For not the first time, Benson cursed at Mei for refusing to let Sakiko get a plant when she was an infant, but Mei had been steadfast. He reached the top of the loader’s hopper and started to pull himself over the lip, but as soon as he did, his ample shoulders became wedged between the metal wall and the rock ceiling of the tunnel. For a fleeting moment, Benson felt the raw, claustrophobia that comes with being immobilized. But then, supple, flexible hands grabbed the collar of his jacket and heaved him into the dirty interior of the hopper. Most of the strength of youth remained in Elder Kexx’s limbs.
Together, they ran to the other side of the hopper. Kexx’s skinglow pumped out as much light as it could, casting the tunnel beyond in its otherworldly bluegreen hue. Sakiko stood there, alone, pale-faced, feet frozen to the ground, with Benson’s hand torch laying in the dirt, shining its white cone at…
“Oh no.” Benson sucked air through his teeth. “Korolev, get up here pronto.”
Kexx crawled zer way down and took Sakiko’s small frame in zer arms. “It’s all right, little one,” ze said as ze turned the girl away from the ruined body on the ground in front of the loader. “It’s done. You’ve just been startled, there’s no shame in that.” Ze bent down and flipped Benson’s hand torch back up to him.
“Thanks.”
Korolev joined him at Benson’s side a moment later. Benson pointed the light down at the corpse with its matted mop of auburn hair.
“Damn,” Korolev said. “What a mess.”
“Foreman Lind?” Benson asked.
“Yeah.”
“Are you sure?”
“Wish I wasn’t, coach.”
“That explains the shutdown,” Benson said. “Loader’s lidar registered an obstruction in its path, probably assumed it was a small cave-in or something, then shut down, sent out the error code, and waited for someone to come and clean it up.”
“Which means,” Kexx continued his train of thought, “that there wasn’t anyone left to come find Lind. Either because they all defected to the terrorists, or…”
“Or their bodies are deeper in the mine.” With some effort, Benson squeezed his way out of the hopper and paced out the murder scene. Korolev followed.
“Hey, Pavel. Our rear is pretty well secured by the loader, but we’re exposed from deeper in the tunnel. Do me a favor and go down a couple dozen meters, point the business end of that death machine down the mine, and try to look really irritated.”
“Won’t be a stretch, coach.”
“Good boy.” Benson inspected the ground with his hand torch to avoid contaminating the scene more than necessary. Tracks covered much of the ground, both human shoe soles and the splayed “X” of Atlantian footprints.
“Hey, Pavel. Watch your step. There’s tracks all over here.”
While the natives living in Shambhala had taken to shirts and pants, they’d rejected shoes wholesale. They simply received too much feedback from their feet, from tastes, to vibrations, to some weird bioelectrical sensation that Benson still didn’t understand but Kexx and Benexx insisted was real.
Benexx.
Ze was down here, Benson would swear to it. But that’s exactly why he needed to slow down, move cautiously, and do things by the book. He knew damn well that rushing in powered by blind rage was a good way to get everyone he cared about killed, even if the adrenaline and testosterone flooding his arteries didn’t have much mind to listen at the moment.
Benson quashed the bloody little fantasy that had started playing out in his head and returned to the present. Foreman Lind’s body was a mess of slash wounds and limbs sitting at impossible angles. Her clothes were soaked through with blood that had coagulated and dried days before. It was mostly devoid of insect analogues in the chilly cavern, which was a small mercy. About a half meter from her outstretched right hand laid a small rock pick. Benson didn’t have to get any closer to recognize the dried Atlantian blood staining the pointy end of the improvised weapon. But he knew there was a lot more story to tell in the footprints around him than what he could see.
“Hey, truth-digger,” Benson beckoned at Kexx. “C’mere a minute for a consult.”
Kexx obliged, pulling zer faltering apprentice along in zer wake with a steady hand. Benson had never seen headstrong Sakiko in such a hesitant state. The sight of Lind’s body had clearly shaken the young woman to her core. Had she never seen a dead body before, Benson wondered? No, that wasn’t it. She’d never seen a dead human body before.
