by Gary Gibson
Kim still had her smartsheet with her. She took it out, and used it to communicate crudely with the aliens, as they proceeded.
‘What are you saying to them?’ asked Elias.
‘I’m asking them where they would like to go now,’ she said.
‘Oh.’ That made sense. They couldn’t abandon them out here in the icy wilderness. They boarded the shuttle, only four of them now. Elias sat down behind the console, and stared at it as if he’d never seen anything like it before.
‘I don’t think this thing could get itself into orbit,’ said Elias. ‘It’s too old. I wouldn’t want to chance it. Any other ideas?’
‘I’ve already sent out a distress message through the smartsheet.’
‘You know, we’re going to have a lot to explain to anyone who comes and rescues us. To them and also to the Station Authority.’
‘Yeah, well. I just spoke with the Kaspians. I’m not sure if I’ve got the location right, but we’ve got enough fuel to take them where they want to go.’
‘Which is?’
‘Some place south, near the ocean bordering the bottom edge of this continent.’
‘And then?’
‘Then we’ve got some business to take care of, Elias.’
Roke
They flew south, and after a few hours, the shuttle dropped down and landed on a barren, icy plain. As far as they could tell, they had no witnesses to their descent. Kim exchanged a last few words with the aliens, via the smartsheet, and then the two creatures stepped away across the plain and watched as the shuttle took off again.
For a long time Ursu and Roke both stood staring into the sky.
‘How far is it now?’ asked Roke, at last.
Ursu looked around him. ‘That way.’ He pointed. ‘I think we should be there by sunset.’ He looked at Roke curiously. ‘I admit to surprise that you intend to join me here.’
‘I abandoned an imperial expedition in order to satisfy my own curiosity, so I suspect the empire is better off without me. And anyway, I would prefer a quiet life – for a little while, at least.’
‘There may be imperial soldiers in the city.’
‘Who will have no idea who I am unless I tell them – or you do. You have more to worry about, Ursu.’
‘Then we’ll just have to see what happens.’
Perhaps when they arrived in Nubala, thought Roke, he would tell Ursu about the object he had taken. He had come across another of these glowing sheets the Shai used. The larger Shai had put it down shortly after they boarded the flying craft, and Roke had slipped it into the folds of his robe, hoping that they were too busy with other matters to notice.
Remembering how the symbols and shapes of their alien language had flowed across its surface, Roke wondered if they might find a way of understanding what exactly it said.
They plodded on, the walls of Nubala now visible upon the horizon, arriving just in time to hear the news from further south. The Emperor Xan had been deposed, and was dead.
Kim
Finding their way back to the Kaspians’ camp was harder than expected. The forest that extended just beyond the northern ice sheets was vast but, in the end, Elias traced a route that followed the bend of a river until he spotted the trail of destruction the Goblin had gouged from the forest.
They flew over the area several times until fairly sure the encampment was abandoned. After they landed, they found the cage they had once been kept in, but there was absolutely no sign of Vincent’s body. Elias took up a rifle for protection, and wandered around for a while until he was sure there were no Kaspians hiding nearby. After a little while it started to get dark. Leaning back against one of the shuttle’s landing struts, they sat and stared up at the stars.
Kim then studied her smartsheet, glowing under the darkening sky. So far she had managed to elicit a response to their SOS; it came from one of the military escorts. We’re in a lot of trouble, she thought. It’s going to take a lot of explaining. Explanations? She smiled at the thought. Who would ever believe them?
Kim was not inclined to ritual, but found herself understanding why some people needed it. After a while she got up and searched out pieces of wood, constructing something that resembled a cross. Elias then found a small lasertool to burn Vincent’s name on it. Finally, he helped her gather some stones to prop the cross up in the centre of the clearing. Kim wondered about saying something solemn, but nothing came to mind.
‘You know,’ said Elias, after a while, ‘we really should be feeling better about ourselves. I think we just saved a planet.’ He turned and peered at her in the darkness. ‘Don’t get much of an opportunity to say that, do you?’
‘Yeah, I guess when you put it like that.’ She smiled. ‘What will you do when you get back there?’
‘Get back? You know, I never really believed I would be getting back.’
‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
‘I mean I never really looked beyond this point.’ He frowned deeply. ‘And now that I think about it . . . I’m not sure I could go back. There’s never really been anywhere I felt safe, where I could be left alone in the way I wanted to be. I’m . . . not sure there’s anywhere for me to get back to.’
‘Elias, you could go home.’ He’d talked earlier about his life in London. ‘The Primalists only wanted Trencher, not you.’
