by Ashanti Luke
When he landed, two men were moving toward him from either side of the Ark but he didn’t hesitate. Tanner lunged toward the Ark, stabbing on either side. One soldier dodged, but Tanner must have moved too fast for the other. Something hit Tanner from behind, but as soon as it touched him, he was spinning away from it, finishing off the man he had stabbed. An assault rifle swung at his head, but he was already under it, continuing his spin, and he brought the sword underhanded into the attacker’s hamstring. Tanner followed through between the man’s legs and dragged the blade back through his sciatic, spraying out blood with force. As Tanner stood, he saw someone on the other side of the Ark taking aim. Tanner let the sword from his left hand fly. It impaled the man and slumped him against the wall. Tanner spun again, bringing the other sword across the back of the wrist of another soldier reaching for his sidearm. The man’s body reeled away involuntarily, and Tanner moved into him, bringing the sword up and across the man’s neck just before kicking him away from the Ark. Tanner was now at the front of the craft by himself as the remaining soldiers in the ship were drawing their weapons. One turned to fire to keep any one else from advancing through the fissure. Tanner dodged to the side as the pilot, now up from his chair, tried to stab him in the back. Tanner kicked backward and spun, bringing his sword around in a backhand across the pilot’s eyes. The sword jostled in his hand as it passed through the nose cartilage, but Tanner held on. He dove toward the man impaled with the sword, who was still feebly trying to pull the blade out when a gunshot rocked the metal chamber. Tanner expected to be thrown back by the force of a bullet, but he kept moving anyway. There was another deafening shot as Tanner snatched his sword from the man’s belly with his free hand, and dug the freed blade into the ribs of another soldier. Tanner saw the man who had fired into the other fighter was now gone, and the one taking aim at him was now collapsing to the ground. Tanner snatched the sword across the ribs of the last soldier he had stabbed as he tried to remove the blade. Tanner kicked him toward the back of the ship, and as the soldier hit the edge of the fissure, the front of his head exploded with another gunshot.
The body stumbled a bit and then slid down the edge of the fissure, revealing Uzziah and Paeryl both with the smoking barrels of their assault rifles trailing smoke. Tanner finally felt the steaming gore that covered his hands, his thighs, and the right side of his head and torso. He could barely hear the bellow of, “Tanner, are we winning?” over the pounding of his own heart. Standing there, the blood of others dripping from his hands once again, he wasn’t sure of the answer until he lifted his head and saw the gilded cherubim shimmering in the light streaming through the fissure.
Cyrus tried again to yell, “Look out!” but as Six dragged his body through the pressurized air of the ship, the pull of his collar against his throat only allowed a garbled mumble the earwig network could not translate. Six turned, but he was holding Cyrus, and he had too much momentum pulling them through the closing bulkhead. As weightlessness returned and halon gas spread around them, there was nothing Six could do as the Eurydician soldier, with better leverage on his leap, advanced on them with his slug pistol.
The man’s finger tensed around the trigger, but he was too close, and Cyrus, already curled into the fetal position after full freefall had returned, extended both legs into the man’s midsection. Cyrus sent the man backward into the halon-filled hall as the gun fired into the bulkhead that closed between them.
