Yes, he could. He experienced it himself.
“I imagine Ulrich tried to defend our people like he did last year,” James said. “He directed his Berserker at the stealth ships.”
“Yes, James. He did. But he wasn’t fast enough this time. My bicomm transmission allowed me to watch from Beta. I’ve never seen a hybrid incinerated by his own monster. The slews must have hit him exactly when he released the nuclear storm. I saw a flash. Then … nothing.”
Ulrich Rahm. He was the first of the eight rescued hybrids to break the Chancellors’ conditioning program. He took to Slope design and navigation immediately. More than anyone, Ulrich proved Slope’s viability. He gave Salvation the advantage it needed.
“A flash?” James said. “Your people were inside the mountain. Yes? How do we know they didn’t survive?”
Valentin dropped into the captain’s dais and rubbed his beard. He threw open a holowindow.
“This is a bicomm view from the agent who gave us the intel. He’s in Mandewatt. Thousands of kilometers from the Void.”
Since his rebirth as a hybrid, James saw many wonders and horrors from across the universe. The Jewels afforded him glances of miracles he would never see up close in his lifetime. What he witnessed on this transmission made no sense.
A wall of fire spread across the far horizon, rising like lava plumes dancing into the clouds.
“It extends five hundred kilometers in every direction, and it’s growing,” Valentin said. “All of this in minutes. We have unleashed an apocalypse on our allies.” Valentin’s restraint disappeared. He spit as he shouted:
“I warned you, James. I asked you to reconsider. But you’re a god, and gods don’t reconsider. Yes?
“Hear me good, brother. And make no mistake about my intent. When you come home, things are going to change. You, James, are a good killer but a terrible general. You always have been. I don’t know if we can defend Aeterna from what’s coming, but we’re going to try. And when we try, we will do it my way. Is that understood?”
Now this was the brother who James thought was out to kill him. This was the savage brute who largely stayed hidden behind a disciplined, rational demeanor.
“Yes,” James said with little energy. “I understand, Valentin. You and I will have a different conversation when I return.”
Valentin pounded a fist. “It won’t be a conversation. Not this time.”
We’ll see, brother.
James turned off the bicomm and fell to both knees.
43
Hiebimini / Aeterna
F IRE AND DEATH became sunlight and beauty. Folding space was just like they said: Stepping through a doorway. No churning stomach, no fluttering heartbeat, no transition. It was, Michael thought, like a harshly edited dream where reality exists in fragments. If he did not understand the science, he would have assigned it another word: Magic.
Michael was still running, his arms wrapped around Aldo and Maya, when he appeared above the planet. The geek inside him wanted to behold the wonder of the moment, but the soldier inside ordered him to survive. He commanded his DR29 to modify his gravmod boots against the altered g-force. The planet’s gravity rated 1.1 gees relative to Tamarind, 1.3 relative to Earth.
They arrived eighty-seven meters above the surface, enough to see far across the land. Michael tried to take it in even as he monitored their downward trek. Clusters of trees like spreading canopies, yellow-orange rock formations like monuments, open pastures, a narrow rushing river, all beneath a deep blue sky like nothing he saw on Earth (first or second).
No one spoke on the way down. Michael assumed they were every bit as gobsmacked. He finished the descent as trained, walking on invisible stairs to assure a smooth transition at the surface. He step-landed on a knoll amid knee-high grass. Twenty meters in front of them, thunderous whitewater plowed past in a river with rocky banks. On the far side, a tangled garb of spindly trees jutted out of huge crevasses between giant stone mounds littering the horizon.
They stared at each other.
“And I used to think VR was cool,” Michael said.
Maya’s stoicism, as usual, gave little away. Aldo, on the other hand, seemed downright dismayed. His frown said it all.
“This can’t be right,” he said. “Tall green grass of this variety?” He pointed away from the river. “A deciduous forest?” He looked up. “The sky was … no, they sent us somewhere, but not Hiebimini.”
Michael didn’t hesitate. He ordered the DR29 to assess their position against the Galactic Plane Navigation Model. When he received the results, he retracted his helmet and opened a cube. He twisted and pulled at the complex overlays, until he reached the narrow sector matching their coordinates. Michael threw open a window.
“Hiebimini system. Unless there’s another planet we don’t know about orbiting that star, looks like we found the right address.”
“What’s wrong, Aldo?” Maya said. “Why is this not Hiebimini?”
“I served in the Carrier fleet for eleven years. The planet was a wasteland. A forsaken clay pack. The brontinium mines destroyed the climate. There were two rivers on the entire planet. What are the chances we land next to one of them?”
She responded with a soft, counseling tone – the technique she used on Michael in his most desperate moments.
