Who was he to say which choice was the right one for everyone?
“All right,” he said heavily. “All right. Whatever they want. We’ll get Rachel to help us find out. We’ll—”
The plastic door-cover was torn aside and Rachel stumbled in. Held under the arms, clearly barely able to walk on her own, was an older woman, pale, probably middle-aged but ravaged by the disease that gripped her. Her head nodded forward, bobbing with the palsy in her neck, her face partially obscured by greasy, gray-streaked hair that hung in front of her eyes. She didn’t appear fully conscious.
Rachel moved toward the mat. At once Aarons was on his feet, sliding an arm around the woman from the other side to help her. Adam stood as well, apprehension prickling down his spine. “Who’s this?”
“Her name is Naomi.” Rachel grunted with effort as she and Aarons laid the woman down. “She’s one of the more respected people in here. Or she was, before the sickness hit her hard. People still care for her, save rations so she doesn’t starve. She’s among those who’ve been here the longest, helped a lot of people adjust. Stood up for them when the guards got abusive.” She straightened up, panting. “She’s dying, Adam. I don’t think she’ll last the night. You have to help her. You help her; the rest of us will be with you.”
“I don’t …” Adam dropped to his knees beside Naomi, reaching out to push her hair back from her face. Trembling, she tried to pull away from him, her eyes half-closed and rolling. She was so far gone. Much further than Rachel was. Much further than even he had been.
I don’t know if I can. But he couldn’t say it.
“Adam, please.” Rachel knelt, grasping his hand. He could feel Lochlan and Aarons gathering close behind him. “She’s cared for the entire camp. She was there for me when I came in with the children, when we had nothing. We can’t lose her. Please try.”
After all his insistence that this was what he had come to do, to let fear stop him now … He stared into Rachel’s desperate eyes, and nodded, reaching for the woman trembling before them.
He heard Lochlan and Aarons suck in a breath as he laid his hands on her. Then he was down, falling, dropping into the deep, dark void that the core of her cells had become. Blackness devouring itself. It hurt, wrenching at him, airless like the vacuum of space. He cried out as he groped for her, gasping in pain and gasping her name both at once. He had to find her. If he could find her, he could show her the way …
But he was too deep, and it was too dark. Evil tendrils were winding their way out from her diseased roots, curling around him and dragging him farther down. Squeezing his chest. Taking away the last of his air and eating his heartbeat. He couldn’t help her. He wasn’t strong enough now. She would die with him.
Lock. Help me.
Light exploded. Something—someone—closed a hand around him and pulled, yanking him free and drawing him rapidly upward. Lock … But it wasn’t Lochlan. There was a difference in the dance. It was someone he had felt in this way before. Someone he had been this close to.
Rachel.
She shoved him aside, putting herself in his place, and he hovered in the void and watched as she sent her light crashing against the dark, pushing it back until a woman was revealed, coiled in on herself, rigid with terror. Rachel closed the light over her, wrapping her in it like a blanket and lifting her up. Awe flooded Adam’s core as they melded together in a paroxysm of surprised joy, spinning as one being and beating back the last of the nothingness. Revealing the full shape of the roots and cutting like a bright blade through the tendrils that choked them.
Now, Rachel cried. And they all exploded up and out, surging like ocean-creatures toward the surface, breaking hard into the air.
Once again, Adam fell into Lochlan’s waiting arms. He was aware of gasps, surprised shouts, someone saying his name and the fitful blurs of bodies in front of his vision. Cringing away from them, he turned, pressing his face against the warm skin of Lochlan’s throat. Hands stroked his hair, and there were whispered words that he couldn’t make out. For a time he lost himself in it, and let everything else go.
“You’re not some hero riding in with shining armor, waving your sword and slaying all the dragons. If you were thinking that, you stop it now.”
