by Amber Jayne
Urna had a gun in his hand. Urna raised that gun. For an instant, Virge Temple thought, it seemed that their eyes met.
Nevertheless, the instant ended with a flash from the gun’s muzzle. After, their small car abruptly and violently pivoted and the street heaved up all around them.
* * * * *
Pelkra was the first to see that they were being followed. When Urna turned around in his seat and looked through the slit window just below his hatchway, he squinted at the street rushing away behind them, seeing nothing. Then he spotted the small car. At the same instant Pelkra said, voice dead calm, “There are two Guard inside.”
Urna heard it as a call to action. However, this was not the specific mission to which he’d been assigned. He was to defend this little convoy of two vehicles once they were inside the Unsafe. Any action taken within this town must be ordered by one of the operation’s commanders.
Military training. The instincts were certainly still in place, still giving pattern to his thinking.
Gator hadn’t looked back. He evidently took Pelkra’s word. They were on what looked like the final stretch of roadway before the town’s edge. “Urna,” Gator said, “can you disable that car?”
Urna let the clanging hatch answer as he sprang up, the pistol sliding easily into his hand. The cap Bongo had given him was snatched from his head. Before it even fell to the street he had the gun aimed, was tightening his finger on the trigger.
When he saw Virge Temple—or someone who looked impossibly like Virge—sitting in the pursuing car’s passenger seat, it was too late. He was a professional killer. A slayer of Passengers. On missions into the Unsafe there was no ambiguity, no need for mitigating thought, for instantaneous judgments. Everything moving was the target. Every shot was a kill shot.
Had he had one extra second, however, one tiny sliver of time stuck in amongst these fleeting instants, he might have delayed firing. If only to confirm what he’d seen, or thought he had seen.
But the trigger was already pulled. And his shot was, as expected, absolutely accurate.
His bullet blew out the left front tire and the small, sporty car banked sharply. Sparks flew in a great, blazing spray. The vehicle, which had surged ahead at high speed, now helplessly overturned. It scraped along the street, belly up, more sparks scattering from its roof.
Urna felt a cold horror. Very different from the satisfaction he would’ve expected at fulfilling Gator’s order so completely.
He dropped back through the hatchway and said, “Stop! I know someone in that car and she’s no Guard.”
Again without turning, without asking a question, Gator braked the rig. Urna was out through the roof, hopping off the rear of the transport. The car, still capsized, had come to a halt. Urna raced to the passenger side, knelt. He felt shards of glass under his knee.
Virge Temple was spilled haphazardly against the car’s roof. But her eyes were open and they were the lustrous brown he recognized. Her hair was quite different, however, nothing more than sad stubble now, and the configuration of her features wasn’t…quite right.
But this was her. He was convinced. Even if she was wearing a Guard uniform.
The car’s driver, similarly crumpled against the roof, was moaning, one limb weakly flailing. Urna saw blood but it didn’t appear to be gushing out of the man at any appreciable speed.
Planting his weight, seizing the handle, the Weapon wrenched open the passenger side door. Its top scraped the street’s asphalt. He gathered Virge into his arms, pleased when one of those eyes widened. She saw him, knew him.
Grinning as he ran back toward the rig, he found the breath to say, “You’ll have to tell me why you decided to join the Guard.” And she made a hiccupping sound that was close enough to a laugh.
Gator had waited. Pelkra threw open the back door on Urna’s side and he got in, cradling Virge.
“Here come the Guard,” Pelkra said, still with no emotion whatever in her tone. The woman with the scarred face and lovely eyes was again looking behind. “I’d guess that’s the whole garrison,” she added.
The transport was moving forward once more. It rapidly picked up speed. Glancing up from Virge, whom he was holding in his lap, Urna saw another big vehicle ahead. It had six wheels, rusty sides. It was Arvra in the other salvage rig. It was moving as well, turning toward the bordering tundra that lay between the town’s edge and the outer fringe of the Black Ship itself.
“Is she who you think she is?” Gator asked.
