Children of the Divide

by Patrick S. Tomlinson

  Once it was halfway full, Benexx lifted the skin and drank from it greedily. Ze didn’t remember ever being so thirsty. Ze could feel the cool, tasteless water rejuvenating zer body and mind. Ze could think clearly again about something other than zer next drink. Then came the really dangerous part. Ze looked at the strap holding the rifle to zer shoulder. It was probably designed to be safely submerged underwater, but ze wasn’t sure, not really. Ze’d only ever fired one once at the range by the cliffs overlooking the ocean by Shambhala and hadn’t bothered to learn much more about it than its basic operation and safety protocols. Ze’d fired a nice group, but that was at paper, not people.

  It wasn’t worth risking zer only effective weapon, even on the off-chance water would make it inoperable. So ze stripped it off and set it down gently on the shore. Then, one foot at a time, ze slowly eased zerself into the pool, sinking lower with each passing moment until the waterline reached zer neck. The pool was deceptively deep. What ze’d thought was probably no deeper than zer waist instead kept going many meters past zer wriggling toes. It was also cold. About a meter and a half below the surface, a thermal plane dropped the temperature at least seven or eight degrees below the layer at the surface. It was bracing, invigorating even, and floating in the crystal-clear pond was the first little luxury ze’d felt since waking up on the floor of the strange cave days before. Still, ze couldn’t afford to hang around, losing body heat and growing cold-headed.

  Benexx dipped zer head below the surface, fully submerged, and quickly ran zer hands and feet over every square centimeter of zer flesh that ze could reach, which being Atlantian, was most all of them. Zer suckers scrubbed away at days of accumulated dirt, bodily oils, dead skin, and assorted filth. The first proper cleansing ze’d had since the night before the parade.

  Then, Benexx allowed zerself a moment’s indulgence and kicked off for the bottom of the pool, leaving a cloud of detritus behind zer in the pure water. Eventually, it would settle out and be nothing more than the newest layer of sediment. It took zer three long strokes of zer arms and legs to reach the bottom before Benexx reached out a finger and touched the silt, just as ze, Sakiko, and Jian had done in the crater lake southwest of G’tel three summers ago.

  Despite the cold, floating in the water, unconstrained by gravity and liberated to move about in three dimensions, Benexx felt zer first moment of genuine freedom since waking up in this awful place. Atlantians had never really left the water behind as humans had. It showed whenever the friends swam together. Benexx always reached the bottom first, if the other two managed to reach it at all. Sakiko was the stronger swimmer at the surface, but under the water Jian had a confidence and fluidity that came from his youth aboard the Ark, playing in the old Zero Stadium and hanging around his parents in the micro-grav of the command module. He never got disoriented, but he could still only hold his breath like a human.

  Cautious not to disturb the silt, Benexx pointed zerself for the surface and fluttered up through the water column, slowing to a crawl just before the crown of zer head breached the surface. Ze grabbed the craggy lip of the pond and pulled zer body out of the water with the same muscle-burning delicacy ze used slipping into it.

  Light and movement from the other side of the cave caught the corner of zer eye instantly. Fear froze Benexx’s limbs in place like a statue, too afraid even to turn zer head to inspect the threat.

  Instead, as the water drained out of zer ears, Benexx listened. When no excited shouts of “There ze is!” followed after a fullhand of beats, ze forced zer body out of its paralysis and turned around to face the disturbance. At the far side of the cave, someone approached, skinglow bright and either a hand torch or a rifle with a mounted light in their arms. Atlantian, then. Whether it was the elder, Sula, or another conspirator ze hadn’t identified yet, Benexx couldn’t tell from such distance.

  Their gait was quick and purposeful, but their light was being held in a cone straight ahead as they made their way down the path, no sweeping side to side as one would if they were searching for someone. The light shone perpendicular to where ze stood by the pool, leaving zer in shadows, for the most part. Anyone standing behind that light would’ve had their night vision ruined after seconds, unable to differentiate reflections of the soft bioluminescence of the chamber from the true dark of everything else. A guard, maybe? Heading to whatever cell the human prisoner or prisoners were being kept in for a change of watch? Probably.