Gradually—he wasn’t sure how long it took—he reemerged to find Naomi lying on the mat, her eyes closed, peaceful. So relaxed, in fact, that he had a horrible moment of dread before Rachel turned to him. Her face was drawn, exhausted, and she looked as if she might be about to collapse herself, but though her dark eyes shined with tears, a gentle smile curved her lips.
“She’s sleeping,” she murmured. “She’s all right now. Adam, we—”
“No.” He shook his head, leaning forward, Lochlan reluctantly releasing him. He felt beyond weak, more so than he had when he had healed Rachel. Aarons was right. There was no way he could heal everyone. Even one a day would kill him within a week.
But he wouldn’t need to.
Rachel arched a brow. With an effort, he reached out and laid his hand over hers, and felt something electric pass between them. “It wasn’t us,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t me. I failed. It was you. It was all you.”
He let out a long breath and settled back against Lochlan once more, his eyes falling closed. “You were right,” he added, his voice dropping even lower. He needed to sleep. He would sleep, and in the morning everything would change. “I’m no hero. I’m not going to save these people.”
“No?” Lochlan tilted Adam’s chin up.
“No.” Adam smiled. It was relief. It was beyond relief. It was finding his place in what was happening, at last understanding—or finding that he had understood—what his purpose was. He could almost see Ixchel smiling back at him, her eyes full of good-humored mischief. “They’re going to save themselves.”
Sinder was emerging from a particularly unpleasant dream—a deep pit that he was crossing on a thin wire, his balance wavering and wobbling, and the pit like a mouth open to swallow him—when the call came. He sat up with a rush of gratitude at being awake, and then excitement and anticipation drowned it.
He hit the comm receiver by his bed and rolled upright as the small screen in the nightstand slanted upward and flicked on. Of course, it was the woman from the surface again, and there was something about her that seemed… chastened.
“I’ve heard back,” she said. “Mr. Sinder— I’m sorry, did I wake you?”
“No. I mean, yes. It doesn’t matter. What’s the word?” Not his normal manner when speaking to a superior, but he didn’t care, and sensed that it didn’t matter. She had what he wanted. It was coming toward him with an inexorability of the most pleasant kind.
“The word is that you’re to have whatever access you require, immediately.” She said it all in a rush, as if in a hurry to have the words out. She had enjoyed flexing her muscle over him at the time. Now her muscle had been removed, and she didn’t appear to be enjoying that much at all. “And I must also apologize for delaying you as much as I did. You understand the need to adhere to strict procedure regarding—”
“Yes, yes.” He waved a hand impatiently. “It’s all right. So I can return to the planet? You’ll accept a landing party?”
“Yes. However, before you do …” She coughed. “I’m sending you an information packet on our facility. It’s very detailed. You should make sure you look at it closely before you send anyone into the facility itself.”
“Is there any danger to my people?”
“Not directly. But the purpose of our facility should be known before you have any contact with its occupants. Those are my orders. By extension, they’re yours.” She gave him a tight smile. “You may proceed, Mr. Sinder. Retrieve your prisoners and vacate the facility as soon as possible.”
“Certainly.” Sinder gave her a polite nod. There was no reason to not be gracious, now that he had what he needed from her. “I appreciate your expedition. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”
The
screen flicked off without another word from the woman. Sinder picked up the pad that lay beside it, which was already flashing with a message notification. Attached to a textless communique was a single large file, which he opened.
He read it for over an hour, sitting in bed with the blankets pooled around his waist. When he was done, he lowered the pad into his lap and stared at nothing.
Yuga.
Not lying. Not lying at all.
After a few more minutes, Sinder lifted his right hand in front of his face and looked closely at it. Was that a tremor he detected in his fingertips? Was that a shaking deep in his muscles?
He was superior stock. He had always believed that would protect him. That it was a shield against harm, ironclad, unbreakable except by his own error.
