Wasteland of Flint

by Thomas Harlan

  "No!" Smith looked horrified—properly horrified—but Koshō could see a twinge of memory in the boy's pale eyes. "I'm only a junior officer," he said, almost stammering.

  "You are correct," the sho-sa said quietly. "You are a junior officer. You've much to learn before Hadeishi-tzin is entirely comfortable with placing you in a lead role. But the day will come when he does, never fear." Avoiding the surprised look on his face, she activated the newly configured panel and handed him a v-pad already keyed to a set of security codes.

  "Smith-tzin," Koshō said formally, "would you care to bring the new system online?"

  The midshipman blinked once and then took the pad. Visibly gathering himself, Smith looked over the codes, then examined the g-scan panel. Koshō sat beside him quietly, keeping a very close eye on what he was doing. Taking a deep breath, Smith tapped open a comm channel.

  "Bridge to Engineering."

  There was an immediate, tired-sounding answer. "Helsdon here, Bridge."

  "Are your crews clear of the outer hull?" Smith was searching frantically on the reconfigured display. Koshō continued to watch, an expression of mild interest on her face. "We are preparing to bring the g-scan array online."

  "Wait one, Bridge." Helsdon's voice cut off with the squeak of a muted channel. A moment later, he came back on comm. "Bridge, we are clear. All crews are accounted inside the secondary hull. You are clear to activate the g-array."

  Smith found the controls for the external point-defense system and toggled on a set of pattern cameras mounted on hard-points along the Cornuelle''s hull. Koshō's eyes narrowed in interest as he woke them up and fed in parameters for a close-hull scan. A moment later the comp chimed to announce the area immediately outside the ship was clear of people in z-suits.

  "Hull clear," Smith announced. "Stand by for live power to g-array."

  "Standing by," echoed back from both Engineering and the watch duty officer on the bridge.

  "Power." Smith tapped a glyph of a running man bearing a twisting flame atop a brick on his stylized head. The third section of the communications station lit and data began to feed into the system. A preliminary plot began to appear seconds later. At the same moment, a string of amber lights flared on the panel. Smith jerked as if struck in the face and immediately punched a shutdown. "We have a partial systems failure," he barked into the comm. "Engineering, systems check!"

  "Got it," Helsdon grumbled and Koshō could hear him scratching a stubbly beard. "Power conduits show green... hull skin feedback shows nominal... no pressure drops, no hull rupture."

  Koshō watched Smith with interest. The boy was sweating, the back of his uniform shirt sticking to narrow shoulders, but he did not freeze or balk in the face of an unexpected situation.

  "Are we radiating?" he snapped at both Engineering and the ensign riding the weapons panel. "Is there hull leakage?"

  "No," came the answer a bare second later from Weapons.

  Helsdon in Engineering was humming a little tune, but he chimed in a heartbeat later. "I'm seeing some queer readings from the reconfigured sensors in grid two-even. There must be some kind of data-formatting problem in the sensor feed." The engineer sighed audibly. "I'll take a crew and sort this. Engineering, out."

  Smith let himself breathe out in relief, then stiffened, glancing sideways at the sho-sa. He seemed both exhilarated and near dead with fright.

  "You will get your turn," Koshō said, taking back the v-pad. She was not smiling, being a proper officer, but her eyes glittered a little in amusement at his excitement. "There are always problems like this when we bring a new system online."

  "Yes, Koshō-tzin ." Smith made a sharp little bow, just as he had been taught in the Fleet officers' calmecac. Her eyes narrowed a little, considering him. The boy stiffened again, expecting a rebuke of some kind.

  "A question—you did not believe Helsdon-tzin's assertion that the outer hull was clear?"

  "No—well, I believed him, ma'am—but... on my cadet cruise, ma'am, they had a punishment detail outside, repainting the hull numbers on the Tizoc. I was standing a duty watch on the bridge and Weapons decided to run a system test on the main sensor array. They checklisted with everyone they were supposed to—Engineering, the Marine detachment, Flight Operations—but they didn't ask the quartermaster. Number sixteen array went to full active scan and killed three cadets. Boiled them alive right inside their suits." Smith was looking a little white around the gills.

