Strangers Among Us

by Kelley Armstrong

  One of the troopers went down, a hunting spear finding a gap where his body armour met his helmet. The other G’rat’ch’s aim was less lucky, its missiles clattering against plate.

  Charlie dragged Chirac into the remains of a bunkhouse. The low walls would provide little protection against real weapons. The aliens moved fast, long lunging strides propelling them in a spiral around the camp. The troopers kept up a steady rain of fire but their targeting was off. Still, one of the G’rat’ch staggered then scurried behind a mound of rock. It lay down a withering stream of metal that forced the soldiers to cover.

  Nemetsov clutched the ambassador/commandant with one hand. A pistol in the other barked at the stationary G’rat’ch. Peace hasn’t dulled his instincts, Marion thought.

  Her own pistol wasn’t going to tip the odds; her other weapons were fifty paces away. The G’rat’ch Ambassador looked dead, but then Nemetsov’s efforts would make no sense. It was the kl’op^; the ambassador/commandant was sinking into madness. Death would follow. And then war.

  Marion angled along Nemetsov’s path. She knew his destination, an emergency shelter, hidden in the floor of one of the buildings. He would drag the ambassador/commandant below, sealing the hatch. The others would die, and he would be the hero. Just like before.

  A knife blade of pain pierced her eyes. The drugs in her blood fought the programming in her head. Time stopped.

  Sometimes, all she ever got was one clear moment. Now, she had an expanse of them, stretching all the way back to her first days in the service. She had never been sent to kill. She had been sent to find the traitors in their midst; the prisoners who had been turned by the G’rat’ch and the Terran officer who had helped them do it. She had found him, but not before he found her.

  Captain Nemetsov.

  Time started again. Her ancient body was slow but Nemetsov, dragging a hundred and twenty kilos of unconscious G’rat’ch was slower. Marion blindsided him, slamming into his lower legs. The sound of something popping in his knee was gratifying; the answering snap from her shoulder, less so.

  Nemetsov fell hard, his helmet ringing off a stone, the pistol flying from his hand. Marion squeezed off a round into his undamaged knee. If she was wrong about him . . .

  The G’rat’ch commandant, no, ambassador, was another matter. Whatever Nemetsov had done to it had pushed it to its limit. The G’rat’ch were always on the edge of madness, kept stable by an elaborate set of rules and rituals. Without its culture, a G’rat’ch could tumble into a killing rage or a spiral of catatonic depression.

  Marion pushed the last gel cap past the thin lips of the G’rat’ch. She ran her fingers along his heavy jaw and down over the ridges of his throat. Marion had no idea what the human drug would do, but anything was better than its current state. She had no strength to move him; he would have to do that for himself.

  The G’rat’ch sniper used the lull to move closer, his dark form lurching from one bit of cover to another. The troopers had joined Chirac and Charlie; they were adding to the chaos using borrowed pistols. It kept the circling aliens at bay. Still, they hadn’t come expecting an extended firefight. It was only a matter of time until the G’rat’ch War Party wore them down.

  The G’rat’ch at her feet bolted upright, its head thrashing from side to side and one hand clutching for her throat. She scurried backward.

  G’rat’ch words hurt her throat, but she kept talking until she saw what passed for sanity return to its eyes. It—he made the sound that signified both humour and horror. The same sound he had always made when he was teaching her the rudiments of the language.

  “Sergeant Dwyer,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”

  “Not long enough,” she growled. “Any suggestions?”

  “Do you have a weapon for me?” Nemetsov had been dragging himself toward his fallen pistol. Marion stepped past him and scooped it up. She passed it—without hesitation—to the G’rat’ch.

  “He’s the enemy, Dwyer,” Nemetsov, said, pitching his voice so as to trigger the switches in her brain. But the one called Old Sergeant was in charge—not the real her but close enough—and the switches didn’t work.

  “I think your intelligence is flawed. Sir.” Marion resisted the urge to kick him in the head.

  “The time to go is now,” said Commandant P’’kalp.

