Fall and Rising

by Sunny Moraine

  Alkor stepped inside, the door shutting silently behind her. Dark circles had settled under her eyes, and her hair, though pulled back in its customary bun, still managed to appear disheveled, as if a few unseen strands were out of place. Her demeanor was slumped but tense and vibrating around the edges. Perhaps she had taken stimulants. It wasn’t uncommon, though it wasn’t admirable.

  Sinder clasped his hands behind his back as he faced her. “Anything?”

  “Nothing yet. We’re employing a grid approach, but so far there’s no sign of them except for the crash itself. Or there’s no sign of the survivors.”

  Sinder raised an eyebrow. “Survivors?”

  “Yes. High winds right around the site kept us from setting down at the crash site initially, but an hour ago we were finally able to land, and I just received the report. Kerry’s body was found in the wreckage.”

  Kerry’s body. Sinder turned away again. That simplified things a little, though it was frustrating. It would have been better to deliver Kerry alive. Still. “What about the others?”

  “No sign. We can only assume they left the area on foot.”

  “Any tracks?”

  “None. As I said, the high winds. They swept the ground clean. I’m sorry, Sinder.” But there was no real apology in her voice. Only vague impatience. “We’ll keep searching. We’ll find them.”

  “I find it difficult to understand,” Sinder murmured, “how you haven’t found them already. High winds or no.” He didn’t look back at her, and didn’t feel the need to. Probably his back was expressing itself well enough. “They were on foot. Likely injured. They can’t have gotten that far away. How is it possible that you’ve found no sign of them at all?”

  “I don’t know,” Alkor said flatly. “I can only speak to what we have found.”

  “Which is almost nothing.” Sinder sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t want to be angry. Everything had been going so well. It wasn’t even that he didn’t appreciate what Alkor was trying to do. But the facts were the facts. “Captain, we need to find them. I …” How much to tell her about what he suspected?

  Only as much as necessary.

  “I have reason to believe that the threat Yuga presents is greater than we imagined. I have no real proof as yet, but I suspect a conspiracy, perhaps a huge one. If I’m right, Yuga is the key to uncovering it, and he may be the only remaining key, now that we can’t question Kerry any further.” At last, he glanced back at her. She was listening in respectful silence, but more to the point, her eyes were alight with understanding, and if skepticism pulled at her mouth, there wasn’t enough to pull very hard. “I need everything you can give me, Captain. Please. Even the most minor thing might make all the difference.”

  Alkor’s mouth tightened. “We have only what one pass gave us, though we managed to capture some images from orbit. But that isn’t much.”

  “What, Captain? Tell me.”

  “It’s a settlement,” Alkor said, moving forward to stand beside him. “Not large. Doesn’t look like more than a few hundred people at most. And it’s a long way from the crash site. Nearly a hundred and seventy kilometers. I don’t see any way they could make it there, not on foot with limited supplies.”

  Sinder’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me more. There is more, isn’t there, Captain?”

  “Like I said, we only got the briefest look, but it doesn’t seem like settlement is really the right word. We saw what appear to be guardhouses. And fences.” Again, she hesitated, but before Sinder could prompt her, she went on. “We can’t be sure, not yet, but it could be a detention camp.”

  Sinder stared at her. Of all the things he might have expected … “A detention camp,” he echoed, his focus drifting as his attention turned inward. “What would— Have you hailed them?”

  “Not yet. The thing is … It’s strange. They must have seen our teams; we were flying low. If they can scan orbit, they must know we’re here. But we haven’t heard a peep from them. It might be simply that they don’t have the capability, but … we also saw what appeared to be ship hangars. Repair bays. They have garages for heavy vehicles. Whoever they are, they’re set up pretty well there.”

  Sinder nodded. This wasn’t about Yuga, had no obvious connection to Yuga at all … But every instinct in him was screaming that this was worth his attention. All of it, maybe, instead of search grids that were turning up nothing.

  “Captain.” He laid his hands on her upper arms, peering into her face. “I need everything you’ve gathered on it. I need new images. Intelligence. And then I need to talk to them.”

