Emissaries from the Dead ac-1

by Adam-Troy Castro

  I thrashed, arced my back to provide myself access to the line, and pulled myself upward, climbing hand over hand until I could wrap my arms and legs around the hanging cord. It robbed me of some distance, but at least it allowed me to face them.

  The Porrinyards came back online, speaking together. “Are you all right, Andrea?”

  “I should be asking you that question.”

  “It’s been a rough few minutes,” they said, “but I’m clear enough, right now, to tell you what I’m dealing with. Peyrin? Are you getting this?”

  Lastogne broke in. “I’ve got you.”

  “We’re under attack by what seems to be a human being, or other humanoid, inside some kind of heavily fortified flying armor. It’s demonstrated offensive capabilities including light explosives and motion-seeking projectiles, both of which might have put me down long ago were the pilot not more interested in forcing me down into the clouds. I seem to be outside its reach right now, but every time I’ve tried to rise above the storms I’ve been…” A rumble of static. “…chastised. I’m trying to manuever around a bit, and find some way to ascend, but that effort’s taking me farther and farther away from Counselor Cort.”

  Another tug drew me upward. I said, “This isn’t about attacking you. It’s about keeping you too busy to retrieve me.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking too,” the Porrinyards said.

  “Then get yourselves to safety. I’ll wait for Lassiter to show up.”

  “I’m sorry,” the Porrinyards said. “I didn’t quite get that.”

  “I said, save yourselves. Let me fend for myself for once.”

  “Nope,” the Porrinyards said. “I’m afraid I didn’t hear that, either.”

  I called them just about every horrid name I knew and several others I had to make up. Just a few arm-lengths above me, the Brachiators continued working with an efficiency I never would have expected of them, as they drew me closer and closer to clawing distance. I saw slack in the line hanging in loops from a dozen Brachiator hands. I heard reverent discussion of Life and Half-Ghosts rolling from a dozen Brachiator mouths. This was a religious experience for them, one the members of this tribe would no doubt pass along to their children and grandchildren long after my name ceased being even a footnote in human history.

  I pulled myself up a little farther, hating having to get closer to them but needing the extra slack so I could stand in the makeshift stirrup the cord formed as it looped under my feet. It turned the line into a kind of elevator, which I rode as they pulled me toward them.

  The broad furry back of the nearest Brachiator was now a little more than a single arm’s length out of reach.

  Lastogne broke in. “Counselor? You there?”

  I blinked sweat from my eyes. “I hope you have a smarter question than that.”

  “We’re going to need you to hold on for a while. The AIsource have closed the Habitat.”

  I heard another long, rumbling explosion: either real thunder or the Porrinyards being punished for making another attempt to rescue me. I hadn’t noticed any flash of light, so I couldn’t tell where it had come from, except down below. My brain immediately conjured an image of the skimmer breaking in half and the Porrinyards sharing a scream as they toppled head-over-heels into toxic murk. I didn’t much appreciate the way my stomach clenched at the image. I didn’t want to live through this if the Porrinyards got killed.

  Lastogne continued: “They wouldn’t let us in. They called current conditions in there too hazardous to allow any further entry.”

  I removed the stun device from my collar. It was the same one I’d used on Gibb the other day, but it was calibrated to deliver incapacitating jolts to human beings and might be nothing more than a pinprick to Brachiators. With my bag of essentials still in the skimmer with the Porrinyards, and the item I’d saved for use against the Heckler long since fallen into the clouds, it was all I had. “I suppose you argued the point?”

  “We told them we still had four people in there, in immediate need of evacuation.”

  The number seemed right until I remembered to count Gibb, still enduring his voluntary exile at Hammocktown. “You have more than four.”

  “What?”

  The gray-haired Brachiator gave another heave-ho, so mighty that I almost bumped my head on his back. I tapped its spine with the only weapon I had, the stunner, and was not rewarded with spectacular results: a little buzz, a little twitch, a little grunt of annoyance. Any thoughts I’d had of bravely fighting off the entire tribe with nothing more than the stunner quickly vanished.

