by Huff, Tanya
“Not misplaced. It’s no longer attached to her body.”
“I understand—removed!” Sanati nodded, pleased to have worked it out. “If the trauma to her body is not great, in time the leg will regrow.”
Cross-species definitions of trauma aside, Torin doubted Firiv’vrak had the time. Given that she had no more time than any of them.
“After there are being the all but crash landing of an alien spaceship,” Presit muttered stepping into the link, “why not be taking the risk of yet more alien technology.”
Craig shuffled to the back of the elevator and tucked the duffel he was carrying into the corner, giving Firivert as much room as possible. “You want to climb five flights of stairs, knock your furry self out.”
“I are not wanting to climb,” she snorted. “I are just saying that this are being a stupid way to die, all things being considered.”
They’d tell the universe that prisoners had been taken from both sides. They’d tell that during the escape, enemies had become allies. Mashona was wrong. Torin didn’t want the reporter to broadcast a last will and testament, she wanted Presit to send out a warning.
Once that was done, she could . . .
She stared down at her hands as she walked out into the corridor. Curled them into fists. The skin stretched across her knuckles split, clear fluid seeping from the wounds.
Just get the warning out.
Nothing else mattered.
The link opened onto a corridor that could have been on half a hundred stations. Firivink scurried out—and fuk political correctness, bugs scurried—then Presit moved to stand in the open door. And waited.
Craig’s palms were sweating inside his HE suit. Nothing else, just his palms. He couldn’t seem to make his legs work. Torin was dead. This was some sick joke the universe was playing on him.
“I are not waiting forever while you are getting your head out of your ass,” Presit snapped, flipping her hood off and sliding her dark glasses onto her muzzle. “Move!”
He didn’t seem to have any other options.
As he stepped forward, she glanced over her shoulder and her lip curled. “Camera! It are not being carried for decoration!”
Ah. She wasn’t waiting for him; she was waiting for her close-up.
He lifted it to his shoulder, hit record, picked up his duffel, and followed her out of the lift.
Firverk had gone to join another giant bug. There were two species he’d never seen before—three of a cat/Human combo and four bald, black-eyed, squishy-faced bipeds. So that was the enemy. They didn’t look like much. Three Krai—one of them with a swollen eye sticking pretty close to the cat/Human alien who seemed to be injured. Two di’Taykan who looked like shit, like part of their fukking hair had been melted, and three Humans. Torin and two other women.
Torin and one of the squishy-faced bipeds were the only ones standing. The others weren’t so much sitting as in various states of collapse against the wall.
Torin.
Alive.
Thinner. Obviously thinner given she was wearing her combat vest over boots and underwear. The broken blisters weeping on the reddened skin of her arms and legs explained the lack of clothing. Wouldn’t want to put clothing on over that. How the hell had she got them in the first place, though? There was also a pattern of scabs about three centimeters across down the entire length of her right leg. She didn’t seem to be in pain, but then, she never did. Her hair looked fried. Frazzled.
There was fresh blood on her lips but old shadows under her eyes. She was staring at him. She was alive. But in some weird way that had nothing to do with her injuries, she didn’t look like herself. She looked . . . beaten.
Grateful she couldn’t see his fingers trembling inside the gloves— because she’d never let him live it down—he flipped the shoulder catches open and pushed his helmet back.
It could have been anyone in the HE suit. Well, anyone willing to wear a ten-year-old design with a gray patch on the right shoulder and a stain on the left knee he refused to explain. That narrowed the list, admittedly, but still, it could have been anyone.
Then he or whoever it was, reached for the shoulder catches and pushed the helmet back.
Craig had blue eyes. Really amazingly blue—not gray or bluish but summer sky on a planet with a decent O2-level blue. When she’d seen him last, he’d just shaved off his beard—it came and went according to whim—but the reddish-brown scruff on his jaw had moved beyond stubble, so maybe he was growing it back. It was long enough she almost couldn’t make out the dimple in his chin.
He was staring.
What the hell was he doing here?
He gone to see where she’d died—she’d deal with that later—and then used Presit’s hello-I’m-a-suicidal-egomaniac equations to followthree of the enemy’s battleships into Susumi space, got ditched, found this planet, and, finally, found her by way of a salvage tag she’d accidentally activated.
What the hell was he doing here?
Didn’t matter how she asked the question, she didn’t like the answer.
At all.
She was a Marine. She didn’t fukking believe in coincidence.
Craig heard Presit’s narration voice droning on in the background without really listening. The scent of unwashed bodies filled the corridor, unwashed bodies with a faint underlay of burning apples and cinnamon.
He had more brains than to gather Torin up in his arms and murmur sweet nothings into what was left of her hair. That wouldn’t end well. And he hadn’t expected her to run toward him in slow motion or some such shit, but he had expected more than the thousand-yard stare that had greeted him.
Sort of. When he hadn’t expected her to be dead after all and him the butt of a cosmic joke.
Then Torin’s eyes narrowed.
Her chin rose.
Her shoulders straightened.
Her upper lip pulled back off her teeth.
He knew that expression; she was pissed.
