Maka and Bayorn snarled. Letho felt a surge of fear and adrenaline ripple through his body as the Tarsi leapt up, heads low, fur on their backs and necks rippling as their hackles raised.
“Get back, slave bears!” the lead inspector shouted.
Maka and Bayorn complied, easing back toward the Elder.
“These rifles are locked and loaded with live ammo that will put holes in you the size of dinner plates. If anyone moves, I’m shooting the kid, and then my partner here is going to shoot the old slave bear.”
Letho recognized the speaker as the very same station inspector that he had throat-punched so long ago that it seemed like another lifetime. Embers began to stir in the pit of Letho’s belly, and he felt that eerie sensation of sharpness slip over him. With sudden clarity he could hear the station inspector’s heartbeat, and his every breath exploded like steam escaping an untightened valve.
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Letho said, in a voice that didn’t sound like his own.
“Oh yeah, what are you going to do about it, scum? You may be fast, but you ain’t faster than bullets.”
“Try me,” Letho said. He felt his skin flushing; his body felt red hot. He looked over at the statue of the dragon on the Elder’s curio, and he was filled with a sudden desire to be the dragon. He wanted to immolate these interlopers with the righteous flames that were building up in his chest.
“Come now, gentlemen, this is not necessary. Surely we can discuss this like civilized beings,” said Bayorn.
“Ha! You hear that, Ced? The slave bear thinks he’s a civilized being. Listen here, tunnel-dog, there’s nothing to talk about. We’re taking Ferron with us. Station orders.”
“You’ll have to kill us first,” Maka snarled.
“That won’t be too hard, since we’re the ones with the assault rifles,” one of the other station inspectors said, laughing.
The lead inspector eyeballed Letho hard enough to make him feel uncomfortable.
“Look at you, living down here with the slave bears. What a disgrace.” he said, moving toward Letho.
The Elder stood to intercede, and that’s when things went sideways. Letho saw it all in that cold, grainy, over-focused vision that he had first experienced in Baran Gall’s office. He watched as the Elder stood and moved toward the lead station inspector, hands held out in a gesture of peace, placation. Letho watched as the inspector cracked the butt of his rifle across the Elder’s wrinkled snout and in a moment that seemed an eternity, the Elder began to collapse, a ribbon of gold blood spurting from his wound.
“NO!” Letho roared.
He sprang forward, his arms outstretched. There was no plan, no method, just his mind jabbering in Tarsi that the station inspector should die for this transgression. The inspector’s eyes opened wide, and Letho could see his own reflection in them as grabbed the inspector’s neck with both hands. He began to squeeze, feeling the cords snap and the meat compress in his furious grip. He felt immense pleasure in the pliancy of the man’s neck in his hands, the way his eyes widened and locked on his own. He knew that he could tear the man’s head clean from his shoulders if he wanted.
Somewhere in the back of his mind Letho heard the sharp crack of a rifle report, and then felt a jagged, searing burst of pain through his left shoulder. It felt as if the station inspector had used a two-ton jackhammer to drive the bullet through his flesh. He collapsed to the floor. The station inspector staggered back, training his rifle on Letho’s head. Then there was another cracking report, this one much louder.
“Stand down, Inspector!”
Zedock Wartimer stood in the doorway, one of his Black Bear .50s clutched in his hand. The lead inspector whirled at the voice of his commander.
“Chief! What are you doing here?”
“Interceding.”
“I’m afraid this is above your head, boss. Dispatch came straight from the top.”
“That’s fine. But if I am correct, the dispatch didn’t say that you were to kill the kid; just detain him.”
The station inspector thought for a moment, his hand going to his swollen, red throat. He trained his rifle on Letho’s head again.
“You’re right, boss. The report did not specify dead or alive.”
