The Prodigal Sun

by Sean Williams

  As she clambered back down the slope into the ravine, she took one last look around at the surface of Sciacca’s World. An arid moonscape, plus an atmosphere. Not a pleasant place to live by any means. But for its mineral content, it would probably never have been settled in the first place.

  She failed to see why anyone would want to come here...

  Veden and Maii were waiting for them at the bottom of the ravine. Barely had they regained their wind before the Eckandi headed off up the ragged slope, toward the foothills.

  Roche took a deep breath and followed. Cane stayed with her, considerate of her weakness rather than of his own strength. She had no doubt that he could outperform the Eckandi easily, in both speed and endurance.

  “Has he said anything?” she asked him, not loud enough for the other two to hear.

  “About what?”

  “About why he’s here.”

  Cane shook his head. “No, but he is impatient to get to wherever it is he wants to go. That much is obvious.”

  “Patently.” She spat a mixture of saliva and dust into the rocks. The spittle was stained red. “But why? What does he expect to find here?”

  Cane shrugged. “Exercise?”

  Maii’s silent voice was barely audible above Roche’s own thoughts.

  Roche glanced ahead. The set of the Surin’s narrow shoulders told her that the message had been intended for her alone.

  “On a prison planet?” Roche mumbled to herself.

  Cane turned to her. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing,” she said, and kept on walking.

  * * *

  The day darkened, paradoxically, as the sun rode higher into the sky. Once, the flyer passed overhead again, but this time didn’t turn immediately back. Her mind was fogged by exhaustion, and she could only vaguely guess that their intentions were to intensify their search by looking farther from the wreckage. Not that it mattered. With the wind lifting the dust the way it was, in another hour or so the people in the flyer were going to have a visibility factor of about zero.

  To while away the time, and to distract herself from the constant pain, she tried to talk to the Box. Something more substantial—even access to a basic medical .database, accessible by the contact pad in her quarters—would have been preferable, but the Box was all she had. It could add little to what she had already learned from Cane: that the lander had exploded shortly after landing, as planned; that Maii and Veden had made it to shelter in time, but that she and Cane had taken a touch of heat-flash, in addition to Roche’s dislocated shoulder and bruised ribs; that she had been carried on Cane’s back away from the burning wreckage like a sack of potatoes; that Cane hadn’t wanted to move her at all until she had regained consciousness and had agreed to do so only after Veden had threatened to leave them behind.

  Among the supplies Roche had managed to rescue from the lander were a sack containing five survival suits and two basic ration packs. There was no medical kit, no painkillers to numb the aching, and as their trek continued her discomfort worsened. Despite her Armada biofeedback training, it was all she could do to keep her eyes focused on the ground ahead. Only when the Box finally complained that she had asked the same question three times in five minutes did she stop talking altogether and concentrate solely on walking.

  Then, as the sun reached a position corresponding to late afternoon, she could take it no longer.

  “Stop,” she gasped, clutching at Cane for support as she staggered to halt. Pain from her shoulder and ribs made her head spin. Only with difficulty did she fight nausea back down. “I have to rest.”

  “No,” Veden spat, his tone a whiplash of irritation. “We must keep moving until nightfall.”

  “I can’t. Please. Just five minutes. That’s all I ask.”

  “No.” Without looking back, Veden kept walking.

  Roche was unable to prevent the collapse of her thigh muscles. Cane made sure she was stable and went to follow the Eckandi.

  “Let him go, Cane.” That she had to raise her voice to be heard made her realize just how much the wind had risen in the last hour.

  “We should stick together,” asserted Cane. “Separated, we will be more vulnerable.”

  “If he wants to risk an ambush, let him.” Roche felt only contempt for the old Eckandi, but the overriding emotion was one of despair at her own fading strength. It would come as something of a relief, she noted with alarm, to be captured. At least the wait, and the walk, would be over.

  She shook her head firmly, denying the thoughts. Yes, the Midnight had been destroyed with all hands; yes, she was trapped on an unfamiliar planet, being pursued by a hostile security force; and yes, she was in a great deal of pain—but that was no reason to give in. Her passage into COE Intelligence had taught her that hard work and sheer determination could take a great deal of the edge off fate’s sometimes cruel sting.

  But the feeling wouldn’t dissipate, no matter how she tried.

  Biting down on the sense of hopelessness, she forced herself to smile up at Cane. “We’ll catch up. You’ll see. They’ll stop when night falls, and—”

  “Wait.” Cane’s head cocked; his eyes darted along the edges of the ravine.

  Roche glanced upward, startled. The sky had grown dark without warning. As she watched, it darkened even further to a deep ochre mottled with grey. Small sprays of dirt leapt from one wall of the ravine to the other, occasionally showering down on them.

  Then she heard it: a rumble, distant at first but growing louder with every second. The low-frequency sound reminded her of a heavy-armor tank, or an unusually large ground-effect vehicle.

  “What is it?”

