After Earth: A Perfect Beast

by Peter David Michael Jan Friedman Robert Greenberger

  VI

  The recorded sounds of trumpets flared across the sky, and Captain Green was reading out the list of names of those who had graduated Ranger training with honors. The loudest applause, however, came for Daniel Silver as he stood resplendent in the white uniform denoting his status as Ghost.

  Captain Freed had handed him his cutlass as Green continued to intone the names of the graduates. Daniel snapped off a sharp salute in response. It was impressive that he was receiving so much of an ovation, considering he had no outside friends or family there. The corps was where all his friends were. The corps was his family.

  Before Daniel could step farther down the line, Freed leaned forward and said to him softly, “Fastest trainee in the history of the Rangers. You should be very proud.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Your parents should also be proud.”

  “I’m sure they are.”

  Freed glanced toward the stands. “Are they here?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “They think I’m a bum, sir.”

  “Do they.” He paused and then said, “Silver … I can’t account for the man you might have been. But I know the man you are now. The one who, as a Ghost, has been monitored over every step of his progress. Your evaluations indicate the same thing: You started off slowly, but as time passed, your interest in helping your fellow cadets developed very quickly and very naturally. You moved in natural formation, and your desire to protect others in your squad was instinctive. The general consensus is that you see the others, not as your fellow Rangers, but as your family. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.”

  “You’re … not wrong, sir,” said Daniel, his voice husky.

  “I never am,” said Freed. And he tossed off a brisk salute that Daniel, displaying some confusion, returned.

  Minutes later he was standing alone, whipping the cutlass back and forth. He felt a swell of emotion: He had worked toward something and now he was holding it in his hand. He’d accomplished his goal; the cutlass was the proof of that. It created a vicious arc in the air as he snapped it around with expert dexterity. He looked at it with pride.

  With accomplishment.

  With naked fear.

  I’m a fraud, he thought.

  He thought of all the times on the obstacle course as he pushed his body to do more than it ever had before. He pounded across it leaping, jumping, and scrambling, avoiding or dealing with anything that they threw at him. With every new challenge that he met, he felt a surging rise of confidence in the things his body was capable of doing.

  Fraud.

  He took classes in self-defense, in combat, in survival. He further honed his mind and body, faced off against his fellow cadets in sparring duels, each of them wielding practice cutlasses. Daniel took to the practice as naturally as an infant did to breathing: All he’d needed was that initial slap on the behind and then he was doing it as well as anyone and better than most. His mastery of the cutlass, once he had been drilled in the basic moves, was absolute. Long after other cadets had gone lights-out, he would be outside, stripped to the waist and whipping the practice cutlasses around so fast they were nothing more than a blur. His muscle memory became so drilled into him that his reaction time was measurable in nanoseconds. To attack Daniel Silver was to court disaster, because you would have your practice cutlass knocked out of your hand and your back on the floor before you even knew what happened. “Absolutely deadly.” “Never make him angry.” That was what his fellow cadets would say about him.

  Fraud.

  He walked across the field, newly graduated, and people automatically bowed or saluted whenever they saw him. No, not him so much as the gleaming white uniform denoting his status.

  Fraud, fraud, fraud.

  When he’d first undergone his psych evaluation, he had been entirely candid with them. He had told them flatly that he’d had no trouble ghosting because he was indifferent to whether the Ursa attacked him or not. He was worried this would disqualify him or be perceived as suicidal. Instead the conclusion drawn was that he was simply supremely confident, like an old Earth matador or animal trainer. Subsequent testing determined, to the satisfaction of the doctors, that—if nothing else—Daniel Silver did care if others lived or died. Were he in a situation where other Rangers were depending on him to save their lives, then he could be counted on to get the job done.

  He had told no one of his relative indifference during the assault on Ryerson and his crew. He didn’t consider it to be of any relevance. They were fools tempting a vengeful fate, and they had done so with an attitude so cavalier that the gene pool was well rid of them.

