The Warrior Within

by Angus McIntyre

  If you’re scared, give me control, said Warrior’s voice in his head.

  Stay out of this, said Karsman.

  He looked over the edge once more, focusing on the ledge below, and then squatted down. He was tempted to turn his back to the edge, so as not to have to see that vertiginous drop, but the idea of falling backward into the void horrified him. He sat down, leaning back on his hands, and started to inch forward until his feet were at the edge of the roof. Slowly, he slid forward, letting his legs dangle.

  He sat on the edge of the roof, legs swinging, hands pressed flat against the metal on either side of him. Below him was the ledge, ahead of him the corner finial with its whiplike antenna. All he had to do now was push himself off.

  He froze. He could not do it.

  Give, said Warrior.

  No, said Karsman.

  There was a moment of no-time. Suddenly, Karsman was standing on the ledge, gripping the finial with both hands.

  You pushed me, you fucker, Karsman said.

  You’d have been up there all day, Warrior said. I had to do something.

  Did you take control before? Karsman asked. Did you make me climb that tower?

  Not me, said Warrior. I have better things to do than risk your neck climbing buildings.

  Karsman surveyed the ledge. One of the finials bore signs of having been worked on, the metal at the base discolored by the flame of a cutting torch and scored by the marks of tools. He guessed that it was Steck’s work; Steck was the undisputed king of high-altitude salvage.

  Karsman lacked Steck’s fondness for heights, but at least a roped descent held fewer terrors for him. He searched around the ledge until he found Steck’s equipment bag tucked away in a niche. Inside he found tools, rope, and a spare climbing harness. He checked it over, taking a few moments to replace one of the carabiners with one that looked a little less rusty. He let out the straps and buckled on the harness.

  Into the hands of the gods, he thought to himself as he clipped onto the rope.

  You sure you don’t want me to do this? Warrior asked.

  Shut up, Karsman said.

  Descending a tower on a fixed rope was something he could do. He felt a moment of fear as he swung himself over the edge, but after that it was just a matter of going through the motions. He fell into the rhythm of it—push off with both feet, glide down, pause for a second, then push off again, never looking down, keeping his eyes fixed on the gray steel wall an arm’s length in front of his face. Secure in his harness, even the buffeting of the wind seemed more playful than threatening.

  Then a new worry struck him. Dangling from the tallest tower in the city, he was painfully conspicuous. If one of the soldiers happened to look up and see him descending the tower, he would have a hard time explaining what he was doing up there.

  Normally, it would not matter. People worked on the high towers all the time. But today, Karsman had seen no other climbers on the other buildings. In fact, he had seen no one else at all. That struck him as strange. The strip-town was never entirely deserted. People left their homes to work or socialize at any hour under the light of a sun that never set. There should have been at least a few people crossing the Road, walking to the Temple to eat or worship, or simply sitting outside their shacks. Instead, there was no one at all.

  The drop to ground level seemed to take forever. By the time his feet finally touched the earth, the muscles of his thighs burned from the strain of pushing off from the tower. He unfastened his harness with shaking fingers, clipped it back onto the line. Let Steck wonder who had been borrowing his equipment. Karsman wasn’t about to tell anyone that he had been climbing buildings in the middle of the night, not until he had some better answers himself.

  He looked down the Road toward his shack. The emptiness of the Road unnerved him. He imagined snipers stationed on the tops of towers like the one he had just climbed down from. He considered walking on the desert side of the city, keeping the buildings between him and the uncannily silent town.

  Not a good idea, commented Warrior.

  How so?

  They’ll have set a perimeter on either side of the city. Screamers, spy-eyes. Maybe micro-mines. Flip guns.

  You think so?

  It’s what I’d do, said Warrior.

  So what do I do? asked Karsman.

  Take the Road, said Strategist. Shortest distance. Best chance of talking your way out of it if they catch you.

  I’m not doing anything wrong, Karsman protested.

  Says the man who goes climbing buildings at night, said Strategist.

  He was still more than two hundred meters from his shack when two men emerged from between the buildings and started to walk toward him. Karsman knew them at once, the giant soldier by his height, Flet by his loose-limbed way of walking. An image from an ancient piece of media that Karsman had once seen came back to him: men in archaic clothes walking in a desert town, primitive guns in leather pouches by their sides, pacing slowly toward each other before pulling out their guns and shooting each other down. He remembered smoke, and animals screaming, and wounded men thrashing in the dust. But I don’t even have a gun, he thought.

  Both Flet and the giant had guns, though, and they were drawn and pointed as they approached Karsman. Karsman noticed abstractedly that they were the same model that the Temple guards carried.

  “What are you doing out?” Flet asked him. “Is there something about the idea of a curfew that you don’t understand?”

  “I was finishing some work. On the coupling,” said Karsman. “I must have fallen asleep.”

  The lie sounded flat and unconvincing to him. He looked at each man in turn, doing his best to look unconcerned. When he tried to meet the giant’s eyes, he saw only his own face reflected in the man’s black glass visor.

  Flet’s eyes moved slightly, and Karsman guessed that he was communicating with someone. Naturally, the soldiers would all be wired together. They could hardly function as a unit if they were not. He braced himself for the bullet that would end his life.

