by Lucas Bale
‘I still don’t know your name,’ Weaver said.
Again it took a long time for the man to reply. He stared again into the fire, as if he might find some relief there, but eventually he seemed to give in. ‘My name is Gant,’ he said.
‘Well, Gant. My name is Weaver. And right now, I think you and I are about as close to allies as each of us is likely to get for a long while. So, here’s my suggestion. I’m going to let you sleep while I take the first watch. After that, I’ll sleep. I’m going to secure you during that time—you understand why, I’m sure—and if you see them approaching, you’ll wake me. Then we’ll fight and see who survives. Tactically, this is a good spot to defend. They’ll know that, like any Peacekeeper would. They’ll approach cautiously because they don’t know who I am. All they know is that I was able to kill one of them. That gives us a small advantage, which we will need to use carefully.’
Gant looked at Weaver. ‘What do you actually want from this planet?’
Weaver met Gant’s gaze, but he had to concentrate on keeping his voice level. He frowned at the bitter sadness welling inside him. ‘Even if you understood what I would say to you, I doubt you would believe me. So why don’t we say I just want answers, and there are some that only those chukiri, as you call them, can give me. And then I want to leave this planet before there’s nothing left of it to leave.’
‘How do you intend to do that?’
‘Despite the look of it, the freighter might be spaceworthy. It needs some work.’
‘There will be more chukiri. They’ll come, and you’ll never get to it. They want off-planet just as much as you.’
‘Why don’t you let me worry about that?’ Weaver said. ‘Now, I suggest you get some sleep. When we’ve both rested, you’re going to take me to the rest of the people you’re protecting.’
C H A P T E R 15
THE WORST of the cold fell away from the air, and the temperature rose steadily as they descended from the high plateau and into the low summits that skirted the upper ranges. The clamour of the wind softened a little and an eerie silence crept across the flanks of that final valley.
They had seen nothing of the chukiri, and both had in truth welcomed the opportunity to rest. However, they moved quickly now, and Gant found the Caestor to be much fitter than his age and demeanour suggested. The man offered no complaints about their pace, which Gant had quickened as they drew closer to where his colony waited. His heart beat faster in his chest and anxiety welled in his stomach. Although he’d heard no sounds of gunfire or explosions to indicate an attack on the huts, he’d been unable to convince himself to believe in their safety. The rush of the wind could easily have masked any sounds of violence. The chukiri had surely used these paths when travelling to the basin, and there was every chance that one of the huts had been seen.
Or that Bradman and his men had been unable to stay their tongues.
Above them there remained one last, swift climb to the col from which Gant would witness the answer he sought. He took a deep breath and scaled it as quickly as he dared. Before the final, shallow approach, where he knew his figure might be silhouetted against the skyline, he hunkered low and kept close to the rock. Beside him, and quickly, the Caestor arrived and did the same.
‘Can you see the hut?’ Weaver asked him.
Gant gave a short nod and pointed towards it. The hut’s vague outline was barely visible on the mountain’s flank; it could almost have been a natural feature. It had been built to blend into the lines of the rock around it, its wood stained to be the same colour.
Gant pulled the oculars from his pack and, with trembling fingers, brought them to his eyes. The hut was untouched and still intact and, for a moment, he felt a twinge of relief. Then, as he panned the oculars across the frame of the stanchions, he saw a single white chalk mark on one of the legs. Something hard balled in his throat and he looked away. He was too late. Bradman, or one of his men, had finally given in.
This first hut had been taken.
He took in a breath to steady himself, then stared again at the mark, desperate in his hope that it wasn’t really there. But it shouted back at him, stark and impenitent. He dropped the oculars away from his eyes and turned to Weaver. He couldn’t keep the edge from his voice. ‘The chukiri have been here.’
Weaver glanced the way of the hut and then back at Gant. ‘How can you be sure?’
‘There’s a mark on one of the legs. It’s a sign that the hut has been abandoned. My people will have retreated to the next hut in sequence. We need to go there and find out if the chukiri have taken any of them.’