  Lastogne cut in again. “Counselor, repeat what you just said. You have more than four people in there?”

  “I’m a little too busy to do your math for you, sir! I have things to do!”

  The gray-hair gathered up all his strength and tugged again, drawing me level with the sea of broad, simian faces. His own eyes rolled toward me. In a heartbeat, my last chance to escape would be gone. I’d never win if this became a battle of competing muscle power.

  But speed I had over all of them.

  I didn’t even need to hurry as I reached out with one hand and used the stunner to deliver what must have been an agonizing jolt to his right eye.

  Quick biology lesson: it doesn’t matter what species you belong to. If you have eyes and the capacity to suffer, that place has some of the most sensitive pain receptors in your entire body.

  The gray Brachiator shrieked. It didn’t let go of the line at first, but it did remove one of its anchoring grips on the Uppergrowth and grab for me, its claws vibrating with a frenzy that might have seemed convulsive had it originated from a creature capable of faster motion.

  I had just enough time to move my hand over its other eye and deliver another jolt.

  Blinded twice, too agonized to be capable of conscious thought, the Brachiator released its grip on my line. I jerked downward, passing just under its reach and the reach of the other Brachiators clutching at me. I didn’t fall any farther because there were too many other Brachs holding the cord. With their reaction time, it might take them a few seconds to even realize that something bad had just happened, and seconds more to decide I was one fish best released. That is, if they decided that. My glimpse of Brachiators at war hadn’t exactly painted them as creatures who gave up the first time they were bloodied.

  Just above me, Friend to Half-Ghosts roared. “You asked for Life!”

  My own cry was no less shrill. “I’ve changed my mind! I don’t want any part of it! And I don’t want any part of you!”

  Then I fell.

  My safety line, released by all the Brachiators at once, went slack for its entire length, freeing me to plunge again. I wasn’t ready for it this time, and screamed all the way down, crying out when the cord once again drew taut.

  Lastogne, who’d been listening to every last gasp and squeal, was by this time shouting my name over and over. I counted four separate repetitions of “Counselor Cort!” Each one a little more hopeless, a little more certain that I’d given up the fight.

  I didn’t manage words until the cord used up its elasticity and I was once again spinning at the bottom of the line. “I’m…here, sir. A little mussed, but alive for the time being.”

  He expended his relief in a single whuff of air. “What’s happening?”

  “I’ve bought myself a few more minutes. No more, I think. The Brachs are pretty upset at me by now. And you?”

  “We haven’t heard from the Porrinyards in a while. They’re not answering. I don’t know whether they’re dead or just unable to respond. The AIsource themselves have been less than forthcoming. They say they’ve withdrawn their permission for a human presence inside the Habitat, and will be expecting us to depart the station within forty-eight hours. No word on the disposition of the people still inside. Which we still count as four, by the way. You, Gibb, Oscin, and Skye.”

  The damned thing I kept wanting to do, but hadn’t been able to do, gnawed at me once ag
ain. I shifted my grip on the line, released one hand so I could blow on the aching and now bleeding palms, and said, “Have you counted heads there?”

  “Nobody’s signed out but you four.”

  “Forget who’s signed out. You can’t expect a murderer to sign in and out like a normal person taking shore leave. Gather everybody in the hangar for a roll call. That includes you. If you don’t get at least three other parties to vouch for your own presence there, I’m going to assume you’re talking to me from some remote location and presume you are our saboteur. The only acceptable excuse for not giving me what I need in five minutes will be that I’m dead and not available to take it from you.”

  His urgency went away a little, replaced by his usual wry humor. “That does remain a possibility, Counselor.”

  “I know. But you had better proceed as if it’s not.”

  “I’m right on it,” he said.

  I felt another tug from up above.

