On My Way to Paradise

by David Farland

  "Slow down!" Abriara screamed. The speakers in my helmet made her voice sound like a command from god, coming from all directions at once and filling my head.

  "I don’t know how!" Zavala yelled in return.

  He was fumbling with a lever when we came over a rise to a forest of giant trees unlike any I had ever seen. Each tree looked like a huge, leafless piece of coral, hundreds of meters in diameter. Yet the tree lacked a trunk, so that many limbs actually just ran over the ground.

  The great limbs, as thick around as a horse, were covered with strands of moss and dark hanging vines. In places, the moss had pulled away from the tree—its branches were misshapen and white as bone. The ground around the tree was clean and windswept, but under the tree, desiccated leaves covered the ground and the vines hung in great curtains so that each "coral tree" looked like a miniature jungle in itself.

  Zavala had to keep his attention on steering so he wouldn’t hit the coralwood. Abriara held railing on the side of the hovercraft and worked her way to the cockpit. We curved around a line of branches and surprised a small herd of imported peccaries. They squealed and ran under the coralwood.

  We passed the coralwood and came into an open desert. Off to our left were seven large brown rocks, three to four meters long and a meter tall. They were all of a regular length and oval shape, and as we got closer I saw that they moved slowly across the sand like giant armadillos without heads or feet or tails. Their only visible sensory organs were antennae as long as whips at the front end of their bodies. They waved these around, smelling the air, as they inched across the desert toward the coralwood. Mavro fired his plasma gun into one experimentally, and the creature’s side exploded into steam while the creature flipped up on its back. We went by so fast I couldn’t see if it had any legs. But I knew it wasn’t anything created by geneticists from Earth.

  "I thought they said this planet was terraformed," I yelled over the helmet speaker.

  "It is," Perfecto shouted back. "They brought the oxygen levels up to standard. Fulfilled the minimum requirements."

  I asked, "What about the local flora and fauna?"

  "They’re on their way out," Perfecto shouted, shooting into another giant armadillo.

  Since the armadillos were just computer-generated images, I decided the target practice was a good idea, and started shooting at them. The hovercraft jostled so much it was hard to hold a creature in my sights long enough to squeeze the trigger. The red dot of the targeting laser jumped all around. So rather than try to take a good shot after careful aim, I had to take snapshots. We came over another hill to a flood plain where a large river spilled its banks. Low reddish-blue plants with bulbs shaped like clear yellow pineapples filled most of the flood plain, though there were also groves of fernlike trees, and tall stalks of cotton.

  We speeded over the river and began climbing a hill. The ground cleared and we entered a stand of great coralwoods and surprised a whole herd of small, gray, spade-shaped lizards. Each had a single eye on the back of its head, and each lizard trained its single eye on us as the group hopped in unison, two meters to the hop, like waves moving away from a rock thrown in a pond.

  As I watched the gray lizards, a piece of red plastic fell from the sky and wrapped itself around one of the largest lizards.

  "Hey, that was a manta ray!" Zavala shouted, pointing at the red plastic.

  It was indeed shaped like a ray, and I realized this piece of plastic was some type of avian preying on the lizard. As we passed I stood up in my seat to try to get a better look at the struggle.

  A siren made a "beep, beep," and I suspected the hovercraft’s computer was warning me to get back in my seat. A line of vines hung from a coralwood limb in front of us, and I spotted a hovercraft behind them just as jets of white-hot plasma spattered across my neck.

  The concussion spilled me backward over the hovercraft and my gun flew into the air. I hit the ground with a thwack, cracking the armor on my chest.

  The plasma melted through my neckband, onto my throat, and my helmet filled with steam. I tried to breath, but the smell of charred flesh and smoke made me cough. I began to wretch, struggling to breathe. I curled into a ball and tried to pull my helmet free.

  Our hovercraft exploded in a ball of blue.

  I lay on the ground pulling at my helmet’s magnetic latches. Oxygen deprivation disoriented me, making me miss. The plasma burned into my neck, and the melted armor soaked down my skin. I vomited and blacked out.