  “The time to go is now, Marion,” said Darwin. “The Captain isn’t coming?” she asked.

  “Where?”

  P’’kalp pointed at a gap between the two circling G’rat’ch farthest from the stationary one. “Do as I do.” He showed her the pistol, set for maximum fire. He aimed to one side of the gap and she aimed at the other. Classic wedge.

  Firing as they ran, they were through the opening before the other G’rat’ch could adapt—or their own troopers could respond. P’’kalp held the lead, twisting and turning through the brush until Marion lost track of where they were. Her legs and lungs were burning when he dropped into a copse. She stumbled in beside him, their bodies pressed together in the meagre cover.

  The firing had stopped; the G’rat’ch had broken off the attack to pursue them, but if they were near, they were as silent as the sunlight.

  “I thought you were dead, Dwyer-ka’ch,” P’’kalp said.

  “She is dead,” Marion replied. Or buried so deep I can’t remember her. Or don’t want to.

  “You saved me; I am in your debt.” Having a G’rat’ch in your debt was never a good thing. It would be clearer exactly what he meant if he had said it in G’rat’ch.

  “I thought you had been recalled.” She added: “In disgrace.”

  “Disgrace is the dark face of honour. Often only those who are lost know the way.”

  Marion chewed on that. P’’kalp was always trying to teach her, though usually his lessons were beyond her.

  “Speaking of lost . . .” she risked sticking her head above cover.

  “We are where we are meant to be.”

  “I’m tired, P’’kalp. So tired.”

  “We have only one more thing to do, Dwyer-ka’ch. Remember our mission.”

  The mission. Marion’s hand tightened around her pistol. P’’kalp laid his hand on her shoulder. “Our mission,” he said, “not theirs. Do you remember?” He spoke a dozen words in G’rat’ch.

  “We have to wait for the captain,” Marion said. “Captain Nemetsov isn’t coming,” said Darwin. He was never coming. She looked down at the knife in Darwin’s hand. P’’kalp’s knife. “It was you all along. You and Nemetsov.”

  “You were a prisoner, too,” she said.

  The G’rat’ch tilted his head to one side. “It is only in bondage that we discover freedom.”

  “How are we supposed to bring about peace when everyone wants war?”

  “There is much glory in war,” said P’’kalp. “And much profit.”

  True.

  “What do you remember?” He asked the question in G’rat’ch.

  She replied—as best she could—in the same language. Only one of her selves could speak G’rat’ch. “After a decade, the G’rat’ch surge had been stopped, and we were fighting to hold the line. Rumours—the fog of war is condensed from rumours—said the G’rat’ch fought among themselves. But interests on both sides—G’rat’ch and human—didn’t want the fighting to stop. Like gluttons in a burning hotel, as long as the fire hadn’t reached the dining room, they were determined to keep feeding.”

  “Keep going.”

  “On half a dozen planets, overtures were made, by your party, but no-one believed them. Agents were dispatched—inserted in ground forces. We were to find the truth, negotiate a ceasefire.”

  It was getting harder to talk. Voices clamoured outside the shell of language that protected her. She no longer believed they were all her voices.

  “My unit was ambushed, half killed, the rest thrown into that camp. You were there. It took me a very long time to figure out that you weren’t the warden, weren’t in charge at all.
The deference the other G’rat’ch showed you was disgust. But eventually, I learned—you taught me—to think like a G’rat’ch.”

  “The best you could. As a human.”

  She inclined her head in agreement. “Ten years passed and the war dragged on. Then, you explained the G’rat’ch concept of balance and it came to me. Your imprisonment was a weapon against the possibility of peace. If you were freed and returned home, everything would tumble down like tiles in a children’s game. The War Party would be disgraced and lose power. All we had to do was escape.”

  P’’kalp laughed. “You had a gift for madness. You only had to do something never done in G’rat’ch history. Escape from a G’rat’ch camp.”

  “Nemetsov escaped.”

