After Earth: A Perfect Beast

by Peter David Michael Jan Friedman Robert Greenberger

  “I don’t know. I wish I knew what to tell you …”

  “This is what you can tell me.” She looked her in the eyes. “You lost a daughter. Is there anyone on this world whose life you wouldn’t trade to get your little girl back? Is there anyone whom you believe was intrinsically more worthy to live than your daughter?”

  Faia looked down, unable to keep her gaze upon Mallory. Very softly, she said, “My daughter died defending the life of her brother. And I can tell you right now: Not a day goes by when my son doesn’t just miss his sister, but also wonders why he got to live while she died. Not a single day. Anyone who tells you there’s any fairness in life is lying to you. And we look for a reason for things, and we look to ourselves and our personal failures to try and figure out what we could have done to avoid what happened. But all we do is second-guess ourselves. Because the truth is that you can make yourself insane worrying about these things. The harsh truth—as least as far as I’m concerned—is that the universe is indifferent to us. Our endless second-guessing just makes it harder for us to realize that it’s all utterly random. And all we can do, in deciding how to live our lives, is to make our best guess and move on.”

  “I can’t move on.” She drew a hand across her stomach. “I’m carrying this constant reminder of what could have been …”

  “It can still be.”

  “Not with my husband. I can’t …”

  Faia pointed a stern finger at her. “Don’t you dare let the next words out of your mouth be ‘do it without him.’ ” When Mallory said nothing further, Faia continued. “You’re a Ranger, Mallory. I’ve known a few Rangers in my time, including my daughter. I know the type; I know the mind-set. And there is nothing you can’t do if you set your mind to it. If some Rangers can stare down an Ursa and be unafraid, I think you can control your fear of an infant.”

  “It’s not just the baby. It’s what it represents.”

  “It represents responsibility. That’s what Rangers are all about.”

  She had been walking steadily toward Mallory, and now she rested a hand on her shoulder. “Look … I have no intention of lecturing you.”

  “I don’t feel like that’s what you’re doing,” Mallory lied.

  “Well, I’m skirting it, at the very least. Ultimately, I can’t tell you what to do. It’s not my place and besides, my personal life is so difficult that I’m hardly the person to lecture anyone else. Listen: We both know the pain of losing loved ones. And we also know the incredible demands that a sense of duty places upon us. I may not be a Ranger myself, but my husband wrote the book on the Ranger mind-set … literally.”

  “What?” Then suddenly everything fell into place. “Faia … Raige. Your husband is Cypher Raige. The Original Ghost. The Commanding General. I’m so sorry. I … I should have—”

  “Should have what? Stood at attention the whole time?” She smiled slightly, but then the smile faded. “I suppose what it comes down to is that no answer is the absolute right one. You have to choose a path, and it’s going to be irrevocable no matter what you do. It’s always daunting when there’s no going back. And there are always sacrifices to be made.”

  “And who am I”—once more Mallory put her hand on her stomach—“to make decisions that could wind up sacrificing someone else’s life without them having the slightest say in it?”

  “Making decisions on behalf of your children—some of them life and death—comes with the territory. Less hardy women than you have dealt with it and come through fine. Like I said, there’s no easy answer. But I know this: What’s the most important thing? Children being born? Or the world they’re being born into?”

  “So you think I should—”

  “I think,” she said encouragingly, “that you have to make a decision you yourself can live with. And once you’ve done that, everything else will fall into place.” She squeezed her shoulder in solidarity.

  That evening, in his office, Colonel Green looked up from his desk and saw Mallory standing in the doorway. She was wearing her uniform, freshly pressed.

  She saluted sharply.

  “Lieutenant Mallory McGuiness reporting for active duty, sir. For as long as it’s physically possible, at any rate.”

  He studied her for a long moment. “Are you sure?”

  “A Ranger’s first priority is to serve Nova Prime. The sooner Junior here learns that”—she nodded downward—“the better off we’ll all be.”

  VI

  For this? I went through all that agonizing for this?

