by JD Moyer
“What’s the matter?” asked Troy.
“Nothing, just a little nausea. I’ll slow down a bit.”
“We can take a break if you want. Put our feet in the sand.” They passed a pile of rubble, perhaps once an oceanside resort. The salt air had long ago rusted away any steel, plaster had been washed away by rain, and valuables had been pillaged over the course of the Remnant Age. Only rock remained.
“Let’s push on,” Adrian said. “I’m eager to see the first site.”
Townes might be trouble. They had a deal now, but would she honor it? He’d have to watch her closely. As for Manning, well…eventually Adrian would repay the bioskin tech for his betrayal. Manning had gotten the position at SecSys without Adrian’s recommendation. No doubt he thought he was safe on the Liu Hui, but Adrian would find a way to get to him. Nobody crossed Adrian Vanderplotz and got away with it.
As for the bioskin, he wished he’d gotten a final reading confirming that Car-En was deceased. Her last biostat report had indicated perilously low blood sugar and unconsciousness. She’d had hours left to live, unless she’d gotten help. Though even if she’d found allies among the Harz villagers, what could they do to help her? As skillful as they were at forging steel, their practice of medicine was crude, completely devolved into superstitious folk remedies and useless ointments. Car-En was dead – he should stop worrying about it.
“Life on Earth,” said Troy. “It will be an adjustment. But I could get used to this.” He swept his hand in a broad gesture, taking in the sea, the sand, the inland salt marshes.
“It could be dangerous,” Adrian said, gripping the steering stick more tightly.
“Really? I don’t think so. We’ll have a full medical team. And Campi Flegrei is sleeping. If she starts to wake up again, we’ll have plenty of time to leave.”
Adrian grunted, keeping his eyes ahead. It was a clear day, and he could see hills and the faint outlines of mountains beyond.
“Or do you mean animals?” said Troy. “There are probably some bears in the region, but I don’t think they’ll bother us, as long as we don’t feed them. Poisonous snakes maybe…adders and vipers. But we’ll have their genomes on file, and there should be a venom database somewhere. We’ll be able to synthesize antidotes easily enough.”
“I don’t mean that,” said Adrian. “I mean the villagers. They don’t think the same way as we do. I’m not sure you understand that.”
“But we’re so far away….” Troy said.
“For now,” said Adrian. He twisted the accelerator. The hovershuttle hummed loudly, speeding up. He was eager to reach the coordinates and explore the site of his new home.
Chapter Thirty-One
Trond was happy to see a fire in the furnace. It had been cool for too long. He had warned Grundar, Jalmar, and Gregers that they would be back working the bellows soon. A younger boy, Pieter, would also be joining them. Jansen’s youngest son had been lurking about the smithy since Trond had returned. When Trond had asked him if he would be willing to pump the bellows until his hands bled, Pieter had nodded eagerly. The boy had only nine fingers, but that would be enough to hold the bellows handles (or even a hammer, one day, if he stuck around). Trond liked him – Pieter was bright and sharp-eyed. It was he who had seen the gast steal Katja, on the night of Bjorn’s Burning.
Trond’s sister was home, and alive. Katja was still unconscious, lying in a cot in Ilsa’s house. It pained Trond to see her, but Jense stayed by her side day and night, feeding her Ilsa’s tonic. Jense swore that Katja was no longer possessed by the gast; he had seen its foul soul leave her body. The older smith pointed out that Katja’s color was improving. Her cheeks were pinker, and the web of black lines beneath her skin was fading. Still, she slept, and Ilsa could not say when – or even if – she would awaken. At least the deep bite from Bár, Jense’s sword, was healing.
Trond examined his worktable, considering where to start. Requests had piled up in his absence. Happdal needed nails, hammers, hinges, kitchen knives, and lengths of chain. There would be no godsteel forged today. That suited Trond well enough. In truth, he was a little tired. Too much excitement in the previous weeks. He was glad to be back in the smithy, and for the moment, glad to be alone. He picked up one of the smaller hammers, testing its weight. With his free hand he stroked his chin. His beard was still short, but growing in nicely.
