who knew for sure if that was the case. He might indeed be a farmer who had conspired to keep his crops hidden from collection for the common good and was instead trying to profiteer despite all Nova Prime laws to the contrary. Or he might have taken the clothes from a farmer. He might have been part of one of the raids on the storage depots that she’d heard about.

  It didn’t matter to her, and it grieved her that it didn’t matter. Because once upon a time she had stood for something, and now she was consorting with this … this person. She felt unclean.

  But her family was counting on her. That was all that mattered.

  “Turn around,” he said.

  She didn’t like the sound of that. Presenting her back to this guy? Nothing good would come of that. “I think I’ll stay facing you if that’s all right.”

  “You’ll do what I say. I want to make sure you don’t have anything behind your back.”

  “I don’t,” she said firmly.

  “Look, lady.” He took two more steps toward her, his eyes narrowing. “If you want any taste of what I’ve got on the back of my vehicle, then you’ll do exactly what I …” His voice trailed off.

  Recognition suddenly seemed to glint in his eyes. “Oh, you gotta be kidding me. How stupid do you think I am? Deal’s off.” He pulled out a pulser from a holster on his hip. It was an older model, larger and clunkier than what Rangers carried. But it was still lethal, and Cecilia was standing there flat-footed. “In fact, I should just put a shot throu
gh you on general principles.” He started backing up hurriedly.

  “Wait!” she said, and started following him. “I don’t understand!”

  He fired a warning shot directly at her feet. It kicked up dirt and rock right in front of her. She froze. He raised his voice, and it echoed across the arid plains. “Any of you try anything and she’s dead!”

  Remaining where she was, she said in frustration, “What are you talking about? Who are you talking to?”

  “Do you think I’m stupid?!”

  No, but I wouldn’t put much stock in your sanity. “There’s no one here except you and me,” she said with forced patience. “You saw it yourself.”

  “And I saw you myself, too. Back when you arrested me nine years ago. I had a good thing going on a weapons racket, and you and your Ranger pals put an end to that! You look different, but I never forget a voice.”

  Oh, shit. That’s why he looked familiar.

  He was continuing to back up, keeping the pulser leveled on her. At that moment she realized she was faced with a hopeless choice. She had to try to convince him of the truth. Except the only thing that was preventing him from shooting her was the belief that he had wandered into a trap. If she managed to make him believe her about the truth about her living situation, she might well be rewarded with a blast to the face.

  But she didn’t see herself as having an abundance of options.

  “Look,” she said desperately, “I’m not a Ranger anymore!”

  “Sure—”

  “I’m not. Look.” She held out her right hand flat, palm to the ground. It was trembling, shaking steadily as if she were palsied.

  The black marketer stopped and stared at it. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he said warily.

  “Nerve damage,” she said. “Sustained in the line of duty.” She pointed to the lengthy scar that ran along the inside of her forearm. “Can’t hold a gun steady. Can’t aim. If you can’t aim, you have no business being a Ranger. And if I had taken the desk job they offered me, it would’ve meant just sitting around watching my old friends do what I couldn’t anymore.”

  “My heart bleeds,” he said with a sneer. Then, intrigued in spite of himself, he asked, “They couldn’t fix it?”

  “They did. It was worse than this before.” She lowered her arm then but kept both her hands out, palms up. “I got married to a great guy. He was a factory worker. But the factory cut back, and he was asked to find work elsewhere. With the drought, easier said than done.”

  The Novans had experienced droughts before, but never like that one. It had lasted for months, and eaten deep into the food surpluses the colony had put aside. It had sent the Savant’s meteorologists scurrying for explanations, spurred new research and new conferences. But mostly it had left people hungry and miserable.

  “We have two children,” Cecilia continued, “and we’re both out of work …”

  “You’re telling me your life’s story?” The black marketer chortled. “Oh, this is great. This is too much.”

  “I know you don’t care—”

  “No, no, go on.” He gestured for her to proceed. “I’m loving this. It just doesn’t get any better, you standing there telling me why I should feel sorry for you.”

  “Look,” she said with growing urgency, “whatever else you may be, you’re still human, just like me. And we should be standing together against these creatures that are trying to wipe us out, not standing in each other’s way as we try to survive.”

  “Yeah, that’s a great sentiment, princess.” There was nothing but contempt in his voice. “Except if you hadn’t gotten your arm messed up, and you were still wearing your Ranger uniform, and I told you some long sad story about my personal problems, what would you do? I’ll tell you: You would throw my ass in Ranger lockup. Yes? Am I right?”

  She couldn’t look him in the eye. “Probably.”

  “Probably?”

  “Definitely,” she said with a sigh.

  He bowed slightly, although it seemed more mocking respect than anything else. “Thank you for your honesty.”

  And then he turned and started walking away. He kept the oversized pulser in his hand, not holstering it.