  Mallory glanced at her two fellow Rangers. Corporal Abbey was tall and powerfully built, and his enthusiasm for his duty as a Ranger was palpable. Private Sutton was wiry and easily one of the most athletic Rangers in the corps. There was nothing wrong with her companions.

  What was wrong was the mission itself.

  The delivery shuttle skimmed across the Falkor Desert of Nova Prime. Sutton was at the helm, keeping a steady hand. Every so often it bobbed up and down as a powerful gust of wind would endeavor to blow it sideways. The Falkor was renowned for its strong winds; of all the desert areas of Nova Prime, it was most prone toward sandstorms. Why anyone would have the slightest interest in setting up shop out here, Mallory couldn’t even begin to fathom.

  And yet a group of scientists had established an outpost, and they were in need of help.

  Routine help.

  Mind-numbingly boring help.

  Which was the only sort of mission she had these days.

  Colonel Green had welcomed her back to the ranks of the Rangers all right, but since that day, he had been extraordinarily, even insanely, cautious in terms of how he utilized her. She had assumed that she would be thrust into major undertakings involving Ursa. Instead most of her missions were routine patrols in areas where there had been no Ursa sightings.

  I should be out there helping. I should be battling the Skrel and their plans and their evil. And instead I’m stuck doing chores that anyone could do. You don’t need a Ghost to do a delivery run. You don’t even need a Ranger to accomplish it.

  Yet that was what she was stuck doing. The past several months there had been almost no rain on Nova Prime, and the population was creaking under the effects of the growing drought. As a consequence, water was being carefully rationed, and the dispensing of it had fallen under the auspices of the Rangers.

  Green had selected her to head up this particular run. When she’d received her orders, she had wanted to scream in protest. She’d hoped that Green had finally decided to give her something interesting, but no, he was still keeping her on the shelf. When she’d offered a token protest, Green had simply replied, “I’m utilizing you where I feel you can do the most good, Lieutenant.”

  She wasn’t buying that for a second. It was obvious to her that, despite her value as a Ghost, Green had trepidations about putting her into the thick of things. She had briefly considered bringing her complaints directly to the Commanding General. If anyone should be irritated by a Ghost being underutilized, it would be the Original Ghost.

  She couldn’t bring herself to do it, however. First of all, how would she broach it? Hey, General … I happened to run into your wife in the cemetery the other day, and figured you and I would have a chat.

  Second, she had far too much respect for the chain of command. She answered to Green, and Green in turn to the man variously referred to as the Commanding General or Prime Commander. She had no business bypassing Green. It wasn’t her job to decide where she could best serve the Rangers. It was her job to obey.

  So the only option she really had was to continue the way she was going, as her belly slowly began to distend and make the presence of her little parasite known. The bump was not yet having a major impact on her physicality, but she was feeling the beginnings of awkwardness and discomfort, a recurring sensation of being off balance as her center of gravity shifted. She hated it because her body had always been a finely tuned machine and she wasn’t appreciating in the least a wrench be
ing tossed into the works.

  I hate my baby.

  She felt guilty the instant she thought it, but she couldn’t help herself. Here the child’s presence had apparently made her capable of ghosting, but she wasn’t being allowed to take advantage of that status. So all she was left with was a sense of anger and frustration because the infant was crimping her ability to do her job, condemning her to day after day of inconsequential duties. The baby was curtailing her ability to serve, but if she felt any resentment toward it, then she was automatically a bad mother because good mothers didn’t hate their children.

  I knew this was a bad idea. Jan wanted children, not me. I am going to be a lousy mother. A lousy mother who’s always going to resent her baby for—

  “Lieutenant, we’ve got the outpost on our scopes,” said Sutton.

  Mallory focused herself on the task at hand, however menial it was. In the rear of the shuttle were six large containers of water. It would have to last the scientists for at least two months, so they would have to be extremely cautious with how they used it.

  “Inform them of our approach.”

  “Aye, copy that.”

