by Chloe Garner
Wink shifted, getting his legs better underneath him.
“He’s killing Keld as part of a game,” Wink said.
“Yeah, we’ve all heard that story, by now, and he’s got a good team behind making sure no one believes it. You’re out of luck, convincing people that’s what’s actually happening.”
“What happened to Bilth?” Wink asked.
“I don’t know who that is,” the man said.
“Why would you help me?” Wink asked.
“Because you’re going to steal the scepter and give it to me,” the man said.
“Why do you want it?” Wink asked. “Is it magic?”
The man made an odd face.
“No. It’s made of gold and has got about a thousand gemstones in it.”
“You want it because it’s pretty?” Wink asked.
The man made the coughing noise again.
“You’re asking all the wrong questions,” he said.
“What questions should I ask?” Wink asked.
“How can you trust me? Where will I take you? Why you?”
“Okay,” Wink said. The man coughed again.
“You can’t trust me, but you don’t have any options. The king isn’t remotely fair, but he does pardon some people. You aren’t going to be one of them. Your choices here are to risk it that I’m telling you the truth, spend the rest of your life down here - however long you last on the food they’re going to give you - or die by execution. And the last choice isn’t even yours. I’m going to take you to my home, where they can’t follow, and where we’ll provide for your physical needs for the rest of your life. And I picked you because you’re a Keld who survived the conflicts, which means you walked back across the desert. It means you’re strong and you’re determined, and if anyone is going to pull this off, it’s going to be a Keld with as much determination as you.”
“And because you think I’m dumb enough to do it,” Wink said. There was a silence, then the man stood.
“You aren’t the first one I’ve asked,” the man said. “But I will come through. You get me the scepter, and I’ll get you out of here.”
He stood and left, and Wink shuffled again, wishing Bilth was here to talk it through with him.
He hadn’t felt like a dim intellect until he’d been called. Until he’d heard the Vold on the desert island. He’d been where he’d belonged, and he’d fit there. Since they’d taken him out, though, everything felt too fast and too clever, like he wasn’t ever going to keep up.
He didn’t know why the man had offered to help him escape, and he didn’t like the idea of going to another home, leaving Illi’allae, having his parents, his sister, get that letter with a date and a place and a little bit of money. Surely they would send it, even if he hadn’t died.
But that he didn’t like it didn’t mean that there was a way to change it.
The man was right. After an hour of working through it, Wink could see that. He knew something that the king didn’t want anyone else to know. They were lying to everyone, to try to contain the story he’d been telling, but they wouldn’t let him go home again. Not ever.
The stranger was right.
He had no logical alternative.
And so he prepared himself. He was ready when they came to get him and he went up to stand before the king, told the truth when the king asked questions. The king told him that they were all lies, lies or confusion, told him that he’d been confused by the battle he’d been in and that he’d deserted his regiment, and that it wasn’t the story that he was telling that he would be punished for. He would be punished for deserting when his country needed him.
The king stepped forward, taking a great gold staff and bringing it down on Wink’s shoulder. It was judgment.
The man had told the truth. They would execute Wink.
But they underestimated him. Underestimated his strength, underestimated his resolve, underestimated that he would do anything at all. He grabbed the staff and shoved the king down with it, hearing the voices of the Vold in his ears: the Keld always come around to the fact that they’re going to have to fight, and they always kill them all. He was capable of winning in a fight. It had never occurred to him, not even in training, but now it settled on him like a destiny.
The Vold around him came to defend the king and he knocked them back with the staff, with his feet, with his hands, and they stood at a distance, calling for aid, calling for men with pikes and knives.
Wink battered them out of the way and he ran.
There was a noise, and he turned his head to find the scrawny man with the big promise peeking around a corner.
“This way,” the man hissed. Wink followed, down a stairway, through a hallway. There were voices behind him. Angry voices. Predatory voices that made the muscles down Wink’s back tighten with visceral fear, but he ran on, the scepter in his hands.
They came to another door and the scrawny man put his back against it to open it. Wink broke it from its hinges, and they were in sunlight.
“There,” the man said. “They’re ready, I just have to tell them.”
Wink saw no one, but he had no better option than to follow, for now. He realized he was in the open, he was in fresh air and sunlight. Perhaps there was a way for him to just keep running, but he didn’t know how to evade, how to not end up here again. He needed to go with the skinny man, go with him to a place where the Vold would never find him.
The man stopped in an open space, turning to face Wink with his feet planted on the plain dust.
“Just stand there,” he said. Wink looked over at the palace, heard the voices getting closer, then the world jolted, like getting hit in the chest by his nephew, and he was no longer in Illi’allae.
*********
Troy sat back at his desk, chewing on the inside of his cheek.