  With the realization ze hadn’t been spotted, but still could be if ze wasn’t careful or if the walker was lucky, Benexx reached down and gently grabbed the pack, waterskin, rifle, and moved them out of line of sight. Then ze backed against the wall and made zer best imitation of a rock. Ze even experimented with matching zer skinglow to the surroundings as Uncle Kexx had tried to drill into zer.

  Just then, the presumed guard stopped short and turned zer light onto an entryway to a side chamber about halfway down the length of the cave face, then walked through and disappeared. A brighter light, harsh and artificial, sparked to life and cast itself from the passage and against the far wall, well away from where Benexx hid. Voices emanated from the hole in the wall. One alert, the other sounding slow and groggy. The human hostage, probably, although ze couldn’t make out what either was saying. They were too quiet, muffled, and distorted by echoes.

  The conversation continued, with the groggy one coming up to speed. Probably they’d just been woken up and needed a minute to come to full consciousness. Benexx certainly did in the morning. Then two figures emerged from the mouth of the passage and began walking back the way the guard had come initially. One was definitely the Atlantian Benexx had watched enter only a few minutes before, while the other was definitely human.

  This was zer chance to free the prisoner. If ze moved fast and silently, ze could take the guard by surprise before they left the cavern, maybe even get right up behind and bury the muzzle of zer rifle in the back of their skull before firing, taking them out cleanly while hiding some of the report of the shot at the same time. Then, ze could hand the guard’s weapon off to the human and… and…

  Benexx realized something was wrong as the two strolled away, side by side. The guard’s rifle was still pointed ahead to light the way, not at their prisoner. And their conversation, while still difficult to make out, sounded calm, almost convivial. A few days seemed an awfully short time for that level of Stockholm syndrome to set in. The truth hit zer like a hammer fall. The human wasn’t a prisoner like zer; they were working with the conspirators. They were part of the same group, as ridiculous as that sounded.

  But, at the same time, it explained a great deal. Like, where had Sofa and Jolk’s guns come from? How did whoever had kidnapped zer and presumably attacked the parade gotten their hands on remotely-detonated bombs?

  The answer was walking away from Benexx at a leisurely pace. Ze had half a mind to go through with zer plan to execute the guard. But instead of handing the human a gun, ze’d tweak the plan just a little bit and hand them a bullet instead. In the knee. Then start asking them questions every bit as uncomfortable as their freshly shredded joint.

  Benexx surprised zerself. Ze’d never taken a life before escaping from Jolk, and that had been a brutal, personal affair. It had frightened and disgusted zer. Now here ze was, not but a day or so later, chomping at the bit to do it again. Hardly bearer-like impulses. But what ze was most surprised and disturbed by was just how undisturbed ze was by the prospect. What did that say about zer soul, Benexx fretted.

  Besides, the risk of discovery was just too great. Ze might just as easily blow the approach and wind up gunned down and bleeding out on the footpath. So, ze waited. Ze waited until both of them had exited the enormous chamber. Waited longer until ze couldn’t hear the sound of the human’s shoes against the rocky path. Then waited longer still.

  When ze was absolutely sure they were well and truly gone, Benexx crept around the pool and across to the far wall, then made zer way down it, clutchi
ng the stock of zer rifle all the way. White light still spilled out into the cavern from the passageway branching to the right. Wearily, Benexx put zer back against the wall and listened for signs of life. Sensing none, ze crept close enough to stick a hand in the entrance and sniff for the presence of another person, but detected only stale pheromones and sweat from a single human body.

  Benexx breathed deeply, trying to calm zer racing bloodways. Ze raised the stock of the rifle up to zer shoulder and steeled zerself for a fight, should it come to that. With a silent prayer to Xis, ze rolled from cover and swept into the passage, the muzzle of zer gun clawing for a target almost of its own volition.

  But it became quickly apparent to zer just how ill-advised setting off any kind of spark in this particular chamber would be. All around zer, naked mining explosives laid in the open air, sitting on make-shift work benches among tangles of wires, blasting caps, electronics, and hand tools. It was a bomb factory, probably the point of origin of the very bomb that almost killed zer back in Shambhala during the parade.

