As cool air flooded into the bay, they walked quickly down the ramp, turning toward the west. Rantara paused for a final comm check while Norris loosened the sling of his rifle so that it could be raised quickly and without hindrance from his armor. Theriani aimed for a gentle rise that would level at the southern edge of the valley, turning with a smile.
“We go now; I wait to the time you and Onallin can get away and find the second entry, only. This the time when we all going, it just like Bera Nima, but maybe better, now Onallin is standing with. Watch every place with hard eyes, maybe?”
Rantara went quickly to her with a doubled fist and tapped her breastplate twice—the Revallan soldier’s gesture for good luck. Theriani returned the same with a broad smile and then she was off.
“Let’s go, Darrien,” Rantara said.
Behind them, Hesset brought the shuttle to life and prepared to ease it from the bay; her own moment to action would arrive soon enough. They waved at Theriani and turned for the wandering course of an access road the Porseth technicians had built up to drive heavy land vehicles between remote power generation stations, but it was clear the weather-worn path had gone unused for months. By a direct route, Theriani would reach the compound first, but her reconnaissance work from the scrub and twisted trees high above the approaches to the archives would give them the advantage before the first Kez’Erel patrols were deployed.
Weak, crimson light from the system’s dying red giant bathed the valley in a curious, monochromatic glow like the inside of an oven, but the cold air reminded him how distant Esharam orbited. Rantara said nothing as they moved, yet the pace she set was surprisingly slow and Norris wondered if she did so out of concern for his ability to keep up. It was mildly insulting and he turned to her.
“Shouldn’t we speed it up a little bit?” he asked. “On this winding road, we have farther to go than Theriani, so…”
She shook her head and said, “We won’t be as effective if we get to this place out of breath, Darrien; there’s plenty of time, and hurrying now only degrades our ability to fight when the shooting starts. Trust me; I have done this a few times.”
Norris nodded, but he felt a sudden and honest gratitude, knowing he would go into a hostile and dangerous place at the side of one who had no doubt as to the outcome. In a firefight, or a hand-to-hand struggle at close range, Rantara had no match. Some knew her as the face of mindless brutality and viciousness—a cold, yellow-eyed murderer cloaked in the guise of a soldier—but others found her skills their savior on battlefields across a dozen systems. Norris looked and saw something much more; she was his future and reason to fight and survive. He said nothing, but the strength he took from knowing she was at his side made the terrifying prospect of close combat a goal to be met and achieved, rather than a remote and lonely place where he would die in fear.
They walked for a while until Theriani spoke from beyond the hill to report her progress and the strange absence of Kez’Erel patrols. As they paused to listen, he glanced at Rantara from the corner of his eye, judging her mood carefully. In the first moments after their escape, he remembered, they approached the Khorran detachment guarding a deserted research station on Kalarive. It was unclear then if Rantara’s absurd, melodramatic ploy would fall apart and end in gunfire. This time, a battle was assured, knowing the Kez’Erel would appear when they reached the archive. Was she preparing their attack with a stealth strategy, he wondered, or did she intend to meet the threat head-on?
When Theriani called to let them know she was moving again, Rantara calculated the distance, noting it would take a while to reach the archive. Norris nodded silently, but he stopped abruptly and turned to her.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Nothing is the matter,” he said, steering her gently toward the side of the narrow road. “It’s going to take a while before Theriani is in position, so I was just wondering…”
Rantara looked at him for a moment until the image formed and she realized what he was suggesting.
“Have you lost your mind?” she whispered loudly. “We’re about to go into battle! I’m not going to lay down half-naked on this filthy road, Darrien; you have to wait until we get back to the ship!”
Norris blinked and stared in disbelief. “What the hell? That’s not what I was going to ask!”
“Oh,” she said softly. “Well, what were you going to ask?”
“Unbelievable,” he smiled, shaking his head sadly.
“What’s your question, Darrien?”
Norris waited a moment before speaking, if only to let Rantara wallow in the embarrassment of her pornographic misperception.
“I know it doesn’t make any difference now, but just out of curiosity, when did you figure you’d tell me about the Life Choice?”
She sniffed and looked away quickly. “I decided the description should come from Banen; he’s been your doctor since the night you arrived, so it made sense to allow him to speak first.”
“Don’t try to weasel out of this, Onallin; the Tepseraline juice—that weird little gland in your brain?”
“Did he not explain?”
“Yeah, he explained all right.”
“And you understand what it means?”
“I do now!”
“Then you have everything you need.”
“Onallin…”
“All right, I should’ve told you sooner, but it wasn’t clear to me how you would react. I didn’t want to make you feel obligated to declare for a lifetime, simply because I’ve chosen.”
“Couldn’t you tell?”
“I didn’t know! When I spoke with Tindas, he became very serious.”
