Junction

by Daniel M. Bensen

  These were people who had mastered the art of surviving in alien biotas. People who had figured out how to turn the strange lifeforms they found into tools. These Nun weren’t starving and smeared with half-understood exobiology like Daisuke, and they weren’t reluctant wormhole guardians like Tyaney’s tribe. They were Junction natives. Sing’s people.

  “Hello,” said Sing, walking toward them. “Peace.”

  “Take us to your leader,” Anne muttered.

  “Too late,” came Misha’s voice. “He’s already here.”

  “Yunubey is leader,” said Sing, nodding toward a man with a distressingly long codpiece. “He is brother me.”

  “Good day,” Anne said. “Now, I have some questions. Um. Heib? Heibna? Heina?”

  “Yes yes,” said Sing, treating Anne to one of her own impatient hand-flutters. “Long time we will talk. After we not die.”

  That sounded ominous. “Does that mean that we won’t die after we talk, or we will talk after we don’t die?” Daisuke asked, sitting up.

  “I don’t suppose I could convince you all to run away,” Misha called to them. “The Nun might take it badly and attack, but you’d stand a better chance of survival than if you wait around here.”

  I suppose that answers my question. There was something strange about Misha’s voice, and the things he was hinting, but Daisuke didn’t have the capacity to untangle more than one mystery at a time. “What will happen if we stay here?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid my friends are coming to pick me up,” said Misha.

  Anne stomped in frustration. “What the hell is going on? I thought we’d caught the bad guy.”

  A bitter chuckle from behind the fence of trap-grove paddles. “Bad guy?” Nurul said. “Don’t you know what Misha is?”

  “Not a mur-der-er,” Misha sang from his own prison.

  “I am a patriot!” Nurul’s scream wiped away the smile growing on Daisuke’s face. Hell. I’m going to have to sit up, aren’t I?

  “I love my country,” Nurul said, her voice compressed. “My country, which finally has the chance to achieve the greatness it deserves.”

  “Huh?” Anne said.

  “Dan?” said Yunubey the Nun.

  “Say again,” Sing commanded.

  “She means that she and Rahman were spies the whole time,” said Daisuke.

  “No! Rahman was just—” A muffled sob from behind the paddles. When Nurul spoke again, it was through her teeth. “He is just my husband.”

  “But Nurul took orders from that idiot Hariyadi,” Misha said.

  “Of course,” said Nurul. “And of course I knew Hariyadi was a narrow-minded, power-hungry fool, but I also knew too that when our people had control of both sides of the wormhole, we could start letting through colonists.”

  “Colonists!” Anne spat. “Of all the insane fucking megalomaniacal ideas….”

  “We could settle this new world. All these new worlds.” Nurul did not sound insane. She sounded like a TV weather reporter announcing the beginning of swimsuit season. “Junction could be the beginning of a great new experiment. A society that’s faith-based, civilized, unified, democratic, just.”

  A brief lull while Sing translated that for Yunubey. Then a longer pause while Yunubey looked expectantly at Sing, she looked at Anne, and Anne looked at Daisuke.

  So I am still the host of this bizarre little drama. With a sigh, Daisuke stood up.

  “But?” he prompted.

  “But!” Nurul growled. “Of course you Westerners weren’t going to let us have it. No, empire building is only something you’re allowed to do. At first I thought that stupid pretend plane crash was just to prevent Hariyadi from being present for our coup, as if that would stop us.”

  “Pretend crash?” said Sing, “Coup?”

  “Yes,” Nurul said as if Sing had asked for clarification rather than vocabulary. “A coup. Our government was just rolling over for America. Again! But certain components of the Indonesian army thought they had a chance to seize Junction.”

  Yunubey said something and Sing raised her hands. “I don’t understand.”

  “I think I do,” said Anne. “Hariyadi was supposed to lead the coup from this side. He was waiting for somebody back on Earth to launch their attack, but it seems the Americans found out about that.”

