Providence

by Max Barry

  They ran. A while later, the salamander angled right. She thought it was trying to throw her: If she headed right, it would cut left toward the tornado again. But in the distance lay a low mound, some kind of lump, another small hill. Shit, she thought. She didn’t know what that was. Maybe nothing. But they couldn’t afford to encounter anything the salamander could disappear into or receive help from. They had to chase it down across bare rock until it couldn’t run anymore.

  The suit pulled at her arms and shoulders. Each step, she had to lift feet that felt like rocks and put them down again. “Anders,” she said. He had been silent for a while. “You see it?”

  “The hill?”

  “We can’t let it get there.”

  “I can’t run faster, Jackson.”

  “I know. I can’t, either.” She panted. “I’m going to take off my core.”

  His head twisted toward her. “What?”

  “I’m faster without it.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re dead without it.”

  “Not right away. There’ll still be air in the suit.”

  He gave an exhalation like a snort. “Not for long, without the core to refresh it. You can’t take it off.” She didn’t respond. “And even if you manage to catch that thing, if you’re by yourself, it’ll pull your head off.”

  Thirty minutes or so until the salamander reached the mound, she estimated. Four hundred yards to close. She had to be fast.

  Anders stopped running. The moment he disappeared from her side, she felt a thousand times more alone. But she pushed ahead. “Jackson. Stop.” She didn’t. “What if there’s another Providence?”

  His tone suggested embarrassment. He’d been nursing this idea for a while, she realized. He actually thought they might be rescued. It was so ludicrous that she almost laughed.

  “We don’t know where they are,” Anders said. “One could be close. It could find us.” She heard him begin to jog after her. “It could send down a jetpod for us.”

  She found her breath. “A Providence could be in orbit. It would power up its plasma. And kill us all from range.” She stumbled on a knob of rock and gasped. “You never understood this. War isn’t . . . for us. We’re a blip in the AI’s cost-benefit calc.” She was out of breath but felt the need to ram this point into Anders’s skull. “The number of times you’ve said the word Service, and you still don’t know what it means.”

  She slowed and stopped. Every muscle in her body screamed. But it was okay, she thought. They would perform when she needed them. “I can’t reach my core. I need you to detach it.”

  She turned. She felt him fumbling at her back. When the survival core detached, it felt as if he’d removed an iron brick. Her suit gave a brief gasp.

  Anders set her core on the rock. At first he wouldn’t meet her eyes. Then he said, “Take the gun.”

  She felt oddly touched. Her first thought was to refuse—it was extra weight and out of charge—but he was right. She would need something, even if it was a club.

  Already she felt hotter. No fan. No temperature regulation at all. And no air scrubbing: With every breath, she was filling her suit interior with carbon dioxide. She had to go.

  “Thank you,” she said. She began to run.

  * * *

  —

  She hadn’t sent a letter to David. She’d written hundreds but hadn’t managed to find one that felt right, and now she was out of time. He would have nothing but the clips they’d exchanged during sync windows, in which she’d mostly complained. In the back of her mind, she’d had the idea that her letter was coming, this perfect expression of everything she wanted to say, and then he would understand. Without that, it was just two years of her bitching.

  He’d basically kept her sane, these last two years, when her crew was testing her faith in her species, when Anders and Gilly were spending their time devising elaborate games and pranks while the ship fought the war for them. Is this what we’re fighting for? she asked him, rhetorically. This generation? Next sync, he replied: We were the same at that age. But she didn’t think so. She had started to wonder if there was something rotten at the core of these people, who viewed war as a career opportunity. There was a depthless narcissism to them that seemed to go beyond mere youthful self-absorption.

  Come home, then, he said. This was their joke. After each rant, his reply: So come home. It was a good joke because for a moment it felt possible. Like she could stand up. Tell her dysfunctional crew, I’m out, people. Best of luck. Step out of the airlock and into her apartment. Hug her husband.