  "Never pays to be hasty," he said in conclusion, avoiding her gaze. "Ma'am."

  "Very wise," Koshō said, pushing herself up out of the chair. "Return to quarters. You must be alert and well-rested for the morning duty watch."

  "Hai!" Smith bowed formally and then left the bridge, trying not to burst from unfettered pride.

  Koshō watched him go, thinking about the past. Dead men teach memorable lessons, she thought with a certain grim humor. Their sacrifice repaid a thousand times.

  The heavy carrier Tizoc was notorious in Fleet for the number of training accidents suffered by her ever-changing crews. Koshō had served on the ancient, outdated and frankly dangerous capital ship herself. Every officer did—Tizoc had born the brunt of cadet cruises for three generations—but most did not realize until they'd knocked around the Fleet for a tour or that the 'curse', struck each and every cadet class with brutal, endlessly repeated efficiency.

  Every officer in Fleet had been on watch, or on duty station or even on the same work detail or in the same compartment, or at least in the same graduating class, as some poor unfortunate who died gruesomely as the result of careless procedure or sloppy handling or one of the millions of tiny errors which could doom a man, a ship, or a fleet. Cadets boarding the Tizoc for the first time were told the ship was named after an Emperor called 'He-who-bleeds-the-people.' Later, when they heard enough of stories from their shipmates and were sober enough to put two and two together to make four, the veteran officers called the venerable old carrier 'He-who-winnows-the-chaff' in tones of wary respect.

  Koshō looked once around the bridge, saw everything was in order, and then kicked into the accessway. She felt tired and it was late. There would be a fullness of work in the morning, she was sure. Hadeishi did not allow an idle crew.

  NEAR SLOT CANYON TWELVE, THE ESCARPMENT

  Pale rose and gold streaked the eastern rim of the world, heralding an eye-searing dawn.

  A faint white illumination filled the sky, lighting scattered rocks, the tie-downs of the ultralights and then Hummingbird, still kneeling in the sand, palms on his knees. The stout figure of the Méxica moved minutely and the man's eyes opened. His breather mask was caked with frost, the z-suit diagnostics on his wrist gleaming red. Stiffly, the man rose to his feet, ice flaking from the joints of his matte-black suit. Moving very slowly, Hummingbird made his way to the cargo door of his Midge.

  Hummingbird rummaged through the cargo compartment and found a bag containing power cells. Fumbling with chilled, nearly nerveless fingers he managed to swap out the cells in his belt and let out a long, tired hiss as the suit heaters woke to life again.

  "And in an hour," he husked, drawing on his djellaba and slinging the scarf-like kaffiyeh over his shoulder. "I'll be broiling"

  The Méxica looked around the campsite and was cautiously pleased to see everything still in place—the pressure tent inside the cave, the filament screen, the other Midge. He dug in the confusion of the cargo compartment again and dragged out some tubes of water and a package of threesquares. Holding them up to his suit light did not reveal any discolorations or other signs of infestation, so the nauallis stuffed them into the pockets of his cloak.

  Prepared for a long walk, Hummingbird retraced his steps and then pressed on, following the scuffed, irregular tracks left by Anderssen's blind flight.

  Gretchen was sitting on a low outcropping, her face washed in cool golden light, arms clasped around her knees, when Hummingbird finally caught up with her. The Méxica came to a halt at the e
dge of a tilted slab of sandstone, looking up at her. Hot pink reflections of high-altitude ice clouds blazed from his goggles.

  "Are you all right?" He sounded very tired on the comm, though the channel was perfectly clear at such close range.

  "I am alive," Gretchen said. She did not look down at him, but raised her head to indicate the eastern sky. "Look."

  The edge of a ruddy, golden sun would soon rise above the horizon. For a moment, Hummingbird saw nothing and then—a bright point stabbed down from the heavens, cutting across the spreading roseate glow before vanishing in a bright streak.

  "A meteor," he said.

  Gretchen turned her head, resting one cheek on her arm "There have been three while I've watched. Doctor Smalls will be watching them too, from the Palenque, and he will be sad They served him faithfully while they lived."

