Heretics (Stars Edge: Nel Bently Book 4)

by V. S. Holmes

  “Hey,” Nel caught Lin’s hand. “I’m alright, really. Mild concussion. Jem sent me instructions and I’ve had more than a few concussions in my day.”

  “Maybe stop bashing through things headfirst.” The worry in the letnan’s eyes weighed the tease.

  “Funny, Dr. Ndebele was complaining about me doing just that.” Nel shifted to the shower, wincing as the scalding water hit the scrapes too minor to warrant a healing pad. She tilted her head back, grateful to have a moment where tears could fall, unwitnessed. The door slid open a second later and Lin stepped in, offering a smile.

  Memories flashed of a different shower, a different aftermath, a different ordeal. Nel wondered if the past twelve hours aged her face the two years she had missed. “Hey.”

  Lin dumped cleanser into her hand and motioned for Nel to turn around. Her hands were gentle ghosts on Nel’s scalp. “Death and explosions aside, how’d it go today? At the site.”

  “Found some stuff. Felt nice to be back on a site again. Even if it's more forensics than archaeology.” She grimaced at the memory of Moe’s friendliness. “Saw a Reaper strike a bit too close for comfort. You?”

  “Busy. We isolated a few potentials, with the signal, given the timing. But there’s some anomalies when we ran the search…” She trailed off, eyes glazing. Then she made a face. “Ugh, as much as I love working with her—and it’s a real privilege, don’t get me wrong—but Dr. Ndebele is such a stickler. Triple-checking everything.”

  “I guess it’s good to be careful but, yeah, I’d find that frustrating too.”

  “It’s just my stuff,” Lin confessed. “I think the Dar stuff, and, well, you know. Just has everyone thinking I’m the next one who is going to lose it.”

  Nel glanced back. “I don’t hate her—I’m not a fan of rules and sticklers. But I know she’s doing a good job under shit circumstances.”

  “You tell her that?”

  “Not in so many words…” Nel watched dust and a dead man’s blood sluice from her body and spiral down the shower drain. “I owe her an apology. And I am sorry. For my part in it. I didn’t want you to fuck your career up over me.”

  Lin rested her brow on Nel’s shoulder. “You did it for me.”

  “I don’t know how I would have handled things, everything that’s happened down here since I left, I mean. I would have muddled along. But I think I’m getting a bit used to being tossed in the deep end.”

  “I’m getting used to you being here.” Lin pressed her lips to the nape of Nel’s neck. “I’ll let you finish up.”

  The shower wasn’t as warm alone, Nel was loath to admit, and once her skin was devoid of anything other than raw places where she had scrubbed and antibiotic bandages, she emerged from the bathroom.

  Lin was perched on the bed, Nel’s computer open before her. Panic at the intrusion flashed through Nel, but when Lin looked up it was with an embarrassed smile. “I input my credentials for you.”

  “Huh?” Nel toweled her hair off, hating the distrust swirling in her gut.

  “I think IDH’s hesitancy is justified, but not the punishment. You want to do research. And help. And I’m acting just like Dr. Ndebele does with me. Not trusting you. I don’t have high clearance, but it’s better than yours.” She slid the computer across the coverlet. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too. And thanks.” Nel slumped naked onto the bed with an exhausted laugh. “I promise not to look up porn with it.”

  Lin snorted. “Just make it worth the trouble if you do.”

  Nel twined her finger through the damp hair at the base of Lin’s neck. “I’m not supposed to sleep, and I’d really like to not think about IDH, or Reapers, or Founders or anything else, for just a little while.”

  Wordlessly, Lin pulled up her video library and drew Nel against her body.

  THIRTEEN

  Qena was already a mottled splotch on the southern horizon of Nel’s memory. That morning, they had flashed through the Faiyum Oasis, far greener than their journey across the Suez Canal days before. Ahead lay a winding journey along the Nile. Nel had spent most of the preparations drifting in concussed confusion. For once, it was nice to have an excuse not to work. Not to be in the thick of things. I wish we could just go back. Except this was the world she had begged to return to. What was left of it, anyway.