“Listen to me,” Zedock said. “I know that you’re pissed. This guy got the drop on you twice, and you want to get him back for it. But take it from someone who knows: you don’t want this kid’s blood on your hands. You fellas already perforated him once. I’d say that’s enough retribution for one day. Come on, let’s take him in and let the top brass deal with him.”
The tone of Zedock’s voice was hushed, almost a whisper. The lead inspector stood silent, his rifle still trained on Letho. The Elder was beginning to stir, and Maka and Bayorn rushed to help him to his feet. The other two inspectors raised their weapons by reflex.
“Stand down, men!”
Zedock’s booming voice made it very clear who was in charge of the operation. The men stowed their rifles, including the injured lead inspector, who dropped his aim only after the other two had done so.
“Let’s get him up to the ward and get him patched up,” Zedock said, reaching down to grasp Letho’s arm.
One of the other station inspectors grabbed Letho’s other arm, and together they hoisted him to his feet. A rocket of white-hot pain blasted through his shoulder and the flow of blood from his shoulder squirted obscenely. He saw Zedock issue a curt nod toward the Elder, a gesture that the Elder returned in kind.
And the last thing Letho saw before he blacked out was Bayorn’s drawn face, and what appeared to be a tear wetting the fur just under his eye.
ELEVEN - Crash
The act of waking felt like thrashing through brackish water. Letho struggled toward the hazy window that rippled just beyond his reach, and at last broke through to awareness of his surroundings. Searing pain assailed him from a wound he didn’t remember receiving. He attempted to move his arms, to turn his head, but to no avail. Jarring impulses shot from his elbow to his shoulder, and his chest felt as though someone had used an elephant’s foot to drive a work boot through him. He was strapped to a horizontal gurney, his arms outstretched in the shape of a T. The room was dimly lit with padded walls and a stainless steel floor. There was a mirror on the far wall, the kind that didn’t quite reflect properly. He knew the security office had holding cells and drunk tanks, but he had never heard of any rooms quite like this.
A one-way mirror, he thought.
He took a moment to look at himself. Heavy bandages enveloped his chest and upper forearm, dark blood soaking parts of the gauze. Had he been stabbed? Shot? He racked his brain, but the last thing he could remember was Bayorn looking at him with deep concern.
A panel in the wall slid back, then up. A man entered, wearing black slacks, a blue pressed button-up shirt, and a black tie. Around his waist, just under his rotund belly, was a belt from which the handles of two archaic pistols jutted out at an awkward angle. It seemed they didn’t make a holster that could bridge the great rift between his average-sized waist and his oversized belly.
Above the belly sat rather broad shoulders and a set of large, hair-crested arms. The upper half of the body reminded him of his former supervisor, Baran Gall; they could have been brothers, though this one seemed to have a little more respect for himself, and hadn’t let himself go completely. Letho recognized this man from quotes and photos in many of the articles he had surveyed in his time as a Red Sector worker. A gold star sat on his breast bearing the word “CHIEF,” and below that, in smaller letters, “Zedock Wartimer.”
Letho heard words issuing from the man’s mouth, which was adorned by a garish but respectable curtain of mustache. It had the not-quite-natural hue of someone who applies hair dye with religious fervor. It took Letho a moment to realize the man was speaking to him, asking questions that required response. His mind swam as he attempted to focus on the chief’s words and comprehend them.
Man, they got
the good stuff up here. You should get shot in the arm more often, the copilot said.
“Young man, answer my questions. We’re both in a world of shit right now, and a little cooperation would go a long way,” Zedock said in a lazy but intimidating drawl.
“What? Where am I? Why am I strapped to this thing? Why do my arm and chest hurt so bad?” Letho managed to slur, his eyes rolling to and fro as he attempted to focus them on the chief.
“You don’t remember nothin’?”
Letho’s mind flashed back to the moment when the inspector had rifle-struck the Elder. He remembered a sudden rush of fury, mingled with a sensation of shame at seeing a member of his own race treat a noble being with such callousness.
“I did that thing again, didn’t I?” Letho slurred.