Rantara suddenly mimicked the Professor’s gravelly tone and said, “Human rituals are different; you shouldn’t presume,’ so I didn’t. Qural wondered about it while we were walking and she suggested I let Banen tell you instead.”
“Qural asked you about us?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll bet that was an interesting conversation.”
“She only wanted to make sure we were happy together, Darrien, she wasn’t intruding.”
“Okay, okay,” Norris said at last, satisfied with their standing and what remained, “I just wondered.”
Rantara turned quickly for the road and they walked on for a while, anticipating Theriani’s next call and an update on Kez’Erel movements ahead. With a steady breeze from behind, powdery dust kicked up from the road had become intolerable and a short pause to drink from their water tubes brought welcome relief. Norris examined the topographic map on an infopad, focusing on a ridgeline leading west toward the archive compound. It seemed simple enough, knowing Theriani’s ability to report from a concealed position would give them an edge when the mercenary soldiers came out from the archive buildings. He looked at Rantara, wondering again if she favored a slow, concealed approach, or if she would call for a lightning strike instead, but her odd expression and crooked smile intercepted his thought.
He looked away and said, “We’re not finished talking about the Choice, are we?”
“No,” she answered quickly.
“I should’ve kept my big mouth shut.”
“Maybe you should have! Now it’s my turn.”
“Fair’s fair, I guess,” he sighed.
“Tindas told me it can take years for humans to make their Life Choice; is that true?”
Norris frowned and tried to wave the question away, but Rantara stood her ground.
“You started this, Darrien; answer the question.”
Norris collected his thoughts for a moment before answering.
“Well, every courtship is unique.”
“And this takes years?”
“It’s a big decision!” he protested.
She shook her head with raised eyebrows.
“I’m surprised your species survived at all, if you sit around day after day trying to decide this sort of thing.”
“It doesn’t always take years, On
allin.”
She looked at him for a moment, wondering suddenly if Banen’s description of the Choice had compelled Norris to a conclusion before he was ready.
“Does speaking of this make you uncomfortable?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?
“This is different.”
“Different, how?”
Norris thought at once of his tense conversation with Ellimox; another verbal tennis match was beginning.
“Human social rules don’t apply out here, for one thing, and anyway, we don’t have a bunch of turpentine…”
“Tepseraline.”
“…Tepseraline…running around in our bodies. After we got out of Bera Nima alive, everything changed and we were given the chance to see each other in a different way. I guess nature took care of the rest because here we are, right?”
“Yes, all right,” she said.
“Are we good to go now?” Norris asked warily.
“Yes,” she replied with a satisfied grin, but after a few paces, Rantara stopped again.
“There is one other question.”
“Good lord.”
“It’s just a question, Darrien!”
“Go ahead.”
She moved in close and tilted her head the way she did when she already knew the answer before she asked. It was her specialty and a method made to snare careless victims in the trap of her razor-sharp scrutiny. Norris had seen the look before, but she smiled a little and said, “Who is Rachel?”
Norris was sure his mouth went agape, as though he had been a misbehaving child caught in a lie. Others had been there before him—lives hanging on their response—and his eyes darted as he searched for the words.
“How the hell did you hear about her?”
Rantara moved closer still, simply to increase his discomfort.
“She was in your memories from our evening out in Tevem and I asked Haleth to isolate them for me. It was strange, but I knew her name without being told, so she must be important to you.”
Norris felt suddenly exposed and alone as sudden memories of their moments inside Rantara’s interrogation room flooded in. He was determined not to appear flustered, but his answer was clumsy and obvious.
“I don’t remember thinking of Rachel that night,” he offered in quiet desperation.
She looked straight at him, unfazed and without sympathy for his condition.
“Well, you did. Haleth says random memories are triggered and appear without any particular reason. He thought Rachel might’ve been a girlfriend from your past, and…”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“You have called out her name in your sleep, so maybe Haleth…”
“Not the way he means,” Norris said quickly.
“So, who is she?”
“A close friend.”
“How close?”
“She’s like a sister, I guess—no different than my friendship with Hesset. We worked together on the planet where I lived when the Trap brought me here this time.”
“Then you and Rachel never…”
“No!”
Rantara nodded and smiled.
“I just wondered.”
“It was nothing like that; she’s an engineer—my second in command, and…”
“Yes, I see.”
“It’s just us, Onallin; there’s no one else who…”
“I understand!”
They walked on in silence for a while longer until, in a moment of precocious impulse, Norris decided to tease her one last time and even the score.
“It’s going to take Theriani another half-hour to reach those trees, you know.”
“Yes, we already established that, Darrien; what’s your point?”
“Well, I have a thermal blanket in my pack we could spread out on the ground, so maybe we do have time to…”
Without breaking stride, she returned another glare and said, “I should shoot you now and leave you here to rot.”
Norris smiled and waited a moment, deciding at last it was time.
