"Go away... go away." The muffled voice was more insistent.
"Come with me."
Harper heart thudded hard again. His own words shocked him.
He stared at the old man. His stomach clenched with pity. His breath choked on the smell of piss. He nodded once to himself, agreeing with his own un-thought-out words.
"Yeah, come with me," he said again. "Let's get you out of here." He finally turned back to the door, took a couple quick, light steps and leaned around the opening to check the silent hallway. "I've got the big doors down there unlocked. No one's around – everyone's at worship or something." He was rambling. "And-and people don't ask questions here." He stopped and took a breath. He's just a grandpa...
"No, no... we won't get out.... no..."
"Come on, come one." Harper gestured frantically towards the door, but the old man's face was still buried and turned away. "It's ok, we'll find a way out." Or try anyway. "Come on-"
"No... no. I don't have anywhere...anywhere to–"
"It's okay, me neither," said Harper. "We'll find a place."
"No. No... my wife–my wife is... she isn't here, I can't go anywhere without her."
"We'll go find her, then. When we get out, we'll find her and bring her with us."
The old man laughed, and finally rolled back over. His eyes met Harper's again and he smiled. "You'll go into the Sky to find her?"
"Oh..." Harper's throat clenched. "Grandpa... I'm sorry."
"Go."
"No, not without you," he said. "Look, your door's open. It's their own fault. And they would have locked it if-if they wanted to keep you in here. Come on."
"I don't know... I don't know... anything. The man... the man left it open."
The man? "Who?"
"The man... I don't know... I don't know anything."
Damnit. "Well, then we should go before he comes back–"
"No!"
Harper's hand's were shaking. He stared at the old man on the bed who was now curled in a ball, refusing to look at him.
The man... "Ok, ok." We probably couldn't get out anyway. "Ok, grandpa. " He took a breath, and closed his eyes. He swallowed again and opened them. "Ok. I'll... I'll go. But I'll come back. I'll-I'll find a way, and I'll come back."
The old man said nothing.
Finally, Harper turned and left the room. He left the door open as he'd found it and ran as light as he could down the hall. Back at the heavy doors, he pushed against them, then on the other side he pulled his sock from the hinge. The doors clicked shut and he breathed a sigh of relief. But the curiosity and revulsion and pity still mingled in his gut. His hands were shaking even harder now with the relief of escaping, when–
"Hey, there you are!"
His heart stopped. He balled his socks into his fist and tried to hide them in his sleeves. He turned slowly. Wills, was standing behind him. He was smiling.
Harper tried to smile too. "Hey."
"Been looking for you. Had a good wander?"
"Yeah, yeah. Hey what's behind these doors?" He pulled up one corner of his mouth in a joking half-smile that said clearly (he hoped) I know you can't tell me.
"Hah! I don't even know. Arms, probably? They don't let me down there, I'm too low-level. They're locked anyway, and I don't have access."
"Right. Just wondering. Y-you feeling better?"
"Yeah." Wills smiled, the big, carefree grin lighting up his face again. He looked well-rested. "Thanks for covering for me. Did you run into anyone?"
"No." Harper shook his head. "This place is like a cave."
"Yeah, most people are at the Tenth Day."
"Most of the Union soldiers are Infinite Space?" asked Harper.
Wills shrugged. "Some of them. Well, yes, probably most of them, but not everyone actually goes every Tenth. Actually, I don't think most go at all."
"Oh."
"Hungry for lunch?"
No. "Yeah, sure." he said. "I could eat."
Harper's stomach was still in knots. The smell of piss that lingered in his mind made the thought of food sickening. But it was probably time for lunch, and he'd skirted suspicion enough for one day. So he followed as Wills turned down the hallway to the right. They wandered back through hall after hall, a different way than Harper had come on his own. Their footsteps echoed in the quiet ship.
Then a distant buzzing wavered through the quiet hall.
Singing.
Wills stopped.
One step behind, Harper stopped too.
Whhhooooooohhhh... waaahhhoooooohhh.....hhheeeeeehhhoooooohhhh....
"The Infinite Space."
Harper closed his eyes. The black void behind his lids was the empty, empty space outside the ship, the wordless call, the voice of the wordless void, and he felt the sway of the ship's floor beneath him, hurtling, hurtling, hurtling through space...
"Really drags you away, doesn't it?"
Harper opened his eyes and looked down. A hand was on his arm.
"Doesn't it?" Wills repeated. The wide smile was gone again.
"Yeah." Harper steadied himself against the wall. "Yeah, it does."
The sound was coming from an open door a few feet ahead. Harper could just see into it where a few figures knelt, singing. He recognized the angry man's face immediately. He knelt in the semi-circle, eyes closed, face serene, mouth open around the wordless wail.
"Lets... let's get back to the mess," said Harper. "I'm hungry."
He walked past the door quickly, and Wills followed.
They walked down the halls and the wordless keening of the Infinite Space fell behind them. But the empty, empty space lurked behind Harper's eyelids and loomed at him with every blink.
Chapter Twenty One
in which there is trust...
"He's not going to be much help, is he." It was not a question.
Apep was silent.
