I told myself that’s what I’d meant. Just like I told myself I hadn’t noticed that Alton had appeared quietly at the storage room hatchway moments before I’d said the words. Because I wouldn’t have knowingly said those words in front of the raknoth. Couldn’t have.
Could I?
I turned to the raknoth, fully expecting him to launch into a timely pitch on the many logical reasons to leave Enochia behind and begin the hunt elsewhere, and fully ready to tell him to shove it all up his scaly ass. But he didn’t say a word. Just studied me for another long moment, then turned and headed back for the flight deck to go stare at his damned wall.
I stood there for a long while, paralyzed by the kind of full body malaise I hadn’t experienced since I’d lost Carlisle. I thought of him then, and of my mom and dad. I didn’t bother trying to imagine what they would’ve done in my boots. For the first time, I didn’t need to. Instead, I just thought of their faces, and of how much I missed them. Then I cleaned up my mess and went back to check on the reels. Again.
Days passed by. More days than I cared to count. But I counted anyway.
Day after day, I felt more disconnected from the world below. I thought of it more and more as the world below. Like it was something separate. Something other. Some days, it began to feel like I was genuinely looking down on an alien planet. Others, I just browsed the reels, feeling utterly psychopathic, like I’d knowingly lit the house on fire and had come out here to the shadows to watch it burn, marveling at the ineffable beauty of the thing, even as the voice in the back of my head pointed out that there’d still been a living, breathing family inside.
It was a little scary, how much I felt like I was losing touch.
“So I see you’re a beard guy now, eh?” Johnny asked one day, during one of our check-ins.
We were into the Harvest season then. Over two full cycles aboard that damned ship with Alton Parker—thirty three days, according to the tally I couldn’t for the life of me explain why I was still keeping, other than an apparent knack for self-loathing masochism.
I pulled up a full-display view of myself through the node camera to see what he meant. There were no mirrors aboard the ship, as far as I knew. And when I got a good look at myself, I was kind of glad for that.
I looked like a wreck. And I felt like one, too.
“I can’t stay here,” I whispered softly, staring at my wild, ragged appearance, and trying to remember the feeling of Elise’s skin on mine, and the joy of soft, woodland dirt beneath my boots.
“What was that, broto?” Johnny’s voice crackled through the amps on the still-running call, nearly making me jump. “Ah scud, I think we might be losing you.”
Finally, the day came.
I couldn’t have said how I knew. I couldn’t have even said what it was I’d been waiting for. But on that day, I woke with the visceral certainty that something had changed, and that now there was truly nothing left for me to do on Enochia. Nothing that wouldn’t be done better and more peacefully by hands other than mine.
It wasn’t a good feeling. But it wasn’t necessarily a bad one, either. Bittersweet might’ve been the word, if there’d actually been anything sweet about it. Instead, it was only a placid sense of inevitability that I felt. Something like peace and calm, but unmistakably marred by the bitter certainty that, whatever lasting peace might arise out of all of this chaos, I was never again to exist anywhere but on its fringes. And maybe not even there, I couldn’t help but think, as I trudged onto the flight deck and found Alton staring down at Enochia.
“They killed Nan’Alar,” he said, not turning.
I didn’t need to ask who Nan’Alar was. There was only one possible answer.
The last of the raknoth Seekers. The one who’d escaped back at Adam and Enid’s public execution outside the White Tower.
“I think I felt it, somehow,” I said, thinking about the way I’d awoken.
If Alton was surprised by that, he didn’t see fit to say it. Didn’t see fit to say much of anything, apparently.
I hesitated in the corridor, wondering if I should leave him be, and give him the privacy to mourn his fallen kin.
Did raknoth even mourn? I couldn’t help but wonder. It was a strange concept to think about, and yet another question to which I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. But the longer I stood there, the more I felt like I should say something.
“Were you... close?”
I felt foolish about the words as soon as they left my mouth. Alton, though, didn’t seem especially bothered as he turned to regard me.
“He was of my clan,” he said, as if that should be answer enough. Then, as if remembering who he was talking to, he added, “I did not harbor any particular affection for him, if that’s what you mean. Friendships—what humans would call friendships, at least—are not so common among my people. We are too... pragmatic for such relationships.”
I took a few hesitant steps onto the flight deck, not really sure this was a conversation I wanted to be having.
“Why didn’t you recruit Nan’Alar and his companion for your rakul hunting party before, then, if you’re so pragmatic?”
If I wasn’t so sure he was a heartless reptile, I might’ve felt bad about the question. As it was, he didn’t seem to mind. So I continued on.
“Frosty, too. They were all stronger than I ever could be. Seems like it would’ve been the pragmatic thing to do.”
“Does it?” He studied me for a long while. “Why are you alive, Haldin?”
I frowned, not really sure what he meant by that.
“They were all stronger than you, in a purely physical sense,” he continued. “Yes?”
I searched his inscrutable expression, looking for the shape of this new game. “You know they were.”
He tilted his head in admission. “Yes.” A flat smile stretched his lips. “And did you ever allow that to stop you, even for a moment?”