  “’Course we did,” said Misha. “But we couldn’t prove anything. We couldn’t arrest the commander of an allied armed force. We couldn’t even stop the movement of troops on the Indonesian side of the wormhole.”

  “Wait, ‘we’?” Daisuke had realized what had changed about Misha’s voice. “Your accent…you’re an American!”

  “Well, obviously,” Anne said.

  Misha sniffed. “I most certainly am not an American.”

  “Your accent sure as hell is,” Anne said.

  “I am Russian,” said Misha. “I was born in Russia and lived there until my parents emigrated in ’91. I tried to go back, but there was some…” he cleared his throat, “…disagreement about my military service. I ended up in the American embassy, where, you know, work was found for me.”

  “So you’re a dog for the Americans,” Nurul sneered. “That’s even worse than I thought. At least the Russians have pride.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Misha said, voice tired.

  Anne blinked, eyes focused inward, brow wrinkled. “So this whole thing: the plane ride, the crash, the hike through the wilderness, was all a ruse to get Hariyadi out of the way.”

  “We weren’t going to kill him,” said Misha, “just remove him from play so that the Indonesian coup would fail.”

  “Well, why didn’t you kill him?”

  “World War Three, remember? We’re still wearing bodycams for exactly that reason.”

  Daisuke rubbed the tender spot on his chest, thinking of all the great footage Anne and Sing were surely failing to capture in this scene. “But then why did they drag me into this?” It wasn’t something the Iron Man of Survival would say, but Daisuke found that role easy to ignore now.

  “You gave our plot a veneer of verisimilitude,” Misha said. “Plus, somebody in Washington owed somebody in Tokyo a favor.”

  Yunubey grumbled something and Sing translated. “Say again. Misha is American Them, Nurul is Indonesian Them. Them two for country Nun fighting, right?”

  “Yes,” said Anne. “Stupid geopolitics killed three people and made us march across five different alien biomes.”

  “We were supposed to stay by the plane and wait for the helicopter to pick us up,” said Misha, his tone disgusted. “But you idiots couldn’t just sit down and take orders. Then this bitch kills Pearson….”

  “I had no choice.” Nurul paced behind the electrified paddles like a caged tiger. “At first I was glad I only crippled him. But then Pearson got drunk and started talking about my country’s plans. He knew about the coup! So I waited until his next dose of morphine, then I smothered him with a thermal blanket while he was unconscious.”

  “And Hariyadi?” Daisuke asked.

  “And Hariyadi! The traitor!” Nurul’s voice dropped from pride to scorn. “The coward. Just because the day of the coup had come and gone, he was ready to give up. Give up! I sacrificed everything for our mission and Hariyadi just let it slip away.” Her voice went dull. “Now my country has nothing. I have nothing.”

  “I understand,” said Sing. “Anne and Daisuke are good. Misha is a little bad. Nurul is a little bad.”

  “A little?” Anne said. “She would have killed us!”

  “That is bad.” Sing looked at her. “But Nurul killed Tyaney. That is good.”

  Swarms of aerogellies swirled and twinkled through shafts of light. The kinetotroph grass hummed and ratcheted around their ankles. Slow predators oozed along the branches on pneumatic claws. Th
e paddles of the trap-grove hummed with stored power.

  “That ass threatened to drive off our native guide,” Nurul said into the high-tension silence. “And just when we were entering territory she knew. It was infuriating.” And a moment later, “Anne, and Daisuke, to you I am sorry. I couldn’t find my way through the yellow jungle, but if I let you come with me into Far Side Base, you would have said too much.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” said Anne.

  Misha cleared his throat. “It’s the same reason my buddies will kill you when they land here. You’re evidence of a stupid blunder on the part of my bosses and Nurul’s. What is the Pentagon supposed to say when this story comes out? ‘Well, what we were trying to do was keep Hariyadi alive, but, whoops, we let one of his subordinates kill him’? Nobody will believe that.”

  “But it’s the truth,” Anne said.