  Mallory watched out the forward observation window as they drew closer and closer. It was nothing more than a series of small buildings, each made of fluttering walls and roofs of smart cloth. Their supreme flexibility enabled them to withstand even the most formidable of winds as they roared through. There were also several silver towers. She had no idea what they were for; perhaps they gathered readings for various experiments the scientists were doubtless performing.

  Her tolerance for, and belief in, scientists remained minimal. Nevertheless, they were waiting to be helped, and it was her job to attend to their needs. She frowned, though, when long moments passed and they received no response to their hail. “Sutton?” She didn’t have to complete the question; it was obvious that she wanted to know why the scientists appeared to be radio-silent.

  Sutton shook his head. “Don’t know what’s going on, Lieutenant.”

  “Abbey, check the long-range monitors,” said Mallory. She had unstrapped from her seat and was pacing the interior of the shuttle. “See if a sandstorm is moving into the area. Perhaps that could be jamming the transmission.”

  “How would it be doing that?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted in frustration. “Just check—”

  “Already have. True, things can come up quickly out here, but at the moment the screens are all clear.”

  Mallory studied the image of the outpost as it drew ever closer. She wasn’t seeing anything. No sign of movement, no sign of life anywhere. “Where the hell did they go?” she whispered.

  “Should we head back, Lieutenant?”

  She shook her head. “No. We need to see what’s going on. Maybe they’re hiding from something.”

  “Like what?” said Abbey, but he wouldn’t have to think terribly hard to imagine what the “like what” might be. It wasn’t a stretch for any of them, really.

  “We’ll find out,” Mallory said in a carefully neutral voice.

  Moments later, the shuttle had settled onto the ground about a hundred feet away from the encampment. After sending word to headquarters that something appeared to be unusual and they were going to investigate, Mallory irised open the ship’s door. The three Rangers carefully emerged from the ship, their cutlasses at the ready. Nothing appeared to be moving in the area. As near as the Rangers could determine, they were completely alone.

  There was no need to spread out. The outpost was small enough that, even with the Rangers staying together, it would only take a matter of minutes to cover the entire area.

  “Hello?” Mallory called out tentatively. It seemed absurd on one level to do so; clearly there was no one around. Nevertheless she did it reflexively. “We’re Rangers. Is anyone here? Is anyone in need of aid?”

  No response. Nothing save a steady breeze rolling in from the desert.

  “Lieutenant.” Abbey was crouching a few feet away and gesturing for Mallory to join him. “Check this out.”

  Mallory walked over to Abbey and saw that he was pointing toward something on the ground. There were a few dark red spots, and several small, white fragments of—

  “Bone?”

  Abbey nodded. His face was grim. “Blood and bone, aye. Something was slaughtered here. And something was eaten by something that didn’t leave much of anything behind. I’ll bet you if we check around, we’ll find a few more bits like this. But not many more.”

  “Ursa,” whispered Mallory.

  “And not all that long ago,” said Abbey. He dabbed tentatively at one of the red spots. “It’s still wet. And out here, in this heat, it would dry out fairly quickly.”

  Sutton, a few feet away, turned ashen. Mallory understood why. It wasn’t that he was daunted by the prospect of an Ursa. No, he was imagining what it must have been like for the poor bastards who had been here to be assaulted and devoured so quickly, they didn’t even have time to send out a call for help. Not that anyone would have been able to arrive in time.

  Mallory’s immediate instinct was to get back into the cargo ship and get the hell out of there. There was nothing more to be done for the scientists. At this moment they were working through whatever passed for an Ursa’s digestive tract.

  As if reading her mind, Abbey said, “We need to get out of here. That thing could be anywhere …”

  “And if it is,” said Mallory, “it’s our job to kill it.”

  “There’re only three of us.”