He didn’t know what she was pissed about, and the odds were good he’d catch shit later for grinning like a shot fox in response, but he couldn’t help it. Pissed was good. Pissed meant Torin was back.
“Listen up, people! I want those filters in a pile.” Torin yanked the one she’d worn across the lava field out of the loop on her vest and threw it to the floor. “Right here.”
“Gunny?”
Mashona asked the question. Torin looked at Kichar as she answered it.
“Because it takes a certain minimum mass before the fukkers start thinking.”
Kichar’s cheeks paled. “Major Svensson’s arm.”
Exhaustion and hunger toned down Mashona’s eye roll, but she gave it all she had. “You want to fill the rest of us in, Kichar?”
When Torin nodded, the younger Marine took a deep breath and rubbed her palms against her thighs. “The aliens, the ones that were Big Yellow, the ones that they’ve been looking for inside the Confederation, they were in Major Svensson’s arm on Crucible. Gunnery Sergeant Kerr had his arm cut off . . .”
The Polina and Werst looked as though they approved.
“. . . Dr. Sloan said there weren’t enough pieces of the alien in the arm to be a person, so they had to wait until more oozed out of his body.”
“Which is why I want the filters in a pile,” Torin finished. “Now!”
No one had the energy to actually jump, but the pile of filters began to grow. Although they remained nothing more than a pile of filters.
“Torin?”
She looked at Craig then, really looked at him. And thought seriously about destroying an entire species because it had placed him in danger. “This . . .” A hand wave between them. “. . . this isn’t coincidence. Before you showed up here, with her, this place made no sense, but we didn’t expect it to. But you being here, with her, that sort of shit doesn’t just happen.” Using the edge of her boot, she shoved a filter closer to the rest. “This is a setup.”
“You’re saying
Big Yellow set this up? Built a prison, built a landing site, brought you here, brought me and her here?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
He snickered, raised a hand when she glared. “No, it’s just that your father suggested something remarkably similar to High Tekamal Louden and she shot him down.”
“My father and High Tekamal Louden?”
“At Ventris, when we went out for a drink. We thought you were dead,” he reminded her. “He’s . . .” Suddenly realizing they had an audience, Craig backed up a step. “We’ve got a shitload to talk over, Torin, but right now tell me why you think Big Yellow would set something like this up.”
“Why?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what I intend to find out.”
“You are finding out from filters?” Presit snorted, circling the pile as though daring it to be newsworthy. “I are thinking this terrible, terrible experience are affecting your mind.”
Torin reached out, wrapped a hand around the camera, pointed it away from her face and back down at the pile, then addressed her response to Craig. “You found the plaque in General Morris’ office because the aliens reacted to you. I could fit the filters when no one else could.”
He shook his head. “You have more experience.”
She glanced over at Freenim. “Not really, no. And they’re the only things from this place we carried from the other building. They were there to keep an eye on us while we crossed.”
“Uh, Gunny. The bowls . . .” Kyster held his up. “They’re from here, too.”
The slight pressure of the bowl tucked in under her vest had become so familiar in such a short time she’d forgotten she was carrying it. “You’re right.”
Kyster preened. Kichar and Darlys glared down at the top of his head. That both the Marines and the Primacy carried identical items only made Torin more convinced. She didn’t have to look to know this new bit of information had convinced no one else, but that didn’t matter. “Throw the bowls in. And the rope.”
The pile grew. And remained a pile of filters and bowls and a coiled length of rope.
“Torin . . .”
“Wait!” She felt more than saw Craig flinch. She’d deal with him. With that. With them. Later.
“Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr are exhibiting signs of stress induced by . . .”
“Unless you’d like to exhibit signs induced by my boot making contactwith your ass,” Torin snarled, “you’ll limit your reporting to what’s actually happening.”
Presit smiled, showing a mouthful of sharp, pointed teeth. “Nothing are actually happening.”
“Technical Sergeant Gucciard.” Ressk offered. “He was wearing his filter, it’s still out there. So’s his bowl”
“We ate the ties that held the rocks to the clubs,” Kyster added, glancing over at the Druin. “And the slings.”
“I don’t think that’s it.” Torin glared down at the pile, as though she could force it to change by the power of her mind.
Of her mind . . .
“Twenty-seven percent of the polyhydroxide alcoholyde in the major’s arm has migrated—primarily to his nervous system.”
There were two gray tear tracks running in narrow lines from the inside corners of the major’s eyes down toward the corners of his mouth, the tracks ignoring the way gravity worked on liquid.
When Torin looked up again, Kyster covered his teeth and took a step back into the circle of Durlin Vertic’s arms.
Torin didn’t want to know what part of her expression had frightened him. “Get out of my head!”
“Torin . . .”
The concern in Craig’s voice nearly undid her, but she pushed past the need to reassure him. Teeth clenched, breathing heavily through her nose, she squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them again. She knew she was right and, hopefully, that would be enough to move them. “Get. Out. Of. My. Head!”
“She are having lost it.” Presit nodded in a satisfied sort of way, as though she’d expected this to happen all along.
