After Earth: A Perfect Beast

by Peter David Michael Jan Friedman Robert Greenberger

  “The program that I specifically decided against after due consideration.” There was no anger in the Primus’s voice; it was as if he just wanted to clarify matters, to make sure they were discussing the same thing.

  “You must understand, Primus—”

  He half turned to her. “Must?”

  “A poor choice of words,” Theresa said humbly. “I regret them.”

  “There is no need to apologize, child. You were saying?”

  “We didn’t know where you were. I even asked my nephew to search for you. And the people needed comfort.”

  “Which you gave them. You and Marta Lemov.”

  “Yes, Primus.”

  “And … the people have been grateful?”

  “Very much so. We’ve reassured them that God is on our side in this endeavor—”

  “God allowed this to happen, Theresa. Was that addressed?”

  “Of course, Primus. God is testing us, as always. He does not interfere with free will, even if it is the free will of faithless aliens. He is giving us what we need in order to defeat this latest Skrel assault. We will survive and we will triumph as long as we remain in close partnership with one another and do not allow our faith to waver.”

  “And people believe all that?” the Primus asked.

  “Most choose to do so. In these difficult times, who would not embrace something to believe in?”

  He grunted. “Who indeed?”

  Taking his subsequent silence as encouragement to continue, Theresa said, “It has not only brought a sense of calm to the people but also a newfound determination.”

  “I see. How … admirable. Of course, they will need their Primus to channel that determination, to mold it into something of which heaven will approve.” He smiled. “It’s good I came back when I did, eh? Perfect timing, you might say.”

  “Yes,” said Theresa, because it was her Primus speaking. “Perfect.” But in her heart, she knew that what the people had found in the Primus’s absence—one another—was what was truly perfect.

  The Primus chuckled softly. “Funny the way things work out. The way God works them out.”

  Another silence followed. In a soft, even timid voice, the augur said, “If there is nothing else, Primus, I can—”

  “You can go,” he said, still turned to the stars.

  Relieved, she went.

  * * *

  With Theresa gone, the Primus reflected on his … retreat.

  For certainly that was what it had been. A retreat from the affairs of the world so that he could contemplate the proper course of action both for him and for the augury. A respite, nothing more.

  Of course, Rostropovich had not cut himself off from the temporal world completely. In his place of contemplation, he had had access to a crude comm device. It was through it that he had learned the Ursa were no more.

  God’s will had prevailed.

  And what had happened in that terrible time before the Primus withdrew from the world … why, that was a thing of the past, hardly worth remembering. If he was to discharge his office as humankind’s liaison with heaven, he had to shrug off such experiences. He had to come to his task new and refreshed.

  It was with that task in mind that he activated his monitor and sought information on his colleagues in the Tripartite Council. Finding a comment made by the Savant only a few hours earlier, he played it back.

  “Am I going to support Conner Raige?” the Savant asked. “Unequivocally. At first, I was skeptical about the wisdom of putting such a young man in such a critical position. But that was before I’d seen what he could accomplish.

  “When he took over the responsibilities of the Prime Commander, the Ursa were rampaging through our city, killing at will. He turned that around. He made the right decisions—better than those I would have made, frankly. That’s why the Ursa are gone, the last of them by his hand.

  “But I’m not supporting Conner Raige because we need to reward him. There are medals for that. I’m supporting him because I believe he can do the job going forward. And, significantly, so do the people who follow him. They believe in his abilities. They’re willing to do anything he asks of them. That says a lot.

  “When I assumed the office of the Savant, I knew one thing: I wasn’t going to allow myself to be ruled by emotion. I was going to approach the Ursa problem, and every other problem in front of us, from a purely scientific perspective. I was going to go by the facts. And the facts in this case point unwaveringly to Conner Raige being the best person for the job of Prime Commander.”

  The Primus bit his lip. He hated the idea of the Raige boy becoming a permanent member of the Tripartite Council. He detested the prospect of treating him as a colleague, an equal.

  But what choice did he have? He had been in seclusion, and that would be hard enough to explain. The people were taken with Raige, inspired by him. The Primus would only hurt himself by opposing Raige’s appointment.

  For now.

  But in the fullness of time, the Primus would find opportunities to undermine the boy. Perhaps sooner than later, for he was good at finding such opportunities. Little by little, he would get his point across.

  And before long, the Primus would be on top again. Surely, after all he had endured, God owed him that.

  Nova Prime City was out picking up the pieces.

  People were on the streets assessing damage, clearing debris, and working with local leaders to get the reconstruction process under way. Those who were not already back to work in factories and farms were volunteering their time to help one another resume some semblance of their lives. Laughter, something lost but lately rediscovered, could be heard in the spring air.

  Trey Vander Meer could feel the energy and optimism of his fellow citizens as he walked to work. He had already determined to move to a smaller home, someplace far from where he had watched his family die. He had heard about a nearly completed apartment structure that actually would cut down on his commute. Of course, he needed at least a bit of a walk in his ever-present struggle with his waistline.