  “The captain was released. Someone had to carry back word to those in your own ranks who fed off this war. Even then, they thought they could stop you. As if anyone could stop my Dwyer-ka’ch when her mind was set.”

  Marion had known that about Nemetsov—as much an agent for the enemy within human ranks, as for the G’rat’ch War Party. Why couldn’t she say it out loud? One insistent voice pressed against the shell like the sound of a drill.

  “But before he left, Nemestov turned Darwin.”

  “Your”—the word P’’kalp used meant more than friend, less than mate—“was a willing servant. Nemetsov did not have to use his tools on him, the way he later used them on you.” He said something else but the meaning escaped her. The insistent voice grew silent.

  “I killed him. I killed Darwin.” That, in her own language. The shell of memory could no longer protect her.

  “There will be time for grief. After the mission has been accomplished. I will follow your lead.”

  Marion shuddered.

  “Dwyer-ka’ch, you made the ceasefire by freeing me once; now you must create the peace. It is your mission.”

  There was nothing left. Of the drugs in her system. Of Nemetsov’s tools. Of her youth. All she had now was this wreck of a body and a single point of clarity. “Let’s go.”

  They reached camp before the extraction team arrived from the fortress. The fighting had stopped once the Ambassador was gone. Marion retrieved her other weapons before she and P”kalp made themselves known. Nemetsov was sedated or there might have been more trouble.

  “I’ll deal with Sergeant Dwyer,” Charlie said.

  Chirac, slumped beside Nemetsov, didn’t speak. Marion wondered if he was in shock.

  The other three G’rat’ch appeared from the forest, one limping. P’’kalp waved the slug thrower in their direction though he hadn’t the least idea how to use it. But he knew how to talk.

  “This warrior,” he said, meaning victor but also peacemaker, “has surpassed all warriors”—mercenary but also slave—“in her clan. Show respect.” A word that meant exactly that and nothing more.

  For a moment, it hung in the balance. Then, their shoulder crests flattened and their eyes turned to one side. The word for humiliation also meant surrender. The G’rat’ch laid their weapons at her feet, P’’kalp last of all.

  Chirac pulled himself to his feet and straightened his jacket. “I’m not quite sure, but it seems we have achieved some sort of resolution. If you are ready, Ambassador P’’kalp, we can return to the citadel and continue our negotiations.”

  “No,” said Marion, picking up her slug thrower. “P’’kalp is my prisoner.” In her mind, the word also meant friend. “He will treat only with me.”

  “Just a second . . .”

  “Or, I will kill him.” In her mind, it also meant liberate. She turned the weapon on P’’kalp. It was obvious she did know how to use it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Charlie sliding his hand into his jacket. Marion ignored him.

  “I am yours,” said P’’kalp. To the others: “I will treat with Sergeant Dwyer. And only her. None of the rest of you understand madness.”

  “Leave us food and drink,” said Marion. “But leave us.”

  The treaty was settled in an hour, but they stayed away for three days. Talking, eating, laughing, remembering things. At night they lay in each other’s arms for warmth and comfort: Dwyer-ka’ch—student, child, friend—and P’’kalp-tho^g—father, friend, teacher.

  “This was why Darwin turned, wasn’t it? He was jealous.”

  P’’kalp considered it. “That is one madness my people do not share.”

  They were silent for a long time after that. “If you had not killed him, your people would have done to Darwin what they did to you. He would not have survived it as well as you have.”

  “You think I’m surviving?”

  “As well as any of us can in a world ruled by entropy. Madness is the only viable strategy. Once you find your balance.”

  If you thought like a G’rat’ch, it made perfect sense. She was better, but she would never be well, could never be well in a world that insisted on curing her.

  “Will you return to the G’rat’ch homeworld?” she asked, without looking at him.

  “No,” said P’’kalp. “Fergus is the only planet our peoples share. It’s too cold but I can adjust. Where else could I be, but where my closest lies?” The word meant more than friend, more than mate though less than lover.

  It meant sanity.

  THE INTERSECTION

  Lorina Stephens

  “Hey, Sis!”

