On My Way to Paradise

by David Farland

  Garzón smiled at me, a tight-lipped little smile. "Because she’s dangerous. Because I couldn’t sleep if I knew she was mobile." There was genuine concern in his eyes. I couldn’t imagine Tamara, thin little Tamara, causing such disquiet. "I know that keeping her like this looks bad. A living body is such a messy thing. I’ve been toying with the idea of having a cymech made for her after this job with the Yabajin—something small, portable, but without the means of manipulating objects."

  I must have raised an eyebrow. Tamara was terrified of cymechs to the point of paranoia. She’d never agree to be housed in one. I knew this on a gut level and realized Garzón wouldn’t be deterred by her reticence. He really did fear her. He waited for me to speak, but I said nothing. I furiously considered methods to save her.

  He sat next to me, snubbed his cigarette into the cushion of the seat in front of us. "I’ve been wanting to ask you, Señor Osic: during the riot you strangled a man and he stabbed you. Very curious. Flakes of your skin were found on his neck. Traces of his body oils were found on your clothing near the wound. Why did you kill him?"

  "He was an Alliance assassin. I learned about him only slowly, over the weeks aboard ship. He accidentally tipped off his presence to me."

  "Why didn’t you speak to me about it? It would have been so much easier."

  "I wanted to do him myself. To kill him myself."

  Garzón looked off at the moon. "I see-a rugged individualist trying to set the universe right. You realize he’s the second Alliance agent you’ve killed? Few men fare so well against them. You somehow make them appear ... inept? I find it quite surprising. I think it’s your disarming nature. You generate an aura of concern for others, of innate morality. No one would suspect you to be capable of violence. You have an interesting set of qualities. Have you ever considered putting these qualities to work for you, perhaps by going into intelligence work—as an assassin?"

  I looked at him, surprised. "No."

  He smiled charmingly. He had a great deal of charisma and knew how to use it. I felt unaccountably grateful to him. He didn’t need me really. He could have just fed me to the lions. Yet he’d saved me out of pure gratitude. Few qualities are so endearing. I liked him despite the fact that he was keeping Tamara prisoner, in spite of the fact that at some basic level I suspected that we were enemies.

  "Tamara has talked of you often," Garzón urged. "She would like to work with you. When this is over, you and I should talk—terms of employment."

  "No," I said.

  "Think about it."

  I peered out the window. It was best not to argue too strongly. I considered his offer. People like Arish, Juan Carlos—someone needed to kill them. Why not me?

  The last passengers boarded the shuttle and we departed. From space Baker looked like a great clouded ruby shot through with bands of azurite and emerald. Brilliant red ochre marked the central deserts while water vapor hung over its small blue seas and single large ocean. It had ice caps nearly as small as those on Mars.

  Yet the entire planet seemed hazy and indistinct, like a blurred photo. A band of platinum formed a corona around the rim of the planet—caused by the sun reflecting off the wings of billions upon billions of opal kites.

  We dropped near the upper atmosphere. The planet’s ocean, Aki Umi, took up most of our field of view.

  We passed the terminus where day became night and buzzed over the western edge of the continent Kani, the crab, in twilight. Below us the brilliant white lights of Hotoke no Za, the Yabajin capital, shone as if a single star had fallen on that vast dark planet and taken fire.

  A tinkling noise sounded, like urine squirting into a toilet bowl.

  Several men jumped from their seats yelling, "We’re hit!" then our craft lurched and accelerated up away from Baker and everyone became frantic.

  A Japanese announced over the speakers, "Some of you realize the Yabajin have fired on us with neutron cannons. However this was foreseen, and we remain high above the danger zone. Our superior shielding held. Even now we file protest of this ruthless, unprovoked attack with the Alliance ambassador!"

  I snorted in disgust. Truly we hadn’t attacked the Yabajin—yet. But if I were them, I’d fire upon our shuttles, too.

  The samurai inched forward. "No talking. No noise," he said, referring to the snort I’d made.

  We passed Hotoke no Za and continued over the dark planet.

