by J. S. Morin
The punch never landed. Halfway to Azrael’s chin, Carl’s fist stopped. It was no trick of unseen forces, but the palm of Azrael’s hand snapping up first to block, then to lock on with a hydraulic grip. The pain was instantly excruciating. Falling to his knees, Carl gasped and gritted his teeth.
Azrael put a foot to Carl’s chest and forced him supine to the floor, thankfully releasing his fist in the process.
“You’re a fool,” Azrael said. “The Temple of War is no simple trick. It is neither a gymnasium nor a drug, but a conduit of pure, divine power. Now you listen to me.”
“Listening,” Carl said with a grunt. He couldn’t take a full breath with Azrael’s foot on his ribcage.
Azrael bent low and put his face close to Carl’s, his foot atop him like a trophy kill. “My men found your ship. Remember, this is our jungle. Not yours. Not the navals. Ours. Devraa’s. I want the navals’ leader dead. You’re going to present yourself to them, ingratiate yourself, and get close to her. Then you’re going to kill her.”
“Her who?” Carl asked.
“Lieutenant Sephiera Myung Kwon, former science officer of—”
“Got it,” Carl said. “Know her.”
Azrael narrowed his eyes. “I wasn’t aware that Typhoon pilots had need of investigative xenobiology.”
Carl offered a sheepish grin as his only reply.
The narrowed glare became a proper scowl. “You’re a disgrace.”
“I worked hard to be,” Carl said. “But don’t worry. I won’t let an old fling get in the way of offing her for you. It’s her or my crew, right? I know how these sorts of deals work.”
After Azrael released Carl from beneath his boot, there was a long, ignominious procession to the base of the obelisk. It lasted long enough for Carl to formulate a plan. By the time he was thrust into the throng of waiting marines at the base and escorted to the city limits, he was grinning.
# # #
“Sorry,” Chief Yao said, setting his jaw as he shook his head. “Maybe when they’re older. None of the little ones need a math teacher yet.” He’d found excuses for every skill set Esper proposed. It was growing more and more difficult not to reveal her magical skills, but Charlie had warned her against doing so.
“But I’ve got a college degree,” Esper insisted. “It’s one thing pitching in to help out, but I’m not cut out for chopping firewood.”
“It’s not chopping,” Yao replied. “The wood in this area is too rubbery. We use saws. And don’t worry, those scrawny arms of yours won’t stay scrawny. First couple weeks’ll be the worst.”
“But—”
“You think I like my job here?” Yao snapped. He was balding and patchy-bearded but still carried an air of military authority. He stepped up and put his face within centimeters of Esper’s. “I spent yesterday gutting a fodiens terram. Damn me if I even know what that Latin shit’s supposed to mean, but it’s a nasty sack of crap with eight-centimeter digging claws and smells like the inside of a waste recycler when you cut it open. It’s got a gland that produces something Kwon uses to make insecticide. I was a gunnery chief, and now I butcher insect-repellant groundhogs. You get where this is coming from?”
“Yes.”
“So what are you?” Yao demanded.
“A… math teacher turned lumberjill?” Esper asked. She ducked her head to appear meek, but the temptation to break Yao’s nose itched inside her. So often in her life, she had prayed for strength—spiritual strength, the sort that let her carry on despite grim prospects. Of late, she had most often asked guidance from the Lord on how to restrain strength of a more physical sort for the good of her fellow man.
“Damn right,” Yao said, backing down. He turned to Charlie. “Now you. Gather the breakfast plates and spoons and head to the downstream end of the river. There’s a wash spot. This side of the river’s for kitchen cleanup, far side’s for bathing. Don’t mix the two.”
“No can do, Chief,” Charlie replied. “And I expect a ma’am when you address me, not a ‘hey, you.’”
Yao sneered. “Not ‘til Kwon gives the go. You’re a civilian tagalong until she says otherwise. You two made some sort of deal? That’s her business. But I’ve got a camp to run, and if she says I’ve got three able bodies eating our chow, I’ve got three more pairs of hands to put to work. You got a problem with that, you can skip the mess line. Workers eat.”
