“Yes!” she shouts.
Excellent, Archibald thinks. She is beginning to give in. “For him, you became a social pariah. You lost your chance to die honorably, too. A dalit can’t have a Beautiful Death, so even in the afterlife, you’re doomed to the shadows. Isn’t that right?”
“Y—”
“Say it!” he yells.
“Yes!”
“Of course it is. It’s also right that the chief you gave all for, the man you think you love, led you into an ambush then abandoned you.”
“Dead . . . you said he was . . . dead.”
“We thought he was, but turns out he’s alive and well and getting nasty with some farm girl.”
“No!”
“Would I lie to you? Let me answer that: no, I would not. That’s why when I say that I can give back something you’ve lost, it’s the Bishop’s honest truth. I can give you back your finger. The medicine to regenerate appendages is very rare and very expensive, but we have the means and resources to get it. You can be whole again, love. Be a hero again. Go to Valhalla like the Tenets promise you can. Just do me one tiny little favor.”
It’s a lie, of course. Mother’s physicians could grow another digit for her, but she would never stop being dalit. Valhalla, if there were even such a place, would not welcome her now. But the lie hits the right chord.
Her eyelids flutter. She lifts her head. “F-favor? What. Kind?”
Perfect, Archibald thinks, and pushes a twig of hair away from her ear. He whispers something, and her eyes grow wide. He takes the mutilated hand in his so that his fingers cover hers. In a certain light, from a particular angle, it looks as if her hand is whole again.
Slowly she nods, her eyes bloodshot, the pupils glowing pink. “My name is Vienne.”
“See?” he says, smiling because she is broken, and she belongs to him. Jacob Stringfellow, eat your heart out. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Now that we’re friends, Vienne, there’s something else I want you to do: Tell me the secrets I have so longed to hear. Tell me about . . . Durango.”
Chapter 21
Tharsis Prefecture
Coastal Plain of Hastings, near the River Gagarin
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 7. 26. 21:05
With the distant smoke to guide us, Riki-Tiki, Stain, and I continue traveling down the military cutoff toward the north, with hope of gaining ground on Archibald’s slash-and-burn campaign. But we go hours without seeming to get any closer, and when the sun sets beyond Olympus Mons and its shadow bathes us in twilight, we’re forced to pull off the road to find a place to camp.
A short search nets us a grotto that’s obviously been used by travelers before. I gather wood and build a small fire in a shallow pit. Riki-Tiki makes a quick meal of the rice and beans that Shoei sent along with me. Stain declines to join us. Instead, he sips broth from a small bowl, a little at a time, like a rat stealing bait from a trap.
When the sun is fully set, Stain reminds Riki-Tiki that it is time for evening meditation.
“Aw, do we have to?”
“Shame on you for asking,” he says, his voice cold.
She hops to her feet, dusting her pants off, flashing a smile that I can tell is forced.
“I don’t care what Riki-Tiki says,” I tell Mimi. “This blighter is trouble.”
“I have observed no evidence to contradict your conclusion, cowboy.”
“Begin!” Stain snaps.
I expect them to light incense and take the lotus position. Instead, they do a quick stretch and take the ready position—legs together, palms together, then bow.
“What’s this?” I ask Riki-Tiki, stuffing the mess gear into my bike’s cargo hold. “Didn’t you just say it’s time for prayer?”
“This is yi-jin-jing meditation. The Tengu believe that seated mediation will make you fat. So we fight while we pray.” She cocks her head at me, the same way Vienne does when she thinks I’m being obtuse. “You may join us if you like.”
“I’ll pass. I just ate.”
Stain scoffs. “Regulators don’t know the forms. He is too busy digesting his dinner to keep up, regardless.”
Who says I couldn’t keep up, I think. If Stain can do the forms, it can’t be that hard. Just because I don’t plant metal objects under my skin doesn’t mean I’m lazy.
“Don’t be so mean, Stain,” Riki-Tiki says as they change forms, their movements flowing in perfect synchronicity.
First, they make an X with their hands over their heads. They spread their arms parallel to the ground, then turn their palms up to the sky.
“Of course, we also eat while we pray and bathe while we pray,” Riki-Tiki says. “Tengu are pretty much praying all the time.”
