by Sparks,Cat
The girl didn’t speak. She dragged her feet, barely keeping up. One of the crew had lobbed a couple of rocks at her from behind and called out insults—nothing he hadn’t heard before and wouldn’t hear again.
They walked until the boneyard bled away into a vast slab of concrete, cracked and cooked. Another cratered wasteland. Some of the pockmarks looked relatively recent. Yawping craters, souvenirs from somebody’s old war, repurposed as some form of garbage dump. A meeting place. The perfect site for ambush.
But nobody was waiting for them. Just collapsed hangars, broken down machinery draped and tangled like liana vines—not that he’d seen a jungle canopy for centuries. Quarrel stopped walking. The air was thick with ghosts. Many people had been murdered in this place, he could feel the resonance of their passing in waves of imaginary heat and bullet spray. He stood still, listening, arms out, fingers splayed, feeling shanghaied, shopped and swindled, just like back in the good old days. Cannon fodder, chickenfeed. Dispensable, disposable, soldiers out of time and out of luck. The whole world was gone, yet some things never ever seemed to change.
The meat and muscle below his mesh itched with short sharp bursts that made his bones ache hard. A message from the priests of Nisn—somehow they’d managed to boost their signal. Keep on moving. You’ve got a job to do.
“Fuck you,” he said out loud, “and the horses you rode in on.” Last time he’d seen a horse was back on the Brokehart salt flats. A tough old nag, jamming up his teeth with gristle. He hadn’t wanted to shoot the thing, but sometimes back then you didn’t get a choice.
His nostrils twanged at the acrid stench of smoke—real or imagined. Where could it be coming from? Not from sky-spat broken Angels. There was no re-entry heat bleeding from the scattered metal debris—his mesh would never lie about a thing like that. Smoke meant fire and fire meant cooking. Cooking meant people, and people pretty much added up to trouble.
And yet people was what he was looking for. He led his own bedraggled crew towards a blip in the distance, a radio telescope, cracked and weathered but still standing, pointing its vast dish skywards. He didn’t look back. The crunch of their uncertain footsteps was enough.
Beyond the concrete wasteland, spinifex grass grew in ragged clumps. Scrawny-looking chickens pecked around in pebbly soil spotted with random tufts of green. It was the first signs of vegetation Quarrel had seen since the lantana raze fouled up his ship. Plots of cultivated soil were threaded with pumpkin and small, unappetising cauliflower heads. Abandoned hoes suggested the farmers had been recently tending their crops but were now hiding, waiting until the strangers passed on by.
Beyond the tumbled remains of a brick building, they came upon a herd of goats defiantly guarded by a small child wielding a sharpened stick. Beyond the goats, more cultivated patches. Mud brick buildings to the right of a dense thatch of antenna and weathered solar panels. Figures dressed in galabeyas moved amongst them, tending to the metal stalks as though they were some kind of crop. Ears for listening to an empty sky.
Quarrel shoved a group of them aside with a swipe of his arm, the one without the mesh in it. The farmers moved, their brittle prattling reminiscent of goats and sheep, all bleating, all fretting and discomfort. He looked around for the one in charge—there was always one in charge, no matter how humble or how scattered a community looked. Somebody had to be the boss. None of these farmers looked like likely candidates.
“Who’s in charge here?”
Eventually someone shouted over the heads of all the others. “Our Lady is in the temple Sanctum, communing with the spirits. She won’t come out until she’s good and ready.”
Good for nothing, he thought. But ready for what?
Their “Lady” was likely barking mad. He did not have time for mad old witches, the prayers of the deluded, nor chickens, cabbages, or goats. Not when faced with contaminated sky the colour of puss and rust. Sky that curdled and fermented with each passing hour. Sky that marked the rebirthing pains of the most dangerous weapon the world had ever seen.