Charlie glowered at him. “We’ll see about that…”
“How about you?” Yao asked Rhiannon, who sat on a rock with her chin on clasped hands. “What do you do?’
She didn’t look up. “I’m a singer,” she said with a sigh.
“As in, a professional?” Yao asked, eyebrows raised.
“Uh huh.”
“Hot damn! Sing something, would ya?”
Rhiannon looked up with a perplexed furrow of her brow. “Um, OK.” She cleared her throat.
♪ Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone ♫
♫ They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot ♪
Yao chuckled. “I forgot you’re a Ramsey. Corny old shit, but damn you’ve got a voice. Do you play?”
“Nothing fancy,” Rhiannon replied. “Just a little acoustic guitar for certain songs.”
“Can’t be ruining those hands, then,” Yao said. “Ask around and find Scandrick. Tell him to hand over his guitar to someone who knows what to do with it.”
“That’s my assignment?” Rhiannon asked wide-eyed.
Yao replied with a salute. “Haven’t had a real entertainer around here since we crashed. Glad to have you aboard.” As he departed, Yao flashed a final glare over his shoulder. “And you two, get your asses to work.”
Rhiannon wandered off, presumably to figure out who Scandrick was.
It was a fine morning. With sunlight peeking down into the chasm and the gentle rush of waterfalls, it was easy to imagine being on Mars. Esper’s gaze followed the trail up the chasm wall that led to the jungle where her day’s work awaited her. People from the camp were already making the climb to whatever occupations required them to venture out from the safety the chasm offered. Just watching them made her legs ache.
“We’ve got to get out of this place,” Charlie said. “If it’s the last thing we ever do.”
“They’ve lost hope,” Esper said. “They don’t realize we’re going to rescue them.”
“Well, there’s not going to be a rescue unless we can get back and let Ramsey know we’re here.”
“Mriy or Kubu will track us down,” Esper said with certainty.
“Maybe,” Charlie said. “But just as likely they get killed by a hunting party before they get a word of English to identify themselves. Then Ramsey gets the Mobius up and running and high-tails it off-world, thinking we’re all dead.”
“Carl would never—”
“How long have you known him?” Charlie asked.
Esper did some quick calculations. “If I haven’t lost track with the wacky days here… well, let’s call it ten and a half months.”
“I served with him for four years,” Charlie said. “He’s lost friends before. He’ll get over us.”
A chill ran up Esper’s spine. She remembered meeting Carl moments before Chip’s funeral. When was the last time anyone even mentioned Chip’s name? “What’s the plan?”
“You go saw down trees, like they said. Maybe schmooze the work crew a little; get to know them; put them off guard. It’s me who’s got to figure a way out of this chasm. Be ready to run when I come for you.”
# # #
Breakfast was a sandwich apiece, made from dehydrated bread wafers and lukewarm meats pried free from their cartridges in the food processor. Mort heated the coffee himself, but the water was of questionable vintage. He hadn’t asked where Roddy had obtained it, nor did the laaku volunteer such information. Hopefully boiling alone was enough to sanitize it.
Gravity aboard the Mobius was working just fine, making
the kitchen floor feel like the proper direction for “down.” But through the gaping hole where Carl’s quarters had been ejected into the jungle, the landscape was skewed to one side. The grassy trees grew at an angle, and the clouds drifted past on a downhill as if gentle sliding from an untenable perch in the sky.
“You look like hell,” Roddy said through a mouthful of barely edible sandwich.
Mort harrumphed. It was a nice, wizardly harrumph that made him feel more himself. “Slept on this moon all night.”
“You mean you didn’t, uh…” Roddy made a whoosh gesture with one foot.
So odd, all of them knowing. “No, I couldn’t access Mortania last night. Dratted mind of mine was stuck on tattletale mode, reminding the universe that this place can’t behave itself. Would you believe it? I dreamt I was back on Earth at a symposium, giving a keynote speech.”
“Was you naked?” Roddy asked. “I hear that’s a thing with humans.”
“No, but—”
“Were the whole audience naked?”
