After Earth

by Peter David

  Assuming, of course, that everything went well with Kitai.

  That brought Cypher back to worrying about his son. Because the truth was that he still had no truly clear idea how to discuss anything with the boy. Kitai was like a mystery to him and always had been. Cypher hugged his wife, enjoying the nearness, but his mind was still on Kitai. If his marriage depended on fixing his relationship with Kitai, this nearness he was feeling with Faia and the possible rebuilding of their relationship might be a complete fantasy.

  He looked in Kitai’s direction and saw to his surprise that the boy was engaged in conversation with a female Ranger. He nodded in their direction and said to Faia, “Who’s that grown-up hitting on our kid?”

  “Now, now,” she said. “Go easy on him.” Then, in a softer tone, she said, “Go make some good memories together. Come on.” Not permitting him any opportunity to respond, she slid an arm around him and walked with him toward Rayna and Kitai. She dropped Cypher off with his son and his female Ranger friend. “Rayna. Good to see you again.”

  “You too, Mrs. Raige. Uhm,” and Rayna inclined her head toward the control tower. “So … I’ll watch you take off from the tower, okay?”

  Rayna promptly headed off. Faia watched the way Kitai was regarding her and smiled inwardly. She reached over to him then and gave him a strong motherly hug. As she did so, she said in a low voice to Kitai, “Take it easy on your father. He’s a little rusty.”

  She could see by Kitai’s expression that he had no idea what she was talking about. The perfection he ascribed to his father was tremendously amusing. Sometimes it served as a benefit, other times a flaw. She realized it was anybody’s guess how it would turn out this time. “You understand what I’m saying, son?”

  Clearly he did not, but he nodded. Then, with a final look at his mother and also Rayna’s retreating figure, he started to head off after Cypher.

  Before Cypher and Kitai could make it to the ship, they were both stopped in their tracks by an extremely loud voice from a ramp way overhead: “Stand me up!”

  All hands approaching the vessel turned their attention to the speaker. It was a Ranger veteran, a man in a mag-lev chair being taken to a medical transport ship. The chair was hovering above the ground. There were two attendants with the man, one on either side of the chair, and they were looking at him in confusion.

  “General Raige,” said the Ranger, “I was on the plateau. You saved me and four others. And I just came from seeing my baby girl’s face for the first time.” Upon realizing that the attendants had not heard his command, he repeated it with greater force than before. “Stand me up.”

  “That’s not necessary, Ranger,” Cypher told him.

  The Ranger ignored the words of his commander. Instead, in an even louder voice, he shouted, “Damn it, stand me up!”

  The attendants had been the targets of all the shouting they were going to endure. They nodded to one another and, moving as one, helped the Ranger out of his chair. All of the support was on them, because the Ranger himself had none to provide. His heavily bandaged leg buckled; the other was missing completely. Standing up was a complete impossibility, yet through sheer willpower alone he managed to persuade his aides to get him on his feet. Once he was sufficiently erect, he raised his trembling hand and broke off a salute.

  Cypher Raige immediately snapped to attention and saluted back. Kitai felt pure wonder there as he watched this random Ranger forcing others to bring him to his feet so that he could offer proper reverence. Kitai couldn’t help wondering what it felt like to have Cypher look at you as an equal, not some academy washout.

  Cypher then dropped his salute and walked over to the Ranger. The man’s eyes were filled with tears, as overjoyed as he was to see the great Cypher Raige coming right up to him. Cypher whispered in his ear, calming him, and then gestured for the assistants to stand aside. He gripped the Ranger firmly, one hand holding each of the man’s arms, and eased him into the chair. Then Cypher stepped back and tossed off a final salute. The Ranger returned it and then muttered to his escorts, “Okay. We can go now.”

  Kitai watched as the soldier was led to his medical transport. Then he hastened to catch up to his father. As they approached the ship together, he whispered to Cypher, “What did you say to him?”

  “What he needed to hear.”

  He turned away from his son then and walked briskly toward what Kitai was now certain was their vessel.

  It was, Kitai realized belatedly, the same vessel he’d seen them pushing the large pod into. He wondered briefly if perhaps the pod was the entire reason they were heading toward another world. Or was it simply a secondary mission? Perhaps even something as simple as an addition to a zoo collection? He didn’t know for sure what any of this was about.

  What he did know was that his father wasn’t exactly in a state of mind to be particularly helpful in explaining things.

  Well, that was nothing new.

  iii

  The seats that lined the passenger bay of the Hesper were relatively simple and unadorned. They stretched up one side of the corridor, allowing sufficient space on the other side for people to walk past. There were crisscrossed straps attached to every seat so that people could buckle and seat themselves.

  There was an observation port in the wall opposite Kitai through which he could see Nova Prime dwindling to a small dot rather than the planet where he had dwelled his entire life. Within moments it would disappear into nothing and become simply another small bit of matter in the sky field behind him.

  Cypher Raige was in the adjacent seat. He was paying no attention to Kitai at all. Instead he was scanning through what appeared to be a dossier on his smart fabric. He was paging through the holographic document slowly, one page at a time. Kitai had always been told that his father had an eidetic memory, and now he was seeing what appeared to be proof of that. Cypher seemed to be studying each page until he had it committed to memory and then turning to the next.