The ship felt like it was falling apart. The controls were vibrating and half the stabilizing systems had overloaded. The thruster controls kept speeding up and slowing down the ship, and even if Jang had issued the voice command to reactivate the gravity stabilizer, it wouldn’t have worked because the systems that routed energy to them had malfunctioned. It took every bit of strength in Jang’s arms, and some leverage on the part of his legs, to keep the ship inside the pipe, and having to activate and deactivate systems to save Cyrus and Six was not helping. Now, a glimpse at the holomonitor revealed the man who had waylaid them flailing his arms and gasping for air, consumed in thick gas that robbed the hallway air of oxygen as the ventilation system shut off the airflow to that part of the ship. Then, as the black rings on the HUD disappeared, the dimly lit sky gave way to the brilliant wasteland of Asha. As the ship slowed, Jang watched on the holomonitor as Cyrus and Six settled on the floor of the hall beyond the bulkhead. They shakily regained their footing and began shambling back toward the bridge. The ship continued to shudder, but it moved smoothly as Jang leveled the x-axis and cruised toward the sunside crater they had designated as their rendezvous point. Jang had just received word that “Johnny received his fiddle of gold,” from Paeryl, which meant that he and Uzziah had retrieved the package, and so long as the spoofing system held up, Cyndyl should be waiting for the Paracelsus at the rendezvous point. They might be able to power up the vehicles stored in the garage bay of the Paracelsus to make their escape, but this flying disaster was not going anywhere after it landed in that crater—assuming it made it there at all. Besides, Jang had expected to reenter with a ship with a much smaller footprint, and the programs that he had phreaked into the Echelon network would not be able to hide a ship this large for long. So as Cyrus and Six, both battered and limping, entered the bridge, Jang just shook his head. Six was carrying the Agamemnon unit and Cyrus was carrying a large, hardbound corporeal book.
“What the hell was that all about?” Jang snapped, the crater growing in the windshield in front of him.
“It was for Marcus,” Cyrus said dazedly, and then, as he buckled the harness over both himself and the book, he closed his eyes, and judging from the instantaneous fluttering of his eyes, must have passed out.
twenty-seven
• • • • •
—What’s wrong Dari? Why the stink-face?
—I’m mad at Sergio.
—I thought you and Sergio were best friends.
—We are, and that’s what’s so frustrating. Best friends are supposed to be like brothers, right? But Sergio’s being a total trash monkey right now.
—Well, I know you’re upset, but you need to dock your epithets.
—I’m sorry Dada, but I’m heated up. He and Terry have been palin’ around a lot lately. And Terry just got a HoloStation Prime. He invites Sergio over. Sergio has gone like a couple times now, and he always talks to the others about how much fun he has, but I never get invited. He doesn’t even talk to me about it. He acts like it’s never even happened. But today, I find out from Scott Seal that he goes sometimes too, and that the reason why Sergio’s acting so hinkey is Terry says he doesn’t want me to come over. But then today, Sergio comes to me and asks why I went behind his back to talk to Terry because Terry told him he can’t come over any more because of something I said, which is complete bunkus.
—So you’re mad because the whole thing’s turned into a preteen holodrama?
—I’m mad because Sergio’s first thought is that I’m flying sideways. He should know better.
—Hmm. You know, this reminds me of a story. Did I ever tell you the story of the Whowie?
—Whowie? What kind of name is that?
—Well, it’s an Australian Aboriginal myth, so I would assume it would be something that meant something to them. Either way, the Whowie was one of the most fearsome beasts among the animals. It was six meters long and looked like a komodo dragon with six legs.
—That’s big, but why was it so scary?
—Because the only things alive then were animals. Only in this story, I think the animals represent people. Anyways, the Whowie ate anything that crossed his path, and the animals were forced to band together because they were afraid. One day, the animals devised a plan to destroy the Whowie, and they all got together when he was sleeping and set a big fire in front of his cave.
—Wouldn’t the smoke fill up the cave, Dada?
