MARVEL's Avengers: Infinity War: Thanos

by Barry Lyga

  Standing in the rain, he reminded himself, over and over: These are not my people. This is not my responsibility. I need to go home.

  Later, after the rain passed, Daakon Ro found Thanos. It wasn’t hard to locate him—he was taller than everyone else in the camp by at least a deci.

  “You need to register,” Ro told him, glaring down at his boots, which were caked with mud. “There are forms for you to fill out.”

  “The bureaucracy hungers,” Thanos said.

  “It’s ravenous,” Ro said bitterly, trying to scrape clean one boot with the heel of the other. “I can’t believe they put me in charge of this camp. I should have taken early retirement.”

  “You should have listened to your husband,” Thanos said amiably.

  “Damn right I should have!” He gave up the attempt with his boots and led Thanos to one of the larger tents, which served as a command center for the refugee effort. The phase-tent shifted its color and level of tangibility as they entered, allowing in more light and air.

  Daakon Ro grumbled as he paged through a hologram generated by the tablet in his hands. “Thanos of Titan, right? Captain of the ship.”

  Thanos hesitated. Did he want his name recorded somewhere in a Xandarian database?

  “Use my birth name,” he said. “Sintaa Falar.”

  Ro arched an eyebrow. “Thanos is, what, a nickname?”

  Thanos shrugged with indifference. “What else do you need? I’m in a hurry.”

  Ro chuckled. “Places to go? Didn’t figure you’d be so eager to get back into space after limping here in that thing.” He gestured vaguely to the sky, where Sanctuary sat in orbit, empty.

  “Is there any news of Titan?” It had been a long, long time—it felt like eons—since his exile. Thanos feared the worst.

  Ro paused for a moment, perplexed. “News? No. Nothing I’ve heard, at least. Titan isn’t really a big news-making sort of place.”

  Thanos sighed in relief. If there was nothing to report, then the planet was still intact. There was still time to save what he could of his home.

  “Now,” Ro said, returning his attention to the holograms. “How long have you owned the ship in question?”

  Thanos groaned and launched into his explanation again. Ro nodded along with him impatiently, then finally interrupted. “Look, I don’t care how you got the ship or who you got it from. Right now, that rust heap is taking up space in orbit. I’ve got the Astronomy Council complaining that it’s obscuring their mega-telescope’s view of Venus or some such nonsense.”

  “How is this my problem?” Thanos asked.

  Ro explained: Sanctuary had been stolen so long ago that all the statutes of limitation on the crime had expired… as had the original owners. Thanos was, for all intents and purposes, the owner of the ship. It was his responsibility.

  So Thanos sold the ship for salvage and put the money into a smallish dart-yacht, the only thing he could afford. It was fast and maneuverable, with no offensive capabilities and only a token shield unit. Still, it would have to do.

  He christened it Sanctuary, of course.

  To his surprise, before he could take off, Cha appeared at the gangplank, wearing a loose-fitting pair of pants, an open-throated shirt, and gray boots that came up to his knees. His friend had spent several nights in the refugee camp, which was a far sight more comfortable and lavish than the accommodations aboard the old Golden Berth. He was fresh-faced and relaxed.

  “Where are we going?” Cha asked without preamble.

  “I won’t hold you to what you said on the ship. Are you sure you want to do this?” Thanos asked. “You could stay here and—”

  “And what?” Cha asked.

  “And have a life,” Thanos proposed.

  Cha grinned. “You’re going to save lives, Thanos. That’s what I’ve spent my whole life doing.”

  Thanos grunted. He’d never told Cha exactly how he planned to save those lives. That was a debate he did not look forward to having.

  Still, he believed that at some point, his rationality and data would overcome Cha’s mysticism and pacifism. Thanos opened his mouth to respond, but another voice interrupted before he could begin.

  “Got room for one more?”

  It was Kebbi, standing at the foot of the ramp that led into Sanctuary, hands on her hips. She wore a robe made of a royal-blue silk and had a new red kerchief knotted across her lower face. Like Cha and Thanos himself, her neck was now bare of His Lordship’s collar, thanks to a Xandarian technician.