  They saw it in the distance, shimmering and hazy, and for a moment Adam was sure it was only his imagination, until he saw that Lochlan and Aarons had both halted as well, staring in its direction.

  Aarons lifted a hand to shield his eyes, squinting. Adam did the same, but whatever it was seemed to have gone. Then it was there again: a long, low shape, speeding across the horizon.

  Getting bigger. Moving toward them.

  “Another search ship?” Lochlan asked under his breath. Aarons shook his head.

  “Not that kind of ship. That’s a groundcar: a big one. The fleet has groundcars for landing parties, but nothing like that.” He dropped his hand and turned to them, brows drawn together. “Gentlemen, I think we’re not alone.”

  Adam frowned, and shot Lochlan a worried look. “We can’t assume they’re friendly. We can’t even assume they’re not Protectorate.”

  “No, Yuga, we can’t. But I don’t see anywhere to hide around here, do you?” They’d reached the flat, dry remains of what had once been a wide delta, the river nothing more than a small trickle in its center. “Our water’s almost gone. This passes us by, and we’re as good as dead unless we get lucky again.”

  Lochlan’s mouth twisted, as tense and worried as Adam felt. But he nodded. “I don’t like it either, chusile. But I think he has a point. We need to risk it.”

  “Anyway, it’s—” Aarons was squinting at it, and Adam swore that he could almost hear the man’s bionic eye whirring as it focused. “No, it’s not Protectorate. Not any Protectorate car I’ve ever seen, anyway. They have that model, but the markings are all wrong.” He lifted a hand and waved. “C’mon, even if they might’ve seen us, we need to make sure we have their attention.”

  Reluctantly, Adam joined the others in waving, standing as tall as he could. If Aarons said it wasn’t Protectorate, he was inclined to trust his judgment, though that didn’t quiet the unease that was tugging at him. His every instinct was clanging a warning bell.

  But there was nothing for it.

  The car got larger and larger, and at last Adam saw what Aarons had meant about the markings. They appeared vaguely martial, but they didn’t correspond to anything he’d seen on any peacekeeper vehicle. Now they could also see the driver, hunched down in the open-roofed interior, and that he wasn’t alone: a woman was seated above him, her blond ponytail whipping in the breeze. She was manning a large mounted gun. The gun was pointed at them.

  “Khara,” Lochlan muttered, lowering his arms.

  Splashing across what was left of the river, the car rumbled to a halt in front of him. The woman leaned forward on her gun and pushed her goggles up onto her forehead.

  “The fuck’re you doing here? How did you get out?”

  They all glanced at each other. Aarons turned to her, making no attempt to hide his confusion. “Out?”

  “Of the quarantine, wiseass.” Her eyes widened. “What the fuck, man, you’re in a peacekeeper uniform. How did you get that through processing? Or did you pick it up inside?” She kicked at the back of the driver’s seat. “Harlow, I keep telling you, they need to be better about checking for contraband.”

  Harlow grunted.

  “I am a peacekeeper,” Aarons said gruffly, and shoved Adam forward. “We crashed, a few miles from here. These two are my prisoners. If you can take us into—”

  “Yeah, we’ve heard it all by now.
Don’t even try it.” The woman’s tone was flat, slightly drawling—bored. “Look, I don’t really give a fuck where you came from. We have our orders, either way. Harlow.” Another kick. “Cuff ’em and get ’em in the vehicle. I’ve got you covered.”

  “No, wait.” Lochlan lifted his hands, his expression pleading, and Adam wasn’t sure how much of it was an act. He gritted his teeth, silently willing Lochlan to be quiet, but of course Lochlan wasn’t. “He’s telling the truth, he’s—”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Aarons slammed a fist into his shoulder and turned his scowling gaze back on the woman. “Who are you with? Protectorate? I’m a lieutenant commander, and I can have you demoted for this. Thrown in the brig to cool your heels for a few days. Take me and my prisoners to—”

  The gun roared. Adam flinched hard and almost dropped onto his belly, except for Lochlan’s hand at his shoulder. But Aarons remained where he was, staring at the cloud of dust that rose from the bullet impacts at his feet.