“All right, Sakiko,” Kexx said warmly. “Don’t look at the body, I will handle that for now. Look at everything around the body. The tracks, the drag furrows, the… blood. Use your tracking skills and tell me what you see. Can you do that?”
“Yes…” she said timidly, then swallowed and centered herself. “Yes, elder.” Without another word, Sakiko reached for Benson’s hand torch once more. Benson placed it in her outstretched palm without comment or complaint. With great deliberation, Sakiko paced out the scene from where Lind’s body lay, moving backwards through the timeline of the encounter, mindful not to step on any of the footprints laid down by either victim or her attackers, reconstructing the attack in her mind’s eye before speaking.
“OK,” Sakiko said. “There were five of them. Four Atlantians and one human, not counting the victim.” She shined the light down at her feet. “They walked back up from deeper in the cave and stood in a rough semi-circle right here. The fore… ah, woman came to a stop right there and met them face to face.” Sakiko took a step back and pivoted to the outside of the semi-circle of attackers she’d already outlined. “They were standing still for a little while, talking probably? The one human shuffled his feet nervously while they confronted each other.”
“Hold on,” Benson interrupted. “How do you know it was a ‘he,’ and how do you know they were fidgeting?”
Sakiko pointed her borrowed light at shallow divots in the dusty rock. “Because those boot prints are twenty-six or twenty-seven centimeters which borders on absurd for a human female, deep enough to mark whoever wore them at seventy-five kilos, and wiggled around in place enough to be the scared kid dancing stiffly in a corner at prom, OK?”
Benson looked at the smudges in the dirt and saw exactly none of what Sakiko had just described hidden within. Lost, he looked up at Kexx, who only shrugged.
“She’s really quite good at tracking,” her mentor said, zer skinglow fluttering at the shoulders with pride.
“I’ll take your word for it, old friend. Sakiko, forgive my interruption and please, continue.”
Sakiko looked back down at the dirt and resumed the retelling. “The Atlantian in the middle moved first, I think. The other prints fall a little short and lay on top of zers. The victim wasn’t expecting the attack and took three big, uneven steps backwards. She was unbalanced, trying to find her footing. She was cut with a blade here,” Sakiko pointed at an impossibly small drop of blood that had dried into a tiny bowl of sand grains. “And here. But she didn’t turn to run. No, wait. She’d already been flanked. She decided to fight back, right here.” She pointed at a spot where even Benson could see Lind had dug in her heel, transferring her weight from retreat to a forward lunge.
“She attacked three, no, four times. She got a solid hit on one of them. Not the one who started it, the one to zer left. Their blood streaks the ground for almost two meters as they dragged themselves out of the fight.”
“Did they survive?” Benson asked.
“Not sure. There’s not nearly enough blood to ensure a kill. That’s all I can tell you from this. Anyway, she kept fighting, but they had her on three sides. The wounds piled up. One of the hits lamed her right leg, there. She’s dragging her foot for the rest of the fight until she finally falls down. There was no death stroke. I think she just bled out.”
“Is that your opinion as well, Kexx?” Benson asked.
“To the last step. As I said, my apprentice is very good with tracks.” Kexx put zer hands on Sakiko’s should
ers. “You breathed life into the way this woman chose to return so it may be known, Sakiko. Well done. I am proud of you.”
“Thank you, elder.” Sakiko knelt down to Lind’s head and gently stroked the dead woman’s hair.
“Sweetie, are you all right?” Benson asked, but Sakiko just kept stroking.
“She wasn’t expecting a fight. People she knew and trusted turned on her and killed her. But she didn’t take it laying down. She fought back, made sure at least one of them wouldn’t forget her.”
A terrible question flashed across Benson’s mind. “You didn’t… know her. Did you?”
Sakiko looked back up at him and wiped away a tear. “No, I didn’t. Wish I had now, though. She sounds like my kind of lady.”
