by T. J. Berry
“Maybe,” she said, surveying his human upper half. “But taking two of you out is impossible. I cannot drag a dryad out of holding and through the streets without being noticed.”
“Not during the Summit. The streets will be at full capacity. No one will look twice at a Reason officer with their faun and dryad heading to the festivities.”
“Do you think people just take their trees for a walk?” she asked. “Like you bring it to the store? Sheesh.”
“I think you can tell anyone who asks that you’re bringing Kaila to the colonel’s apartment. That would not be unusual.”
“Ridiculous. I can take you, but not her.”
Gary noticed the clock on the wall behind her. Between the trip from Borstal to Jaisalmer, and the time he’d slept in harvesting, there were less than two hours before the cargo boxes opened. Even if Singh agreed to take Kaila, he still had to find Jenny and Ricky and get as close to the Jaggery as possible before the timer hit zero. He strained toward Singh.
“Please. Where is your humanity?”
“This is humanity,” she said, holstering her weapon and repeating back the ideas from a Reason schoolbook. “This is how we’ve thrived for so long despite our planet dying, and sailing off into openspace, and encountering hostile aliens. We used our tenacity and resourcefulness to survive.”
There was one last thing that Gary could try. He recalled the words that Singh had spoken to him in the vision. He hoped that they would stir something in her, even if it was simple fear.
“You are the bravest person I have ever met,” he said. “The Pymmie are humbled before your sacrifice. Succeed in this or all is lost.”
Singh’s fingers clutched at the front of her jacket. Her cheeks flushed.
“I don’t know what that means,” she stammered.
“Don’t you want to find out?” he asked.
He could see that she desperately needed to know, but she was afraid to throw away her future in the Reason by walking out with two inmates. She was hedging so she didn’t end up ruining her career over what might turn out to be a simple dream. He had to convince her she was part of something bigger than herself. That would be worth the risk.
“It’s possible that you will be part of a great battle in the future. And you will be the one to kill the last unicorn.” Gary wasn’t sure that he actually was the last, and a full unicorn would have scoffed at the suggestion that Gary call himself a unicorn at all, but Singh seemed taken with the idea. She stepped closer and began to unfasten his restraints.
“Kaila too,” he said, gently. She sighed.
“Fine. Which one?”
“Yellow flowers.”
He towered over her. She looked up with a hand on her holster.
“I can’t kill you with this, but I can probably erase half your fondest memories with one good shot. So no tricks.”
He spread his hands wide to show he intended no such thing. She radioed the guards to bring Kaila to the dissecting room and handed him a long white lab coat.
“Put this on. They’ll think you’re a tech.”
The door at the far end of the room opened again. Four guards dragged Kaila between them. They tossed her onto a table where she screamed and lashed out with her most flexible branches.
“Firewood delivery!” said a guard.
“These trees are useless, why did we even drag it in here?” asked the other guard.
“I think I’m allergic to its flowers,” said the first guard, scratching her arms.
“No need to strap it in,” said Singh. “I’m taking her to the colonel’s apartment.” One of the guards raised his eyebrow. Singh ushered him out the door with a wave. She moved to the side of the redworm, fiddling with its whirring medication dispenser.
“Gary!” cried Kaila, shuffling over to him at the speed you would expect from a tree spirit. She wrapped her branches around him and planted multiple kisses on his forehead. He hadn’t expected her to be so effusive in her welcome. The last time they’d seen each other, he was her captive as well. Seems most of Jenny’s group had forgotten their part in his torment.
“It’s good to see that you’re alive,” he said. “I’m going to take you to Jenny.”
“I can’t believe you’re here, rescuing me.”
“Neither can I,” said Gary, which was entirely true.
Subedar Singh returned, holding out handcuffs and snapping them around Kaila’s wrists.
“You need to wear these to get out of here. Struggle against us. Make it look real.” She turned to Gary. “Follow me out of the building with her between us. An alarm is going to go off in a minute. When it does, just keep walking.”
“What kind of alarm?” asked Gary.
She held up a container of sedative labeled “succinylcholine” and rolled it between her fingers.
“That redworm isn’t going to be paralyzed for much longer.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Barlee Base
Jenny had been hanging from the wall of the shuttle like a side of beef for hours. They’d strapped her in, legs dangling for the long FTL ride from Borstal Checkpoint to Jaisalmer. The straps bit into her hips, right where the damage from Copernica was the worst. Each jerk of the shuttle made her suck in a breath, though she tried not to tip her hand to these grunts.
Ricky had tucked herself between two Reason officers, with whom she was busy negotiating a deal.
“All I’m saying is, look up the files. None of them are classified. You’ll see what I’m talking about and where the paper trail leads,” she murmured to the soldier next to her.
At least they were in nullspace, which gave Jenny a pleasant head rush. She’d considered trying some kind of Bala mischief to get them out of here, but all her attempts to harness the null were fruitless. All the space that she’d previously used to absorb energy was filled with excruciating pain, not to mention a smattering of remorse about using the null to impersonate her dead best friend. There was no room left in her for magic. At least, if she was seeing right on the displays up front, they were on track to arrive on Jaisalmer on the morning of the Century Summit.