  “Fine,” said Flet at last. “You can go.”

  “Thank you,” said Karsman.

  Flet held up a hand. “One more thing,” he said. “I feel like I’m seeing your face around too much. You might be a big man in this shitpile. You might think that because you’ve been useful to us you’re somehow untouchable. Don’t count on it. If you piss me off even slightly, I will shoot you in the head and walk over your body. Do we understand each other?”

  “Perfectly,” said Karsman.

  “Now get out of here. Curfew ends at Morning Seven. Stick your face outside your door before then and I’ll put a bullet through it.”

  For once, all Karsman’s personas were silent as he walked away. Even Warrior seemed cowed. Karsman felt a trickle of sweat run down his side.

  He was still feeling shaky when he arrived at the door of his shack. He had no clear idea what time it was, but he wanted nothing more than to lie down in his bed and sleep for a week. He reached for the handle.

  Wait, said Warrior.

  Huh?

  The door’s open.

  Karsman froze. The door was ajar, swaying slightly in the wind. As he watched, it swung inward a few centimeters, then rebounded gently from some unseen obstacle inside. The projecting latch clicked against the doorframe with just too little force to let the door close fully.

  He realized that his work knife was in his hand. Warrior was clamoring to be allowed to take control. With an effort, Karsman forced him down.

  He put his hand on the door and pushed. There was a moment’s resistance before it opened. He pushed the door wider, stepped over an unfamiliar jacket on the floor.

  The shack was as he had left it, the only thing out of place an earthenware container that held the last of his provisions. He was sure that he had left it in one of the cabinets, but now it stood empty on the table, its lid beside it.

  A soft noise caught his attention and he turned his gaze to t
he bed. There was a hunched shape under the blankets, a tuft of lilac hair on the pillow. He took a step into the room.

  Mera sat up in bed, blinking in the light.

  “Hello, Karsman,” she said. “Do you have any more food? I’m starving.”

  * * *

  Later, as they lay squeezed together in Karsman’s narrow bed, Mera ran her fingers over his cheek.

  “I sort of thought that you’d be more glad to see me,” she said.

  Karsman breathed out slowly. He felt the warmth of her skin against his chest, the pressure of her lean, muscular body against his.

  “Of course I’m glad,” he said. “It’s just that this . . . this isn’t the best time.”

  “If I’m in the way, I can go,” Mera said, pulling away from him. Her face was expressionless in the weak glow from the clock by the bed.

  “It isn’t like that.”

  He hesitated, uncertain how to begin. All he could think about was the conversation he had had with the soldier inside the Temple. The soldiers had been screening the women, looking for the one they were there to kill. But what, Karsman had asked, if they didn’t find the woman they were looking for? It didn’t matter, the soldier had said. Sooner or later, she has to come.

  Sooner or later she has to come. And now Mera was here.

  “How did you get here?” he asked.

  “I hitched a ride on a road train,” Mera said. “I remembered you lived near the far end of the strip, so I had the driver let me out at the edge of town.”

  “And . . . no one stopped you?”

  “No. Why would they?”

  Karsman hesitated.

  “I don’t know how to say this,” he said. “But this is a dangerous town to be in just now. And I think I might be a bad person to be around.”

  Mera looked at him silently for a moment.

  “Karsman, if you don’t want me here, you should just say so,” she said at last. “Sometimes I get the wrong idea about people. I’m sorry.”

  He felt a surge of tenderness. He shook his head. “You don’t have the wrong idea. Not at all. And I’m glad you came back. It’s just . . .”

  He struggled to find the words. Yes, he thought. If things were different, I’d be happy for you to be here. I’d like nothing more in the world. But now I’m afraid for you.

  “It isn’t about you,” he said. “Or it is, but it’s not about you and me.” He saw her face harden. “No, wait. Let me explain.”

  He told her as succinctly as he could, explaining about the soldiers and the way that they had co-opted the Muljaddy and the Temple guards to make the town their own. He told her what the soldier had said in the Temple. The only things that he left out were his personas and the blocks of time missing from his memory.

  “A curfew. So that was why there was no one around when I arrived,” she said when he had finished speaking.

  He nodded.

  “And you think that it’s me that they’re here to kill?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  She shook her head sadly. “Karsman, I’m absolutely ordinary. I’ve lived in the same town all my life. Do you really think three assassins would come all the way from another star just to murder me? Have you even thought about how crazy that sounds?”

  When she said it, it did sound crazy. But then he thought again of the soldier’s insistence that the woman they were looking for would show up. What if there was a reason that Mera had been drawn back to the town, a reason that wasn’t Karsman?

  The easy way to find out would be to go down to the Temple in the morning. The soldiers could check Mera’s identity using whatever technology they had used to screen the other women. They would see that she was not the one they were looking for, and everything would be fine.

  But in his mind the scene played out differently. He imagined her placing her hand on Flet’s tablet, watched by the other soldiers. And then Flet’s eyes would widen just slightly, and he would nod almost imperceptibly to one of the others. And then there would be the flat bang of a shot, and Mera’s lifeless body dropping to the ground.

