by Hugh Howey
“I’m sure Bergrisar would find a way to take offense, get a pincer up her cloaca about it being a rejection of our cuisine or a snub at our poverty of resources. But I think it’s noble. And the vegetables do taste like digestive gases.” She let out a pleasant cackle, took a handful of vegetables off the plate, then dumped the rest back into the serving dish.
Iviðja led me a short distance from the court to a shelter formed almost entirely of a milky substance, like agate or smoky quartz. She noticed my look. “It is a glass concrete formed from my ancestors’ carapaces. It is at once a temple, a shrine, and a mausoleum. We only use them for ceremony, or when needs dictate. When I die, it will honor me to have my shell join with my ancestors’.”
“My people traditionally achieved a similar effect with melted sand—granulated rock—and modern 3D printing processes aren’t so far removed from that.”
Her eyelids shifted, in what I hoped was excitement and not a sudden desire to eat my entrails. “Lens glass? We form braziers from the leftover carapace, the smaller pieces less suited to construction. When they are new, the impurities cook out, and leave a glass lens at the base at the end of a cold season.” She made a clicking noise that was reminiscent of a chuckle. “It cracks upon exposure to the outside air. When we build a new community, each resident carries one from their old home, and we put them around the new home in a circle for protection. When they crack, the ghosts from our memories laugh, pleased to know where their shadows are now.”
It took me a moment to realize she was waiting for me to enter the dwelling first; it must have been an honor she was reserving for her guest.
Light flickered through the walls. They were milky enough that I hadn’t noticed it from the outside, but inside, the light caught the facets of the walls and made them appear to almost glow.
I set my suit to warm slightly, not seeing any sign of blankets or fabric. I didn’t doubt that clothes wouldn’t be useful to the Jötnar, as it would counter their natural camouflage and impede the movement of their shells. And the hard edges of the carapace would be harsh on cloth, too. But the lack of any coverings meant I was in for a cold night.
Iviðja—whom I’d mentally nicknamed Ivy, which worked with her clingy yet restful presence—touched a rectangular block inside the shallow bowl of a chest-high brazier. My HUD recognized a power source within, and the bowl caught fire. Warmth washed over me.
“It is a battery. It stores heat from the vents, then releases the heat slowly here.” The plates around her fingers retracted, and she took my hand in hers. “So long as there is fire, there is life.”
Those words brought to mind an incident from Drew and Louise’s younger days, fighting to rescue people from a burning colony as others fought them. It strengthened my resolve to get the Jötnar to work with us—and finally do something worthy of Louise.
Four
Ivy roused me in the morning and pressed a cup of tangy, mildly acidic liquid into my hands. I restrained myself from asking which bodily fluids went into producing this repast. She hurried away and returned with another section of root. I nodded my thanks at her and tried to make myself eat.
I’ve never been especially squeamish, so it wasn’t the food’s origins that bothered me so much as the totality of what I was about to do. I’d never risked my life when no one was actually in danger. Metaphorical danger on the ship just didn’t inspire the same protective impulses and adrenaline; here, I had only nerves.
My HUD chirped at me, recognizing my elevated stress. I forced myself to breathe evenly.
“Are you ready?” she asked. I couldn’t find anything other than polite concern in Ivy’s movements, until I noticed a small twitch on the side of her neck. She was aware that I was anxious, and that made her anxious. I wondered if her reputation was tied up in my performance, if she would be considered tainted by association. I glanced at my guns and checked their charges.
“Yeah. Let’s get this over with.”
She retracted several plates, exposing her surprisingly soft hand, and hauled me to my feet. Her grip was almost overwhelmingly strong, even though she didn’t seem to be using her full strength. I would have to keep my opponent at a distance, or else guns or no, I’d be done for.
She led me into a tunnel on the outskirts of the city. We walked perhaps a half a mile, some of it steeply down, until we came upon a labyrinth of snow and ice. “They say that the world was once much kinder, that we expanded recklessly and grew soft, and could not halt the ice’s attack. And in memory of that, when we prove our strength, we do it where our ancestors, and the ice, can see us.”