  Before I looked, I was sure I knew what it was. It had to be the Brachiators making another attempt to pull me up. I’d have to hold on tight and wait until I was in range again. I didn’t think going for the eyes would work a second time, since even creatures as slow as they were would learn from the first time.

  Then I looked, and saw that my situation was significantly worse than that.

  The gray-haired Brach had given up on retrieving me and begun attacking the line itself.

  If I listened real hard, I could make out the scraping sounds from down here. He was slashing away with all the strength he had.

  I couldn’t blame him. After all, I had presented myself as a friend and then made myself his enemy. He wouldn’t consider what I’d done self-defense. He’d see it as betrayal.

  You could even give him credit for still trying to give me what I wanted. I’d told him I wanted nothing to do with them. Or with Life.

  It would cost him nothing to oblige me.

  I’d be safe enough until he realized that the line was impervious to his claws. Then he’d start working out other ways to dislodge me.

  My first impulse was to get Lastogne back on the line and beg. But it wouldn’t do any good. Nothing would do any good. Even if the AIsource reopened the Habitat right now, no skimmer available to Lastogne or his people could reach me in time to make a difference. The Porrinyards could be dead already for all I knew, and my last resort, Gibb, was stuck on Hammocktown with no means to mount a rescue mission, assuming he’d even want to.

  By all meaningful definitions of the word, I was already dead.

  But then, by all local definitions of the word, I’d been dead before.

  Hating the necessity, I had to climb.

  It was a useless gesture. There was no safer place above me worth climbing to. I’d been there already. I knew all I had to look forward to up there was a bloodier death. But the one trait I’d taken from my experiences on Bocai, and nurtured in all the terrible places I’d been since, was an absolute inability to do nothing. Faced with a choice, I’d always seek higher ground, even when higher ground was worse.

  I was halfway back to the Uppergrowth when the first spurt of manna juice hit my forehead, stinging my eyes and forcing me to clear my vision with the back of one hand. The Brachiators were slicing away at the vines anchoring my line. The Porrinyards had used an air cannon to drive it through multiple generations of Uppergrowth, and advised me that the anchor was solid enough to support several times my own weight. But it wouldn’t be if it was physically ripped from its foundations. It wouldn’t be if the Brachiators dedicated themselves to cutting away every single vine between them and the anchoring hook. Chances were, they wouldn’t need to excavate it entirely for the cord to give way. The vines between it and the surface were part of what held it fast, after all. Weakening them might be more than enough to loosen my shaky hold on their world. I wouldn’t know until I actually started to fall.

  No doubt about it. This would be a goddamned stupid way to die.

  The sap started to pour. One spurt drenched my face. I licked my lips, and found it as bitter as the worst unsweetened tea. An acquired taste, all right, though under the circumstances I regretted never tasting the fermented version.

  My arms were getting tired.

  I pulled myself up another arm’s length, gasped as something sticky flopped against my shoulders, looked down and saw a short length of vine tumbling into the void.

  “Oh, Juje! You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  Manna juice was pouring down the rope and flowing over my hands.

  As the Brachiators slashed and sliced at the vines anchoring my cord, the size of the hole they dug had turned out to be not nearly as dangerous a factor as how much it bled. The Uppergrowth had begun to hemmorhage, and the line anchored in the center of the damage had become the natural conduit for goo. My hands were just now getting the first of it. In a second or two, the line would be as impossible to climb as any other greased pole.

  No sooner had I realized that than the lubrication started to perform its magic. I slipped a full meter, stopping only when I hit a section of cord still dry enough to maintain friction against my hands.

  I kicked, shouted an obscene word, got another faceful of goo for my troubles, and did the only thing left available to me.

  I started to laugh.

  This was a stupid way to die, all right.

  But also a goddamned funny one.

  The more crap splattered my cheeks and splattered my eyes and greased up my hands and sent me sliding downward, the more I sank into a hilarity of a kind I hadn’t enjoyed since the good days on Bocai. It just burst from me, in great big rolling belly-laughs that didn’t banish my terror so much as subsume it.