  Nel’s cursory dive into the two-year backlog of news had already exhausted her limited energy.

  Vaccine Approved—Humanitarian Mega Corp IDH Begins Human Trials - Daily Report

  Suspect Arrested for Airborne Kidnappings - Legal Herald of Britain

  Institute for Development of Humanity Co-Chair Named Person of the Year - U.S. Times

  “Copter Kidnapper” Sentenced: 142 years - Judicial Reporter

  Still, she couldn’t tear herself away, frown burrowing deeper with each headline.

  Copter Kidnapper Killed in Prison Riot—Foul Play? - La Perodista

  IDH Co-Chair McNally honored with second Nobel - IDH Informer

  Kidnappings Continue—Copycat or Tragic Mistake? - U.S. Times

  Nel’s eyes ached from the blue glow of her screen. Her head pounded from lack of sleep. Mostly, though, her heart hurt. This was her home. Her planet. Humans are always hot trash, she admitted, closing down the database screen. But this is next level.

  Reapers: The New Plague, and Why IDH Can’t Stop it - Daily Report

  Terrorist Attack in Qena: Sonic Alien Weapons? - The Times of The Hague

  She exited the search and slumped deeper into her unofficial spot at the passenger tables. Here, with the light dimmed by the changing tint in the windows, outside looked warm, welcoming. The car was deserted, save for a hulking young man a few seats up who was absorbed in what Nel suspected might be digi-chess. He chewed on his lower lip for several minutes before lifting a hand to make a move. Without touching the screen, he let his hand drop and returned to his gnawing.

  The train downshifted with a buzz and Nel glanced up, surprised to see the long shadows of afternoon. Ahead, a squat series of shelters lined one side of the tracks, separating the gleaming length of train from the long dusty track winding alongside. Cairo and Giza’s pyramids glittered through the eastern horizon’s haze.

  “Fuel stop?” she asked the air, a moment before realizing light rails didn’t exactly run out of gas.

  The train hissed to a halt, hydraulics lowering its bulk until the single set of stairs unfolding from the passenger cars could reach the ground. Sand settled into stillness. No one waited in the depot’s shade, nor did there seem to be waiting cargo to load up.

  Nel squinted at the horizon. A faint plume of dust drifted between two rises. A dark pinprick shadowed their center. Another minute of waiting brought a line of industrial trucks rumbling into the station. Judging by the nonexistent cabs, most were automated, their hulking shapes seemingly more suited to mine work than long-distance travel. A figure swaddled in cloth and goggles jumped from the cargo area of one of the smaller vehicles, waving at someone in the train’s rear.

  They flipped open a panel on the side of the lead truck, fingers flying over the keys before slamming it shut and locking it once more. They backed up a step, watching as the convoy—connected with long cables and chains, Nel now saw—lurched back onto the track and into the dusty distance. They hauled themselves aboard the train.

  A moment later a dusty woman slumped into the seat across from Nel. Under a layer of grime and sweat her skin was tan. Sun-red streaked her dark hair. The mission operative appeared, brandishing his scanner. She flashed him a card and murmured a few words Nel didn’t understand. Whatever she spoke, it was with the ease of someone fluent or ignorant. Judging by his wordless acquiescing, it was the former.

  A tattered turquoise tank peeked from under the faded collared shirt and white and red keffiyeh. Her legs splayed, boots planted on the floor. Nel hadn't seen shoes that worn since she left Chile. “Nice Redwings.”

  The wo
man’s exhausted gaze settled on Nel. After a beat, her face split into a sunburned grin. “Thanks. Nice moonboots.”

  “Borrowed.” Before Nel could explain away her increased involvement with IDH to a stranger, a new message blinked on her wrist.

  SENDER: Picklestein’s Monster

  SUBJECT: dust to dust

  The archaeology-branded newcomer was shoved out of her mind as she opened the message. Apparently, it was something even Lin’s borrowed credentials couldn’t obtain: project reports on Samsara. Arnav’s voice unspooled in her mind as she read.

