Wasteland of Flint

by Thomas Harlan

  None of this is necessary, Captain Ketcham. I need to speak with you directly, but I mean you, your ship and your men no harm. The quiet, reasonable voice had cooled slightly.

  Ketcham found his sidearm in his hand—a silver-chased Webley 220 with an over-and-under magazine—and reflexively cycled a round into the firing chamber. The safety unlocked and the see-through-shoot-through sight activated. The board of directors had presented the pistol to him last year, a custom model from Toporosky and Sons gunsmiths. A small token of appreciation for four years of profitable service. A corner of his mind—a part long neglected, but not entirely atrophied from disuse—calculated he would need to be within fifteen meters for the depleted uranium rounds to penetrate a Fleet combat suit.

  "You've killed three of my men already," he growled into the comm. "My ship is on fire. You're not making yourself welcome!"

  If any of your men died, Captain, I apologize. My Marines have been firing solely RSM and knockdown rounds. I admit an eyesocket hit might kill a man, but that is not our intent.

  "What do you want?" Ketcham stared down the back corridor, silently pleading for Termovich to hurry or the bridge to react to his override command. To his great relief, a distant banging sound echoed down the hallway and the lights flickered. The fire alarm cut off and was replaced by the shrill honking of a ship-wide red alert. "Finally!"

  I am coming out into the hallway, the voice said, apparently unaware of the bulkheads sliding closed amid flashing lights and the drone of the alarms. I will be unarmed. There is a matter we must discuss. Tell your men to hold fire.

  "What?" Ketcham turned, surprised. "What did you say?"

  "This is necessary," Hadeishi said to Felix, gently moving the Marine aside. The heicho looked gut-shot, speechless, alarmed, and outraged all at once. The chu-sa drew his sidearm and spun the gun round so the barrel was firmly in hand. "Susan, status please?"

  We're going to lose hardline, she replied, her voice sounding as tense as Felix looked. The bulkhead doors are dropping all over the ship. The line might handle one kink, but not sixteen.

  "Alternate comm?" Hadeishi stepped to the door of the compartment and pressed the access plate. The door did not move. The chu-sa frowned, realizing the puncture alert had sealed all of the compartment doors even as the bulkheads in the pressure frames were coming down. He looked sideways at Maratay and raised an eyebrow. The Marine jumped as if struck across the face and rushed to swipe cutting gel around the doorframe.

  Smith has a hunter loose in their system. I'll let you know when—sqqqwk!

  "The hardline is down." Hadeishi turned away from the door, clasping his hands behind his head. Gel volatilized in a rippling streak of fire. Debris rained against Mitsu's suit and smoke coiled past. "Heicho Felix, deploy to hold this block of rooms. The Cornuelle will attempt to restore communications through alternate means. No one—no one—is to open fire without my express order, no matter what happens outside."

  The woman nodded, nervously cycling the Whipsaw into firing position.

  Hadeishi stepped through the opening into a hallway choked with smoke. The refraction grenade's payload had mostly settled from the air, leaving the floor covered with drifts of shiny metallic glitter. There was fire suppression foam everywhere, dripping from the walls and pooling on the ground. The smoke itself was separating out into oily layers as he walked out into the middle of the cross-corridor and emerged from the fog into sight of the miners.

  One of the miners squeaked like a startled rat and his beam-pistol flared. Hadeishi was facing the weapon straight on, his hands wide, his sidearm extended on his middle finger. He saw a discharge corona blossom in the microsecond before his visor polarized and felt the beam glance from his left shoulder.

  The snap of the ionizing beam rocked the hallway. Hadeishi staggered, nearly thrown down by the hit. A section of articulated armor plating on his shoulder glowed white hot for a moment, then the surface ablated away, shedding shell-like layers of composite destroyed by the beam. Suit chillers kicked in, bleeding away the heat, and the molten spot began to fade.

  "I am unarmed," he announced, voice echoing from the suit's speaker, and tossed the sidearm to the floor. The gun made a clanking sound—very loud in the sudden, shocked silence—and fell over on its side. "I need to speak with Captain Ketcham urgently."