She bent down and rubbed the icy wall. Beneath her mitten-like shelled fingers, metal became visible, cracked, rusted, and decaying. “How will your ancestors know to look for you here?”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. But I knew that family was entirely too important to the Jötnar to fuck around.
I beckoned her head down to me. “Because they’re with me.” I held her so she could see the screen where my HUD projected. Her eyes flashed reflectively as their components widened. I scrolled through several family pictures I had, and cursed myself for ignoring my mother’s attempts to get me to take more.
She backed away. “May you bring them pride, then. I must go. Your first challenger is at the other end. May you find each other before one of you freezes.” Ivy’s word for “challenger” sounded nearly like “elder,” so I entered the name Eld.
I shivered and started into the labyrinth. My HUD made navigating easy, even without a map of the facility. Eld’s warmth made him glow like a beacon. I readied my gun as I moved forward, the wind already chewing me through my suit.
I watched my HUD until I saw that Eld was just around the corner. I listened closely to the crunch of his footfalls, then threw myself out of cover to shoot.
My blasts smashed into a plate of his carapace center-mass. It refracted some of the energy and absorbed the rest. The heat of it burned him, searing his flesh, but I could see that it was a superficial wound.
He advanced as I took a knee to steady the rifle. I fired again, into his chest. The same panel absorbed the blast. I fired again, and several more times, peppering his head and shoulders, searching for a vulnerability.
I noticed that the first panel was hanging askew. Heat from the blasts had melted the connective tissues holding it in place. I fired along the edge of the plate, and energy reflected off the surrounding plates into the vulnerable tendons beneath, severing the already melted tissues.
He screamed, and he was now close enough that I could feel the moisture on his breath. The steam made it hard to aim, but I sighted the exposed flesh and fired.
Eld collapsed.
Sections of shell around the blast were hardening, looking alarmingly like the walls of Ivy’s abode. But his flesh was already pushing past the cauterized edges. Trickles of blood seeped out, and despite his agitated shell flicks trying to force heat-warped plates over his wounds, I could see them already beginning to freeze in the morning chill.
I remembered Ivy’s tale. He may have been working against me, and he entered into this fight by choice—but he deserved better than a slow death from hypothermia. I positioned myself in front of his head, raised the gun one last time, and refused to shut my eyes as I pulled the trigger.
Five
I wondered whether I should backtrack to the entrance or wait for the Jötnar right where I was. While I thought it through, I inspected Eld’s corpse. He wasn’t much bigger than Ivy. That made sense, I thought: the challengers would go from smallest to largest. I repeated that to myself over and over, to remind myself not to get cocky.
After some time, the Jötnar found me. Ivy came in first. She bowed her head, several plates on her neck pulling back to allow the motion. Bergrisar followed, staring at me, no doubt gauging me.
Others trickled in, and soon they crowded every inch of space in the tunnels. I saw that one even had a camera. I raised my voice. “This tech is one of the benefits you
stand to gain by allying with us.”
Bergrisar raised up, and I shuddered at the thought of her with a gun.
“It’s mutilated infant scrotum. That was a farce. Yours are a coward’s weaponry: guile and aggression from a safe distance.”
“You said I could use them,” I said.
She opened and shut some of the crystalline panels on her face.
I didn’t know the specifics of the gesture, but she was pissing on my lawn. A man was dead, and she seemed to want to treat it like it was nothing. Something about that look on her face was a red flag, and I was a bull. It was all I could do to keep from charging at her. “Fine,” I spat through gritted teeth. “Send the next. I’ll beat him, but let him live, to testify to my strength.”
I offered my pistol to Ivy, then unslung my rifle and did the same. She took them with trembling hands. Her face bled concern, if I wasn’t misreading it through a human lens.
A Jötnar slightly bigger than the one I’d just defeated stepped forward, and I immediately entered in a name: Leir.
