by Zach Winderl
“Why us, darl?” Byron demanded.
Atom shrugged. “You’re non-threatening and she’s pretty.”
“And I’m probably the most likely to keep you alive in case there is some sort of real danger,” Hither said. “Always play to your strengths and kill them when they least expect it.”
Byron narrowed his eyes and stared over at Hither. “Yer tellin’ me you’s willin’ to trudge a much, ‘cause yer pretty?”
“Does it get us to the treasure ship?”
“Only if it’s where we hope it is,” said Atom.
“And we can’t find that out if we don’t get these sheep turned.” Hither rose in the bed of the transport and looked over the undulating flock, searching for signs of humanity. “I’ll do it because it gives us the best chance for success.
“And Cap’s right, I am pretty. Have you looked at these two?” She gestured at Atom and Shi. “If a knuckler catches sight of them, he’s either shooting or burning for town. Cap usually can’t remember how to smile and I’m not sure Shi ever learned in the first place. Either way, they’d just as soon kill the flockers as get them to help us out.”
“I take offense to that,” Shi said, flashing her most ferocious smile. “I’ve been told I’ve a most beauteous smile.”
“Did you have you ladies out when you asked?”
“Course,” Shi chuckled.
“Case rests,” Hither said with the barest hint of a sneer. “Byron, on me. We need to talk our way through this.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, she swung her legs over, nudged some space between sheep and dropped to the ground. The sheep pressed about her in a bleating mass of wool, horns, and heat. “We’ll be back as quick as we can get you some cover,” she said and waved for Byron to join her.
***
With the late morning sun beaming down, Atom nursed the misfiring transport at the rear of the massive flock alongside another open-bed transport that ran as smooth as the day it had come off the production line.
A small flock of jet-bikes nipped around the periphery of the sheep, keeping them contained.
As they followed behind the sheep, the other suspensor craft edged closer.
“Why you want to get up to the old chapel?” the sun-crisped elder lounged behind the controls with a broad-brimmed hat pulled low over his roaming eyes. “Ain’t nuthin’ up that way but range for the flocks.”
Atom eyed him, wary. “Meeting someone,” he said and turned his eyes back to the flock and the golden sun beating down on the bleating backs. “Suppose to be a job, but I don’t know much more than that. I don’t like imp sticking their nose in my business any more than the next boke, so I’m trying to give them wide berth.”
The man grunted in reply.
“Still not sure why they’re even here,” Atom said.
“I ain’t never seen a shakedown like this,” the man agreed. “From time to time, an imp ship’ll drop in the system, but usually it’s just a captain looking for a little ko to turn a blind eye to the usual goings on.
“Word spreads the system, but I ain’t never seen a real imp in my lifetime. Their ships usually just hang in orbit for a day or two and then they head back to the finners.”
A distant rumble drew the old man’s attention.
“Fertile land, here abouts, but the weather can sure change on a whip,” he said as he squinted at the horizon above the ridgeline.
Atom followed his gaze and found a dark line cresting the horizon. For a moment he stared at the line before registering a heavy cloud formation stretching across the edge of the western sky.
“How long do we have?” Atom asked.
“It’ll beat us to the ridge, but not by much,” the old shepherd grumbled. “We’ll get wet, but we’ll make it to the high ground before any of the beds cut us off.”
“Beds?”
“Riverbeds. They run dry most of the time, but when a big storm rolls, they’ll top off and cut off any overland travel until they drain off. It usually only takes a couple days, and if you’ve found some high ground you’ve nothing to worry about, but boredom.”
“And if you don’t find high ground?”
The shepherd shrugged. “They might find your body somewhere across the plain. Or maybe they don’t. You know that shallow sea that rough follows the ‘quator?” Atom nodded in reply to the old man’s question. “The fish will probably nibble you down to nothin’ in the shallows.”
“Is that crater low ground?” Atom watched the clouds grow taller as they travelled toward the cumulonimbus wall.
“What do they teach you in school these days? Of course it’s low ground, son.”
“What happens to the crater? It doesn’t seem like a riverbed.”
“It ain’t,” the old man said with a sneer. “That ol’ crater is where Stillwater gets its name. A bed comes pourin’ off the ridge at the Weepin’ Sister and it fills up like a cup. It’ll start turnin’ into a lake about thirty minutes after the rains start. Couple hours after that, the crater will look like a mirror, and that’ll last for days after the rains as the waters drains down into the ground.
“It’ll serve imps right fer what they done back in the city.”
Atom puzzled as they followed the flock towards the rain. As they drew closer, he noticed the grey wall hanging below the clouds like a veil.
“Reckin we kin eliminate the actual impact point as our site?” Shi asked as Atom let the suspensor hauler drift away from the old shepherd’s. “Any way ‘bout it, we’re headed fer the ridge. What are we doin’ when we git there, ridin’ out the storm or are you thinkin’ we might actually be landin’ atop what we’re aimin’ fer?”
“We head for the chapel. At least we’ll be out of the wet.”
Shi studied Atom for a moment. “What’s up yer craw?”
“I don’t like letting soldiers die.”
“Even if they’re tryin’ to kill us?”