“Worse! They were all laaku, every last one of them. I was trapped in a slumbering state, beset by simian detractors interrupting my speech every five words. I blame you.” He jabbed a finger across the table.
“Me? If I could magic up dreams for people, I’d come down a lot harder on you than a few hecklers.”
“Not directly. Even exhausted to imbecilic depths, my mind wouldn’t let you past the doormat. No, it was spending the day keeping your damned tools doing whatever it is they do.”
“Yeah, but—”
A metallic rapping stopped him short. It came from the gaping exit where Carl’s quarters belonged. The questions had hung between them, unasked: where was the rest of the crew? Neither search party had returned overnight, raising a variety of grizzly possibilities.
“Hot damn,” Roddy said. “Quick... taking bets on who’s back first.”
“Come on out of there,” an unfamiliar voice shouted from outside. “I can hear you muttering.”
“I’m going with none of the above,” Mort replied with a scowl. He cast his half-eaten sandwich aside with disdain. Whoever was out there might have brought proper food. Stalking across the common room, he took up a position pressed against the wall beside the hole. “Who’s there?”
“I’m Corporal Matthews. This is Corporal Hughs,” the voice said. “Please step out of the ship one at a time. No weapons. No trouble. Is that understood?”
“Oh, I understood just fine,” Mort replied around the corner. “You didn’t use obscure verbiage anywhere in your little authoritarian diatribe. However, your paranoid command and certain other factors into which I prefer not to digress would suggest that I’m best off staying right where I am. Several other, less obvious factors, might lead you to conclude that either trying again with less starch in your collar, or better yet slinking off into that jungle out there, might be better options.”
“This must be their star-drive mechanic,” a second voice said, presumably Hughs.
A cold lump settled in Mort’s stomach, and it wasn’t spoiled ham. They knew the Mobius had a wizard on board, but had no idea who Mort really was. That meant that at least one of the search parties had been captured—possibly both. Stepping into view, he glared down at two human savages with too much of their bronzed skin showing. Their oversized muscles glistened with sweat. One carried a spear made from a single sharpened metal rod and had a knife tucked into his belt; he wore a necklace of animal teeth, in case he might say or do something to appear civilized. The other carried a matching spear and had some sort of cobbled-together hammer slung over his back on a strap. Each had a tattoo on his shoulder with the marine corp insignia.
“You lads are operating under a few faulty assumptions,” Mort said with gravel in his voice.
The one with the tooth necklace spoke, his voice matching the one who identified himself as Matthews. “Just get down here, gramps. You keep in line and there won’t be any trouble.”
From behind him, Roddy chuckled. The laaku knew what lay in store for a pair of smart-mouthed marines.
“You have been led to believe that I’m just a doddering old tech tinkerer, a minder of gizmos. You think that those primitive, ordinary toys of yours pose a threat. You think we’re going to just toddle along in your footsteps into captivity. You thought wrong.”
Mort wrenched the spears from their hands and twisted them into shoelaces. Or at least, that’s what he meant to do. What happened instead was a conspicuous amount of nothing, accompanied by the distinct impression that the universe was pantsing him. Wasn’t he so smart? Wasn’t this what he spent all day yesterday asking for? No magic? Fine. No magic for Mort, either.
He stood there a moment, arms outflung, glancing from one marine to the other and back. He gave a sheepish grin before diving for cover inside the Mobius. “Get something to bar the door!” he shouted.
“What’s going on?” Roddy asked. “Fuck ‘em up. You live for this shit, and you know it. We’ll fix the engines when the schizophrenic mess settles back to normal.”
Mort reached down and grabbed Roddy by the collar, putting his face inches from the laaku’s. “I. Can’t.”
“I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I’m in no mood,” Matthews shouted. “Get your asses out here, or we’re coming in after you. If you try anything, I swear to Devraa I’ll break your legs and drag you back.”
“Can’t what?” Roddy asked.
“I can’t ‘fuck them up,’ because I spent all day yesterday convincing the universe that I wanted science,” Mort said. “I’ve lost credibility.”
“You heated the coffee just fine, maybe it’s a lack of—”
“Those freaks out there aren’t a pint of tepid water. They’re marines gone feral. We need a plan.”