  Benexx’s first instinct was to run away. But it wasn’t long until zer fear fueled an even more intense and primal emotion. Ze wanted to make a big bang on zer way out. These were the tools to do it. Zer mouth curled into a smile devoid of mirth or compassion.

  “Now we’re talking,” ze said, the first words ze’d spoken aloud since escaping the cell these bastards had thrown zer in.

  Twenty-Three

  A jolt ran through Jian’s body at the piercing sound of the proximity alarm. His muscles stiff even in the micrograv of the Buran’s flight deck, Jian cast about in confused near-panic trying to identify the screeching wail.

  It took a full three seconds before his sleep-paralyzed brain rebooted fully and he realized the alarm was nothing more than the alert he’d set for himself once the shuttle was a thousand klicks out from its turnover point for insertion into Varr orbit. He checked his plant’s clock. Sure enough, he’d been dead asleep for almost thirteen hours. Apparently, he really wasn’t built to stay awake for the better part of two days after all.

  In his defense, it had been an unusually stressful couple of days. There was stealing a shuttle with a nuclear bomb in the trunk, committing treason and mutiny against his own father, detonating said nuclear bomb, and then two straight hours strapped into his command chair while his stolen shuttle bucked and jerked like a dux’ah trying to throw a novice rider to keep his former colleagues from scoring a lucky hit. Even with their sensors temporarily blinded by the electromagnetic pulse of his nuke and the expanding cloud of radioactive fallout behind him, they could still map his trajectory towards Varr and take potshots.

  Lasers being what they were, Jian didn’t know if the Ark had tried to turn him into a debris cloud or not, because there wasn’t anything around him to reflect their light. It wasn’t like Star Trek phaser beams that glowed helpfully to let you know they’d gone by. He liked to believe that Captain Chao had stayed the order to fricassee his only son, but there was no way to be sure.

  Jian realized something was missing. His head swiveled around in his seat searching for his little compatriot. “Polly?” he called. “Polly? We have to secure for burn.” Jian didn’t know how much English the little AI actually understood, but he suspected it was more than he let on. Wasn’t that always the problem with ancient, self-assembling, nanite intelligences?

  A metallic clicking from above his head betrayed Polly’s existence. Jian looked up to see the little insectoid automaton peering down at him from the side of the flight deck’s air exchanger.

  “There you are.” Jian reached up and held out his hand. Polly pushed off and gently grabbed Jian’s fingers with his pincers, then crawled down the fabric of his flightsuit’s forearm. Jian reached down and opened the flap on a spacious pouch pocket on his suit’s leg. “Better get stowed away, little buddy. I’m about to hit the brakes something fierce.”

  An invisible line in space rapidly approached. On one side of the line there was a safe and orderly insertion into Varr orbit. On the other side there was overshooting his window and burning so much fuel to compensate that he wouldn’t have enough left for the burn back to the Ark. Not that he was super-eager to return, but even jail would beat a race between asphyxiation or dehydration ending him onboard this shuttle.

  The mains had been cold since the daring escape from the shuttle’s cradle on the Ark’s outer hull. Ideally, Jian should’ve woken up an hour before to run them through a proper pre-flight checklist, but that wasn’t in the cards. Which was OK with him; most of the pre-flight was supercilious bullshit anyway.

  Only around a dozen items on the checklist were actually necessary to get the engines lit, the rest were meant to double-check the maintenance monkeys to make sure they’d dotted all of their i’s and crossed their t’s. Jian went through the important parts of the list and felt the turbo pumps spooling up, ready to dump thousands of liters of raw hydrogen and oxygen into the bells the moment he throttled up.

  But first, he had to flip the ship ass over teakettle. Jian looked up at the flight clock, seconds ticking away as the invisible line in space drew closer. He’d never done any of this alone, not in something as big as a shuttle, not even in simulations. He’d always had a backup in his copilot double-checking his numbers, making sure he remembered to flip all the right switches, disengage the right safeties. Most of the time, that person had been Kirkland. Xis, he missed her sharp tongue now.