He heard a knock, and opened the door. It was the sky woman, looking scrawny, dressed in baggy trousers and a loose blouse. Katja’s clothes, perhaps – too large for her small frame.
Where was Esper? He did not know how to talk to Car-En without his brother around.
“May I entering?” she asked. Her Norse was halting but comprehensible, and she no longer spoke first in her own language. Trond stepped aside, holding the door open. Car-En looked around, her face illuminated by a shaft of sunlight lancing through a gap in the ceiling beams. Her eyes were light brown with a hint of green. Had they always been that color? Trond remembered them a shade darker.
“You have many tool,” said the woman. She was carrying a small cloth bundle.
“Yes,” Trond said, “and much work to do.” He felt uncomfortable being alone with his brother’s lover, despite the fact that he felt nothing toward her. Well, that was not quite true. He felt deeply uneasy in her presence.
“I am sorry to disrupt,” she said. “I have request.” She unwrapped the cloth bundle, revealing her silver suit, neatly folded. “Can you burn this? Needs a hot fire. Very hot.”
Trond nodded. “Yes. I can do that. Next time I forge godsteel. Soon.”
“The soonest the better,” said the sky woman, looking at him intently. Yes, her eyes had definitely changed color. She rewrapped the bundle and thrust it toward him. “Thank you. It may make bad smell – do not breathe smoke.”
She turned to leave, which relieved Trond, but as she opened the door he found himself asking a question. “Will you stay? In Happdal? You are welcome here, you know.”
She looked down contemplatively. “Welcome by most. Not your mother.”
Trond laughed. Perhaps the sky woman was not so strange after all. “Do not worry about Elke,” he said. “She likes nobody, except for Esper – she barely tolerates her own husband and her other children. Just stay out of her way.”
Car-En smiled, looking unconvinced, and left, closing the oaken door behind her. Trond carefully placed the bundle on his worktable and, in doing so, noticed something. He grabbed the object and ran to the door, flinging it wide open.
“Wait! Car-En! I have something that belongs to you!”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Car-En walked through the familiar beech wood, not far from the clearing where the Happdal villagers prepared for High Solstice. It was a good time to be alone. Even Esper was occupied with the Midsummer tasks: raising the maypole, building the bonfire, positioning tables and benches, setting out vast amounts of food. There would also be a Burning, but not (Car-En was relieved to learn) of a real person. An effigy of the gast, if Car-En had gotten the meaning right.
Life without her m’eye, and her kit, was difficult. She felt stupid – not sometimes, but all the time – and she didn’t like feeling stupid. The villagers were patient with her (except for Elke, who mostly just ignored her), but she could tell they didn’t think much of her. Except for Esper. He understood. He loved her, as much as she could tell. Certainly she’d given him her own heart, recklessly and perhaps unwisely. It all went together: loving Esper, burning her bioskin, deactivating her implant, removing her m’eye lenses, and vowing never to return to the Stanford. She was no longer an augmented cybernetic human being. She was just a woman, plain flesh and blood. She would live out the rest of her days, few or many, on Earth.
Car-En was slowly acclimating to daily life in the village. In the mornings she worked in the gardens alongside a group of older women who tolerated her in
experience. She was already making herself useful with simple jobs, like weeding and picking, and in time she’d learn the seasonal intricacies of planting and tending. In the afternoons she helped out wherever there was a job that needed doing: grinding rye kernels into flour at the watermill, milking cows at the dairy, even taking a turn pumping the bellows (though Trond didn’t approve of this). She ended each day sore and tired, but she was gaining a reputation as a willing and cheerful – if somewhat inept – worker.
Now she walked alone in the woods, with a purpose. She intentionally made noise as she walked, stepping on dry branches, kicking rocks. They were out there, camouflaged in the foliage, watching her. She knew their tricks; she’d been one of them. But she wouldn’t make a fool of herself, running around the forest yelling. They’d contact her when they were ready.
