Archangel

by Marguerite Reed

  “She’s a spy.”

  I goggled at him. I looked around at the beach, at the surrounding arboros, at the yellow-throats and goobies settling down again on the lake with raspy complaints, at the waterfall rushing into the basin as busily and joyously as my toddler. “What the hell does she think she’s going to see out here?”

  He said nothing, did nothing except look imperturbable. For all that he disgusted and frightened me, I had to admit to myself that he had a lovely mouth. I gestured sharply toward the table. “Pick a rifle, then.”

  The hot afternoon melted into a twilight as exquisite as the morning had been. The sun illuminated a dome that was the sky become a lamp of gold and lavender. For all the singing light, for all the subtle and yet lavish color over which Zhádāo and Bearce exclaimed, the Beast’s words like a fog of condensation dimmed my enjoyment.

  She’s a spy.

  We chose a couple of giant conifers, not very far into the arboros, for our tent site. I checked my GPS for large animals, and once I declared the area clear, Zhádāo and I got one tent set up. Having watched us, the Beast quickly set up the other one: he slung the line, as thick as my wrist, over a stout limb fifteen meters horizontal to the ground, and then hauled the tent up, hand over hand. I held the line still while he wound the finial around the trunk and clipped it securely. We horsed up the third one while Bearce and Zhádāo watched. When we had finished, three gauzy pyramids hung like angular fruit from the branches. From the apex, where the line clipped, four thermoplastic struts fanned outward to meet the rectangular floor of the tent. A soft bolster framed the edge; at almost a meter in diameter, it was sufficient protection against rolling out of bed in one’s sleep. A curtain of polyfiber mesh shrouded over all, giving the tents a delicate gossamer appearance against the sky. Three rope ladders descended to the arboros floor.

  “That’s nice,” Zhádāo said, her voice soft. I looked sharply at her: she had finally removed the air mask. Bearce wandered beneath the tents in circles, filming them and not watching his step.

  “Zhádāo and I can stand up in the center with no problem,” I said, the usual client-patter emanating from my mouth. “Bearce, you might have to stoop a bit. Beast . . .” I looked him up and down. “You’ll have to crouch.”

  “Don’t think so.” He stood with his hands behind his back, looking up at the tents.

  “Oh?”

  “We’re staying down here.”

  “That’s not a terribly good idea,” I said. “Just because most of these lifeforms are ectothermic doesn’t mean some of them don’t hunt when the sun’s down.” Blank expressions met this statement. “Cold-blooded,” I said.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Bearce asked.

  “An ectothermic lifeform relies on the environment to regulate its body temperature. Those little fellows you saw out on the lake rely on the sun to keep them warm. You won’t find them on the lake at night, or in water any deeper than a meter or so. But the big ones, the hunters—the besoras, the rippers, the varanid—”

  The Beast shook his head. “We’ll be fine.”

  “You’ll do what Commander Loren says,” Zhádāo said.

  He flinched at the sound of her voice, actually flinched; and his face tightened into a horrible scowl, the muscles of his jaw and neck tensing.

  “Hey, hey—hold on—” I cocked my head and smiled, as if this could not possibly have any repercussions. “Zhádāo. Fun. Remember?”

  “But he’s—”

  “He’s my assistant. If he wants to sleep on the ground, he can. I severely don’t recommend it, but I’m sure he’ll become alerted to the issues involved.”

  “And if one of us said we wanted to sleep on the ground, would you allow it?” Bearce asked.

  “No, I wouldn’t. You two aren’t walking weapons. He is.”

  Despite the hours of inactivity, I was tired; Bearce and Zhádāo looked exhausted. It took no convincing to call an early bedtime. Bearce quite cheerfully climbed up to his tent, laden with a blanket and his personal toilet. Zhádāo fiddled about in the hut, trying to wring a bath from the day’s ration of water.

  The Beast wrapped himself in a plastifiber blanket and settled himself against the bole of the conifer that I’d chosen for my tent. He looked no less comfortable than I’d ever seen him, but I squatted in front of him, at a judicious distance.

  “You sure about this?” I said, my voice low. “I’m not kidding about nocturnal hunters.” Ah, but wouldn’t my job be done for me then?

