All we knew was that they were gone.
* * * *
We've brought the man to Senastria's second hospital, a single storey building with wattle and daub walls and canvas sheets covering the open windows. Senastria's other hospital—the medical facility inside the permanently berthed first starship—is overrun with the sick.
While I cleanse the man's back, Kelif paces back and forth. He stops every so often to stare at the flat, muddy land outside. He's worried that the man might try and run and he'll lose a valuable piece of intelligence.
That's what we've come to in this war. Our own people as commodities.
I put down the sponge in the bowl of disinfectant and approach Kelif.
"Will you stop pacing?” I whisper fiercely. I glance at the man who is bravely trying to hide the sting of the chemicals. “He's not going anywhere."
"How do you know?"
"I know."
"Who knows where his mind is—“
"I know."
All I can see in Kelif's face is cynicism. “I'm getting a drink,” he says. “You want something?"
I shake my head.
"Get a name. Then I'll relax.” He walks out.
I go back to the man. I wash him in silence. There are narrow indentations on the outside of his wrists and ankles, swellings on the soles of his feet, ripples on his back that feel like corrugated iron. I feel anger and nausea, and am happy when I can dress the wounds.
"Your body will heal.” I raise the end of the bed and ease him back. I'm not trained for this. I feel awkward, but still want to give him something. “You're very brave...risking your life for us...” Is this all I can offer? Cliches?
He looks at me blankly.
"Can you write?"
He nods.
The only paper in the room is a small poster that reminds Senastrians to report suspicious activity. I rip it down and offer it to the man with my pen. The items are like toys to him. He plays with them the way a baby would, listening to the click of the cap and the scratch of his nails against the paper. Then he doodles.
He draws geometrical designs and I act pleased even though they are meaningless to me. After a time I say, “Can you write your name?"
He finds an empty space on the page and scribbles a word. Upside down it is unreadable, so I take the paper and turn it around. I gasp. The word is written in Tamaraic—the language of the Loyalists.
I lower my voice. “Never write in this language again."
"How's the heart to heart?"
I twist around. Kelif stands in the doorway. I wonder how long he's been standing there.
"You got a name yet?” he asks.
With one hand, I crumple the paper into a ball, praying he hasn't seen it. The edges bite into my skin.
"I just finished cleaning him up,” I lie.
* * * *
The Dying began a hundred days ago. The grasses and simple plant life were the first to wither. Crops failed. Whole paddy fields died overnight, rice stalks floating dead in the water. Potatoes became riddled with black disease.
At first we thought the Loyalists had attacked us. There were some isolated skirmishes along the border. Retaliatory strikes. Then we discovered the Loyalist land was suffering exactly the same blight.
The disease climbed the food chain, killing off large and small alike. Sealife disappeared. Livestock numbers plummeted. People became fractious, squabbling over dwindling resources. A rationing system was implemented, the food dispensers of the starships the only reliable source of sustenance. Shanty towns grew around the ships.
The hatred between the Senastrians and the Loyalists that had simmered down since landing came back to the boil. The covert war turned nasty.
* * * *
"And these?” Kelif stabs his finger at the final photograph. A proud couple, decent and dignified stare out. There is no reaction from the man. These are not his parents. “Let's go through these again.” Kelif flips the dossier back to the first page.
"This isn't getting us anywhere,” I say.
We've moved the man to a holding cell in the first starship. Dark, iron walls enclose a space furnished with a bed, table, chair, and toilet. All are bolted to the floor. Exposure to atmospheric elements has damaged the ship's electrical systems, and the wall lamps ceaselessly flicker. Kelif and I flank the man who sits in the chair.
"What do you suggest?” Kelif stares at me.
What I should say—what my oath to Senastria demands I say—is that this search for the man's family is a fruitless quest. That he writes in Tamaraic, and in all probability is an abandoned Loyalist. I can't do that.
I beckon Kelif to follow me out the cell. “He's traumatised. You could put him in front of a mirror and he wouldn't even recognise himself."