  “I’m reading Moby Dick.” The remark about Kitai’s latest reading undertaking simply popped out of his mouth with no serious thought given to what he was actually saying.

  “Your mother told me,” Cypher said. He barely glanced at his son when he said it, continuing to go through the dossier one page at a time. Then he stopped, as if realizing that simply informing Kitai of his mother’s knowledge was somehow an insufficient response. He lowered the dossier for a moment and said, “That’s great.” Or at least he tried to say it. Unfortunately, it sounded like a halfhearted attempt to avoid coming across as indifferent.

  Before he could continue his less than sterling response, there was a low, sharp whistle from the intercom. The pilot’s voice crackled over it, announcing the travel time remaining before they would arrive at Iphitos.

  It was a general announcement intended for everyone on the vessel, but Cypher seemed to take it as addressed to him and him alone. The overhead lights were dimming, and instead of continuing the conversation about an ancient whale, Cypher said brusquely, “I’m gonna grab some rack. Recommend you do the same.”

  Before Kitai could say anything to the contrary, Cypher’s head dropped back and his eyes closed. He was asleep in less than a minute. Kitai attempted to copy his father’s behavior, but it didn’t work. Long minutes passed, and Kitai simply sat there, eyes wide open, his brain working furiously. Sleep was simply not an option for him. Perhaps his father was accustomed enough to spaceflight that he could treat it like something to be endured rather than to be excited about. But Kitai simply didn’t have that ability. He was so stoked by the fact that he was traveling through space that all he could do, even in the dimness of the corridor, was sit there with his eyes wide open in endless fascination with the vehicle in which he was riding.

  Eventually the only thing left in the section was the sleeping sounds of the other Rangers. Kitai sat there long enough to convince himself that slumber was not going to be coming his way anytime soon. If that was to be the case, what po
ssible advantage could be gained by just sitting there in the darkness?

  Softly, softly—because he was positive that his father could hear anything and everything—Kitai unbuckled the belt that was restraining him. He gradually eased it off his chest and rose. The only thing that could be heard was the low hum of the ship and the gentle snoring of some of the sleeping Rangers. They all had their cutlasses with them, tucked across their chests or laps. If Kitai had even been thinking about trying to take one of them, he wouldn’t have gotten away with it.

  Instead he crept down the aisle, bypassing everyone as he made his way to the aft cargo hold. He figured that if that pod he’d spotted earlier was going to be kept anywhere, that was where it would be. But at the far end of the hallway he saw a large sign over the exit door that spelled out the parameters of where he could travel in a fairly explicit fashion: RESTRICTED AREA. DO NOT ENTER. HAZARDOUS CARGO.

  The sign deterred him for exactly five seconds, time enough to look behind him and confirm that all the Rangers were still sound asleep. Then he darted under the sign and headed into the cargo hold.

  In front of him was a small flight of metal stairs that led into the belly of the ship. The area was dark and creepy, and the only thing he could hear was the distant hum of the ship’s engines. At the end of the narrow walkway a heavy mesh fabric was drawn, obscuring what lay behind it.

  Kitai took a deep breath to steady the pounding of his heart and then released it slowly to calm himself. Then, ever so gingerly, he made his way toward the fabric. Finally, when he was within a meter or so of it, he tentatively reached out and gripped it. He remained that way for a few seconds and, when it garnered no reaction, pulled it aside a few centimeters and peeked beyond it.

  Glancing through revealed only the ship’s cavernous, dark, and mysterious cargo hold. The pod was definitely in there, but all he could get was glimpses of it. Nothing much beyond that.

  He started to enter the hold area—that was when something reached out from the darkness and grabbed his arm. Kitai let out a startled gasp and tried to pull away, but he had no luck. Instead, the face of a gruff military officer shoved itself at him. Maintaining a hold on Kitai’s arm, the man snarled practically into his face. “Can you read?”

  Kitai said nothing, mostly because his throat had frozen up, removing any possibility of his producing any useful words.

  The security chief looked to be in his mid-fifties. His face was round, the top of his head covered in a shock of red buzz-cut hair. “I said, can you read? There’s a sign back there. Says ‘AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.’ Why didn’t you read that?”

  Kitai took an unusual step: He didn’t answer the question. There was no point in responding to it, because it wasn’t going to end well for him. He’d seen a sign, had ignored it, and had gotten caught. The only shot he had was to move past it and into something more pertinent to him.

  “What’s in there?” he said, pointing toward the pod.

  “He wants to know what’s in there!”

  It seemed strange to Kitai that the security chief was talking to him in that manner, and then he realized that he was not in fact the addressee. Instead, there were several Rangers seated around a small table off to the side. They had a game in progress. Kitai, it appeared, was simply something else for them to play with.

  One of the men said, “Might wanna go easy on him, Sarge. That’s the Prime Commander’s son right there.”

  This was clearly something unexpected and unknown to the security chief. He looked at Kitai as if seeing him for the first time. “You’re Raige’s kid?”

