by Gregg Vann
Five hundred years.
He turned sideways and slid his feet down to the floor.
Barent looked around and spotted Tana searching through the pile of storage containers, but other than that, everything was exactly the same as when he’d drifted off to sleep. He remembered reading for a little while longer, and quizzing Tana about a few things regarding modern Le’sant—specifically, information about the Collective military. But then Barent couldn’t ignore his fatigue any longer and was compelled to get some rest. Although he didn’t want to admit it, his experiences over the last few days—especially dragging Tana through the snow for two hours—had really worn him down.
“Find anything interesting?” he asked her.
“Lots,” Tana replied. “I just have no idea what any of it is.”
She held up a square box with shallow slots on all four sides. “Like this thing, for example.”
“That,” Barent said, “is a fusion-powered battery charger. With proper maintenance, they can last a hell of a long time before they’re completely drained. If you take a look behind the desk you’ll find another one just like it. I’m charging up some power units for my plasma rifle.”
“And these?” Tana said, holding up a small box with four foil-wrapped blocks inside it. They were thin, shiny rectangles.
“Grab all of those you can find,” he directed. “They’re energy and nutrition bars—full of protein and calories. Even after five centuries, they’ll still be good.”
“What were they for?” Tana asked.
“They were supplied to the guards,” Barent replied. “To make sure we stayed healthy enough to maintain order.”
Tana pulled one out to examine it and then she shook the box. “You had these while everyone else was starving?”
“Other than the few colonists, everyone else was a convict.”
“Yeah? Well I guess it’s easy to be a saint when your stomach is full.”
“That’s not fair,” Barent objected.
“No. It wasn’t.” Tana grinned. “But then, you did redeem yourself in the end.”
“Thanks. I think…”
Barent pulled his boots on and stood up, and then he strolled over by the fire to warm himself. Tana took a break from her search and plopped down onto one of the crates, leaning her back up against the stone wall and crossing her legs.
“Why did you do it?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“Come here. Become a guard…leave Earth.”
“I had my reasons.”
“That’s why I’m asking you. What were they?”
“Let’s just say that unless you’re an explorer, you don’t go out on an interstellar mission when things are good at home, and leave it at that.”
“Tell me what happened,” Tana pleaded. “What went so wrong on Earth that you came to this shithole?”
Barent didn’t answer her; he just stood in silence, staring at the fire.
“You aren’t the only one who can read people,” Tana said. “I know it had to be something really bad.”
Barent scoffed. “You don’t know anything.”
“Then tell me,” Tana said. “Please.”
Barent heard the compassion in her voice, and he realized Tana wasn’t trying to be invasive, she was merely curious. And who knew what these people understood about Earth—they’d been cut off for five hundred years.
I suppose it wouldn’t hurt for her to know just how fucked up her ancestors on the home world were, Barent thought to himself. Why not?
He shrugged and took a deep breath.
“I was in the military long before I became a guard,” he began. “And I fought in three wars back on Earth…the last of which almost took out the entire planet. That was the one that scared everyone enough to start thinking seriously about colonizing other worlds. We’d had the technology to do it for years, just not the will. But Armageddon knocking on the door finally put those rockets in the air. Figuratively speaking, of course. They were constructed in orbit.”
Barent paused for a moment, remembering the wars. All of the battles…and the killing. So many people had died—all over the globe—that it defied explanation. Mere numbers and adjectives couldn’t possibly do the horror justice. In fact, Barent believed there was no meaningful way that kind of hell ever could be articulated. But even if the right words did exist, he would never say them. Those thoughts and memories needed to stay buried, not talked about. It was the only way he knew to keep going.
“The planet simply wasn’t big enough for everyone anymore,” Barent continued. “And in the never-ending race for more resources, the major countries finally grew tired of proxy wars and began gobbling up the smaller contested nations—including mine. For a time, the most powerful among them even had a tacit agreement: we won’t interfere as you absorb the smaller countries in your sphere of influence, as long as you extend that same courtesy to us. Alliances and borders shifted frequently over the course of two decades, and in three separate wars, I found myself in three different armies. But eventually the final lines were drawn, with only three superpowers remaining. There was no room left for expansion—no more agreements to hammer out. The next war would be the last war.”
“You’re telling me about Earth,” Tana said. “And why humans left the planet. But what about you, personally? Why were you on the Le’sant?”
“Because I had nothing left,” Barent said sharply.
He turned to face her and Tana saw the fury in his eyes. She’d seen that kind of rage before; it was the look a man wore right before he killed. But there was something else there as well, she noted, the look of a man who had killed too much. Barent’s anger flashed away as quickly as it had arisen.
“I left because they died in that last war, because my entire family was dead. Everyone, except for me.”
“I’m sorry—” Tana started.
“Don’t!” Barent snapped, but then his voice softened. “That was five hundred years ago. The past is long gone. All that’s left now…is now.”