  The Rangers, on the other hand …

  His earlier contempt for the Rangers had long since dissipated. As one month rolled into another, Daniel became not only more and more impressed by the character and caliber of the Rangers, but thrilled and honored to be a part of the organization.

  And the better he felt about the corps, the better he felt about himself. He had become part of a brotherhood, and he now had something to live for: to serve alongside them and help keep them alive to the best of his ability.

  Fraud. Fraud. FRAUD.

  “You okay?”

  An arm draped around his shoulder. It was Martes, who was arguably the best friend he had in his squadron. Martes was tall, lanky, with a sense of humor that was funny mostly to him. When he’d first encountered Daniel, Daniel had been uncertain and a bit standoffish. This had proven an irresistible combination to Martes, who had taken it upon himself, for no reason that Daniel could discern, to drag him, “kicking and screaming,” from his shell. Martes, as much as anyone and more than some, was responsible for the Ranger that Daniel had become, the one who had earned such unreserved compliments from Freed. Eventually Daniel and Martes had bonded during a particularly brutal survival training episode, and they’d had each other’s back ever since.

  The only frustration that Martes had met up with was when he’d tried to get Daniel to consider the romantic possibilities with some of the more comely female Rangers. Daniel had declined all comers. This had prompted Martes to wonder where Daniel’s interests lay, but Daniel had informed him that, yes, females were his “outlet” of preference. At this point in his life, though, he just preferred not to. The fact was that Ronna had so destroyed him inwardly, he simply didn’t want to open himself up to that kind of heartache anymore.

  “Why, don’t I look okay?” he said to Martes.

  “Dan, this should be the best day of your life and you look like you’re about to step off a cliff.”

  Wow. That is so on target it’s not even funny.

  “I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

  “What else can you possibly have on your mind, aside from the obvious?”

  “The obvious being?”

  “We—you and me—are officially the hottest things on two legs. You are a Ghost, and I’m the friend of a Ghost, and we are young, sexy, and incredibly handsome. We are irresistible. Which means the sooner you get over your obsession with Donna—”

  “Ronna.”

  “—the better off you’re going to be. Because you, my friend, have a lot to live for!”

  And that’s the problem, isn’t it, old friend, old buddy, old pal. What made me of interest to the Rangers is that I felt like I had nothing to live for. And over time, I found something to live for. And because of that, I might well get myself killed. Myself, and others.

  Because I’m nothing but a great, big fraud.

  VII

  In the end, Daniel knew that it had to come back to here, back to the Tangredi. These things have a way of coming full circle. It started here and it’s going to end here, too.

  It had been a year since there had been any report of Ursa in the Tangredi Jungle. Ranger squads had continued to patrol there regularly for more than two months, but with no further encounters it was decided that—for the time being, at least—the area was clear. The mo
st hopeful interpretation of the Ursa’s absence was that the multiple wounds inflicted by the Rangers had done the creature in, but the corpse remained unfound and so it was generally conceded that thinking the creature was dead was, at best, optimistic.

  And now it was back. Or, at the very least, something had taken up residence in the Tangredi Jungle. Since the previous incursion, the Rangers had installed pressure-sensitive bio-detectors at random points throughout the jungle. They had remained undisturbed for many months.

  But then, exactly two weeks after Daniel and his squadron had graduated, something tripped one of the detectors. To Daniel’s imagination, it was as if the Ursa were sending him a message. Are you ready for me, Daniel? You may have fooled me last time, but now we both know you for what you are. Come to me, Daniel. It’s time you joined Ryerson and his little friends.

  As absurd as it may have seemed, Daniel was secretly glad for the opportunity. He still felt as if he needed to prove something to Ronna’s voice: the one in his head that continued to berate him and tell him that he would never amount to anything. If he could truly prove himself worthy of the designation of Ghost, the highest rank of the Rangers, then that would show her. And him. It would show once and for all that she was wrong to have dumped him and would go a long way toward mending his broken heart.