  One of the men in the crowd—flattened against the wall, watching him over the muzzle of a massive handgun—twitched and Hadeishi turned slightly to face him. The man—the captain, Mitsu realized, spying rank decorations on a dark-blue uniform with red and gold piping—was tall and broad, easily a foot taller than the Nisei, with wavy blond hair and deep-set. narrowed blue eyes.

  The very image of our ancient enemy, Hadeishi thought, continuing to walk forward.

  "Stop right there!" Ketcham moved forward, the miners around him—most of them technicians and machine operators, if Mitsu was any judge of their work clothing and departmental insignia—shrinking back to make way. The gun centered on his breast did not waver. "I'll accept your surrender, Nisei, and we can discuss whatever you want once you're in the brig."

  Mitsu shook his head. "Captain, the Imperial Navy does not surrender. You should remember the oath you swore at Academy—"

  Ketcham's face twisted in a foul, ugly snarl of rage. His finger twitched on the trigger of the Webley and there was a deafening crack as the gun discharged in a gout of expelled gas. Hadeishi tried to throw himself aside, but the flechette round had already broken into a dozen supersonic splinters and at least four smashed into his chest, flinging him around like a broken doll.

  BASE CAMP ONE

  Another bone-deep cough wracked Gretchen's body, coupled with a shiver running from head to foot. Vapor leaking from her mask formed a rime of ice across her collarbone and goggles.

  I'm going to freeze to death. The raw thought managed to force itself past crippling pain. Gretchen lifted her head, staring around in the darkness. Through the fog on her lenses, the queer lights had faded away and the nighted shape of Anderssen was gone. Heartened, she rolled up, feeling bone and muscle creak. Though her hands were tucked into her armpits, they had lost all feeling.

  The single light on the upper floor of the main building shone clear and distinct, a welcome beacon in the darkness. Gretchen forced herself to her feet, the twinge of her brutalized soles barely noticeable against the hacking cough torturing her upper body. She swayed, dizzy and short of breath, but managed to stumble forward.

  Putting one foot in front of the other was torturous work, but she kept her eyes on the light in the window and kept walking. The drifts of sand now seemed to be monstrous ridges.

  Near the corner of the lab building, she stumbled and fell. Lying on the ground felt good—for a moment—but then the cold seeped into her suit again. Gretchen staggered up, then slid along the building wall, leaning into the concrete for support. At the corner, she took a careful look around—saw nothing—and then limped stiffly across the quad to the hangar door.

  The pressure door was locked. Bumping the access plate with her hip evoked no reaction.

  "Shit." She lifted her wrists—eyes averted from the lacerated, discolored flesh—and clicked the comm band alive with her chin. "Hummingbird? Hummingbird?"

  Anderssen? His response was immediate and surprised. Where are you?

  "Outside, outside the hangar pressure door. I can't get in."

  The side door has frozen up. Come around to the main airlock. It's clear now.

  "Sure," she grunted, slumping forward against the wall. A wave of dizziness threatened to pitch her over onto the ground again but the cold ceramic of the hangar door caught her. She decided to take just a moment to regain her strength. "I'd love to. I'm hurt."

  Gretchen jerked awake, barely cognizant of someone helping her stumble through the pressure doors on the main airlock. A little old man in a z-suit was holding her up, his wiry shoulder under her arm. Then they were in the common room and the air—the air was
warm enough to breathe without a mask—and there were lights and a heater humming on the floor.

  Hummingbird sat her down and bundled blankets around her shoulders. A minute later he was tipping a cup of warm—not hot—syrupy liquid into her mouth. Alcohol and sugar and something mediciny flooded her throat and then a matching warmth spread through her chest.

  "Show me your hands." Hummingbird sounded concerned and his face tightened into a grim mask when he saw the blue-black sheen to her flesh and the ragged welts where the jeweled chains had bound her to the earth. His green eyes lifted to stare into hers. "What happened?"

  "She was here—outside—she caught me on my way back from getting rid of the Sif."

  "The Russovsky echo?"

  "Yes," Gretchen mumbled, the frail burst of adrenaline ebbing away. "She looked ... just like me."

