Scions of Sacrifice

by Eric Kent Edstrom

  The squeal and roar of aircraft engines came from the east.

  Feet churning in the deep sand, the Scions and Orson heaved and pushed. Meter by meter, they dragged the boat.

  The engine roar increased. Humphrey jerked his head up and around. Still nothing.

  “Come on!” Orson cried. “Let’s move this—!”

  Leslie gasped. “Orson fell.”

  “Keep pulling!” Humphrey shouted.

  The others added their cries and grunts, putting all their muscle into a final effort.

  The air temperature dropped ten degrees as they dragged the boat into the cover of the canopy.

  “Orson’s still out there,” Leslie said, hands on her knees, breath heaving.

  Out on the sand, Orson lay on his side, face dripping and flushed red. He gripped his left forearm.

  “What happened to him?” Kirk said. “Orson, get over here! They’ll see you!”

  Humphrey looked back to the beach. Orson wasn’t the only thing they’d see. The dinghy’s keel had carved a trough in the sand, flanked by divots, as if a giant, multi-legged lizard had climbed from the sea and crawled into the trees while dragging its belly.

  Orson made no effort to stand. He writhed in agony, breath coming in hitching gulps.

  “Kirk. Erase our tracks. Leslie, help me get Orson.”

  He ran to the fallen man, whose body had now relaxed. His face was slack, mouth open, eyes wide and staring at nothing. Together they grabbed arms and legs and hefted the man toward the cover of the trees. Kirk snatched up a thick fern frond. He followed behind, swiping tracks from the sand.

  The jets were screaming, unseen above.

  They dropped Orson’s dead weight into the first stretch of shade. It would have to do.

  “Kirk!” Humphrey called to the boy bringing up the rear.

  The boy sprinted and dove into the shade. Leslie yelled something unintelligible and pointed to the sky.

  Humphrey didn’t see what she was pointing at. The foliage above him was too thick. But then a squadron of planes appeared, tearing across the sky, heading west. The aircraft skimmed so low their wake made the trees’ upper limbs flail. Trails of white vapor marked their passage. The sound dropped and deepened as they flew away.

  And then all fell quiet.

  The Scions stood still as statues, ears pricked for the sound of more planes.

  They did not move for a minute, then five.

  “They haven’t doubled back,” Kirk said.

  Leslie was kneeling next to Orson. “I don’t think he’s breathing.”

  Humphrey knelt next to him, jammed his fingers against Orson’s carotid artery. “No pulse. There’s a procedure to resuscitate . . .” He looked to Leslie.

  She shrugged, face full of sympathy. She patted the man’s greasy fringe of hair, smiling sadly. “Let him rest. Even if you could restart his heart, he can’t get the medical attention he needs. Maybe if Miss Dayspring was with us . . .”

  Humphrey was glad they hadn’t brought the woman. Especially now. Orson had been a burden. Even though the man knew the seas and was useful in that regard, the Scions were never going to be free as long as the man knew where they were. With him dead, things got easier.

  Humphrey shivered at his own thoughts. A man had just died and he was relieved. Humphrey really was like Dr. Carlhagen. This just proved that he would never escape his own Progenitor’s selfish and reptilian mind.

  “I won’t mourn him.” Leslie rubbed her fingers on her pants, as if merely touching Orson could infect her with an incurable disease. “He meant us harm. His brother did me harm and Orson allowed it.”

  They dragged Orson’s body deeper into the foliage, then returned to the dinghy to collect their packs. Each held a liter of water and a dozen packets of the tooth-shattering MRE bars they’d found on Mr. Justin’s Island. Each pack also held a flashlight and a foldable knife with a six inch blade.

  Kirk produced a surprise from his pack. “Look at this.” He pulled out a machete, 50 centimeters long, with a black wooden grip.

  Humphrey grunted. “Good thing Horace never got hold of that.”