  Martes was with Daniel, as were Rangers Xin, Ephraim, and Bastante. Three others—Calhoun, Ryan, and Stewart—had gone on ahead. He hadn’t wanted any of them along; Ghosts typically hunted alone, and he didn’t want to risk others in his squad if it wasn’t necessary. But they wouldn’t hear of it. “You’re not going to take down your first Ursa without us around to have your back.”

  Captain Freed was heading up another squadron operating in another section of the jungle. Daniel desperately wished that Freed were with him, and had even suggested that Freed accompany their squadron, hoping he didn’t sound too desperate when he put forward the idea. Instead Freed had clapped a hand on his shoulder and said confidently, “You’re a natural at this, Silver. This is what you’ve been training for. You’re going to be fine.”

  Daniel didn’t feel fine. He felt like a liability.

  Nevertheless, he didn’t allow any of his inner turmoil to show. “We stay together,” he informed his squad as they made their way through the jungle. “No splitting up. I’ll be damned if this thing picks us off one by one.”

  “Roger that,” said Ephraim. He was clearly somewhat nervous. He’d had as much training as anyone, but there was still that adrenaline-fueled worry when it came to being out in the field, chasing down the nightmare creature whose name was invoked to scare recalcitrant children when they wouldn’t go to bed at night. Every single one of the squadron had been told, at some point in their lives, “An Ursa is going to get you if you don’t behave.”

  They reached the clearing that Daniel knew all too well. With a year gone by, there was no sign of the massacre that had transpired there. Daniel slowly surveyed the area and saw nothing, which of course didn’t mean a thing. Yes, he’d seen the wavery image of the Ursa employing its chameleon camouflage the last time, but that was merest happenstance since he’d been staring right at it. He reached out with his senses, his tracking abilities, everything he could bring to bear.

  Nothing.

  “Keep going,” he said tightly.

  They moved in their smooth, practiced manner between the trees. They kept a lookout all around, listening for the slightest snap of a branch, the faintest rustling of a leaf. Anything that would betray the creature’s presence, give them even as little as a few seconds’ warning.

  Still nothing.

  “Starting to think we’re alone out here,” said Xin. She was clutching her cutlass tightly. Xin had been one of the most proficient wielders of the cutlass in class, and there was a look of grim determination on her face. It seemed to Daniel that she was actually anxious to take the creature on.

  At least one of us is.

  Daniel felt his heart pounding so hard that it was threatening to explode from his chest. He’d had no trouble maintaining calm detachment during training sessions where he was facing off against a simulated Ursa. No matter how realistic it was, it was to him no different than when he’d squared off against the holographic Ursa at the firing range. This, though, was different. This was people, men and women, depending on him. He wasn’t sure which worried him more: losing his life, or letting down the others.

  He was sure his knees were shaking. How could they not notice that?

  A crack of a branch and everyone jumped, snapping into a ready position.

  “Crap,” muttered Bastante. He raised his foot slightly to reveal a branch on the ground that he’d just stepped on. Ephraim promptly punched Bastante hard in the shoulder.

  “Stay sharp. No screwing around,” said Daniel sharply. The others nodded, and there were muttered apologies from Bastante and Ephraim.

  They kept moving, checking in with Freed’s squad as they did so.

  “I smell water,” said Xin minutes later. “Up ahead.”

  She was right. Ahead of them, the ground opened out onto a wide lake. The water was glass-flat with nary a ripple. Under other circumstances, it would have looked inviting.

  “Perhaps we should stake this out,” suggested Martes. “Even Ursa have to drink, right?”

  “I think so,” said Bastante, “but you never know for sure with Ursa.”

  They drew closer to the lake’s edge, and Daniel said, “Okay … here’s what we do—”

  He got no farther, however, as the Ursa exploded upward from beneath the water barely two yards in front of the gathered Rangers.

  It emerged with such force and velocity that a huge gout of water erupted all around it. The water leaped up like a geyser and then cascaded down upon them with the weight of a dozen anvils, knocking them off their feet.