“If you say so, Barent.”
“I do. And besides, even if they’d lived and I remained behind, what do you think has become of Earth? If you haven’t heard anything from them in all this time those idiots must have finally wiped themselves out.”
Barent shook his head side-to-side. “But I suppose that was inevitable.”
He drifted off into silent contemplation, staring back at the fire again, so Tana decided to continue rummaging around in the crates to see what else she could find. She felt down inside the one she was seated on and pulled out another device, but unlike the others, this one was flashing. A bright blue light on the top of it was rapidly flicking on and off, and she held it out in front of her and called over to Barent.
“What about this thing?” Tana asked him.
“Wha—” Barent’s mind was still clouded by the past, but he turned his head to look at her.
“What does this one do?” she said.
“How the hell?” Barent exclaimed.
He rushed over to Tana’s side and snatched the device from her hands, punching a sequence of codes into the tiny keypad on the side of it. Barent stared at the light in anticipation as it flashed red twice, and then returned to the original blue pattern.
“I don’t believe it,” he said.
“Believe what?” Tana asked him. “What is that thing?”
Barent sat down next to her on the crate and cradled the device in his hands, staring at it.
“It’s a comm unit.”
“The Collective!” Tana said. “They’re using it to find us.”
“It’s not the Collective,” Barent replied calmly. “I’ve already confirmed the source of the signal.”
“Then who the hell is it?”
Barent looked over at Tana and she saw the disbelief on his face.
“It’s the second ship,” Barent said finally. And then his gaze drifted back down to the comm unit.
“The si
gnal…is coming from the Olin.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Purge
“What do you mean you can’t find them?” Minister Golen thundered.
He looked around and noticed that his outburst had drawn the attention of a few nearby representatives, so he gave General Malves an insincere smile—one purely for the benefit of anyone watching the exchange.
“Come with me,” he directed.
The two men moved out from the great atrium of the General Assembly building—the very seat of power in the Collective. This was the place where all major laws governing the populace originated, or so a small minority of the people believed, anyway. Most correctly understood that Minister Golen and a cadre of elder statesman held the only real power in Le’sant, and that the laws established by that small group were ruthlessly enforced by both the police and the Collective military. The hard truth was that the elected representatives of the Assembly were little more than clawless animals in a zoo, propped up in front of the citizens largely for show.
They did enjoy a tiny shred of authority, as each was empowered to direct minor policy issues—particularly those pertaining to their own districts. But if any of them tried to affect any real change, especially larger citywide concerns, they were coerced into compliance with any one of the myriad means available to the minister and his cronies. Some particularly headstrong representatives had even vanished, never to be seen again. Defiance and disappearance had gone hand in hand during Golen’s tenure.
The minister led Malves into an unused office space where they could speak privately—away from watchful eyes—and then Golen pulled the door closed behind them.
“How could they just vanish?” he asked the general.
“According to a survivor from the shootout in the Outland they fled beyond the city walls, out onto the surface.”
“Then they obviously went to the next gate and snuck back in.”
“No, Minister. That’s what our soldiers thought they might try as well. They stationed men at every entrance to the city, but Sergeant Barent and the thief never showed up.”
“How long could they last outside the wall?” Golen asked.
“At this time of year? A few hours, at best. But there is another problem, Minister. One potentially more serious. Some of—”
“I could do with more solutions and less problems,” Golen snapped, and then he rubbed his temples vigorously with both hands, taking a deep breath. “What is it, General?”
“Some of the downtrodden witnessed the fight. And they know it was Barent. They recognized him.”
“Then kill them,” Golen said without hesitation. “It shouldn’t be that hard remove anyone who was there.”
“It’s gone too far for that, Minister. Word has already spread all the way back to the Central District.”
“Bah!” Golen spat, waving one hand off to the side in frustration.
General Malves waited patiently as the minister fell silent; he suspected Golen was scheming up some form of solution.
He was right.
“I have an idea,” Golen said at last. “We can eliminate all of these problems in a single, decisive blow. And ensure that nothing else crops up later from this unfortunate incident to give us trouble.”
“How?” General Malves asked.
“We’ll blame it all on the Wardens. We say that this Barent is an imposter, surgically created by the Wardens to overthrow the rightfully elected government. We can stage the Tomb of the Great Betrayer to look like they desecrated it for the artifacts they needed, and then tell everyone that the Wardens took Barent’s body to pattern their imposter on.”
“The people will never believe it,” Malves said.
“Who guards the tomb?”
“My men do, Minister. You know that.”
Golen smiled. “And who does the public think guards the tomb?”
“The Wardens…”
“Yes. The Wardens. The rabble that worship Barent think his body remains under the protection of the Wardens, so who else but them could have accomplished this heinous vandalism? And wouldn’t the Wardens have informed the people if something happened to the Great Betrayer’s tomb? Unless, of course, they had something to hide.”
