Diogenes turned away and looked back. “We live as a pack.”
“And die as a pack,” Yuma finished.
“If we forsake the pack, we are nothing but animals, wolves, exiles,” Karoc said.
Samus nodded with no emotion on his face.
“Blood or metal?” Karoc asked Grat.
“Metal,” Grat growled.
The three elders looked to each other and agreed.
Karoc stepped forward and stood before Denali. “You came to us long ago. We raised you as a pack, and when your trial is done, all shall be forgotten. But until then, the shame of your deeds are upon your shoulders.”
Denali stood and felt as alone as she could. She saw no reason to reply, it was a judgment, not a statement.
“You have three days,” Samus said. “Then we leave for the starport—”
“Light of men,” the elders echoed.
“—for the trials.”
The group broke and the elders melted back into the waking camp. Samus glared at Denali before leaving. He paused, relieved himself on the edge of the building, and trotted off.
Denali looked to the ground and felt ashamed of herself. Not for what she’d done, but for what she said. “I—”
“I know,” Grat said quietly.
“What if I don’t get enough?” Denali asked, picturing the heaps of salvage necessary to appease the machine gods and be granted entry to the trial.
Grat exhaled and made a loud flapping noise with his lips. “Quality, not quantity,” he said, and stood. “Just like you.”
Denali looked up and saw forgiving eyes, knowing eyes, eyes of her father.
The structure was like a giant insect laid down on a rocky shore and plucked apart by tiny ants. The metal shell was cracked, worn, and grit blasted by the sands and time. Well worn trails led to the larger access points and the dogs still trekked in and out.
Grat plodded forward and picked the trail that led towards the center of the structure. It was the least traveled path. A crease in the hull was too small to admit any but the smallest females. To Denali, the crack was plenty wide, she knew the spot well as she’d helped Barley many a day, but never on her own.
The sky above them filled with clouds. The mountains funneled and channeled the stone gray into rising funnels. Snowflakes fell at random moments, just enough to pepper their fur with white. It looked like the storm might blow over.
Grat led her to the opening and turned to face her. He stuck his muzzle into the crack and inhaled deeply. “Quality. Not quantity.”
Denali knew that Grat couldn’t smell a thing. His nose was so worn that he had a hard time smelling dinner. He was doing it for her benefit. She stepped closer and sniffed.
It smelled of old things. Dust. Plastics. A decay of time. There was also that smell of men. Long dead smells. But, to her surprise, also a smell of different things. Something had been breached.
“Kalus tells me they breached a new chamber, none can fit through the openings around it. Get in and be quiet about it. He will be waiting,” Grat said.
“Why here?” Denali asked. It was a shorter trip near the main entrance.
“No one can follow you out.” Grat glanced towards the pack members who worked lower on the slope. “Some think you don’t deserve this, don’t give them the chance to do you harm.”
Denali looked back at Grat and wondered how much he knew. “I’ll show them.”
“I know,” he said. His great nose nudged her side.
She smiled and stepped into the edge of the crack. It was wide enough that three of her could have walked abreast. For some reason she turned to Grat and asked, “Who was your father?”
He seemed taken back by the question. His eyes drooped and took on a heavy look. “A different dog than I.”
The passage narrowed almost immediately. It was cool inside, the sort of chill that never seemed to go away. The walls were gnawed smooth with any protrusion chewed away. Stubs of wire, chewed conduit, and tooth worn metal marked the way.
A still light illuminated the path. It came from the corners, like the residue of a sunset that was never swept away. While it wasn’t dark inside, it was definitely not light.
Denali listened and crept forward slowly. The only sound was her claws clacking on the floor. She walked slower, she could smell the wider passage ahead. Finally she came to an old thing with a smooth top. She propped herself up and scanned down the hall.
A dog, wide in the shoulders and narrow in the waist, pulled an empty caribou hide sled. His eyes focused on the ground in front of him and each step was a mechanical movement. Denali knew him well.