  Daniel was reasonably certain it was the same Ursa that had attacked them a year ago. It sounded the same; he was even sure he could see scars on its hide from when the Rangers had assaulted it.

  The Ursa landed squarely in the midst of the startled Rangers and let out a roar. It pivoted and went for Bastante, who was nearest. Bastante rolled backward, came up on his feet, and slashed his cutlass in a figure eight. The Ursa dodged left and then swept one of its talons forward. It sliced diagonally across Bastante’s torso from shoulder to waist. Bastante shrieked and went down, blood pouring from him like a river. The Ursa backed up, and one of its hind feet touched up against Ephraim. Ephraim tried to bring his cutlass to bear, but he had no time; the Ursa simply stomped down on his head with its hind foot and there was a noise like that of a melon being crushed.

  Everyone else was still trying to get to their feet, but the ground beneath them was soaked and they were slipping helplessly on the mud. The Ursa’s head whipped around as it prepared to pick its next victim.

  Daniel had managed to get to his knees. He knew the drill: The Ursa would lock onto a target and not be dissuaded from it until the target was dead. Ephraim dead. Bastante down, likely dead. They’re looking to me to protect them, and I can’t, because I don’t want to die and this thing’s going to kill us all …

  What do you think, Ronna? Will this make you love me? Am I enough of a man now? Here I am in a steady job where I have to be prepared to die every day I go to work. If you knew, would you give a damn? Probably not.

  All of that went through Daniel’s head in a split second, distracting him not in the slightest from the situation at hand, and then he shouted, “Here! Here, you eyeless bastard! Come and get me!”

  The Ursa locked onto him. He swore he could even see the flare of its nostrils. With a roar, the Ursa barreled toward him.

  Daniel closed his eyes.

  In his mind, the lake was gone. The Rangers were gone. The Ursa was gone. All that was there, against his eyelids, was Ronna.

  I don’t hate you, Daniel. I pity you. I pity you and myself for spending so much time with an out-and-out loser. Ok
ay? That’s what you are. That’s all you are. A big loser. And you can say that people change all you want, but they don’t. You were a loser when I met you, and you’re a loser now, and you’re never going to accomplish anything of any worth for anybody.

  She had never said anything like that, but it didn’t matter. In his own mind, he had built up his rejection to such heights that that’s how she had made him feel, even if she hadn’t actually spoken those words.

  Everything that he’d felt at that moment—the humiliation, the lack of self-worth, the utter despair that overwhelmed him, the sense that nothing else would matter for the rest of his empty life—came roaring back to him. It was all he could do not to start sobbing.

  He became aware of the foul breath of the Ursa upon him. He shoved himself even farther into the despair that Ronna had brought down upon him.

  Then he realized the Ursa hadn’t killed him.

  Slowly he opened his eyes.

  The Ursa was looking around, its nostrils definitely flaring. It was trying to find him. It was six inches away from him and didn’t know where he was.

  Daniel’s cutlass was retracted. Very slowly, keeping the soul-crushing diatribe of Ronna fixed in his mind, reminding himself that he was a useless loser who had nothing to live for, he positioned the cutlass so that it was directly under the Ursa’s jaw.

  Then he activated it.

  The blade drove straight upward at an angle, under the creature’s chin and up through the roof of its mouth.

  The Ursa was unable to roar because its jaw was pinioned shut. The creature’s strongest muscles were the ones that closed its mouth; the muscles that opened it were somewhat weaker. That served to Daniel’s advantage. The creature writhed and its talons flailed in the air as Daniel forced himself to his feet, pitting his strength against the Ursa’s massive weight. It should have been an impossible mismatch, but Daniel was operating on pure adrenaline, and he felt as if he were drawing power from an endless supply. The Ursa was shoved upward, off its front paws. Daniel yanked the cutlass apart, activated the other half. He had to pull his arm back quickly because the Ursa’s thrashing talons nearly took his arm off at the shoulder. Then, for an instant, he had a clear shot. He took it, activating the other half of the cutlass and driving it directly into the side of the Ursa’s head, into its brain.