by J. S. Morin
“WHY HAVE YOU CONTACTED ME?” a voice boomed, shaking the tower. It came from all around. Kubu looked in every direction until he came to a realization: the tower was the one talking.
“Great Devraa, praise your might,” Mommy’s friend shouted.
Kubu waited, expecting everyone else to say something, too. He wasn’t disappointed. “Devraa is mighty.”
“Devraa, we have two new disciples for you,” Mommy’s friend said. “Their names are Mriy and Kubu. They are hunters of great skill. They sought out your followers.”
“THESE ARE TWO OF THE DESTROYER’S COMPANIONS?” the tower asked.
“Yes, Devraa. They once were the Destroyer’s companions. Now they have—”
“SILENCE. TAKE THEM PRISONER. DO NOT ALLOW THEM TO LEAVE UPON THREAT OF BANISHMENT. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”
Kubu decided that he didn’t like this tower. He had never met a tower, and he didn’t know if all towers were mean, but this one certainly was.
“Kubu does not want to be a prisoner!” he said, leaping to the ground.
“It will be as you said, mighty Devraa,” Mommy’s friend said.
Mommy jumped up and stood on her rock bed. “You can’t do this! These two can be a great addition to our tribe.”
“BE SILENT! I HAVE MORE PRESSING WORRIES THAN THE LIKES OF YOU. NOW END THIS COMMUNION, OR I WILL BE FORCED TO WASTE MY OWN POWERS SEVERING IT.”
Mommy’s friend said something mumbly to the tower, and the ceiling came back. But Kubu was less worried about the big sky than the number of Mommy’s friends—who were clearly not Kubu’s friends or Mriy’s—who were pointing spears at him.
“Mriy, what should we do?” Kubu asked. He used his old words, so that Mriy’s through-the-ear magic would hear it, but Mommy’s friends wouldn’t understand.
There was a snarl at the back of Mriy’s throat that Kubu was used to hearing before she pounced on a hunted animal. Kubu tensed, ready to hunt people with her if that’s what they had to do. It was wrong to hurt people, but there was a lot of other wrong here, and Kubu trusted Mriy to know the right one to pick.
“For now, we do nothing.” Mriy dropped her hands to her sides and bowed her head. Mommy’s friends swarmed around her and tied her hands behind her back. Kubu they merely prodded along with spears.
Kubu wondered, and not for the first time, why he let little people with pointy things—things that would break long before they hurt him badly—order him around.
# # #
Chuck Ramsey could still work a room. In fact, since this sorry lot of marooned sailors had hardly taken a sniff of civilized air in six years, it was like fishing at the aquarium. To make matters even easier, the plumes of smoke rising from the grill smelled of genuine, Titan-grown beef and chicken. He had to imagine that these poor saps had eaten plenty of flame-kissed meals during their exile, but none that tasted like home.
“Dig in,” Chuck called out as he slid cooked burgers onto a platter with a spatula. “Grab beers from the cooler. I’ve got Tuskaloosa, Thomas Jefferson, Wizard Hat, and if you’re feeling nostalgic for swill, Earth’s Preferred.”
“What’s the occasion?” Montoya asked. Chuck had to mentally filter out the ranks that they’d given when introducing themselves. This wasn’t an outfit that needed military ranks. Not anymore, at least.
“Occasion? We just installed a new astral relay in what has to be record time,” Chuck replied, making sure he was loud enough for everyone to hear. “And hell, it’s not like this syndicate is making any money yet. You guys are pretty easy if you’re getting this excited before you’ve even had your first payday.”
Hassim took a burger and slid it between a pair of buns. “Payday’s all well and good, but we’re still getting used to honest-to-goodness food again. Even on deployment, food wasn’t this good.”
“Simple pleasures,” Chuck assured him. “But sooner or later, everyone’s going to want a personal holo-projector or a new wardrobe. I heard you guys knit sweaters out of the fibers from those grasses.” He shuddered.
“Ramsey’s going to come through,” Hoss insisted.