  “Wait!” she cried out after him. “Please, sell me the food. We need the grains, the greens …”

  “You?” He whirled and leveled the gun at her. “You’re damned lucky I don’t kill you where you stand! Only reason I don’t is that I want you to remember what it was like for a woman like you to come begging to a guy like me! I want you to—”

  A cold fury was swelling up within her. She still had the knife in her boot. She was calculating whether she would have the time to draw it, pull back her arm, and throw it with enough strength and accuracy to bury it in his chest. Could she stoop to that? Could she become a murderer? Was she that desperate?

  Then she realized that the black marketer had stopped talking. His face went deathly white. Then he brought the pulser straight up and fired right at her …

  No. Not at her. Above her.

  And from behind her, in the distance, came an infuriated roar of anger and annoyance.

  She didn’t even have to look. The instant the Ursa bellowed, she ran straight toward the man who had opened fire on the creature. Her arms pumping, she sprinted right past him as he continued to fire the pulser. He seemed rooted to the spot, and the only thing he could do was keep blasting away.

  She felt the ground thundering under her. The Ursa was charging, closing the gap. She had no chance against the thing, she thought, as she heard the high-pitched scream of terror from the black marketer, followed by the sounds of bones crunching as the Ursa leaped on him. I never even knew his name, she realized abruptly.

  She knew that as long as she heard eating noises from behind her, she had time. She prayed desperately as she sprinted toward the skipjack that it would be enough time.

  When she was within a couple of feet of the skipjack, the slurping and bone-crunching noises ceased. Terror slammed through her, and it served as a propellant, sending her leaping onto the skipjack and gunning it to life.

  Unfortunately, it also served as a beacon and a spur to the Ursa.

  It pounded toward her as the skipjack lifted into the air. She had just enough time to glimpse the ruined body of the black marketer nearby, and then she whipped the skipjack around in a fast one-eighty and started to tear away from the area. Thank God they can’t fly … can they?

  Suddenly the skipjack was yanked sideways. She shrieked and looked down, knowing what she was going to see. The Ursa was on its hind legs, and it had sunk its claws into the sacks that were dangling from behind the vehicle. It was shaking the skipjack like a cat worrying a mouse. Cecilia hadn’t had time to belt herself in, and she was holding on to the handlebar controls desperately to avoid being thrown off.

  The monster was growling furiously, trying to use the bags to drag the skipjack to the ground. It outweighed the small vehicle so vastly that the skipjack didn’t have a chance against it. Cecilia had altitude, but that was all, and it wasn’t going to last very long.

  The skipjack was now tilting at forty-five degrees, and Cecilia was in danger of losing her grip. If that happened, she would tumble straight down into the jaws of the Ursa.

  She did the only thing she could. Releasing her grip with one hand, she yanked her dagger out of her boot and then bent backward. The only things keeping her anchored to the skipjack were her legs clamped around the seat and her feet wedged into the stirrups.

  She swung the knife almost blindly and sliced through the rope that was keeping several of the bags attached to the skipjack. The rope obediently parted, and the Ursa fell back, clutching three of the four bags in its claws. The cloth got hung up in the creature’s claws, and with a frustrated snarl the Ursa tore away at it, sending food spilling every which way.

  Cecilia slung herself forward and grabbed the handlebars once more. A single sack of food was dangling from behind. She kicked the skipjack int
o top speed and tore out of there, the lone remaining sack of food dangling behind her.

  Sparing herself a glance over her shoulder, she saw the infuriated Ursa stomping around on the food that had spilled all over. Cecilia wanted to sob seeing the much-needed food being destroyed under the paws of the creature. She realized that she had no business complaining; but for a bit of luck, it might well be her carcass it was stomping.

  She supposed she should have felt sorry for the black marketer. She allowed herself to wonder briefly if he, too, had a family, people who would now wonder what had happened to him.

  Then she stopped worrying about it. She was alive, and that was all that mattered. That evening, with the bag of vegetables Cecilia had managed to salvage, she and the neighbors made soup for everyone. It seemed the best way to share the bounty she had happened upon. For the most part the soup consisted of water with vegetables sparsely distributed through it. But it was just enough to provide some decent taste for the soup, and all the neighbors greatly appreciated the thoughtfulness of the Ruiz family.

  Her husband, Xander, pulled her over as the children were feasting. The adults were all watching solicitously, waiting for the children to eat their fill before helping themselves to it. “Do I want to know where you got all this?”

  She kept a smile fixed on her face. “No,” she said. “Don’t ask again.” And he didn’t.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Trey Vander Meer had lost track of time.

  It could have been a week or a month since his family was slaughtered. He knew it wasn’t yesterday, but beyond that, things were fuzzy. Each time he closed his eyes, he heard the screams in order: Elena’s, Michael’s, Skipper’s, Natasha’s. Every time he tried to sleep, he remembered the nice bald-headed Ranger consoling him, checking his vitals, sitting with him in the shelter.

  At some point an augur had appeared to take the Ranger’s place. He had prayed for Vander Meer, staying with him, making sure he washed, ate, and at least had the opportunity to sleep. The poor fellow had put up with Vander Meer’s ravings, which must have been many and awful to contemplate.