She leapt out in front and bared her teeth. “Krunk!”
Krunk skidded back. In a moment he tumbled sideways with his tail wrapped up in his harness. His sleepy eyes were wide and his mouth was on the edge of a howl. “Denali!”
Denali grinned and padded up next to him.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you.”
Denali helped him right the sled and untangled the raw caribou hide harness from his rear leg. “Says who?”
Krunk kept glancing down the wider passage. “Munin. He said—”
“You know me.” Denali tugged on the back of the sled.
“So why?”
Denali ruffled her nose into the flaps of the caribou hide. She hopped up onto the sled and pushed the flaps aside. The hiding spot seemed good enough, no one would look inside an empty sled.
“Why did you lead them on?”
“You know Samson and Sabot, right?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“So what do you think?”
Krunk scrunched up his nose. He sat heavily, propped out his rear leg, and strummed at an itch on the bridge of his nose. His tail swished slowly. “I’m not supposed to talk to you.”
“You don’t have to!” Denali said, as she pulled the flaps over her head.
“What are you doing?” Krunk growled.
“Pull!”
“They’re looking for you,” Krunk added, but began to pull slowly.
“Who?”
“Munin and Samus. Tohan is waiting at the outside. How’d you get past him?”
“He’s old and fat, how do you think?”
“Hrm,” Krunk grumbled. “You’re gonna owe me.”
“I already owe you.”
“Hrm.”
Krunk pulled the empty sled at a plodding pace.
The passage had the look of a metal cavern, and not the inside of something, well, something else. Denali watched the gnawed walls pass her by through a crease in the hide.
Doors came at regular intervals. Great octagonal things with giant bolts set in the center. The bolts were gnawed, as was anything else of value that a tooth could fit on. What was inside, no one knew, the mechanisms to open them were long gone.
Denali remembered a game she once played as a pup. All of the younglings would see who could creep forward and touch a paw onto the cool metal door. Behind, everyone else would growl and snarl. The pin-pricks of fear came back to her and she couldn’t help but smile.
Her mind drifted as she felt the sled crawl upward. She’d owe Krunk for this. Marmot. He loved Marmot. She knew that she’d have to spend many a day digging. She always liked Krunk, he was slow, but excelled at the job given to all those who hadn’t passed the trials—pulling salvage.
Deeper inside the adult dogs, those who passed the trial, would gnaw and use the metal teeth to rip out steel and wire salvage. Salvage, the thing they all paid to the machine gods. With it they gained a tough of strength or healing for a wound, or sharpened teeth. With that they could fight, they could win, but most of all they could survive.
A youth, with no such enhancement, could only help by pulling what they harvested. Denali was blessed that her size was too small to pull, but plenty small enough to ferret herself into the tight places. She normally didn’t find much, but she liked spending plenty of time acting like it was hard work. Though she was a
lways careful to get plenty dirty after waking up from the nap.
Krunk stopped. He itched himself and his foot slapped against the floor.
A bark echoed down the hall.
“Thanks, Krunk,” Denali whispered, and kept still.
The sled pulled forward and stopped abruptly.
“Did you see Grat, or the bitch?” Munin asked.
“No,” Krunk replied.
“Move,” Munin said, stifling a yawn.
Denali watched through a slit in the caribou. Munin sat down heavily and rested his massive gray head onto his paws. She shivered in the cold and felt good to be past that one.
Her eyes snapped open and she realized she’d fallen asleep. The sled was silent. She was about to ask Krunk what was going on when a nose poked inside.
Denali nipped at it with her front teeth and burst out the side. Her heart burst with fear and she scrambled away.
Krunk grinned back at her and Kalus was chuckling in his deep bass growl.
“You!” Denali growled back and chased after Krunk.
“C’mon!” Kalus said.
“Thanks!” Denali called back to Krunk and followed after Kalus.
The passage narrowed and they skirted past an oval door that was jammed open. Inside a wide open space was lost to the darkness. Large metallic bat-like things hung from the ceilings in clusters of three.