He ignored the not-question. Or tried to ignore it. He tried to deflect the voice from his ears. It was angry, impatient. As usual. Some of the lower ranks just didn't understand war. Thought it was all fire and brimstone! They got impatient when it wasn't.
No respect for the art at all! Apep grit his teeth.
It was maddening. The irritated and irritating voice babbled on.
"I mean, he's just not. No help," it said, head shaking. "I can't see it, anyway. He's just an old codger. Nothing to say. Sir?"
Apep sighed. Sir? That was a question. And he had to answer. "His wife died," he said. "Hit by the debris or something. Burned up in front of him."
"Sentimental fool."
"No. Perfectly reasonable. He wants to follow her." Surprise, you moron.
The angry man snorted. "Of course."
No respect. No respect at all. "He will recover," said Apep. "Not completely, of course. He is wounded, irreparably probably. Not that we helped with that. But he will recover. Eventually."
The angry man grumbled impatiently. "We had to get a widower, didn't we!"
"Yes, we did. And, sergeant?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Sergeant, he is no use to us dead."
Apep kept his voice soft, calm. He stroked the white stubble prickling out from his chin. He watched the screen and the shivering chair maker curled up on the sleeping platform. That "old" man was probably younger than himself, but without the opportunity to preserve his youth, he looked worn, decrepit, more than halfway to the grave already. Yellowed nails scratched at folds of skin hanging off his jawline and neck and down from his eye sockets. Laying sideways, the "old" chair maker's face look lopsided, pulled down from the bone by gravity. And when he shivered in the cold of the cell, the wrinkles jiggled.
Apep watched intently, trying to ignore the agitated sergeant next to him.
"So... sir?" came the annoyed voice beside him. "Raise the temperature?"
"For now," said Apep. "Just a little."
"But–"
"For now."
Again, Apep kept his voice calm. There was no war
ning in the tone. There didn't need to be. His subordinate was silent for a moment, and Apep closed his eyes thinking, thinking into the silence. Then,
"What will you do then?" the annoyed and annoying and angry – always angry – voice started up again.
Apep sighed. "Are you taking care of the farmer?"
"Yes."
"Are you taking care of the farmer?" he asked again. He turned to the sergeant with a raised eyebrow and a withering tone, "Hmm?"
"Yes! Yes, sir. I gave him the nice room and–"
"Hm," Apep snorted.
"What? I made it nice and all. I gave him pillows! You ever seen pillows on Skyland? Where he's from?"
Apep glared.
"The farmer is doing fine," said the angry sergeant, sullenly.
"Then we have another source of help," Apep reminded him. "Besides the old man."
"But you're keeping him, too? The old chair maker, as well as the farmer? Both of them?"
"For now. Yes."
The angry voice had no retort to that, and the observation room again lapsed into silence. Apep shook his head. He blinked his eyes hard. His spine tingled with that uncomfortable feeling he always got in this room.
Color...
The room itself was dark except for the monitors. They were color screens, but there was almost no color to show on them. The cell on the screen was black, the light stark, and the skin of the prisoner glacial white. Only the clothing stood out against the monochrome. Blue denim pants, faded, and a blue blazer, less so. It looked like an ancient colorized picture.
"He'll shit himself if he's in there much longer," said the angry man. There was not even a shade of compassion in his voice. "Your drugs aren't going to keep him stopped up forever. We should just kil–"
"Yes, thank you, sergeant," Apep cut him off. Useless tool. Each word took more and more effort to keep calm. "We've got it all under control," he said. "The old man is still useful." Unlike some people.
"And how's that, sir?"
Apep turned his head. He looked at his red-faced and rather pudgy underling. "Excuse me?" This time, the warning broke through.
"How's he useful?"
"Don't worry about it."
"But–"
"Don't."
Apep shook his head. No respect for art. No respect. "Don't. Don't even–" he paused and took a breath, swallowing his irritation. Stupid questions. "You don't need to know that. And better you don't. You just fuck things up, don't you?" His tone had returned to it's calm pitch, but the irritation at the impatient sergeant couldn't be concealed - shouldn't be concealed.
"Sir..."
"Leave the chair maker alone for now. And the farmer. We need them both."
"Yes, sir."
Apep basked in the moment of silence, but the twit next to him wouldn't let it last.
"I don't get it, sir."
"What now?"
"Why leave them alone? Especially the farmer. We can just ask him! He's been forthcoming with us, and if he's not... well, we have ways of dealing with that. He's still got a living wife. The old guy doesn't care what happens to himself–"
"He does."
"He wants to die."
"No he doesn't."
"Look at him!"
Apep did. He looked at the balled up, shriveled old thing on the cot on the monitor and shook his head. "Nobody wants to die," he said.
"Maybe... But the young one – the farmer – would be so much easier."
"Just shut up sergeant."
The angry man went silent. Apep kept his gaze fixed on the monitors. His jaw tightened – this time with the effort of keeping a smile from breaking across his face. After a moment, he broke the silence himself.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
"I..." The angry man faltered. "Our unit was sent here, sir."
"I ask again. Why are you here?"
"Sir?"