  She glanced around. His voice was so real inside her head, as if he stood right beside her. He sounded so ebullient amid the hustle of traffic, sunshine in the canyons of King and Bay, reaching out across distance where he circled somewhere overhead. She glanced up to where a sky like flint shone, hard as armour, and for her an unreachable barrier, untouchable. Although she wanted to reach him, one of the reasons she’d contacted him via their link.

  She touched her ear, as if that would allow her to be nearer him, aware of the neural communications implant lodged in her cortex, one of Jack’s amazing gizmos. “Hey.” She winced at the tone of her response, aware of the flatness of it, her inability to match his persistent, apparent joy.

  “Where are you?”

  She glanced up at the monoliths of the TD and Montreal towers where birds wheeled and dove into the verdancy of wall gardens, down to the traffic lights where a walking man flashed and a flat voice droned walk, walk, walk over the hiss of activity, electric cars, electric public transit. Someone bumped by her. She stood immobile, unable to face the paved river she had to cross.

  “Going to work,” she said, sucking in air suddenly in too short supply. “What are you doing?”

  “Just making notations on our latest neural interface results. Being able to conduct these tests here is giving me amazing insights, things I would never have been able to ascertain down there.” There was a pause, and then: “Hey, Sis, you okay?”

  That question. How many times had he asked her that? And how many times had she found herself frozen with fear, incapable of answering, terrified of the answer and what that might indicate, even more terrified of not telling him and having to face the gorge below where her feet balanced precariously on the edge of sanity.

  All she had to do was cross the street with the lights, walk across the courtyard of the TD Centre, into the glass atrium where commerce and a Carolinian forest grew, and from there ascend in an elevator which could take her up fifty-six floors if she wanted. But she only had to go to thirty-two, exit to a floor where she would work where she chose—in a zen garden or beanbag chair, at an oak table or a cherry-lined library filled with real, printed volumes—and there, design security protocols for payment gateways.

  “Sis?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You okay? Talk to me.”

  She inhaled sharply, her chest constricting. She could feel her heart hammering a tattoo, her legs liquefying.

  “Sis? C’mon, say something.”

  What was she supposed to say? That she was falling apart? Again. That the meds didn’t seem to be working again, that she felt as though everyt
hing was about to come crashing down around her, that maybe it might be better to just sleep, and sleep forever, to stop being a burden to both herself and Jack. He certainly didn’t need to be dealing with a whacked-out sister some three hundred kilometres back on terra firma.

  “You know, you’re closer up there than you were on the Rock,” she said, avoiding the conversation, needing the conversation, unable to begin the conversation.

  “How weird is that?” He had such a comforting bass rumble in his voice, like the sound of the earth itself.

  “I know,” she said.

  Another pause she didn’t know how to fill.

  “But you didn’t call me to discuss distance.”

  Well, sort of she did. Twenty-four hundred klicks from Toronto to Corner Brook. Three hundred to the International Space Station II. But she could hop on a plane to Corner Brook within the hour, or at least later today. But the ISSII? Jack was only as close as the voice in her head.

  “Don’t make me drag this out of you, Sis. C’mon, you know you need to talk. You know you need to tell me what’s going on. Otherwise I can’t help you.”

  “I know.”

  “So?”

  “I can’t get to work.” There. It was out. She imagined a greedy little gremlin cavorting around her ankles, biting, nipping, making a mockery of all her anxieties and fears.

  “Why? You sick?”

  She blinked away the gremlin. “Just in the head.”

  “Now stop that. You’re having a panic attack, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you exactly?”

  “Watching the lights at King and Bay.”

  “Why are you watching the lights?”

  “Because I can’t cross the road.”

  “Why can’t you cross the road?”

  “Cause I’m scared.” And that tore it. Now she blinked back tears, was aware she was gasping, that pedestrians were beginning to look at her askance. It seemed the ultimate irony when a homeless woman rumbled by with her cart and stink and her babble of inner dialogue. Déjà vu? Premonition?