“They will deny it! The Wardens will rally the people around them.”
“Not if they’re already out of the picture,” Golen replied.
Malves took his meaning immediately. “You’re talking about almost a thousand men, Minister. And many of my troops would balk at an assignment to kill the Wardens.”
“If you can’t do it, General, then perhaps you’d like it to be one thousand and one?”
Malves didn’t enjoy being threatened, and fought to quell his anger, yet it still found a way into his voice. “No, Minister.”
“Don’t let your loyalty waver, Malves. If the people found out about some of the things you’ve done your head would be resting on the ground right next to mine.”
“You think I don’t know that!” the general said forcefully, ignoring his position as Golen’s subordinate.
“Relax, General Malves. Relax. I’m confident that we can handle this all appropriately. How long will it take you to remove the Wardens?”
“Two days, maybe. It’s hard to say. They are scattered throughout the city, and they won’t be easy targets.”
“Just get it done as quickly as possible. And as soon as the last one is dead, we’ll release the propaganda blaming them for everything. We’ll also let the people know that we’ve already punished the Wardens for what they did to their hero.”
“Yes, Minister.”
Malves gazed down at the floor for a moment and then back up at Golen, frowning.
“What is it, General? Please, speak freely.”
“It’s just a shame that we can’t speak with Sergeant Barent…try to work something out with him. Can you imagine?”
Golen grinned. “Have you ever read his treatises, General? Not the ones we manufacture, but the real ones?”
“I have.”
“Then you know exactly how Barent would react to the government we have in place. And you also know that the people would love him for it.”
“I’m afraid I have to agree, Minister. Sergeant Barent would never consent to being governed by the Collective, and the people would undoubtedly support him if he chose to move against us.”
Golen grabbed Malves’ arm lightly and escorted him back toward the door. “Trust me, General, we can make this all go away. Handle the Wardens. And keep troops posted at the city gates for a few more days—just in case Barent is as resilient as the legends claim. After that, no matter how hardy he is—or how good the climate treatment they gave him was—Sergeant Barent will have succumbed to the cold. He is only human, after all.”
“Don’t worry, Minister Golen. I’ll see that everything’s done.”
“Excellent.”
Golen opened the door and they both stepped outside—the sound of dozens of conversations assailing them as a large crowd of representatives strolled through the atrium. “I’ll be in assembly meetings all day, General. I assume that you have no further need of me?”
“No, Minister. I know exactly what needs to be done.”
Golen nodded. “Then please stop by my office tomorrow and let me know how things are proceeding.”
“Of course.”
Malves watched him walk off, blending in with the crush of people moving through the atrium, and then he made his own way toward the exit. He couldn’t recall ever having been issued more distasteful orders—and Golen had given him some appalling tasks to accomplish over the years.
Malves thought to consult the Vade for guidance, but he knew that these were unprecedented times, and unfathomable actions. No one had ever faced a situation like this before, and the Vade would hold no answers for him.
No, General Malves thought, pushing the last of his lingering doubts aside. Minister Golen is right. The Wardens must die. I just hope that he was ri
ght about Sergeant Barent as well. Because if the Great Betrayer does somehow survive…
I will have to kill him too.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Second Ship
“I don’t understand,” Tana said. “What do you mean, ‘the second ship’? The Olin was lost back before you…uh…died.”
“I mean that this comm unit is picking up an emergency beacon, and when I sent a confirmation signal it returned it, acknowledging the source. There is no doubt. It’s the Olin.”
Tana hopped off the crate and stared down at the device. “After five hundred years? How can that be?”
“I have no idea. But according to the strength indicator, it’s close. Within eighty kilometers is my guess. I think we should go check it out.”
“Are you mad? Eighty kilometers in this climate might as well be in orbit. And wouldn’t that put it out beyond the crater wall? Even with your resistance we’d never make it. It’s suicide.”
“Maybe not,” Barent replied. “Follow me.”
He led Tana over to a large metal door set snugly into one of the stone walls. Its edges were rounded, and it was mounted on three sturdy hinges, anchored deeply into the rock. Tana had noticed the door earlier and guessed it was repurposed from the Le’sant, while it was still in its starship configuration. And when she got close enough to actually inspect it, Tana confirmed she was right. It still even had the original deck and room number stamped on it.
A cold chill filtered into the room as Barent yanked the heavy door open, and Tana saw that they were completely surrounded by rock. Off to the right there was a narrow path winding through the high stone walls, covered in fresh snow. And directly across from them, on the other side of the trail, Tana spotted a shallow alcove dug out from the rock face. It looked like an unfinished second room, but there were no doors in place, and the partially hollowed out cave was entirely exposed to the elements. A good deal of snow had built up across the front of it, drifting down from the open sky overhead, but Tana could still make out something partly hidden beyond the uneven white berm.