  I heard amusement in his voice. “You’re the one who said we were a walking weapon.”

  We regarded each other. Calm, placid, tractable—none of these adjectives I ever would’ve thought applicable to a Beast—and yet so far on the trip he’d been less of a problem to me than my client. Biding his time, I thought.

  “Thinking about running?” I asked.

  He uttered the gravelly bark that passed for a laugh. “Where would we run to, Dr. Loren?”

  “Away. Just—away. Anything’s got to be better than prison, right?”

  Above us Bearce fiddled with his lantern; the light sliced across the forest floor. The Beast’s eyes blazed. “Absolutely anything.”

  “What’s to stop you from killing us all in our sleep, calling Joop, killing him, and stealing the VeeTOL?”

  “That’s a nasty suspicious mind you’ve got there. We told you. We’re Ferrum, Dr. Loren; we’re stable.”

  Not too smart of him to remind me of what had happened in the medbay. “That means nothing to me,” I said. “Maybe you’ve got some kind of rendezvous set up. Maybe you and Moira—”

  The expression on his face, of infinite patience with an idiot, stopped me.

  “What’s it going to take to win your trust, Dr. Loren?”

  I looked away, down. I dropped my right hand to the arboros floor and dug my fingers into the blanket of fresh needles, decaying needles, dirt. It all sifted through my fingers as I lifted my hand, leaving a multiped to crawl bemusedly across my thumb. With a puff of breath I sent the tiny insectiform floating to the ground.

  “Your head on a stick.” Your perfectly beautiful head.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Suspended, I flew. Between sky and earth, dreaming and daylight, I flew. I might have been in the VeeTOL. I might have been catching the edge of a thermal while Lasse looked on from below. Eventually unwelcome consciousness seeped in.

  And smashed my sleep to pieces as I registered a bubbling, guttural growl, a shout, a scrabbling rustle.

  I unbuckled myself from the sleeper belt with one hand and grabbed the Justin with the other. I knew that gurgle, that congested hiss; I knew the speed, size, and kilos per centimeter of pressure that went with it. I slapped on the lantern. The dim light revealed the expected.

  Below me circled two animals. The one went on two legs, soft-footed, deliberate as a dancer; the other on four, sleek low body inflated so that it looked nearly a third again its usual size, the thick yet whippy tail arcing up. I saw the glint of the knife in the man’s hand, and the blanket draped over his left arm. I saw the heavy, bone-frilled head of the varanid, with the jaws that could deliver one hundred forty kilos of pressure per square centimeter. I lifted the Justin and sighted, the muzzle of the gun poking through the tent flap. Through the infra-red scope the crimson dot slid over the varanid’s skull.

  Shit. From this angle, the slug would merely slam into a two-centimeter thick horny plate. But I could stop it. I chambered a slug and tossed the rope ladder out of the tent.

  “Run,” I called, my voice low, carrying. “Ladder. A meter behind you.”

  The Beast slung the blanket at the varanid’s head. It rushed forward, and while it worried the fabric, whipping its head back and forth, the Beast turned and sprinted for the ladder. I squeezed the trigger.

  Dirt exploded in front of the varanid. The gun’s voice cracked through the arboros. The Beast caught the ladder and the tent dipped violently.

  I fell
. I tumbled right over the bolster and head-first out of the fucking tent, nine meters above the ground. The scream tore from my throat. I flailed wildly, everything hideously clear in the tossing lantern light: the variegated carpet of the forest floor, the varanid humped up in threat posture, the Beast right below me.

  I had time to think maybe I can take him out when I land before he caught me. It seemed as if he reached up and plucked me out of the air, right as he threw himself back to lessen the shock of my impact. I felt the breath go out of him in a grunt and then we rolled. Sobbing, I found myself on top of him, just as I had been in the medbay. I no longer held the Justin, but I had slept with the knife strapped to my thigh. I yanked it from its sheath.

  “Christ!” He flung up his hand.

  In all of the terror, disorientation, and unnerving sudden physical contact with my enemy, I was prepared to jam the blade right into his throat.

  With a phlegmy bellow, the varanid charged.