A tall, broad-shouldered woman stepped into the path, twenty meters ahead of her. Her bioskin shifted color, from muted greens and browns to its default shimmering silver. At ten meters, Car-En recognized her. Long, gray hair, green eyes. Penelope Townes.
“You should be careful with skins,” said Car-En. “They can kill you.”
“SecondSkin is in a world of trouble, believe me.”
“The company?” Car-En asked. “Why?”
“We got a tip-off from an ex-employee. Vanderplotz got illegal access to your pharma implant via your bioskin kit.”
“He nearly killed me,” said Car-En. “I was in full insulin shock. I’m lucky to be alive.”
“I know,” said Penelope, furrowing her brow. “Do you want to prosecute? We don’t have much of a case against him unless we can pull the data from your kit.”
Car-En shook her head. “Too late for that. Besides, I don’t care what happens to him. I’m not going back. But you should know that Adrian is a psychopath.”
“Believe me, I know. And he knows that I know, which means that to some extent I can control him now. We didn’t go public with the SecondSkin business—”
“You mean the attempted murder,” Car-En interrupted.
“Yes. We went to Adrian directly. He’s agreed to resign as Department Head, and he approved something on the Repop Council – something that needed his vote to pass.”
“What’s that?” asked Car-En, scanning the trees. She wondered suddenly if Penelope would try to take her back to the Stanford. As far as she knew, no one had defected to Earth from a ringstation, ever. Car-En touched the handle of her carbonlattice blade, which was tucked into a broad, deer-leather belt. Stolen by the white-haired man, the blade had made its way to Katja, then to Jense, then to Trond, and finally back to her.
“It’s just me,” Penelope said, glancing at the knife. “The proposal…. We sent a cleanup team to contain the radiation leak. Vanderplotz gave us the coordinates – you contacted him from near the cave. From there—”
“You already found it?”
“And contained it. It’s done. We used lead foam, mostly, then several layers of aluminum foam over that – considering lead poisoning isn’t really preferable to radiation poisoning. It’s not a permanent fix, but it should last at least a hundred years. There’s hardly any seismic activity in this area, so maybe longer. Anyway, the river water is now safe to drink. Safe for them, at least. Your own gut biome might have some adjusting to do.”
“I’m pretty well-adjusted,” said Car-En. She checked over her shoulder to see if anyone from the village had followed her, or had happened to take a walk along the same trail. “Look,” she said, “I should get back. Is there anything else you wanted to tell me? Or ask me? I’m staying here – I’m sure of that.”
“Your friends and family will miss you. And so will your fans. You know you had thousands of followers who were tracking your research? And I’m sure they’re still interested. It’s not too late to go public, you know. We may not be able to prosecute Adrian, but we can let the world know you’re alive. It would mean burning a bridge with Vanderplotz, but I don’t care about that.”
“I appreciate that. But no – let’s keep things the way they are. I don’t want Adrian to know I’m alive.”
“Fair enough,” Penelope said. Her bioskin shimmered, shifting back to green and brown tones.
“Wait,” said Car-En. “Tell my parents that I’m alive. Tell them I’m fine, and that I miss them. And tell Lydia the same. Do you know her?”
“Lydia Heliosmith? Yes.”
“Tell them that I’m okay – but to keep it a secret. Will you do that?”
Penelope nodded.
“Hey, how did you get here? Did you walk from the mule station? That’s a long way.”
“Hovershuttle,” said Penelope. “New tech out of Hair Lab, commissioned by Vanderplotz. Want to see it? It’s parked behind those big rocks.” Penelope pointed to a cluster of three giant granite blocks. Esper called them the Three Stones. Car-En hadn’t realized how far she’d come along the trail.
“Can it carry more than one?” Car-En asked.
“Sure. Have you changed your mind?”
“No, but there’s an interesting medical case here. Well, there are two, in fact.” She considered trying to explain the white-haired man to Penelope, and the black egg-thing that had emerged from its mouth and somehow taken over Katja’s body. Esper had a simple explanation: possession by the gast. But that obviously wasn’t true. Maybe Stanford Medical could figure it out. Except that Elke would never let any of her children leave Happdal again. “There’s a girl – Katja – who needs medical attention, but I don’t think her family is going to let her out of their sight. But there’s also a young man – his name is Per Anders – maybe you could take him back to the Stanford. I think he needs antifungal treatment, but it’s a strange infection – nothing my kit could diagnose.”
