The Return of the Grey

by Robert Lee Henry

  ‘Down, back and down,’ said the tech at the console. A murmur went through the room. ‘No … up, he’s going up.’ The tech looked up with an excited smile but quickly turned back to the monitors.

  Embarrassed by the attention and the exasperated looks on the faces around him, thought Aesca. Everyone wants this over, though not all in the same way. Most would see Trahern dead. Traitor or not, they were afraid of him. A fall from the highest position ever achieved in the Box would be a good end to his story, remarkable but thankfully over. She did not share that opinion. If she could she would bore through that black steel and pull him out with her own hands. But she could not. He would live or die on his own. Her anger threatened to overwhelm her. This was not the Guard! This was not Base! He did not come here to be treated like this; he did not return from the deep for this. Like her, he had come to Base of his own free will, a volunteer looking for a new life, with risk, yes, but with meaning and community. Not to die on his own.

  She knew more about his past life now than anyone else on Base. Not from records, though she had reviewed those, but from what was written in his flesh and bones. Healed fractures and scar tissue. The scar tissue alone could probably hold him up. It was a wonder he could move at all, never mind with the speed and grace he managed. She had played a game with herself to control her anger during her examinations of him, matching fractures to tissue damage to identify and sequence the wounds. The deep cuts were easy; they showed as scars on skin and bone alike. Overprints were clear. Crush and pull-apart injuries were more difficult. She did not solve them all but with reference to growth markers was able to track an episodic trauma history that ran from pre-pubescence to adulthood. Trahern had not just survived the Games; he had grown up in them.

  The injuries he had incurred during his time with the Guard were minor in comparison with those of his youth. The records listed laser burns, blast concussion, a few more fractures and lacerations, one penetrating projectile wound and low to moderate radiation damage. The last was typical of cadremen. Most pilots eventually died from it. The shielding required for protected spaceflight made craft large and cumbersome. The Guard did without it, trading safety for speed and manoeuvrability. It was logical in its way. ‘Life service’ was not meant to be a long term. Twelve years was the average on Base.

  Aesca had added the wounds to head and hand Trahern reported from his last action against the Ships to the list herself. Both had healed well, if roughly. Her main worry was the low gravity damage he had incurred. His organs appeared to have recovered but portions of his bone were still light. And this was after five years or more coming down the Arm. His initial state must have been perilous. It was ironic that the increased bone mass due to the healed fractures of his youth was probably all that kept him alive when he was fished out of the deep. Even the quarter-grav fields the salvagers used would have been enough to collapse a normal skeleton after that much null gravity.

  But the broken man survives, she mused. Could there be reason behind this? Some great plan formulated by a god-like being. If there was, she would rip its arms off for the cruelty it had inflicted.

  A curt word from Quartermaine brought her out of her reverie. ‘Well?’

  ‘Up, Sir, steadily up,’ replied the tech. ‘Won’t be long now, Sir. He’s close to the top.’

  Aesca couldn’t stand it any longer. With a quick clip across the side of Quartermaine’s head to get his attention, she said, ‘Get me out there!’

  *

  Trahern sat on the highest part of the framework facing the large opening at the top of the west wall.

  He had not let go of his beam at all during the last of his climb, keeping a firm grip in the middle for balance, not trusting its support to the framework. He still held it tight, rested across his thighs, as he surveyed the opening opposite his perch.

  Ten metres wide and three high. The golden light of late day illuminated a flat platform at the bottom about a metre across. A small slot, perhaps twelve centimetres deep, ran a few centimetres into the upper inside edge of the platform. Its twin lay in the girder beside his hip. He traced it with his free hand.

