by J. S. Morin
Carl’s mouth was suddenly dry. For whatever reason, he had a vivid image of some alien beast bearing down on him, jaws slavering, and being unable to stand. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
The Temple of Listening loomed larger over them each time they caught a glimpse of it between buildings, until at last they arrived at its base. The obelisk had to have been two hundred meters tall. Though black, it appeared to be the same stone as the rest of the city’s structures; the black could easily have been scorched onto the exterior. Like the other tall structures, there was a spiral ramp around the exterior.
It was a good thing that Carl was pretty sure he could slip a lie past whatever alien entity was impersonating a god here. Because he would have hated to think that he was going to climb all that distance just to deliver himself for execution. “Well, what are we waiting for?”
# # #
Dawn broke with the sun a sliver overhead, peering out from behind G5344-4. If they were destined to permanent exile here, Tanny would probably still never get used to the oddities of the dual day-night cycles of planetary orbit and lunar rotation. Even during all her time spent aboard starships, she’d kept a twenty-four-hour cycle. Without sunlight, there were chronos; without chronos, sunlight. Even the odd non-Earthlike planet here or there had a regular pattern, even if it didn’t match Earth Standard.
“Sleep well?” Esper asked. Cheerfulness had its place but not in a chasm on an alien moon. Tanny needed her drug cocktail. Instead, she had a ringing headache, stiffness in every muscle, and gauze wrapped around her brain. Everyone else was moving too quickly, and she too slowly. The navy survivors didn’t even have coffee to take the edge off.
“Not me,” Rhiannon said. “I took years off my life yesterday. I’ve got scratches from vines, bites from insects that probably infected me with every disease on this planet… I need another day’s sleep just to recover from sleeping on this mat.”
Their accommodations had been anything but posh. As the newcomers and lowest ranking among the survivors, they had slept together in a storehouse that was half filled with stacked and baled plants, navy standard issue crates, and insects—the latter being an ever-shifting crew supplied by the biome.
“Eat your melon,” Charlie said.
Tanny looked down and spotted a cafeteria platter piled with blue-and-green striped fruits the size of a laaku head. Hefting one and finding it surprisingly light, she dug her fingers in and tore it open in half. For the first time since the crash, she felt powerful. Then she noticed that Rhiannon opened hers with equal ease and knit her brow.
The meat of the fruit was sticky sweet, tasting similar to hybridized blue strawberries. It had a bitter aftertaste that kept her eating more and more just to ward off the unavoidable final bite, after which she worked her tongue inside her mouth to scrub away the filmy feeling and excise the flavor.
“Morning, ladies,” Niang said, poking his head through the doorway. There was no door at all. “Time to find out what use you can be. But first, I’m going to need a volunteer to join the search party for your ship.”
“I’ll go,” Charlie said instantly. She tossed the melon rind back on the platter and sucked the juice clean from her fingers. Wiping them on her pants finished the cleansing.
“Negatory on that,” Niang replied. “Lieutenant Kwon wants to debrief you privately.”
Charlie snickered. “Good thing I know her preference, or I might take that wrong. Been a while since I had a good debriefing.” She glanced sidelong at Niang.
Tanny sighed. “I’ll do it.” The jungle was going to be the death of her, but her other option was to sit around and get assigned grunt work by Kwon. “When you heading out?”
“You done your breakfast?” he asked, glancing at the melon rind in Tanny’s hand.
In truth she could have used another, but she was wary of the alien food’s effects on her stomach, especially considering that she would be feeling the withdrawal pangs any time now. “Yeah,” she said instead, tossing her rind on the platter with Charlie’s.
“Then let’s get a move on,” he said. “Charlie, report to Kwon. You two, see Chief Yao for work detail. He’ll figure out how you can fit in around here.”
Tanny spared a glance past Ensign Niang. The naval workers were already up and about, building, harvesting, and whatever other tasks they’d been assigned. Half of them already knew about her from old gossip, knew her as the shore-leave girl of the Typhoon pilot with the loudest mouth in the fleet. They had their own chain of command in which she was the lowest of the low. Fitting in didn’t seem like it was in the cards for Tanny.
