An End

by Paul Hughes

  A war against one woman… A terrorist act that could never truly be avenged. Task felt fortunate that he had no family on the surface below him, encased in silver dust. That’s probably why they picked him to do the dismal job of documenting the kill zones. Never a man for emotion; never a man with attachments to his species.

  It was cold.

  Heat from his fingertips but no surprise when the smoker self-immolated in a final suicide of smoke. No ash to clog the systems. Task felt a radical spin out of place and collide with several healthy breather cells, beginning the process of cellular mutation. He isolated and contained the cells in a reflex gesture. Right lung, right underneath his heart.

  “Want some company?”

  Task didn’t need to look to know that Elle had finished regen, which meant that soon it would be time to get back to work. No sleep in this night, at least not for the human member of the crew. Elle lazily swam to the observation bubble, still glowing from the recharge mist. The glow faded quickly.

  “You do need to rest sometime, you know.”

  “This is resting.”

  “Don’t you see enough of the planet while we’re working?”

  Task ignored the question. Another platform fell from the war machine above them.

  “How many have you seen tonight?”

  “Forty. Fifty.”

  “They must think it’s safe for nears down there.”

  “It isn’t safe for anyone. Never will be. They should scorch the whole damned thing and be done with it. Or send it into center-spiral. I’d never live there.”

  “You’d never live on any planet, sweetheart.”

  Task smiled. “Right.”

  Two more platforms, one on either side of an almost-invisible sliver of silver. Task drew the reticule over the ships’ position as they planetfell, zoomed. The war platforms were escorting a council corvette.

  Elle’s otherwise featureless eyes furrowed into concern as best they could. “Hannon?”

  Task zoomed in. “No. That’s Berlin.”

  “Against our recommendations?”

  “I don’t think he’s listening to recommendations anymore.”

  “If it’s still hot—”

  “He doesn’t care.”

  “I’ll never understand your species.”

  “Of course not.”

  Wake alarm. Cabin lights grew brighter. Task circumvented snooze and deactivated the anachrony of the sleep system. Time to get to work.

  “Break orbit. Take us south.”

  from eternal slumber

  upon wings of wind and i will

  we

  there were in that time gods of

  taken from and stolen with

  hidden

  deep with-in deepness

  and over the sky i have

  returned to

  “In position.”

  Hydraulics emit canine whine and the body surges forward, empty pages replaced with an ancient text.

  “Begin transfer.”

  Fluid swirls, suffocation. The sacrifice body, blessed soul replaced with the target of midnight prayers, sacrament of flesh imbued with divinity. Rotating placement lasers strip away flesh and sinew and the gristle of pathetic, bare man. A million, a billion, a trillion needles invade protein.

  “Status?”

  “Sacrifice vehicle intact. Ready for download.”

  when

  and when

  and when and

  called upon again to

  wake

  and wake

  and wake and

  be

  with my children

  again

  “Download complete.”

  Snap of static and the body flails, drowning scream from within the birth sea. Medications diffuse, calm the fury of the reborn god/dess. Fluid levels descend, now-limp body twitches to rest on the raised platform that would provide a new and shorter sleep.

  “Council communication line ready.”

  “Open channel.”

  A flash and a projection of Hannon stood in the birth chamber.

  “I see the procedure was successful. How long before we can meet with him, Doctor?”

  “Give him a few hours to rest. It’s been a long time since—”

  “Yes, of course. Please let me know when he’s ready.”

  Doctor waved its hand in the direction of Hannon and the image ceased. It walked over to the platform, where god was curled into a fetal position. Doctor rolled the deity on to his back, inspected the new body, opened its eyelids, testing for a response.

  Assistant approached from behind, stood patiently while Doctor examined the haphazard arrangement of flesh into which the humans had chosen to inject their ancient.

  “How many times have they done this?”

  “Twice.”

  “This time and one other?”

  “This time and just before the war.”

  “And he doesn’t mind?” Assistant looked over the pseudo-conscious divinity.

  “I think he actually prefers the rest. They don’t need him anymore.”

  “I’ll never understand them.”

  Doctor turned from the table and looked Assistant in featureless eyes. “Just be thankful for them. Never forget your creators.”

  Assistant looked at the ground, bowing submissively to its superior. It wanted to point out the obvious hypocrisy of Doctor’s statement... Their creators had all but forgotten their own creator, choosing instead to allow him to hide in the liquid night of the center of the planet in the slumber eternal, only waking him in moments of extreme need.

  The new threat was indeed a moment of extreme need. Hopefully, god would have a solution to the woman of silver. So far, no one else did.

  She was young, so young when first he’d seen her on the landing platform, standing at attention with the rest, sun-stained face blank and down in submission to the visiting dignitary. The stark gray of her eyes had been hidden by the black fan of lashes in that position, but as soon as he signaled for the team to stand at ease, he found those eyes boring into his own boring browns.

  “Sir.”

  “Doctor.”

