Gradient

by Anders Cahill

  Adjet laughed again, taking my hand. “We were quite done by then, weren’t we, Oren?”

  She ran her hand along my bicep, and it hit me that her belly was smooth and flat, no sign of her pregnancy. In the far reaches of my mind, fear came creeping back past the numbness of the kaffa. Was the baby still alive in the womb of her waking body? Had it already been born? I sent a silent prayer to the Scions to speed Socha’s search for the child.

  “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself last night, pausha,” Cordar said. “It’s important to vent off pressure every so often, especially as the years drag on. This was all so exciting at the beginning, when Manderlas was still a grand idea, but the reality is getting tiresome. The natives are so primitive. Like small children who need constant supervision, don’t you think?”

  “Stop it, Cord,” Neka said, laughing and swatting his arm. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”

  “Your compassion towards the brutes is heartwarming, my little birdie,” Cordar said, patting her head, “but the truth is, we’re probably all growing weary of the scant entertainment the natives provide. I know I am. We need to start thinking bigger. There is a whole world out there for us to mold. Manderlas is merely the tip of the spear.”

  I glanced around at the others. No one seemed the least bit perturbed by Cordar’s uncharacteristic bigotry or his global ambitions, nevermind that he was supposed to be dead. The Cordar I knew was thoughtful and analytical, a biologician with a deep respect for life in all its diversity, and generally more concerned with the workings of plants than people. It was wildly out of character for him to assert himself like this in a group. Yet everyone seemed to defer to him.

  I decided to take a risk.

  I subtly touched my right fingers to my left palm, then slid them up to my wrist. For someone who didn’t know handspeak, it could easily be mistaken as an unconscious gesture, like scratching an itch.

  Cordar was the one who taught it to me.

  Give me more, the gesture said. I figured if he recognized the gesture, he would happily oblige by giving me more kaffa. If he didn’t, then it presented a potential opportunity.

  He didn’t seem to notice.

  I repeated the sign again. Not the slightest hint of recognition. But Neka was looking at me now, eyes curious. She was the only other one among us who knew handspeak.

  I took an even bigger risk.

  Not safe, I signed, meeting her eyes. Not him.

  She nodded. Just barely, but it was enough. I almost shouted out loud with joy.

  “Pausha,” Cordar said, patting the empty cushion on his other side, “why don’t you stop fidgeting and come sit down.”

  “Thanks, Cord,” I said, trying to sound casual, “but I’m going to take that walk now. Eledar knows I need it.”

  “It’s almost nightfall,” Xander said, chiming in. “Supper will be ready soon.”

  “Save me a plate,” I said.

  Theater, I signed at the same time, praying Neka would understand. Then, before anyone else could argue, I walked out of the room.

  * * *

  I climbed the steps of the amphitheater, careful not to stumble as the last light of day faded into evening. I sat down on a bench near the back, looking down at the empty stage. Already, I was thirsty for more kaffa, and I had to keep reminding myself that none of this was real; that I was actually lying on the floor of the main cabin on Reacher.

  Footsteps sounded behind me.

  I turned. Neka stood a few rows back, at the top edge of the amphitheater. We stared at each other. As I opened my mouth to speak, she made a quick series of gestures with her hands.

  I shook my head. “You know my handspeak has never been that good, Neka.”

  She gave me a grim smile. “You’re right. I do know. I just needed to make sure you knew too.” She came down the steps and sat next to me, touching her hand to my cheek. “Is it really you?”

  “It’s me, Neka. Reach sent me.”

  “Reach?” She gave me a strange look.

  “Reacher, Neka. Our shipheart. Don’t you remember?”

  “I… I’m not sure. I’ve been so… so confused.”

  “But if you don’t remember, why did you come?”

  “Because of Cordar. I keep having these dreams where he’s dead, and something awful has taken his place. When I wake up, the dream doesn’t seem any less real. Cordar watches me like a surgeon examining a cadaver, clinical and probing, devoid of the sensitivity that made me fall in love with him.”