Primitive. Primitive man. "There are soldiers still back in Union Proper and in our bases on the periphery – they are sitting in the brig for refusing to come to Skyland."
"They are?"
"Yes." Why are they always so surprised to learn that they have a choice? "One or two of them."
"I see, sir."
"Why are you not with them?" he prodded. "Why did you come here?"
"To protect the Union."
"Why?"
"Because it is worth protecting. Because the spread of the cults will threaten good society." The sergeant rattled off the already well-worn directive.
Yes, tool, if you can't think for yourself, default to the rote. "And you believe that we are doing that, correct?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you trust enough to follow orders?"
"Yes sir."
"Then trust that there is a plan. You do that well, don't you?" He looked straight into the man's eyes, the slow, belligerent eyes. "Trust. You trust that war is more than brute force. That it is a strategy... an art, if you will... you trust that, right? That things work out because the art falls into place?"
"Yes, sir."
"Because otherwise, you would not be here. Isn't that right? "
"I am here to follow orders, sir."
"A good soldier does not follow orders. A good soldier trusts the orders and follows that trust."
"I-I do. Sir. I do trust."
Apep felt his smile struggling harder against his jaw.
The big man, angry and rough and impatient, was scared. Scared of him. And Apep did not feel bad. Now he stared down his underling. These tools were taught to respect strength. They did not hold with compassion. Show a hard exterior and they would stare up at it in awe.
Simpletons. "And a good soldier trusts," he continued, "he trusts the things beyond his comprehension. Things beyond his need to know. He trusts."
"Yes, sir."
Apep turned away from the angry man. He looked back at the monitors. "We are not so simple that we have no choice but to force answers from people. We are better than that, sergeant." Much better.
"Yes, sir."
Finally, Apep let himself smile at those words, words he could tell were forced through gritted teeth. "Now, sergeant?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Do shut up."
Chapter Twenty Two
in which there is no one...
"Hey."
Harper kept his voice barely over a whisper, but he looked over his shoulder up and down the long hall of cells anyway. Nothing moved, not a shadow, not a footstep. Everything was still. Still and silent. Not even a breath of sound came from the dark hall.
It was still and silent inside the cell too.
The old man hadn't answered the whisper and hadn't moved from the bed – or the horizontal surface that passed for a bed in this cell. Harper cleared his throat and tried again, just a little louder.
"Hey, old man."
This time, the old man rolled over – at least, his head and shoulders twisted around from the fetal position he was in, as if his body couldn't muster the energy to roll the rest of the way over. Fatigue was etched in the grey eyes, flat, empty eyes over dark, bulging circles, over cheeks red from the cold. Limp white hair hung in strings, stark contrasts against the blotchy face. He groaned, his only answer to Harper's greeting. Harper looked over his shoulder once again then stepped past the open door of the cell to lean just inside the door frame.
"Are you hungry?" he asked.
Still there was no response. The old man just blinked. His tired stare rested somewhere around Harper's forehead.
Harper took another step into the cell.
The smell of piss burned in his nostrils. Again. The smell was stronger every day.
He tried to ignore the clawing pity that scratched at his gut. He tried to keep the grimace off his face. And he tried to ignore the rank puddle in one corner beside the door. He walked over to the bed. One hand held two dried fruits – apples perhaps. He could never tell exactly what the food was here. He'd snuck them out of the mess that morning.
Now, he held them out to the old man who didn't move towards them.
"You should probably eat," said Harper. "I don't know what they're feeding you, but it can't be much. You don't look too good."
The old man didn't move.
"Okay." He's still in shock. Or something. "I'll leave them on the table. I brought you something else, too. You must be freezing in here. They did the same thing to me when they found me on the first Skyland ship. I don't know what it is... They know cold bothers us or something. Bastards."
The blanket from his room was draped over his shoulder. He took it and held it out to the old man who did not move to take it. It was one of the puffy cloud-like ones. One of a few he'd discovered when he investigated the strangely unnecessary bedclothes of this ship. He'd think of some excuse for where it'd gone if Wills asked. But the young soldier would hardly notice. One blanket or three – it was all just a puffy lump on the bed.
Nobody seemed to ask questions here, anyway.
Harper had walked through hallway after hallway with a puffy white quilt over his shoulder, past guards and civilians. No one had said a word. I get cold in here, he'd been prepared to say. I'm used to the heat of the sun. For a Skylander on a base made for soldiers from more temperate climates, it would have been a plausible excuse. It was the best he could think of, at any rate.
But nobody had asked.
Nobody even looked twice at him.
He laid the quilt over the old man curled on the bed.
"There you go, grandpa. You need to keep warm. Look, you can hide it behind the bed when you hear them coming."
He pointed to a space in the wall where the bed must have folded out from. The wall around it was hollow, there wasn't much of a gap – only an inch or two – but the blanket could be fed through easily.
He adjusted the covering, pulled it up around the old man's shoulders.
The old man grasped the corners of the blanket and pulled it up even further, over his neck, up around his ears. He curled tighter into a ball. Harper watched, sickened with pity.
At least the room didn't feel as cold today. Harper wondered whether he'd just been prepared for the cold, or whether the temperature in the room had actually changed.
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