“So be it,” Bergrisar said. Some Jötnar turned toward the entrance, clearing an expanse in the widest portion of the room, but she didn’t, and it was an instant before I understood why.
Leir lunged for me, and I spun to the side to avoid the blow. One of his secondary limbs lashed out as I turned, seeking to knock me off balance, so I jumped into a roundhouse kick.
It was like kicking a steel plate.
I ran. The gathered Jötnar backed away as I approached, and continued to back away until there was space between them for me to exit. I knew already that Bergrisar would try to spin my actions as cowardice, but I needed to survive before worrying about saving face.
The “arena” was oddly preserved. The frost had claimed the city almost gently, and its dome had withstood long enough for the ice to reinforce it as it was overwhelmed. The only elements not coated in a layer of white powder were the braziers. They were spaced so that you could see between them, if only just; there for additional light, not for heat. They didn’t appear as weathered as the rest of the arena; I assumed they were brought down for the trial.
I ran full speed at a brazier, and when I hit it, I tried to scoop it off the ground. It barely tipped, sending the smoldering log rolling. The fire went out. I couldn’t be sure if it was contact with the ice, or if it had safety protocols, but I could see the battery for the heavy, metal box that it was.
I definitely wasn’t strong enough to lift the brazier, so I hefted the battery. It was a bit awkward, but it had enough weight to be useful. Then I turned back toward the gathered Jötnar. They were still in the distended circle, almost an egg. But Leir was gone.
I heard a noise behind me, so faint I wasn’t certain. I cranked the volume on my implants. It was skittering, but then it stopped. I spun, swinging the log. It impacted the same panel on Leir’s midsection I had first kicked. The impact cracked the plating. His plates flaked off like diamonds, catching the light as they fell.
I dodged behind him, and as he turned to face me, the plates began to fall away.
A sticky fluid hit the floor as he circled around me. Under the shattered plate, his flesh convulsed softly. I lashed out, swinging the battery. It glanced off the previous wound, cracking the surrounding plating. I dodged underneath his flailing limbs, and he curled his torso away from another blow.
I dropped the battery on one of his feet, then drove my fist into the most expressively pulsing organ I could see. He keened in agony, fighting to seize me with several supporting limbs, but he was distracted enough by the pain that his limbs knocked into each other uselessly behind my head.
So, a weakness. I brought my foot against the same spot with all my strength, wincing as I used muscles I hadn’t been aware of since my mother encouraged me to study ballet on my home colony. Who’d have thought that grand battement would be used against a wounded alien, with a diplomatic treaty hanging in the balance.
His flesh tore under my boot, and fluids slowly gushed onto my foot with a rapidly lessening pressure. As I pulled my foot away from him, his legs buckled and he lowered his head.
I guided him onto his back on the ice while he was distracted with pain.
He was supposed to yield, but he was a stubborn bastard. I lifted my boot, picked up the battery, and started to shove it against the wound. It didn’t quite fit, but he must have realized I was preparing to make him into a living brazier.
“Wait,” he coughed from his back. I stopped, and he curled around his torn, fragile flesh. “I… concede.” His legs trembled as he fought to make the gestures needed to communicate.
I looked up to our audience. “As I said, I didn’t kill him. But let the pitiful noises he makes tell you that I am more than capable of seeing this negotiation through.”
A medium-sized Jötnar raised her voice. “I withdraw my opposition.” Several others murmured or otherwise gestured, translated as assent through the commbox. Bergrisar clicked in agitation.
Gýgr stood to her full height and said, “We shall carry Eld back to the court to begin mourning. Then we will see who still wishes to test the outsider’s worth.”
One of the flat-backed Jötnar bent to allow others to strap Eld to his back, and another soon arrived for Leir. I followed as far as the court.
I paused, unsure whether to go inside. I was Eld’s killer, after all.
Ivy’s hand lit on the back of my neck, all soft, slightly clammy fingers rather than hard carapace. I caught her eye, and watched it widen, each reflective lens aligning itself as the lids peeled back further. I queried the commbox through my HUD, but it didn’t have a translation. I stared into her large eyes and breathed in her hand’s scent.