"So, what do we do? Nothing?"
"He needs rest. He needs to recover."
"Wake up! Look at him.” The man slumps against the table, all bones and sallow skin. “He's dying."
I can't deny it. “Only because we're pushing him."
"Look, he gets the best food—not the dispenser crap the rest of us get—and he still doesn't eat.” He points at an untouched bowl of legumes, shiny and lime green, next to the man. “He doesn't want to live."
I feel the man's life is tied up with my own. I know that if he dies, I die. Not in the physical sense, but in the sense of ever feeling again. “I won't help kill him.” I walk away. My heart feels tiny, its puny beat overwhelmed by the metal reverberation of my footsteps.
"Whoever he is,” Kelif shouts after me, “he knows things we have to know."
* * * *
We thought we might have brought the pathogen with us. Like those ancient explorers who journeyed to foreign lands and killed the indigenous populations with infections far more deadly than any of their weapons.
We looked for a scapegoat. Tried to find somebody who'd skipped quarantine or ditched their fixing cocktails or smuggled in unsterilised goods.
We didn't find anybody, so we blamed the Loyalists.
* * * *
In the flickering light, I hold the man's hand. Kelif is on his way with the last couple on the list. Their son was an undercover agent in the Loyalist Party. He went missing two months ago.
Footfalls and whispers echo down the corridor outside. Nobody speaks loudly here. Kelif is readying the couple for the sight of the man. Yesterday, a woman vomited in the corner of the cell. The splatter has dried, but the smell remains.
The door clanks open and three figures emerge from the gloom. I get up. Kelif introduces me. The woman stares over my shoulder as we shake hands. Her face cycles through the usual expressions. Distaste, distress, hope.
We dispensed of small talk a long time ago, and I lead them to the bedside straight away.
"Petria?” The woman's voice breaks as she speaks.
The man is so thin—sunken cheeks, stark collar bone, arms like toothpicks—that the relatives must study him for long moments to be sure.
The woman grips his head like she's choosing a piece of fruit. Her eyes rove over his features. She shakes her head and sinks into her husband's arms, whimpering.
We stand like that for a while. Nobody's written a rule book for these situations yet.
"Second opinion?” Kelif asks the man, eventually. He can be so understanding.
"It's not him,” the man says angrily. They walk out. The woman's sobs grow quieter and quieter.
"Fuck!” Kelif kicks the chair, but it doesn't budge. “Motherfucker.” He hops around the cell, rubbing his foot.
"Calm down.” A wound up Kelif is the last thing the man needs.
"Calm down? Calm the fuck down? We've been fucking calm too long.” He bangs his heel against the ground and steps over to the bed. His breathing is shallow and fast. “I say we inject him. Or get the boys from downstairs to come up. Share their methods."
The boys from downstairs work with exposed enemy agents. We hear the agents’ screams sometimes. They're not sc
reams of joy. “That's fucking great,” I say. “Why don't we just put him out of his misery."
Kelif wraps his slab-like hands around the man's scrawny neck. “I could snap—“
"Stop it. What's the matter with you?"
Kelif squeezes. “Who are you? I want some fucking answers. Before you checkout.” The man's head lolls about like a balloon on a string.
I grab Kelif's wrists. “Stop, you asshole!” It's like wrestling with a clamp. “Stop!"
I keep fighting for whatever it's worth. Then, before I know what's happening, one of those thick hands is in my face, and the next moment I'm on the floor, pain lancing up my forearm. I get up and run out.
"Isiria, wait,” Kelif cries, but I'm long gone.
* * * *
I pound up emergency stairwells and across narrow gangways, always seeking to go higher. I don't want to be here, in this metal cavern, in this war, in this dying land, alone.
I think my wrist is broken.
I feel a numbness spreading into my fingers.