I said nothing, understanding immediately what he was getting at, and not liking it one bit. I couldn’t have even said why, aside from that it felt like he was preparing to deliberately stroke my ego.
His smile widened at my hesitation, perfectly reptilian in his empty eyes. “That is why, Haldin. Simply for the reason that you have out-survived all other challengers, whether you may take direct credit or not.” He shrugged, and turned back to the viewing wall. “Perhaps your human naivety has finally began rubbing off on me after all this time.”
I watched his turned back, wondering for the thousandth time if I could trust a single word he’d ever said. The worst part—the most troubling part—was that, ever since I’d sprung him from the Haven brig over a season ago, he’d never once lied to me. Not that I could prove. Even before Haven, I couldn’t cite a single direct lie he’d ever told me. Not for sure.
Then again, that hardly made him trustworthy.
Alton Parker had lied to Enochia. He’d committed crimes against this planet that even now were beyond my ability to fully grasp. Not just crimes. Atrocities. Bloody, unforgivable atrocities. That much was all beyond question. And while he might not have directly lied to me at any point, he’d certainly mislead on multiple occasions—sometimes toying with me seemingly for little more than the fun of it.
And yet despite all that, for the life of me, I was starting to wonder if—or, rather, to worry that—in some sick way, Alton Parker might actually be less likely to lie to my face than pretty much anyone else on the planet.
And that alone told me I’d been on this ship for far too long.
“And that’s it?” I finally asked. “You really expect me to believe that that’s all this has ever been about? My unwillingness to die?”
He glanced back at me over his shoulder. “Do you see any other reason? What else would I possibly be playing at at this point?” He smirked. “Unless you wish to believe I simply desired to procure the most stubborn human blood source on the planet for my travels?”
I held his gaze, searching in fu
tility for the lie. Pulling at frayed threads of the wildest conspiracy theories I could dream up, seeking the catch, the ulterior motive. Nothing caught. Nothing but the secondhand memories of the unstoppable monsters that would one day find their way to Enochia, and the notion that this lone raknoth, for reasons of his own, wanted the bastards dead.
“What harm could possibly befall your world for your absence, Haldin,” Alton asked, “which hasn’t already befallen it a thousand times over by now?”
With that, he returned his attention to the viewing wall, leaving me to stare at his turned back in mute horror.
Because he was right. I’d known it since I awoke that morning, adrift in that soft but certain tide of inevitability. Scud, maybe I’d known it ever since I’d made the decision to spring the raknoth from Haven. I’d only been hanging onto a dream, holding at the fraying lines of idealistic hope. But there was no more hanging on. Because he was right. Forty-four days watching the chaos below unfolding through the reels, watching my friends extinguishing fires and building futures more effectively than I could ever again hope to. And he was right.
“What do I do?”
The words escaped my mouth in a hollow whisper, unintended, least of all for Alton Parker. Because I knew what he would say—knew that this was the very moment he’d been waiting for for nigh two seasons now.
Only he didn’t say it.
For a long while, he didn’t say anything. Only stared out at the vast, star-dotted blackness of space.
“Would you believe me,” he finally asked, “if I told you that I, too, am afraid of what lies ahead?”
I wasn’t sure what I believed in that moment, other than the two most fundamental pillars that rose up in my mind like a pair of darksteel mountains.
On the one was the flame-carved reminder that the creature in front of me had been unflinchingly willing to sacrifice an entire planet for this mission of his, and that I must never forget that. And on the other, burning just as clearly now, was the harsh certainty that my time of service on Enochia was done.
I’d done everything I could do on the planet.
But not everything I could do for the planet.
No. Not even close.
And so it was that I found myself marching slowly over to the viewing wall, moving like I was dragging softsteel boots, and yet somehow feeling perversely lighter for each step. I kept walking until I stood beside Alton Parker, staring out into the dark expanse.
“So this plan of yours...” I said, feeling like the softsteel had spread to my lungs, yet unable to deny the thrill of perverse excitement that accompanied it at the thought of taking action. Taking control. Doing something—anything—other than sitting here in this damned ship for one more impotent, helpless moment. “What did you have in mind, exactly?”
39
Legacies
I was going to die.
Outside of literal life-and-death situations, I’d always thought phrases like that were nothing but overly dramatic embellishments, used either thoughtlessly, or in a desperate play for attention. But nonetheless, there it was, as the ship veered lower, and the lush green canopy of the southern forests of Divinity rose closer into view.
I’d never felt such dread in my life—so thick and heavy and all-consuming that my brain didn’t seem equipped to interpret it, other than that I was going to die.
I couldn’t do this.
Desperately, I looked to Alton. I’m not sure what manner of mercy I was hoping to find from the sociopathic raknoth, but he was occupied with the ship’s descent anyway, his eyes vacant with telepathic focus.
For a second, I considered trying to wrest control of the ship from him. Scud, for a second, I almost wished the rakul would actually show up right then and there, and that we could have it out with those intergalactic tyrants right on our home soil, for better or for worse, even if it did mean the end of the world. Because in that moment, I couldn’t believe that anything else in the universe could ever be worse than this. Worse than the thought of what I was about to do.