—Well that was exactly why they did it. The Whowie was a burly creature, but after he breathed enough smoke, he wo
uld die like anything else. So the Whowie thrashed about in the cave for days, choking on smoke and roasting in the heat, but he wouldn’t die. The animals kept feeding the fire until the Whowie could not bear it anymore and rushed through the flames. When he emerged charred, blind, and weak on the other side, the animals pounced on him and tore him apart. Afterward, they tried to decide what to do to set up a sort of government, but no one could agree because everyone was selfish. And some came up with dumb ideas just so they could be heard and then were stubborn and indignant when no one would hear them out. Eventually, because of sneakiness on the parts of the some of the animals, an all-out war broke out. The lyrebird suggested that there had been enough violence already, and that they should try to figure out what problems they were having so that an entire group of animals did not wind up like the unreasonable Whowie. Eventually the birds and the land animals separated into two groups, but as they fought, the sun tried to hide from all the bloodshed and horror. It became darker and darker until the bat showed up. He was the strongest fighter, and the only animal that could fight effectively in the dark. But the bat was sneaky, and because he liked the attention, he would go help the birds, then, just before they won, help the land animals. Eventually it came to the point where none of the animals could speak the same language anymore, and the bloodshed and death became too much for even them to bear. They finally held a counsel to find a solution, and the bat used his boomerang to separate the night from the day, and he chased the sun out of his hiding place with it. In the end, there was peace again, and the night animals and day animals had their own place, so it did not seem so crowded, but they had been too separated by the language barrier and could no longer be the same unified group they had been against the Whowie.
—So the sneaky bat, who had been a big problem in the war, saved everyone in the end?
—Precisely, but he played the ends against the middle before that, and for what?
—Because he wanted the attention?
—Yes, and because he didn’t think he could get it by being nice. In the end he was wrong, but it took a Fringe-riot for him to get it.
—So you think Terry is like the bat, or like the Whowie?
—I think Terry is like Terry. But I think the Aborigines had that myth so we could see several things. Selfishness ultimately drives us apart, and sometimes, having a common foe is what makes it easier for us to stay together. I think people get bored easily, and when real problems don’t exist, sometimes we make them up, and those are by far the hardest to overcome.
—So what you’re saying is this entire argument could be bunkus.
—Yes, exactly. And you need to examine what’s more important, your friendship or your feelings, because sometimes, bunkus conflicts are easier to fight over than the real problems.
—So, I should try to be more like the lyrebird and not fall for the bat’s tricks.
—Yes, because if they had listened to the lyrebird, the sun would never have left them.
—But the animals were hardheaded like you say I am sometimes.
—Well, you and I aren’t the only hardheaded people on the planet, and sometimes, the hardheaded have to lose their sun to appreciate its warmth.
—So I should squash my bug with Sergio and just move on before I futz around and lose the warmth of his friendship.
—That sounds like a plan to me.
• • • • •
Villichez’s rites had been brief but poignant. All the scientists had been present, along with Paeryl and Cyndyl, but the other Apostates had requested, having not known the soul while it was living, to be absolved from communing with the dead. Paeryl had explained on the way to the crematorium that the Apostates believed the soul and the body were independent of each other, and that the body provided an anchor in this world. When the body no longer possessed the energy to maintain the link, they believed the soul was released, free to roam the ether until another body required its enervation to spring to life and beguiled it into its grasp. When consciousness faltered, and the body did not require constant attention, the soul was sometimes free to wander, but in the waking hours, to the uninitiated, it was trapped. Only strong souls could rise from their material masters at will, and when they were finally freed, only strong souls remained constitute, while other, less tempered souls became dissociated wisps in the spiritual morass. They believed that the thoughts of those who were close to the soul while it had inhabited the body could help it stay constitute while it awaited a new host.
Cyrus thought it an odd, and yet resounding, ideal, and he had held vigil next to Villichez in the crematorium until his knees ached. He did not utter any words, but the weight of his thoughts resonated through the cave lit only by the ignition torches and the pyre itself. Before they had laid Villichez on the funeral bier, Cyrus’s mind had been flooded with questions, but as he sat before the stone chamber carved from the ground itself, his mind was clear. Though many questions still remained to be answered, when he finally stood and he and Paeryl had lit the pyre, he felt by the last hour of the day cycle, whether they be to his liking or not, that the answers, indeed, would come.
Cyrus sat next to Toutopolus while he waited for Paeryl to finish his business with the other elders.
“How do you feel?” Cyrus said, resting his hand on Toutopolus’s shoulder.
“Like I got my ass kicked,” Toutopolus said without enough sarcasm to elicit comfort.