  Leslie hefted her pack straps over her shoulders. The edges and corners of the server were sharply outlined by the fabric of her pack. She then bent into the boat and pulled out a bulky blanket. Something oddly shaped was wrapped in it. She hesitated a moment and nearly put it back. Changing her mind, she unwrapped it. “I brought this. I’m sorry, but I just think we need every weapon at our disposal.”

  It was the speargun Mr. Justin had used to kill Sensei. There were still bloodstains on the steel tip of one of the spears. Humphrey remembered Leslie showing him her hands, the hands that had fired that spear into Sensei’s throat.

  If anyone had a right to the weapon, it was her.

  “You’ll shoot one of us by mistake,” Kirk said.

  “I won’t. I know how it works.” She did not seek Humphrey’s approval. Humphrey wondered if Leslie’s resilience and defiance were the aspects of her Progenitor that had made her President of the North American Union.

  “What’s the plan?” Kirk asked, looking at Leslie.

  Instead of deferring to Humphrey, the copper-haired Eagle patted the gunnel of the dinghy. “We need to conceal this better. Then we need to get our bearings. Maybe we can deduce where Dr. Carlhagen built his new Scion School based on the lay of the land.

  It was optimistic, but it was also very sound, Humphrey thought. “Excellent. Let’s get moving.”

  There was less urgency now that they were out of sight from the air, so dragging the dinghy was much harder. They moved it another ten meters before giving up. They covered it with more fern fronds. Kirk slipped onto the beach for a moment to see if the boat was well enough hidden. He came back, adjusted the camouflage and pronounced the boat invisible.

  “We need to get some altitude,” Humphrey said. “That peak was north of here. If we can get onto the slopes, we should be able to see most of the rest of the island.”

  And so the trudge began.

  The shade protected them from the steadily lowering sun, but as they moved away from the shore, the air thickened. The sparse undergrowth allowed them easy passage at first, but soon they encountered an impenetrable wall of vines and thorny bushes. Leslie suggested following the edge of the thicket barrier. “I remember Socrates saying that many tropical plant species live in a narrow band of elevation. We just need to get higher.”

  As they climbed, the terrain became rockier, and the trees thinned. Biting flies, purple and gold, harried them the whole time. The sound of slaps and soft cries of pain became the regular accompaniment to their steps. Kirk took the lead with his machete and started hacking through a dense section of woody weeds with sticky leaves.

  Two hours in, Humphrey had already drunk half his liter of water. “We’d better ration water until we find a source for more,” he said. “Limit yourself to a small sip every fifteen minutes.”

  The problem was the humidity here. They were all soaked with sweat. Their uniforms clung to their skin. Faces glistened. All bore welts from fly bites and smudges of mashed insects too slow to escape their angry swats.

  “There’s a break in the trees ahead,” Kirk said.

  They slowed their pace, keeping a sharp eye on the canopy to make sure they were hidden from the skies. They hadn’t heard a jet since the first flyover, but Humphrey still feared the pilots had spotted the dinghy tracks on the beach, or had decided Athena’s proximity to St. Lazarus was too suspicious.

  No word from Summer. That was good. He hoped.

  “Water break,” he said, and took a small sip. The wetness barely cut the raging thirst in his throat. It didn’t matter that the water was warm. The others took their allotted sips. Scions were disciplined and smart. They understood the purpose of the rationing, though they looked regretful as they stowed their water bottles.

  “I wish I had some binoculars,” Humphrey said. “I’d like to be able to scan ahead.�
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  “Oh, I have some. Summer loaned them to me,” Leslie said. She dug in her backpack and pulled out a small pair Humphrey had never seen before. Summer had probably found them on Athena and kept them to herself.

  “Why didn’t Summer ever tell me about these?” Humphrey complained.

  “She said you were unappreciative of the fragility of fine optics.”

  “May I?” he said holding out his hand.

  “I promised Summer I’d bring them back in perfect condition, so be careful,” Leslie said as she let Humphrey take them.