  “But you were with him. On the cushions, drinking kaffa.”

  “Kaffa,” she murmured. Her eyes were hungry. “Do you have any?”

  “No, Neka. You mustn’t drink that anymore. The kaffa is part of what keeps us trapped here.”

  She rubbed her eyes and cheeks with her palms, then scratched her wrist. “I just… I get so thirsty.”

  It was worse than I thought. “So you stay with Cordar for the kaffa?”

  “No… I mean, yes. But not just the kaffa. I… if he suspected me… I fear something terrible will happen. Not just to me. To all of us. I have to keep him happy.”

  I rubbed her back in gentle circles, comforting her. “Have you spoken to any of the others about this?”

  She coughed and shook her head, then cleared her throat. “They might betray me.”

  “Then you’re the only one.”

  Her eyes found mine. “Until now.”

  I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, pulling her tight, and she leaned her head on my chest. We sat there in the quiet of the coming night, saying nothing.

  Then, suddenly, the stage at the front of the amphitheater lit up with incandescent white light. I lifted my palms, shading my eyes, and squinted. A figure stepped on stage, silhouetted against the light.

  “Did you really think you could deceive me?” His voice filled the amphitheater.

  “Cordar!” Neka said, her voice cracked with fear.

  “We have to get out of here!” I took her hand and pulled her to her feet.

  She seemed fixed in place, her weight dragging against my pull.

  “Neka! Run!”

  She snapped out of it.

  We ran.

  Inhuman laughter followed after us.

  The streets of Manderlas were quiet, and the windows of the houses and the mercantile buildings were dark. Our feet slapped on the hard packed dirt. We turned left, then left again, running without direction, adrenaline driving me forward, tugging Neka along behind me. We came to an unfamiliar intersection. “This isn’t right,” I said, swiveling my head in every direction. “Where are we?”

  “That is a wonderful question.”

  We spun around.

  “I’ve been trying to trace you for hours, pausha,” Cordar said, “but your signal is being refracted. But my little birdie, Neka? I always know right where she is.”

  I looked down at Neka.

  “I’m sorry, pausha.” She could not look at me. “I… I tried.”

  “Come here, my little birdie,” Cordar said. “I brought you a present.” A clear decanter of blood red kaffa materialized in his hand.

  Neka let go of my hand and walked towards Cordar like a chastised child.

  “Neka! Wait!”

  She ignored me. When she reached Cordar, he held out the decanter to her. As she reached for it, he pulled it away from her and struck her across the face with the back of his fist.

  There was a sickening cracking sound, and she fell to the ground in a heap, unmoving. A cry of rage choked my throat. I leapt at Cordar.

  The world spun around me.

  I was on the ground, my back against a nearby building. I coughed. My chest barked with pressure. I wiped my lips. My palm came away pink with saliva and blood. It’s not real, I thought. I forced myself to stand. My ribs screamed at me.

  “You used her to get to me,” I said through gritted teeth.

  He bared his teeth in a vicious parody of a smile. “She liked being used, pausha.”


  “Pausha?” I growled. “Enough with the pretense. My friend Cordar is dead, and you’re the one who killed him. You’re a sick, pathetic imitation.”

  He ignored my insult. “Where are you hiding?”

  “Somewhere you can’t find me.”

  He walked closer to me. “Perhaps you’ll tell me after I flay your skin?”

  “This isn’t me,” I said, touching my chest.

  He chuckled his sick, inhuman chuckle. “Close enough.” His hand locked around my wrist like a vise.

  I spun, leveraging the momentum to send the false Cordar spinning over my shoulder, slamming him into the building. His head cracked against the clay bricks, and his neck twisted.

  I threw his body to the ground and ran to Neka. I touched my finger to her neck. There was still a pulse. I lifted her in my arms and started running, holding her body tight and secure against my torso.

  Cordar stepped out in front of us.