  Completely drained, Anderssen curled up and fell sideways into the blankets. Hummingbird rummaged around and found another blanket for a pillow. He put the heaters on either side of her and started to warm more of the rum/cough syrup/energy concentrate mixture on the camp stove.

  He made her drink more of the nasty fluid. "The shape attacked you?"

  "It tried...." She frowned, trying to remember. Her head felt very strange inside, all jumbled and disordered. For some reason—and now she became cognizant of not knowing why—memories of her children and graduate school were very sharp and close at hand. Remembering what had happened earlier in the day was suddenly impossible. "Something happened," she said helplessly. "I saw her, but she was me. There were shining lights in the sand. I can't remember everything ... properly."

  "Were there two figures? Or just one, which changed?"

  "One." She mumbled, feeling her wounded fingers throb. "I couldn't move—something had hold of me, of my hands .. . and you were there. There were—I had a vision! Yes, there were visions in my mind, someplace ancient, dead ... under a foul yellow sky."

  The nauallis squinted at her curiously, then carefully examined her hands. Clicking his teeth together in thought, the old man sprayed them with something cold and prickling from his kit, then carefully cleaned the welts. The pain of his touch lanced through her, drawing a whining cry, robbing the last breath from her lungs. At some point, she passed out.

  "I'm really doing very well," Gretchen said, staring at her hands wrapped in more gauze and stinging from the dermaseal working away on the freeze damage. "Between my feet and hands I look like a cirq clown." She sighed, shaking her head, and gave Hummingbird an aggrieved look. "Aren't you the lucky one? You crash and walk away, while I fly halfway round the world and am fine, then I'm here at base camp for two days and I look like a tree-rigger on leave."

  "You're lucky," he said, giving her a severe look. "Your medband was working the whole time and dispensed enough circulatory booster to keep you from losing any fingers or toes."

  "Great—I could have suffered heart failure instead." Being flippant was making her tired, so she decided to stop.

  "You're alive and will heal." Hummingbird squatted at her side, peeling back an eyelid with his thumb. "You might have more drug than blood in your system right now, but you don't seem to have become psychotic."

  "Yet." Gretchen felt grainy and tired and wrung out. Again. "Is the Gagarin ready to go?"

  The old man nodded. In the morning light streaming through the round windows, he seemed rather drawn and gray. "You'll want to check everything."

  "I slept a day?" He nodded. "Then we need to get in the air. Where's my chrono?"

  Hummingbird held up a mangled, pitted chunk of wire and metal. "No chrono."

  "Fine. What time is it?"

  "Six-thirty," Hummingbird said after rather ostentatiously checking his own bare wrist.

  "Time to mount up." Gretchen lifted her gauze-muffled hands. "Help, please?"

  The hangar door groaned, both track engines long since consumed by the microflora, as they dragged on the chains. Reticulated metal clanked and rattled and the door inched up. Gretchen found she could lend a hand by clinging limply to the chain and letting gravity and weight do the work.

  As the door rose in fits and starts, the morning sun blazed on their faces, shining hot through unusually clear, steady air. Gretchen peered suspiciously at the lab building. There were no mysterious figures silhouetted against the skyline on the dune ridges, nothing lurking in the shadows of the recessed doorways.

  "What did I see?" She let the chain fall from her fingers, turning toward the Gagarin. The ultralight looked rather strange with the rockets strapped underneath and its wings folded up in parking mode. The other Midge was gone-stripped of parts and then broken down and scattered in the desert. Hummingbird had been busy while she slept, going here and there, scattering their belongings to the four directions.

  Gretchen hoped, with a rather sick, dreadful yearning, there would be a shuttle waiting for them at height, ready to take them away into a universe of hot showers and sprung beds and differently flavored threesquare bars. I don't want to come back here. Not even if they offer me the dig director slot.

  "As I said before," the nauallis grumbled, "you saw an echo. A copy engendered by your presence on this world."

  "With my memories—my speech patterns? What could make a copy like that?"

  "Something," Hummingbird said, opening the door on his side of the Gagarin. "Descended from a race of machines designed to disassemble organic molecules into their component atomic parts. You saw the matrix of patterns in the cylinder."