  That he could even think about his weight was a sign that he was moving past the intense grief of his loss. With the alien threat finally over, the Primus’s staff was organizing funerals for the hundreds of dead who had to that point been denied them. Mass plaques and memorials were already being discussed because people didn’t want the events of the last couple of months to be forgotten.

  As Vander Meer walked past a construction crew clearing what once had been a theater, he was already forming the day’s commentary. It would be about Conner Raige.

  The day before, the young, newly minted Prime Commander had called Vander Meer into his office at the Rangers’ command center for a conversation. His hand bandaged, his arm in a sling, Raige had said, “Your actions while we were working under emergency conditions complicated our ability to do our job in Nova Prime City. Lives were lost—and not just Ranger lives but those of regular citizens as well—because of your bounty.”

  He’s a boy, Vander Meer had thought. He’ll buckle if I stand up to him.

  “The bounty offer,” Vander Meer explained, “was intended to motivate civilians and—yes—even the more reluctant among your Rangers to take some additional risks. I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

  “Except,” Raige said in the same even tone, “it cost civilian lives and forced the Rangers to redeploy, taking away from our ability to hunt down the Ursa. Under the martial law Prime Commander Wilkins instituted, I could have you arrested and brought before a magistrate.”

  “You … you could,” Vander Meer replied, surprised by Raige’s tenacity.

  “I won’t do any of that,” Raige said, his gaze steely, “and not because I don’t think you should be punished. It’s because I don’t believe in censoring people—not even you. I’ll let the court of public opinion decide when they’ve heard enough from you.”

  Vander Meer didn’t like losing an argument, especially to a snot-nosed child. Th
erefore, he had contacted the Primus, having heard that the colony’s foremost religious figure didn’t approve of young Raige, either.

  The Primus had given him the support he expected. Very publically so, though he had begun in modest ways and gained steam only over time. Vander Meer had lost much in the Ursa attack, but it seemed he had gained an ally in Leonard Rostropovich.

  Now Vander Meer was returning to the studio, where he had practically lived during the Ursa invasion, armed and loaded for his hunt. It was a new day and time to get back to work.

  As he entered the building, Pham was already in place, wearing a new shirt and having had a haircut since they last saw each other. There was time now for the mundane things. Restaurants were coming back. Shops were reopening.

  It would take a long while, the colony’s chief economist had reported, but Nova Prime was going to thrive again.

  “Looking good, Ken,” Vander Meer said brightly.

  “Feeling good,” Pham replied. “You up for a commentary?”

  “That’s the plan,” Vander Meer said as he looked around the station.

  “Topic?”

  “The Rangers,” said the commentator, and saw Pham’s eyebrows rise.

  “You do know that, right about now, the Rangers are everyone’s heroes,” the producer said. “They persevered when you wrote them off and, despite their crippling losses, managed to get rid of the Ursa. Right now, Conner Raige could ask for a dozen virgins and probably get them.”

  “I cannot argue with that,” Vander Meer said. “But I do have something I need to say.”

  “It better be ‘thank you,’ ” Pham told him.

  He began setting up to record the commentary, clearly not thrilled about the choice of subject matter. Of course, he was merely the producer of the program. Vander Meer was the one with the following, the one who made the ultimate decisions.

  With his fingers, Pham counted down. The red light went on.

  Vander Meer smiled at the camera. “Welcome back, my friends. It’s a glorious day, isn’t it? It feels good to be alive. Walking in this morning, I was pleased to see that things were returning back to what we call normal. Of course, it’ll be a new normal as every single one of us adjusts to life without our loved ones—a brutal change and one we did not ask for but which we must nonetheless accept.

  “It felt good this morning to walk to the memorial for my wife and children and to see the three Ursa heads adorning the plaque which will be erected. I feel like I had something to do with them. As you know, I have paid out most of my personal funds as I promised, and my new normal will be—ahem—a significantly more frugal lifestyle.

  “But those Ursa heads reminded me of more than my contribution. They reminded me that while the Rangers may get credit for destroying the creatures, the people were the ones who ultimately got the job done. The people killed that Ursa and showed what we could accomplish. Let’s never forget that.

  “To be sure, the Rangers did their duty and lost many from their ranks. But—and let’s think about this—how long did it take them before they wounded an Ursa, let alone killed one of the monsters? A day? A week? Several?

  “For a force that professed to be combat-ready, they certainly did not act that way in the field. They tried one tactic after another, groping in the dark, until something worked. It took the Savant’s people to come up with the tool we needed, the one that changed the game. The Rangers, led by Meredith Wilkins, were fighting a losing battle while we relied on them to be our salvation.

  “Now Wilkins’s disciple, Conner Raige, is leading the Rangers. If I called him a young man, it would be an understatement. Many of you are old enough to be his grandparents. I have to wonder … If Wilkins was unprepared for what we faced in the Ursa, how prepared will this child be? How much can we really depend on him?