“Mine too,” Benson said. “Kexx is right, we know what kind of lady she was, thanks to you. Now, how about we go find Benexx and kick some heads in, yeah?”
Sakiko’s face darkened. “That sounds lovely.”
“I thought it might.” Benson stood and turned back towards the loader, then raised his voice so everyone could hear. “We should report in with the station house about Foreman Lind’s death before we push deeper. Can we reverse this loader out of here? I’d prefer to have an open backfield if things go south and we have to exit the mine in a hurry.”
“I’ll give it a try,” Korolev said. Benson stood by impassively while the constable negotiated the loader’s programing with his plant. A series of clicks and electric whines signaled his success. The mechanical mule stirred to life. Electric motors in each wheel turned as it sprang into motion. Unloaded, it moved surprisingly fast back up and out of the tunnel. Benson didn’t feel great about leaving Lind’s body behind and exposed. It felt disrespectful.
“Hey, Sakiko. Could you run back up to the administration building, grab a tablecloth or a sheet or something to cover her up?”
“Of course.”
Sakiko took off at a run, while Benson and Kexx followed behind at a more leisurely pace. Korolev took up the rear, walking backwards with his rifle muzzle still aimed warily down the mine.
“She’s good, Kexx. You’re teaching her well,” Benson said.
“We teach each other. Just as you and I once did. But yes, she is very good. I’ll be leaving G’tel in good hands when I retire.”
“And how long will that be?”
Kexx smirked. “Not just yet. I have a few more summers to contribute.”
“Then what? Settle down with some spry young thing, recruit a bearer, and crank out a brood?”
“I don’t think so. There are more than enough little ones running around Atlantis as it is now that the culls have ceased. We’re going through our own growing pains. I don’t feel any particularly strong drive to add to them.”
“Pity, you’d make a great parent.”
Kexx nodded towards Sakiko’s retreating form. “Sometimes, it feels like I already am.”
Benson put an arm around Kexx’s shoulder. “Amen, my friend. What a strange and wonderful world we’ve built.”
“Lot of building yet to do.”
The “loss of signal” message at the corner of Benson’s vision disappeared, replaced by a weak, but stable connection. Seventeen messages appeared in his plant’s queue, all marked urgent, all from Theresa. Benson was still in the process of opening the most recent one when a call request came in from his wife. He accepted.
Benson couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but he trusted his wife. If she said finding their child had to wait, it must be important.
Twenty-Eight
After spending the last two days running or hiding from zer dogged captors, Benexx assumed it would be a simple matter to pick up one of their patrols and tail them back to wherever their central staging area was so ze could bury them all.
That assumption had proven rampantly optimistic.
After playing around with the remote detonator for a while, Benexx discovered it had several handy settings in addition to its direct trigger pull, including scheduled detonation or delay “fuse.” It also had an internal clock synched up to Shambhala Standard Time. Ze hadn’t had any accurate gauge of the passage of time since waking up in the cell they’d dropped zer in days before.
Benexx could hardly believe how much of a relief it was to just be able to look down and check if five minutes had passed, or five hours. Indeed, ze’d learned that it had only been five days since the attack at the parade. If anyone had cared to ask, ze’d have sworn it must’ve been a moon, maybe longer.
It also meant that zer birthday was yesterday. Ze was fifteen now, and by Atlantian reckoning, an adult. All things considered, ze’d have preferred to stay a child for a little longer. Ze’d done too much growing up in the last few days.
Thanks to the clock, Benexx knew with confidence that ze’d been stumbling around looking for zer quarry for the better part of seven hours now without so much as a flicker of skinglow in the distance. No one had come looking for zer in that whole time, no patrols, no guards at doors or intersections. No hushed voices or footfalls. And the only scents they’d left were stale and weak, hours old at the least. It was as if they’d pulled up stakes and left, abandoning the search for their hostage entirely. But neither was ze any closer to finding the exit to the infernal labyrinth.