  Jian nudged down the nose and warmed up the aft ventral thruster packs. Gently, slowly, not wanting to expel too much reactant mass. He was going to need as much of it as he could get for terminal maneuvers on the surface. There was no gliding in for a gentle landing on an airless moon.

  The Buran slowly crept into position while Jian watched the artificial horizon with laser focus. With three degrees left, he hit the thruster packs again, and the giant bird slowed to a stop exactly one hundred and eighty degrees along the z axis away, relative to its starting point. Then, Jian goosed the throttles, more tentatively than he had during the escape, letting the engines warm up and take the heat and pressure in stride instead of all at once and risking a flameout or worse. Soon though, they were up to one hundred percent, Jian was pressed into his chair like he was being squeezed in a vice, and the imaginary line in space passed by without comment or notice.

  The shuttle’s bottom settled onto Varr’s dusty regolith an hour later. This time, Jian managed to set down in an LZ on the nearer side of the fissure that had nearly swallowed technician Madeja. Knowing what he did now about the little traitor’s plans, he wished he’d let her fall. It certainly would’ve saved everyone a module’s full of trouble to have just let her tumble down the crevasse to die of a suit tear or a shattered visor. She was dead either way, and a lot of good people would still be alive in her place.

  Jian locked down the shuttle’s command console in preparation to leave. He was confident none of the shuttles he sabotaged back on the Ark could’ve made their launch window. There was one on the surface on Gaia, but it was too far out of range even with a full tank of fuel to both escape the planet’s gravity well and still catch up with the rapidly receding moon. They could stop at the Ark itself and tank up, of course, but by the time they’d finished, the launch window would be closed.

  However, there remained a remote chance that part or all of the team working on the Early Warning radio telescope on Varr’s far side could come calling. It would be a long hike and it would require some substantial modifications to boost their little rock hopper’s range, but they were technicians and mechanics, after all. Jian didn’t want to risk it.

  With the shuttle secure, Jian moved on to the suit prep station at the back of the flight deck. He spent the next half hour struggling to fit himself into one of the extended expeditionary suits. Technically, they were designed for a single person to be able to don in an emergency by themselves. In practice, they were an enormous pain in the ass to wriggle into without someone to help
you. It was one of the reasons even their flight suits had a limited vac rating. Jian hadn’t put on one of the rigs by himself in years, and his rustiness showed. Polly looked on curiously, yet unhelpfully throughout the entire process.

  Panting, Jian finally pulled down the visor of his helmet and ran the suit through an integrity check. Green board, he was ready to go to work. The expeditionary suits had enough air for the better part of a day without any replenishment. Jian expected he’d need considerably more time than that. His plan was dependent on the facility to provide the heat and air, just as it had begun to do during his first visit. He’d been hesitant to take his helmet off back then for all the reasons Rakunas had listed at the time, but he didn’t want to have to constantly cycle back to the Buran to recharge the suit. Instead, he slung a duffle over his shoulder filled with twenty liters of water, five days of food rations including a few extra apple cobblers, and a sleeping roll.

  Jian was going camping. It seemed appropriate, considering the last time he’d camped was alongside the very friend he was here to locate. Polly took a position on his shoulder pad and settled in for whatever adventure awaited. Once the airlock cycled, Jian climbed down the short ramp to the surface and was met with a shock.

  There, on the starboard underside of the wing, something had gouged out a three-meter long and almost meter wide section of ablative heat tiles. He moved to inspect the damage, perplexed as to why the shuttle itself hadn’t registered the impact. The edges of the furrow were charred into ivory-white flakes. At the center, opaque rivulets of melted ceramic glass had formed. That explained it. Nothing had struck the wing. Nothing except photons.

  “Son of a bitch,” Jian muttered. Well, that answered the question of whether his father had shot at him with the Ark’s nav lasers. From the looks of it, the laser had only caught the Buran with a glancing blow, probably making contact for no more than a few hundredths of a second before the shuttle’s evasive maneuvers took it out of contact again. A direct hit would’ve sheared the wing completely off.