  Garzón took a microphone and explained the situation on Baker: we’d lost 4100 mercenaries during our trip from Earth—30l2 to the plague, 129 in fights during the riot, and 644 crushed when the samurai spun our ship. The rest died in the simulators, were murdered, or perished from natural causes.

  He continued, "We estimate the Yabajin defenders at 50,000 or more. Motoki will only be able to muster 39,000 samurai. And though the numbers look bad for an offensive engagement, our chimeras are better fighters than Motoki bargained for. Because of our prowess in battle and recent changes in equipment design, computer projections look pretty good. We can win this war—but we’d lose sixty-two percent of our men. This is unacceptable! Right now," Garzón said, "I’m demanding that Motoki rectify this violation of our contract by allowing us one month to produce new weapons and practice further. In addition, 467 of you were put in the cryotanks after the riot. Frankly, you’d be almost worthless to us in a real fight because of inadequate training. I’d leave you aboard ship until this is over, but the owners of the Chaeron need to re-outfit the ship for its return to Earth. Now, the locals are afraid of us and there is some resistance to the plan, but I’m going to demand that you men be left in Kimai no Ji until this war is over! All right?"

  His little speech brought cheers from the men. But his promises sounded hollow.

  For two hours there was no more sign of civilization on the planet. No lights. Though Baker was smaller than Earth, its emptiness made it seem vast.

  My thoughts kept returning to Tamara in the room behind me. I’d invested so much to free her from Jafari that her captivity by Garzón distressed me. I’d never saved her at all, only led her to a new prison cell.

  Perhaps the most frustrating thing was that I still had no idea why she was imprisoned. Garzón wasn’t wringing useful information from her. Any intelligence secrets she knew were well out of date.

  Yet her mind was of inestimable worth to Garzón, as it had been to Jafari. I couldn’t smuggle her off Baker. We couldn’t hide on Baker. To even consider trying to save her was a waste of time when my own future hung in the balance.

  We left Baker’s shadow and returned to daylight. We passed great red deserts. The dark ultraviolet of Baker’s native plants became more frequent, then the shuttle plummeted toward the planet, bouncing through thermals. The heat shielding glowed white, and we slowed and soared at a low angle.

  At perhaps fifteen kilometers we descended into a flock of red opal kites that spanned thousands of meters. I imagined we’d crash. But though the kites were huge, each was only a thin membranous waffle the color of cinnamon. The flock undulated as it rode the top of a thermal, holding to the same elevation, almost wing tip to wing tip, so that when we sank beneath them it was as if we dropped below bubbles riding on top of the water and we were sea creatures viewing them from beneath.

  These kites truly resembled giant mantas, and I finally realized that opal kites were as different from opal birds as hawks are from butterflies. Below us several flocks of kites each held to different thermal layers. Cottony clouds hid all but the tops of a few mountains.

  We cruised for several minutes. The ship’s captain announced that we were coming in upon Kimai no Ji, Motoki’s capitol.

  We descended through clouds toward a rugged coastline among mountains topped with green-gray fir and pine. I inched forward, eager to see this place we’d be fighting for.

  For a long time saw nothing but rolling green hills and mist. Then I spotted a low-flying yellow zeppelin traveling from Motoki’s small farming or mining settlements in the south, pe
rhaps Shukaku or Tsumetai Oka.

  The zeppelin headed for a hamlet near the sea surrounded by a few fields and a large black stone wall. Farther out was the forest; and the forest, the wall, and the fields all held the native flora and fauna at bay.

  I imagined the Motoki outpost as an island of normality in a sea of strangeness. The Japanese have always been an island people. The city was small, perhaps 40,000 people, a tiny collection of buildings, two blue crystal domes. My little city of Gatun back in Panamá was larger. "

  Then it struck me how bizarre this enterprise was: here was a large planet, one that because of its small seas had more total land surface than Earth, yet two cities the size of Gatun, Panamá, were fighting a genocidal war to see who won empty spaces neither of them could use!

  The shuttle swooped in for its descent.

  The houses were of dark wood beams with white rice-paper walls as thin and translucent as moth wings. On every street, in every yard, the landscape was perfectly ordered, as if the city were a giant garden only casually inhabited by humans.