“Is he dangerous?” asked Penelope. “The radiation team has already gone home. I wasn’t kidding when I said I was alone here.”
“Not very. Not if you keep him fed.”
“Does he speak the same dialect as the others?”
“He doesn’t speak at all, at the moment. But I get the sense it’s because of localized cognitive inhibition, not brain damage.”
“From a fungus, you say.” Penelope Townes looked worried.
“I’m pretty sure it’s not contagious. You don’t have to take him…but there’s medical knowledge to be gained. And if he recovers…well, you’ll have your own villager to study.”
“Hmm,” said Penelope. The older woman looked off into the trees, making some mental calculation. “Fine,” she said. “Can you get him here tomorrow morning? This same spot? I can camp here tonight.”
“I think so,” said Car-En. “I’ll try. If not, well, bon voyage. Have a safe trip home.”
Car-En half walked, half ran back to Happdal. The Midsummer festivities had no doubt already started. Esper had also referred to the night as Jonsok – the festival had many names. She thought about Penelope, and Lydia, and Adrian, as she hopped along the trail toward home. Those three, and so many others, had loomed so large in her mind. Now they seemed like ghosts – even Penelope, whom she had just seen.
After a while, her thoughts drifted to a different topic: the feast. There would be fresh bread, and aged cheeses, and roasted fish, and sweet cream. And öl. Maybe she would get drunk and try to have a conversation with Elke. She laughed, imagining the scene. She was not entirely sure Elke would not have her killed in the coming weeks; the mother was not pleased with her son’s choice of lover. Maybe Esper would protect her. Maybe she would die. At the moment, she didn’t care. All she wanted was to get to the festival, and see the maypole dance, and hear the Midsummer hymn, and kiss Esper.
Epilogue
The crow pecked at the ground, tasting a flake of dried blood. The men had fought here; two of them, with their shiny sharp sticks. The crow had thought it might feast that day, but after the fight the larger man h
ad carried the smaller one away, apparently to eat it. Selfish men, always stealing from crows.
What was this? Something had changed since the crow’s last visit. Why were the trees black with webs? The crow looked for spiders, for they were good to eat, but saw none.
Were they webs? The black stuff came from a central source, a black mass that formed a small hillock, emanating warmth. It was alive, then. But what kind of thing? Black branches grew from the hillock, and climbed the nearby trees. Some of the black branches plunged into the ground, like roots. When the crow looked closer, it saw that each black branch was covered in smaller filaments. Definitely not a spider web, but not a plant either. Plants were not warm.
Was it edible? If so, the crow would feast, for there was a great deal of the stuff. It pecked at a narrow black filament, breaking it off. It tasted foul. No feast.
After eating a few more flakes of dried blood, the crow flew off. There was nothing of interest here.
In Ilsa’s house, in the small sickroom, Katja opened her eyes.
Acknowledgments
The following were helpful in writing this book: The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson, a brilliant fictional account of Viking adventure; NOVA’s Secrets of the Viking Sword, which provided inspiration for the Five Secrets of Godsteel; The Last Apocalypse, Europe at the Year 1000AD by James Reston, for Viking history and names; and Adrian (imprecisely) quotes C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle: ‘By mixing a little truth with it they had made their lie far stronger.’
Without the encouragement of Kia Simon (my wife and first reader) and my daughter Tesla Rose, this book wouldn’t exist. And the same is true of my parents, the two people in the world I most want to impress, even though they’ve always given their love and praise freely. I also owe thanks to other early readers, including Jason Kleidosty, Jason Wohlstadter, and Rob English. And thank you to Don D’Auria for taking a chance on this book, and to Josie Mitchell and everyone at Flame Tree who meticulously polished this manuscript (and indulged my desire to include a map).