  “You’re free, Kebbi. Go and—”

  “Settle down?” Kebbi asked with sarcasm. “Enjoy the fruits of my labor?”

  “Well, yes.”

  She laughed. It was a big, booming sound that belied her small size. “I was conceived and born on the Golden Berth. I don’t know how to live on a planet.” She looked around. “Honestly, can’t even say I like it. Food’s better, but… I’m a spacer, Thanos. I live for the vacuum.”

  “You’re both mad,” Thanos said. “But you are welcome aboard Sanctuary.”

  Re-entering the star-speckled blackness of space so soon after escaping near death on His Lordship’s vessel put Thanos ill at ease. He wanted little to do with space travel; he wanted only to return to Titan, to save his people from their own blindness. And he would happily die in the process if that was still necessary.

  If. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe there was another way. Maybe the Asgardian artifact would make such sacrifice moot. Maybe he would not even need to kill half of Titan after all.

  “I asked around the refugee camp,” Kebbi said, slipping into the copilot’s chair, “and talked to some of the Nova Corps personnel.” She looked around the confines of the ship. Cha was muttering and clanking around in the main cabin, sorting through the dart-yacht’s limited medical equipment, so she raised her voice enough that he could hear, too. “There is an Asgardian outpost near Alfheim in the western arm. You said we need inside information….”

  Thanos grinned and brought up the navigation computer. A reliable, recognizable hologram projected itself along his field of vision. He sighed with relief and joy and began plotting his course.

  Sanctuary had no warp engine—it was a dart-yacht, designed for joyrides and party cruises around local moons. But it was sturdy and could withstand gate travel. There was an artificial wormhole near Xandar that would take them to within a few light-years of Alfheim. Then it would be a long, slow trek to the outpost itself.

  Which was good. He would need that time to formulate a plan beyond Get information out of the Asgardians somehow.

  “Thank you,” he told Kebbi. “You are more help than I’ve earned.”

  “Well,” she said hesitantly, “there’s a reason for that.”

  He put the coordinates into the ship’s purpose-built intelligence. Sanctuary would pilot them to the wormhole on its own.

  “Oh?” he asked, and turned to her, all other words dissolving. Something in the way she gazed at him… Her eyes… so expressive and so limpid. He briefly saw a vision of Gwinth, and it rattled him in a way he’d not felt since first awakening on the Golden Berth, helpless on the shores of turbulent destiny.

  She locked eyes with him, then looked away. “I wasn’t completely honest with you before. I have another reason for coming along. It’s just that… I love you, Thanos. We’re both unique, both without equal. I’ve loved you since I met you, since you came to His Lordship’s dining room. Deeply. With my whole being.”

  Thunderstuck, Thanos could think of nothing to say. When he finally opened his mouth to tell Kebbi that he had no time for such things, she burst out laughing.

  “I was kidding, you lilac moron! Deeply. With my whole being. You believed that nonsense?”

  “Of course not,” he said quickly.

  “ ‘Of course not,’” she said in a dead-on mimicry of his own stentorian voice. And then she chuckled much longer than was necessary.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  SANCTUARY DROPPED I
NTO THE WORMHOLE NEAR WILLIT’S Star at an angle of forty-six degrees to the ecliptic. Angles were of critical importance when traveling through wormholes—you’d be spit out somewhere else in the galaxy depending entirely on how you’d entered the wormhole in the first place. Off by a degree and who knew where you’d end up?

  Forty-six degrees spat them out the other side, near Alfheim, where they nearly collided with a meteor. Only quick thinking and Sanctuary’s built-in debris-avoidance systems saved them.

  “And the universe protects us,” Cha said brightly.

  “My reflexes protect us,” Thanos retorted.

  With the dart-yacht’s poky engines, they had two months’ travel before they would get to the Asgardian outpost. Its purpose, according to a non-updated copy of the Galactic Index preloaded into Sanctuary’s computers, was to act as a way station for Asgardians who bothered to leave the shining capital of the gods and descend to the baser realms of—

  “Blah blah blah,” said Kebbi, rubbing her eyes and leaning away from the hologram of the Index. “It’s like a checkpoint for them. They pass through on their way to our realm, pass through on the way home after having screwed around with the mortals for their own amusement. Not many of them must come and go, given the size of this place. It’s on a small moon at the edge of the solar system.”