  He could see the object of the exercise now. The beam was not simply a burden to make the test difficult, nor an ultimate marker of achievement. It was to be carried to this spot and used to bridge the gap to the platform. Trahern’s laughter was so loud he expected it to stir dust into the thick light. Not all AI. No, there is a human hand in this. The machines were not known to have a sense of humour, especially not one as perverse as this. The gap looked to be exactly the length of the beam; one had to assume it was. With one end in the slot at his side, the beam would have to be released to pivot from vertical through ninety degrees of arc, barely any control possible, to land with the other end exactly in the opposite slot. A miss or a bounce and it would be gone. After all the lessons of the Box, completion required assumption and release. It required trust. Trust that the whole thing had some purpose other than degradation and death.

  Trahern continued his contemplation. His mind was clear. He had enough strength left to climb down, especially with both hands free for the walls. He could leave his beam on the framework and go down, ‘completing’ the task as others knew it. He rose to his feet.

  CHAPTER 6: A SCHOLAR’S THOUGHTS

  The Scholar stood in the centre of the now quiet room. The Base Commander had followed the doctor’s terse command with directions of his own. ‘Clear the room, duty personnel to stay only.’ The solid man had not waited to see the result, leading the angry woman out, a few others hurrying after.

  The room had emptied slowly, the rest of the occupants reluctant to miss the end, some darting looks at the monitors as they went out the door, hoping to see a final move. Reflections from the glass of the large window brought these scenes to the Scholar’s attention. Although concentration on his task was paramount, room remained for matters which could concern the Inner Belt.

  Earlier, the reflections had shown a very tall uniformed man with the marked characteristics of his own breed hesitate at the door and refrain from entering. The Scholar breed was one of the few that had been permitted to continue, but like the others, was closely monitored and under Inner Belt control. No other Scholars were known to be in this sector of space. The appearance of this creature, here, was a minor concern, but once Elsewise’s observations reached the Inner Belt it would quickly be resolved.

  The construct on the plain was another matter entirely. The Box sang of AI. A human/AI artefact on a Passage world would be of great significance to several of the major lines of research currently being undertaken by the Scholars, ‘currently’ being measured in thousands of years. His own study, that of the Ships, was relatively new, occupying mere decades. Data was scant. Recorded sightings only went back fifty years, a blink in time when compared to human history, a history that celebrated man’s pre-eminence. When the Passages had opened up the universe, humankind had found it empty, not just of sentient or advanced life forms, but of almost all life. Man had taken life to the stars. It had been that way for over seven thousand years. To encounter a new life form now was almost inconceivable. Certainly the consensus in the Inner Belt was one of disbelief. It had taken Elsewise twenty years of study to reach his current receptiveness, to accept the possibility of non-human sentient beings other than AI. Here on this outpost was a human who may have interacted with them. The cadreman’s return had brought Elsewise across the galaxies.

  And now this man is in that Box; dying, if the consensus heard earlier in this room is correct. Elsewise had planned to stop the test but on first sight of the Box he had recognised the futility of such an act. Only completion offered the possibility of the subject coming out whole, perhaps imbued with a hybrid task, but whole. Elsewise also sadly conceded that the opportunity to study this result outweighed his own research. The Inner Belt took AI very seriously. Theirs was a sentience the Inner Belt acknowledged and feared.

  Elsewise’s data on the Box
was scant. It was listed simply as a testing chamber constructed by the Passage Guard Command on Planet SPA35-HP1 during the Takamede Period, now in modified use for overall assessment of personnel. No mention of an AI input.

  He would go no closer than this. There would be sequences of visual stimuli there that would trap his mind quicker, and with greater detrimental effect, than that of any of the Guard personnel. He would have to be on guard for similar features incorporated into his present surroundings, meaning all of Base. It was not logical to assume that the AI influence would be limited to one construct only.

  He used the term ‘Base’ as the locals did, to refer to both the garrison of the Passage Guard and the planet it resided on. There was little else on the planet, a small spaceport to service the trade through the Passages and a limited pharmaceutical industry that exploited the lichens and mosses that ringed the small polar ice caps. The Passages that opened up the Spiral Arm had been found late in the period of discovery. Base had received a simple biotope as its purpose was defined by its position, a planet close to a Passage node, a rarity in a universe so large that it precluded such things. Passages were found out in the empty reaches between constellations. The jumps that facilitated travel across the universe were made there then conventional flight was employed to enter the systems. To find a system close by, even one as poor as this, a weak sun with a single planet, was exceptional. And two nodes of Passages. Curious. Elsewise made a note to contact the Scholars’ Assembly to ask for further data. This situation was so unusual that it must be included in specific studies. His data was limited to basics.