  "His meteorology satellites," Hummingbird replied, climbing up onto the outcropping. "Hadeishi will have diverted them into decaying orbits—letting them burn up in the atmosphere."

  "You shouldn't sit down," Gretchen said, unfolding herself as the nauallis approached. "Don't you see the color of the sky?"

  The Méxica frowned, forehead creasing, but then a faint dim line along the horizon caught his attention. "Aiii... it is dawn. The storm."

  Together, they walked quickly back toward the cliff. Gretchen's feet were sore—she hoped she didn't have to run anywhere today—but she was more concerned with the odd way her sight was behaving. Suspicious, Gretchen changed the setting on her goggles to normal intensification. The shale and broken sandstone she was crossing remained sharp and distinct, despite the predawn darkness cloaking the land. I can see in the dark?

  She stopped and bent down, running a hand across scattered chunks of eggshell-thin stone. A dissonant, queasy feeling roused, stirred by the motion of her fingers against something standing still. Gretchen slashed her hand back and forth, as fast as she could. Odd and odder, she thought, grappling with a perception of her hand moving very slowly, with sort of a staccato afterimage trailing along behind.

  "Check the tie-downs." Hummingbird turned toward the overhang without looking back. "The filament screen needs to be repaired."

  Gretchen looked up, catching a furtive glimpse of the nauallis stepping past the glistening sheet of monofilament. At the same time, she saw him both outside and inside the barrier. Anderssen blinked in surprise, lifted her goggles and rubbed her eyes. When she looked again, the tripartite vision was gone.

  "Hurry," his voice echoed. "The wind will be rising soon."

  The storm shrieked and wailed against the filament screen blocking the entrance to the cave. A rain of sand rattled endlessly against the magnetically-stiffened monofilament before slithering down into a steadily growing drift. A sustained high-pitched ringing—Gretchen thought it came from the cables holding down the ultralights—shivered in the air. She turned her face from the glowing, saffron-yellow light filtering down through the storm and the filament screen. Hummingbird was sitting with his back to a chunk of basalt, staring at nothing. Gretchen scraped the last of a threesquare from the bottom of a battered steel cup. Today she was so hungry the sludge didn't need chile sauce to make it palatable. She waved the spoon in thee air experimentally, but the blurred—or tripled—vision effect had faded. There was only a metal spoon in the dim light of the cave.

  "Last night..." she started to describe what she'd seen, but then changed her mind. "I would feel stupid about running," Gretchen said, glaring at the old Méxica, "but you were running too. So what did come out of the cave? Were we ever in any danger?"

  "We were," Hummingbird replied. He seemed tired, too. "Even at the end, when they had no more substance than a shadow, we were still in danger. I thought..." He stopped, considering his words. "When you ran, I feared things would go badly for you. I am glad they did not. We were lucky."

  "We were idiots—I was an idiot," Gretchen said in a very sharp tone. "They ate the energy released by the Sif bullets, didn't they? If I hadn't done that, we'd have been able to walk right out."

  "You did not know what would happen. I did not know either." Hummingbird made a dismissive gesture. "And I wonder if they did eat the bullets from your gun. I'm not sure they had the strength to do so. We might have seen only an echo of what the substance experienced. A living, moving memory."

  "I saw a flechette in one, hanging in the air, as if the explosion itself had slowed down and was being consumed!"

  "I wonder..." Hummingbird raised an eyebrow wryly. "If we go into the tunnel and examine the rear wall, it may be we find the impact marks of each and every flechette—if the entire passage has not collapsed as a result of the explosions."

  Gretchen's face screwed up in a disbelieving grimace. "Does this happen a lot with your sight?"

  "Sometimes." Hummingbird's expression turned grim. "Achieving clarity does not mean you have learned to discern truth from falsehood. The world around us is filled with too much data. Why else would our infant minds learn to hide so much from our consciousness? Some students are blinded by the clarity they achieve." He raised two fingers. "This is the second obstacle a student must overcome: control of sight."

  "How long," Gretchen said, rather suspiciously, "does that take?"

  "Years." Hummingbird's voice was flat. His right hand twitched. "The drug I gave you ... is a shortcut. But one usually given only to students who have passed the first obstacle."