  Bushes were neatly trimmed and the black trunks of the pink blossoming plums were gnarled into strange surrealistic patterns, as if they’d been sculpted.

  I’d expected some signs of age—dilapidated buildings, crumbling barns. But the Japanese hadn’t contrived any instant slums on Baker. Nor was there a sign of extravagance. No glittering lights, no mansions of crystal. The entire city displayed a face of practiced austerity. We slowed and hit the runway and the shuttle shuddered as we skidded to a halt.

  From the shuttle-port terminal issued a dozen large trucks. Fifty samurai wearing black armor hustled alongside the trucks and lined up outside our door.

  The hatch popped open and our men began filing down the steps. A sweet husky alien aroma entered the ship, like the smell of sugar cane drying in the sun. The smell of Baker.

  We exited and found the trucks were full of clothing—shoes and loose pants, heavy kimonos and jackets. We were given plastic bags with welcoming kits—combs, bars of soap, toothpaste, maps of the planet, lists of rules.

  Those of us who’d been sitting in the "security risk" section of the shuttle each had a small monitor taped to our wrists, like those felons wear while on parole so the police can track them. The device showed a map of the city and told us to reach a certain building before 5:00 P.M.

  The ocean roared nearby and a sea wind blew over the airfield, licking up dust. Hornets seemed to be everywhere—buzzing our heads, smelling the hair on the backs of our arms.

  The samurai had us form a line, and led us away from the airfield. My legs felt as if they’d suddenly become two centimeters too short—each step carried me slightly higher in the air than I wanted to go.

  I’d only been subjected to the heavy gravity of the ship for two weeks, but the cryotechs had kept my muscles well-tuned.

  I bounced when I walked. We traveled single-file along a road that bordered a low fence of bamboo, past house after house.

  The plums were throwing their blossoms, forming a carpet for our feet. All the doors and windows in the houses were closed.

  We passed through a business district where colored kites shaped like carp hung from lamp poles, and a small Japanese boy came running up toward us from a side street. He nearly bumped into the man in front of me, then stopped and looked up at us and shrieked, "Tengu!"

  I smiled at him and he backed away in horror. The child’s eyes were slanted at a remarkable angle, the epicanthic folds enhanced until his eyes were mere slits.

  The man behind me laughed. "I guess he’s never seen anyone handsomer than the Japanese."

  I laughed too, and wondered how it would be for a child who’d never seen a man of another race. Could he recognize us as human?

  A samurai down the line shouted, "No talking!"

  In silence we trudged up the road and into a large building, a circular stadium.

  Inside hundreds of pictures of Regional Company President Motoki Tomeo stretched from wall to wall, and a large stage like those in kabuki theaters filled the far end of the building.

  When we seated, speakers blared out "Motoki Sha Ka" and the samurai led us in the company anthem, then a giant holograph of a twenty-meter-tall President Motoki appeared on stage.

  Like the child, his eyes were outrageously slanted—more Japanese than the Japanese had ever been. He ceremoniously welcomed us to Baker and thanked us for coming to help rid the land of the "machines of the Yabajin."

  When finished, twenty young girls hustled on stage and gracefully danced with fans and umbrellas while an old woman sang to the accompaniment of a koto. The dancers came forward and with both hands offered each of us a plate that held a tiny bottle of sake, a chrysanthemum, and a bowl of cooked rice. Then we were escorted from the building by the samurai.

  The sun was setting. With the gray overcast skies there was no beautiful sunset, only a grim gradual dimming of the light. The rice-paper walls of the homes glowed from inside like giant paper lanterns.

  We marched a kilometer from town and came to a large compound in a small valley resting between the arms of a pine-covered hill. Hundreds of Latin Americans dressed in the faded green battle armor of Motoki soldiers wandered about the hill, exercised, and wrestled.

  At the foot of the valley, chanting issued from a large wooden structure that could have been an old barn—the thunderous shout of. "Let’s go home! Let’s go home! Let’s go home!"

  The samurai marched my compadres up to the barn, but my wristband began beeping and warned me to head for another section of camp. The map on my wristband showed the hut I was supposed to sleep in.