“Aldo, that was thirty-eight years ago. Nature knows how to heal itself after removing the disease. Perhaps all it needed was for those mines to be silenced.”
“No. Natural recovery would have taken centuries, if ever. Even the best terraforming program wouldn’t have succeeded by now. Before I joined the Guard, I intended to become an exobiologist. I studied Hiebimini for years. This planet had no cudfrucking future.”
She grabbed his hand. “Aldo, you need to stop fighting your instincts. You saw what happened that day. You reported it. So did millions of others. You knew Hiebimini would be changed; it’s why you wanted to return. But now you’re here, you can’t trust your own eyes. It’s time to think beyond human science. Yes?”
Michael chimed in. “I’m with Maya. After the shit we just pulled off, I think it’s time we start believing anydamnthing is possible.”
Aldo did not respond as Michael expected. First, he leaned in and hugged Maya, whispering in her ear. When he pulled back, however, he stared at Michael with the cynicism of a stranger. The world-weary eyes and the creased rows of forehead wrinkles unveiled a darker persona than Michael knew at Ericsson Station.
Did I say something wrong?
“I need a moment,” Aldo said. He walked toward the river.
Michael surveyed the miracle around them.
“The old man’s right. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this. Maya, we just crossed a big-ass chunk of the galaxy in the time it takes to say ‘peanut butter and jelly.’ I don’t know what I expected but … she’s here, Maya. Somewhere. Sam and I are on the same planet. I actually pulled this shit off. I ought to be dancing right now. Why the hell ain’t I dancing?”
“I think you know why.”
His mind returned to the nightmare unfolding before they entered the Anchor field. Light-years away, yet only minutes behind them.
Percy. Oh, God. Percy.
“Were they all killed?”
“I’m not sure, but if the enemy reached the lab, there must have been no one left to resist. I’m so sorry, Michael.”
“I can’t make sense of it. Tell me, Maya. What happened after I was shot? All those bodies. I don’t understand.”
“I dragged you inside the lab, which wasn’t easy. We heard reports from the fighting going on above us. Oliver Huron said we needed to escape to Praxis. Aldo tried to contact Capt. Forsythe, but no one responded. In the midst of the chaos, a few scientists folded in from the Euphrates site. A couple were carrying laser pistols. They were desperate. They said the Admiralty betrayed them. Both sites were being sacrificed for a shadow operation. They forced Oliver to set the Anchor for Praxis, but the quantum
signature on the destination end was being blocked.”
“What? Why?”
“We never had a chance to find out. Oliver was trying to reprogram a new destination when three soldiers arrived. They opened fire. If they were wearing their helmets, they would have been invincible. I used one of your rifles to put down the last two standing.”
He wrapped her in a giant hug. “Damn, Maya. Thank God you know how to take of yourself.”
“I’ve never seen Chancellors butcher their own like that. Back home during the civil war, they used people like us to do their dirty work. As murder goes, they’ve always been cowardly.”
They pulled apart. “Where was Aldo during all this?”
“Hid behind the nearest light table. Afterward, he grabbed a laser pistol off one of the bodies. I know what you’re thinking, Michael, but don’t. Aldo confided in me about many things after I became his aide. He hasn’t fired a weapon in forty years. He is genuinely terrified of combat. The only reason he stayed in the Guard was to have a chance to come back here someday.”
“Maybe that’s why he gave me the evil eye.”
“What?”
“Before he walked off. He looked like he was afraid of me or couldn’t trust me. Kind of creeped me out. Come to think of it, he nearabout fell over in the lab when he saw I was upright.”
“I think he’s in shock, Michael. The base fell. He didn’t believe me when I said your wound was superficial. Then he hid during the fight. Now seeing Hiebimini. It’s too much for him. Keep in mind, he’s been obsessing about this day longer than we’ve been alive.”
“I reckon he knows how lucky he is, and nobody understands luck more than me. Assholes keep trying to kill me, and somehow I walk away.” He massaged his forehead above the left eye. “My Mom always did say I was hard-headed. I must have a fucking steel plate in there to hold off a flash peg.”
Maya cut her laugh short. Michael heard splashing before he turned around to see Aldo racing across the whitewater.
“The hell is he doing?”
They called out to him, but Aldo didn’t answer. The river was not wide – perhaps thirty meters across – but the current was moving at a blistering pace. The land fell steadily toward the horizon.
“I think he’s pushing his luck. He’s …”
Not being swept away. The water never reached Aldo’s waist as the twice-resigned fleet Admiral maintained a straight course to the far side. He waved them onward without looking behind and proceeded toward the giant stones.
“I’ll be damned. Maybe he found something. Should we follow?”