  “One of whom is a Ghost,” Sutton reminded him. “Lieutenant,” Abbey said, “with all respect, we all know no one was expecting an Ursa encounter. Typical hunting party for an Ursa is eight Rangers. Even with a Ghost, five is protocol, unless the Ghost is extremely experienced. Again, with the greatest respect, you only have one kill—unconfirmed, mind you—to your credit, and since then …”

  “I’ve been more or less given easy duties, which makes you doubt our superior’s confidence in me? Plus I’m obviously pregnant and it may slow me down or cause me to hesitate in the face of danger? Is that what you were going to say? With the greatest respect?”

  Abbey stared at her silently. He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. All he was doing was giving voice to the self-doubts she already had.

  “Okay,” Mallory said after a long pause. “Okay, you can speak freely. How would you like to see this handled?”

  Abbey let out a sigh of relief, clearly glad that Mallory had chosen not to cut him off at the knees, which she would have totally been within her rights to do. “We get back in the ship, button her up, then send for reinforcements and remain on station until they arrive.”

  It didn’t sound like an unreasonable plan. There was no one here to save, so immediate action wasn’t required. Proceeding cautiously made every bit of sense. Indeed, there was no reason not to do so.

  She nodded.

  Immediately Abbey headed back to the ship, Sutton following right behind him. Mallory brought up the rear, keeping a wary eye on their surroundings. If there was one thing that was certain about Ursa, it was that just because you didn’t see them didn’t mean they weren’t around.

  The ship was sitting there waiting for them, perched on its landing struts.

  Abbey was walking up the ramp; on his approach, the hatch irised open. Sutton was right behind him, and that was when Mallory noticed that the shuttle was sitting lower on its struts than it had been before.

  She put it together in a heartbeat.

  “Fall back!” she shouted.

  Too late. The Ursa, perched atop the shuttle, its weight responsible for the craft’s visible sagging, shimmered into view and roared. Abbey and Sutton froze in place, fear pumping through them. Within the darkness of the world that the Ursa inhabited, the terror that they radiated would be akin to a lighthouse beacon. The Ursa swept its right claw around and Abbey’s head went flying, blood fountaining from his shoulders. Abbey collapsed, h
is cutlass slipping from lifeless fingers. Sutton instantly stepped back, bringing his cutlass around, and he slashed at the Ursa. The Ursa vaulted over him and, while in midair, lashed out with its talon. The claw slammed through Sutton’s back and out his chest. The sight of his innards spilling out transfixed him. The Ursa landed on the ground near the ship, sending Sutton’s body tumbling off its ramp.

  All of it had happened within barely five seconds, and the entire time Mallory stood there, bolted to the ground, eyes wide.

  The Ursa pivoted, sweeping the rest of the area. Mallory stumbled backward, but her shifting center of gravity, courtesy of her expanding belly, threw her balance off ever so slightly … just enough to cause her to fall to the ground with a gasp.

  The Ursa’s head snapped around. Blind it may have been, but its hearing was sharp, and instantly it perceived her presence.

  As it turned to face her, she spotted a long scar running along its side, right where she had cut into an Ursa months ago. The same one? Not definitive, but entirely possible.

  It advanced upon her, its claws clacking on the arid ground. It knew where she was generally; it just needed her to exude the level of fear it required to zero in on her.

  She saw her fellow Rangers cut to pieces, their bodies scattered, and she imagined herself meeting a similar, horrid fate …

  … and she clamped down on her fear. She tossed it aside like it was someone else’s problem. She squared her shoulders, faced the Ursa, and thought nothing of its presence. It became little to her, insignificant. It was as if she had disconnected her mind from her body.

  The Ursa stopped where it was. It visibly sniffed the air, but it was designed for perceiving endorphins. Other aromas simply blended together into one indistinguishable mass of olfactory input.

  Mallory began to circle it. She bent at her knees, providing her more balance, and her feet moved across the ground noiselessly. Her cutlass was at the ready.

  Suddenly the Ursa’s head whipped around and it was “looking” right at her. She froze, certain that it somehow had zeroed in on her. She waited, her legs flexed, prepared to leap to either side to avoid the creature’s inevitable charge.