  “I told you,” the woman said placidly, “shut up. One more word and I’ll take your legs off. Don’t think I won’t. Harlow, now.”

  The man, still silent, slid open a door and clambered out, reaching down to his belt and unhooking a handful of wrist bindings. Adam stood still, hands at his sides, as an awful resignation sunk its blunt claws into him. She meant it.

  They were out of options. Again.

  Harlow put the wrist binders on them, and for once Lochlan had the sense not to resist. Aarons accepted his in stony silence, glaring at the woman. Cuffed, they were shoved forward toward the car.

  “Between me and him,” said the woman. “C’mon, we need to get back before nightfall.”

  The seat was cramped; not really a seat at all so much as a depression probably meant for light cargo. Adam sank into it, his knees nearly at his chest, pressed against Lochlan’s side—which wasn’t much of a comfort. As Harlow climbed back into the driver’s seat and the engine revved, Lochlan leaned close.

  “We got out of it before,” he breathed. “We will again.”

  We don’t even know what this is. But Adam said nothing, only gave him a tiny nod.

  They kept quiet as the car tore across the desert at high speed, its heavy treads chewing up the ground and billowing dust up around them. The desert itself continued on in flat monotony, without even hills or a river to break it up. In spite of everything, Adam felt himself drifting toward a doze, and it seemed as though there wasn’t much point in fighting it. Escape, just now, was impossible, boxed in the way they were. Lochlan slumped against him, but he was awake, and when Adam managed briefly to focus on him, Lochlan’s dark eyes were alive and keen. Watching.

  At last the car began to slow, and Adam jerked himself back to full consciousness, scanning the landscape ahead of them. There was nothing, but then he looked to the left and any words he might have said died in his throat.

  Fences. Long and high, topped with cruel loops of razor wire, and what appeared to be guard towers cutting through at intervals. Behind the fences, a mass of rough shelters were crammed, constructed of scrap metal and plastic. Through the gaps between, he caught glimpses of people dressed in rags, their shoulders hunched. Some of them were stumbling. One, a child who couldn’t be older than ten, turned to watch them with hollow eyes.

  “Home sweet fuckin’ home,” the woman muttered as the car made an arcing left toward the fences. Adam looked at Lochlan and the eyes that met his were wide and shocked and horrified.

  He had no idea what he had expected. But this …

  They stopped at a reinforced gate flanked by bigger guardhouses. There was a pause, then a loud rattle as the thing opened and closed behind them, followed by another gate in front. Then they were inside, rolling along a wide, muddy track flanked on the left by another fence. To the right was a series of long, low buildings that could be anything from garages to barracks. Here and there were more people dressed in the same plain clothes as the woman and Harlow, though more than a few of these also wore light body armor.

  All of them carried rifles.

  The car stopped. The woman leaned in, placed her boot in the center of Aarons’s back and shoved. “Gate on the left. They’re expecting you. If you’re lucky, you’ll get rations tonight along with the rest.”

  Numbly, Adam followed Lochlan and Aarons out of the car, staggering a bit on stiff legs. Harlow held his own rifle trained on their backs.

  At the fence, another guard cut their bindings loose without a word. He nodded up to someone unseen in one of the towers, and the gate rattled open.

  “Go on. We’d just as soon shoot your asses, but that means body disposal and that’s a pain.”

  Aarons walked silently forward. Adam trailed Lochlan, staring at the horror ahead of them. The sun was going down, casting that same weird, orange light over everything, and glinting dully off the metal roofs of the shacks. It made the faces of the people who glanced at them appear sallow and dead. Then again, Adam suspected they might look like that anyway.

  The gate closed behind them with a clash. It sounded like finality. They were prisoners once more.

  In the soft morning glow of Ashwina’s sunlamps, Nkiruka made her way through the winding corridors to Ashwina’s great central hall and let its busy sights and sounds and scents settle over her, familiar and comforting. Peaceful, too, in their way, though they also served to stir her to alertness, to help her see the world more clearly.