The laaku’s eyes unfocused, twitching. Mort could almost see him thinking. “Go stall them. Surrender. Tell ‘em we got terms or something. Make up shit. Carl ‘em.”
“What’ll you be—”
“I don’t know!” Roddy snapped. “That’s what stalling them is for. If they come in here, we lose all room to bargain. Now git!”
There was a gnawing temptation to tell the monkey to shove it. Mort had been the safety valve in so many of Carl’s cockamamie schemes that he’d grown accustomed to rolling with a bad plan instead of insisting on a new one. But that was Carl; he had an innate sense of chicanery and still almost got them all killed on a regular basis. Roddy… he was more the sort to piss in the vicar’s shrubs. Not the sort to count on. But Mort’s plans A through Z relied on some degree of magic.
“Fine. But if we die, I’m finding you in the afterlife to kill again,” Mort said.
As Roddy scrambled off, Mort returned to the opening where Carl’s quarters had been. “OK. Fine. I’ll come out. But I want to know where you’re taking me.”
“We’ve got a city,” Hughs said.
“Nice place,” Matthews said. “Roads, buildings, real food. Your friend Ramsey is there. He’s worried about you. Sent us to bring you back and make sure you’re OK.”
So there it was. They had Carl. No mention of Mriy or Kubu, either, which meant that they had either escaped or been killed. And Carl certainly hadn’t sent anyone to keep Mort safe. If Matthews had said he’d been sent to show the way back, that might have carried some credibility. Carl was certainly lazy enough not to come personally to guide them back.
“What kind of city is this?” Mort asked. “How much can you have built in six years?”
“We didn’t. It’s alien, old as hell,” Matthews replied. “Crazy old wizard like you oughtta love it. Hey, our boss is a wizard; maybe you two’ll hit it off. Gotta be a bitch rompin’ around with a bunch of loser spacers. Got nothing but respect for wizards where we’re from.”
A wizard among marines? There was a story there whose depths Mort felt a need to plumb. “What’s your wizard’s name?”
“Azrael Thomas Jones,” Matthews said. “You know him?”
>
There were a million wizards registered with the Convocation. It was akin to asking someone “So, I hear you’re from Chicago Prime. Do you know this guy Mike…?” The odds of one low-ranking wizard knowing another were slim to none. The odds of a council seat holder knowing a navy star-drive mechanic delved into negative numbers.
“Name sounds familiar,” Mort said. “You don’t meet too many Azraels. Bossy twerp? Acts like one of the boys, right up until someone tells him he’s got to buy his own drinks?” That described every star-drive repairman Mort had ever met.
Hughs and Matthews both chuckled. “Yeah, that’s him,” Matthews replied. “So we’re all friends, right? Come on out. How many of you are there inside?”
Soft, laaku footsteps approached from behind. Mort stiffened from head to foot to keep from turning to look at him. “Steady,” Roddy whispered. “Hold it steady.”
Steady? Roddy must have found some tech to use. In for a bite, in for the cake, as his uncle Damocles used to say. Mort resumed yesterday’s argument with the universe.
“Well, let’s see…” Mort replied, staring off into the clouds and stroking his chin. It amazed him how weather worked the same even on non-Earthlike worlds. It was as if weather came standard in the terraforming package along with a breathable atmosphere. Although there was no evidence that this was a terraformed world. “We started off with seven—or was it eight? Then picked up Rhiannon. No, I take it back; we were up to nine. Then we sent a few off into the jungle to search for—”
A low, soft scientific whine emanated from just behind him, increasing in pitch until it exited the audible range.
“What was that?” Matthews demanded.
“Two,” Mort said. “There are just two of us here.” He stepped aside and made room for Roddy.
The laaku leveled a blaster pistol—one of Tanny’s—at Matthews. “On the ground. Eat dirt you fleabags.”
Matthews sneered. “Bad time for a bluff, little man. Not your day.” He hefted his spear for a throw but stopped with a jerk. The humming blat of the pistol had the final word. A thumb-sized hole appeared in Matthews’ chest, followed closely by a second when he didn’t immediately fall over.