The shuttle dropped several meters, probably to avoid another ship in the null, and Jenny’s lower torso twisted. She gasped.
“Hey, you wankers. Get me down,” she called.
The officers in the cabin looked up, but didn’t rise from their seats. One young officer stared at her longer than the others. She was young enough to be Jenny’s kid.
“Hey, Private. My straps are too tight. I’m going to suffocate. Come over and loosen them a little,” Jenny called.
The woman grappled with her harness, as if trying to unbuckle. A larger soldier shoved her hand away from the latch.
“She’s messing with you. Trying to get you to go over there.”
“But what if she really can’t breathe?” she asked.
“Then she dies. They’re probably just going to let her rot in a cell when we land anyway.” He patted her helmet patronizingly. “Don’t stress over it. One less anchor pulling everyone else down. To the survival of man.”
“Manifest destiny,” mumbled the soldier halfheartedly.
Jenny struggled with her harness, but it was locked shut. This wasn’t their first time transporting prisoners. The shuttle hit the turbulence of thick atmosphere. Her head ricocheted off the wall behind her.
“Damn you all,” she called out. “Where’s the unicorn?”
“All Bala are processed through the harvesting center at Fort J,” said the private.
“And where are we headed?”
“The detention and rehabilitation center on the Great Barlee Sea.” A comrade smacked her in the helmet to shut her up. She sat back, subdued.
Ricky lifted a finger to her lips for Jenny to be quiet. She was doubtless trying to negotiate their release, but Jenny wasn’t willing to let her life balance on whether Ricky traded an exotic item or got someone to believe a wild story.
The shuttle dropped
out of FTL. The faces of the soldiers around her went slack with wonder for a moment as they saw eternity stretch before them. Jenny saw eternity as well; it looked long and boring.
Jaisalmer filled the viewscreen, deep in shadow and dotted with artificial lights. Fort J was at the edge of the rising dawn, but their shuttle flew into the darkest black, toward the center of the planet’s ocean. Even if an inmate escaped from the detention and rehabilitation center, there was nowhere to go but the water.
The shuttle tilted downward for re-entry and Jenny’s legs dangled toward the cockpit, stretching her painfully. She tried not to give the officers the satisfaction of making a sound, even though it felt like a few fragments of the bullet on Beywey were still shredding her from the inside. The shuttle jerked again and a small groan escaped her lips. The private looked up. Jenny made the tremendous effort to extend the middle finger of her right hand. The concern in the private’s eyes was replaced by disgust.
The shuttle leveled out and Jenny’s torso moved back to where it should have been. She breathed hard. An officer tapped a panel on the wall and her harness popped open. She dropped to the floor, landing hard on her side.
“I thought you wanted out,” grinned the officer. Jenny pulled herself up to sitting. They’d left her chair back on the Jaggery, just as Gary had warned. She wondered if they planned on dragging her throughout the detention center. Her jumpsuit was already torn. If they pulled her all over this facility, they’d tear her legs to shreds.
They landed with a jolt. The grunts got up and stretched, refastening their uniforms. The side door opened and a cool breeze filled the shuttle. It smelled of salt and fish. Jenny breathed it in – the air reminded her of home on the beach, before the sea reclaimed her town and forced everyone inland and then into openspace.
Two soldiers reached beneath her arms and pulled her down the landing ramp. She stared at the ocean stretching to the horizon in every direction. She knew this wasn’t Earth, but it felt like home – blue water, white clouds. Only the reddish sun on the horizon indicated otherwise.
The Reason had built the detention center on pylons above the water line with a series of metal bridges connecting the buildings. They were fine for people who could walk, but too narrow for the two officers to drag her between them. They started down the path and both bumped into the railings.
Ricky whispered something to the officer she was working on and he nodded.
“Carry her,” he called out.
The private pulled off her helmet and hung it from a clip on her flight suit.
“I’ll get her,” she said.
“Piggyback, sir,” she said to Jenny, kneeling down and waiting. Jenny locked her arms around the private’s neck. She couldn’t wrap her legs around her, but the soldier reached behind her knees and hoisted her up. She turned her head so that one eye caught Jenny’s.
“No screwing around back there or you’ll take us both out. Got it?”
“No promises,” said Jenny, watching the waves. She could float just fine, but swimming against a current or in rough conditions would exhaust her quickly. These waves crashed against the pylons, stirred by the brisk wind. This was no public pool.
Ricky marched side by side with her new favorite officer. She whispered in his ear and he didn’t pull away. That woman could survive the apocalypse on her wits alone.
Jenny’s face was close to the officer’s close-cropped red hair. It smelled like rose-scented soap, not that standard issue crap they issued grunts on deployment.
“Someone off-world sending you soap, or did you bring it from home?” Jenny asked into the soldier’s ear.
“No talking,” replied the private.
“I only ask because I have a stash of lavender soap. Good stuff that my gran saved from before the shortages. If you get me to Fort J, I’ll give you everything I have left. Three bars.”