“No, she’s . . . she’s crying.” But the tears were gray. Thrusting the camera at the reporter and operating on muscle memory alone because every brain cell in his head was dealing with the two lines of gray slowly moving down Torin’s cheeks, Craig struggled to pull the HE suit open so he could get his arms free. More specifically, get his hands free of the gloves.
When he reached for her, she shook her head—a minimal movement that caused both lines to wobble slightly. “Not me. Them.”
She was furious. And she was terrified. He doubted anyone else could see it—he doubted anyone else had been allowed to see as far past the gunnery sergeant although Werst was staring at her in a way that suggested he might suspect.
As the lower edge of the lines reached Torin’s jaw, Craig touched the skin just below, ignoring the way his fingers were trembling. The slightly thicker drop at both ends simultaneously rose up, touched him lightly—he had the damnedest idea that they were confirming his identity—then, in a movement almost too fast to follow, wrapped around his fingers, the ends sliding out of Torin’s eyes.
When he touched his fingers together, they merged—again, too fast to follow—into one gray lump on the index finger of his right hand— slightly warm but not large enough for him to feel the weight.
His skin crawled. The urge to flick his hand while yelling “Get it off me!” was strong.
Torin stared at the gray band around Craig’s finger. That had been in her brain. In her brain and possibly influencing her actions since she’d been sucked through the floor on Big Yellow. The ship—or rather the aliens that had made up the ship—had used her memories to run her recon team through its tests, but no one had ever suspected it had left something behind.
When it became known that the aliens had infiltrated the Confederation, when Craig and Presit had finally convinced the Corps of the existence and subsequent disappearance of Big Yellow’s escape pod, when the geek squad had announced that Big Yellow and therefore its escape pod were not actually things but were made up of a polynumerous molecular species that was essentially a sentient organic plastic, then all active members of the military had been among the first tested for the molecular disturbance that indicated they’d been probed by the alien. Torin had no idea how many members of both branches had tested positive, but she did know that the brains of her recon team, Werst among them, and the brains of everyone on the Berganitan had contained a specific protein marker. Given that it was known their memories had been adjusted so that they’d forget the escape pod existed, a logical assumption was made that the memory adjustment was what the marker indicated.
Torin, who remembered, did not have the marker although she did have a different marker that the science team had assumed correlated to being deep scanned.
Seemed that marker was actually a diversion. Or the marker was the alien and the molecular disturbance only occurred if it had been and left. Who the hell knew at this point?
It also seemed that while the alien was on the move creating intra-neural connections, it was a lot easier to spot. Made sense; troops on the move were easier to see than troops dug in. A polynumerous molecular species engaging in aberrant molecular activity was easier to spot than than a polynumerous molecular species just sitting around and shooting the shit with the original brain cells.
Point was, it had been in her fukking brain!
“Torin?”
The only sound she could hear was the durlin’s labored breathing. “Put it in the pile.”
“You don’t want . . .”
. . . to do it yourself? So obvious what Craig had been going to ask. She wanted to walk it out the air lock and drop it off into a lava pit. She wanted to watch it burn. She wanted to destroy it. All of it. Not just this piece. But especially this piece. Her hands were clenched so tightly she could feel her broken fingernails trying to dig into her palms. “You do it.”
The lava fields were evident in her voice.
“Why
don’t we just destroy the fukker?”
“No.” She wanted answers more than revenge.
He nodded grimly. “After, then.” Bending, he flicked his finger at the pile.
“Like an economy-sized booger,” Mashona observed as the gray blob slapped against the side of a bowl, slid down the curve, and disappeared.
Everim began to snicker, then cut it off short as Kichar turned to glare at him.
“Is that . . .” Darlys drew in a deep, rattling breath and tried again. “Is that why you didn’t give up? Because that . . . was in your head?”
“She didn’t give up,” Werst snarled before Torin could respond, “because she’s a gunnery sergeant. They don’t know what give up means.”
“But . . . that was . . . in her head.”
“Yeah, and it’s probably been drawing hazardous duty pay.”
“There.” Freenim pointed to the center of the pile where the edges of the bowls were beginning to fold in. “They are melting.”
“Not exactly melting,” Torin growled.
The actual change happened too fast too make out each individual metamorphosis. One moment there were bowls and filters, the next moment their shapes became indistinct, and the moment after that there was a gray mass ebbing and flowing but not actually defining itself in the place they’d been.
“If it can be anything, why does it choose to be gray?” Watura’s voice sounded as though he’d been gargling knives, but he was on his feet and glaring down at the alien. The parts of his hair still able to move were flicking angrily back and forth.
“Gray is neutral,” Merinim offered.
“Nothing fukking neutral about those things,” Torin snarled.
“Is that enough to make it a person?” Kichar asked.
“It should be.”
There was more alien gathered together here, all in one place, than there’d been on Crucible.
“What are it waiting for?” Mulitiple peaks rose and swiveled toward Presit as she stepped in for a closer look.
Good question.
The floor touched her chin. It felt cool. She couldn’t smell anything but the smoke she’d inhaled before she got the filter on. Since she couldn’t move her head, she stared into Ryder’s eyes. They really were the most remarkable blue. Pity his nose was running into all that facial hair.