  I can’t take the chance, he said to himself. Because I couldn’t stand to be wrong.

  * * *

  It was almost Morning 10, and Karsman and Mera were sitting at the table eating the last of his stored food when someone knocked softly at the door.

  Karsman started to rise, ready to put himself between Mera and the door, but the door opened before he could reach it. Steck stuck his head round, pushing his goggles up onto his forehead. He had his bag slung over his shoulder, his cutting torch dangling at his hip.

  “Hey, Karsman—” He broke off. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you had—”

  Mera gave Steck a big smile.

  “Hi,” she said. “Remember me?”

  Steck slipped inside, pulling the door closed against the wind.

  “From the Festival, right?” he said. “You came back. That’s great. Karsman’s been really mopey since you went away.”

  Mera looked back at Karsman, who frowned.

  “Mopey?” she said.

  Steck seated himself at the table. “You know. Sort of distracted. Dreamy. Looking like he was thinking about something else. Not saying much. Well, he doesn’t talk much at the best of times, but lately he’s been even worse than usual. I think he missed you.”

  “Steck—”

  “Karsman, I swear I don’t know what your problem is. You’ve been dragging ass for days, and now she’s back and you’re still looking like the chief mourner at your own funeral.”

  “Steck—”

  “Don’t worry about him, miss. If he’s not glad to see you, I am.”

  Mera grinned. “Thank you, Mr. Steck.”

  Karsman gave some thought to the idea of grabbing Steck by the neck of his coveralls and throwing him out of the shack.

  “I think Karsman’s worried about me,” Mera said. “He seems to think that those soldiers might want to hurt me.”

  Steck raised his eyebrows. “Well, it’s true that you’ve come back at a pretty strange time, what with those off-worlders acting like they own the place, and the Muljaddy apparently ready to let them do whatever they want.” He stopped, as if struck by a thought. “Hey, Karsman, you know something else weird? Someone messed with my equipment last night. I went back to the tower I’ve been working on this morning, and I found my spare harness clipped to the bottom of the line. But I know I’d left it in my bag, up top. So someone must have—”

  “Really,” said Karsman.

  “Yeah. I mean, you don’t touch another person’s gear. That’s basic. So I’m thinking maybe one of the off-worlders—”

  “You probably shouldn’t ask them,” said Karsman. “They seem a bit jumpy.”

  Steck nodded. “You’re probably right. Still—” He waved his hand. “Ah, whatever. At least they left it where it was. Anyway, that wasn’t what I came to tell you. The city’s changed again.”

  “How so?”

  “There’s a whole new cluster of lights, high up on Tower Seventeen. And a whole set of aerials opened up on Eight. They weren’t there last night.”

  “Here too?” said Mera.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We stopped at a city a bit farther down the Road,” she said. “It had been scavenged a little, but not really picked over. So our Muljaddy wanted to check and see if it was worth settling down there. When we arrived it was dead. Nothing happening at all.”

  “But then—”

  “—then a few days ago, we saw lights in some of the buildings. And some of the others changed shape.”

  “All the cities are connected,” said Karsman.

  Mera and Steck looked at him.

  “Something one of the soldiers said. This city, all the other cities. Maybe the Road itself. It’s all just one huge machine.” He looked at Mera. “No soldiers came to your town?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then that’s where we’ll go. At first
. The important thing is to get away from here. Something . . . something bad is happening here.”

  Steck opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment someone thumped on the door.

  “Karsman? Are you in there?” called a voice from outside.

  * * *

  In the instant before the door opened, Karsman had time to yank Mera to her feet and push her into the corner behind it.

  A helmeted head showed in the open doorway. “Karsman?”

  He thought for a moment that it was Magnan, then recognized Curinn’s graying mustache beneath the visor.

  “Who were you talking to?” To Karsman’s relief, the guard captain remained in the doorway. Mera stood frozen, squeezed into the corner, hidden behind the half-open door.

  Curinn pushed his visor up, peering into the gloom of the interior. “Ah, Steck,” he said.

  “Good morning, Captain,” Steck said.

  “Grab your jacket, Karsman, let’s go.”

  Under other circumstances, Karsman might have resisted the order. Now, however, he wanted Curinn out of the shack as fast as possible. He took his wind jacket from its peg and shrugged it on.

  “Close up when you go, Steck,” Karsman called out over his shoulder, doing his best to sound casual.

  “Sure,” Steck said.

  Outside, the wind was blowing briskly again, a warm gale that threw handfuls of red grit against the gray walls of the Builder towers. Karsman squeezed his eyes shut and pulled his goggles down.

  “Where are we going?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard above the grumbling of the wind.

  “Muljaddy wants you,” Curinn said. Two guards standing hunched by the side of the Road, their backs to sunward, turned and fell in behind them as they walked.

  For the first time, Karsman wondered where the Muljaddy was. It was assumed that the Muljaddy lived permanently in the Temple. It was certainly the case that no one had ever seen the Muljaddy outside and equally certain that there was enough space within the massive wheeled building to accommodate a whole suite of private rooms as well as everything else. Karsman wondered how the Muljaddy felt about the alien soldiers commandeering its home for their project.