  Evidence suggests that while the device in the center of Samsara Ahimsa Mrtyu was indeed designed to open the interior of the planet, this was not its primary function. We have found multiple “dead end” circuits and systems that imply an additional, larger purpose. Additionally, while these systems and that of the gate mechanics themselves use Samsari technology and that of the beings known as the Teachers, they themselves were not the origin for this specific utility, merely an inspiration.

  Biomedical Officer Molly Cass’s examination of what remains of the planet’s surface tells us the desert created in the wake of the initial event is not composed primarily of silicate, as previously thought, but calcium phosphates with trace sodium and potassium salts. Further research will be conducted to confirm speculations as to the origin of these minerals.

  Nel sat back, frowning. Maybe it was the concussion, maybe it was the exhaustion, but Nel could barely make sense of it. So, if the Teachers did not produce it, and IDH did not understand it, and the Founders did not have access to it in the first place…who destroyed Samsara? Who murdered the inhabitants? Who seemed intent to further their attempts on Earth?

  That last thought was a snarl in Nel’s mind. She knew, down to the lacework inside her bones, that these were connected. But the steps weren’t the same. Instead, she felt like whatever was occurring on Earth was new. Further research will be conducted.

  Calcium phosphates. Trace salts. Her thoughts drifted to the two tiny boxes tucked in her luggage, the inorganic dust left behind when someone perfect and mortal was reduced to the base of their bones. Perhaps, in their frantic search for evidence of the Samsari populace, they had excavated through the only thing remaining.

  Nel rose as the woman across from her dropped into enviable sleep. She straightened slowly, giving her bruises the time to stretch before cutting back through the cargo cars. She emerged onto the porch off the caboose.

  Bright sun blazed across the desert, bleaching the world, save for the tiny sliver of shade Nel sequestered for herself at the rear of the train. Bullet holes still peppered its shell, but otherwise it was a welcome escape from what her world had become. At least the sunlight had the decency to be honest in its abrasiveness.

  Maybe it just didn’t matter what happened lightyears away when the soil of her homeland was barren, and all the hopeful infrastructure of the last few years had been shut down. Short of just never flipping a switch back on, what was the recourse?

  “You have a moment, Dr. Bently?”

  She glanced up into Emilio’s warm gaze and for a moment forgot where she was. And when. “Ah, yeah. Sorry. Sure. Here?”

  He chuckled and gestured down the cars. “I got my hands on some Mote con Huesillo. If you want to join me.”

  “Más chileno que el mote con huesillo.” She levered herself from the seat with a grateful sigh. “I could use the break too. I think my screen might be seared into my brain.”

  “That’s the one benefit to needing glasses to see the things,” he confided, tapping the pair of black-framed readers tucked into one of the many pockets of his suit’s chest. “Got the lenses that block different wavelengths.”

  “I should probably adjust my settings…” She trailed off as she stepped through the gangway and into Los Pobladores’ officers’ car. It even sounds different in here, she realized. Emilio’s room was near the front. He nodded to the seats by his window and rested a hand on the door. “Do you mind some privacy?”

  “Not at all.” She watched him slide the door shut and retrieve two glasses from his sink. Like everything on the train, they were gleaming metal, unbreakable and sterile.

  He filled them both, raising his as he handed her the other. “To cooperation.”

  She held his gaze as she took a slow sip. The bite of peach slipped over her tongue, followed by the malt of wheat. His glass clinked on the table and he regarded it, as if expecting it to say more. Another sip saved her the responsibility of breaking the silence.

  When Emilio spoke, it was in Spanish and devoid of pretense. “I suppose it’s foolish to ask how you are.”

  “A bit. Be one of the few who did.”

  His brows twitched and he afforded her the privacy of staring at the table. “It’s lonely work.”

  “I met Max Gamal,” Nel blurted, as much to gain control of the conversation as to confide.

  “I heard.” Emilio grinned. “She’s quite the woman. Did she ask a favor of you?”

  “That’s an unassuming word for double-crossing.”