None of the farmers came chasing after him when he moved away. He circumnavigated the perimeter, taking stock of the settlement’s layout and fortifications, such as they were. Two watch towers on rusty, rickety legs, manned with lookouts, barely armed as far as he could tell. The dish was curious, probably non functional. Agricultural communities were made of farmers, not fighters. It wouldn’t take much effort to wipe them out.
He stood upon a slab of rock protruding at the settlement’s farthest edge, and set his mesh to do a sweep of the surrounding area, both behind him and ahead, checking first for others of his kind, like he always did. Never know your luck in a big city, like the old prayer went. Big cities that went the way of the dinosaurs, yet another saying that made no sense at all.
Nothing reading, no blips showing up but him and the kid, and her at half strength, indicating her apparatus was barely functional—and perhaps it wouldn’t even be that for long. Hardly surprising, she was broken when he found her. Probably should have left her standing on that pier in Fallow Heel, but you never know what you’re gonna need—right boss? The kid hadn’t uttered a sound since they set out walking between the planes. The others had grown afraid of her, afraid of her mesh. As well they should be. Don’t worry, kid, it’ll make you stronger to have them know the truth and hate you for it. It’ll make you tougher, meaner, more like me.
That thought delivered a tinge of bellyache, so he set the mesh to scan for other mecha. The sand ahead was crawling with them, a variety of power sources and manufacturers, strains and stripes, including some mobile objects registering as incoherent fuzzy smudges, moving at impressive speeds, yet unfamiliar.
The challenge: how to cross the polyp storm-and-tanker-infested sands? He could hear them talking to each other in their high-pitched screech that some called song. The passing of data packets was what it was, some brimming deadly with dangerous contaminants, others junk and gibberish, the speaking-in-tongues of corroded military intel. Useless coordinates, targeting vectors, the warp and weft of outdated trace element espionage.
= Forty-nine =
The island where they’d found the planes—and temporary sanctuary—had turned out to be no island at all, but a stretch of baked and cracked concrete leading into the shimmering distance. Detritus from the Black and Dead Red sand had blown all over the ground, but the way was clear enough to travel on foot. The Dogwatch survivors passed the mangled remains of things that might have once been tankers, with all trace of wheels and outer casings stripped by weather and unknown scavengers. Other things too: rough-edged craters, evidence of wars a long time past. Nothing living larger than a skink. Nothing they could see, at least.
Quarrel and Star led the way towards a far-off, peculiar, skeletal structure silhouetted against the bland blue sky. Nobody spoke. Star could no longer bring herself to turn and face the others.
When Quarrel eventually decreed it was time, he stopped, she stopped and the ragged remains of his crew stopped too, dragging their gaze back from curious surroundings: neatly tilled garden plots, chickens, goats, and donkeys. A mud brick village nestled in the ruins of something once far grander. A giant dish with jutting spindle arms that cast a shadow across them all.
Workers toiling in the gardens looked up to see who had come, stared awhile, then bent back to their labours. An indication that strangers were not unusual in these parts.
Star wasn’t taking any chances. She tore a strip from the hem of the once-fine shirt Allegra’s girl had given her, and rebound her arm to hide her mesh. Mesh: now she knew the name for it. The name and what it was and what it meant. Not one of the former Dogwatch crew would look her in the eye since Quarrel had exposed her. Not even Bimini. They’d kept their distance, hanging back even though it placed them at greater risk. It was better to be attacked by wild dogs or strangers, apparently, than walk
in the company of Templars.
If only Lucius were walking by her side.
If only Nene were here. Or Yeshie, who’d never cared if folks were tainted. Or Benhadeer who, she suspected, had known her terrible secret all along.
She walked in silence, in complete acceptance of the pain returning to her arm. A burning sensation coursed through her bones. She could live with pain, but she would never get over the fact that one of them had thrown a rock at her, never get used to the loathing on the faces of those she had been slowly starting to trust.
Up close, the sight of tilled soil and tidy, cultivated plots filled her with a kind of hope. Three figures dressed in brown-stained coveralls were waiting as the weary travellers approached. Bearing arms, so it first appeared, but up closer the “weapons” were revealed to be only farming implements.
