by J. S. Bailey
The Greens remained unmoving. It was like trying to strike up a conversation with a garden.
The buzz of an approaching quad made his head turn, and he caught sight of Carolyn, still in her pajamas, weaving her way through the battle’s aftermath. She parked beside Dalton and dismounted with a grunt. “I’ve requested medical assistance from Paris,” she said.
“Good.”
“They’re sending over ten doctors and five nurses, plus a bus full of supplies. They said they’ll be here by sundown. Now what can I do for all of you?” She looked up at the Greens, hands on her hips, and one stepped forward with two arms extended—one for her, and one for Dalton.
Dalton remembered hands like those wrenching his old right arm from his body.
“It wants to communicate with you, Dalton,” Carolyn said. “It knows you hold some level of authority here.”
“And how does it know that?”
“Because it can see inside my head. Just touch it, Dalton. They’re not going to hurt you.”
“But my family . . . ”
“These Greens have never even been to Piney Gulch. Now please. Can we just get this over with?”
He hated her in that moment, but he knew she was right. He reached out his hand. The Green’s twiggy fingers curled around it—
—and his mind opened as if a lid had been pried off of it. He saw lush forests where Greens danced until his thoughts snapped back to the moment at hand.
“Thank you for helping us,” Carolyn said to the Green who had greeted them. “Your people fought bravely today.”
We lost fourteen of the People, said a voice inside Dalton’s head that made him recoil, though it was less of a voice and more of a succession of ideas that approximated a voice. We will mourn them.
“I’m very sorry,” Carolyn said. “Will you be going home now, or did it burn?”
Our home is in the southern forests, which the demons have not yet touched. Our brethren from the north have been joining us.
“I don’t understand why you helped us,” Dalton said, sounding a bit sourer than he probably should have. “The Verdants wanted to kill all of us. Shouldn’t you have wanted that?”
Your kind does not harm us in the desert. The foolish People who invaded your city should not have done so.
“That doesn’t explain why you helped us.”
The new demons would have defiled our sacred lands with . . . Dalton couldn’t detect the word, but he had the sudden mental image of barns and tilled fields sprouting vegetables.
“You didn’t want the Verdants to establish farms?” he said.
None who are not the People may set foot in our forests or plains. Our lands are sacred. The desert is damnation. We do not care if your People live in the desert, for it is a hell we enter only when necessary.
“But, farms.” This still did not fully compute in Dalton’s mind. “The Verdants wipe out colonies and plant farms?”
It is an abomination.
“All right, all right. So the Verdants are hypocrites. You could have attacked the Verdants after they wiped all the humans off the planet. Then you wouldn’t have had to worry about any of us bloody humans again.”
We are being kind.
“What?” He spat the word as if it had a bitter taste.
We could have done as you just said. But we are being kind.
“Wait just a minute,” Carolyn said. “After all of this, you still don’t want us to go to the forests?”
There came a long pause. That was never part of our agreement.
“But I thought as a show of solidarity between us, we might be able to visit each other. You send ambassadors here, we send ambassadors there. Establish trade, or something.”
We do not need you. It is only because of our kindness that you live.
Dalton opened his mouth to speak, but every Green turned by some unspoken signal and shuffled one by one out of the town square. The citizens holding flamethrowers kept them at the ready but did not fire.
“I’ll be damned,” Carolyn said.
“That makes two of us.”
“I really thought this tribe might be able to work with us indefinitely.”
“If I don’t see another one of them again, I’ll be a happy person.”
“But Dalton, they helped us.”
“Yeah. One bloody tribe out of how many? And look at all of this!” He pointed at a row of sheet-draped bodies that a handful of citizens were stacking onto a flatbed lorry. “Is this what we want for our town?”
“We would all be dead otherwise,” Carolyn said coldly. “And you know it. We fought, we had help, and we won. Don’t you get it? We won.”
It felt like a hollow victory.
“Have you seen Chumley yet?” he asked, to change the subject.
“No.” Carolyn blew a strand of hair out of her mouth, then put a hand on her stomach. “God, I’m hungry. Do you want anything?”
Dalton’s appetite had fled with the Greens. “I’ve got things to do.”
He turned away from her and chose a random direction to set off in, his thoughts in a muddled daze. He passed a bloodied group of Verdant prisoners, saw a young girl passing out food and bottled water to people on the streets, and froze when he saw a South Asian man talking animatedly to a reporter for Richport’s measly news outlet.
He took five steps closer to the man, and his heart sank when he realized it was not Chumley Fanshaw, but Dhruv Das, who worked at the law firm that had handled the estates of many of those lost at Piney Gulch—Chumley and Dhruv had similar builds.
Dalton’s fists clenched, and he stomped past them, continuing on his way.
Dalton eventually found his way back to his home, which had been completely untouched by the battle, as it lay at the far end of town. He let himself inside, hung up his coat and hat, and rolled up his gray shirtsleeves, then stared at the empty room.