“Yep, you did that thing again. This makes three times you have assaulted my men.”
Three times?
Zedock glared at Letho, watching his expression with great care.
“What are you talking about?”
The dream. The Tarsi. The girl. So much blood. Red and gold mixed.
A searing pain split Letho’s brain, and he saw only white for a moment. Zedock continued, unperturbed.
“As you can imagine, the boys in the head shed are wondering why I haven’t booted yer ass out of an airlock already. Even I’m starting to wonder why I’m letting you run around my station willy-nilly, kickin’ ass every time you get your feelings hurt.”
“Willy-nilly? What does that even mean?”
“Doesn’t matter. We have to figure out the solution to this little problem. I already defied direct orders with my little intervention back there, which I will no doubt have to answer for at great penalty. And now the heat’s on your pals down there in the bowels of the ship.”
Letho flinched at this.
“What do you mean? What are they in trouble for?”
“While my men were looking for you, they picked up some funny transmissions. Seems your boys found a way to make long-range transmissions to Tarsi in other stations. Being diligent officers, they immediately reported this information to the main office. I’m sure I don’t have to explain the import of such a situation to you,” he said, pursing his lips.
Letho thought that all the chief lacked was a cigar to chomp on and a too-small cowboy hat perched on the top of his head to complete the caricature.
“Why don’t you pretend for a moment that I’m not as smart as you seem to think I am, and enlighten me a little bit?” Letho drawled.
The cowboy that wasn’t really a cowboy seemed unaware, or too intent on his current objective, to realize he was being made fun of. “The Tarsi are in the most delicate areas of our infrastructure, and the damage they could cause is incalculable.” He paused, allowing Letho to process this information with his drug-addled mind.
“But you stopped them from killing me!”
“Yep, your razor-sharp powers of deduction have penetrated a crevice in my story. Official policy in dealing with Tarsi is placation and control only. We are not to interfere with their activities so long as aforementioned operations do not interfere with the safety and well-being of Fulcrum station citizens. I have been soft in my handling of the Tarsi on this station, and your shenanigans have brought this issue to light,” Zedock said.
“Great, you’re in trouble, I get it. Just let me go, I want to go back to my friends.”
“I don’t think you understand the situation, hardhead. The folks in charge want you dead, and they want a formal investigation conducted on the Tarsi downstairs.”
“You were there—you saw what they did to the Elder! At least I had the balls to do what was right!” Letho spat, feeling that shimmer of sharpness descend on his vision.
Zedock was on him in a flash, causing Letho to flinch.
“Do not presume, boy, to be the only one who knows wrong from right!”
Zedock stepped back, dropping his eyes. He sighed, and ran his hand through his gray hair, sighing.
“Letho, a man has to understand that sometimes doing what is right and making the right choice can sometimes be two different things.”
“Whatever,” Letho said.
Zedock locked his eyes on Letho’s before turning away. Letho could see pain there that made him think of wounds that ached long after healing.
Zedock Wartimer nodded once and walked to the cell’s exit. He depressed a panel in the wall, entered a key code, and left without another word, leaving Letho to thoughts that were much too heavy for his drugged mind to cope with.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
The Tarsi were seated in a large circle in the place where the great feast had taken place. Older, more established bears sat in the main circle, while younger ones stood in the back, watching. The Elder was at the head of the circle, a bandage covering the wound the station inspector had given him.
“Brothers, I have called this meeting to discuss the portent of what has happened,” said the old bear.
There was much din and confusion in the eating place. Word had traveled fast, and the oral transmission from Tarsi to Tarsi had caused the spread of much mistruth. A young Tarsi eyed the bandage on the Elder’s face and began roaring in thunderous song-speak, his eyes burning halos of gold.
The Elder sought the right words; he called upon the knowledge that had been given to him by the Elders before him who, through their collective eyes, had seen the passage of the Tarsi’s greatness and their fall to ruin. After reciting a silent prayer to Je-Ha, he began.