  She spent almost as much time here as she did in the Arched Halls above. The two were, in a way, cousins, and both drew people together. They provided places of connection, communion, and centers for life. The air in the hall was sweet, and Nkiruka had found it soothing since she had first made her home on Ashwina and turned her thoughts to the more distant future.

  She had come to Ashwina to learn to fight, to do violence to those who would harm her people, but almost everything she had found here had been focused on anything but violence: life, growing things, family, creation, the nourishment of the spirit. All on a ship of war.

  Not that it was entirely unexpected. It was common among Bideshi convoys for the defensive ship to be the most in tune with the dance of the stars, for their Old Mother to be the most powerful of the three. Fighters had to be ready to move the quickest, had to be able to see the blow before it came. And anyone who killed had to be able to keep a place inside them that was still compassionate, calm, full of life.

  It was about survival. The balance between life and death was part of the routine business of staying alive, every day. Every night.

  And the last couple of nights had been difficult in smaller ways. Satya had been calmer, maintaining her own cheerfulness, though Nkiruka could tell it was stretched thin, almost pained. At least there hadn’t been coldness between them. If anything there had been a hotter fire, their lovemaking edged with desperation that had been there before—since Ixchel’s death and the whispers about replacing her—but had never been so sharp.

  Things were coming to a head. They both knew it. And for Nkiruka, the reading had confirmed it.

  War. Not just conflict. Not just clashes. Open war. And soon.

  She hadn’t told anyone but Kae. Not even Satya. But sleep had been elusive since, and she had taken to wandering Ashwina’s corridors, losing herself in their harmonious chaos. Always, always, she ended up in the same place. The dusty corridor with the stars outside, where a ghost lingered.

  Ixchel.

  Now she had some time before the scheduled practice run in the fighters, and though she wasn’t hungry, she knew she should eat. She was going sleepless; it didn’t mean she also had to starve herself.

  And there was something about Ashwina’s hall, the sounds of talk and laughter and the transactions in the small marketplace that woke her up. There were smells of spices and cooking food, sweet oils and perfumes, herbs both for cooking and for medicine, as well as for their pleasing scent. Children ran underfoot. People smiled at her and lifted their hands in greeting,
and if they wanted something from her, if they expected things that she didn’t want to give, their warmth made it easier to forget. For the time being.

  Thankfully, none of them tried to drag her into lengthy conversation.

  She found herself a bowl of seasoned rice and moved into one of the small gardens to eat it, hoping that her solitude would maintain itself. As she ate, she used that solitude as space to examine the problems before her, and felt herself instinctively shrink from them. For the first time she noticed that the thoughts most hateful were the ones that involved her. Primarily her. Not war on her people, but the prospect of losing the things she wanted. Satya. A future she had been sure was hers.

  She shook herself, staring down at the food she had suddenly lost any appetite for. Chere. Am I really that selfish?

  Surely such a selfish person could never make a good Aalim anyway?

  “Nkiruka.”

  The voice was low, rich, and familiar. Her stomach dropped even farther. She looked up, steeling herself.

  “Hello, Adisa.”

  The old man nodded, the barest hint of a bow. His brown face was deeply lined now, more than it had been before Ixchel’s death on the Plain, and though he appeared as hale and hardy as ever, it was no secret how it had aged him. It had left its mark on all of them, but as the leader of the ship’s council—unofficially but something didn’t have to be official to matter—he had borne the loss harder than most others, and the loss had been heavier. The loss of so many.

  The loss of her.

  But he still did what was necessary. What was demanded of him.

  So naturally he was here now.

  “May I sit?”

  Nkiruka slid a little farther down the bench, gesturing at the free space. “Please, Elder.”

  He did so, gathering his robes as he sank down with a sigh. “Thank you. My bones aren’t what they used to be. Kindness to your elders now will serve you well when you join our ranks, young lady.” He shot her a smile, and some of her tension slipped away. These days he was often so serious, but now and then there were glimpses of his old humor.