by Lucas Bale
Gant nodded and glanced down towards the basin. The chukiri were moving quickly now, their suit servos driving their climb up the mountainside. He couldn’t see Bradman or his men. His eyes fell on the dead chukiri, and he realised then that he had never been this close to one of them before. Like the others, this one wore no helmet, despite the cold; maybe the suit kept him warm. His exposed face was a mess of scar tissue from where he had been forced by the Peacekeepers to cut away his own skin and deface his Kolyma tattoos. Maybe the process had left the skin devoid of feeling or sensation so it didn’t even register the cold. All of the chukiri had been forced to do the same—a ritual the Peacekeepers used whenever Kolyma inmates were brought to the planet. Part of their indoctrination.
‘Now,’ the man said. ‘Before this all becomes academic.’
They climbed quickly, Gant leading and the older man following. It wasn’t long before they reached the path Gant was looking for and began to jog along it. It was a natural trail that traversed the flanks of the massif, hewn by animals over decades, maybe even centuries. It led up to another col and into a second valley. For now it suited Gant—it led away from his colony—but he knew eventually he would need to circle back round to the huts. He had to know if they had been found. There had been no echo of gunfire in the mountains, but with the wind and distance, that didn’t necessarily mean the huts were safe. There had been nothing from Nikolaj either, and Gant felt panic well up inside him. You shouldn’t have left him.
‘Where are we headed?’ Gant asked over his shoulder.
‘For now,’ the man replied, ‘we get some distance between us and them.’
‘They’ll move faster than us, and they won’t tire as easily.’ It was growing colder, and Gant pulled his coat more tightly around him to shut out the penetrating wind.
‘So you know a little about them, then,’ the man said as they walked. ‘Why don’t you tell me some more?’
‘We’re old friends now, are we?’
‘Looks to me as if I’ll be the only one standing beside you when they come looking to see what happened to their brother.’
Brother? thought Gant, catching on the word. Why would you refer to them that way? What do you know about them? Instead he said, ‘You’re the one holding a rifle.’
‘You have the same weapon I do,’ the man replied.
‘Something tells me I wouldn’t get very far with it, if I had the inclination to try to change my situation. Particularly as it has no ammunition.’
‘A sensible conclusion. Now, I won’t ask again. Tell me who they are.’
‘I don’t know much,’ Gant said slowly. ‘There are only four of us. We’ve tried to stay clear of them thus far. They have my friends now.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘A while.’
‘Where have you been living?’
‘We camp in the mountains,’ Gant said, then supplied more detail to pad out the invention. ‘We sleep in caves and move only at night so we’re not seen.’
For a moment he thought he might have persuaded the man, but the man’s tone grew instantly harder. ‘Stop and turn around,’ he commanded.
Gant did as he was told, and saw the rifle raised to the man’s eye line.
‘You’re no use to me if you persist in lying. I’ll move considerably more quickly alone, and I have a navmodule to get me out of these mountains. So either you turn to honesty, or I put a projectile in your knee and leave you here for them. Maybe I’ll watch where they take you and learn a little about them that way.’
Gant’s heart hammered in his chest. ‘I came here as a prisoner with the rest of them,’ he said. The best lies were rooted in truth. The man had to have seen the fringes of his tattoos and drawn conclusions from them—it might explain his reaction back at the basin. ‘Some were bred to fight, others to use as bait for the chukiri.’
‘Chukiri?’ the man asked him. ‘That’s what you call the men back there?’
‘It’s a Gerasa word,’ Gant said and shrugged. ‘It refers to big-game hunters. It seemed appropriate.’
‘What do you mean by bred?’