I laugh. “Won’t eating while you’re praying make you fat, too?”
She sticks out her tongue. “Are you saying I’m fat?”
“Hush!” Stain barks.
“Somebody had nails for breakfast,” Mimi says.
“Dinner, too.”
Next they stomp with the left foot and step back with the right. Palms still up, they extend their left arms and draw the right one back, tucking the elbow.
“Yah!” they shout and shoot the right hand out, rotating and making a fist at the last instant. The left hand chambers back, then flicks into a forearm block.
“Ghannouj says that monks don’t fight,” Riki-Tiki adds. “We practice forms while meditating to gain enlightenment. He says that every kick contains wisdom.”
“Rubbish!” Stain barks as they throw a front kick, followed by a side kick, followed by a roundhouse.
“The Tengu have always fought. It is the essence of who we are, a tradition that Rinpoche himself followed.”
“Who?” I ask.
They land on one knee and punch the ground with an open hand. Momentum carries their hips and legs into the air, and they do a one-handed handstand, followed by a front flip.
“Rinpoche,” Riki-Tiki says. “He was the first Tengu on Mars. Only sixteen Earth years old when he emigrated here. That means he wasn’t much older than me. Isn’t that right, Stain?”
From a squatting position, they throw a high scissors kick, back flip, and land on their feet.
Legs together. Palms together.
Bow.
For a few seconds, Stain does nothing but chew on his tongue piercings, then he draws a circle in the dirt with his staff and says, “Rinpoche was more than a beekeeper.” He splits the circle in half. “He was bönpo of bees, a holy man hounded from his home by the Communist government.”
“Communist?” I say. “That government was overthrown in—”
He begins twirling his staff, ignoring me. “The Project Ares scientists brought him and nine of his followers to this place to aid their greenhouse farming. Here, Rinpoche found serenity and a purpose. His bees were a godsend to Martian horticulture.”
“I’m really not into history,” I say. “I’ve always been concerned with the here and now.”
“Shh.” Riki-Tiki gives me a look tinged with humor and pity. “But this is a really good story.”
“Soon,” Stain continues, his voice like a chant, “the demand for beekeepers brought more Tengu. Farmers took up arms to force the Tengu to work for them. Rinpoche decided that each monk would take nine acolytes for protection and to regulate the settlers.”
The staff begins to hum. He changes the twirling pattern, and the pitch rises. “When Rinpoche passed from this life, all was at peace. Then the Bishop made the Regulators his Holy Templers, trained only in warfare, taking nothing from the Tengu except our Nine Tenets.”
“Nine Tenets?” I say. “Those always belonged to the Regulators.”
“Perverted by them, you mean,” he snaps at me. “The Regulators are no longer honorable warriors. They are just killers.”
My hackles rise. “So you’re calling me and Vienne killers, is that it? Is that the point you’re trying to make?”
“The history of the Regulator is the history of Mars,” Stain says. “Gre
at hope perverted by ambition and greed. Like Vienne, who came to the monks as a helpless child. They helped her heal, but she turned her back on them.”
That bloody bastard. Nobody talks about Vienne that way.
I pull my armalite.
“No!” Riki-Tiki grabs my arm. “He doesn’t mean it. That’s just Stain’s way of talking. Please?”
I ram the gun back in its holster. What a hypocrite. I’m tempted to confront him about getting kicked out of the monastery. “His way of talking’s going to get him shot one day.”
If Stain hears me, he shows no indication of it. He spins the staff horizontally on his palm, and while holding it aloft, does a deep back bend so that his body forms an inverted U, the staff spinning above him like the rotor of a velocicopter.
“Listen,” Riki-Tiki whispers.
Her voice is drowned out by the sound of an approaching storm.
No, not a storm.
A swarm. A mammoth swarm that fills the sky. It rises over the butte, snarling and twisting, with a tail like a buzzing rope. For a few seconds, it seems like the bees are going to envelop us, and I’m looking for a hole to dive into.
“I just decided,” I tell Mimi, “I don’t like bees.”
Then, with a snap of the wrist, Stain stops the staff. The swarm seems to shudder, then dissipates like smoke.
“Wow,” I say, “those bees came out of nowhere really fast.”