“It’s Toks,” Atom snapped. “If she were sitting in that crater by herself, I’d be the first to dump a bucket of water in, but she has the troops down there following her orders and she’s probably sitting up on her ship waiting for word. I’ll guarantee the soldiers don’t know why they’re here. She wouldn’t be stupid enough to trust anyone else with her plans.
“I’m guessing she is using some sort of patrol protocol to hide what she’s actually doing from her subordinates.” He glared at the horizon, thumping the yoke with a fist in frustration. “And they’re the ones who will pay.”
“There ain’t much we kin do ‘bout that,” Shi said in a level tone. “We alert them, we die. We don’t, they die. Ain’t nuthin’ betwixt.”
Thunder exploded in the distance. The clouds raced towards them.
“Dada,” Margo cried out after the thunder.
Atom glanced over his shoulder to find his daughter staring at him with wild-eyes. Margo had opened the top of the pram from the inside and Atom could see the regret written all over her face.
Shi laughed like an amused parent. “She ain’t never heard thunder before?”
Hither glared at the gunslinger as she reached over and pulled Margo from the pram.
“Poor bean,” the ex-courtesan cooed as she curled the girl into her lap.
“You’ve an interesting kit.” Shi shook her head and glanced up to the onrushing stormfront. “She can take a life without battin’ an eye, but she goes half-wonked at the sound a rollin’ thunder.”
With blue skies behind them, the first fat raindrops splattered and steamed off the power-plant cowling. The sheep ahead bleated with nervous tension.
Margo fought Hither until she managed to squirm free. Just as the next peel of thunder shook them, the girl clambered into Atom’s lap and pulled his coat over her head. Atom kept a hand on the yoke, but wrapped his other arm about his daughter.
He remained silent. Knitting his brow and bowing his head, he plunged them into the oncoming storm.
***
The outer rim of the crater pro
vided the only natural ramps up the shelf within a dozen miles, and the shepherds deftly kept the sheep on the outer edge of that ramp as they climbed. They remained out of sight of the main imperial perimeter. At the base of the impact crater, an imperial patrol stopped to watch the roiling tide of sheep trudge up the mud-slick slope, but soon lost interest and returned to their sodden wanderings.
By the time the flock reached the top of the ridge, Atom knew some concern had seeped into the imperial base at the bottom of the crater
“Too late fer them poor bokes,” the shepherd said as he pulled alongside and idled down to stare into the deep gouge. “They would’ve had to start pulling out before the rains hit to make the rim in time. There’s a reason nobody ever did anything with the crater but scavving. It gives some nice shelter when the wind blows along the ridge, but it ain’t no safety from the rains.”
The two transports idled on the upper lip of the massive crater, miles from the epicenter. Below them, a rain shadowed patrol slipped and slid down the steep decline, making for their rude base.
Through the trailing curtains of rain, Atom could see wide pools starting to form in the basin.
“How far to that chapel?” Atom turned his back on the crater.
“Fifteen ticks, give or take.” The shepherd throttled up his own suspensor truck and pulled in a slow arc, adjusting his wide-brimmed hat to keep the rain off his face. “We’re taking the flock back to the ranch. You’re welcome to join us until the rain passes. I’m not sure how much flying people will be doing in this weather, so you might have some clear skies on your hands if you head on up to the chapel.”
“We’ll take our shelter at the chapel,” Atom replied as he wiped the rain from his eyes and scowled into the grey shrouded distance. “I wouldn’t want to miss that contact, and with the imps so close, I don’t want to miss that window.”
“Suit yourself. If you change your mind, the ranch is about five miles west. Follow the shelf and you can’t miss it.”
Atom nodded a thanks and eased their hauler away into the darkness.
The rain-soaked mile to the small stone chapel only took a few minutes once they homed in on Cody’s location. Despite the coming darkness, Kozue guided them by the most direct route.
As they approached the chapel, Atom slowed the open vehicle and circled around behind the edifice to power down out of sight of the crater.
“You know we don’t have visual from the crater,” Shi said as she clambered from the transport and shook her poncho to rid the pooling water. “According to Kozue, we don’t even have to worry about an outpost anymore.”
“Looks that way.” Atom handed Margo off to Shi.
The gunslinger tucked Margo up under her poncho, shielding the girl from the worst of the rain. Propping her on a hip, Shi advanced on the stone structure.
“This place is bigger than it looks from the valley,” Shi said. She squinted up into the rain, trying to pick out the top of the slate roofed building. Heavy stone blocks, hewn from the shelf on which it sat, gave the chapel more an air of a slit windowed fortress than any kind of memorial.
A single light flickered over the door.
“Too bad it en’t big ‘nough to hide what we’re lookin’ fer,” Byron called out as he darted past them up the several, broad steps to a sheltered back door. Without waiting for the others, he pushed open the heavy metal door and disappeared into the unlit interior of the chapel.
“Hither, catch up with him,” Atom commanded. “I’ll be right behind with the pram.”
As the women disappeared, Atom climbed to his feet and stepped over into the bed of the transport. He had long given up any semblance of being dry. He shook the water from his eyes as he kicked up the power on the pram. Glancing around the sodden landscape, he listened from anything beyond the hiss of rain on the long grass.