  She closed on the salamander. Her pace was strong; she would catch it before it reached the mound. Her breathing was under control. The heat was bad and she was dripping sweat from every pore, but that didn’t matter, not yet. She drew within a hundred yards and then her feet didn’t go where they were supposed to and she stumbled and fell and couldn’t get up.

  Her vision filled with stars. Carbon dioxide, she thought. I am killing myself. Even this thought was slow and clumsy. There was poison swimming in her brain, dulling her senses. That was the problem, she knew. Not lack of oxygen, but an excess of carbon dioxide. She was enormously tempted to sleep. She wanted to close her eyes and ignore all her problems until they went away.

  She grabbed at her throat and peeled back the suit strap. Air rushed past her face, hot and sharp and filled with a million tiny knives, which crawled up her nostrils and swam inside. She gasped and sat up, pulling the suit away from her body in pieces. Everywhere there was sweat, the atmosphere attacked, and that was everywhere, and she tried to wipe herself down with the suit fabric as best she could. She pulled the helmet free so that only her eyes were protected by her film, the rest of her naked except for her underthings. She found the gun and got to her feet.

  She inhaled through her nose, keeping her mouth clamped shut. There was oxygen in the atmosphere, enough to sustain her for a short while, and if her sinuses burned, her throat and lungs, that wasn’t so different to when she pushed herself on the track. Her bare feet slapped hot rock. She drew closer to the salamander and it turned and saw her.

  It didn’t stop. She felt furious. She was already working so hard and had to keep going. Blood ran from her nose. It became harder to inhale without choking and then she coughed involuntarily and sucked air through her mouth and pain roared in with it. She spat and what came out left trails of white vapor. She felt terribly afraid that her lungs were filling with blood. She would slow and stumble and stop and be able to do nothing but watch as the salamander slowly pulled away.

  She willed strength into her legs. Just a little farther, please. She stared at the lumbering salamander and tried to pull it closer with her mind. She was so close that she could see its skin ripple with each step. She could hear sounds it was making: chuk, chuk. Its head turned again. She saw it try to increase its pace but it couldn’t and her heart leaped at the sight.

  David? It’s me. There’s something I want you to know. I’m sorry this took me so long. But I didn’t know how to say it.

  I’m sorry you married a happy girl who turned into me.

  I’m sorry I let you hope she might ever come back.

  I’m sorry I gave you so much less than you deserve.

  David, I’m sorry, but I’m not coming home.

  The salamander collapsed in front of her, its legs falling over one another. Its head hit rock and slid. It was sudden but also the only thing she’d been thinking about, so she raised the gun over her head and clubbed at the salamander with as much force as she and the gravity could muster. It buckled and kicked. She fell on top of it. Something slapped across her face, thick toes, rough and sharp. She lost the gun. She groped for its head, limbs, anything. But it was too strong and it heaved and sent her sprawling forward. She twisted and rose on legs she could barely control.

  The salamander faced her, a few ya
rds away. Shivers ran in waves up and down its skin. Its head dipped and rose. Its breathing was hoarse and erratic. The gun lay on the rock behind it. She took a step to the left. The salamander’s head followed, but it didn’t shift its footing. She took another step. There was pain in every part of her. But she kept taking steps until she’d circled around to the gun. Instead of turning to face her, the salamander’s head dropped. She picked up the gun. She gripped the barrel and raised it above her head and at the last moment the salamander summoned the strength to turn but she struck it solidly and it collapsed. Her momentum carried her to her knees, closer to the thing than she’d intended. She got a good grip on the gun and drove the stock into the salamander’s head again and again, until finally it was still.

  She stared at it until she was sure it was dead. “Ha,” she said. There was more she wanted to add, but even that word was painful. Everything was on fire. She rolled onto her back. She felt okay in a way she hadn’t for a long time. Her body was aflame but there was a stillness in her heart. She turned her head so that she could watch the salamander’s body until the end. “Ha,” she said.

  14

  [Anders]

  THE HIVE

  Eventually he made out a dark shape like a sack on the rocky plain ahead. He couldn’t tell whether it was one shape or two. His suit fan was running at its limit and his faceplate had fogged. He shuffled on until he was close enough to make out detail.

