by Susan Harris
She twisted to look up at John and almost gasped at his expression. His dark eyes seemed impossibly darker, looking bottomless. His full lips were drawn out into a line of determination, his jaw set, lines of concentration seemed to be carved onto his face. Anney watched as John brought his hand up steadily, his lips forming words she couldn’t hear. She pressed her hand to her mouth as John’s hand began to glow, and a golden light shot out from his palm, mixing in with the green, pushing the gray light back.
Anney stared at John, wide-eyed, her mouth working, but no words would come out. “I couldn't tell you, Anney,” John said, his eyes on the battle. “I wasn’t allowed. I'm sorry.”
“W-why?” she breathed softly.
John looked at her for a few seconds, his dark eyes that were so full of promise and determination seared her, sending a shiver down her spine. “If we survive this, I'll tell you everything you want to know.” His tone was raw and sincere. Anney nodded once at his words, he smiled at her and turned his attention back on the fight.
She looked back and forth between John and Adrian, both fighting, both struggling, and felt a sudden surge of strength she had never felt in her life. Standing up, she put herself between the two boys, and she brought up both of her hands. Anney took a steady breath as she closed her eyes, and searched deep inside herself for the power she knew was there lying dormant. Vaguely she heard both John and her brother speaking to her, but she couldn't make out what they were saying; she was too far within herself to comprehend their words. Suddenly she felt her body tense up, her eyes snapped open, and she could see her hands enveloped by a violet aura. Her smile was quick and broad as she realized she'd found her power; after sixteen years, she'd finally found it.
Words found their way into her mouth, tickling at her tongue and cheeks. Letting her body take over, she parted her lips and spoke the words that were both foreign and familiar to her at the same time.
Guardians of the Ancient Towers,
Grant me now thy sacred powers.
Let not this spirit free,
With these words I banish thee.
Anney watched wide-eyed as her amethyst aura combined with John's and Adrian's, producing a brilliant white light that consumed the gray light, along with the Spectre. A high pitched scream cut through the air, forcing her to wince as it rebounded off the inside of her skull, making her ears ring. She closed her eyes against the light, hoping that if the light were cut off, so would the scream. Anney stood there with her eyes closed for what felt like hours before her aura finally receded back into her palms. She felt herself pitch forward, her legs no longer able to support her. Before she could hit the ground, a set of arms grabbed her around the waist and legs, catching her and cradling her to their body. Hands smoothed her hair, and stroked her back, she heard soft voices murmuring to each other and felt as another set of arms held her, and listened as a set of footsteps faded away.
“Anney,” a gentle voice spoke. “Open your eyes. It's over.”
Obeying, she opened her eyes, and found John's face hovering within inches of her own. Anney sucked in a quick breath of surprise at his closeness. A slow, beautiful smile crept onto John's face, setting Anney's cheeks aflame. Her heart hammered against her ribcage as he leaned down further, mouth barely touching her own. “May-” his words were lost by Anney's lips crashing to his, her burned hands tangling into his hair.
Anney knew there were questions that needed to be answered, explanations that needed to be given, wounds to be tended to, but right now, she didn't care. She ignored the pain in her palms, the ache of her body, the questions that bubbled in her throat, she forgot it all. Because in that moment, everything was right, and she knew it was going to be okay.
Cruore Astrum
Stephen De Marino
Cruore Astrum
Stephen De Marino
I
The smell of asphalt, hot and waiting to capture shoes, hit my nostrils as I exited the door from tiny, Eureka Air Transfer Station. I stepped to the side to let the people behind me scurry past out into the big world, as I took a moment to breathe it all in. Tar, pine, ozone, the slightly lingering smell of cheap perfume; all of it was a noisome bouquet, drifting in and out of me. As the zeppelin cruised away into the rising sun, I stood on the sidewalk and breathed, welcoming it as one does a long lost lover.
Ah, the smell of a world. One thing you miss in space is the smells. So much of it; alive and filling your lungs. On board the ship, the harsh mechanical smell of recycled air, unguents, electrical arcing, unwashed bodies, it seeps into your pores and your senses until you feel like you can’t smell anything else. Unless something changes the air, like a fire or particularly good dinner, the monotony of aroma leaves you gasping for something new to taste, something unique to inhale. Earth, affectionately known to Spacers as “Auld Stinky”, had so much to smell after being in space for months at a time; it was hard to do anything other than walk around smelling everything for the first few shifts.
I popped a tab into my mouth to take the edge off the pain of being back on Earth, swilling it down with some of the scotch from my recently re-filled flask. In the reflection off the flask, I noticed someone to my left looking at me with a clinical interest. A younger man, mid-twenties I would guess, dressed in “appropriate” attire for a corp. Though, a small pin in his lapel seemed out of place, and terribly familiar.
“Captain Calvino?” His voice was nearly unbearably high, but not squeaky. Just this side of effeminate, it grated on the nerves.
“Who wants to know?” I replied, putting the flask back into the side pocket of my kilt.