  “It looks like an open declaration of war,” said Nurul. “One that the Americans didn’t even bother to cover up. It would be better if nobody from our expedition ever came back.”

  Daisuke swallowed.

  “She’s right,” Misha said. “When my people get here, they’ll only have two options: put you in jail forever, or shoot you out here where nobody will see it.”

  “Fucking what?” Anne stomped her foot and everyone but Yunubey winced. “I can’t bloody believe this. You were so committed to your role as Misha the Russian stoner that you couldn’t step in and stop the murder of the people you were supposed to protect. That was the whole point of this stupid farce, wasn’t it?” She waved her free hand at the glowing trees, the scowling Nun. “Now you’re willing to let us die again to save the story of your incompetence from getting out.”

  “I tried to leave you behind,” Misha said. “Why did you have to follow me? I was going to tell them that I was the only survivor.”

  “Oh right,” said Anne. “A great ending for your bullshit story. What were you going to tell them about me and Daisuke, that we heroically sacrificed ourselves to get you home?”

  Yes. It would have been a good story. Daisuke could see it playing well.

  “I would have told them you stayed in the Oasis biome,” said Misha. “If you had just stayed there, you could have waited a few months or a year until the political situation calmed down—”

  “Or we died from lack of some critical amino acid,” Anne said.

  “Since you’re all here now, I can leave you with the Nun,” said Misha. “They can take care of you until you can present yourselves to the international authorities. Will you explain that to them, Anne?”

  “And what do you think Rahman’s chances are of surviving until then?” Nurul said. “And what about Sing’s people popping all of us into cookpots?”

  “No!” said Sing.

  Anne sighed. “The Nun aren’t going to eat us.”

  “No, just kill us and impale our bodies on spikes to scare off their enemies.”

  Sing shrugged. Hopefully only because she didn’t understand.

  “What do you expect me to do?” Misha asked.

  It sounded like a real question. Daisuke surprised himself by coming up with a real answer. “Stay,” he said. “You should stay with Sing.”

  Anne made a questioning noise while Nurul snorted. Sing smiled at Daisuke in approval.

  “I can’t stay here,” said Misha.

  “That is what you want to do,” Daisuke pointed out. “You allowed Sing to go with you when you left the rest of us on the other side of the valley. But you knew she could never go back to America with you.”

  “She wanted to be back with her people,” Misha said.

  “I think she also wants to be with you.”

  Daisuke raised an eyebrow at Sing, who said, “Yes. Misha Nun live with. Nun protect him.”

  “I wish I could,” said Misha.

  Daisuke tried to compose his thoughts in English. A bright sort of night was falling. Even as the sky shifted to red and purple-black, the ground and trees around them did not darken. Light reflected off the mirrored crystals at the tips of the branches of the spangle-trees, spotlighting their trunks. In contrast to the darkening sky, the forest around them gained a hallucinatory radiance.

  The setting was wrong for a discussion about political intrigue. This should be the backdrop for confessions of love, not murder.

  “The only real thing is love,” Daisuke said. “What Misha feels for Sing. What Nurul feels for Rahman.” He looked at Anne and found the courage to say, “Me and you. That is real. Not politics. Not ideals. Not missions.”

  “Psh,” said Anne. “Allergens are pretty damn real. So are digestive enzymes. Extended phenotypes. Poisonous gasses. Electromagnetism.” She looked at the spangle-tree branches and the corners of her mouth turned up. “Light.” She turned to face Daisuke. “And I guess hormones too. The hormones I’m feeling now are pretty real.”

  Daisuke’s heart clenched. All those wasted hours of feeling betrayed. He had clung so desperately to his persona, his pride, protecting himself against the one person who might actually help him.

  “I love you too, Anne.” He was crying. His nose was running, and he wiped at it. The gesture would look absolutely awful on camera.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” said Misha.