  I had time enough to swing my leg up, across, over the Beast’s head, and kick the varanid right in the teeth. It seized my foot and began shaking me. My knife went flying. I had seen a varanid do this with a wulanghari before, a thrashing motion designed to immobilize, if not actually break, its prey.

  Voices called above me—my clients. Either my fear or theirs garbled the words so I had no sense of them.

  I thought the animal was going to tear my shin right out of my kneecap. I kicked it with my other foot, jabbing my booted heel at its nostrils. In my agony I heard myself crying out.

  Something large moved in a blur to my left. The Beast. He straddled the varanid, crouched, and grabbed its upper jaw in both hands. He could not stop it, but he could slow it down. Slowly, slowly, he forced its mouth open. My foot slid within my boot. Lances of pain seared my knee and my ankle, but I jerked my foot free from the boot, and the boot itself slipped free.

  With a speed that made me sick to my stomach, the Beast slipped his hands from his precarious grip and caught the reptile’s jaws, both upper and lower, in a double-forearm grip. Bubbles of saliva foamed and popped at the edge of its mouth.

  “We got it,” the Beast grunted. “What do we do with it?” The varanid scrabbled with its feet; the Beast leaned back until the claws were off the ground.

  “Hold him,” I panted. “Hold him.” Knee yelling pain, I found the blanket that had briefly baffled the animal. Now I stood, and managed to hobble across the short distance.

  Zhádāo was yelling in what I guessed was Chinese. I could not spare a look back to check on her and Bearce, but it sounded as if they were still in their tent. Smart. Let Bearce get all the footage he could, if the damn thing could record in this light.

  The Beast dropped to a half-lying, half-sitting position on the animal, bearing down on its head. Its thick tail beat from side to side, and I saw the thinner hide on its dun throat tremble with its muffled vocalizations.

  “Gonna wrap the blanket around its head,” I said. “Snugly. So it’ll take some time to get out of it. Then you and I run for the ladder. You take the other fucking ladder, all right?”

  I tried not to touch him as I wound the blanket around the reptile’s eyes, but it was unavoidable, especially the way my hands shook. Threading the fabric between his arms and his chest meant brushing against him. I felt my lips peeling back against my clenched teeth. I told myself the grimace was one of concentration.

  “Done,” I said, when I’d sufficiently blinded the reptile and wrapped its upper jaws. “On my count—three—two—one—”

  For the second time in twenty-four hours I found myself racing. For deadly stakes this time, and this time I hurt much worse. I made myself run as if I had two whole legs, locking the pain in my throat for the three meters to the ladder. Go, go, you can make it, just a bit more. The ladder hung tantalizingly out of reach. Fire sheeted the nerves along my left leg; I prayed that it held me for a moment more. I heard the varanid grumbling behind me. With another jarring stride the ladder loomed in front of me, and I jumped for it.

  My fingers felt too weak to grip. I got my good foot braced on a rung one meter above the ground, and wound my arms through, hugging the ladder as if I were a lemur on a storm-tossed branch. Gasping for breath, I was content for the moment to stay there.

  The Beast, I saw, had not made it much further up his ladder. He was watching me, not the varanid. Smart man. The varanid would leave—it was clawing the last of the blanket from its head—but I wouldn’t. And my knife and my rifle lay like grim treasures in the leaf litter.

  Can’t kill him now, I thought, tangled in the ladder. The adrenaline seeped from my body, leeching it of energy. I felt exhausted to the point of damn near drooling. The varanid was doing better than I was, for after freeing itself of the blanket, it humped up into a threat posture, screeched, and proceeded to search for us. It crawled over every centimeter of the clearing, not quite waddling in its sinuous lateral gait, sifting the leaves with its long blue tongue. After what felt like an hour to my limbs, it came to some reptilian decision and ambled into the underbrush. I waited until the noise of its progress faded, and then gingerly descended the ladder. When my feet touched bottom, I fell down.

  It felt absolutely fine to simply lie there. When I heard more anxious halloos from overhead, I flapped a hand. “I’m fine,” I called, whether to Zhádāo or Bearce I couldn’t tell—and didn’t care. “Just my day for falling down. I’ll be up in a moment.”