  When he reached them, he sat. He hung his head and breathed.

  The light was fading, shadows creeping out of cracks in the rock.

  He unslung the converter. He lay on his back and looked up at the cloud. How much he hated that cloud, he had no words. It was the ugliest fucking thing he’d ever seen.

  He sat up, unrolled Jackson’s suit, and lay it over her body. Beside her, the salamander’s head had been eaten away by chemical reaction where Jackson had caved it in. The butt of the lightning gun was corroded, too. The damage seemed superficial, though. He set it aside.

  He didn’t want Jackson to have to lie beside the creature. He seized the salamander by one leg and dragged it thirty feet away. Afterward he rested. Then he went back and collected the matter converter.

  Normally it pulled out into a boxlike shape, into which you would drop whatever you had and close the lid. But it had another configuration for processing oversize material. He detached the lid, set it aside, inverted the converter, set it on top of the dead salamander’s body, and closed its retractable grips.

  He squatted beside the salamander’s head. “Hey. Ugly.” He pointed at the converter. “I’m going to feed you to that thing. It’ll take a while. But I want you to know. You’re going to help me kill more salamanders.”

  He peered into the dead thing’s face. It had no response.

  “Let’s get started,” he said.

  * * *

  —

  The salamander allowed him to fully juice the lightning gun as well as his survival core. The converter could also hold a small charge of its own, so when he made it back to Beanfield, he could buy her EV suit another few days. After that, who knew. It was how they had to live now: a little at a time.

  He tried to reach her on ping but her suit came back with basic life readings and nothing else. Most likely, she was sleeping. He considered his options. He wanted to return to Beanfield as quickly as possible. But he was also curious about the mound. If it was some kind of burrow entrance, that would be useful to know. He could scout it and plan his next hunt.

  Since he had charge, he opened up his suit’s scan range to see what it could find. He had low expectations; it could only sniff the air, and wouldn’t map terrain or locate enemies. But any intel would be useful. It flared Beanfield’s location, which he already knew, and Jackson’s, beside him. Then, six miles away, Gilly’s.

  Had to be a mistake. But it had life readings, which moved before his eyes. Gilly was here. He was alive.

  He opened up comms. “Gilly.” There was no response. He worked out that Gilly was on passive ping, which was the kind of thing he might do if he wanted to conserve power but also be rescued.

  He turned until he was facing the source of the ping. Ahead of him lay the mound.

  He packed up the converter and began to strap it to his back. Then he hesitated. Beanfield needed that. Without power, she wouldn’t last another day. But he knew how quickly the gun chewed through power. He needed the gun, too, if there were a lot of salamanders between him and Gilly.

  Again he tried Beanfield on comms. While it bleated, he looked at Jackson. “What do you think?” he said. By his reckoning, Gilly’s ping was at least half a mile underground. He thought he knew what Jackson’s answer would be. She wouldn’t hide in a cave while Gilly needed help. While the planet vented salamanders.

  He was tempted to wake Beanfield. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to explain himself properly. He’d never had those kinds of words. Besides, either he would make it back out or he wouldn’t. That was what it came down to. He left her a recorded message anyway, doing the best he could, tightened the converter strap, and looped the lightning gun over his shoulder.

  Gilly was trapped in the dark. Anders had to get him out.

  * * *

  —

  The mound was sloped more gently on one side and fell off sharply on the other. He approached the sloped side and when he neared the top, he pressed himself to the rock and inched forward until he could peer over its edge. Below waddled a procession of salamanders. Fat white ones, a long line of the little fuckers, emerging from a hole in the ground to vomit resin at the base of the mound and then file back inside. No soldiers, as far as he could see. He watched until he was sure. Then he slid down the slope and prepared the gun.