  He didn’t need them long. The break in the trees ahead was the end of this forested area. They had climbed high enough that they’d reached a tree line. Everything beyond was rock, tough grasses, or gnarly shrubs. The mountainside climbed steeply toward a peak still a kilometer above them.

  “What are we waiting for?” Kirk said. “There are no planes around.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Humphrey said. “At 4000 meters of altitude, a plane could see this island from 220 kilometers away. We’d never even hear their jets from that distance.”

  “But it would be a hazy speck on the horizon, at best,” Kirk said.

  “Depends on the quality of their onboard optics.” Humphrey raised the binoculars. “Even with 10x magnification, computer processing could flag a group of humans as anomalous objects from 150 kilometers. Do any of us think their optics are that weak?”

  No one did.

  “So what now?” Leslie said, gently prying the binoculars from Humphrey’s hands.

  Humphrey plopped onto the spot he was standing and removed his pack. “We wait for dark.”

  The others sighed with a combination of relief and impatience. Humphrey didn’t care. There was no point in bumbling around in the jungle with no idea where they were going. Besides, they had been climbing for several hours. They needed a rest.

  A roar of jets passed by from the south, high and distant. Humphrey realized the altitude the Scions had gained from their climb might show them Athena through the binoculars.

  On the other hand, he didn’t see that it mattered much whether the ship was in view.

  Leslie sat next to him and blew a stray lock of hair from her eyes. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m tired and I stink.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m talking about Orson.”

  He dug an MRE bar from his pack. He unwrapped it, bit off a corner. Swallowed.

  Leslie stared at him, waiting for an answer.

  “Orson was in poor physical condition. His heart was bound to give out sooner or later.”

  “Yes. We’ll all die sooner or later,” Leslie said. “You are reciting a fact. I asked you how you feel about him dying.”

  He broke off another small piece of his bar and ate it, careful not to look at Leslie. “It is unfortunate that he led the life he did.”

  “Yes, but how do you feel about his death?”

  “I don’t know why you’re asking me this.”

  “Because you’ve spent more time with him than any of us. You must feel something.” There was a pleading in her tone that surprised Humphrey. He still didn’t look up. He could feel her looking at his face. He knew that she had that peacefulness in her eyes, that earnest inquisitiveness he found so unsettling since her restoration from a computer backup.

  “I didn’t like him,” he said. “But I think he was coming around. He liked Summer.”

  Kirk had wandered into the foliage to answer nature’s call.

  “The truth is that I’m relieved,” Humphrey said. “And that makes me sad.” He lifted his eyes to meet Leslie’s. “I wish I could be sad for him, but I just can’t. He was a terrible human.”

  The foliage rustled behind him. Kirk emerged. He held a finger to his lips.

  Instantly alert, Humphrey started to stand. Kirk urged him to sit back down.

  He came to sit next to Humphrey and leaned close. Leslie bent in to listen. They both stank of sweat and dirt.

  “We aren’t alone here,” Kirk whispered.

  32

  Jewelry Maybe

  Sleep did not come easily for Senator Bentilius these days. The vigor of youth was part of the reason. Heaven knew what a rollercoaster her physical appetites had taken her on recently. She almost felt sorry for Dr. Carlhagen, the way she’d abused his body.

  But anxiety also played a major part in keeping her awake, mind spinning. So here she was—with plenty of time to nap and rest up before things got interesting—and she could not sleep a wink.

  She lay on a sofa in Livy’s quarters, in absolute darkness. Lazarus had piped in the soothing sounds of the surf, but it did nothing to lull her to sleep. She was used to complex problems, but there were so many balls in play now, her mind was boggling just keeping track of them.

  Impatience got the best of her. She sat up. “Lazarus, lights please.”

  A glow came into existence on the pixel walls, easing the darkness.

  “What’s the child’s status?”

  “Nominal.”

  “That’s not what I meant. How much longer?”

  “Bringing a human out of growth cryo is a precise science, with low tolerance for error. It must be done slowly, with attention to hundreds of variables.”