The “suit” looked at his data deck, then again at my face. The glistening hardware of implants next to his eyes twinkled at me. His eyes got that distant look that people get when they are online and talking to someone other than you.
Just when I was prepared to become irritable, he returned to present company. “Val Waldercott, at your service, sir. I am to ask you to follow me on a matter of some importance.” Without waiting for an answer, he turned and walked away towards what appeared to be a very nicely appointed four door cruiser.
Given that I didn’t feel like being summoned like a servant, I wasn’t going anywhere without more information; so I waited a tic to see if he would look behind him. “Expecting me to follow him blindly, I imagine,” I muttered to myself. When he opened the door to the cruiser without even looking back, just standing there with his back to me, holding it, I made up my mind. Whatever it was that he wanted to talk about could wait until his attitude was better. I hoisted my spacer kit up on my shoulder, and headed for the cab that was tooling at the stand across the safety corridor.
The cab was a green beater that had obviously seen some better days. Doors were dented; the roof had oxidized to the point where I was going to be impressed if the Cab was actually getting any Sun through the cells on top. I leaned towards the rear, and sure enough, a plug was there, tapped into the charge stand. Still, the tires were new, and though the exterior was not the prettiest, the vehicle seemed to be in good shape. I opened the door and installed myself into the rear seat.
“What can I do for you, sir?” A very female, and after the suit's voice, pleasantly charming tone came through the speaker dividing me from the front. I could see a pony tail of auburn hair with just a touch of gray to it facing me as I gave her my destination. “Union Hotel, and an extra hundred coin in it for you if you can get out of here fairly quickly.” The driver grabbed a hook and pole from the passenger side of the cab, reached back and yanked the plug from the power center. With nary a further word, she had the cab moving and the meter going. Looking back through the window I could see my potential ride standing on the sidewalk, obviously nonplussed, tapping madly at his data deck. I shrugged mentally, “Should have been politer, man.” I had the distinct feeling however, that I was not to see the last of young Mr. Waldercott.
II
As the Cab rolled down the roadway, I took in the
sight of the Redwood Coast in the morning. The light fog was beginning to lift, the light from the rising sun slowly driving it back. The Redwoods, many of which had stood for hundreds of years, were majestic and proud in the hills surrounding the hamlets that dotted the Coast. In a few places along the hilltops to the south, I could see blasted areas, still bare after many years, where the defense installations that had protected the Greater United States once stood. Blackened skeletons stood as reminders in at least one spot that we cruised past, that the price of freedom is sometimes destruction and blood.
As we crested a hill, I could see the Mad River wending its way to the sea. The large cove where it emptied its contents had been created by a misfired missile during the Second Pacific War, but now was dotted with small homes and docks that had been built at its apex during the last fifty years. The dirigible was making a slow turn over the cove, solar cells reflecting in the sunshine that was now pouring like a golden tide across the landscape. I could see tiny boats cruising out on the morning tide, and at least one sub, probably going out to tend the oyster fields.
The roadway swept inland, and we were plunged into a seeming tunnel of trees, their green raiment closing in above me in a comforting embrace. Like most space crew, after so many years aboard ship, I suffer from a mild agoraphobia, and while I loved the scenery that Earth provides, it’s tinged with a mild fear at the same time. All that open area makes one nervous, feeling as though you might spin off. One of my cargo handlers, Bodoi Kim, had it much worse than most; he couldn't actually step out the door on-planet unless he had his helmet on, it was that scary for him. Suffice to say, that having the trees above me to block out the sky was both nice to look at and comforting as well. Flicks of light would play across the cab's structure as they pushed past the branches of the trees, reminding me of the world that was just past their bulk.
We came out of the trees into the open area of the entrance to Arcata. “Where would you like to be dropped off, sir?” The pleasant voice of my driver interrupted my reverie.
“Drop me at the Plaza, please,” I replied; we took the ramp off the roadway and into the town. The sign proclaiming the “University of Humboldt This Way” blocked half the view of the buildings arrayed upon the hill.
“Going to the Union Hotel? I can take you most of the way there...”
“Thank you, but no, Sheila,” I said looking at the name flashing on the display built into her head rest. “I like to walk, actually. So if you would drop me off at the pedestrian bridge that would be fine.”
“Very good, sir.” Sheila’s eyes as seen in the rearview appeared to have a mild question behind them.
“I am a bit of a Terraphile,” I explained. “I like to actually see, smell and feel the planet when I am on it. I don’t mind people, I go around smelling and looking and… and…I have no idea why I am babbling all of this to you.” I cut myself off from what felt like an odd swell of emotion that I didn’t realize had been sitting beneath the surface ever since I landed on planet.
“It’s fine, sir. Not a problem.” Sheila’s eyes didn’t appear to have the question anymore. I am different from most Space Crew. Once they are Crew, many get hooked on The Big Black; they rarely want to touch down anymore. Indeed, some go so long that they can’t handle it physically, and the only time they come downward is for their required two weeks of physical therapy and medical training every two trips out. A requirement that the Unions are constantly trying to undermine, but I understand why it is in place. The powers that be wanted a way both to keep track of the changes happening to humanity and the other species out there, and to tie the Space Crews to the home planet. Besides that, it reminds the Crews where they come from, and where home really is.