It took Urna a second to realize the question was meant for him. “Yes,” he said. Virge Temple was blinking, starting to look around. She appeared to have no obvious injuries.
“Very well.” Gator fell in behind the second transport. They were both driving ahead at a speedy clip. The street was giving out beneath them but the oversized tires were handling the rougher terrain. “The Guard won’t follow us,” Gator went on. “Their jurisdiction ended about forty yards ago.”
Urna managed to crane around for a look, still holding Virge bundled against him. Quite a contingent of Guard vehicles had indeed been following them. But they’d stopped. It wouldn’t have anything to do with their jurisdiction. The Guard policed the Safe. The Unsafe belonged to the military. But really it was a matter of, if you didn’t have to go into the Unsafe, there was nothing that would motivate you to do so.
Except, it seemed, salvagers. Urna settled back in his seat. They would be under the Ship in a while. He was still prepared to do his duty.
What had brought out all those Guard at once? Had that strange feeling that had overcome him outside of Gator’s house had some significance? He’d felt an inexplicable certainty that somebody had seen and recognized him. Maybe it was true. How, though, could he have known?
Now probably wasn’t the time to wonder. Virge was still stirring in his arms. At last, gazing up at him, she managed to slur, “Whuh—where, ur, are we going, anyway?”
Chapter Sixteen
Virge sat up, slid into the seat beside Urna. The jouncing of the vehicle felt like it was bruising her ass. But she had an instinct, even as full consciousness continued to return to her, that this wouldn’t be the only discomfort she would feel tonight.
They were on what looked like little more than a path, unpaved and thin. The stumps of trees stood here and there. Even this close to the Ship people had harvested the wood, needing the material, scrabbling for anything they could find.
Now she knew what a border town was like.
The shock of overturning in that car was fading. She had already determined that she had no serious injuries. Urna was here. Urna was also the one who’d caused the car’s tire to blow out. There were two others in this big, rumbling vehicle.
Virge blinked, looked around, blinked some more.
Urna still had an arm around her and she liked the security of that. Belatedly, Virge realized that during the last few hazy minutes he had been explaining to these two others who she was. Apparently the Weapon’s accounting had satisfied them.
“They’re not following,” said the woman in the adjacent seat. She was craned around, looking behind. Virge didn’t know who that they meant.
“Never thought they would.” This was from the vehicle’s driver. Virge had seen nothing of him but the back of his head and the broad line of his shoulders.
“The Guard,” Urna said, leaning in toward Virge. “The local unit from the town. They were about a minute behind you. Did you know anything about them?”
Virge shook her head. “It was just me. Me and-and Tuck…” The gunshot, followed by the sound of the tire blowing, then the car swerving, tipping, going over. She shivered against Urna’s encircling arm. “I was with a Guard in that car,” she said. Her tongue felt thick but she enunciated carefully. “He wasn’t local. I was, uh, traveling with him. I was on the run. I got this disguise. The fuckers burned down my lab.” It was all coming back and she wanted to get everything out all at once. But it was disjointed, out of sequence.
“Arvra’s stopping,” the driver said. A second later their vehicle halted alongside a large transport with rusting flanks.
A figure sprang out from this second vehicle and Virge’s heart surged, something close to joy suddenly singing through her veins. Bongo! But how could…? First Urna, now him. But of course the two had been traveling together. Virge shook her head even as a grin split her face.
Urna opened the rear door and Bongo scrambled halfway over his lap to reach Virge, to throw his arms around her and plant several frantic kisses on her. She giggled, despite her recent trauma. She was quite sure she had never in her life been so happy to see the self-proclaimed mage.
“Bongo.”
“Virge! I can’t believe it’s you! What’d you do to your hair? And this getup—”
Abruptly he was no longer hugging her. A hand had hold of the collar of his coat and he had been yanked off and away. The hand belonged to a man with gray hair even shorter than Virge’s. His dark eyes flashed.
“Easy, Hervo,” said a second person from the other vehicle. She, in contrast, had a wild array of hair, a multicolored spray. “Don’t break our navigator.”