  The AI never answered her questions directly. She was not accustomed to such treatment from AIs, or humans, for that matter. But since she didn’t have any leverage over Lazarus, she had no recourse but to take his disrespect.

  “Could you give me an estimate of when you’ll need me to move the child to the transfer machine?” she asked, as politely as she could manage.

  “It depends on a number of factors. Somewhere between three and seventeen hours.”

  “Seventeen! I don’t have that kind of time.”

  Actually, that suited her just fine. Maybe Colonel Vikisky would arrive before then and get her out of this mole hill. Then she could have the navy techs find Lazarus’s server and slag it.

  With the tone of an afterthought, Lazarus said, “You may be interested to know that a small boat arrived on the island recently.”

  “What? Who was in it?”

  “I do not know. I’ve been observing the passengers since they arrived. They barely eluded detection by reconnaissance flights dispatched from Colonel Vikisky’s fleet.” A video image, taken from above the canopy of trees, showed a speedboat plow onto a western beach. Figures jumped out and dragged the boat across the sand. One—a stouter man—fell and did not get back up. The camera was too far from the group to see much detail. The other three individuals were slim, fit. Two males and a female. They seemed young and vigorous. They wore tank tops and black trousers. Sun flashed off something shiny affixed to one member’s shirt. A piece of jewelry, maybe.

  “Do you have other views of them?”

  “Yes.”

  Another image popped up, this one from a camera closer to the ground. It moved through foliage, paralleling the path of the interlopers.

  “Can’t you get closer?”

  “Yes. But then they would hear the drone. I do not want them to know they are being observed. Yet.”

  The drone slipped behind the trio, then stopped. The image zoomed on the figure at the back, a girl with short coppery hair. She slapped at insects on her arms and face. Despite the efforts of the drone to hold its position, the image shuddered at this zoom level. The focus blurred and then locked sharp again.

  The girl turned to look over her shoulder. Lazarus froze the image. “I can enhance this somewhat.”

  “No need,” Maxine said, smiling. “That is a Scion. This little band of trespassers are some of Dr. Carlhagen’s escapees. How on earth did they know to come here?”

  Lazarus didn’t answer. The video disappeared.

  “You must have more drones out there. Show me the others.”

  Lazarus didn’t answer and he didn’t produce more video.

  “Have you informed Dr. Carlhagen about this?” she asked.


  “I’m still considering that decision.”

  “Can your drones disable the Scions? Colonel Vikisky’s forces will be here soon. They can scoop them up.”

  “That’s what concerns me. I do not trust Vikisky.”

  Senator Bentilius realized she was on crumbling ground and backed off. “I could go out and fetch them. Bring them here. You could isolate them into rooms until you decide how to use them.”

  The answer was not long in coming. “There are three of them and one of you. You are known to them, and they despise you.”

  “But you have drones. Surely you have some weapons aboard. Besides, the Scions know I’m with Dr. Carlhagen, and they know we have Livy.”

  “An interesting proposition. But I do not need your services at this time.”

  “Will you tell Dr. Carlhagen?”

  “Not yet.”

  That was something. Senator Bentilius discovered she was chewing a thumbnail. She dropped her hand to her side.

  Her mind turned over the piece of information she had withheld from Lazarus. The girl was the president’s Scion. Lazarus had not recognized her.

  Interesting.

  33

  A Rat is a Boy

  One of the benefits of stealing a military man’s truck was that it was well supplied. The first aid kit alone held enough supplies to perform minor surgery. That was according to Meow Meow. Jacey didn’t know much about medical care.

  She did know that she felt a thousand times better than when she’d first been thrown into the truck. The nausea was gone now, and the ringing in her ears—an E flat, she was pretty sure—had started to fade into the background. All of this was thanks to the three pills Meow Meow had dug from the kit and shoved into Jacey’s hand.

  None of them had sedative effects, and Jacey was thankful for that. She needed to be able to stay awake. Though their hideout was well hidden, they were in potentially hostile territory.