  “Granted, it’s been a few years since I was dragooned into His Lordship’s service, but I can’t remember the last time I heard about an Asgardian around this part of the galaxy,” Cha commented. “They prefer Asgard, drinking and partying and occasionally going off to kill Frost Giants and Fire Giants.” He raised his eyebrows significantly at Thanos. “And you’re going to beard them in their den?”

  Frowning, Thanos rotated some of the images and text in the hologram. “Not for nothing are the Asgardians considered gods by many. In any event, brute force will not suffice in this instance.”

  “Pity,” said Kebbi. “Turns out you’re good at it.”

  He grunted, remembering his hands closing around Robbo’s throat, his hands on His Lordship. “I take neither pride nor pleasure in that. Still, artifice and guile will serve us in better stead than raw physical strength in this case.

  “We need to sneak up on this Asgardian outpost. Get inside without their knowing.”

  “This ship doesn’t have a cloaking device,” Cha said. “I looked while I was organizing the medical supplies. Speaking of which: There aren’t many. Mostly first aid and hangover remedies, and a cryococoon for serious cases.”

  “They’ll see us coming thousands of kilometers away,” Kebbi said with frustration. “If there were more meteors like the one we nearly hit, we could use that as cover….”

  “If there were more meteors,” Thanos pointed out, “we’d have hit one by now. No, you’re right—we can’t conceal our approach.”

  “Then we’re dead,” Cha said matter-of-factly. “Asgardians don’t mess around. They tend to be ‘hit you with a hammer and splatter your brains first, ask questions never’ sorts.”

  Thanos pondered. “If we cannot conceal ourselves… then we must use our visibility as an asset, not a liability.”

  “How?” Kebbi asked.

  “I’m not sure yet,” he admitted. “But we have sufficient time before we’re in range of their sensors. We’ll think of something. If I learned one thing under His Lordship, it’s that even though he seemed to be in complete control, with good planning, we were able to overcome insurmountable odds. We can do it again.”

  “If it is meant to be, it will happen,” Cha said solemnly.

  “No,” Thanos said. “As always, we will have to do the dirty work on our own.”

  Sanctuary hovered into sensor range of the Asgardian facility, then drifted out, then blasted back in, skewing starboard, its maneuvering rockets firing awry.

  At the helm, Cha Rhaigor slapped his hand on the broadcast controls and shouted, “Attention! Attention! All ships and satellites within two light-minutes of Alfheim! This is Sanctuary, en route from Willit’s Star, with a medical emergency! Repeat, a medical emergency. Please respond!”

  They didn’t expect a response, and they didn’t want one. To be sure none would be forthcoming, they kicked the engines into overdrive and blasted the ship right at the moon and the outpost. Before anyone in the outpost had time to assemble and transmit a response, they had already executed a rocky, clumsy landing outside the Asgardian edifice.

  It was the only structure on the moon. Not hard to find.

  The building seemed more carved than constructed, its facade a seamless gold that glowed in the light of the distant sun. Domes perched along the roofline, connected by sleek piping. Two enormous I beams lined the roof and peaked over the doorway, which was etched with the image of two ravens flanking an eight-legged stallion.

  Over the frieze were the words HAIL KING ODIN AND HIS WISDOM, BATTLE-BIRTHED!

  Cha was already in his space suit. He thumb-activated the environment shield over his face and dashed down the ramp from Sanctuary onto the moon’s surface, towing an antigrav cocoon behind him. Not far from the door to the outpost, an atmospheric shield kicked in. He felt the tickle of breathable air even through his suit as he broached the perimeter of the field.