The man, Hervo, let go of Bongo. He looked around. “Are we safe sitting out here?”
“I’ll keep watch,” the woman next to Virge said. She grabbed up what it took Virge a second to realize was a bow. With a quiver of arrows over her shoulder, she opened the hatchway above her and climbed partway out onto the roof of the vehicle. As she went, Virge saw the scar that marked her face from ear to mouth.
Answering Hervo’s question, the broad-shouldered driver said, “We’re far enough from the Guard that they won’t pursue. And we’re not close enough to the Ship yet to seriously worry about Passengers. Pelkra’s right. She can keep watch.” He had turned around as he spoke. He had rugged features, Virge saw, not dissimilar to Tuck’s.
Tuck. Had he survived the car wreck?
The woman with the vivid, unruly hair stepped up to the open rear door and gazed in at her. “My name’s Arvra. This is my crew. You want to tell me—quickly and very truthfully—who you are and what you’re doing here wearing a Guard uniform?”
Arvra had presence, a sure air of command. Virge found it easy to obey her, to order her thoughts and provide the necessary explanation. Urna and Bongo corroborated where appropriate.
Finally Arvra nodded. “Well, you’re along for the ride, then. We’re going salvaging. Your only other choice is to walk back to town.”
Virge looked out the windows at the surrounding wasteland. “No thanks.”
It got another nod. “Thought as much. Okay, let’s get rolling. We got a ways to go.” Arvra turned and marched back to the six-wheeled transport. It was as big as this rig was. Good for collecting scavenged goods, Virge judged. Without being told, she guessed that this wasn’t Arvra’s first raid. It was as obvious as the fact that this wasn’t any sort of authorized operation. Still, Virge thought, she’d rather throw in with these people. Going back to the town, into the waiting arms of the Guard, wasn’t an option. Besides, these weren’t all unfamiliar faces, were they?
Bongo blew her a kiss, which she returned, as he climbed back into the other vehicle, along with the man called Hervo. Gator—his name had emerged during the brief questioning following Virge’s full accounting of herself—put their transport into motion again, falling in behind Arvra’s vehicle.
Virge turned to Urna, feeling almost wholly recovered from the accident. “Tell me,” she said quietly, “did the Guard I was with, Tuck, is he—”
“He was breathing when I hopped out and collected you.” A pained look passed over Urna’s elfin features. “I’m sorry. It was past the last second, though. I fired.”
“And you’re a hell of a shot, Weapon.” Again she was able to summon a grin. “Are you aware of the lengths the Toplux is going to in order to get you back?”
“He’s shut off the Safe’s power.” Urna nodded. “I know. I’ve got lots to tell you too. About how Bongo and I got here. What we’ve seen. What this salvage operation is really all about.” He put a hand to his temple. A mild wince narrowed his dark-blue eyes. But the discomfort, whatever it was, seemed to pass immediately. “I hope we get the time later on to catch up.”
“I hope so too,” Virge said, more solemnly than before. She looked ahead, saw the Black Ship looming nearer. It was already impossibly huge. What was it going to be like to actually be underneath the monstrous thing?
She would find out. She was going on a salvage raid.
* * * * *
When you go into the Unsafe you’re never alone.
The thought thumped in Urna’s head, so deliberately articulated he suspected it was something he’d heard or said before. An adage. Or if it wasn’t, it was one that would’ve been apropos among the Shadowflash/Weapon teams back on the training grounds at the Citadel’s military facility.
Maybe, though, it was just something he’d scribbled on the walls of his old quarters. He had done that obsessively and, it had seemed at the time, without any sure purpose. Just fleeting thoughts that had come to him, ones he’d felt compelled to smear his walls with. Why had his superiors let him get away with it, considering how strictly the lives of Weapons and Shadowflashes were regulated? He didn’t know. Maybe they’d been hoping it would be some kind of insight into his mental state, a marker. If so it had likely been a haphazard one at best. Maybe they had just figured the scrawling would help him in venting stress. The same way they turned a blind eye to all that fucking he and Rune had done.