“Kinsha, heed my words. As some of you know, the station inspectors have taken Letho Ferron to the above.”
A great roar filled the eating place. The sound thrummed in the Elder’s chest, stirring his heart. His own anger rode the great Tarsi crescendo. He raised his hands like a symphona conductor, and all fell silent.
“I, too, feel the pain of this loss. Letho Ferron is a great friend to the Tarsi. I am here to tell you, my Kinsha, that I believe Letho has come to show us the way.”
He paused. To his surprise, there was no uproar, no objection.
The Elder had had been observing Letho for quite some time. The Elder had first taken interest in the young man when he had interceded on Maka’s behalf. Maka, who had sought to aid a young girl whose arm had become entangled in the fickle machinery of the above, had been accosted by a group of station inspectors. When they saw the scene—the Tarsi, the girl, and the bright blood on the floor grating—rage overtook them. The inspectors did not hear, or perhaps did not understand, Maka’s words, though he spoke to them in Eursan. They began to beat Maka with their batons, blinding him in one eye and splitting the flesh of his face from brow to cheek. Then Letho, a mop-haired adolescent at the time, had appeared from nowhere, moving with uncanny speed and strength that defied the natural laws that governed existence. In the blink of an eye he disarmed the station inspectors and rendered one unconscious. He had stood over the bloodied Maka, taking animalistic swipes at the other station inspectors whenever they drew too close.
When the young boy grew into a young man, he found himself in similar trouble, and the Tarsi returned the favor by intervening on his behalf. Letho had come to live among them, he had learned their language, and he had purified himself, casting aside the ways of the above.
And now, again, he had sacrificed himself for the Tarsi.
The memories swirled and faded like wisps of smoke in the Elder’s mind. He took a deep breath and said a few words of archaic Tarsi to himself to clear his head. This part would be perilous. But he had no choice but to continue forward, non-believers be damned.
“Long ago, our race sat atop a throne whose dominion was all creation. Our knowing was great, but the price we paid for it was dear. The wise ones spoke of our exile. They warned us that it would come. They begged us to turn away from the path we had chosen.”
Here it is: the moment of truth. Be strong, old fool.
“As I said at the time of our last gathering, I have been granted a v
ision. I believe that not another generation of Tarsi shall pass before the hour of the prophecy comes.”
A roar of argument rose. They gnashed their teeth, they gesticulated with their paws. One of them was shaking his snout up and down, provoking the Tarsi next to him with his gesture of challenge.
“SILENCE!” roared Bayorn.
He stood to his full height, his snout tilted upward. He wasn’t the biggest of this group, but his voice still reverberated off the metal walls of their meeting space. Many eyes dropped to the floor; those displaying dominance gestures sat.
“Do not make light of events that are transpiring here,” Bayorn growled. “You must listen to what the Elder has to say, lest you stifle any hope we have of escaping our pathetic fate.”
He turned his gaze to the Elder and nodded. The Elder sighed. The younger bears were hot-blooded and cared not for prophecies. They were born and raised inside an industrial complex whose sole purpose was to provide comforts they would never know.
Another Tarsi said, “It is true; he risked his life for us. It is true that we have all welcomed him into the Kinsha. But how can we be sure that this Eursan is of the prophecy?”
Another shouted, “The Chosen One cannot be a Eursan! He must be a Tarsi!”
“My Brothers, if you choose to wait for certainty, then you must roll over and die now, for certainty will never come,” said Bayorn, the rich darkness of his voice rattling their chest-bones. “There is one thing we can be sure of: if Letho is indeed of the prophecy, then by letting him expire we will condemn our race to servitude and disgrace for as long as the stars burn. At the very least, we all know that we must rescue the boy. He is part of our Kinsha now.”
“We must rescue Letho!” one shouted.
“You are right, young one,” the Elder said. “We must find Letho. We must all go to the above.”
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