“That is because the bees never really leave Stain,” Riki-Tiki says, clapping. “He is bönpo, just like Rinpoche was.”
“What’s this word bönpo they keep using?” I ask Mimi.
She pauses before answering. “There is no reference in my admittedly sparse amount of data regarding the Tengu monks to any bönpo.”
“Riki-Tiki is mistaken.” Stain pounds the staff against the ground. He grabs two handfuls of dirt and rubs them on the staff. “I am not bönpo. She is.”
“Not yet,” Riki-Tiki says, with a hint of disappointment. “And not ever, if Vienne agrees to take me as her acolyte. Then I’ll become a Regulator, just like her.”
“No!” Stain shakes a finger in her face. “That is not your path. You will not become Vienne’s acolyte. You are too pure for that!”
Too pure? As opposed to unpure? Is that what he thinks of Vienne?
“Don’t tell me about my path!” She stomps her foot and shakes her head, the pink spikes of hair snapping in the night air. “Don’t preach to me! You of all people should know better!”
Go ahead, I think, give the arrogant bastard hell.
“Cowboy!” Mimi shouts in my head. “Multiple bogeys in close proximity! Closing fast!”
“Down!” I yell and yank both of them to the ground.
“How dare you?” Stain complains, his face full of dirt.
Riki-Tiki shushes him. “Listen!”
Then I hear the deep thump of a velocicopter rotor as a Hellbender thunders overhead. Its searchlights crisscross the grotto, bouncing off the high wall of stones that shield us.
For now.
A few seconds later, the copter disappears into the thickening clouds.
“Think they saw us?” Riki-Tiki stands, then slaps dirt from her knees.
Stain glowers at me while wiping his mouth. “No. We are well hidden.”
“Hellbenders don’t need visuals to find targets. The pilot’s got enough telemetry onboard to find a maggot in a compost heap.” I bound up a series of large stones for a better look—just in time to see the copter bank toward us. “It’s coming back! Get to the bikes! Our only chance is to outrun it!”
“Outrun a Hellbender?” Mimi says as we’re sprinting toward the motorbikes, leaving the refugees to hide. “How do you propose to do that?”
“By going really, really fast!”
Less than a minute later, we’re back on the military cutoff road, putting distance between us and the refugees in the grotto. Riki-Tiki is pressed tight against my back, and Stain rides beside me, our headlights cutting through a rainy mist.
“Think we got away?” Riki-Tiki shouts as we crest a high hill.
“This is Lieutenant Beyla of the Zealand CorpCom militia,” the velocicopter pilot shouts over his PA. The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere. Then a few seconds later, the clouds ahead of us begin to swirl, then disappear as a five-bladed rotor chops them to bits. Rockets rip from their pods. From under the long expanse of the bridge ahead, the Hellbender rises like an angel of death. Rockets rip from their launch pods. Retorts from the Seneca gun pound the air, which is alive with noise and destruction. Then abruptly—silence.
The PA: “And I order you to stop!”
“Guess that answers your question,” I tell Riki-Tiki.
And gun it.
We roar straight toward a spray of heavy fire that erupts from the gunner’s nest. The line of bullets zippers the space between the two bikes as the pilot brings the velocicopter to bear, and the pavement in front of us explodes, throwing chunks of asphalt into the air. I swerve, my wheel bucking. Stain hits the throttle, and his bike pops a wheelie as he tears toward the bridge. At first I think he’s going straight for their throat, then I realize that he’s drawing their fire.
I swing to the left side of the highway, splitting off as the gunner chases Stain with bullets until he crosses beneath the velocicopter. In the dark, I can see the muzzle of the barrel glowing, which means the Seneca gun is overheated and can’t be fired. Time to make a run for it. I kill the headlamp on the motorbike and use the taillights of Stain’s Munro as my guiding star.
“Stay low,” I tell Riki-Tiki.
We hit the bridge doing eighty.
Yee-carking-haw! “Mimi, are we close enough to monitor their transmissions?”
“Beat you to it, cowboy,” she says. “Patching you in.”
The pilot’s voice rings in my ears. “Roger, Command, we have visual and have engaged. Tagging targets with GPS markers.”