“I heard the other guy won’t be in the counterattack,” Cyrus smiled, but Toutopolus just cradled his shattered arm and grunted.
“This sort of injury never heals right, even with bone fusion, but Taeryn says the Eos will help it heal if I stay here in the sun.”
Cyrus looked around. There were two others in the most intense key of light in the crater. Aerik’s leg was set in a metal brace, and he lay out in the tangerine rays of Set. He looked as if he were relaxing by a pool at some posh resort rather than convalescing from a battle wound. They had removed the shell from his leg, and after only one day, it had already shown signs of clearing up. The other was Fenrir. He had been knocked unconscious in the battle and had been given some Eurydician medication subcutaneously. Afterward, they had laid him here in the sun. His breathing seemed regular, but he had not yet awakened, but no one, not even his betrothed and his children, seemed distraught. It was as if they had seen others with similar injuries recover without complication. Cyrus marveled at the comfort the Eos and the sun afforded these people. It made life simpler and less distorted. Cyrus considered what Tanner had mentioned earlier about being east of Eden and he too could feel the fissure. It was though humans had grown so attached to the wiles of technology that they had divorced themselves from the natural ebb and flow of the universe for fear of adversity, and yet in all their dodging of the inevitable, all they ever seemed to create was more adversity. So if these people, who knew their small corner of the universe in a way Cyrus had never known anything, could have indelible faith that their methods would bring one of their own out of a coma, then it would take little effort to expect, even in the face of his own apprehensions, that Toutopolus should recover the use of his arm.
“You did well back there. From what I hear, no one would have made it if it weren’t for you and Milliken.”
Paeryl concluded his business and began walking toward the vein of light where Cyrus stood. Cyrus looked back at Toutopolus and met his eyes as he spoke to him, “I trust these people and their methods. You will be fine. Just bear with it and do as they say.”
Toutopolus nodded as Paeryl approached, but he still seemed melancholy. Once he began to feel himself healing, he would be fine.
“It appears we are winning,” Paeryl said, the usual levity in his voice. “There were a few foibles, but things seem to be in order, yes? You retrieved your information unit?”
Cyrus nodded, “Dr. Jang is installing it now per Aerik’s instructions.”
“Aerik wanted to help directly, but I fear he must stay in th
e light. Wounds like theses only heal properly under the supervision of Set,” Paeryl paused to turn his own face to the rays of the sun and he continued before turning his head back completely, “We placed your other relic, this Ark, in the storage chamber next to the forge. My van says it has an odd background count, and it oscillates at a frequency lower than any of our equipment can effectively monitor. It also has some sort of electromagnetic assist when it is moved.”
“We will have to study it in more detail once we are done with our reconnaissance. I actually came to invite you and you council to our dialectic.”
Paeryl smiled and patted Cyrus on his back. “Inside that vault lies your history, your past,” he made a broad gesture with his hands indicating the sky, “out here lies my people’s future.” He turned back to Cyrus, and for the first time ever, Cyrus saw a furrow in his brow that could only imply concern. “Perhaps, in that vault, you will find exactly how those two are betrothed, and how we can stave off the impending scourge.”
Cyrus had never communicated his concern that his actions would elicit unwanted attention from the Echelon, but Paeryl was a wise man. Cyrus had always assumed that in his wisdom, Paeryl supported the efforts of Cyrus and his men because he knew the Echelon was coming for them anyway, and either the Echelon, or the sun, would set on them eventually. But until now, Paeryl’s faith and his reliance on Cyrus’s cunning and ingenuity had not seemed like a cry for help. Paeryl was a good man and an even better leader, but Cyrus could see, as the creases in the corners of his eyes spread their asters along the side of his face, that Paeryl was out of answers, and it pained him to the core.
Cyrus extended his right arm, took Paeryl’s hand into his own, and held it firmly. He needed words to say, but none that came were worthy. Paeryl met his eyes, and without words, he accepted Cyrus’s unspoken promise.