I come to the upper hull. With my good hand I hitch myself up a short ladder that leads to a sealed hatch. I wrap the elbow of my bad arm around a rung, and tug at the wheel lock. It comes loose with an ugly grind. Specks of rust fall into my eyes, making me blink. I spin the wheel full anti-clockwise. With a mighty push, the hatch teeters to vertical and then crashes down on the hull.
Above, the marble sky stares down indifferently.
I haul myself out and slump onto the ship's coppery shell. I'm breathing hard. Turning my head I see the ship's convex landscape of telemetry turrets and engineering emplacements.
Far below, a thousand makeshift homes made from canvas tents and prefab panels dapple the ground. Smoke from a half dozen fires drifts across the camp. This high up, the people look like ants, except, when I watch them move, the comparison fails. There's no purpose to these people's movements, and they wander about like lost souls.
The worst thing is knowing the Loyalists are suffering the same menace, and yet still we fight.
"Isi."
The voice makes me jump. Kelif's head pokes out of the hatch. I place my good hand above my heart and look away.
"This is some view,” he says and clambers out. He stands with his back to me. With a good kick I could send him tumbling over the edge.
"How did you find me?"
"You kept your tracker on."
Shit. I stare contemptuously at the bracelet that squeezes my swollen wrist.
"It's better this way,” he says. “I didn't want you thinking what happened was anything but a regrettable accident."
"An accident?"
"How you were knocked over in the course of pacifying the man."
"Pacifying?"
"If there's any blame to attach it's with him."
I can't believe I'm hearing this from this man I've worked with for so long. I think I would've accepted an apology, a sign of contrition.
"Yes, it was his fault,” I say, seething.
"Good, I'm glad we understand each other.” He crouches down next to me. I smell old sweat in his dirty uniform. “That looks nasty. We should get you to the infirmary."
"What happens to the man?"
"A hopeless case. We let S.I.T. see if they can do any better."
A coldness spreads from my heart. S.I.T. Special Intelligence Team. The boys downstairs.
* * * *
I only have a day or so to act, but in that time I gather food (seven kilos of legumes, three of pulses, eight of dispenser slop), medicines (immuno boosters, toxicant suppressors, endocrine control drugs), fleeces, a portable shelter, and a Tamaraic language text. A lab technician caught me in the medical stores, but I spun a story about a sickly child and she ended up giving me her blessing.
I bury everything in a smart crate on the edge of the encampment. Then I head back to the ship.
Getting to the cell is easy. The nightshift guards are used to my nocturnal visits, and they let me slip into the bowels of the building with only a sly nod of acknowledgement. They think I have fallen for the man.
At the entrance to the cells there is a new guard. I study the scar that runs from his missing left eye to jaw, while he angles my ident in the gloomy, dancing light.
"Detainee name?"
"He doesn't have one."
"Cell two-dee? The bag of bones with no tongue?"
I hate the way they label him, but now's not the time to argue. I nod.
The man leans into me. “He's not so well, tonight. Come another time."
Kelif must've passed the word that the man is Loyalist. I snatch my ident from his hand. “I'll go to a doctor if I want a medical opinion. Now, open the fucking gate."
The man is in no state to run. He's curled in the foetal position, hacking up wads of congealed blood. A crescent of bruises line his face. I clean him up as best I can, tears stinging my eyes. “We're leaving here. We're going far away.” I pull the blanket off the bed and wrap it around his shoulders. “I just have one thing to do first."
I go back to the gate.
"Short visit,” the guard says with a smile.
"Were you part of it?” I carefully slip the stun-baton from my belt. It feels unnatural in my left-hand.
A klaxon sounds as the gate swings open. He points to his scar. “They cost me an eye,” he growls.
I get up close to him. “Did it make you feel good?” He smells clammy like the dying earth. Mud cakes his uniform.
He licks his lips.
I swing the baton, at the same time kneeing him as hard as I can.
The blows lack synchronicity, my kneecap connecting with his groin too soon. He doubles up and the baton skates off his matted hair. He puffs and groans, but still manages to latch onto my limp hand. I scream in pain, bones crunching in my wrist.