  "Maps." Gretchen opened her door and—wincing—slid into the seat. Hummingbird was not a large man, but the cabin of the ultralight was now very, very crowded. With the doors closed they were cheek by jowl. Anderssen reached across him and keyed up the preflight check. The sound of the fuel cells waking up and the engines turning over had never been so welcome. "Diagrams of what to destroy ... the eater had to be able to differentiate between targets."

  "Not an impossible step from such a mechanism to one which could recognize and replicate an equivalent molecular system." Hummingbird tried to strap himself in but found the spacing between the seats very tight. Gretchen rolled her hip to the side, jamming her face against the window so he could lock in. "At least in broad strokes. The thing on the ship could not sustain itself, not out of the magnetic field of the planet."

  Thinking about what he'd said, Gretchen reached across and tested his restraints. "Solid. Okay, engines are up, fuel pressure is constant... controls are responding."

  The Gagarin shivered as the wheel brakes released. Gretchen goosed the engines slightly and the aircraft clattered out onto the sandy ground. One eye watching the fuel line readings, she turned the ultralight and they bounced and rattled across uneven ground toward the landing strip. After clearing the buildings, the Gagarin shivered, struck crosswise by a heavy gust.

  "But..." Anderssen turned the aircraft nose to the wind and felt the wings flex slightly, even retracted. She flipped a series of switches on the overhead panel. Both wings began to extend, micromotors whining with effort. "You're thinking creatures that can live down here can't survive beyond the influence of the, ah, the thing hiding in the world. They need its presence to live?"

  Hummingbird nodded, trying to keep calm as the ultralight shimmied and swayed from side to side. The extending wings weren't providing any lift, not yet, but their cross section was providing the gusty, prying wind with plenty of surface area to press against. The Gagarin began to bounce backward across the field, raising clouds of fine, sticky dust with each hop.

  "Even a nanomachine," he said, gritting his teeth and clinging to the support bar as they slammed up and down, "must be powered by some means. The safest way is a broadcast system, so they may be denied sustenance if they run wild. Hazarding a guess, I would say the sleeping valkar is leaking power on some wavelength the descendants of the planet-killers can absorb, can use. While they are within the beneficent aura of the entity, they can live, work, replicate themselves."

  T
he aircraft jounced sideways, throwing Hummingbird against the door.

  "Making a copy of something like a human must use a lot of power." A clanking sound signaled the wings reaching full extension. The sharp hops transformed into long, slow arcs. Gretchen settled her hands—still wrapped in bandages and feeling enormous—on the control stick and sideboard panel. "Hold on. Here we go."

  Both engines flared to life as she ran up the power. The ultralight settled out of a bounce and Gretchen pushed to maximum thrust. The Gagarin began to move forward, wheels whirring across the gravel and sand. With the wings at full extension, the aircraft generated a tremendous amount of lift and they were airborne within seconds. The camp buildings rushed past under their wheels and Gretchen swung the ultralight around in a long, broad turn. They continued to climb.

  The plains-sprawled below them. The camp became a collection of matchboxes. Off to the east, the standing stones of the observatory and the jagged lines of the excavation trenches stood out against a dun-colored background.

  "Comm check." Gretchen clicked her throat mike live. "Clear?"

  "Loud and clear," Hummingbird answered. The roar of wind and the hiss of the engines filled the tiny, cramped cockpit. "It may be ..." He paused and Gretchen wondered if he was at a loss for words. "Perhaps the Ephesian life-form you saw—whatever had taken Russovsky's shape, and yours—learns in this way, by consuming another entity, by taking its memories and thoughts, even its physicality into itself." The nauallis's voice was almost tentative.

  "Well," Gretchen said, filled with joy just to be airborne again, the nose of her ultralight pointed at the black vault of heaven. The Gagarin climbed steadily toward the southwest. Slowly, the dark sky swelled to fill the forward windows. The planet dropped behind, then bent away, the horizons receding into a white arc. "Then it tried to consume my memories. I can't remember much of what happened, but I know it was painful and unpleasant."