Hard to imagine the portal program being willing to break out a political prisoner in exchange for something so tawdry as gold - given the amount of power a jump cost, but without seeing the stones it was hard to say exactly how much value they’d gotten out of it. Doubtless they’d burnt the planet after that; a culture like that didn’t have much to offer in the way of trade, and while he and Cassie would have found it endlessly intriguing as analysts, Donovan’s portal had been spread way too thin to exert effort on planets without economic or scientific value.
It didn’t change that it was a hard story to hear.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“We tried to change the future, but I didn’t change anything,” Wink said. “But that doesn’t matter anymore. I can’t change the past. All I can change is the future. And my future is here.”
“For what it’s worth,” Troy said, “until very recently, we would have considered someone with as much of a gift for language as you seem to have to be very clever.”
He tossed his head to the side.
“It is just easy,” he said and Troy smiled. He wasn’t supposed to do that, but it happened too naturally. He was out of practice with expressionless conversation. Hadn’t practiced it since he was about sixteen.
“How is your life, now, in your apartment?” Troy asked. Wink’s eyes came hard to his face.
“I am grateful for safety,” he said.
“That’s not what I asked,” Troy answered.
“We are all supposed to be grateful,” Wink said, and Troy frowned.
“Who told you that?”
“It is… It’s something they say. We are safe. We are fed. We should… remember that.”
“That sounds like a threat, from where I sit,” Troy said. “Tell me the truth. How is your life at the dormitories?”
Wink let his head drop some.
“I have… I miss the sun,” he said after a moment. “The food…”
Troy nodded.
“You said you lost a lot of weight. Have you gained it back?”
The Keld was silent for a moment.
“No.”
“None of it?” Troy as
ked.
“I… I am grateful.”
“Tell me,” Troy said.
“I have continued to lose weight. I am weak. Weaker than I was, even when I escaped.”
Troy gritted his teeth.
It was a basic lack of scientific involvement.
They should have been monitoring him, figuring out what he was missing, experimenting with various nutrients, various food types. The jumpers always carried their own food with them, because not every planet had a nutritionally-complete food selection. You could survive a long time on the macro-nutrients that were available, but in the end, you had to make up for the deficits.
“I’ll have someone look into it,” Troy said.
“No,” Wink said. “That’s not necessary.”
“It is,” Troy said. “We brought you here, and whether or not we promised to take care of you - which we did - we have a responsibility to make sure that you don’t starve to death just because we aren’t giving you the right things to eat.”
Wink began to argue again, but Troy wasn’t in the mood to hear about it.
“What else?” he asked. “Do you get any recreation at all? What do you do with your time?”
“My dwelling is quite comfortable,” Wink said. “But…”
Troy sighed.
“I’m going to sit here and ask you the questions until you tell me,” he said. “And I want the truth. I really do.”
“I’m afraid of some of the others,” Wink said.
Troy paused.
There were ways to make a creature like Wink afraid that were not at all malicious, and there were quite a few more that were malicious but not a real threat. He was a herd animal, and he didn’t like being alone, didn’t like being select. Even Troy was a threat to him; Troy could see it in the man’s posture, the way he seemed aware of exactly where the door was.
“Okay,” Troy said after he’d let himself adapt to what the possibilities were. “Tell me about that.”
“There’s shouting, sometimes,” Wink said. “And fights, sometimes.”
“Do the guards break them up?” Troy asked.
“Yes, yes, of course, but there’s anger out there. I like that my door locks.”
Not everyone would put up with circumstances like what Troy was suspecting as passively as Wink would. Troy knew that.
“I’ll look into it,” he said. “Tell me more about you. Do you really not to get to go outside at all?”
Wink blinked.
“No,” he finally said. “I have a window, but I’m supposed to keep it closed.”
Long-range lenses, Troy realized. They couldn’t risk people seeing the foreign terrestrials, either through windows or from satellites. No sunlight.
“I’m going to try to fix it,” he said. “So we’ll look into your food. Is there anything for your room that would make you more comfortable?”
Wink tapped his fingers against each other and Troy waited.
“Could someone teach me to read, do you think?” Wink asked. “I see the guards with books, and I see your shelves, here, lined with books, and… We had writing, on Illi’allae’el, but it was only for the very rich and the very clever, and I was hoping that, maybe since I can understand your language so easily, maybe I could read it easily as well, and I could read.”
“Let me look into it,” Troy said. It was a tricky thing. Introducing him to the depths of human culture was a risk; it was very likely that the dormitories had no televisions, either. At the same time, boxing the man into a room with nothing to do and no hope of ever getting outside again… It was worse than the US tolerated from its prisons.
“Are you healthy, other than the nutrition issues?” Troy asked.
“Yes,” Wink said. “I’ve always been healthy.”
Troy nodded, going through basics.
“And is our water… good enough?”
“What else would it be?” Wink asked.
“What about clothing?” Troy asked. “You have enough clothing of good enough quality that is kept clean and in good repair for you?”
Once again Wink hesitated, and Troy waited.