‘You know what Kolyma is like?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Some inmates just try to get by,’ Gant said. ‘They keep to themselves and try to go it alone. The rest of the inmates call those men and women parāyā—outsiders. They don’t last long because, in the fleet, you either have allegiances or you see the wrong end of a shiv. Or maybe you’re dropped down a mining pit, or left behind when the last trucks leave a mine, and you run out of air. There’s always someone who wants a piece of you, or something you have. Some guys will slit your throat for your food. You need a sect or a gang to watch out for you, and you watch out for them. That much blood, and soon killing isn’t much of a big deal anymore. It’s easier for some than others. Some are meant to be in there anyway. But there are others who never should’ve been in there. Caesteri and Peacekeepers aren’t discriminating about who they drag to the fleet. Anyway, when they brought us all here, some were obvious candidates.’
‘For what?’
‘We don’t know what they do to them,’ Gant said, steering as close to the truth as he could. ‘We were kept in cells, segregated from each other. Sometimes we managed to speak, when the Peacekeepers weren’t listening. But all we knew was, when they released us, we were given some time to run, then the chukiri came for us.’
‘But you escaped?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
‘Dumb luck. The people with me weren’t so lucky.’
‘But there are others?’ the man asked. ‘Who escaped.’
‘No,’ Gant said quietly. ‘Just the four of us.’ For a while the man was silent, and Gant wondered if he had accepted the half-truth.
‘You think they’re training them,’ the man said finally. ‘The Peacekeepers. They’re training Kolyma inmates to hunt and kill.’
‘Yes.’
‘They were wearing Peacekeeper armoured suits.’
‘I know.’
‘Those suits are coded into the DNA of individual Peacekeepers,’ the man said. ‘They can’t be worn by another without some sort of recoding. You think Kolyma inmates know how to do that?’
Gant tried to keep his voice even. ‘I don’t think they’re Kolyma inmates anymore.’
‘Neither do I. The question is: why were Kolyma inmates being trained and equipped like Peacekeepers?’
Gant said nothing for a long time. Instead he walked, staring out over the valley. He didn’t know why. He wanted to say he didn’t care, that staying away from them was his only concern, but in truth, he did want to know. He had always wanted to find some reason in the pointless deaths of the crew of his old ship—Papin, Sawyer. Frome and Fahad. Maybe even Isaacs.
As they walked in silence, he found himself thinking about the rest of his people. He wondered how long Bradman and the others could hold out. Maybe they had given up already—maybe the chukiri were on their way to the huts even now. Why? he asked himself. What were they doing, training these men to be killers? How could they hope to control them?
The escapees from the compound had shared little about what went on in there, or within the jungle that surrounded it. It wasn’t just that they were reluctant to speak of their experiences, but also that their knowledge was limited. Prisoners had been segregated from each other and not permitted to speak—that much of what Gant had told the man behind him had been true. Instead they sat and waited, knowing the time would come when they would be released on a run.
It was only recently that a quiet man named Abraham, a newer escapee, had even told the community about the ritual removal of the tattoos. He wouldn’t say much beyond that; in fact he kept away from the rest of his hut community. Gant had tried to elicit more from him, but that ritual was one of the few revelations he had been willing to impart; otherwise, he sought solitude. Perhaps that wasn’t so unusual, Gant thought. Everyone had nightmares they wanted
to forget.
After an hour of hard walking, taking paths that led them around the massif and back towards the huts, Gant finally said, ‘Do I get to ask questions, or is this a one-way thing?’
All he received in response was silence.
‘At least tell me you have some sort of plan—’
‘Just keep walking.’
‘These mountains go on a long way, and it will get very cold. We will need to shelter soon.’
‘So take me to one of your caves.’
C H A P T E R 14
WEAVER WATCHED the man build a fire. The cave he had taken them to was high up beneath the crest of a ridge, beside the moraine of an ash-grey glacier. It was dank and cold, and reeked of decay. Gnarled stalactites of limestone rock hung from the ceiling, and stalagmites rose like bulbous pillars from the floor.
This wasn’t the place the man had been living in for years. That much was obvious. But it was a secluded place, away from the wind that surged around the mouth of the cave, and Weaver now sat on a lightweight thermal mat from the pack he’d brought from the freighter. The heavy rifle was within easy reach.