“Oh, and by the way, I am for you as you are for me.”
Rantara stopped at once and stared at Norris in silence. He went to her and placed a gentle kiss on her cheek.
“Banen told me how to respond and make this permanent,” he whispered. “I want nothing else as much as I want you, so now it’s done—I’m declaring my Choice.”
“Are you sure?” she asked softly. “Don’t say these things unless you’re…”
“I’m sure,” he replied quickly. “I guess I’ve known it all along, but now it’s time to make it official.”
They held each other for a while and Norris pretended not to notice when Rantara wiped her watering eyes. As they continued, she shook her head at him and he shrugged.
“What?”
“I hoped this moment would arrive, Darrien, but you could’ve chosen a better place to declare your Choice than a cold, dirt road on a dead Porseth planet!”
“I love you, too,” he smiled. “Banen said we still have to go through the ceremony, but Ellimox is supposed to make all the arrangements?”
“Yes; the eldest sibling is usually responsible for joining ceremonies.”
“So, she has to be civil to me, at least for a day?” he grinned. “That should piss her off well enough.”
Rantara smiled at the thought.
“She might surprise you. I’ll send the announcement when we return to Fells Moll, but our custom will demand your family’s presence on Belex for the formal joining rite, and an equivalent ceremony on Earth in the human custom.”
“I can’t wait to see how my parents react when they find out about this—about you,” he said. “Maybe we should do this on Fells Moll, or some other, neutral site.”
“Let’s complete our mission first,” Rantara replied blandly; “there’s plenty of time for you to lose another argument and follow my instructions.”
As she continued up the road, Norris frowned and called out after her, “You know how much I dislike aliens, right?”
“Just keep moving, Mister Norris,” she smiled as they resumed their walk to the Merchants’ archive.
THEY SLOWED WHEN the angled roof of the archive building came into view, peeking over the ridge to their left. It was bigger than Rantara imagined, but Norris nodded with Settis’ memories clear in his mind. They stopped when Theriani called in her report.
“Onallin, I stay low in the trees now; the archive waiting below can see easy from here, maybe.”
“Any movement?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“We’re moving toward the back of this place; Hesset, are you ready?”
“Yes,” she answered, “I am hovering below the ridge to the south, half a kilometer from your position.”
Norris thumbed the magnification switch on his helmet visor as they climbed carefully up the hillside, staying low in anemic ground cover that reminded Norris of sagebrush. When they crawled to the crest of the ridge on their bellies to stay low, the complex sprawled in front of them, silent and hulking where it sat in a shallow depression. Five small, rectangular outbuildings surrounded an oddly shaped structure constructed as a smooth, featureless rectangle reaching upward like a giant, lonely tombstone.
In the dim twilight, perimeter illumination was aimed outward toward the ground, bathing the dusty surface in cool, white ovals like spotlights in a stage production. Behind the central structure, a spire rose from an adjacent building, bristling with antennae and two identical transmission dishes. Hesset would go for them first, Norris thought, nodding silently to Rantara. She could see a stand of gaunt, gnarled trees at the top of a rise farther beyond the complex where they knew Theriani waited with her rifle.
“Settis’ memories show cameras along the rooftops of those lower buildings,” Norris whispered.
She scanned from right to left, finding them perched like birds along the fascia of each structure.
“I see them.”
“It’s a good bet they’ll notice when we break cover and move in toward the secondary entrance.”
“Yes,” she replied, “but Hesset’s attack should distract enough of them to make access an easier task. Theriani?”
“I hear, Onallin.”
“We’re in position. Hesset will start her attack run in a few moments.”
“Yes, I stay here, only.”
She looked at Norris.
“Are you ready for this?”
He nodded, but she could see the apprehension in his eyes.
“I know it’s not what you trained for, Darrien, but you held your own against ten of our best soldiers on Karroba. Close-in combat is no different, just keep your bursts short and don’t waste projectiles shooting at walls; if you can’t see them, wait until you do before opening fire. Once we’re inside, the Kez have lost their advantage of distance, so we have to get across the compound before they can target us with their particle beams, do you understand?”
“Got it.”
“You can do this, Darrien. Stay close to me and watch every corner; the Kez aren’t stupid and they won’t stand out in the open, waiting for us to see and shoot them. When Hesset brings the power down, the darkness will give us the advantage, but we have to move quickly and kill as many as we can before the backups come online.”
“I’m ready,” Norris said, but the adrenalin was already pumping through his body. Like it is for all soldiers about to engage the enemy, his body tingled and it felt as though his senses had gone into overdrive.
Rantara leaned and gave him one last kiss and a broad smile.
“The Kez look fierce, but they’re soft; when we find them, our rifles will tear them apart.”
She keyed up her communicator and said, “Hesset, it’s time.”
Echoes of Esharam Page 15