I don't make a mistake with my second blow.
The sound of the baton striking his head is a dull thud like a mallet onto a tent peg. Hair sticks to the baton's shaft at the impact point. He crumples into an ugly heap over my feet. I kick him off and then wrench off my tracking bracelet.
I only seem to have enough compassion for one these days.
I crouch down. Everything is silent. Screams don't mean much anymore.
We bound down deserted corridors, the man clinging tight like a bony shawl. My wrist throbs in pain. I remember how exciting it felt when Yemeni carried me across the wheat fields, stalk heads tickling my bare feet. Does this man feel any similar excitement now? The passages are narrow, spaghetti piping wriggling over the walls. The air is cold. The ship shows signs of decay like the land outside. Blistered conduits and cracked capillary tubes. We will never leave.
At least he's light. I can't help but laugh bitterly at that.
The escape proves to be a simple matter. There should be guards manning the exits, and I'm somewhat disappointed when we find nobody. Later I will spend some of my unchannelled adrenaline swooping the stolen banshee planetwards and then pulling it back up at the last moment.
"We're here,” I say, when we reach our ride. I pull off the branches with their leaves like rice paper and slide the man onto the passenger seat. For the short hop to the crate I keep low to the ground. The yo-yo journey perks the man up. After I've loaded everything he is sitting up as brightly as a man in his condition can.
I swallow some painkillers and make him take a few as well. I place my hand over his. “You won't suffer any more. I mean it this time. Just you and me."
He squeezes and then uncouples his hand from mine and taps the navigation monitor.
"You know a good place?” I adjust the scale so that the map zooms out to show the whole island.
With a curled finger he indicates a stretch of coastline to the south. I up the magnification. The physicals mark it as a desolate area. No topsoil. High salt concentration from stiff inshore winds. It should be deserted, but will we be able to survive? “Here?"
He nods.
"Okay.” It's no worse tha
n the original destination I had in mind. In fact, because the idea comes from him, it's better. They won't be able to use my profile to predict where we've gone.
I close the hatch and fire up the engines.
* * * *
By dawn we're skimming over the waves. Spumy crests crash against the chalk cliffs. Rocky outcrops split the seawater into channels that rise and fall chaotically. It would be inhospitable even if the planet wasn't dying.
"Are we close?” I ask, irritated. Last night's decision doesn't seem so good right now.
The man has a hand up to the glass and his nose—bloody and crooked—is not far behind. He doesn't make any motion, too caught up in the landscape to notice my question.
I shake my head and stare ahead, disgusted.
It is then that I see the birds. Gulls. One or two dozen wheeling high above a craggy spire of rock. The man makes a sound with his butchered mouth that somehow I know is delight. The expression on his face is more complex than that though. It's the deep, faraway look people have when you mention a time that's gone. I've seen that expression plenty in the last months.
I ease down the throttle, ready to land.
* * * *
The habitation is cut into the cliff face. A crude stone path—enormous slabbed steps so deep I have to descend the way a child does, one ungainly step at a time—leads into the cavernous interior. Choked sunlight creeps in through a narrow passage from the ground above. There is the primitive facsimile of furniture. Odd shaped rocks as seats or tables. Petrified tree trunks lashed together and covered with the hide of an enormous animal as a bed. A medley of tools—chisel, hammer, saw—lies scattered around. In the middle of the chamber, inside a ring of blackened stones, sits the detritus of an ancient fire—ashes and pieces of cinder. Everything is huge as if catering for giants.
The man, leaning on my shoulder, gestures to the bed, and I help him to it. He collapses, legs dangling over the edge. I haul him inwards and make a note to myself to bring the blankets down first.
It is as I am climbing the stone staircase that I fall to my knees and stare at the cracks in the rock. What have I done? Who is this man I have sacrificed everything for? Where has he led me? What if I can't save him? What if he dies?
Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #226 Page 12