  “Anne and I will go home together,” Daisuke said. “We will tell the Americans our story, and our story will be the truth, as Anne believed until a few minutes ago. We were on a very dangerous journey. One by one, our companions died. We lost Nurul in the Oasis biome. We lost Misha here. We know nothing about politics.” He held out his arms to Anne. “We only survived with each other.”

  “What,” said Anne. “You mean we have to lie?”

  “Think of it as maintaining a persona,” Daisuke suggested.

  “Hoo boy,” Anne said. “I’ll try.”

  “It can’t work,” Misha said. “The bodycams have recorded this whole conversation.”

  “I know,” Daisuke said, walking to Anne. A week ago, this would have been unthinkable.

  Daisuke bent down as if to kiss her. Instead, he slipped his fingers under the strap of her bodycam and lifted it from around her neck. “You can’t have this.” The black rectangle swung on its strap, heavy with the sum of the best work of Daisuke’s career. “Nurul must sacrifice her bodycam as well.”

  “Done,” said Nurul. “I agree. I’ll stay in the wilderness forever. I’ll die there when my amino acids run out or whatever. Just let me try to reach Rahman.”

  “We owe you nothing,” Misha said.

  “But should we kill her?” Daisuke considered the next sentence. Conditionals were tricky. “In another world, we would have been friends. Let her find her husband. Let us go home.” He nodded at Sing. “Let yourself stay home.”

  “Plus, you know,” said Anne, “I still have Nurul’s gun, so I’ll shoot you if you don’t play along.”

  “You don’t need to threaten me.” Misha snorted as if at a private joke. “Just give the bodycams to Sing. There’s no reason to destroy them.”

  “Ha,” said Nurul. “You just want blackmail material for when they finally track you down.”

  Daisuke took a breath to prevent yet another digression. What they needed to do now was ask the Nun chief if he had understood any of their conversation. But Yunubey wasn’t looking at Daisuke. His head was raised, his eyes half-shut as if in concentration. As if he was listening to something.

  The noise came from the east, like the wingbeats of a glasslands bumblefly or the mating buzz of an Oasis biome lizard-bug.

  “The helicopter,” said Sing.

  Daisuke nodded at their guide. “Thank you,” he said.

  Sing nodded back to him, tears in her eyes, and turned to explain the situation to her brother.

  * * *

  “Yunubey, release my husba
nd.”

  “Ugh, Sing, really?” Yunubey said. “Husband? He looks like a huge, half-cooked tree-kangaroo.”

  “Misha is my husband,” said Sing firmly. “He killed the evil Tyaney, brought me to you, and the secrets he knows will be of great use as we explore Junction.”

  Yunubey screwed up his eyes. “Explore what?”

  “It’s their name for all the countries on this side of the High Earth Hole.”

  “Why would you need a word for that?” Yunubey shook his head. “I still don’t like this. It is proper for the woman to go live with the man’s people, not the other way around.” He waved his spear at the trap-grove. “This Misha creature can’t even speak. He isn’t one of the Us.”

  Sing let some spines show in her voice. “Tyaney was one of the Us.”

  Yunubey grunted as if punched. “I already apologized for doing such a poor job of protecting you. You don’t need to make me feel any worse by coupling with a…a….”

  “Scorched tree-kangaroo?”

  “I’m trying to think of a less flattering comparison. What was that monster you described from beyond the Outer Toymaker range? Some kind of giant spiny bag full of caustic poison?”

  “You, brother, need to broaden your mind.” Sing looked back to where Misha lay caged, softening her voice. “These people may be Them, but they are people. They laugh. They look with wonder at the Nightbow. They weep over their dead. They fall in love with each other.”

  “I’ll just bet they do,” Yunubey grumbled. “Well, at least they’re done gabbling. Ugh. Here come the ones who won’t shut up.”

  “Sing.” It was Daisuke, leaning on Anne, holding up one of the black amulets the Them carried on their chests. “Douzo,” he said, and passed the amulet to her with both hands, lowering his head as he did so. “Onegai shimasu.”

  Sing took the amulet, looking to Anne for explanation. “What do they want now? Is this a gift?”