  Cane shook his head. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”

  Roche’s despair abruptly deepened, and she found herself fighting an overwhelming urge to cry. She cursed herself. She had never experienced anything quite like this before. Why was she feeling it now? Her entire body trembled with the intensity of the emotion.

  She reached out to steady herself on the nearest wall, but withdrew the hand as a tiny spark arced from her fingertips to the stone.

  “What—?”

  Suddenly, Cane took her by her good arm and flattened her against the wall of the ravine. “Cover your face!” he hissed, his voice nearly drowned under the now-deafening sound.

  She stared at him, too surprised to move. When she failed to obey him immediately, he reached behind her head for the hood of her survival suit. Tugging it over her face, he did the same with his own, holding the edges closed with one hand. Only his eyes stared at her, unblinking and frighteningly rational.

  “What the—?”

  “Close your eyes,” he shouted. “Now!”

  Roche blinked, delayed a second longer than he. At that moment, something roared across the top of the ravine—a dark, swirling mass of dust traveling at an awesome speed. The air in the ravine, sucked by the low pressure of the front, exploded upward. The turbulence created a partial vacuum, which in turn rolled a layer of dense air at the bottom of the front down into the ravine, instantly filling it with swirling clouds of choking dust.

  Roche gasped, then coughed, doubling up into Cane’s wind-shadow. Her one good hand flew to her face in a belated attempt to seal her nose. Her ears rang with the sound of tortured, screaming air. Only Cane’s hand on her back prevented her from toppling forward. Even as she struggled to breathe, she finally understood what was happening:

  A dust storm had struck them, one more violent than any she had previously encountered. That explained her sudden mood swing and the spark of static electricity: the charge in the air, rolling ahead of the storm, pervading everything.

  After half a minute of the onslaught, Cane knelt beside her to bring his mouth close to her head.

  “The front will be the most turbulent!” he shouted. “If we can hold on for a moment longer, it should ease slightly!”

  She wanted to yell back—How do you know?—but her throat only rasped
, irritated by dust and dry air. She concentrated on holding herself still, waiting for the tumult to release her.

  Then, over the howling wind, came the reave’s voice:

 

  Roche opened her eyes, and was instantly stung by a thousand particles of dust. There was no denying the urgency in the voice. But—how did one reply to a reave?

  “What’s wrong?” she shouted back.

  She was unsure whether the Surin had heard her call, but a reply came nonetheless:

  “Who are here?”

  “Listen!” Cane had his head cocked again. “Gunshots.”

  This time even Roche could hear the discharge of weapons over the storm. “We have to help them,” she said, trying in vain to climb to her feet.

  “No.” He pressed her back. “I’ll go.” He opened his suit and slipped her pistol and Veden’s makeshift laser from the pockets of his uniform. Handing her the pistol, he glanced around him, eyes narrowed to slits. In the darkness of the storm, little could be seen but swirling, dust-filled air. The mouth of the ravine showed as a faint lightening in the air above them. Apart from that, Roche was blind.

  “Could be Veden’s friends,” Cane said. “But then again—”

  “Better safe than sorry.”

  “Exactly. Stay here.” With one smooth movement he ducked away from her and was swallowed by the storm. Roche leaned back against the wall of the ravine, clutching the pistol to her chest while protecting her eyes as best she could.

  Moments later, a sharp rattle of projectile weapons issued from farther up the ravine. Voices followed, shouting in confusion. With the sounds came the realization that she was hearing more clearly; the fury of the storm front had indeed abated slightly.

  Maii said nothing more, however, and Roche couldn’t stand aside when help might be needed. The wind allowed her to reach a standing position; from there, with the hand holding the pistol on the ravine wall, keeping her upright, she made her way cautiously across the ragged rock face.

  Another round of shouting and gunshots broke the silence, followed by the sharp hiss of an energy weapon discharging through the atmosphere. Then the muffled thump of impact. She flinched instinctively but continued forward.

  The voices ceased in the wake of the explosion, but the exchange of gunfire continued in ragged bursts. Roche pressed on as fast as she could, but the ravine seemed endless. Her breath burned in her chest as though her rib cage was on fire.

  Then, almost before she realized it, she stumbled into a shallow section of the ravine. The rock walls stood barely chest-high, with open ground to either side. The wind was stronger here, and the dust more dense. A projectile whined past her, sent rock fragments flying a meter from her shoulder. She dropped instantly to a crouch and leveled the pistol in the direction from which she felt the weapon had been discharged.

  Even as she did so, a man in a green uniform dropped into the ravine barely two meters farther on. He obviously hadn’t seen her from above, hidden as she was by the swirling dust. The moment his feet touched rock, however, his pistol swung to target her. Roche fired instinctively, taking him squarely in the chest. He looked momentarily surprised; then his eyes rolled back and he toppled sideways to the ground.

  Roche didn’t move, frozen to the spot. In the wake of her surprise and the sudden movement, her ribs sang like a saw dragged across a wire, sending pain in waves through her chest. Her breath came in short gasps.