Home...one wonders if that has a meaning anymore. Home is your bunk, your ship, your station. Family much of the time is your shift mates, your crew. I think I come back here, to where I grew up, to remind me of what is, as well as what was.
Whenever we come into station, I always do my best to make a trip back here, even if it is just for a day or two, a recollection of where I came from, and who I am. It’s easy to get lost out there, to lose who and what you are, to be only a part of the overall machine. Coming home brings back not only the strength that helps me out in the wide expanse, but the weaknesses that drove me to space as well.
The cab came to a gliding stop at the charge stand behind City Hall. I hauled my kit bag out, and wrestled it up onto my shoulder; Sol’s rays, now that he was higher in the sky, forced me to put on my shaded goggles to keep them out. I swiped my ID through the reader and tacked on the extra hundred credit tip. Sheila touched the brim of her cap, and the cab worked its way back into traffic. As she pulled away, I realized, vaguely, that I had never actually seen her face.
I stood for a moment, breathing in the smells, taking in the sky, with the clouds dotting the horizon. The last remnants of the cool fog were slinking away with the rising sun driving them back into hiding. I could see snow on the tips of the hills to the east, giving hints of the sheet of ice four hundred miles north. Even in midsummer, the snow never fully left the Trinity Mountains anymore. We were too close to the Terminal Edge, and the cold winds that sweep along the Northern Ice Shelf come down along the Sierras and the Coastal Range keep it pretty cold here, even in July. A warm day in the Jefferson Republic is 50 degrees. Usually, we hover just about freezing for six months of the year.
A far cry from my Grandfather’s day; he would tell me about the hot weather and the naked girls in the Trinity River. Gramps would tell those stories with relish, especially how he first met his wife, Irina, when she emigrated south from Alaska, when the Modern Ice Age had just started. They still had 90 degree days back then, and she was with friends taking in the sun at Tish Tang, up on the river. Clothes came off, and Gramps would get this dreamy-eyed look as he described the litheness and beauty that he saw leap from the rocks and disappear into the river, like a mermaid returning to the sea. Gramps was a dirty, old Spacer, one of the early generation, and the main reason why I became one.
Shaking myself from my reverie, I shifted my bag to the other shoulder and stepped on the bridge across the canal leading to the Plaza. “Good grief, you’re getting maudlin in your old age,” I muttered to myself, as my boots took me back towards home.
III
The canal was full of boats, plying trade up and down the Mad River. At some point in the last hundred or so years, as the seas rose and fell, the crease in the land that was the old American Highway 101 filled with water. The advantage of this was that it came with some ready-made bridges, and nicely connected Humboldt Bay with the Mad River Crater. Much of Arcata sat on a near island as a result; the commercial district and much of its light industry sat just above the waterline on gentle hills, and the rest had had time to relocate up onto Fickle Hill above the township. As I walked across the Seven Bridge, and why it was called that has been lost to time, I looked down at the array of small barges, draft boats, solar dinghies, and even a few Luddite Coracles. I could hear Spanish, Chinese, English, and even some French shouted across the vessels, and from the small pedestrian docks on the canal.
I finished my way across, and picked my way through the stream of people heading in towards the Plaza. The Farmer’s Market was a tradition that was hundreds of years old, and outdated not only the Jefferson Republic, but the Greater United States as well. According to the historians, it had been going on for well over two hundred and fifty years.
I realized my earlier plan of going and getting a quiet cup of tea and some breakfast, followed by a walk about town, was unlikely, looking at the throng of people who were making their way towards the Plaza. It was a sunny morning, and while a bit on the crisp side, bringing some goose bumps to areas under my kilt, the day was still nice enough that many of the townsfolk were coming out to shop, meander and visit. I waited until a Luddite family, their homespun clothing drab and plain compared to the riot of color that was modern fashion, finished ha
nding out a credit chip to each of their kids. I watched the brown tide of kids, must have been six or seven of them, disperse into the crowd. Before I could cross the road, I had to dodge a pair of dwarven kids running after an escaped dog. Finally free of impediment, I strode to the edge of the town square known as the Plaza.
In the middle of the space, stood a statue, his hand outstretched in some meaningful gesture, surveying his domain. The statue had been replaced several times over the years, but always in the same, or at least a similar, pose. The current one had been there since I was a kid, a statue of Lucius Jackson, the former sitar player who had led a peaceful revolution against a corrupt Washington, and brought about the fracturing of the Greater United States. There were similar statues all throughout the former GUSA. Jackson was one of the few uniting influences in the world, and his word was respected throughout the Solar System. Now into his nineties, he still was active, promoting peaceful dialogue and mediating disputes wherever needed. Pretty much by the force of his own personality, he kept the Western Republics from tearing at each other, and the Confederacy and the Coalition focused on the expansion of their stations off Jupiter, rather than squabbling here at home.