  I headed toward it. From town came the deep gong of a temple bell, and behind me, my three hundred compañeros raised their voices in the chant, "Let’s go home!"

  Chapter 23

  The hut I entered was so smoky it could have been a bar. Five Latin Americans in the blue of samurai played guitars and sang while a sixth blew furiously on a trumpet. Sixty gamblers had gathered in a circle and shouted bets as if at a cock fight while they watched a holo of three men in a simulated combat.

  The three men were in a large, powerful hovercraft racing through the jungle, trying to beat back an attack by four Yabajin craft. The whole point of the exercise seemed to be to see how many kills the combat team could make before they got wasted. Yet the three men were marvelous, graceful, powerful: they swirled in the air to fend laser attacks, and they seemingly dodged the plasma as it rushed toward them. They returned fire and made kills while they zigzagged through the brush. Their antics as they evaded the Yabajin drew great gusts of laughter. I heard a buzz like the drone of giant wasps. Three black projectiles the size of a man’s arm zipped toward the mercenaries at tree line, following the contours of the forest, dodging branches.

  Someone shouted, "Five to three Xavier doesn’t hear the weasels!" Everyone began shouting their bets.

  Another fifty people were seated on the floor in corners of the room. Few were smiling or sharing tales. An air melancholy hung over the crowd: dead eyes everywhere and stern faces with fatalistic smiles.

  I could feel it in the air—the electric cobwebs brushing my face, a knot of tension in the pit of my stomach, the anxiety of a crowd who struggled for control. The crowd was barely holding it in—as if the riot aboard ship had never occurred. As if my two years in the cryotanks had never passed.

  A man in battle armor stubbed up to me. At first I didn’t recognize Zavala, since he stood with a slightly bent posture, as if still struggling against heavy g forces.

  "Ah, it’s you! It’s been a long time," he said, forgetting my name.

  "How are you?" I asked.

  "Good. Everyone’s good. Abriara will be glad you’re awake, ne?"

  I was surprised to hear the Japanese ne, meaning correct, from his lips. But then he’d been among the samurai now for two years. People can change much in two years.

  "Where is she?" I asked. The thought of seeing Abriara agai
n filled me with the kind of pain one feels upon passing the graveyard where a relative is buried.

  "Probably running a solo gauntlet through the simulators. Or maybe exercising. She’s been very worried for you. She’ll probably be in a simulator somewhere. Battle helps steady the mind, ne? She’ll want to see you. She’ll want you to fight with us, to sit in our hovercraft like we were amigos. But things have changed since you chickened out and helped start the riot. You won’t be any help in a fight, just dead weight. If you’re a true friend, you won’t fight on our battle team.

  Zavala’s voice was the same as ever, but his undertones defied reason. His small rounded mouth twisted down in contempt. His stupid cow eyes stared dully.

  I felt angry that he spoke to me that way, but to placate him I said, "I don’t think she’ll want me on the team. When did Abriara feel anything for anyone? I’m nothing to her. And if I’m a burden, she’ll keep me off the team." And I realized my words were a truth I understood with my heart but would never have dared speak to myself. Hadn’t she disarmed me during the riot, leaving me to die?

  Zavala snorted in disgust. "That shows what you know—the great doctor. God must have run out of everything but guano when he was putting your head together!"

  I didn’t immediately know what to say. He acted as if I’d attacked Abriara’s character, but I’d simply stated the truth.

  Zavala stubbed out the door as if one of his metal legs had suddenly shriveled too short. I waited for a long time, till it appeared he wouldn’t return.

  I found a corner and, since I was still holding my gift of rice and sake, I sat down on the floor to dine and watch the holo fights. There was a lull in the battle and no one was betting for the moment. The combat team had lost one man, but astonishingly they’d defeated the Yabajin. They were hovering motionless over a stagnant river whipped to froth by their engines in a dense jungle where trees and bushes shone a hundred thousand shades of green and purple. Their bulky bug suits were pocked and furrowed from laser and plasma hits. They were hastily repairing the damage to their armor with a resin paint.