Chuck slapped down a line of raw beef patties on the grill, wiping the grease on his apron. It sure was something the way Brad had these recruits twisted into seeing him as something other than a lucky screw-up with delusions of authority. “Maybe he will, at that. But that’s hardly the point. What kind of outfit sends its top man out foraging for terras? He’s out there with what… six or seven on that rowboat of his? And there’s nearly a hundred of you fine folks back here having a barbecue and playing that nifty fighting game Roddy made. A real leader would be running point, coordinating transport and communications for everyone, while the syndicate puts its overall strategy into effect.”
Hassim shook his head and swallowed a mouthful. “It’s not like that. The plan is Ramsey goes out and runs jobs while we hold down the fort here.”
“That boy of mine can barely afford to keep one ship flying, doing things his way. Really, what’s a typical job net him? Maybe ten-, twenty-thousand terras. Respectable salary if you keep ‘em coming hot and fast like these burgers here.” Chuck flipped over the line of burgers with casual flicks of the spatula. “But you cut that pie a hundred ways, all anyone gets is crumbs. A real organized outfit is going to want reliable income, steady revenue streams that keep people fed, housed, and more than passingly comfortable. I mean, if you can’t tweak out your pad a little, what’s the point of playing in the deep end of the ocean? Go find an honest job if you like scraping by. You look at an outfit like the Rucker Syndicate…”
“Wait,” Hoss said. “You’re not in the Rucker Syndicate, are you?”
Chuck gave a belly laugh. “Nah, nothing that formal. But me and Don go back a ways. Not way way back, but since he became my Brad’s father-in-law, the two of us have kept in touch. Hell, if I’d met him as a young man, I’d have retired someplace nicer than the dark side of Luna. It actually does get annoying knowing that some puke a couple hundred kilometers away has a horizon view of Earth while I get nothing but a starry sky. But that’s neither here nor there. The point is, Don runs a tight ship, and his people get paid. That’s the example you should all look to, not a scavenger outfit that’s not even all that successful.”
Montoya scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah. I mean, don’t get me wrong. Don Rucker’s a big name and all, but I don’t see how we can do what he does. I mean, Ramsey has a system, and if we grow it…”
“Kid, take it from me. I’ve been around the galaxy more than a few times, and I’ve seen what makes the planets orbit. People are people. Terras are terras. You separate the one from the other the same way in the Cat’s Eye Nebula as you do on Earth. Only difference is: out here there’s nobody watching over your shoulder to lock you up for it. You don’t know how to pull it off? That’s fine. I know the ins and outs, and I’m happy to help out my son’s new business venture by sharing my hard-won wisdom.”
Chuck watched the gathered faces as he offloaded another line of cooked burgers onto the platter. The brash ones, the quiet ones, the ones who’d paid more attention to the food than to him—he had their full attention now. Time to take firm hold of the rudder and give Brad’s ship a good steer.
# # #
Desolate. Desolate. Desolate. Metropolis.
Mort’s trek across the Little Brother moonscape met his expectations right up until that point. It was a whole lot of nothing that did its damnedest to wear through the soles of his shoes. But as Mort stood straddling the peak of the ridgeline, he had the distinct impression that someone had gone to great lengths to keep a secret.
The city resembled the jungle settlements on Ithaca in architecture and scope, but this one was far from being an abandoned ruin. All around the periphery, towers of moon-white stone rose from the desolate ground and between them a fence of translucent green surrounded the city. It formed a terrarium of sorts, clean and pure, separate from the lifeless air and barren soil outside. Within,
Mort saw trees and gardens, lush as anything its sibling moon could boast but tame rather than wild. The buildings within had lights in the windows, and there was movement in the streets. From this distance and through the haze of the barrier, it was hard to make out much detail, but one thing was clear. This city was inhabited and not by a lonely alien deity.
The best puzzling was done with the puzzle in hand. Mort could stare from the ridge all day and not come to any better or more definitive conclusions than he had already drawn. Time was dragging him slowly into the future, and somewhere in that future an anxious gangster was going to write Mort off as dead and head back to Ithaca without him. Using his staff as a walking stick, Mort made the gradual descent to the valley and its alien settlement.