  Damn it all, I might have wanted to live, but if I had to go, then I couldn’t think of any dumber, or more appropriate, way than this.

  Another burst of thunder, very loud and very close, drowned out a frantic query from Lastogne. “Counselor? Are you crying?”

  “Hell, no! I’m laughing my ass off!”

  A pause. “Care to share the joke?”

  “You have to be here, Peyrin. But—ack!—rescue me and I’ll be happy to explain it to you!”

  My hands gave way. I plunged back to the bottom of my line, spun like a top at the cord’s lowest point, endured a fresh indignity as another spurt of manna juice drenched my head and shoulders, gasped with fresh awareness of the nearness of death, and took vague notice of a dragon bursting from the clouds below with an angry thrash of gigantic wings. One last moment of spectacle before I went.

  Lastogne shouted, “Counselor! Do you read?”

  I caught my breath. “Not for long, Peyrin. I think we’ve reached the last seconds. Did you do that last roll call?”

  “Almost counted wrong,” he said. “Forgot Li-Tsan on the first go-round. She’s still locked up in the transport.”

  “And after you count Li-Tsan?”

  He said something I missed, because I was too busy shouting.

  Because as the dragon leveled off and descended back into the clouds, another object peeled away from it: something that had been using it for cover, something that was now rising as fast as it could toward my position. Something only visible as a bright burst of light.

  It didn’t look like a man-sized object in an offensive flying armor.

  It looked like a skimmer.

  “Oh, God,” I said, let it be…

  Lastogne shouted again. “COUNSELOR!”

  The object’s flight was erratic, nothing even close to a straight line, but a queasy wobble that made it look off-center, even struggling.

  Come on, Come on, Come on…

  “COUNSELOR!”

  I dropped a meter. The vines anchoring my cord were starting to let go. I had a couple of heartbeats, maybe less, before they failed; not enough time for the Porrinyards to ascend to this altitude.

  Who cares? As long as they survive! They can—

  A bright, fiery rose blossomed far below; an a
irburst of some kind, though one too far away to hear quite yet. It was so bright that I lost the object at its center. About half a minute later, the sound reached my position: no longer a deafening cataclysm, just a vague, distant rumble too bearable to represent the loss of two people I didn’t want to see dead.

  It took me some time to register that my eyes were closed against a now-torrential rain of manna juice, and that Lastogne was screaming at me: “COUNSELOR! GODDAMNIT, COUNSELOR! I CAN HEAR YOU BREATHING!”

  My voice broke three or four times before I managed to get out a word. “Peyrin…?”

  “I’m here, Andrea.”

  I didn‘t have enough life left in me to protest the use of my first name. “…what was…that count again?”

  He spoke quickly. “I was right the…”

  My safety line failed.

  With the cloudscape many kilometers below me, there were precious few visual cues advising me of my sudden delivery to an inevitable death. It was my spine that felt the sudden loss of control, my skin that registered the rush of air against my face.

  I swallowed air and tried to get used to the idea. It wasn’t all that hard. I’d been as good as dead for so many years; in part I’d wanted to be. Nothing ahead of me offered any further surprises. I found even enduring it in the form of a fatal drop didn’t bother me all that much: the anticipation had been such a burden that the real thing came as a relief.

  So I spread my limbs, maximizing my surface area against the onrushing wind, and allowed One One One to take me.

  I had regrets. One, that I’d never tell Gibb what I’d learned about the Brachiators. Two, that I’d never tell the AIsource what I’d figured out about them. Three, that I’d never find out about the mysterious gifts they’d claimed to hold for me. Four, that I’d never confront the Unseen Demons over everything they’d done to my life.

  Five, that I hadn’t made peace with Bringen. He’d indicated a thousand ways that he’d wanted to, and I’d shut him out every single time. I didn’t need his response to my mail to know that I’d misjudged him. I knew I had.

  Six, that I hadn’t made a path for myself instead of allowing the Dip Corps to choose my path for me.