You’re never alone—
He was feeling the mental twinges again, the disorientation, but he resisted it, fought it down. Whatever it was, now wasn’t the time for it.
Rune. His Shadowflash. His sightless-sight. Rune was the one who had always guided him to the Passengers. He had been more than a guide. And more than a lover too.
Their convoy of two was nearing the true edge of the Unsafe now. Above, the Ship glowed and writhed. The terrain was rough but Gator kept them moving as steadily as possible. Pelkra, with her bow, was still perched on the roof, legs dangling, feet resting on her seatback. Urna would need to get up there himself in a minute or two.
He was still astounded that Virge Temple had reentered his life in such a spectacular way. As with his meeting up again with Arvra, it seemed to buck some cosmic percentage. But fate, evidently, played by its own rules. Besides, Virge had been fleeing to the border, she’d said. Why should she not flee to this particular town?
“You’ll be without him,” she said to him now, softly, as if she’d searched for the right words. Her voice shook a little and she seemed embarrassed by it. She cleared her throat, making an obvious effort to reclaim her dignity. “You’ll still be able to do your job. Protect these people. Won’t you?” She finished much more steadily.
Her face was different, he’d noticed. Not any result from the car flipping over. Rather, she appeared to be wearing makeup or something. And that shorn hair was still a jolt, considering how full and beautiful it had been.
Urna knew what her words meant. He said, “I can still fight without him.” It wasn’t a defensive statement. He appreciated that she hadn’t actually used Rune’s name. And because he wasn’t the curt, heartless individual he had once been, he added in assuring tones, answering the question she’d really been asking, “I owe you my life. I won’t let you down.”
“Good.” Virge smiled.
Urna returned it then climbed up through the hatch over his head. He had his gun in hand. It was still warm from the earlier discharge and he could detect the faint sting of burnt powder. An odor Rune would’ve been able to scent from the pinnacle of the tallest tower.
He settled into place. Pelkra, a few feet away, had the bow in her lap, an arrow already partly nocked. Ahead, Urna saw the older man, Hervo, nesting high in his seat in the lead vehicle, crossbow at the ready.
It would make for a fair amount of firepower, particularly if
these other two were as good with their weapons as Urna suspected they were. They definitely had a chance against the Passengers they were sure to encounter. He sincerely hoped that what he’d said to Virge was true—I won’t let you down.
Above, the Black Ship, destroyer of ancient Elyria, loomed like a permanent nightmare. The air was growing chillier. Already the stars were nearly gone. A new sky was swallowing the old. Less than half a mile until the crossing into the Unsafe proper.
The Weapon waited to carry out his duty.
* * * * *
“Praise the Farsafe…”
Arvra heard the fear, quivering but controlled, in the mystic man’s voice. Bongo was sitting beside her, his map laid before him. Green eyes looked ahead, looked down, flashed up again.
They were coming under the Ship itself now. The no-man’s-land was behind them. Ahead and around spread the Unsafe itself. The only trees visible were stunted, twisted things that looked poisoned. The ground was gray. There wasn’t any evidence of ruins yet.
Bongo nodded. “Straight ahead for a while.”
Again Arvra heard his unease. He’d probably expected their crossing over into the Unsafe to be marked by some kind of event. A blare of ominous music maybe, or a great flash of cold light. For Arvra it was nothing more than the usual sense of foreboding. Just a feeling in her chest. But that was natural.
The transport went over a bump, jostling them all. The phosphorescent glow from above intensified slightly, and that was that.
“Welcome to the Unsafe, Bongo,” Arvra murmured cheekily. “How does it feel?”
“Great. Just…great.”
Arvra couldn’t quite hide a grin. Guiding the vehicle easily, she touched a control. The headlights sprang to life. They were of a harsh intensity. “Light will keep most Passengers away. They don’t like it, not this kind of light. We go in and get out fast enough, we might not see a single beast. Kind of disappointing, really.”