She’d been saving it for a special occasion – like when she and Kaila went to meet her family of dryads. She figured smelling like flowers when you met your wife’s extended family of trees was simply good planning.
The redheaded officer stepped onto the bridge after her unit. The floor was made of metal grating and Jenny could see the ocean roiling beneath them. She spoke quietly into the private’s ear.
“Listen, I was deployed back in the day. I know the garbage toiletries they give you in the outposts. Mess kit, a few tampons, and a bar of soap that dries out your skin and makes you itch everywhere. You probably get a lot of windburn in a place like this. Think of it. Moisturizing soap. All you have to do is ‘misplace’ me and my friend here before we get to intake.”
“Sir, I’m not going to risk losing my job in exchange for a bar of soap,” said the private, marching steadfastly toward the intake center. If you got bagged and tagged into a place like this, you didn’t get back out. Once she and Ricky passed the threshold, escape would become damn near impossible. Jenny started calculating how hard she would have to throw her body to the side to pull them both off this bridge. She’d have to signal Ricky to jump and hope that Ricky followed her.
Ricky now had two soldiers listening to the story she was telling with rapturous attention. They walked alongside her, helmeted heads cocked in her direction. Every once in a while, she looked back at Jenny with an indecipherable expression, a kind of warning that Jenny couldn’t quite figure out. As Ricky glanced back for the third time, Jenny flicked her head toward the sea. Ricky frowned and made the slightest shake of her head. Jenny insistently motioned toward the water. Ricky rolled her eyes and went back to her audience of two. Jenny didn’t want to leave her behind, but she couldn’t force Ricky to jump.
The private spoke without turning her head.
“You were at Copernica Citadel,” she said quietly.
“I was.”
“You saved all those people on the Pandey.”
“I helped out,” said Jenny with the false modesty expected of a war hero.
“And you turned the tide of battle in our favor.”
“That’s what they say.”
“So why are you here? I thought they had retirement homes for wounded vets.”
“You’re walking toward it.”
The private went quiet. At recruitment stations, they told new enlistees that the Reason would take care of them for life. You’d do your service and be rewarded with a warm spot by the fire where you could tell war stories to your buddies while you got old. They promised a regular stipend. Not an exorbitant amount, but enough for regular meals, good alcohol, and a little trip to Earth to see your planetbound family now and then. You could go back and visit like a hero so everyone could remember what you fought for.
But if you searched through all eleven thousand pages of the Reason’s annual budget, you’d find no line item for veteran stipends. Especially not for the care of soldiers wounded in the line of duty. There was insurance money – a set amount for whatever body part you lost – but the payment was ludicrously small. It was just about enough to fly back to the beach and get a crap job hauling cargo in a rented shuttle while watching the kids in your hometown realize one by one that mankind had left them behind to die. You could always tell when another group of teenagers figured it out because you’d wake up to another building in town with its windows shattered. Or the local secondary school would catch fire again.
That left you with just a handful of choices. You could keep right on baking to death at home, maybe skimming off the Reason to stick it to the man. Or, you could make off with a unicorn and his stoneship and find a planet where you and your wife could get that spot by the lake. If she wasn’t dead already.
“They told us we’d be taken care of,” said the private, her voice tight.
“Well… I will be taken care of, in a way,” said Jenny.
“I can’t let you go for some soap, sir. Not worth the risk. I still have years on my time.”
“I understand. What’s your name?”
“Rassick. Angeles Rassick.”
“Angeles. Like the city that fell into the sea.”
“Never been there.”
“Me neither.”
They were silent for a moment, and Jenny waited patiently.
“How would you get off planet?” asked Rassick eventually.
“Not your problem. All I’m asking is that you let us go over the side of this bridge. When we fall into that water, you don’t happen to see where me and my friend end up and we make our way to Fort J.”
“I’ll lose points.”
“Gunning for sergeant?”
“Yeah.”
“Well I hope you get it. Nothing wrong with trying to do your job well. Lord knows I spent a long time trying to climb that ladder. Just be aware, kid, that there is nothing at the top. You get there and you just fall off into nowhere.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How about this. Fire off a few shots when we hit the water. Tell them you hit me and I sank. That I couldn’t swim. It’s an easy story to believe; they already don’t think much of me. You’ll get credit for stopping an escape attempt. Two, if Ricky jumps with me.”
They were less than a minute from intake. Ricky was still talking and didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get off the bridge. Jenny’s arms tensed around Private Rassick’s neck. Come hell or high water, she was not letting them take her into that building.
“Are you with me, Rassick?” asked Jenny.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“You prefer to take your chances and trust the Reason to do right by you? After what you’ve seen and what you know?”
Jenny was betting on the fact that Rassick had probably experienced the same climb to the top that she had, with all of the wandering hands and broken promises. The Reason wanted all sorts of bodies to throw at problems, but it was clear which bodies were more valued than others.
“Let me put my helmet on first, sir,” said Rassick, unclipping and easing it over her head. “I can’t swim.”
“Well that’s a ridiculous move on an ocean outpost,” said Jenny, forgetting she was supposed to be buttering up Rassick.