# # #
Charlie had never been big on offices, so the fact that Sephiera’s was a shitty hut with a desk and two chairs didn’t bother her. But the sparse decor gave her little to go on in getting a read on how much Sephiera Kwon had changed in the past six years. A peg on the wall hung a navy dress jacket—practical. They must have had a cold night now and then down in the chasm. The multi-orbital situation probably swung the temperatures from time to time. The desk was laid out with a carved grid, scratched into the wood with a knife. At a glance, the grid was arranged in rows and columns labeled with names and tasks. Many of the names had faces she knew, low-ranked and petty officers; not enough there to account for the whole population, so these were probably her direct reports. Black, white, red, and blue chits were scattered across the grid in a pattern that must have had some meaning as a duty roster.
Sephiera herself was recognizable only in the face. As a science officer on the Odysseus, she’d had curves the male Half-Devils had gone on about at length, but now she’d slimmed down to a muscled twig. The lines around her eyes didn’t account for the years. The tan of her skin said she’d spent much of her time outdoors—no surprise there. Eyes once playful, knowing, and more than a little condescending now glared like photon emitters. The muscles of her jaw never seemed to relax; she was either talking or clenching her teeth. There were children in the compound, so the oft-ignored rule about fraternizing was being completely disregarded, but Charlie would have bet the Mermaid against a hovercart that Sephiera hadn’t been laid since the crash.
“Sit,” Sephiera ordered.
The chair was from the port-side rec room of the Odysseus. Someone had carved the initials H.J.S. into the back of the seat, and the crash survivors hadn’t done anything to buff them out. It, like every other seat of its kind, was only comfortable in one precise position. Charlie swung it around and straddled the seat, resting her arms on the back.
“Who’d have guessed,” Charlie said. “Ship that size crashes, and you split the line between the dead and the low ranking.”
“This isn’t a social call,” Sephiera sat, sitting forward in her seat and resting her elbows on the desk. “I need to know if there’s going to be trouble.”
“I didn’t plan on making any.”
“Are your people trying to make contact with the marines?”
Charlie shrugged. “Hey, until we crashed here, I didn’t know anyone had survived. You were the first sign of humans we’d seen.”
“What about the rest of your crew?”
“They’re not my crew. I only just met most of them.”
“But you know Ramsey better than anyone,” Sephiera pressed. “Is he going to cut a deal with them? Renegades are just his style. He’s never respected the chain of command.”
“Sephiera, you’re not—”
“Lieutenant Kwon,” she snapped. “This isn’t a holiday retreat; it’s a war zone. You’ll address me by title, or ma’am.”
Charlie pursed her lips. “You don’t get it both ways. I’m just as much in Earth Navy as you. Either I’m a lieutenant here with two months less seniority than you, or I’m a civilian and you can take that ‘ma’am’ spiel and shove it. You want to know about the rest of Ramsey’s crew? I’ll tell you this much: you don’t want to step on their toes. You play ball, we might be able to find a way off this rock. You push them, and the
re’s going to be a problem. Oh, it won’t be me—officer’s honor. But if you pull the same shtick on Ramsey that you just did on me, he’s going to twist you like a caramel spiral. I’ve got authority issues… it’s in my goddamn personnel file. But Ramsey’s pathological.”
“I know.”
“He hasn’t changed,” Charlie said. “If anything, he’s looser now for… well, let’s just say High Command didn’t treat us right after Karthix.”
“I’m putting this on you,” Sephiera said. “Keep Ramsey in line. Keep any other troublemakers in his crew in line. If you can do that, I think I can give you back your lieutenant’s rank.”
It was a ploy. Sure, Sephiera meant every word of it, but the manipulation was so blatant. This was the difference between a social klutz like her and a true expert in dealing with people. One held out a SweetGoo in one hand and kept the other clenched in a fist. A smooth talker like Carl stroked the side of your face while the other hand slipped inside like a puppeteer. Charlie realized the unintended imagery of her metaphor instantly and tried to think of another to replace it. But she couldn’t get the image of Carl and his hands out of her head. Damn it!
Realizing she’d left an uncomfortable pause while her mind wandered, Charlie blinked and smiled. “Yeah. Sounds like a deal, Lieutenant Kwon… ma’am.”