As he walked, Mort pondered his options. First of all, he had to admit the remote possibility that this wasn’t an alien civilization at all. Humans had done some pretty kooky things throughout their history, and a Convocation refugee starting his own fiefdom in the middle of nowhere wasn’t the strangest Mort could imagine. If that was the case, he was in for an unpleasant conversation, likely followed by tea and an exchange of news from Earth—once he convinced Devraa to knock off the phony god routine.
But assuming these were aliens of some sort, Mort’s task became more complicated by the presence of a city. What if Devraa wasn’t a single magic-attuned being but rather a committee of sorts, keeping up the ruse by joint effort? That might be a problem. Mort had come with grand notions of a classical wizardly battle, man against would-be god. That notion would get spewed out an airlock if he was facing a dozen or more foes.
To calm his self-reinforcing worries, Mort took a long, deep breath, trying his best to ignore the leftover scent of long-dead migratory cattle wafting from his necklace. “Can’t go back without at least getting an answer. Mordecai The Brown can’t be slinking off with his tail between his legs. No siree. Closure or bust.” There was a comforting fatalism in his pronouncement. He’d set himself on a path and would walk it to its end, no matter the destination.
Of course, as Mort approached his actual, physical destination, the tower and barrier loomed ever higher. It seemed likely that sooner or later someone would raise an alarm or at least show some sign that he had been spotted. But who looks out to a desolate landscape when they have paradise caged within? Who sets watch on a world hidden from science with no other settlements around? From that perspective, Mort found it far more plausible when he arrived at the nearest of the stone towers unmolested.
It must have been over a hundred feet tall, by Mort’s reckoning. Probing with the butt of his staff, the barrier was solid and impervious but not directly dangerous. There was no evidence of a door or gate leading into the city, and Mort doubted that he’d be welcome at one even if there were. Instead, he paused at the base of the tower and examined it in detail.
The whitish stone was the same elemental earth he’d walked across from the shuttle. There was no evidence of chisel marks, seams, or mortar. Running a hand over the surface, it was rough like pumice. While architecturally similar to the towers of the Ithacan jungle cities, this version appeared to have been grown from the rock, not built by labor. Whether this was the archetype or the copy, the structures on the two moons were not built by the same artisans. Since there were no glyphs visible from Mort’s side of the barrier, there were only two ways he could think of to get across to the other side.
First, Mort could make a ruckus. Yelling, pounding, hurling fire and lightning into the sky—eventually someone would take notice of him. Whether that might gain him entry to the city or get the local equivalent of boiling oil poured onto him by siege defenders was anyone’s guess.
Mort instead chose the second option. This option involved jamming the butt of his staff against the tower at waist height and reciting a familiar litany that had toppled many of Devraa’s towers on Ithaca. Initially, nothing happened at all, but Mort wasn’t the quitting sort. Eventually, even this self-assured structure began to have doubts. Why was it so tall? Wasn’t this awfully thin for something to bear the weight of a massive barrier? How could it be expected to bear the additional burden of an angry and determined wizard? It was perfectly reasonable and understandable if it cracked and gave way under the inexorable pressure.
Crack.
The base of the tower snaked with fissures, and Mort redoubled his efforts, emboldened by immanent success. He took a moment to realize an open question lingering in the tower’s unthinking essence. “Don’t fall on me, you daft, oversized toothpick. Fall that way!” Mort stepped back and pointed to the city beyond. He shielded his face as the tower toppled and shattered, throwing up a cloud of dust that momentarily overwhelmed the ancient African savanna breeze.
Waving a hand in front of his face to ward off the fog of particulate debris, Mort climbed the rubble and made his way into the city.