  “We have seen that the Rangers need to stay one step ahead of the Skrel. Under the new Prime Commander, can that be achieved? The Primus seems to think otherwise. If you listen to his sermons, as so many of you do, you know that he has, in his gentle and dignified way, increasingly called into question Raige’s ability to lead. And who, I ask you, would know more about leadership than the man whose flock includes every last living soul on the planet?”

  The commentator leaned in closer to the camera. “It’s a new day, Nova Prime. But it’s not without a few clouds on the horizon. It may be too soon to tell how much we can rely on the Rangers anymore, but trust me in this: I am keeping an eye on them and will continue to do so until our questions are answered.”

  So much for the Rangers being unassailable these days, Vander Meer thought with a measure of satisfaction.

  Theresa Raige smiled to herself as she cleared the dinner plates in the dining room. In the adjoining kitchen, Conner, only slightly hampered by his sling, and Rebecca were cleaning the pots and cooking utensils. It felt good to Theresa to know the comfort of family. It felt good to know that they could walk the streets again without fear of the Ursa.

  For the augur, as for so many others, peace was becoming a realistic possibility again.

  Not that her life would ever be the same. It couldn’t be. Her brothers and her sister-in-law were dead, like so many others. The last few weeks had cost humanity much. But they had also taught her that their faith was strong and that it would provide them with the courage to go on.

  But at dinner, the conversation had gone in a different direction. It had focused on the mundane things such as when professional sports would resume and if there were enough athletes and venues left to hold the next Asimov Games. In place of the seemingly endless drone of news reports that had occupied them for weeks, the skirl of Celtic music had filled the house. It was a welcome alternative.

  After dinner, they sat again for a while, the three of them. Theresa listened to Conner’s plans to rebuild Nova City and the Rangers in particular. He had ideas for training cadets quickly and efficiently and a sense that they would have no shortage of applications in the wake of what had happened. Then it grew late, and Theresa bid them good night, first with hugs and kisses and then with a short benediction, because she was still an augur first and foremost.

  Her place was only a couple of kilometers away, a pleasant walk at that time of night. But she didn’t go straight home. Instead, she headed for the Citadel.

  It didn’t take her long to get there. A handful of augurs remained awake on the first floor, reading the scriptures written by Primuses past. There was a sense of peace in the building. Theresa nodded at one and all as she made her way to the stairs and began to climb.

  With the crisis past, augurs no longer were providing around-the-clock security to the Primus. She was able to reach the third floor, which was entirely claimed by Rostropovich’s apartment, without any trouble. Of course, the security logs would show that she had seen him at an unusually late hour, but she figured that in a time of recovery, her visit would be one aberration among many and would therefore go unquestioned.

  Theresa entered the Primus’s bedchamber quietly so as not to wake him. He was asleep under a richly textured quilt the color of sand, a gift from the augury on his last birthday. Then she stood there.

  After a while, the Primus seemed to become aware of her. A moment later, he bolted upright in his bed, wide-eyed, mouth open—clearly startled. A small squeak escaped his lips.

  “Theresa?” he said, obviously confused. He rubbed his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  What indeed? she asked herself.

  She thought about the terrible times they had lived through in fear of the Ursa. She thought about all those who had lost friends and family. She thought about all the people who had needed leadership, reassurance, and comfort and who had received precious little of those things because of the Primus’s absence.

  She thought about the sleepless days and nights when she had ministered to the people, wishing there were someone who could minister to her. Emotions—dread, sadness, resentment—welled up and overflowed from her
heart.

  “Theresa?” he asked again, this time a little more sternly.

  She went to his bedside and sat down beside him. Then, with a suddenness that caught both her and the Primus by surprise, she slapped him across the face. The resulting whack echoed in the room as his hand sprang to the offended cheek.

  “What was—” he began.

  “Support the Prime Commander,” she instructed him in a calm voice but one that would tolerate no disagreement. “Not because he’s my nephew but because that is your job. Help get this world back to normal.”

  Rostropovich hesitated.

  “Go ahead,” said Theresa, nostrils flaring, barely holding back her revulsion. “Turn the other cheek. My other hand is just as strong.”

  The Primus bowed his head. In shame, apparently, though it might simply have been a ploy to make her leave. But she had made her point, and having made it, she got up and left Rostropovich’s presence.

  The last blow in the long defense of the colony had been struck. As Theresa left the Citadel, she prayed she would never have to strike another.

  EPILOGUE

  Warlord Knahs goes berserk.

  “They have survived?” he bellows. “The Vermin upon our Holy World have survived and your genetically bred creatures”—he turns his ire on the High Chancellor—“are wiped out? And you expect me to … what? Simply accept this development?”

  “It is hardly a complete loss,” the High Chancellor assures him. “Our telemetry has provided us all manner of information as to the strengths and weaknesses of the Vermin. Yes, granted, they remain on Zantenor’s surface, but that state of affairs is not going to continue. The next time …”

  “No,” the Warlord shouts. “No next time! This time!” He stalks toward his warriors and says with a snarl, “Process attack vectors! Prepare for direct attack on the Vermin!”

  “Sir,” his second in command tells him, “this is a pilgrimage vessel! We do not have the necessary armament to bomb them.”