  This provided Kitai with the bit of a lead that he required under the circumstances. They could do whatever they wanted with some random kid, but Cypher Raige’s son was going to get special treatment, and they all knew it. Kitai even puffed out his chest slightly to give additional heft to his presence, and this time, when he said once more, “What’s in there?” it carried more weight and conviction. Or at least he imagined it did.

  Indeed, the sergeant’s entire attitude toward Kitai appeared to change in a manner that benefited Kitai’s interests. He dropped his voice to barely above a whisper like a carnival barker with something to hide. “You wanna see?” he asked conspiratorially.

  “Yeah, I wanna see.”

  “Okay, then. All ya had to do was ask.”

  If Kitai had been giving any real thought to the situation, that might have tipped him off. But he was so curious that he completely ignored any cautions and advanced slowly toward the pod.

  The security chief followed right behind him as Kitai drew closer. “So are you gonna tell me what’s—”

  “It’s an Ursa.”

  Kitai stopped moving so abruptly that the security chief actually bumped into him. “An Ursa?” Kitai said cautiously.

  “Yup.”

  “A dead one?”

  “Nope.”

  That was when he remembered Rayna discussing how some Rangers had managed to capture an Ursa alive. At that point Kitai completely ceased moving forward. This was it. This was the Ursa the Rangers had captured. This was the closest he had been to one since … since Senshi.

  “How … how did … where …?” He made several different attempts to ask questions, and none of them quite worked.

  The sergeant didn’t display the slightest hint of amusement. Instead he spoke with the same fear that filled every molecule of Kitai’s body. “This is one of three we caught. We’re keeping all three on Iphitos, away from the civilian population. This one we call Viper. This one’s the biggest and meanest.” He paused and then said conspiratorially, “You want to see if you can ghost?”

  The challenge promptly caught the interest of the men who were grouped around the table. Cards forgotten, they focused their attention on Kitai, who didn’t notice. He was busy looking in fascination at the pod, which was motionless.

  Clearly intending to assuage Kitai’s concerns, the security chief went on, assuring him, “The pod is biostructural organic armor. She’s strapped and suspended in a gel inside there.” He pointed to a red line that circled the pod. “All you need to do is step over that red line around the pod. The gel doesn’t allow smells at certain distances, but at that distance it can smell you.”

  Kitai eyed the red line surrounding the pod. There were no footprints on or near it. No one had come that close to the creature. That meant one thing beyond question: They were taking no chances with the monster.

  “You’re not scared, are you?”

  Without giving his response any thought at all, Kitai immediately declared, “I’m not scared of anything.”

  It seemed that the Rangers indeed took him at his word. In a declaration of “Uhh rahh!” the Rangers tossed off a verbal salute to him, congratulating him on his bravery.

  “Even if it imprints on you, you don’t need to worry. She ain’t getting out.”

  That froze Kitai for a moment. The concept of an Ursa imprinting on him was certainly daunting. Imprinting was one of an Ursa’s major weapons. Once it imprinted on a person—fully locked onto their DNA essence—that individual became the Ursa’s new target. The Ursa would proceed to attack its potential victim for … well, forever. Kitai wasn’t entirely sure how thrilled he was about becoming the creature’s number one priority chew toy, especially for that length of time.

  But he pushed those concerns aside the best he could. He was being challenged by a group of Rangers; he couldn’t just walk away from it as if it meant nothing. Or, even worse, openly display his fear. They’d roast him for that. He’d be a joke. He’d be the gutless son of the Original Ghost and an embarrassment to the Raige family legacy.

  All he did was simply nod in acknowledgment of the situation.

  The security chief promptly called out, “Ladies and gentlemen, the son of the OG is going to try to ghost. Place your bets!”

  To Kitai’s annoyance, they actually started throwing down money. He couldn’t help noticing that there weren’t any bets placed
on his ability to pull it off. I’ll show them, he thought in grim annoyance.

  Slowly Kitai made his way to the rear of the organic pod. For the first time he was close enough to see that in the shell-like exterior of the pod, there were holes so that one could see in. But there didn’t appear to be an Ursa or anything else inside. “I don’t see anything,” he said cautiously.

  “Active camouflage,” the security chief replied. “Photosensitive skin cells change color and texture to match its surroundings. It uncamouflages so it can frighten you. So you release more pheromones—they’re crafty bastards.”

  It truly was insidious. Ursa required fear to find their targets, and so their method of attack was calculated to elicit as much fear as possible. Being virtually invisible allowed them to appear abruptly and terrify the crap out of their intended victims.

  Kitai moved closer to the pod. He stopped a mere few centimeters away from crossing the red line.

  The security chief wasn’t making it any easier for him. “Ghosting is when you don’t have a trace of fear in you. Good luck doing that. To ghost one must be so free from fear that you become invisible to the Ursa. Fear is territorial in your heart. It refuses to share space with any other virtues. You must force fear from your heart and replace it with any other virtue. It could be love or happiness or faith, but the virtue is specific to the individual and comes from the deepest part of that person.

  “You get all that, cadet?” said the security chief. His voice was sardonic as he added, “Your dad wrote that helpful tidbit.”