Elias shook his head. ‘No, just think about it. Look at what happened to them; Trencher, Sam, even Vaughn. They all underwent similar gene therapy to mine. It made them more than human, and less at the same time. I can see that now: it was nothing but a burden.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t have it as bad as them, of course. You know what Trencher said to me on our way to the Citadel? That I didn’t really see into the future: I only saw reflections of what they saw.’
‘But you underwent the same treatment, right?’
‘No, remember – Trencher and the rest were modified from before birth. They were born that way. I wasn’t. That’s the difference.’
‘So can you still foresee things?’
‘No, I can’t, and it’s a relief. I don’t have one damn idea what’s going to happen next.’
‘We can make guesses though, boards of enquiry, scandal . . . whatever the hell they’re going to do with all those Primalists up in the mountains.’
‘I was thinking about other things,’ he said. ‘Somebody once said something to me, about how bad things were getting on Earth. I’ve experienced firsthand what the Slow Blight can do to a man.’ He stared at her. ‘How long will anyone carry on giving a shit about the Kaspians if a lot of people back home start dying?’
Kim glanced at the darkened forest around her, and the thought of this landscape being filled with other humans seemed strangely depressing.
‘I’ve got a suggestion for you,’ said Elias. ‘When you’re up there again – telling them about what happened down here – you should claim I kidnapped you, forced you here against your will.’
She stared at him. ‘Elias, you did kidnap me, and force me here against my will.’
‘But you’d have come anyway, surely, if you’d known why I was doing what I was doing?’
Anger flared in her for a moment, but subsided almost immediately. She decided to say nothing, but was afraid Elias might be right. ‘Why don’t you tell them, then.’
‘Because you should be coming out of this smelling of roses. Crazy guy kidnaps you to surface of alien planet. Fights with other crazy guys. World saved. They’ll love it. You’ll be a hero. Heroine, I mean.’
She laughed, despite herself. ‘Yeah? So what happens to you?’
‘I’ll go somewhere where I won’t be bugged.’
‘Where?’
Elias shook his head, stared upwards.
Kim realized that a message was flashing on her smartsheet. She touched it, and watched the words dance across its surface in response. ‘They’re on their way,’ she said.
Elias rose slowly to his feet. ‘Who is?’
She shook h
er head. ‘I don’t know. One of the escort ships, I think. It’s just some kind of acknowledgement of our signal.’
‘How long do we have?’
‘Not sure.’ She tapped again at the ’sheet. ‘Not long, anyway. Maybe twenty hours?’
Elias smiled gently. ‘That’s good. Good for you.’
‘Good for both of us, Elias.’ She watched him, noticed his hand shaking, the thin beads of sweat rapidly forming on his brow.
When Kim woke, as the cool light of dawn revealed itself beyond the shuttle’s viewport, she knew instantly he was gone. She had already known he would be gone, without really admitting it to herself. It was a strange experience to wake alone, in the dark, on a world so far from home.
She stepped out of the shuttle and, for the first time in a very long time, Kim felt very, very alone. I’ve regained my taste for human company, she realized, then thought, I still have the last of the Books. Susan would still be in there somewhere, like a ghost always hovering at the back of her mind.
A thin dew clung to the ground, and Elias was, indeed, very gone. He hadn’t left a note this time. Perhaps he’d head for the sea, or perhaps for the mountains. Somehow she didn’t think he would head for the Citadel again. Or perhaps he would; she couldn’t begin to guess at the paths his thoughts might follow.
There were things she wished she could have talked to him about: about Sam, and about Trencher, where they might have gone. Or were they still there in the Citadel somewhere – somewhere inaccessible and unreachable? That wasn’t a pleasant thought.
Then she had an idea.
She dug out the last few Books of Susan’s memories, as usual letting one dissolve on her tongue. Memories of their time together filled her mind once more, happier times, good times.
When the experience had passed, and the sun had risen in the afternoon sky, Kim went back to the cage they’d been held captive in and broke off some more pieces of wood. She took them to the spot where they had left a marker for Vincent, and imprinted Susan’s name with the same laser-tool. Then she dug a shallow hole with a wide-bladed knife, and buried the last of the Susan Books there.
Kim returned to the safety of the shuttle. Some time later, she looked up through the viewscreen, to see a trail of fire across the sky; a glint of sunlight on metal, far above.
Gary Gibson works as a graphic designer, and was previously a magazine editor, in his home town of Glasgow. He has been writing since the age of fourteen, and this is his first published novel.
First published 2004 by Tor
This edition published 2005 by Tor
This electronic edition published 2012 by Tor
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Copyright © Gary Gibson 2004
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