Light filtered through the dome overhead and caught on the less opaque portions of her shell, turning her into a ghost of glass, haunting but beautiful. A beam cut across my face, and I fought to hide my wonder.
She took my hand and led me inside.
They feasted in Eld’s honor. I made a trip out to my pod, returning with some of my rations to cook for them. They tested my food before tasting it, to be sure it wasn’t going to set off any of their allergies.
It wasn’t until midway through the festivities that I realized the trials were still in full force. Bergrisar mingled with the crowd, gladhanding. Several medium-sized Jötnar, slightly bigger than Leir, approached me and spoke. They were fascinated by both my tech and my food. After a few minutes of casual conversation, they leaned forward and informed me they would no longer oppose me.
I mingled more. Bergrisar glared her hatred over the crowd, and I waved back to her. The initial group were the only ones who had declared the end of their opposition, but I could tell that opinions were fluid and changing. Despite her best efforts, Bergrisar had lost ground.
As the crowd thinned out, I decided to get some air. I found myself walking in the direction of the tunnel leading toward the arena.
Just outside the entry was a bloodied bootprint, preserved in the powder of frost that coated everything. I knelt down to look at it. It was likely Leir’s blood, so at least it wasn’t a reminder of Eld’s death. A hand gently touched my shoulder. I recognized her smell even before I turned to confirm it was Ivy.
I widened my eyes, and sections of Ivy’s face pulled back in an imitation smile.
Her fingers were warm, and they gave me something to focus on other than that one bloody footprint leading back to the battlefield.
Six
Bergrisar looked at the gathered Jötnar. “Who no longer wishes to challenge?”
Half of those left raised limbs in assent.
“And those who do?”
Unfortunately, the Jötnar who responded this time were the biggest, the most fierce-looking of the bunch. I knew I had done well, but this confirmed what I had suspected: the hardest part was ahead.
“Who wishes to challenge next?”
One of the females stood, her carapace puffing outward to increase her size
. I named her Sjórisar.
Bergrisar clicked in agitation. “Are you sure, Sjórisar?” Even through the commbox I could pick up on her distress. I pondered whether Sjórisar was especially dear to Bergrisar. Perhaps family.
Several Jötnar shifted with soft clacks and motions, responding to the tension. Sjórisar glared at Bergrisar. “I cannot deny your right to challenge,” Bergrisar said, in motions abrupt and violent enough that she nearly brained the Jötnar beside her—lucky for him, he dodged at the last moment. “But for this to be the true test our people require, let us increase the difficulty.”
Sjórisar didn’t seem to like that. “You doubt my competence?”
Bergrisar widened her eyes to tell Sjórisar to stand down. “Far from it. I propose night combat, that you may bring your full strength to bear on the outsider.”
This was getting old.
“She seeks advantage. Sjórisar formed in her eggs,” Ivy whispered to me, though in order for me to hear the tones and whistles accompanying her muted twitches, she had to lean close enough that I thought I might be enveloped. “Sjórisar will win, or die; anything else would shame her.”
I sighed. “We’ll see.”
Ivy tensed. “Do not underestimate us. We live and work underground; we see well in the dark. She can track you by smell, by heat. You have no idea what Sjórisar is capable of.”
I wasn’t underestimating. I’d been in the security services long enough to know the value of morale. But my bravado was wearing thin. Sjórisar was nearly twenty feet tall, at least, if she stood up straight. She was a dragon, and each of her many limbs terminated in a sickle honed to a razor’s edge.
But I couldn’t go back empty-handed. I didn’t know if Louise could ever love me, but I wouldn’t even deserve to ask if I returned with my tail between my legs. “I have to conduct myself with honor according to the rites of your people,” I told Ivy.
Gýgr stood again and towered over Bergrisar. “You may have your night combat, Bergrisar. And the human may have his weapons.” Bergrisar clicked angrily. “We have voted—twice now. Do not buck the will of the elders.”