After Piney Gulch, when Dalton lay in the infirmary having his arm regrown in a tank, he thought he’d finally learned the meaning of loneliness. There was no Darneisha at his side to give him moral support, there was no Kendra or Imani to giggle and fidget in the hospital room while they waited for their daddy to get better.
He couldn’t call his brother Rob to tell him how bloody miserable he felt. He couldn’t brood to his parents that his world had ended, and he couldn’t ask his cousins to smuggle spirits into the hospital for him.
Cadu, who had been a couple years ahead of him in school and remained a friendly acquaintance more than an actual friend, surprised him by coming to see him in the infirmary, bringing in a portable screen and forcing Dalton to watch something called Star Wars, which was performed in such an archaic version of English that they had to use the subtitles to understand it. Luke, the main character, lost his aunt and uncle and barely batted an eye. Dalton decided immediately that Luke was not to be trusted. When normal people lost loved ones, they did not go off on epic space quests, except perhaps for revenge.
When the ancient film concluded, they’d chatted for a while, and Cadu casually mentioned that Sheriff Sondhi would be retiring soon, and Cadu dreaded to see what kind of pompous young sheriff would replace him. Dalton had had no reply and drifted off to sleep.
No, the true meaning of loneliness was when you were discharged from the infirmary with a new arm and a clean bill of health, and you got to go home.
What was home, when the people who belonged there were gone?
Dalton peeled off his boots and his clothes and went into the shower to get the grime off of him, not completely sure why he felt so broken now. Maybe it was because Chumley had given him some measure of companionship these last few days. Chumley hadn’t known him before Piney Gulch, so there was no unspoken expectation that Dalton should just get over what had happened and be a normal person.
He stepped
onto the bathmat and toweled off, then grimaced at the man in the mirror. He ran a hand over the stubble on his chin and said to hell with it.
He climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling until he fell asleep.
Chapter 28
The next day passed, but if asked to recall the tiny details, Dalton couldn’t have said much about them. He chatted with Carolyn—Errin had been conspicuously absent—and patrolled the streets to see if he could be useful. Every citizen but him seemed to have something important to do. People cleared away rubble, patched up damaged buildings, and solemnly gathered the dead.
The brig held forty-one prisoners. Seventeen were Haa’la miners, including Ashi’ii (or so he’d been told), and the remaining twenty-four were what was left of the Verdants.
Interestingly, six of the Verdant prisoners were human. Cadu had performed a cursory census on the lot when they’d all been brought in, but Dalton didn’t have the energy or willpower to look at any of them. It was their fault there’d been a bloody battle. Putting Dalton in the same room as all of them would not end well.
Dalton did do something later that day that surprised even him.
He sat in his office and called Summer on his comm.
“Hi,” he said, his stomach tight.
“Dalton?” Summer sounded startled. “I didn’t think you’d call.”
“Just wanted to see how you were doing. I assume you made it home before the fighting started?”
“I did.” She paused for a long time. “I thought about turning back and helping . . . but I just couldn’t do it.”
“I hear you.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” Dalton let out a breath and imagined both Darneisha and his brother Rob standing in the corner with folded arms, intimidating him into doing the right thing. “Listen, I was thinking, maybe we could get together sometime. Talk about old times.”
“Really?” Summer laughed.
“How does next Saturday sound? You can stop on by my place for dinner.”
“I’d be glad to.”
“It’s not a date,” Dalton added.
“Oh, gosh, no! You and I, together? That would be like an antimatter explosion.”
At least there were no misunderstandings there. “I’ll see you on Saturday,” he said, and ended the call.
On the morning of the second day, Dalton felt marginally more like his miserable bastard self and made of pot of his terrible coffee in his office. He glowered at the filing cabinet in the corner, willing all of his problems away, when there came a soft rap at the door.
“Come in,” he barked, straightening his shoulders.
The door opened. It was Errin, holding a datapad and looking freshly-showered. Their sandy hair had been cut shorter to get the burns out and glistened as if they’d just styled it with mousse.
“Good morning,” Errin said.
“Good morning.” Dalton squinted at them. “How are you holding up?”
“I didn’t think it was your custom to ask about other people’s wellbeing.”
“Consider me soft at heart. Don’t tell anyone.”
Errin’s lips formed a wry smirk. “I’m coping. But I came in to give you some reports Carolyn wanted to share with you. She’s still been trying to contact the Feds. Apparently most of their operators are busy.”
“What are the reports? And sit down, you don’t need to keep standing there like a member of the waitstaff.”
Errin blushed and pulled out a chair. Once settled, they said, “As far as we can tell, the death toll of our citizens currently stands at one hundred and ninety-seven. I can read you a list of names.”
Dalton felt sick. “That isn’t necessary. But . . . ” He dreaded to ask it, but he had to. “Chumley. Has anyone . . . found him?”
Errin scrolled through the list on the datapad screen and shook their head. “Three of the bodies haven’t been identified, but they don’t match his description.”
Dalton bit his lower lip in sheer frustration. “Have there been any reports of a hamster running around anywhere?”
A crease formed between Errin’s eyebrows. “A hamster?”