  Chapter 8

  The big Japanese, Kaigo, jacked us out of the simulator. My heart was hammering, and the sockets behind my eyeballs ached. My teeth felt as if someone had drilled a hole into each individual nerve. The vomit in my helmet was seeping down my neck. I ripped off my face-plate and leaned over. Kaigo threw me a rag. I was surprised to find my armor in one piece—moments before it had seemed to be crumbling in my hands. Zavala slumped over his chair and vomited into his helmet. He was rolling his eyes and appeared to be in shock. The others in our group were limp and panting, trying to shake off the simulator’s effects.

  Kaigo gave us two minutes to clean up, and then said a word in Japanese; a hologram appeared in the air at his feet. It showed a hovercraft in miniature, darting over the landscape. "These you," he said, pointing at the hovercraft. In a distant corner of the room was the enemy craft approaching through the coralwoods. "These Yabajin samurai," he said, pointing at the enemy.

  "Are those real samurai, or computer simulations?" Mavro asked.

  "Those real samurai," Kaigo said.

  Zavala looked around the room. "Where are they?"

  Kaigo glared at him as if he were an idiot, but answered. "Upstairs, in battle room three."

  I watched myself in simulation. I was like a tourist, forever turning my head to look up in the sky or down at the ground.

  Kaigo pointed to the holo of me. "Ohhh, very bad! You must learn to concentrate—ignore surroundings. Achieve one-pointedness. You’re here to kill Yabajin, not study xenobiology."

  He watched until I stood up to look at the plastic manta ray. He spoke two words in Japanese; the picture slowed and enlarged so we could see ourselves and our enemies clearly. He pointed to the image of me standing up. "Where you go? Did you need to take a pee? You should sit down and concentrate. Relax."

  The combat teams met. Abruptly the action slowed. As one, the enemy raised their weapons and fired. Each had picked a target, and their lasers scored on Mavro and Perfecto with pinpoint accuracy while both plasma turrets washed across our hovercraft, blowing me over the back end. Zavala was washed in a plasma storm; a great stream shot across his chest, chewing wormholes in his armor. Among us, only Mavro managed to fire, and his shot went high over the heads of his targets. I noticed that, as in Tamara’s dream world, the simulator didn’t correct for my infrared vision, and this put me at a disadvantage since I can normally see a platinum shimmer in the air when a laser is fired. The beams from these guns didn’t show at all.

  Kaigo pointed at Mavro’s shot. "Good! Quick reflexes. You almost got some." Then he pointed to the rest of the team members, each trying to aim. Our hovercraft skidded into a giant coralwood and exploded. "You move too slow. Weapon must be part of you, like hand and eye. Concentrate on being one with your weapon. When it comes time to shoot, there must not be the breadth of a hair between the thought and the act. All of you, practice aiming before you go back into simulator." We sat a moment and he waved his hands, "Now! Now! You practice now!"

  We practiced lowering our weapons from resting position and snapping off shots. I shook through the entire session. The thought of returning to the simulator caused a wave of nausea to wash over me. Kaigo ordered us back to our seats.

  Kaigo said, "Think of nothing. Be one with your weapon. Shoot fast. Kill Yabajin."

  Mavro reached down and patted my shoulder. He said, "Let’s step on these punks."

  Kaigo flipped the simulator on, and we jacked in.

  Scenario 2: Mid Patro
l

  We entered the forest of coralwood again, floating down corridors between trees at full speed, twisting along a narrow trail that flowed like a river. The skies were dark and gray. A slate-gray rain fell, and the road of wet amber pebbles gleamed dully as if a fire burned within. Among the trees were some of the giant armadillos, and they’d wrapped their huge bodies around the branches to feed on pale orange fungi that clung to the bonelike limbs. The armadillo creatures now looked like giant slugs feeding in a garden. Almost immediately a warning beep sounded. I swung my gun forward as we swerved around a wide bend. A hovercraft came head on. I took aim at the driver. He wore armor with the same insect design as mine—only it was copper colored instead of green. White plasma streams flew over my head and whistled past my ears. Perfecto and Mavro were blown from the turrets. I squeezed off a shot, hitting a turret gunner in the thigh. He responded by sending a burst of plasma to spatter over Zavala’s hands. The hovercrafts were bearing down on one another, so Zavala swerved to his right and hit a limb of coralwood. The branch ran parallel to the ground at chest level. I tried to duck, but I dropped just enough for a branch harder than stone to decapitate me.