  "Which is?" Gretchen's lips drew tight and a dangerous glitter entered her eyes. What was in that packet? What did he do to me?

  "The first obstacle is fear, Anderssen-tzin. It is to achieve clarity of mind before you attain clarity of sight." The nauallis shrugged. "I admit giving you the teonanacatl was a throw of the beans. I was hasty."

  Gretchen swallowed, her throat dry with a bitter aftertaste, and she drank deep from one of the water bottles. Even the stale, metallic taste was preferable to the flat, oily fluid from her recycler. "You seem to be a very reckless man, Hummingbird-tzin. Are you well regarded by your fellows?"

  The nauallis did not reply, his eyes becoming guarded again. Gretchen stood up and put her cup and spoon away, stowing them in the little cook kit from her rucksack. Nervously, she paced the perimeter of their shelter, listening to the storm wailing outside and peering through the filament at the Gagarin. Both Midges seemed to be intact, though they were straining against the sand anchors like hounds against the leash. Finally, when the unsettled, churning feeling in her stomach had leveled off to a dull burn, she examined her hands in the dim, sulfurous light from outside.

  Gloves. Fingers. They seemed entirely ordinary. Can I focus? How do I...

  She concentrated, trying to discern the superlatively sharp level of detail she'd perceived before, where every grain and pore and wrinkle in the gloves came into view. Nothing happened. Her head started to hurt. Scowling, she pushed up her goggles and rubbed both eyes wearily. Stupid clarity... never-mind.

  "What are we going to do about the tunnel and chambers?" Gretchen hugged herself, feeling cold despite the suit heaters, "Don't you have to 'clean it up' somehow?" Hummingbird nodded slowly. He pointed at the entrance to thee overhang. "In my Midge there are explosives, somewhat more powerful than your shockgun. When thee daystorm clears, I will go into the tunnel and place them." Gretchen laughed, unaccountably relieved to hear something so mundane and practical from the old man. "You're going to blow the place up? Now that does sound like the Empire at work!"

  "Each tool," he said stiffly, "to a purpose. Those structures serve as a focus for this 'color' we saw. They allow something to take a shape where it should have none. So, I will destroy the entire location and hope—hope, mind you—the memories clinging to the stones and rocks themselves are scattered into oblivion."

  "And the cylinders we saw in the inner room?" Gretchen clenched her fists tight against her sides. "You'll bury them under a million tons of rock?"

  Hummingbird nodded slowly, watching Gretchen's face intently. "I
will."

  "What about Russovsky? What do you think happened to her?"

  "She stumbled into part of a dream, someplace where a fragment of this sleeping power seized and consumed her. In that moment, she was taken over, into its context, rather than our own. Something came back out—the shape you saw in the first cave—like a ghost, perhaps curious, perhaps a reflex of her own memory. Even a shape retains memory of its past."

  "The version of her on the ship was only an echo?" Gretchen tried not to lick her lips nervously. "Do you think she might have survived the experience? Maybe she woke up later and found her ultralight gone, taken by the copy?"

  Hummingbird was nonplussed. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Have you seen something to indicate she survived?"

  "I... no, no I haven't seen anything I could swear was real."

  "But you saw Russovsky, or something which looked lite her." The nauallis gave her a sharp look. "Last night? When the gray was upon you?"

  "Afterward," she admitted. "When the gray—the visions—had passed. She helped me up. I felt her hand—a physical hand—in mine!"

  "And then?" The nauallis rose and came to her side. His green eyes were tense and sharp. Gretchen could feel him looking at her. The sensation made her skin crawl and she backed away.

  "Then—nothing. I was distracted for a second and when I looked back, she was gone. I looked all 'round, but... nothing. Vanished."

  "An illusion?" Hummingbird sounded as if he were questioning himself. "The radiance of the gray grew stronger when the flechettes exploded—and then it weakened very quickly, as if being so strong, so solid, exhausted the energy. By the time it surrounded us, there was barely anything left."

  Gretchen spread her hands. "Maybe. I have no idea, really. You're the one with the secret knowledge. But tell me this—you stopped, you sat down, you let the 'gray' wash over you. Why? What had you guessed about them?"