Beneath the shackled fliers were great caricatures of large metal men evenly spaced across the floor. The arms were tucked close near the center of the chest while the head was bowed, as if in prayer. On the shoulders perched dust shrouded boxes. Great armor plates covered them, plates unmarked by nanite teeth.
She kept close to Kalus and watched the great forms pass by. They reminded her of the skelebots but unmoving, watching, knowing.
Kalus spoke in a whisper. “Dimim he da chewed through some spicy wires and poof, upsee goes a door.” He stopped and rested against the side of the passage. “Chewy bits inside, easy pickings, yes? Some crunchy bits, too, man things, soowee! Good to pick ’em up!”
“Like, never been in?” Denali asked.
“Nope!” Kalus said with a click of his teeth. “Karoc be pacing like a bride.”
Denali liked the sound of it, at least for salvage. Most of the times she crawled, it was a dead end. If this really went somewhere new, well, that was going to be different. “How do I get in?”
“You already are,” Kalus said, and grinned.
Behind Denali a fresh piece of electrical conduit was pinched tightly with a ragged pigtail of wires draped beneath. “But where?”
“They be workin’ on da big door. Big big big. But for you—” his eyes lit up and he leaned down close to Denali, “—I founds a little spot.”
Denali followed close to Kalus and took in the smells of the place. It was an old smell, the air was still with a cloistered taste to it all. The dust seemed a bit thicker on the edges. She had expected more, something grander, something well, not quite so boring.
Kalus stopped and peered around a corner. Denali scooted between his front legs and peeked as well.
Another wide space sprawled open. Row after row of pillars stood with an unknown purpose. At the end of the hall, a ringed alloy door spun slowly.
A patchwork of gears, golden and bright, made patterns that mesmerized Denali. Words caught in her throat: “What, what is it?”
Kalus shrugged and walked into the shadows towards the corner of the room.
Denali could hardly take her eyes off the door. It was a thing of beauty to her. She grew up in a world filled with machine things, dead machine things, and now to see one that still functioned...
Kalus stalked back and grasped her by the scruff with his jaws like a pup.
Denali stifled a yelp and scrambled into the shadows. She didn’t even notice Samus watching over the rest of the pack as they gnawed and chewed.
They came to a wall with a panel peeled back. Tooth marks and claws had shredded it open. Inside, a passage drifted into total darkness. It was like the others Denali had scrambled into, too small for any but herself.
She sniffed but only smelled the stillness. A part of her was afraid, the fear of the dark places was instinct, but another part was exhilarated. Somewhere truly new. “Will you be waiting?”
“I’ll be waiting for you girly whirl, now be you safe!”
A hissing sound came from behind and Krunk trudged away. “I go!”
“And here I go,” Denali said in a whisper and pushed herself inside.
The passage was narrow and bland. The smells were almost totally gone, like it was stripped clean. She worked her paws one at a time feeling the metal beneath them. Cool metal. Her eyes were open as wide as she could get them and she saw nothing.
A sound, a mechanical humming, grew louder before finally retreating. The giant door, she assumed, and pictured the great cogs whirling and dancing. She wondered what sort of wonders could possibly hide behind such a thing.
In the darkness she could feel the passage slide up and down. A crease in the metal announced something, but she didn’t know what it was. She had no worries about getting lost: her scent was like a beacon.
Then her paw hit something and she yelped in surprise.
She poked her nose at it. It was an old smell, a collection of smells all blended together with a hint of corrosion. She felt the obstacle with her paws, it was a mesh. She pushed and it fell away.
The lights came on.
Denali froze. She didn’t even take a breath. The only sound was the hammering of her own heart. The air was as still as creation.
A hallway spread out in front of her, bathed in an empty white light. The sloped floor was a littered mess of debris. Glass was smashed, devices shredded apart, and not a single container was intact.