  I came out of it sweating. My teeth chattered.

  Zavala held up his hands, "They’re burning," he said. "They’re burning."

  Kaigo commanded the holo to start and we watched ourselves get massacred.

  We each raised a weapon and tried to aim. The enemy snapped off shots. Kaigo pointed to our slowness. "Practice targeting and firing weapons some more. Shuyo, practice, polishes off the rust from the body, makes you good fighter, ne? This is battle. This is actual battle the way it will be. When you die on Baker, you can die only once. Remember, if you kill samurai in the simulator, he will feel pain, not you!

  "Also, stand right." He stood up and held a laser rifle in front of him, then squatted so his knees were bowed. "don’t sit in chair or stand rigid like you are shooting on land. This is big different. Knees must always be moving, always flexible to absorb little shocks of movement. Make for steady aim." He demonstrated the action and, like a sailor on a boat at sea, showed how he could counteract the movement of the vessel, absorbing the minor pitches and rattling movements of the hovercraft with his knees. This made great sense, and I admired his technique until I remembered that he was showing us these things just so we could commit genocide.

  "Go now. Go train for combat tomorrow: Imagine you hold gun and visualize shooting. Practice all movements. Practice in imagination. Five hours," Kaigo dismissed us with a wave of his hand. We removed our armor; I was covered with sweat. The hard copy of the files on the men who boarded at Sol Station was soaked, so I waved the papers in the air, trying to dry them. The thought of entering the corridor unnerved me—anyone could have been an Alliance assassin, so I thumbed through the papers, memorizing faces, and walked out last. Everyone hung their heads because we had been beaten so soundly—everyone but Mavro.

  He put a cigar in his mouth. His hands trembled slightly as he struck his lighter and held it to the cigar. "Do not worry about these punks," he said. "My mother gave me worse beatings when I was a child. As long as these samurai are living, breathing, pieces of meat—and not some damned simulations—we can beat them! No?"

  We all nodded in agreement.

  We stood in the hall a moment. Zavala, the young cyborg, shivered, and his breath came ragged. Mavro put an arm around him and asked, "Are you okay, compadre?"

  Zavala nodded and sniffed. He fumbled with the sleeve of his kimono, pulling it up to expose the base of his prosthetic arm, which ended just above the elbow. He examined his skin around the prosthesis. He said with wonder, "It’s burning. I can feel my arm burning."

  "It was just the simulator," Abriara said. "It doesn’t take your upgrades into account."

  "No. I can feel it, now. It’s the rot. It’s on the stump of my arm. It’s active again. I can feel it burning."

  "Let me see!" I said.

  "Sí," Perfecto urged, "let Angelo look. He’s a doctor."

  "The rot," or L24, is a bacterial variant of leprosy developed for germ warfare. It can take an arm off in a matter of days. In the cities it doesn’t cause much damage, since it can be treated quickly. But when it’s dumped over the guerrillas in the jungles it can be devastating, since they are often unable to return to a village in time for treatment. And though the damage can be halted, the L24 bacteria are infiltrated with a virus that makes it impossible to regenerate the damaged limbs.

  Zavala held out his arm for me to see, and I checked the stump around the prosthesis. The skin color was completely normal and healthy; no white flakes showed at all. I poked around the base of the prosthesis, searching for abscesses, but found nothing.

  "It looks fine to me," I said. Zavala frowned at the news, so I added, "but we should watch it closely for a few days, just to make sure. I’ve got some antibiotics in my medical bag that can kill anything."

  I didn’t tell him that I only had a handful of antibiotics to use in emergencies—not enough to treat him. I normally didn’t deal in such mundane drugs back in Panamá. Any pharmacy on a street corner carried them.

  Abriara started to leave, and Zavala’s face brightened. He said, "Wait a minute." Then he opened the door to the battle room and shouted. "Master Kaigo. Tigerlilies have crept ugly through the hall. People are hurt! Downstairs! Quickly, come quickly!" We all smiled at this, and the big samurai hurried from the room.