  “Double-crossing is a strong word for holding IDH to their promises of allyship,” he countered.

  Nel twirled her drink, then took another sip to allow herself time to gather her thoughts. “Did you know she was Mikey’s aunt?”

  “No—I admire Gamal, but I wouldn’t call us close.”

  “She said you were like a brother to her.”

  His expression grew strained. “Perhaps once. She knew mine, the brother I lost.”

  Nel caught the sorrow in his voice, heard its echo in her own. “When you showed up orbiting Samsara, you said you were going to tell me the story. About the caves.”

  His head tilted. “It’s not a story of science, though it might seem so. When the Teachers arrived all those years ago, they intended to stay. Colonize, if you will. The first of many people who would appear on our soil, claiming it was never ours, scattering disease and death with one hand while offering cures and mercy with the other. They came as ghosts. We assumed they were spirits.”

  “Is that where the ngen came from?”

  He snorted. “We knew of spirits well before we ever met the Teachers, but we thought perhaps they were a form of the ngen-kürüf. They offered power, magic honestly. Spiritual power. But they said we had to come with them. Shed our world. Many wanted to go, but many more did not. Leaving would mean giving up our burial places, our sacred hills, all of it. We didn’t need magic and faith and healing. We had those things. When a people are faced with false deities some choose worship. We chose blasphemy.”

  Goosebumps flickered over her biceps and down the small of her back, prickling in the wake of sweat.

  “But then one day we woke and found our children gone. Those who wished to go had snuck out in the night, slipping through the cave systems to the hunting outpost where they first arrived. A place you’re quite familiar with.”

  “Los Cerros Esperanza VII.”

  “Indeed. By the time the others woke and raced to find them, they were boarding. There was a fight between the machi and her brother, and it came to blows.”

  “The body we found. I knew it was a murder!”

  He frowned at her. “This is my history.”

  “I’m sorry.” She flushed and looked down. “So, when Bas killed Mikey—”

  “There was purpose in his beating, yes.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, teeth clenched.

  After a moment he continued. “Our people continued on with a cavern where our hearts should be. Through the next generations we retained our religion, our beliefs. Through warfare, through colonization and genocide and now into tourism and living museums.”

  “Wait,” she blurted, “you’re all techy now. Was that the Teachers?”

  He rolled his eyes, jerking a thumb out the window. “Next you’re going to think they built those pyramids. Aliens may have visited, but if you think we lacked
the skills or they had any interest in our infrastructure, you’d be fooling yourself. They just wanted to come back and meddle later—”

  “The aliens or the colonizers?” she drawled.

  He chuckled humorlessly. “We aren’t against tech, you know. Just having no choice in the matter. The forced progression. I don’t disagree that had we taken up electro gloves and lasers, things would have gone differently. But that’s the fault of those who cut our people down and enslaved the rest.”

  She couldn’t imagine the hurt of hundreds of generations coming to bear on one man’s shoulders, or the strength it took to work with the descendants of the same people who damned his ancestors. “I’m sorry. About what happened down there. I’m sorry I stomped around in my know-it-all boots. I’m sorry I thought government permits meant anything about how much that land meant to you.”

  “Thank you. You weren’t the first and clearly aren’t the last. We can usually tell the difference between those who are just misguided and naive—like yourself—and those who wield privilege like a scalpel.”

  Nel looked away. “Past few years have taught me good intentions don’t make it hurt less.”

  “No. But we both know you weren’t the only one who overstepped. Dr. Servais was a good person. Better than you. He didn’t deserve that end.”

  Nel couldn’t answer that, not without anger or tears that weren’t Emilio’s to coddle. “So, other than checking in on what shady back-alley deals I make, why’d you invite a pissy archaeologist into your train cabin?”

  “To make a deal of my own.”

  She glanced up and their eyes met. “I see.”

  “No doubt Munashi Gamal asked you to inform us if you happen to hear about anything IDH does that we might not be privy to.”

  Nel let him wind down to his point, a circumnavigating that gave context for his ultimate ask.

  “I would ask that you tell me what you know of Harris.”