Fighting through the torrents, he followed the others into the chapel.
For all the diversions and byways, the hunt had driven them along, being this close to the goal seemed anticlimactic to Atom. Something seemed off. More than the sudden disappearance of Lilly, more than the flotilla orbiting above, something in the stillness of the downpour tripped a warning in the back of his mind.
As he powered the pram up the few steps, he paused.
Standing just out of the rain, he turned and surveyed the expanse of grassland. A primal part of his brain expected soldiers to rise from the grass and open fire.
All remained silent.
He opened the door and stepped into a different sort of silence.
The interior of the memorial centered on a wide, circular chamber lit from above by a faux-flame chandelier of a rough, frontier style. Set around the chamber, several steps inward from the walls, sat a series of free-standing bas relief sculptures depicting a space battle.
Atom stepped through one of the openings into the center, and found his crew standing together, arms crossed as they glared at Lilly. The baug grinned when she caught sight of Atom. Only Margo seemed impervious to the tense nature of the situation as she wandered around the room, trailing a small hand over the smooth carvings that summed the history of the planet.
“Nice to see you again,” Atom said without smiling.
As he spoke, a shadow shifted on the far side of the stone circle.
Atom tracked the movement. “Afternoon, Ash,” Atom called out. “It’s a nice day to be inside.”
The Golem hesitated and seemed to study Atom for a brief moment from above the carved stone. Atom watched the passive surveillance of the towering mech and knew that in a moment, his entire world could vanish in a vapor cloud.
“How’s this play?” Atom kept his hand out and away from either of his pistols.
“Treasure for all,” Lilly replied with a pleasant smile.
“Why the duck out?” Shi demanded.
“Can’t knock a girl for trying?” Lilly shrugged. “A one-way split is a lot more profitable than the previous agreement. It’s not like I tried to kill you.
“I mean.” She sauntered over to Atom. “What I really did was closer to scouting things out than anything else. I managed to find this place without any help from you . . . and I got my ship out here without the imps spotting it.”
“What you’re telling me is that you’re ready to run,” Atom said as he watched her.
“Lifetime of self-preservation can be hard to overcome.”
“You planning on running again?”
“Can’t promise anything, but I’ll do my best to stick it out.”
Atom looked over to the group. Reading them as a whole, he registered their distrust.
Then, he looked to where Margo had stopped at the stone that hid Ash and peeked around the monument to look up at the Golem. She stood still, studying the hulking mech. Without a sense of danger, she stepped out around the stone and tilted her head back as she stared almost straight up at Ash.
“It’s you,” she declared.
Ash shifted out from behind the stone, his steps almost shy.
“Dada, it’s a metal man,” she said as she turned from Ash to grin at her father. “Him’s huge.”
“Trust is hard to earn,” Atom said. “But you have my daughter’s, so you have mine.”
“And them?” Lilly looked to the crew.
“Don’t give them a reason to not trust you. You’re mighty thin with the running, but they’ll probably give you some leeway until you give them a reason to put you down. You three aboard for the moment?”
They hesitated.
“S’pose,” Shi grunted. “But I don’t like gittin’ crossed.”
“Same,” Hither said, her face unreadable.
Only Byron remained quiet, but he nodded after a moment.
Atom glanced back to Margo. She had turned her attention back to the armored giant and with a giddy grin, she reached up and touched the Golem’s hand.
“She’s fine,” Atom sighed and turned his attention to their surroundings. “Have you made any p
rogress on figuring this puzzle out? The clues all point to this location, but I’m not seeing anything that looks like a ship around here.”
“Say that agin.” Shi stepped to the middle of the room and spun in a slow circle to survey everything. “Pics of a battle, but nuthin’ like what I seen.”
“Yeah, it’s just a memorial.” Lilly crossed her arms in frustration as she stalked over to one of the carvings and pointed to the biggest ship. “Near as I can tell, this is the prelude to the battle. It looks like there was an armada surrounding this ship. There’s nothing here that would indicate whose ship it was or why they were on their way out beyond the Black, but that’s where they were headed.
“And here.” She moved on to the next bas relief. “They made it to the system, but as they did so, this other group caught up with them.
“Battle.” She turned, pointing from one carving to the next. “Death and destruction.
“And then,” Lilly said as she came to a stop before the final pair, a hand pointing to each of them. “Battle’s over. This ship picks up survivors and then crashes. I’m guessing they had crash-couches back whenever these were carved, because we have people emerging from the crater to discover a new land.”
“Sounds like a more detailed version of what Cheung told us,” Hither said from the far side of the circle.
“Yeah,” Shi chimed in. “But it don’t give us a step to take.”
Atom stood next to her in the center of the circle, fingers tapping at his rail-pistol and a scowl on his face as he, too, rotated, taking in each panel. As he turned, he mumbled to himself.
“What are you yippin’ about?” Shi asked.
“Just the poem. It’s the only real clue we have in all this. The other three parts were coords.”
“Reckin there’s more?”
“That, or we missed something,” Atom’s eyes darted back and forth as they scanned the carvings. “Kozue, are you detecting anything that would stand out under scan?”