But Adam Yuga had been from superior stock, too. And where was he now? Melissa Cosaire had gone mad. What had driven her to that? Had it simply been some inherent weakness in herself, something that he couldn’t possibly share with her? Or had it been something else? Something she had known, some horrible secret that had eaten her away from the inside until she simply collapsed into panic and rage?
No. He let his hand fall, steel bracing itself inside him. Yes, she must have known. And yes, that might well have driven her into the madness that had helped to destroy her, or delivered her into the hands of the mutinous conspiracy that had resulted in her death. But he wasn’t her. Regardless of what was or was not happening to him, he was going to remain focused. Calm. He had a job to do. He had a higher purpose to serve—one that went beyond superiors or orders and into the heart of what the Protectorate was. What it meant. Its ideal. Its legacy. He would serve that purpose for as long as he was able, and in the end, if he could be of no further use to it, he would take his leave with grace and dignity.
Later, he could fret about himself. Yuga was still the greater danger. Him, the people with whom he had surrounded himself, the tendrils he might have already extended into the Protectorate’s structures of power—these were the barbarians pounding at the gates. Whatever solution they seemed to offer would taint the Protectorate’s core, its beating heart. The Protectorate would not poison itself with “solutions” from the very things they’d purged from themselves. There would be another way. But before searching for that, the barbarians would be dealt with. Everything else was secondary.
He punched the comm on again, calling up the bridge and Alkor’s personal channel. Her voice came through immediately, sharp and alert. She must have known about the previous call. She must have been ready.
“Yes?”
“We have our clearance,” Sinder said, and allowed himself a faint, hard smile. “Take us back to the planet. Prepare your landing party. We’re going in.”
Adam stood some way from the shack, staring out past the double fences. In the distance, the sun was rising, thin and pale. He had been up for something like an hour already, had extracted himself from the heavy, tangled sprawl of Lochlan’s limbs, and was taking what fresh air he could, every breath seeming to pump a bit more strength back into him.
He would need it for what was coming next.
A hand touched his back. He started but didn’t turn.
“Can’t sleep?” Rachel asked, her voice almost at a whisper. She moved to stand beside him. She appeared tired, though not worryingly so. There was a new energy about her, a strength that hadn’t been there before. Not only hope.
Life. Life, and a grip on the same.
He shrugged. “I was. Then I woke up and it didn’t seem like there was much point in sleeping. We’ll have to move fast once the rest of the camp is up.”
Rachel nodded. “Naomi is awake too. We’ve been talking. She understands. She wants to speak to you before we start, but she’s with us.” Her mouth twisted. “Apparently she was talking escape when the first people came here. Then she stopped when it became clear that she’d only end up getting people killed. But if she broaches the subject again, people will listen. A lot of them, anyway.”
“You don’t think all?”
“I don’t know. They’re afraid. Some more than others. You might be a problem, honestly. You and your … friend.”
Adam met her gaze levelly, though there was a sinking sensation in his gut. “How so?”
“Oh, c’mon. I’m not oblivious, you know.” She paused, teeth worrying at her bottom lip. “You’re together. Aren’t you? You know. With him.”
He laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Yeah.” As usual, there was no point in denying it. He didn’t want to, anyway. Not anymore. He owed Lochlan that much. “We are. That’s a problem?”
“He’s a Bideshi.” She was quiet again. “I mean … No, it’s not a problem for me. It would’ve been, but that was before. Now … I don’t think it matters. You do whatever you have to; I don’t honestly give a fuck.” She sighed. “But the others—I’m not sure they’ll be so open-minded. Naomi knows and she’s mostly okay with it, and that’s a start, but … Yeah, I don’t know.”
“Well, I can’t exactly change it.” Adam raked a hand through his hair. It felt lank and greasy. When had he even last bathed? At least he had long since stopped smelling the stench of the camp. “You think we just … hang back? Keep a low profile?”
“I don’t know.” Rachel still looked uncomfortable. “Why him?”