  But instead of running down the hall to the ladders, he grabbed Zavala and lifted him in the air, like an ogre lifting a child. In halting Spanish he said, "When you ... speak to me, speak Japanese. Is the duty of the weak to learn the language of the strong, no?"

  Zavala tried to squirm from Kaigo’s grasp.

  Kaigo slammed him against the wall, just hard enough to jar him, then returned to the battle room.

  Mavro nudged Zavala and said, "You were right. You are a grasshopper."

  Chapter 9

  We stood outside the battle room a moment, then Zavala and Mavro took off to explore the ship.

  Abriara said to me, "I’ll show you to our room."

  Perfecto and I followed her. We met Sakura the cultural envoy at the ladder; he stopped us with a wave of his hand. He was all teeth and smiles.

  "What do you want?" Abriara asked. The evenness of voice she’d managed earlier disappeared.

  He grinned. "Listen carefully, and I will teach you the company song," he said. "We will sing it each morning when we awaken, and we will sing it each night before we go to bed. And if an envoy meets you in the hall, you will be asked to sing, and you must sing with emotion—from your heart."

  I fidgeted with my biographies, sorry to be delayed when I wanted to get to my room to study.

  Then Sakura sang in Japanese. It came as growls from the pit of his belly and low wails and shrieks, and he used the oriental musical scale, so it didn’t sound like real music. Tears streamed from his eyes, and he waved his hands as he sang. It started:

  Itami de tsukuri,

  Itami de uri ...

  I lost track. Sakura finished by lowering his head and weeping as if he’d emptied his heart and was unable to muster strength to stand. When he’d recuperated, he raised his hands to lead us in song.

  I was stunned. I once saw a magician who put a prosthetic bill on a chicken and built a microspeaker into the bill so that when a tape recorder played a little distance away the chicken could recite scriptures.

  He brought his "Chicken of God" to the feria and fooled many peasants, telling them the chicken had learned to recite the Sermon on the Mount after drinking water from a holy fountain. In this way he made much money.

  I often went to see the show, since the awe and astonishment on the peasants’ faces was so amusing. I am sure that when Sakura asked us to sing the company song, my stunned expression would have well matched the expressions of those peasants. Perhaps if I’d been a child, I’d have sung, but none of us sang.

  Sakura
stopped singing. "Come now," he urged. "Sing for me! Itaaaamiiii ..." He stopped, looked from person to person. "Come now, show your company spirit! Show your gratitude for Motoki!"

  Abriara said, "Here’s my gratitude," and quick as a serpent she struck him in the ribs, knocking him down the hall.

  Sakura sputtered, struggling to get some air in his lungs. Abriara rushed forward and grabbed him by the hair, lifted him up, and slammed him against the wall.

  Then she pinned him there, taking him by the neck. "Don’t ever talk down to me in front of my men," she said. "Don’t you ever mock my intelligence or seek to undermine my authority again." She stared him in the eye; Sakura tried to avert his gaze.

  He gasped for breath. "Let me go, crazy woman, or I’ll have the samurai execute you!"

  Abriara’s eyes watered; she started to weave. Though her frame was no larger than that of other women, she emanated power. With her clenched fist poised below his jaw, I imagined that if she struck him, the blow would land as solidly and powerfully as a piston, crushing Sakura’s skull.

  Sakura looked into her silver eyes, and must have seen the alien in her. He began to tremble.

  Abriara responded: "Let them kill me." There was no fear in her voice.

  She dropped Sakura to the ground, and the little Japanese stayed where he fell, afraid to move. She stalked down the hall toward the ladders, her muscles bunched and ready, like a panther ready to spring.

  Sakura watched until she got to the ladder, then he shouted. "You’re dead! I’ll have you killed for that!" and he began screaming in Japanese and running back to Kaigo’s battle room.

  Perfecto chased Sakura, caught him by the scruff of the neck after a dozen steps, and pushed him to the floor. Sakura kept yelling. Abriara didn’t hurry to the ladders, showed no concern. There were several battle rooms along the hallway, and I was certain Sakura’s yelling would summon a samurai in seconds. I pulled a knife, and followed Abriara.