  Their first exchange of civil conversation gave no hint of the life they would spend together, the sunsets, the children they would create, but at the same time, Berlin paused, took a breath.

  Black converges on gray. “Sir, have we—”

  “No.” The interruption more forceful than need be. The doctor immediately shifted back into formal posture, dropped eyes back underneath the veil of black.

  “Sir, I’m—”

  “Let’s get started. We break orbit in three days. Mustn’t waste time.”

  “Sir.”

  They were magnificent creatures, the inhabitants of Planet Four: intelligent flora that sailed through the mist canyons on waves of chlorostatic, sometimes miles in length. Berlin could only watch in awe from the observation platform as a pod of carnivores swarmed and eradicated a rival and weaker group.

  “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

  Berlin frowned at the amicable tone of her rhetorical inquiry. She’d been off-one for far too long. The informality of the outer planets had begun to replace her training. He couldn’t really blame her; the striking sunlight, the fresh air, the distance from the tentacles of bureaucracy and hypocrisy... He would forgive her for now.

  “They’re... impressive.”

  She smiled, a total breach of decorum. Tanned hands grasped the railing, leaned farther over than she probably should have.

  “We’re fortunate to have this place. They’re fortunate to have a world that hasn’t been used up.”

  “We’ll see.”

  The smile dropped almost immediately from the doctor’s face. “Is that why you’re here?”

  Berlin cleared his throat. “Doctor—?”

  “Kath. Botanist.”

  “Kath. Botanist. They have the ability, correct?”

  “A very limited form of the ability.
”

  “But you’ve been researching them for years now. Can it be recreated?”

  A particularly large specimen of the lumbers flew fast enough underneath the platform to rock it gently. It left behind the disconcerting scent of pine pitch.

  “We’d have to capture some of them.”

  “We have the means.”

  She frowned, shook her head. “Sir, this is a sanctuary planet. Even posting observers here breaks all of the preservation protocols.”

  “We need this technology.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “They’re just plants, Kath.”

  She looked as if she’d been slapped. “They have a civilization.”

  Berlin had been waiting. “Show me.”

  The humble botanist withdrew once again, focused on the handrail.

  “That’s an order.”

  “And this heart, for you.”

  Berlin opened his eyes at the whisper, spinning around to find only a near bowed in submission. His chest pounded. An inhalation not unlike a sob escaped before he could gain his bearings. The near ignored it.

  “What is it?”

  The almost-living warrior snapped to attention. “Hover position above Seven, sir.”

  Berlin motioned and the wall became a window into the world below. Audio was inactive, but he imagined the scouring metal dust would make a sound not unlike a hailstorm... Or sand. Or the brush of evergreen limbs on the underside of an observation skiff.

  “Ready a landing party. Dismissed.”

  The near bowed and walked out. Berlin turned back to the viewer.

  What are you doing here?

  He had to be sure, had to see for himself. Had to see the extent of this act, had to know in his hearts that this fury was appropriate. He had to prove to himself that what he would do to Maire would be a just punishment.

  “Kath. Botanist.”

  He didn’t turn this time, didn’t flinch at the whisper.

  The rough hand of a soldier grasped in the tiny hand of a doctor, guided to the wool scarf around her neck. Unwrapped slowly, breathing ragged, loop after loop of material exposing the white of her neck. Lips explored, clasps unclasped. Moonlight pupils displaced the gray of iris, lashes tickled his cheek. So cold. So cold in that night.

  She drew his hand to her chest, bare skin goose-fleshed under moonlight, palm dragged over nipples erect to that place and that moment. She drew his hand to her chest and placed it over her left breast.

  “This heart for my spirit.”

  He let her guide him. Up, collarbone, supra-sternal notch, collarbone, down. She held his hand above her right heart.

  “And this heart, for you.”

  Collision of storm fronts. They had planned it then, the escape from the suffocation of bureaucracy, the flight from One that would eventually draw the likes of the terrorist Maire. Under that moons-lit sky, breathing the air of the ancient lumbers... It had been a perfect world.

  Berlin walked away from the viewer. Time to go home.

  “Are you watching this?”

  Task turned from his targeting monitor. “Nothing else to watch down there.”

  “If he becomes contaminated—”

  “Nothing. If he becomes contaminated, they’ll leave him on the surface. The shit works too fast to save them from it, anyways. He’d never make it back to the command vessel.”

  “Aren’t they concerned about the nears, though? They could catch a hybrid of the silver and spread it to the next planet they pacify.”

  “Something tells me these nears are on a one-way mission. They’ll never make it off this planet again. Cheaper to burn them on the spot.”

  Elle almost-frowned. It was as much of a look of concern as the Co-Pilot could create on a plastic face.

  “No worries, Elly baby. We’re not going downstairs on this trip.”

  “Do you think it’ll matter? We’ve been in this atmosphere for—”

  “I’ll take care of us. Don’t worry about it.”

  They flew.

  Echoes of the music of their bond ceremony. Laughter from family and friends. The softness of the small of her back, muscles under softest flesh as he pulled her closer.