Denali crawled out. She stretched her weary legs and took it in. The first one, she thought. Me. She felt almost giddy with excitement and sniffed wildly while her tail thumped against the wall.
She sniffed into everything and scratched away to see if anything was of value. The footing was difficult, she kept sliding to the low side. She paused near something that looked heavy and pissed on it. With her duty done, she set off.
She picked through every pile of debris and sniffed for anything of interest. There were vials. There was broken cases. Plastic and metal and things she couldn’t guess at. Through it all she was happy, excited, then the aching in her chest reminded her of the death of Sabot and her duty.
Farther down the hall, it was dark. When she padded closer, another section would light up and one farther back would go out. She passed closed doors pocked with dimples. She didn’t like doors. Doors were something dogs couldn’t get through.
It was a simple affair with no handle. There was something written on it, but Denali had no idea what. She’d seen writing often enough, and was told that once dogs could read it, but that was no longer the case. A narrow slit of a window was above the halfway point.
She sniffed. Nothing. She stood on her hind legs but couldn’t quite get high enough. The tip of her nose was barely at the level of the window. It looked dark inside, that was all she could tell. No, not quite, there was a glow. A tantalizing glow that teased her into action.
There was a small panel near the side and Denali judged that she could run, get two paws onto it, and leap up to where she could see inside. Satisfied with her plan, she took three steps back and pounced.
Her paws slapped onto the narrow panel. She could see the window approaching and was almost there when the door slid to the side. There was a moment of vertigo, a misjudgment of space: the door was opening. She leaped through and crashed onto the ground.
It smelled different inside. Very different.
The corpse wore a uniform so old that the fabric crumbled in the fresh air currents. Its eyes were sunken and shriveled into ashen orbs. Lips were drawn tight against bleach white teeth. It lay on top of a metal suit with metallic arms embracing it. The side of th
e corpse’s head was splintered open.
Denali stood slowly and stared. Old was all she could think. Old.
It was mummified by the cool dry air. She’d seen enough skulls to know it was once a man, but never one like this.
She tore her glance from the dark eye sockets and looked into the rest of the room.
There was table after table, each held a corpse. The room was filled with the dead, a gallery of mummified remains. It smelled of death. Of a horrible thing, corpse after corpse, left to rot. Alone.
A barricade stood on the far side with a heap of corpses. Dead men in jet black body armor with hard edged weapons lay jumbled about. Just in front was a sealed door. A door ringed with silent gears.
Fear came into her. An animal fear. A fear like she’d never tasted before. All her senses told her to run, but her duty held her tight, and she was bound to repay her father. Bound to get something for the machine gods.
She pushed away the fear and stepped forward.
And then something moved.
The metallic arm creaked up from the chest of the mummified man. It hung in mid-air for a moment. Its fingers opened from a fist and gently slid the corpse aside like a featherlight bird. Leather crackled and bones jangled as the man came to rest.
Denali stared, wanting to run, but too curious not to. The thing she stared at was similar—but different—from the skelebots. Where the skelebots were hard edges, like a skeleton of steel, this was smooth, almost plump in places, with cracked plastic panels and a yellowed tint. Its sea blue eyes were wide, downcast, and sorrowful. Like it cared so much, but nothing cared for it.
“A dog.” It looked at Denali with sad eyes.
“Yes,” Denali whispered in a tiny whisper.
The bot cocked its head and folded is fingers onto its lap. “It speaks?” Its voice was proper, simple, and Denali liked the sound.
“How old are you?” Denali asked. She couldn’t think of anything else to say. Then she noticed that it was pierced to the wall with a beam of metal.
“I’ve seen the gorillas off G142. Then there was that pack of chimpanzees, stage hands, and good ones, below Rigel. A horrible little place, but the theatre was definitely Shakespeare. Finally there was the little gibbons, they are all hands and tools. They patched the ships quite beautifully.” It looked hard at Denali. “But not a dog. Will men try to curse everything with a conscience?”
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