  The Passages localised at the inner of the two nodes were well charted. They had opened the whole of the Spiral Arm to exploitation, offering connection not only to the near galaxies but to positions all along the Arm itself. The other node, the ‘Outer Passages’ as they were referred to, were not used. Probes sent through those Passages did not return or came back highly radiated. The later was considered to be evidence of young galaxies, too ‘hot’ for human life. The former was not understood. Too many unknowns and curiosities, thought Elsewise.

  A change from the regular soft pulses of the monitors to the low hum of computation brought Elsewise out of his contemplation seconds before a metallic tone, like a great gong, resounded through the walls.

  CHAPTER 7: OUTSIDE

  A great hollow clang reverberated through the Box. Gati felt it where his forehead touched the steel. Spinning away, his eyes met with Mike’s. Both froze, unable to suppress looks of dismay. No sound followed. Gati made negating motions with his hands. No! More! There would be more noise if he lost his beam! A deafening series of clangs and crashes. He had heard it often enough on his turn in the Box. Even a body coming down from that high would make more noise.

  Wails and wild calls, almost ululations, sounded from around the distant corner. Both men bolted in that direction.

  Mike was surprisingly fast for a big man and caught Gati by the corner, pulling him to a halt, quashing his irritation with quick hand signals to go slow and cautious. These vultures must have really spooked him, thought Gati as they eased around the abandoned work platforms.

  Rounding the corner they found that the black-clothed group was no threat. Most of them were on their knees about a third of the way along the bottom of the west wall, calling and pointing to the top of the Box. Well not quite the top, Gati saw, but to a figure below the western opening. It was Trahern, somehow magically climbing down the sheer side of the Box. For an instant Gati felt their awe, then he remembered the perforations; he had stuck his beam in one. Trust Trahern to figure that out.

  Trotting along with Mike, detouring around the caretakers, he asked, ‘Leave the beam inside and get out. That’s it, isn’t it?’

  ‘As far as I know, yeah,’ puffed the big man.

  ‘Anybody else go this way?’

  ‘Not that I’ve heard about. No one’s ever got that high.’

  ‘This should do then?’ asked Gati.

  ‘I hope so, I can’t take much more of this,’ said Mike.

  They stopped against the wall underneath Trahern, although he was still several hundred metres up. Taking note of Mike’s wary glance toward the caretakers, Gati said ‘You catch him if he falls. I’ll keep them off your back.’

  When Trahern reached the ground, Gati thought he might have to come good on his boast. The caretakers moved in around them with a seriousness he found menacing, their ragged black semi-circle blocking movement away from the wall. Not that Trahern was ready to move yet. Mike was holding him up and even for the big marine it was a two arm job. Trahern’s head lolled. His hands were blistered and bleeding. Blood seeped from a patch rubbed raw on his chest. No shirt. Gati didn’t want to know what had happened to that.

  He tapped Mike on the back. Mike turned from the wall, the motion bringing Trahern around with him. The big man eased one arm free.

  *

  The low sun in the west limned the forms arrayed in front of Trahern in dull red. His eyes adjusted slowly, as tired as the rest of his body. A squint enabled him to see detail. A ring of motionless men, all in black, stared at him expectantly. He stared back. One of the men raised a hand to something on his chest. Trahern’s eyes followed the movement by habit then sharpened with a curiosity that defied his exhaustion. A tapered half cylinder of thin dark metal with raised scrollwork hung from a chain around the man’s neck. The missing armguard from my dead friend high in the Box, Trahern realised. So someone had found it. He could not help smiling. His smile seemed to take the tension out of the setting, several of the figures visibly relaxing. Caretakers. He understood their black now, although the cut of their clothes made them look as though they’d been blasted by a fierce storm. Odd fringes and drapes of dark cloth hung from their limbs; patches of all sizes, black on black, covered their chests. A vision from the Box flashed in his mind but was gone before he could fix it. He shook his head then focused again on the armguard. He could see there were lines scored into its surface, but as he leaned forward, the caretaker closed his hands over it and stepped back.