Weaver had known the man was a Kolyma inmate the moment he saw him. His tattoos crossed only the lower parts of his neck, not quite reaching his throat and jaw, but still they couldn’t be hidden. Weaver had also known enough to realise this meant the man had been affiliated during his time in the fleet. However, he had neither stripped the skin away nor scarred himself, like the men he had referred to as chukiri. This man was not one of them, nor were the three others the chukiri had chained together back in the basin.
So who are you then? Weaver thought.
The man had climbed quickly and efficiently when necessary, placing protection so Weaver could climb freely himself, even with his rifle at the ready. Weaver wondered whether he had been a rigger of some kind, back in the fleet—if that had been his role here when it had been discovered, and survey teams, or maybe terraformers, had been sent out here. He wondered how much of what the man had told him had been lies.
‘How long have you been on the planet?’ Weaver asked. ‘The truth.’ He pulled a bar of compressed, dried food from the pack and tossed it to the man.
‘Five years,’ the man answered as he opened the bar and began to eat.
Weaver’s smile was thin. Yes, that’s the truth. I can see it your eyes, your demeanour.
‘How did you get here?’ Weaver asked.
‘As I said, I was brought here with the others.’
A lie.
‘No,’ Weaver said quietly, shaking his head. ‘I don’t believe that. You came with a survey team or something similar. Not with terraformers, I think, and not with a shipment of others from the fleet as you maintain. You’re too good a climber. I think perhaps you were a rigger back on your Hand.’
The man paused a moment too long, not looking at Weaver, then set the bar down and continued laying the fire.
‘But if you’re telling the truth about how long you’ve been here,’ Weaver continued easily, ‘and I think you are, then this planet was a natural terrestrial. It wasn’t terraformed.’
‘I don’t know what you want from me.’ The man picked up the bar and finished eating, but still didn’t look at Weaver.
‘A name might be a reasonable place to start,’ Weaver said. ‘If we’re going to die together.’
The man looked up at this, and Weaver saw him searching his face for meaning behind the words. The man studied Weaver, looking him up and down, glancing next at the pack and the heavy rifle, then back at Weaver again. His eyes widened slightly, a flicker of surprise in his face. It was abrupt, a sudden realisation he couldn’t hide. He looked as if he might be about to say something, then seemed to think better of it. His expression shifted to one of anger.
Weaver smiled. ‘Yes, you’ve finally realised,’ he said, nodding slowly to himself. ‘You knew there was something, didn’t you? The moment you saw me, you knew, but you couldn’t quite work out what it was. You’ve been here too long. It’s dulled your senses. But you know who I am now.’ Or rather, who I used to be.
The man said nothing. He pulled a flamespark from his pack and set about lighting the fire.
‘I could easily have let that chukiri kill you,’ Weaver said. ‘And then followed them back to wherever it is they took your friends from. It would have lessened the risk to me.’ He jabbed a finger at the man. ‘I saved your life. Does that not earn me some trust?’
‘You obviously have questions,’ the man said. ‘And so you want answers. That’s why you saved my life. There was nothing noble in it.’ The small kindling at the centre of the stack of wood caught, and tiny flames darted across the thicker wood. There were sharp hisses and cracks as the moisture in the wood began to steam off and evaporate into the heavy air of the cave.
‘You’re right. I do have questions. But I’m only a threat to you and the people you care about if you don’t answer them.’
The fire was going well now, and the man stared at it as he fanned his hands over the flames, warming them. ‘It’s a long way to come, out here,’ he said. ‘For the Caesteri.’
‘I’m not a Caestor anymore.’
‘I doubt anyone ever stops being a Caestor,’ the man said. Weaver noted the bitterness in his voice; for some reason, it reminded him of the crow, Elias. Theia and the Core seemed suddenly so far away, and for the first time since Jieshou, Weaver wondered whether he would ever be able to go back there. To his domicile in Barents, the music that soothed him, the view across Theia that inspired him. Everything he had was gone, but did that really matter now—after what he had seen on Jieshou? On the Astratus? He had no companionship he cared enough about to miss. There was no one to be concerned by his absence. He was alone, just as he had always been.