# # #
Carl chugged water from his canteen as soon as he regained enough breath not to drown himself in the attempt. Ithaca was plotting to kill him, and it wouldn’t be with alien diseases or vicious wildlife. The fucking city of a million ten-story ramps was going to do the job quicker.
“Look, I know you can’t exactly install a lift,” Carl said, bent over with his hands on his knees. “But isn’t there some local equivalent of a donkey on this moon? I mean, what’s the point of walking everywhere.”
Vasquez smirked. “You join up with us, you’ll be fine. I was as sorry a bastard as you when we first got here. Bioenhancement drugs don’t work here, but the Temple of War does the same with no side effects.” He clapped Carl on the shoulder and helped him upright. “Time to meet Devraa.”
The cheery prospect of being interrogated by an alien deity was almost enough to make up for nearly dying on the way up to the obelisk’s top floor. Vasquez kept a hand on Carl’s upper arm. Whether it was there to keep him from stumbling due to fatigue or making a break for freedom, Carl couldn’t tell. But the hand remained there as the two entered side by side.
The top chamber of the obelisk was hexagonal, roughly twenty meters on a side. At one end, atop a raised dais of ramps in place of stairs, stood Azrael. The rest of the room had triangular wedges arranged like chairs in an auditorium, each waist high with a flat side facing the doorway and the angled side toward Azrael’s perch. Marines were lying scattered throughout the chamber, reclined on the wedges as if sunbathing. There weren’t enough of them to fill the temple, so there were empty wedges in plenty. Vasquez escorted Carl down the ample aisles to an empty wedge in the front row.
“Premium seating,” Carl remarked. “This because I’m the new guy, or because I outranked you all before crash day?” It was a struggle arranging himself into sunbathing position on the stone wedge. His leg muscles had stiffened into a position better suited to a slow, uphill shuffle, and his back wanted no part of the unforgiving blackened stone.
“Azrael’s orders,” Vasquez replied. “Didn’t ask.”
The burly marine departed, and when Carl craned his neck to see where Vasquez went, he was reminded that twisting around on a stone slab is painfully inconvenient. At the behest of pangs in his shoulder blade and hip, he stopped trying to see and settled into as comfortable position as he could find. He found himself staring up into the darkened recesses of the obelisk’s ceiling, unable to see Azrael in his lower peripheral vision. That was fine. Azrael wasn’t much to look at, and if he wanted to try anything, there were dozens of marines against one exhausted ex-navy starfighter pilot.
“We gather,” Azrael intoned, his voice echoing throughout the temple. “Today we announce a new brother to mighty Devraa, praise him for his wisdom.”
“Devraa is wise,” the marines responded in unison.
Oh wonderful. We’re in one of those cults. Maybe if I dust Azrael I can take his job.
“We gather,” Azrael repeated. Even without looking, Carl could picture Azrael raising his arms overhead, a look of manic bliss on his face. All these whack jobs needed were hooded robes and a sacrificial altar to get recorded for the holovid version. “We listen for the voice of Devraa to judge the soul of this wayward human.”
“Devraa, we listen,” the marines chanted. The unison was spot on. Clearly they’d chanted as a group before. Carl wondered if he was going to have to attend rehearsals, or if he’d be expected to practice in his spare time. He doubted this Devraa was the sort who put up with discordant chanting in his temple.
“We open ourselves to you, Devraa!”
Just as Carl was thinking that Azrael was growing a bit melodramatic, the stone of the entire obelisk above turned transparent. Suddenly instead of staring into the murky recesses of a stone ceiling, Carl was staring up into the twilight sky, where a neighboring moon floated beside a sliver of planet far above.
“Whoa!” Carl whispered. It was like looking at a holovid with galactic resolution. His brain knew the celestial bodies were hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, but they appeared so close that he could reach up and touch them.
“WHY HAVE YOU CONTACTED ME?” a voice boomed, shaking the temple. Carl felt the voice in his chest.
“Great Devraa, praise your might,” Azrael shouted.
The marines took their cue. “Devraa is mighty.” Carl saw the line coming and was tempted to join in, but thought better of it.
“Devraa, we have a new disciple for you,” Azrael said. “His name is Carl Ramsey, newly arrived in your domain.”