  A tracked vehicle hummed around the corner. The caretakers backed off then almost flowed to Trahern’s left, stopping along the wall. He swung his head back to the right. Aesca was out before the vehicle came to a halt, up to him in a blink of his eyes. She took his head in her hands, tilted it back and looked into his eyes. He felt one hand drift to his throat, to the pulse on the side. Then her hands moved onto his body, neck then shoulders, down his torso, back up to his arms, gently probing muscles and joints. She laid his arms on the shoulders of his companions, pushing Mike down to keep them level. Trahern’s head sagged forward and he was able follow her progress down his legs. He was so tired that the sense of what she was doing evaded him. Her light touch and the feel of his friends under his arms comforted him, though, and he relaxed into their care.

  *

  The image gripped Quartermaine. Dull red light on the black steel, a spent figure with arms outstretched and bloody palms, a woman kneeling at his feet. It became more biblical when the caretakers knelt, all but one. Quartermaine wished he could paint it, it seemed so rich.

  Aesca broke the setting and the mood, rising to pull a water bottle from a combat belt draped over her shoulder. She leaned into the big marine who in turn put a steadying hand on her hip as she brought the water to Trahern’s lips. Limiting his intake to a few swallows, she poured the rest over his head and shoulders. ‘Let’s get him inside, he’s dehydrated.’

  Gati and Mike supported Trahern as he staggered to the transport, that much for his pride, before the big marine swept him up bodily like a child and laid him carefully in the back. As they piled into the vehicle the caretakers approached. Quartermaine took their anxious looks for want of direction. ‘Leave that beam where it is for now,’ he ordered. ‘We don’t know the full import of this yet, so wait for directions from Command. Stay out of the high levels until we give the word.’ He tapped the driver, a youn
g man from Supply, on the leg and pointed to the wall. Glancing back over his shoulder as they started off, he called out, ‘And fix up those uniforms.’

  *

  On the way in, Mike slipped the belt from Aesca’s shoulder. It was a marine belt and marines didn’t part with their belts easily. He wanted to see who had given it to her. A hint of a smile touched her lips as he bent past.

  Mike found Tollen’s mark on the inside. Imagine that, all day running on the plain and he still had more water left than Gati and I. Tough old bastard. He showed the mark to Quartermaine who commented, ‘Tough old bastard.’

  CHAPTER 8: COLDA AND HIS AIDE

  Colda left the eval room in a burning rage, his anger sparked by his aide, fanned by that little bitch and fuelled by Quartermaine’s command. She nearly got Trahern out of the Box. She could talk to the Scholar. His own aide, his vaunted brilliant aide, had directed him, no, ordered him, to stay away from the Inner Belt representative. Specialist Celene will pay for this. Scenarios of her humiliation played in his mind as he made his way to the PlanCon offices. Most of these ended in images of the small woman writhing naked, nailed to a wall.

  *

  Addikae saw the flicker of madness in Colda’s eyes. It did not disconcert him. The descendants of the Houses surrounded themselves with smarter, stronger, more talented people formed into teams dedicated to their ends. The madness played its part in keeping them the focus of the dedication, their belief in themselves so strong it carried the others along. The Houses were as much a breed as himself. The rulers of the Inner Belt would be the same. Addikae shook his head at the hypocrisy that proscribed his existence.

  Wariness immediately replaced anger on Colda’s face. Searching for some disloyalty or slight, conceded Addikae, because of my simple gesture. Discretion, he warned himself.