‘And if they have?’
‘We keep going until we reach the last hut.’
‘The chukiri are waiting for us,’ Weaver said. He leaned in to look Gant in the eye. ‘You understand that?’
‘What would you have me do?’ Gant snapped bitterly, frustration and grief overflowing and pressing down on him.
‘Not what they expect,’ Weaver said. ‘If they tortured one of yours, whatever plan you might once have had is now compromised. Their suits have communications systems, so it’s inevitable that more are coming. We must rethink our approach.’
Gant felt his spine grow cold. Whether the chukiri had come on the huts by chance, or whether Bradman or one of his men had finally collapsed under whatever abuse the chukiri had inflicted on them, it didn’t matter. The Caestor was right.
‘You have a suggestion?’ he said tightly.
‘We head to the final hut and work backwards,’ Weaver said. ‘That way, we know quickly which huts have been compromised, and whoever is left will be heading straight towards us. It is the most efficient way to gather your people. Then we prepare them. You have communications equipment?’
‘Yes,’ Gant said. ‘It’s basic, but it works. We don’t know if the chukiri are able to monitor channels, so we don’t use it.’
‘Good. We must assume they monitor the channel, so we’ll be careful what we say. They know where you are, and they won’t stop now until they find you. So we must evacuate immediately. We head back to the freighter in numbers and take it from them.’
‘We aren’t trained soldiers.’
‘The basin will be difficult to defend from above—the chukiri will know that, and they will have to split up to defend it. We have the advantage of surprise. Some of your people will die, but if we wait—we will all die. A hut can be defended, but not from heavier weaponry. If they don’t already have them, the chukiri will come back with weapons capable of taking the whole structure off the mountain. If we want that freighter, and I most certainly do, then we have to take it.’
Gant took the swiftest route, the urgency now bleeding through his skin. The Caestor struggled to keep up, but Gant didn’t care. The kotwal lawman was no friend of course, although Gant knew begrudgingly that the people of his colony needed Weaver. His experience, his training, his mind—all of it gave them something of an advantage, yet Gant still couldn’t bring himself to wait for the older man. So when he reached the hut, Weaver was still some way behind. Maybe he was tiring.
Gant took out his weapon, absurdly glad of its weight in his hands, even without the magazines, and set it down next to him. Then, nervously, he took out the oculars and found the hut through them.
Relief swept over him. On the small veranda stood Haris, one of the hut’s hunters; Gant could clearly make out his stocky frame. In his hands he held a rifle. There was no mark on any of the hut’s stanchions, and Haris seemed unharmed. They haven’t taken the hut, he thought, and he closed his eyes and gazed skyward in silent thanks.
He heard the grate of boot on stone behind him and turned to see the Caestor coming up behind him. Weaver looked at Gant questioningly. Gant answered with a nod and a relieved smile.
They fairly sprinted along the trail, tiredness forgotten, until they reached the veranda. Haris turned the rifle on Weaver. ‘Who is he?’ he demanded. ‘What is he doing here?’
‘We need to get
inside,’ Gant replied quickly. ‘How many are in there?’
‘Just this hut. What about the others?’
‘The first hut is gone,’ Gant said. ‘I don’t know yet if they escaped. We came straight here.’ He pushed past Haris into the hallway leading upstairs. That’s where they’d be, and he needed to speak to all of them.
As he entered the room, overjoyed to see so many of them alive, Haris followed with Weaver.
‘I asked you a question, Gant,’ Haris said angrily. ‘Who is he?’
Gant had been running this scenario through in his mind ever since the cave, and he had been able to come up with no answer that bettered the truth. If they discovered Weaver’s identity after Gant lied to them about it, any trust they had in Gant would be gone. And they would never allow him to lead them if they did not trust him. So despite the risks, he had resolved to tell them the truth, and then to try to assuage their fear and anger.