“TELL HIM TO SPEAK HIS NAME TO ME,” Devraa said.
“Ramsey, Devraa wishes for you to—”
“Yeah, I heard him,” Carl said. “Full name and title is Captain Bradley Carlin Ramsey, Lieutenant Commander, Earth Navy, retired.”
“YOU UNDERSTAND MY WORDS?”
Well, shit. Carl hadn’t realized that his earring charm was translating alien speech that he wasn’t supposed to understand. No point denying it now. “Sure thing, Devraa, praise your might and wisdom and anything else you’re particularly good at.” It was time to bring out Carl the Skeptical Yet Open-minded Prospective Acolyte. He’d worked on the persona while trying to fall asleep in the uncomfortable bunk the marines had provided. “So what’s the deal? I was never really that concerned about super strength, but I’m willing to give it a try. What’s the rest?”
A quick patter of barefoot steps on stone approached. “What are you doing?” Azrael demanded in a harsh whisper. “Show proper respect! And how can you—never mind. You obviously can. Just keep a civil tongue; you’re addressing a god.”
Carl frowned. It was the first time he’d had a two-way conversation with a deity, despite trying a prayer here or there with Earth’s standard-issue God. This was the way he always talked to Him.
“Sorry if I came off rude,” Carl said. “Wizard Azrael here informs me that I’ve got poor manners. Truth is, I’ve never talked to a god before. Sure, I’ve met plenty of guys who act like they are, but never one who could do the whole temple-shaking voice. You are plenty awe-inspiring, let me tell you.”
“YOU ARE UNLIKE THE OTHERS. WHY?”
Azrael spoke up before Carl could answer. “Clear the temple. Everyone but the new acolyte, convene at the base and await instruction. Devraa wants to speak to none save Ramsey to determine his loyalties.”
There was a shuffling of marines as they removed themselves from the Temple of Listening—whose name made a hell of a lot more sense now. None of the ousted marines made a peep of protest. They just obeyed orders. Marines and cultists seemed to have a nice overlapping agreement in that area.
/> “AZRAEL, HAVE YOU BROUGHT ANOTHER WIZARD INTO MY SERVICE?”
“Mighty Devraa, I have brought you a pilot,” Azrael replied. “I know not how he interprets your words.”
Seriously? What sort of wizard didn’t jump to the conclusion that he had a magic charm on him? Azrael’s reputation on the Odysseus was that he was a wet mop of a wizard who couldn’t light a fire if you gave him two wands to rub together. Starheel had been the Convocation wizard on board, the Mort-like sort who didn’t get his hands dirty working on ship’s systems. But even a worthless star-drive mechanic ought to have noticed Carl was carrying an enchantment.
“MAYBE I’M A PROPHET,” Carl boomed, doing his best impression of Devraa, minus the room-shuddering bass. He laughed before Devraa took offense. “No, seriously. I have a magic earring that translates for me. Devraa, maybe you need to reconsider leadership around here. You want a real wizard on your team? The one I brought here with me could use this one as an after-dinner mint.”
“How dare you—”
“LET HIM SPEAK,” Devraa commanded.
Carl levered himself up from his wedge and stretched to unkink his back. “So correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem like the sort of deity who wants to rule. You’ve got a hostile population that outnumbers your followers.” He swept an arm toward the door through which the marines had departed. “You’ve got the brawn, but who’ve you got at ground level leading them? This yutz? Please… I can—”
“Enough!” Azrael screamed. He flung his hands, outstretched as claws, toward the cosmos, and the cosmos vanished. There was just a plain, blacked stone temple ceiling overhead once more. “How dare you come into this holy place and—”
“And what? Stomp on your scam?”
“You fooled me, Ramsey,” Azrael said, his voice gone cold and hollow. “I had thought you were ready to believe. You were going to be the mole that undid the navals and cut the rot from that infested chasm of theirs. I thought you were going to go eagerly. But you will go.”
Carl sized him up. Azrael was lean and bony, his unimpressive physique on full, shirtless display. He’d already shown an inability to do much with magic—the on-off switch for the transparent ceiling was the temple’s magic, no doubt, not his. Even half-exhausted to death, Carl had twenty kilos on the guy.