  When he stepped out, they barely reacted. The nearest raised its head and sniffed the air, or so it looked like. It had tiny black salamander eyes and a face like the inside of a cow and he slotted the butt of the lightning gun into his shoulder. It was maybe smarter not to do this, to instead get down into the hole and make as much progress as he could before doing anything to alert the soldiers. But he had the gun and Jackson was dead and this salamander was here.

  He squeezed the trigger. The gun spat electricity in brilliant jagged lines. The rocky ground between them cracked and coughed dust. The worker split into two sections, three if you wanted to be generous. He would call it three; its legs were barely attached. Its body caught fire. It made a thin mewling sound. Its front legs pawed at the ground. It crawled forward a short distance and stopped to burn in peace.

  The worker ahead in the procession turned to see what had happened. Anders pointed the rifle at it but it didn’t seem to care one way or the other. Its head weaved left and right and then it turned and continued toward the vomit hill. Behind the burning salamander, other workers milled, confused. He watched them explore around the flaming corpse, seeking the ant-trail of their colleagues. One came within thirty feet of him and didn’t so much as glance in his direction.

  “You dumb shits,” he said.

  The gun’s charge remained at 100 percent, he was glad to see. He had been reckless on the ship, he thought, hosing down corridors like he was pressure-washing them. He didn’t need to do that. He just had to point and give it a little pop. He was tempted to stay and burn workers all day long, but Gilly was a thousand yards away, so he made himself approach the hole. It was large enough to accommodate him and the workers, as far as he could see, but that was the problem: He couldn’t see a hell of a long way before it got dark, and then who knew. He tasted the familiar fear, tickling the back of his throat, feathering across in his brain.

  Hey, Pauly.

  He turned on his suit’s exterior illumination. It extended only twenty or thirty feet but was, he had to say, a hell of a lot better than a glowstick. He made his way down sloping rock to the entrance. A little circle of white light danced befor
e him like a friendly spirit. The ground grew rougher, less weather-polished rock and more newly dried resin, a little easier to stumble over in the dark and be swarmed by monsters. But he walked on and let the hole envelop him. The tunnel walls drew closer and he decided he was getting a little too up close and personal with the workers after all—who knew what they did if they were startled, or if a manager salamander turned up—so he raised the barrel and popped one in the tunnel ahead of him. It cried and burst into flame and he hadn’t even thought about this but the firelight immediately improved the lighting situation a thousand times over.

  He advanced past it, flames licking around his suit, and popped another one. He continued like this for a few hundred feet, following the tunnel as it turned, until the parade of workers stopped. Then he paused, listening. He’d passed a few forks and side tunnels but hadn’t noticed any salamanders in them. He was still on the highway, as far as he could tell. Which made the lack of traffic suspicious. He checked behind and ahead. Nothing. Gilly was fifteen hundred feet away. Anders resumed walking.

  It came at him faster than he expected. He was being careful with the light, keeping his spirit guide light trained on the floor at its maximum distance, and still the thing was on top of him almost before he could react, glinting teeth and thick limbs, and he hadn’t expected them to run at him. He’d been waiting for the sound, huk. But instead it charged at him like a horse and he squeezed the trigger and splashed ignited ozone. It lunged and fell apart and the pieces hit him and knocked him down. There was fire in his face. He struggled free of the dismembered salamander and rose to one knee. Thirty feet was not enough, clearly. Not nearly enough. He pointed his little spirit guide down the center of the tunnel and saw something else there, a bowl of worms at the bottom of a well, and he sighted the gun, shifted the mode from auto to ranged, squeezed the trigger. The tunnel filled with light. There were salamanders in a heaving mass. The VX-10 was not ideal for this kind of thing, losing a lot of power over distance, but it was a confined space, a very, very confined space, and it barked and scoured the rock with light and flame. More were coming already, squeezing through the flames and bodies like they couldn’t wait to greet him, like it was the day before launch and there wasn’t a person alive who didn’t want to stop and shake his hand or grab a picture, and a little pop here and there was no longer enough, it seemed, despite his best intentions to preserve charge, so he held down the trigger for a full second, two, three, and made them split and char until he was certain they were dead.