“Little furry thing, runs around on a wheel.”
“There have been no reports about hamsters.” Errin frowned. “Are you all right?”
Dalton could feel an invisible hand squeezing his heart. No, he wasn’t all right. Chumley was dead—he just knew it. He must have died in hamster form during the battle. They would probably never even find his body.
Instead of answering, he said, “What are the other reports?”
“FCU contacted Carolyn’s office this morning. They’ll be making their way back here sometime today.”
Dalton had already forgotten about bloody FCU. “I suppose they’ll be telling us what wonderful sorts of gifts they’ll be bestowing us with.”
“I suppose so.” Errin’s gaze went out of focus, appearing reflective. “What would you want them to give us? I mean, really. I don’t mean air conditioners.”
Dalton put a hand on his chin. “What I’d like,” he said at length, “is to have some way to protect us all against bastard alien scum. For all we know, Nydo Base is still up and running. One of Ashi’ii’s people can call in reinforcements from Leeprau, and they’ll just start looting and setting fires again.”
“Not if Carolyn gets through to the Feds in time.”
“Let’s hope she does, then. I can’t handle this kind of thing again.”
“You did well, though. Organizing us like you did.”
“I spent half the bloody battle tied up in Gurmeet Singh’s kitchen. How is he, by the way?”
Errin scrolled through the datapad. “His name isn’t on a list of the dead.”
“What about Lennox McTavish?”
“He’s not on it, either.”
“Good,” Dalton said. Then, “Are you busy right now?”
Errin glanced up in surprise. “Not particularly. Why?”
“How about you come and help me find a hamster?”
“I wish you’d tell me why we’re doing this,” Errin said as they and Dalton picked through the rubble of the Verdant ship that had gone kablooey. “It makes you seem unstable, no offense.”
“It’s not my place to tell you.”
“So you’re keeping a hamster’s secrets.”
“That’s right.”
Errin kicked over a warped chunk of metal. “Are you sure you don’t need a medical evaluation?”
“I’m fine.” Dalton lifted up a tangle of singed wires and tossed it aside. They’d been digging through the mess for half an hour now, and hadn’t found so much as a rodent hair.
Maybe there was no point in keeping Chumley’s secret. If Chumley was dead, then it didn’t matter that he’d had an illegal procedure performed on him.
If Chumley was dead . . .
Dalton sat back on his heels, hot tears burning the corners of his eyes. “Chumley can turn himself into a fecking hamster,” he said.
Errin straightened, mouth open. “He what?”
“You heard me. He wouldn’t want me telling anyone, but . . . ” Dalton’s gaze traveled across the rubble and the ravaged street beyond it. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“I’m very sorry,” Errin said softly.
“I hardly even knew him!” Dalton stood again and kicked a hunk of ship that made his foot sting through his boot. “But he didn’t deserve to die like this.”
“No,” Errin said. “He didn’t.”
Their comm crackled. “Errin? Have you talked to Dalton yet?” It was Carolyn.
“I have.” Errin gave him a sidelong glance. “Right now I’m . . . helping him clear some debris. Did you need me for anything?”
“Just tell him FCU is due back here in an hour and a half—they just updated me.
I’d like him to be there. And I finally got through to the Feds. Would you believe they told me someone turned in a tip about Nydo Base two days ago while the battle was going on?”
“And they didn’t do anything about it?” Dalton snapped.
“They said the person wouldn’t provide an electronic address, so they thought it was a hoax.”
Dalton couldn’t believe it, but then again, he could. He was about to muster up some sort of snide reply when he caught sight of a family of three disembarking from a nearby flat—mother, father, and little girl, who gripped a cage against her chest.
Without thinking, Dalton broke into a run toward them. The family halted, giving him wary looks.
“Good morning, Sheriff,” said the man, who had a butterfly closure sealing part of his forehead shut. “Can we help you?”
Dalton looked down at the cage. A hamster nestled inside it. The creature was mostly white, with brown markings.
“Where are you taking that?” he asked, his heart thumping in disbelief.
“To the vet,” said the little girl. “We found him outside our door when the fighting stopped, but he looks sad and won’t eat.”
“The vet says they’re open,” said the mother. “We checked.”
Dalton stared at the hamster. The hamster stared up at him, its beady eyes gleaming.
“I’ll take it from you,” Dalton said. “Give you the day off so you can relax. You live here?” He nodded at the building behind them.
“That’s right,” said the father. “But you don’t have to do that; we’re fully capable of—”
“Sheriff’s orders. I’ll get this little fellow taken care of and have him back to you by the end of the day. I’ll even pay for his, erm, treatment.”
The little girl looked up at her parents, who nodded. She passed the cage to Dalton and stepped back. “I named him Mister Skweeks,” she said.
“I’ll make sure the vet takes good care of Mister Skweeks,” Dalton said solemnly. “Now you folks try to go and enjoy yourselves, if you can.”
He strode away from them, and Errin fell into step beside him. Once the two of them had rounded a corner onto another street, Errin said, “Is that him?”