‘He’s a Caestor,’ Gant said slowly, watching their faces. ‘But you must listen to me. It’s his freighter. He’s not here for us—’
The reaction was inexorable, and Gant knew it. Haris, like those around him, was at first shocked, his face a mask of disbelief, but then it contorted and grew red with rage. ‘You’re insane to bring him here!’ he shouted, waving his arms and turning to the rest of them. ‘Filthy fucking Caesteri! This man is a threat to all of us. We can’t allow him to be here. He knows where we are.’ He spat on the floor and turned to Gant, jabbing a finger at him. ‘You know what we have to do with him.’
Then came the bedlam of dozens of interwoven voices, each of them fighting to be heard.
‘He can’t stay here.’
‘He’ll murder us, every one of us, first chance he gets. That’s what they do.’
‘How do we know the chukiri didn’t send him?’
Fear drove them, giving every voice intensity and strength. That same fear robbed them of their objectivity and left them seeking no more than vengeance. Gant understood that.
‘Shut up!’ he shouted, raising his arms and waving them, trying to seize their attention. ‘Now! All of you! We don’t have time for this.’
The melee of furious, terrified people he had counted as his only friends, his family, continued to ignore him. He shouted again to be heard. ‘You must listen to me. The chukiri are coming. They have taken the first hut.’ But still, their fear and rage was too much; they would not listen.
He pulled out a chair and stood on it. Then he lifted the rifle and fired.
The shock of it was enough. Apart from the harshness of the noise, contained within that single room and surging off the walls, deafening those within, the fact of it—and what it meant for them—silenced the cacophony. They stared up at him.
‘Are you crazy? They’ll hear you!’ Haris screamed.
‘The chukiri are not the only threat,’ Gant shouted. Now he had their attention. Now they were listening, focused on what he was saying. He softened his voice. ‘They have already taken the first hut. But they are not even the worst of it, so you must listen to me. The ship out there above, which exploded hours ago, brought the Caestor here, and it is going to bring others. The Magistratus is almost certainly on its way, and we must be gone by the time they arrive. The huts are no longer safe. We have to leave. We may only have hours before they arrive, so we can’t waste time arguing about this. If this man wanted me, or any of you, dead, then you already would be.’
There was a stunned silence in the hut. Before anyone could speak again, a single voice, which carried with it an edge of shock, echoed through the room. ‘Tomas, no. What the hell are you doing?’
The urgency in the tone made Gant look towards the voice, and then to the small figure in the doorway.
Tomas Benrubi was a quiet man. Of all the people in the community, Benrubi was one of those who, everyone agreed, had never belonged in the Kolyma fleet. Few understood how he had survived there. Timid and shy, quick to agree, but slow to voice his own opinion, Benrubi had never struck Gant as a man given easily to violence. Gant had been surprised when they had found him, cowering in the jungle, covered in the blood of those who hung in the trees around him. He had somehow hidden himself when the chukiri came. He had seen everything they had done to the effigies surrounding him, but for as long as the community had known him, he had refused to speak about what he had seen there.
Now he stood in the doorway to the refectory, a single rifle in his hands. It shook a little as he held it, but it was pointed at Weaver. His uncertain eyes glistened in the morning light.
‘I never did what they said I did,’ he said, his voice trembling, no attempt made to disguise the emotion that curdled inside him. ‘I want you to know that. I shouldn’t have been there. My family, they couldn’t survive without me.’ He shook his head as if he was trying to convince himself. ‘Your kind, they make up laws to suit them. You’re no lawman. You’re a monster.’
‘Maybe I am,’ Weaver said quietly. He stepped forward towards Benrubi, but Gant saw no fear in his face. ‘For thirty years I served a cause I believed in. In that time, while I doubt I ever did anything to harm you or anyone close to you, I did enough to warrant your hate. Maybe I even regretted my actions at the time, but I still did them. I did what I believed was right—what I had been told was necessary for the survival of mankind. I was blind. To me, with my beliefs warped and controlled by others, everything else was blasphemy. So perhaps you have a right to your anger. But it isn’t going to help those you care about now. These people need you, and they need me. That might seem unpalatable to you, but it’s the truth. So put your gun away—I have things to do before I die.’