  His neck was bent at a gruesome angle, and his collar bone stuck out through his skin, bloody and raw. Blood ran down his face from a gash on his forehead.

  “If you won’t play by my rules, little insect,” he said, his voice logy and cracked, “then you don’t get to play at all.”

  The walls of every building on the street burst open. I knelt down instinctively, shielding Neka. Chunks of clay filled the air, hundreds of them peppering me at once, some sharp enough to cut.

  I looked up. Cordar stood there. His neck was still bent, and his body was covered with tiny cuts from the explosion. One of his eyes was gone, cratered by a hunk of clay. Blood gushed out of the open wound, but he seemed unfazed. He reached up with both hands and grabbed his head by the temples. He wrenched and twisted until his skull was realigned with his spine. Then he lifted his hand and snapped his fingers.

  A legion of his blind hunters came pouring into the street behind him, and he pointed at me. They charged, barking and spitting and coughing. He stood as still as a stone in a river as they flowed around him.

  I stood up, Neka still in my arms, and ran as fast as I’ve ever run.

  “Reacher,” I said, “in the names of the Scions, if you can hear me, now would be a wonderful time to do whatever it is you’re going to do!”

  “What did you just say?”

  Cordar appeared in front of me again, blood still fountaining from his crushed eye socket.

  I yelped with surprise, backing away. I glanced over my shoulder. The hunters were stopped in their tracks, sniffing the air, scratching and jostling each other. The closest were just a few feet away from me. I was pinned.

  I looked back at Cordar.

  “Reacher,” I screamed. “Do it now!”

  The whole world flickered and distorted, like someone running their hand through a hologram.

  It righted itself an instant later, everything returning to normal. Cordar hobbled up to me, so close I could feel his breath. The blood would not stop running from his eye.

  “You cry out to a false god, insect,” he said. “Your precious Reacher is as good as dead.”

  The world distorted again.

  “Then what was that?”

  He snarled, looking around wildly.

  “Your illusion is crumbling. You won’t be able to control us anymore.”

  He reached his hands for my throat, but before he could grasp me, he froze in place. His head and hands started twitching. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed.

  The hunters behind me howled. Several of them pushed forward, ignoring me, sniffing Cordar’s body. One opened its jaws, wider than looked possible, revealing rotting teeth, filed to points. It bit into Cordar’s neck. The others leapt in then, in a frenzy, pushing and clawing at each other, rending the flesh from Cordar’s carcass.

  Bile rose in my throat. I backed away, still clutching Neka to my chest, and I turned to run again.

  Adjet blocked my way. “I guess that’s the last we’ll see of Cordar,” she said.

  “Damn it!” I pivoted down another street.

  Xander and Xayes stepped out in front of me.

  “All of you,” Xayes began.

  “Belong to me,” Xander finished.

  I pivoted again, back the way I came, then cut down a side alley. Siddart ran up alongside me, his bionetic legs easily keeping pace. “It’s easier when you don’t fight it, pausha.”

  I stopped short, ducking into an empty home. I slammed the wooden door and dropped the locking plank into its cradle, sealing the door shut. I laid Neka down on the table, cradling her head. She was still unconscious.

  Siddart hammered on the door, but it held.

  “Damn you,” I cried. “Leave my friends alone.”

  “Your friends are mine now,” Siddart called back. “Doesn’t that make us friends too?”

  “What do you know of friendship, monster? You pervert everything you touch.”

  There was no response, but there was a thunk on the roof of the house. Then a hand punched through the thatch and clay, and Siddart was there, peering down at us. “But isn’t this what you wanted?” he said. “A world where you could live as gods? Why do you seek to undo what I’ve built for you?”

  “Do you really believe that?” I shouted up at him. “That we could ever want this hollow lie?”

  Something slammed into the front door again, followed by a low growling.

  “My hunters,” Siddart said, pointing to the door, “I made them to root out every last vestige of your precious Reacher. They are extraordinary hunters. In fact, they made such short work of him in the early days, I thought we had succeeded. But he is more elusive than I gave him credit for. Perhaps he learned that from me. He’s made his last mistake though.”