“I miss shoes,” the Keld finally said.
“All right,” Troy said. “I’ll put that on my list and I’ll see what I can do. Is there anything else?”
“No,” Wink said. “No. I’m grateful that I’m alive, and I know that it’s because of you and your people.”
Troy gave him a grim smile. The lawyers would send him back without a moment’s thought. Troy wasn’t sure he even had an opinion they’d listen to, up over his head where they were going to make this call.
“I’m going to do everything I can for you and the rest of the foreign terrestrials over there,” he said. “I’m sorry it’s taken so long for you to get the attention you deserve.”
“You’re too generous,” the Keld said. “You give us shelter, and you saved my life.”
Troy stood, and Wink took the sign that it was time to go. Troy walked him out of the office, back to the member of security who was waiting to take him back.
“Can you see if Conrad has some time today?” Troy asked.
“He’s been calling,” Bridgette answered. “I think he has time.”
Troy shook his head.
Too much to do, and way too few people he trusted to do it.
“How are the reports going for decryption?” he asked.
“I have a few more,” she said. “They’re going to work the weekend, and hopefully we’ll have all of them by Tuesday.”
Troy looked after Wink.
“There are plenty of sad stories on this planet that no one does anything about, but his is still plenty sad,” he said.
“Leaders always have hard decisions,” Bridgette answered. “Do you have everything you need?”
Troy put his fingers through his hair, then nodded and went back into his office.
*********
Everything was gray. The sky was a flat, dull gray, and the ground they stood on was ashy, coated everywhere with drifting, paper-fine flakes of ash that slid over each other and everything else like living creatures. Here and there, there were signs of extinguished life, but the volcanic eruption that had killed the planet was years old. Nothing had survived.
Jesse squatted, brushing the ash away from the ground and Cassie watched. He was looking for evidence of a water cycle. Underneath the loose ash, there ought to be ash that was matted down, solidified by rain, the beginnings of a soil where things deep in the earth, bacteria, flora, and fauna with the ability to hibernate that long, were they would eventually set up shop and make a new go of populating the planet.
Anything that could have gotten off the planet had. Everything else had died.
“Palta have a way of dealing with volcanoes?” Cassie asked.
“A few,” Jesse answered, digging some more with silt-covered fingers. “None of them work very well.”
Cassie nodded.
“There are things out here bigger than us,” she said. He laughed, without humor.
“Everything is bigger than us. We just don’t pay much attention to it, because our egos get in the way.”
She nodded again.
There wasn’t much, but down underneath a deepening layer of compressed ash, there was ash that clung to Jesse’s fingers with moisture, that was mixing with sand from the pre-existing soil and turning to clay.
“Well,” Jesse said, standing. “Let’s go find the beach, shall we?”
Cassie nodded, letting her feet drag through the ash in an act of defiance.
“Thought you’d have been aiming for the shallows,” she said.
“I was,” he answered. “No beacons to fix to, though. Don’t know how much I missed by.”
Hitting the surface of a planet was an art. Rapid transfers told you the density and material you were switching with, so you found earth-level and then made sure that the air wasn’t poisonous before you ever did a point-to-point transfer of your body. It meant that
any transfer would have a couple of microscopic samples of the destination that were left behind when you did the final point-to-point, and if you were good, those samples could tell you where someone had gone.
Cassie had used that knowledge, that technology, herself. On planets with beacons, you knew exactly where the planet was, and the ground-level checks were just a safety precaution. On a planet like this, a quiet one, one that didn’t have any existing communication with the outside world much less a beacon, the microscopic checks were literally the only way to be sure that you didn’t transfer yourself into solid rock, magma, or the air half a mile above land. Jesse could have searched around for water, but Palta were not the paragons of patience, and Jesse was - if Cassie was guessing right - probably one of the least patient Palta alive. As soon as he was sure he wasn’t going to die, he tended to charge ahead.
“Catastrophic,” Cassie murmured as they continued on. She was clever on her feet by nature, and her Palta reflexes were very, very good, but the depth of loose ash over the existing ground made it hard to walk evenly. The ash slid and gave, hiding rocks or declines of hard ground, and the moist soil down at the bottom clumped and clung to her shoes like it was trying to escape.
“Yeah,” Jesse said, his eyes up on the horizon. “Not a lot is going to survive this, no matter what.”
Cassie looked up at the sky.
“How many years, do you figure?”
“At least another three or four,” Jesse answered without looking up. “Advanced civilizations can make it through something like this, but they have to be able to import food from other planets. The air has got some bad in it, too. You caught that?”
Cassie nodded. A sour flavor in her lungs that made her want to sneeze. It wouldn’t hurt her, but she’d have gotten Troy out of here immediately.
“How are they surviving?” Cassie asked.
“Maybe they don’t need sun,” Jesse answered. “Or heat. We don’t know what they do for energy.”