Benrubi didn’t move. If anything, the rifle steadied a little, but his face was a chaos of emotion. Gant saw the finger resting on the trigger flex. When Benrubi spoke again, Gant heard the forced determination in his voice. ‘We’ve survived this long without you—’
Abraham stepped forward so quickly, Gant barely saw him move. One hand wrapped around the barrel of the rifle and pulled it upwards and away with such force that Benrubi had no option but to let go. The other swung in a fist, swiftly and brutally, into Benrubi’s face, sending him backwards several steps and opening an angry red gash on the skin over his cheekbone.
Silence filled the room as Abraham pushed away the throng of people and stood in front of Weaver. ‘Your freighter will fly,’ he said. ‘I will make sure of it. But I will only do that if you agree to take these people with you, and you go where I tell you to go. Those are my conditions.’
As Weaver and Abraham stared one another down, Gant glanced around the room, watching the rest of them. He could see the animosity on their faces, the Caestor an easy target for decades of hate and injustice. He wondered if he could stop them if they chose that moment to take their vengeance.
It was a long while before the Caestor replied. Gant studied the tall man, and thought he was almost smiling.
C H A P T E R 16
AS WEAVER scrutinised the man who stood in front of him, a fog dissipated in front of his eyes. In that moment, he experienced a sudden and near-perfect clarity. It almost, absurdly, made him laugh. It was as though the walls of some invisible maze clicked suddenly, and now seemingly inexorably, into place—and he saw his path. It was an abrupt realisation, one that shook him physically, and he was aware that he was smiling. Yes, he thought, as he examined the lines on the man’s strangely ageless face. I understand now. I did not choose to come here; I was pulled here. Someone has been manipulating me, like a street-market marionette. Is that you, I wonder? Are you part of this?
The video Horan had secured from the refectory had led Weaver to the navigator woman, just as she herself had been drawn to Jieshou by Skoryk’s contract. Elias the crow had conveniently ensured that Weaver knew where to find her, and had even given him Skoryk’s name to make the path that much more obvious. Skoryk, the Bazaar’s man, who’d certainly had no reason to help a Caestor, much less ever trust one, had known We
aver was coming, and had known all too well precisely who he was—yet had helped him nonetheless.
Weaver realised he ought to have been more surprised by that fact alone, and not for the first time he admonished himself for his naivety. Of course, then Skoryk had sent him after the navigator like a puppy after a ball of wool—had even given him a freighter to take him there.
Yes, every path had led Weaver to this place. Each of the players moving him like a pawn, each of them linked somehow to some unseen force, driving him unwittingly here.
He cursed his blindness for not having seen it earlier. He had been careless to allow himself to be so comprehensively manipulated. But was it even more foolish to allow it to continue? Rescuing these people, he asked himself as he studied the man standing in front of him. Is that why I am here? To stumble upon them and lead them to safety like some heretic preacher? Is that what you expected of me? Why could you not do it yourselves? How could you be sure I would do what you wanted?
He wanted answers.
‘So be it,’ Weaver said slowly. ‘But the chukiri are not going to give up the freighter easily. We’ll have to fight for it. People will die.’
‘That is a sad fact of war,’ the man replied.
And one I have no doubt you were expecting, Weaver thought. ‘You have weapons, I imagine?’ he asked.
The man nodded. ‘We should begin our preparations.’
Weaver canted his head and said, ‘If you’re certain there’s no one else here who might want to exact some small measure of their own justice…?’
‘You’re safe, if that’s what you mean.’
Weaver smiled and shook his head. ‘None of us are safe.’ He shifted the heavy rifle off his shoulder. ‘We just aren’t dead yet. How long that lasts remains to be seen. Your name?’
‘Abraham.’
‘Then I’m Weaver.’ He turned away from Abraham and back to Gant. ‘We hike to the other huts and find the rest of your people. Something tells me this one,’ he nodded to Abraham, ‘already knows what he needs to do next.’