“Typical,” Benexx whispered to no one in particular. Ze’d stalked around to each spot ze’d had to hide from patrols before and waited for at least an hour before moving on to the next one. Ze couldn’t seem to shake them when ze was on the lamb. Now that ze wanted to find one, nobody was home. They were being quite inconsiderate of zer schedule. “I’ll have nothing good to say in my review of this resort.”
Benexx’s head rolled back before ze could catch it and banged against the hard rock wall ze leaned against. Ze rubbed at it and swore under zer breath. Ze didn’t know how long ze’d been awake, but it felt like days. Ze’d stolen a few fitful naps here and there, but so much time spent not only awake, but struggling to maintain sharp focus while zer body hovered barely above operating temperature was taking its toll. Zer body would come along to collect sooner rather than later. Ze rubbed zer eyes until warm glowing blobs appeared, then faded away just as quickly as they’d come.
That was, all but one of them.
Benexx’s hand moved to rub it away, but before it did, zer eyes refocused and the bluegreen smudge resolved into the glowing outline of an Atlantian’s body. It was real, and it was walking almost straight towards zer.
Fear returned like a crashing wave, fear of being recaptured, of being beaten or worse, of being thrown back into zer cell, or of ending up dead on the cold floor like Jolk. But the heat of zer rage quickly cut through the icy wave of fear and boiled it off. Benexx brought the muzzle of the rifle to bear on the newcomer, but did not turn on either the torchlight or the holographic sight, either of which would give away zer hiding spot. It was purely defensive. If ze had indeed been spotted, ze would shoot them, preferably in a non-lethal spot, run as fast as ze could in the opposite direction, and pray they stopped to help their injured member, buying zer enough time to hide and start the process over.
It would be a hard shot to make without the aid of the computer calculated reticule, but with each approaching step it became just a little easier
, even as the danger of discovery ratcheted higher. Benexx’s grip on the rifle’s trigger tightened to take up the fraction of a millimeter of slack, then exhaled in anticipation of the shot, just as zer mother had taught zer.
The Atlantian sauntered towards zer until they were so close Benexx recognized their face. It was Sula zerself. Benexx had to fight back a sudden impulse to just shoot zer through the head in cold blood.
Hold, Benexx admonished zerself. Hold fire.
Sula held zer own rifle, but it hung on zer shoulder by the strap instead of in a ready position. Ze didn’t spot zer missing hostage hiding in a hollow, and didn’t notice the muzzle of Benexx’s stolen rifle lined up with zer center mass. Sula just kept walking, an angry grimace glued to zer countenance like wallpaper. Ze didn’t lock eyes with Benexx. Didn’t look zer way at all. Instead, Benexx’s tormentor paced right past zer without so much as a glance and continued down the corridor without wavering.
Benexx waited five seconds, ten, then finally pulled fresh air into zer sacks just as they started to burn and let the slack out of zer rifle’s trigger. Sula had overlooked zer entirely, the plan was still viable. Ze uncurled from the little cubby hole ze’d been hiding inside, gingerly shouldered the pack with the bomb, detonator, and what remained of zer food, then set off in pursuit.
Sula wasn’t difficult to follow. Zer skinglow was bright enough to light up a good-sized room. Ze noisily stalked through the corridors like a newborn dux’ah crashing through halo trees. Either ze hoped to flush Benexx out of hiding, or ze simply didn’t care about all the attention ze was drawing to zerself.
But then again, why should ze care? Sula obviously hadn’t yet appreciated that zer role had changed from predator to stalked prey. Benexx desperately hoped to keep it that way until zer trap was sprung. Ze still hadn’t seen, smelled, or heard even a hint of an exit. For all ze knew, they’d sealed off the way out after they’d brought zer down here. It wasn’t unheard of among Dwellers. In the old tales, Dweller caves were shut off from the ash and poisonous air of the surface after an asteroid impact for years at a time. Maybe Sula had simply pulled back zer patrols figuring Benexx was too well hidden and intended to starve out zer wayward hostage.
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