  The door burst open. The man who emerged had bright-red hair and wore segmented steel leggings that shone with a high polish, black studded boots, and a royal-blue tunic that lengthened into a skirt. Large brass buttons—almost too perfectly round—studded the center of the tunic, and two massive steely epaulets held in place a voluminous cloak made of a burnished red fabric that rippled as though in its own wind. His muscled arms were bare save for wristbands of tough hide.

  He held an enormous battle-ax in one hand, its shaft wrapped in brown leather strips, its blade gleaming and bright. He wore his beard long and knotted.

  “Ho, traveler! Halt in the name of Odin!”

  “We have a medical emergency!” Cha cried. “She’s dying!”

  The Asgardian crossed his arms over his chest. “I am forbidden by Great Odin himself to let none but the sons and daughters of the Aesir and Vanir pass.”

  Cha tapped a button on the cocoon. It slid open with a nearly inaudible hiss. Within, Kebbi lay perfectly still. Lights flickered around her.

  “She developed hibernation thrush when we were in transit,” Cha said, panicked. “You have to let me use your medical facilities!”

  The Asgardian came closer and peered into the cocoon. The lower half of Kebbi’s face was exposed in all its misshapen, horrific glory.

  “Odin’s Eye!” he exclaimed. “What happened to her?”

  “We can’t all be as pretty as you,” Kebbi said, and let her jaw drop. The Asgardian had enough time to blink, and then Kebbi’s throat flexed and a toxic mist belched forth. Coughing and wheezing, the Asgardian stumbled backward, hands up. Too late, though. He’d gotten a lungful of the toxin, and it was choking him from the inside.

  Cha recoiled at the sight; the Asgardian dropped to his knees, clutching at his own throat. Trembling, Cha stepped aside, helpless as Thanos emerged from the ship, hands clasped behind his back.

  “Excellent,” he said. “It will get easier,” he assured Cha.

  With Kebbi’s help, he bound the Asgardian’s wrists behind his back using stout cabling from Sanctuary’s repair stores. Together, they dragged him inside. Cha lingered outside for a while, then eventually joined them, saying nothing.

  The Asgardian was still coughing. Tears streamed from his tightly shut eyes, running into his beard, dampening it to a blackish red. Thanos stood over him. “I assume from the lack of hue and cry that you are the sole emissary of this outpost.”

  The Asgardian spat up something red and thick. “You’re mad,” he choked out. “This is the royal territory of Odin of Asgard. He will—”

  “Yes, yes, I know. I’ve been called mad before. It hasn’t stopped me. I don’t think it’s as effective an attack as people think.”

  “Thanos…” It w
as Cha, speaking from behind him. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Yes. Now…” Thanos crouched down before the Asgardian. “I’m given to understand that your people fancy yourselves gods. What might you be the god of?”

  “Something bloody and violent, I assume,” Cha said.

  The Asgardian slitted his eyes open. They were red, raw, and weeping. “I am Vathlauss,” he rasped, his voice like metal shavings. “I will say no more than that.”

  “God of Murdering Helpless Innocents, no doubt,” Cha snarled.

  “God of Falling for Subterfuge,” Kebbi suggested.

  “Enough!” Thanos barked. “It matters not. I care only for the artifact.”

  Vathlauss coughed; some thin, bloody sputum dribbled down his chin. He shook his head and drew in a shuddering breath that twisted his face into an expression of great pain.

  “I’d’ve thought Asgardians to be made of sterner stuff,” Thanos said. “Perhaps our information acquisition will not be as difficult as we’d originally surmised.”

  “I’ll tell you nothing,” Vathlauss swore, coughing again.

  “You’ll tell us everything,” Thanos promised.

  He’d never tortured anyone before, but the basic concept was rather simple: inflict pain until the subject reveals the information you seek. Torture was not actually the best tool to use for information extraction. The more intense the pain, the more likely that the subject would say anything to make it stop. Still, it was the only option they had to make the Asgardian talk. They would have to be very careful.

  “We seek an artifact of great power, one that your king holds on Asgard. We need to know where he keeps such things and how to get there.”

  Vathlauss nodded, thinking. “You begin by stuffing your head up your own arse…” he said.

  Thanos grunted. “Cha, you may want to leave the room.”

  “Why?”