  The skyline was intact. Mostly.

  Berlin’s lander slammed to the ground. He swayed from within his jar. The nears remained upright, remained still. They sparkled to life as hangar doors opened and the interior of the bay was flooded with the maybe-contaminated atmosphere of City Seven.

  “Readings are negative on silver, Commandant.”

  Berlin walked down the platform, nears fanning out before him, weapons drawn, scanning the dead landscape for movement, heat sources, anything. Stillness, cold, nothing.

  Berlin’s jar slurped as he walked forward, dragging the phased glass filter that enveloped his form lazily around him. Particles of metal dust from the breeze stippled the surface, sending wave patterns outward, bouncing from one another, fronts on the weather map of his protective suit. The same metal breeze began to scour the flesh from the nears outside of the lander. They were expendable. Berlin was not.

  “Are you receiving, sir?”

  “Yes.” The glass distorted his voice into tin and refraction. It echoed back from a universe of liquid prisms.

  “Readings are negative, but we’ll pull you out at the first sign of any—”

  Berlin cut the link. Enough talking. The nears would not bother him with conversation.

  The wind whispered. The wind whispered. Constant hiss, the lamentations of a dead populace just beyond the edge of the senses. He made out a word every now and then, the most unlikely messages from the dead: phallus and gringo and burlap and synecdoche and shingles. God crochets a warship and I don’t ever want to see you again. And. You pretend to be intense. And. Philtrum. Nancy. Berlin closed his eyes and it was gone. It was never there. It was

  The days had been longer when this had been his home.

  There had been seasons; winter had only been one of them. A little park where the lander now towered over leaf-less forest. The legs and ramp had splintered the old souls in resting. There had been a park; now there was a slab of black metallish and a detachment of non-humans and a man drowning in protective glass.

  And this heart, for you.

  The trees had not impressed her when compared to the lumbers, but this had been the one place where she had felt truly at ease on Planet One: a sliver of green life interjected into gray city, one lone voice in the screaming of civilization.

  You are an ideal. Not really there.

  Park left behind, walking down abandoned streets. He found people there. Berlin’s hearts broke; the tiny silvered forms of children, flesh replaced with

  The nears surrounded him in a protective formation, although there really was nothing here from which to protect him. It would be impossible now to even prevent the infestation of the silver in his bloodstream if their readings had been wrong. The glass would prevent his fragile human flesh from being stripped away in metal winds, but it would do nothing to prevent a universe of machines from stealing his

  Walking and walking. The landing party followed Berlin’s lead as he went around a corner, stopped at the sight before him. Several blocks down the street, many of the buildings had been clipped off midway up, and the rubble filled the street below. No fire anymore, although there obviously had been. Dozens of half-fallen towers, sterile in this cold. There were silver bodies.

  a loss so

  Berlin walked toward the collapsed part of City Seven, his eyes locked on the tower where he had last seen his family.

  There are no tears in phased glass.

  “Do you smoke?”

  It wasn’t a glare. Hannon didn’t believe that she had the energy to consciously create a glare to thrust at him. Her lifesigns were barely on-scale as it was.

  “Do you mind?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer but lit the smoker, sat back in his chair. The wall of phase shielding barely distorted her
features. He was glad to sit back; his hair returned to resting position.

  “Do you speak?”

  One corner of her mouth turned up at his question, but her eyes remained locked on the tabletop between them.

  “Berlin’s on the surface as we speak. As I speak.”

  She gave no indication that she even recognized the name. Right hand gently traced fingertips over tabletop.

  “We know that he was with you in the beginning.”

  Her hand came to rest, withdrew to her lap.

  “Yeah. We’ve known for quite some time.”

  She opened her mouth, eyes still down. Her mouth closed as she reconsidered.

  “He has no idea. We could leave him down there, you know.”

  Her eyes closed.

  Hannon exhaled smoke and leaned forward again, forced smile on his face. “We won’t. He’ll just go with you after sentencing.”

  She looked Hannon in the eyes for the first time. “Go?”

  He inhaled the smoker. “Just a little trip. We can’t kill you, but we can’t keep you here to try this again.”

  Flicker of inaudible conversation. Hannon tapped his neck to cut the link. He crushed his smoker on the tabletop and stood.

  “Sleep well, sweet Maire. Sentencing is tomorrow.”

  Hannon left his side of the room, and the phase shielding faded to black, leaving Maire alone with her thoughts.

  sleep well.

  the in-dark answers with wind

  do you? you know. you do.

  the way that she warmed him, trees above and nothing below, forest of sky and intruding stars wondering from

  Botanist.

  internal tides of

  “We can escape. We can

  He’d known the child. Not known, but he knew who the boy had been, the little slivered, silvered boy, mimicking in uncertain gesture the children of a Pompeii of another world not yet born. A playmate of his son, beautiful son, now pressed to the sidewalk, arm shielding face, but he knew the boy. Not knew, but he knew who the boy had been.