Then I see the spotter beside the gunner’s nest, aiming a high-powered rifle at the fading lights of Stain’s tail. If the spotter hits him with a marker, he’ll never be able to escape. The marker will show his GPS locations for hours, maybe days.
“Marking in five, four,—”
Oh no, you don’t.
Holding the bike steady with my knees, I yank my armalite out of the holster and empty a clip into the night. The bullets are useless, but it’s the sound that matters. Nothing like popping gunpowder to get the attention of a flying sheet metal whale.
“We’re under fire!” the pilot squawks, and he veers to the south, the spotter’s fluorescent mark round shooting uselessly into the ravine below.
Gunning it, I’m plastered to the handlebars. Their vibration shoots up my arms and rattles my teeth. Riki-Tiki lassoes her arms around me, her chin digging into my spine as she holds on for dear life.
The sound of the Hellbender’s rotors fades as we cross the bridge. My eye grows blurry. I check the speedometer. The needle is buried. Amazing. I’d no idea the engine could haul this fast. Fuse, the bludger who built this crate, would be proud of himself.
“Did we lose them?” Riki-Tiki shouts above the growl of the engines.
“Mimi,” I say. “Where’d they go?”
“Indeterminate,” she says. “Our acceleration was too great to triangulate positions.”
A half kilometer ahead on the highway, Stain’s taillights flicker in the darkness, then the brake lights glow brightly.
He’s stopped?
A second later, I hear why.
“I repeat!” The PA booms. “This is Lieutenant Beyla of the Zealand CorpCom militia. Stand down! You are under arrest!”
“Mimi?” I ask. “Are these real CorpComs or bad jacks in stolen uniforms?”
“Does it matter, cowboy? The bullets are the same either way.”
Fifty yards above ground, two searchlights sweep through the night. A second Hellbender has joined the first. Then, as the broad beams land on Stain’s Munro, two more lig
hts flicker on. These are dimmer and low to the ground.
It’s a Noriker, and Norikers mean shock troopers.
As Stain whips his bike around, the bright flowers of muzzle blasts ignite alongside the Norikers. I count sixteen blasters firing, along with the two mini-guns in the copters. We are definitely outmatched.
Slamming my brakes and digging a knee into the pavement, I bring my bike around and then hit the throttle full as Stain appears on my tail.
“I got a plan!” I yell as Stain steers his bike alongside me.
“We can’t outrun them!” he answers.
“Don’t plan to!” I say. “I’ll distract them. You take Riki-Tiki and head north. I’ll meet up with you at Dismel. It’s about thirty kilometers from here.”
Stain weaves closer. “What about you?”
“I’ll improvise! Riki-Tiki! You’re with Stain!”
“I want to improvise, too!” she says.
“Go!” I yell.
Stain steers so close, our tailpipes are almost touching. “Take my hand!” He and Riki-Tiki lock forearms, and he pulls her to the back of his seat.
“Good luck!” he shouts and zooms ahead.
You, too, I think, then slam on the brakes, turning back toward the enemy.
Two Hellbenders.
A truckload of shock troopers.
Even I don’t like these odds.
“Mimi,” I say, “remember when we helped put down an insurrection in New Savannah? We were pinned by the rebels on a stretch of road a lot like this, and we escaped by charging their barricades?”
“Yes,” she says, “but you will recall, we used a tank to charge that barricade.”
“But the barricade was bigger.”
“So was the tank.”
Taking a deep breath, I open up the accelerator and jam it in place. The stream of air whips around my body as I jump atop the seat and wedge a foot in the center of the handlebars. Popping my armalite to full automatic, I ram the stock into the crook of my broken arm and rest a finger on the trigger guard.
“You’re insane,” Mimi says.
“It worked with the last Hellbender.”
“Maybe that was just luck.”
“Maybe I’m just lucky.” I smile, even as the Hellbenders settle into firing position and the shock troops release a barrage of rounds that light up the air like a row of firecrackers. I plow through them without blinking, the blast rounds bouncing off my armor like sleet. They fire again, this time haphazardly, and the velocicopter gunners cut loose a line of tracer bullets that crisscross a meter in front of my front tire.
Invisible Sun Page 18