  “What the hell was it?” Bearce. More excited than concerned, I thought.

  A neutron star had replaced my knee. Hot, dense, pulsing. When I started to sit up, my stomach rebelled and I lowered myself back to the ground, shaking. Tough girl. You want to explain to UBI why they had to choke up a refund?

  “Gimme a minute,” I hollered. I rolled my head to the left, and saw the Justin, merely a meter away. Relief washed a good deal of the nausea away. I rolled over and grabbed it, the way Bibi might grab her cuddly toy, and when I heard the footsteps behind me, I swung back and up to a sitting position, shortening my grip on the rifle, the muzzle pointed at the Beast.

  He looked tired. He spoke, and for the first time, I heard an identifiable emotion in his voice. “Yeah, you got us. Now let us look at that knee.” He dropped to a squat in front of me.

  I tracked him with the rifle. “Don’t touch me,” I said.

  “You leave the remote up in the tent?”

  “A slug with your number on it works just as good.”

  He ran his hand over his face, a gesture I’d seen him use once before in his cell. “Dr. Loren—”

  “Get your mouth off my name.”

  “You’re injured.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  His voice dropped. “You want that jumped-up keystroker to look at it? Or maybe Viddie Boy can climb down here and upload some tasty pics of you in pain while he pokes at it. Now come on,” and his hand actually touched my leg, sliding the loose leg of my sleeping-pants up my calf, “and let’s look at it.”

  I pulled the trigger.

  The shot ripped off past his ear. In the wake of sound we stared at each other. His hand remained on my leg.

  “Get off me or the next one goes into your skull.” My voice sounded small, tinny, as if heard over a faulty ansible. I wasn’t sure if he’d even heard me, but then he moved back slowly, hands lifted in a placating gesture.

  “It beats grabbing our balls. Look, Dr. Loren, we are not here to hurt you.”

  “What the fuck are you here for?”

  Zhádāo’s voice cut across whatever answer he might have given me. “What the hell is going on?”

  I looked up to the third tent, where I saw her and Bearce peeking down at us, the tent tipped at a worrisome angle. I hoped they were being more careful than I had been. Waving at them with my left hand, I kept my right on the rifle. “This is why I get the big bank,” I called cheerily. “We had a little discussion with a lizard. Nothing to worry about, though.”

  “I saw it! Ar
e you hurt?” she called.

  “I’ve got a sprained medial collateral ligament, and my ankle’s bruised.”

  “Why’d you shoot?” Bearce asked. “Did you shoot the—the lizard?”

  “Did you have your retinal up?”

  “Yes! Yes, I do, but the image’ll have to be enhanced later.”

  “Sorry about that: the lantern’s damn dim.” Time enough until the footage was lightened, and by then, he would be dead.

  “I didn’t shoot the varanid, but O-389 got a little fresh. I had to tell him I’m not that kind of girl.” I saw the surreptitious look the Beast gave me, but I ignored it.

  My wave turned into a dismissive flutter. “Go on, you two. I want you to rest. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day, and you’d better be able to keep up with me.”

  “Are you sure . . . Vashti?” Zhádāo persisted. “What can I do to help?”

  “You got any alcohol on you?”

  Her tone changed to guarded alarm. “Didn’t you bring any disinfectant?”

  “I’ve got plenty, General. What I need is a drink.”

  “Disinfectant is better for you,” Zhádāo said.

  “Absolutely. Now go to sleep. That light’ll be off in just a nano.”

  When her head retreated from view, I looked at the Beast. He half-kneeled, half squatted by me, hands clasped on one thigh, looking for all the world as if he awaited instruction from me.

  “You’re still here,” I said.

  “You want to walk again, you need to treat that right now.”

  “I know,” I muttered. The ladder to my tent seemed a full klik away. I thought about walking to it, about climbing it. No time like the present. I tucked my right leg beneath me and started to rise, using the rifle as a cane.

  “No,” he said. “Goddammit, what are you doing?”

  “Everything I need is in my tent. Unless they engineered you with a medkit sealed in your abdomen . . . ?”

  “We’ll get it for you.” He uncoiled and strode to the ladder. Giving me ample time, ample targets. Was he so sure of himself?