I couldn’t leave her.
I just couldn’t. That was all there was to it.
But I had to. It had already been decided. Decided by me, no less, back when we’d still been far enough away from this conversation that I’d actually been able to think rationally. Back when I’d still had the objectivity to properly weigh the threat of everything Alton had shown me against the promise of the dark chasm that was already beginning to tear open in my heart.
But Elise would survive this. That was all that mattered. And I would too. Enough to fight on, at least. Because fight on, we must. Her here, where she could help the Children of Enochia to build on the momentum of their first major victory and, fates willing, usher in some meaningful peace between Enochia and its Shapers. And me out there, where Alton Parker and I might—just might—have a shot at turning the rakul away before they could ever reach Earth or Enochia and prematurely render any such peace irrelevant in the wake of their cataclysmic fury.
I still ached inside at having found out that it had been the Children of Enochia who’d taken down the last reeker, Nan’Alar. It was good news, to be sure. The best news we could’ve hoped for, really, and a solid foothold for the Children’s entry into the public eye. But knowing that I’d been idly sitting by while Elise and Garrett and the rest of the Children’s finest fighters had been fighting to white-knuckled, bloody death against the last of the living raknoth on Enochia...
It had been for the greater good, I’d told myself. Elise had told me the same, when we’d finally had a chance to speak, afterward. The victory had needed to belong to them, and to them only. My involvement only would’ve tarnished the deed in the eyes of Enochia. Which is why I hadn’t learned about it until the deed was done. Smart move on their part, I’d had to admit, as I’d sat shaking with helpless rage, listening to Elise’s recounting of what they’d been through, and seeing the scrapes and bruises on her face, and the flinches she tried to hide every time she shifted.
At least no one had died.
And honestly, after everything Alton had shown me in the past few days, a small part of me had to admit that it would’ve been doing them no kindness to deprive them of the chance to slay a reeker on their own. At least now they knew they could. Because if Alton and I were to fail out there, and if even one of the rakul actually reached Enochia someday...
After some of the memories Alton had shared with me, I almost would’ve rather faced an entire company of reekers than a single Kul.
But hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. There were still avenues to explore—the remaining raknoth clans of Earth, and the tentative hope we might yet find the daughter of the Earthborn Shaper who’d originally created the raknoth blood curse chief among them. Not that any of that really made me feel any better—about the mission itself, or about my leaving everything behind on Enochia. It should have, some part of my would-be rational mind insisted. I was stepping right up to the martyr block, after all, wasn’t I? I was practically being a hero. Or so that voice told me on the outside. But on the inside...
Inside, I just felt vile. I felt like a lesser being than even the dumpster fire reels were giving me credit for—like the joke was on them for having been so focused on what I was and what I’d done when there was such a ripe trove of cowardice and other shameful truths lingering just beyond their expert scrutiny. The thought made me want to laugh. And cry.
Why had I chosen this place? I couldn’t stop wondering, as the forest rose to meet us. Why here, of all the places on Enochia?
In my head, the old Emmútari outpost that had once served as hideout and home for me and Carlisle had seemed as good a place as any for this last discreet meeting. It might not have been perfect, given that the location had technically been compromised when Johnny had once dispatched a Legion skimmer out there to collect me when I’d lost my scud after the original White Tower massacre. But to my surprise, neither he nor Elise had argued when I’d made the
suggestion.
Maybe they’d already figured out it wouldn’t matter anymore after today. I hadn’t told them why I needed to meet in person. Not explicitly. But I would’ve been surprised if they hadn’t at least guessed what was coming.
Maybe that’s why coming here of all places to say my goodbyes suddenly felt so macabre—like some part of me just wanted to see to it that my every precious relationship on Enochia was consolidated here in this final resting place. Here, where I’d mourned the loss of my parents under the protection of the man who’d quickly become a father of a different kind. Here, where I’d returned to mourn his loss, once he’d sacrificed his life for mine. And now here again, for this.
We gather here today to mourn the loss of Haldin Raish, and all that he held dear.
I quelled the bitter thoughts and looked to the trees below, seeking some peace of mind among the tranquil greenery. Thinking of my parents again, I lamented the fact that I hadn’t had the chance to visit them one last time in Sanctuary. Or maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t even tried that truly bothered me. Somehow, though, risking our entire rakul insurance voyage just to see their ashes one more time hadn’t seemed reasonable.
That realization hadn’t exactly helped my current feelings of self-worth, but it didn’t matter anyway. I didn’t need to touch a pyre stone to feel them there with me.
The dread in my stomach tightened as I began to catch familiar landmarks and spotted the pair of mighty oak trees on my old hillside lookout. I pointed the way wordlessly to Alton before remembering that he was busy flying. It didn’t seem to matter anyway. He was already bringing the ship down as if he knew exactly where he was headed. Maybe he—or the ship—could sense it.
Children of Enochia Page 38