It was a man, a woman, and a younger girl, their faces brown from sun. They exchanged greetings with Quarrel. The man pointed up at the giant dish. Quarrel grunted something in response, then marched off alone to commune privately with his mesh. The Dogwatch crew hung about, waiting for instruction or any indication of what came next. Scrutinising the labouring locals, the lurid sky, and the giant dish. Looking anywhere but in Star’s direction.
Eventually a door in one of the mud brick buildings opened. Two people emerged, a girl and a boy, bearing trays of what looked like brightly coloured fruit. Great as her hunger and thirst was, Star could not bear the shunning of her own crewmates any further. She stared as the others headed eagerly to receive refreshment, then edged towards a grid of garden plots where girls wearing headscarves and wielding trowels bent, digging. A few looked up but nobody stopped her or stared at her for long. Nobody cared where she went or what she did.
A low stone wall curved along the ridge of a gentle rise. Up high and out of everybody’s way. She stepped carefully across scrubby ground, sat down, and stared across the sands. The sky had not changed—she was getting used to it. Objects rumbled in the far off distance, churning up great plumes of dust. Tankers rolling across no mans land, a desert stretch that did not even have a name.
Quarrel was crazy if he thought they could simply walk across that sand without so much as a tanker lance between them.
She rested her chin between her palms and stared down at the dirt, at a line of industrious black ants winding their way around obstructing stones, some of them ferrying stolen seeds.
When she eventually looked up, she noticed the slope ahead of her was strewn with dune melons and their stringy runners. Her thirst was powerful—suddenly she didn’t care if anybody saw her. Dune melons grew wild along the Road back home. Her mouth was dry as paperbark, her throat too parched for words.
She picked her way down the slope and started searching for a fat, ripe melon, careful not to trip on their tangled roots. Quickly she found what she was looking for, drew her blade, cut the skin, and started eating.
Relief flooded her senses. Bland and tasteless, yet the water-fat pulp was bursting with juice. Perfect—all she wanted was its water, scooping out great chunks of it with her hands.
She was about to toss the empty skin aside when a crunching sound made her jump. She turned to see a giant shape approaching, padding on big feet. A lizard similar to the one that had attacked the Van at Broken Arch. Star froze, the empty melon skin falling from her hand. The large beast grunted and snuffled. She didn’t move. Her heart was beating fast. The bulk of the lizard’s body blocked the low stone wall. If she called out now, nobody would even hear her.
The animal shoved its nose amongst the melons. It seemed to be searching for the ripe ones just like she. Had it even noticed her?
As it got closer, she realized that its torso was fitted with a leather harness. Then she spotted a young man following up behind the creature. He stopped as soon as he saw her.
“I wasn’t stealing,” Star blurted out.
The man eyed the discarded melon skin and shrugged. “Melons don’t belong to anybody.” He bent to pluck a plump, ripe one, made a clicking sound with his tongue, and offered it to the beast. It swung its head towards him with open jaws, and the melon burst with a satisfying pop when the jaws chomped shut. The man bent to pick up another. “You want to feed her?”
Star’s heart hammered in her chest. Those jaws were chomping down like shears—the last thing she wanted was to get any closer to those teeth. But the young man was being kind to her and kindness was what she craved now more than anything.
“Careful,” he warned as he handed her the melon.
She took it, then a tentative step closer, holding out her non-mesh hand so the beast could smell her scent. “I’ll be careful.”
The lizard snatched the melon from her hand—it burst, spraying her with juice.
The young man laughed. “Iolani likes you. She doesn’t like everybody.”
Star smiled back nervously. “I like her too—Iolani is a pretty name.”
He nodded. “The name of the town where I was born.”
“Never heard of it—where does it lie?”
The young man shook his head sadly. Not something he wanted to talk about any further. His eyes flicked to her bandaged mesh. Self consciously, she drooped her shoulder so the shirt sleeve would cover a little more of it.