‘There are others coming who want to kill me as much as they do you,’ Weaver said quietly. ‘People who want to keep what is happening on this planet a secret from the rest of the Republic, possibly even from parts of the Magistratus. They will be here in less than a day. When they arrive, there will be nothing left for you to protect. I’m telling you the truth, and you should listen to me.’
‘The Caesteri don’t tell the truth. Everything any of you say is a deception.’
‘Perhaps that’s true. But on this occasion, this is no deception.’
‘Is that why you’re here?’ the man asked. ‘You’re running from them?’
Weaver shook his head. ‘Why I’m here is my own business. I don’t need to stay long, but I do need to know more about these chukiri.’
The man shook his head and laughed without humour. ‘There’s only a handful of them out there, but that’s more than enough. They’re wearing Peacekeeper armour, if I have to I remind you, and carrying Peacekeeper weapons. They won’t kill us when they find us—they’ll take their time over that and find out what we know. They’ll be very interested in you. You, they will enjoy—they used to be in the fleet. They all have scores to settle with the Caesteri.’
He sat back and watched Weaver now. Perhaps he took some pleasure in the thought of what the chukiri might do to a Caestor.
‘They are clever and resourceful,’ the man continued. ‘They don’t seem to feel pain, and I have never seen them tire. They were trained by Peacekeepers, not just to kill, but to destroy completely. And they feel no emotion or remorse. That’s how they wage war. They leave nothing behind but desolation. They make effigies out of their prisoners—hanging the mutilated bodies of their enemies from the trees. Why they do that, I don’t know. Maybe to unnerve us, to spread fear. They are far worse than Peacekeepers. Is that enough for you? We can’t kill those ones out there, even together, so what difference does it make to either of us that you want to know more about them? I don’t care about your secrets. I just want to get my people back.’
I don’t need to kill them, Weaver thought. I just need to know what’s happening here. What secret is so valuable the Magistratus will use the Seneshal to protect i
t?
‘How long ago did the chukiri take the shuttle?’ Weaver asked.
The man’s head darted up, and he stared at Weaver. ‘How—’
‘How did I know?’ Weaver asked. ‘Let’s say educated guess. You saw my freighter dropping through the atmosphere and crashing in the mountains. That’s why you came.’
The man nodded.
Weaver pointed upwards. ‘Your chukiri were on a ship that exploded in low orbit. To get there, they must have taken its shuttle. I have no doubt you would have seen that. So, I’ll ask again, although I’m beginning to lose patience: how long ago did they take the shuttle?’
The man didn’t answer for a while. Weaver watched him chewing on his lip as he considered his position. Work it through, he thought, and you’ll realise that you have no other choice. I’m all you have. The only chance of you protecting whatever it is that is so precious to you.
‘Three days,’ the man said eventually.
‘And how long ago did they overthrow the Peacekeepers who were training them?’
‘It was about nine months ago.’
‘And it was the Peacekeepers who brought the inmates here five years ago?’
‘Yes,’ the man said. ‘Not all at once. There were several shipments each year.’
‘What sort of ratio—the ones they used as bait, as against the ones they recruited?’
‘I don’t know. There are dozens of chukiri, perhaps more. I’ve lost count of the effigies we’ve seen in the jungle. Certainly many more than dozens.’
Weaver saw something twitch at the edges of the man’s eyes. For a moment, he wondered what it meant, but slowly he began to piece things together. Perhaps there were others who had escaped. Is that what you’re protecting? Are there others like you?
‘How long before they were wearing Peacekeeper armour?’ Weaver asked. ‘Was it before or after they revolted?’
‘Long before. They were wearing it almost immediately.’
So it was always the intention that they be trained in the use of the suits. And all that entails. But the training failed, and they turned on their keepers.