  “What mistake?” I said, trying to keep him talking.

  “Your weakness forced his hand. To help you, he crippled the Cordar avatar. A bold move. But he has given my hunters his scent again. It won’t be long.”

  The door rattled again. The growls were louder now, punctuated by hacking coughs and the sound of claws on clay, a whole pack of the damnable creatures lurking outside.

  “They’re very protective,” Siddart said, smiling an inhuman smile. He pushed his head through the hole in the thatch, leering down at me. His face seemed to warp and elongate. Then the room fuzzed and stuttered, and he disappeared.

  * * *

  I was back on the ship! I leapt up to my feet, then almost fell over again. “Easy now,” I said to myself, resting my hands on a console.

  Slam.

  What in the names of the Scions?

  Slam.

  Is the ship rocking?

  SLAM.

  Oh no. Please, no.

  “Reacher! Reacher, can you hear me?”

  No response. I activated the ship’s external image feeds. “Eledar’s breath.” The ship was surrounded. Hundreds of people, Kkadie and Sagain, poured into the cavern from every entrance.

  They were in various stages of decrepitude, ranging from underfed to skeletal. Sores and cuts covered their bodies, and their eyes were glassy and distant. Portable field transmitters bulged from their necks.

  He was controlling them.

  They slammed themselves into the ship, arms and bodies and heads smacking against the impenetrable trimantium hull. I swiped my hand across the console, bringing up defense protocols I never thought we’d have to use.

  “Sonics,” I said, covering my ears.

  Sound pierced the cavern, a high-pitched, crippling spear of noise. The sound through the hull was uncomfortable. Out there, it was torture.

  They fell like sacks of grain, flopping and twitching on the ground. Even if their pain receptors had been muted by the corrupted shipheart, the sound induced vertigo, hammering the inner ear, making motor function essentially impossible.

  But if these poor people are here, I thought, still under his control, then that means the network wipe was unsuccessful.

  “Reacher,” I said out loud. “Please. If you�
��re there, I need you. I don’t know what else to do.”

  The console blinked my name.

  “Reacher!”

 

  “He has them, Reach. He has them all. Tell me what to do!”

 

  “What’s the status on the network wipe?”

  <…/>

  “Reacher?”

  Nothing.

  I hammered my hands on the console, wailing with rage. Despair washed over me. I hung my head, weeping. I’m not sure how much time passed before I realized what I had to do.

  * * *

  I soared into the clouds until I could take in the whole length and breadth of the island.

  “Overlay thermal veins,” I said. A schematic of the planet’s tectonic stratum glowed red, tracing the contours of the island and the range of mountains at the bottom of the ocean floor.

  “Overlay coordinate grid.” A symmetrical grid crosshatched the visible surface of the planet.

  “Here, here, and here.” Dozens of intersecting points on the grid lit up, pulsing in a steady rhythm.

  “Three minutes. Initiate countdown.” A clock appeared in the lower corner of the overlay. It started ticking down.

  I fell like a meteor towards the heart of Manderlas.

  * * *

  “You were a fool to come back.”

  The corrupted shipheart sat on a throne of skulls in a chamber at the top of the ziggurat. He looked as he did when I first encountered him in the Arcturean system, his face waxen and cold, lacking that ineffable spark of life.

  My friends were all there, sitting on the stairs in front of his ghastly throne. Their faces had the same spiritless affect. They had become like puppets of themselves.

  “Perhaps you came to throw yourself at my feet and beg forgiveness?” the corrupted shipheart said. “I am afraid it is much too late for that, insect.”

  “You’re right. It is too late.”

  “Then maybe you came for this?” He clapped his hands together.

  Siddart stood up and walked behind the throne of skulls. He emerged again cradling something in his hands.

  “Give it to him,” the corrupted shipheart said.

  Siddart tossed it at my feet.