# # #
Roddy trudged up the ramp of the Mobius. It felt good to have Mort’s gravity pulling him down again, and even better not having the wizard around to notice him enjoy it. Amy followed close behind. If she was inclined to rejoice at the prospect of being back, it was tempered from a recent bout of being brought back from the dead by stuunji medics. She was being a bit of a baby about it, too. You’d think that she’d have shown a little more gratitude to their rescuers, but it had been Roddy who’d had to play diplomat. Luckily for him, the stuunji had been practically groveling over having a hero like him aboard.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Carl said with a lopsided grin. “I swear this isn’t the ship I sent you two off with.” He poked his head out from under the overhang of the cargo back and gawked at the hangar bay of the Rampage Across Great Plains.
Amy stumbled into Carl and wrapped her arms loosely around his waist, resting her head on his shoulder.
“She’s had a rough day,” Roddy said. “You know, what with coming face to face with the grim repo crew. I blame you for this, by the way.”
“Me?” Carl asked, holding Amy but otherwise ignoring her. “I’m not responsible for random Eyndar attacks just because I didn’t singlehandedly win us the war.”
“You were the one so concerned about that cargo that you sent us off in a limping ship to secure it.”
“That’s a lot of money!”
“That’s exactly my point.”
A stuunji cleared his throat, if that’s what the bass whuffle that came from their escort was meant to be. “I presume that this is Carl, captain of the savior vessel Mobius.” There was a gathering of a dozen or so stuunji. The rest looked on in respectful silence.
Carl kissed Amy atop the head and passed her along to Esper for safekeeping. “Um, yeah. That’s me, old Savior Carl. I don’t go around bragging much, so I’m surprised word’s gotten out about our little jailbreak on Hadrian IV.”
Roddy’s brain hurt from processing Carl’s statement. Not a word of that was true aside from “Carl.”
“My name is Tu Nau, captain of the Rampage Across Great Plains. Word of your heroism echoes across the Endless Void. While we can offer no proper recompense for your deeds, we have secured your lost cargo.” He stepped aside, and a stuunji stepped forward bearing a crate that looked like it had been through a firefight or two but seemed intact. The stuunji carried it aboard and set it before Carl with a stiff bow that brought the crown of his head in line with Carl’s eyes. “Never will you lack for hospitality in stuunji territory. Your ship and crew will be known by all as friends.”
With a dignified smile, Carl sketched a shallow bow of his own. “Captain Tu Nau, I thank you. You’ve not only returned two of my crew who would otherwise have died, but you’ve paid me a great honor. As much as I would like to share a feast with you, I have pressing business. My people need me, and I have to see to them before my own indulgences.”
Tu Nau bowed his head. “I understand. Go with grace, Captain Carl. But before you depart, might I inquire about your other crewman?” He gestured with an open palm
toward Esper. “Is this either Esper or Tanny?”
“I’m Esper. Pleased to meet you.” She kept Amy wrapped in a hug that prevented any gesture of greeting in reply.
“The One Church’s caller… it is quite an honor. Rai Kub and Myo Tam spoke well of their treatment by the crew of the Nineveh. Both have begun study of the human prophets thanks to you and the Nineveh crew.” Tu Nau spared a glance in Carl’s direction, and with a flicker of apologetic smile, he backed away. “I will delay you no longer. Go with God, Mobius crew.”
A minute or so later, they were sealed inside and the Mobius lifted off. Roddy wasn’t quite sure who was at the controls, but with Carl’s Half-Devil buddies around, there were plenty of candidates. As they followed Esper and Amy up the stairs toward the common room, Carl pulled Roddy aside.
“She OK?”
“Not sure. We butted heads plenty on the outbound ride, and I got my share of the cold shoulder. But this seems different. The stuunji docs swear she’s fine, but you and me know Amy was never fine in the head to begin with. Beats the hell outta me what’s got into her.”
Carl ran fingers through his hair. “Hmm, that’s something to look out for. Meanwhile, I got Don Rucker camping out in the Odysseus, wanting to talk to Tanny, and Mort sitting on him to keep him from gumming up the works. Last thing I need is half my syndicate jumping ship to go work in the big leagues.”
“Hey, that load-lifter of bullshit you just unloaded back there… you get that off the omni or something?”
“Hell yeah. The five-minute guide to stuunji culture. Aside from some specifics I mixed in, that’s straight out of their etiquette guide.”