It always seemed to come back to this. “He and his people are a huge part of the reason why I’m still alive. Him more than others.” He paused as memories welled in his mind. The feeling in those memories stretched into the present: weariness and the sensation of being pulled forward, exhorted to continue. “But that’s not all of why. He’s … He’s not like anyone else I’ve ever met. I thought he hated me at first, but he was there for me when I needed him most. He never asked for anything in return. He helped me … accept who I am.”
He flashed a wicked smile as a very Lochlan-like impulse gave him a push. “And he’s fantastic in bed.”
Rachel made a choking sound, but when he glanced at her she was smiling.
“He hates the Protectorate, Rachel. He has every reason to be content to see us all dead. But he came with me anyway. I don’t even think he hates our people, anymore. I think he hates the idea the Protectorate is built on. What it stands for.” He tilted his head back, watching the lightening sky. “I think I’m with him there.”
Rachel stood silently for a few moments. Then she let out a breath. “I think I am too. If it does this to people. Why should I feel any fucking loyalty to something that doesn’t care if my children die?”
“Yeah.” Adam turned to her. A shiver swept through him as he realized what this moment meant. It wasn’t the first step toward what was coming next, but it was another one of them along the way. If he could talk about the Protectorate this way with her, about what it had done, then he could talk about it with others. And he would need to. “Let’s get back to the shelter. I need to talk to Naomi. And then we need to move.”
Naomi sat on the mat and listened as Adam talked, and then Adam listened as she talked, until the sun was high in the sky. They talked through the breakfast summons, barely noticing the siren, ignoring their gnawing bellies. Lochlan sat beside him, making his presence felt though not interjecting. Once or twice Naomi glanced at him, but otherwise seemed to ignore him.
They couldn’t have been much more than an hour into their discussion before Adam was sure that Rachel was right: this woman was the key to everything. Maybe not everyone would listen to her, but most would.
And she agreed. She could convince them to do that much.
“I don’t know how this healing is possible,” she said. “But I don’t think I need to understand it. What matters is that it works.” She ruminated. “Rachel and I will head out into the camp and do what we can. Show people what’s possible. I doubt we can get through everyone today, but if we move fast, probably by the end of tomorrow. It’ll spread like a virus.” She smiled, steady and cool and determined. “We have to keep it quiet, t
hough. Make sure everyone pretends to still be sick. The last thing we need is the guards wondering what’s going on.”
“You trust everyone here?” Aarons spoke from the corner. He had appeared to be dozing upright, but now both his eyes were open. “People have a way of turning traitor when they’re hungry enough. Will anyone blab to the guards? Maybe for extra rations?”
Naomi appeared to consider his words for a moment, then shook her head. “I’ve never known anyone to do that. It might be that we all feel the whole common enemy thing especially keenly. Or it could be that the guards have never really made it worth anyone’s while. Anyone who snitched would be persona non grata around here. We’d make their lives even more miserable and they know it, and they wouldn’t get help from any other quarters.”
“And you don’t think they might assume that there wouldn’t be anyone left to make their lives miserable?”
“The guards wouldn’t kill us all.” Naomi shot him a grim smile. “That would be a lot of bodies for them to dispose of, and they don’t have the best work ethic.”
“Really?” Aarons appeared unconvinced. “I hope you’re right. In any case, I guess there isn’t much we can do. Either we risk it or we do nothing.”
“Tonight the camp will meet.” Naomi turned back to Adam. “There’s a place in the center of the quarantine. It looks like more shelters, but under the roofs it’s a bigger space than that. Sometimes it works sort of like a market, when people manage to scavenge or save anything worth bartering from the shit they chuck in here sometimes, but it’s also big enough to hold most of us without drawing too much attention. They don’t care what we do anyway, as long as we’re not trying to escape.”
“Good.” Adam paused. Here was a question that he should have asked before. “Aarons over there was military police. Is there anyone else here with peacekeeper training?”
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