“You are hurt?”
She pulled her arm behind her back. “No no, this is nothing. Really, I’m fine. I didn’t know big lizards could be so tame.”
He nodded. “More gentle than dogs when you get to know them. More greedy, too.”
She wished she had something else for the beast to eat. A treat, like one of the oranges offered to the Van survivors.
The young man seemed like he was about to say something, tell her his name, perhaps, when an aggravating humming filled the air. Star dropped the melon. Iolani flattened her tiny ears and froze. Star pulled her mesh arm out of view just as something flew out from behind a rocky outcrop and up into the sky. A thing made of tarnished, battered metal.
The young man raised his hand. “Don’t worry, drone’s not gonna hurt you.”
The hum intensified as the flying relic—a melon-sized drone as he had called it—swooped in low and buzzed past her cheek. The lizard raised her head and flared her nostrils. The young man soothed the beast with words from an unfamiliar tongue. Evidently it worked. Iolani snapped up the fallen melon and resumed eating, ears flattened small against her head.
The drone flew rings around the three of them, then finally buzzed off up the rise and over the low stone wall. Star finally took a breath, unaware until then that she’d been holding it in, and realised she’d been also been awkwardly attempting to shield her bandaged arm from the thing’s view.
The mood relaxed after the interruption. Something small and fast skittered through the tangled melon roots. Iolani bounded after it. The young man gave a cheery wave as he gave chase. Star watched the giant lizard trap and kill the thing, a sand skate, by stomping its shell and sucking out the soft pink flesh underneath.
She longed to ask the young man’s name but felt too shy after everything else that had happened.
Quarrel was still standing where she’d left him, still muttering garbled sentences under his breath. “Bonds to the whims of murder, sprawled in the bowels of the earth . . . what do you see in our eyes—can you tell me that?”
Star steeled herself, then went to stand beside him and listen to his gibberish, hugging her arms across her chest, feeling errant blasts of chill wind against her face, blowing directly at them from the Red. The unnatural chill was defiant against the blazing sun. Her tongue tasted particles of grit.
She waited for him to say something that made sense, to acknowledge her presence in some way, but the Templar seemed lost in his own swirl of thoughts and words. All around them, people got on with their hoeing and
raking, harvesting and carrying, like a battered Templar warrior standing proudly on a rock was nothing special.
The drone swung out from behind a mud brick building, its attentions aimed at Quarrel this time. He stood still, and the thing flew so close that Star expected it to land upon his head, or for him to smash its pockmarked casing with his fists. But he ignored it. The drone did not attempt a landing, merely made a couple of passes then flew away.
The blemish in the sky, lurking above the horizon, was growing bigger. There were small changes in its colour, shape, and consistency, moody and writhing as a serpent’s nest. Occasionally, forks of lightning stabbed at the earth—she hadn’t seen those before. Below it, the stretch of Red seemed like a living thing, with its boiling, shifting gouts of sandy dust thrown up by the passage of tankers. Now and then, strange sounds borne in upon stray winds, sounds that sent shivers down her spine and brought back memories of things she didn’t want to think about. People she would never see again. A life abandoned and lost to her forever.
“Don’t have to hide your mesh from these people,” said Quarrel, his voice loud, clear and holding steady “These people don’t care what we were or what we are.”
He didn’t look at her when he spoke, kept his focus on details only he could see with enhanced supersoldier vision she did not share. Her mesh had given her nothing but pain. It did not help her see in the dark or hear sounds beyond the range of human hearing.
“We’ll never make it across those sands, Quarrel. How are we supposed to get there—walk?”
“Three days crossing on foot, I’m reckoning. Eat up and get prepared.”
“You’re crazy—is that what your damn arm tells you?” Her gaze settled upon it, noted how few of the winking jewels remained active. “Is Nisn still controlling you? Telling you what to do and think?”
“What quaver—what heart aghast? Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins . . .” was his reply.