  A pebble dropped on her head, and she rolled forward, twisted, and fired behind her. A second man, also in the green uniform, tumbled into the ravine, the back of his head black and smoking. Her own shot had missed. Someone else, outside the ravine, had been more accurate.

  Maii’s soundless voice filled her head.

  The body of the second officer twitched once where it had fallen, then lay still. Roche formed the word in her mind and tried her best to hold it steady for the reave to find.

  continued the Surin.

  “What happened?”

 

  “Enforcers?”

  Roche sensed something akin to a shrug touch her mind.

  Roche stayed put as the Surin drifted off into silence. She doubted whether she’d be able to move anyway, even if she wanted to. In dust this dense, sight gave little advantage. She wondered how it would feel to be Maii, a hunter aiming for the very eyes that helped her see...

  If Maii caught the thought, she made no comment.

  Roche heard a couple more shots, another thump of energy discharge, and a single strangled cry. Then the wind picked up again, reducing her world to a meter-wide circle with her in the center. Even with her eyelids half-closed, the dust forced her to blink. Effectively blinded and deaf, she huddled close to the wall of the ravine and waited. Small bolts of lightning, triggered by the charge in the air, crackled into the soil around the ravine, stabbing the darkness with an eerie light.

  A hand reached out of the maelstrom to take her by the arm, and she raised the gun to strike it away. Someone shouted her name over the wind, but whatever other words followed were instantly swept away. The hand was large and strong, and she couldn’t fight it off. With immense relief, she recognized the plastic of a survival suit above the wrist and guessed it to be Cane, although the rest of him was erased by the storm.

  He dragged her to her feet and farther along the ravine. A flash of energy briefly lit the gloom, arcing over her shoulder and exploding harmlessly into rock.

  Maii’s voice rose out of the racket.

 

  Silence, then:

  The reave’s voice broke off suddenly. Roche glanced at Cane in alarm, but his face remained hidden. As though he too was alarmed, he urged her to move faster. The best she could manage was a quick shuffle, through the sand gathering at the bottom of the ravine, with her lack of sight and the constant buffeting of the wind constantly upsetting her balance, but she hurried as well as she could.

  Again the energy weapon flashed, this time from farther away. Barely had she thought that they might be able to escape when something brushed against her, and a shadowy shape reached for her out of the dust. She flinched away, but not quickly enough to escape a pair of enormous, grasping hands. One seized her wrist; the other took her about the face, stifling her shout of alarm. She tried to raise the pistol, but the hand on her wrist twisted it savagely, sending agony burning through her shoulders.

  When the hands tried to drag her away, however, they met the resistance of Cane’s strength. She endured a brief, painful, tug-of-war between the two; then the unknown pair of hands fell away. The shape moved around her to confront Cane, and she thought she could hear voices shouting over the wind. Then, clearly silhouetted against a brief bolt of lightning, she saw a gun raised and pointed at Cane’s head, aimed by a shambling bipedal figure at least as tall as Cane himself, and far broader.

  Cane glanced at Roche, then nodded. Feeling his hand loosen, she clutched at him, trying to keep him close, but a cloud of dust erupted around them, and Roche suddenly lost sight of him. She called out in panic and tried to go back, but the large hands of her captor held her firm, dragging her away into the fury of the storm.

  7

  Sciacca’s World

/>   Behzad’s Wall

  ‘954.10.31 EN

  0050

  Darkness and silence wrapped themselves around Roche as the wind abruptly fell away. Startled by the sudden absence of noise, she stumbled. The strong hands of her captor roughly righted her.

  “This way,” he said, guiding her forward. His voice was coarse, almost guttural, and clearly Exotic. His Caste eluded her for a moment, until she caught a whiff of him. Mbatan, definitely. No other Caste possessed that distinctive bitter smell. A soft flare illuminated their surroundings a moment later and confirmed her suspicions. He was as solid as a bear beneath a brown, stained coverall, with a shaggy mane of hair and limbs like tree trunks.

  In the Mbata common tongue, Roche asked the huge figure where he was taking her. He laughed, turning to face her in the dim light. The sound was a throaty bark, testimony to non-Pristine physiognomy.

  “I don’t speak Bantu.” His voice was thickly accented, although intelligible nonetheless. “Not anymore.” The blue-green light from the chemical flare flickered over the Mbatan’s heavily bearded and tanned face, catching now and then in the weathered lines that covered his features. “My name is Emmerik,” he said.

  “You’re a convict?” Cane’s voice, coming from near Roche’s shoulder, made her jump.

  If Emmerik took offense at the question, he didn’t show it. Instead, he grinned widely, revealing a complete, if slightly yellow, set of teeth. “Time for talk later. This way.”

  Again he guided Roche forward. The light revealed that they were traveling through a rough tunnel carved from ancient lava, barely high enough for Roche but broad enough to allow her and the Mbatan to walk side by side. The stone was a uniform, dirty orange, except for the occasional vein of dark grey. As the tunnel wound its jagged way underground, she noticed scars in the rock, suggesting that it had been carved by shaped explosives and with the bare minimum of finesse. A rush job.