“You heard him, Michael. He spent eleven years studying this planet. How much do we know about it?”
“Good point. Just in case: You know how to swim?”
“I grew up in Marseilles. The beach was my second home.”
“Nice. I spent half my best years in the Alamander River. I think we’ll be good.” He looked himself over. “They say this body armor is all-terrain. Don’t know about the gravmod boots. Fuck it.”
They held hands in pursuit of Aldo, the current strong but never threatening to topple them. Michael and Maya ran on squishy feet until they found Aldo deep among the stones. He bent on one knee, his hands racing over elongated stones with identical geometry. Michael realized these were not carved by nature.
“What is it, Aldo?”
“Proof.” The old man backed off for a moment and gathered his emotions. When he looked up, Aldo displayed tears. “You were right. This is Hiebimini. And I know exactly where we are because I’ve been here. In fact, I was here the day before the Fall.”
“How do you know?” Maya asked.
“I recognized the color and design of the stone, even from the other side of the river. It was used everywhere in Messalina.”
“The capital city?”
“Yes. See these glyphs?”
Michael observed a long, narrow sequence of unfamiliar symbols along what appeared to be a totem.
“What do they say?” He asked.
“This is the ancient language of the Arabis tribes who colonized Hiebimini. It was their way of honoring the past, before Engleshe became standard throughout the Collectorate. You could find these on every building in the city. And by the way, that city stood next to one of those two rivers I mentioned. The Bengalese. It’s all changed, of course, but in a way that makes no sense.”
“Ruins have a way of mucking up the picture,” Michael quipped.
“No. I’m talking about the river current. The Bengalese flowed along the eastern edge of the city, as it does now. It was deeper and wider, but it flowed in the opposite direction.”
Michael and Maya shared a bewildered glance.
“Are you certain?” She asked.
Aldo did not hide his offense. “I hated this city and this planet, but I knew them intimately. I am not wrong.”
“Good enough for me,” Michael said. “So, what does all this mean?”
Aldo wiped away his tears before speaking to Maya.
“It’s what you said earlier. We need to think beyond human science. I knew it was a miracle when I saw it happen. I allowed them to shut me up and keep me away all those years. Cud!”
“I’m sure we’ll find the answers,” Maya said.
“I know one answer for certain. Messalina was far and away the largest city on Hiebimini. It makes sense the pattern sleeve would be programmed to the most high-profile coordinates on the planet.”
Michael remembered what Nilsson told him.
“The Major wasn’t sure if this drop would put me close to Salvation’s settlement or strand me off course, but I’ll bet he figured if I landed in a city, I’d have more of a fighting chance. He couldn’t have known it would be in ruins. Aldo, do you think Nilsson and the Admiralty were working together?”
“To sacrifice the base?” Aldo buried half his face under his hand and sighed. “No. He collaborated with Forsythe behind my back, but Aiden Nilsson would never sacrifice his soldiers. Never, Michael. If he knew what was coming, he would have made arrangements to pull out the entire team.”
“He saved my life, for damn sure. He wanted me to find her. That’s what I’m gonna do.”
Maya nodded. “How do we begin?”
“That’s where my handy-dandy DR29 comes in. Before I left my quarters, I fired up the long-range mapping and sensor gradients. Never needed them until today. They strike out a ten-kilometer radius in the initial sweep. They search for life forms, manmade structures, comm streams, energy signatures, Carbedyne trails. Really, whatever parameters I set. In this case, I’m choosing all of the above. But we don’t have a global Guard network to tap into, or an orbiting ship to balloon the perimeter.”
“Which means?”
“Every sweep will take at least an hour. If we don’t hit the jackpot first time, this shit gets dicey. The farther the reach, the slower the response. The DR29 was designed for combat, not research.”
Aldo slapped Michael on the shoulder.
“Best have at it, 3-L-T. I anticipate another four hours of light. In the meantime, Maya, you have survival gear in your bag?”
“Yes.”
“Then we test the river water. If it’s potable, we fill up. We can’t predict where our journey will take us.”
“Just for once,” Michael said, “I wouldn’t mind predictable.”
44
T HE DR29 SWEEP EXHAUSTED Michael. Unfiltered sensor gradients delivered data in huge packages, often in the form of biometric and climatological readings exceeding Michael’s ability to grasp. He needed every breadcrumb which might point to Salvation’s footprint, and breadcrumbs were what he received. The sweep ground-pounded every square foot of surface and up to a thousand feet in the atmosphere, pushing outward to a ten-kilometer range. Great for a scientific team mapping an uncharted world; not so much for a guy whose patience was almost shot.
The AI produced beautiful graphics, creating a far more immersive experience than virtual rea
lity. Indeed, he saw the land far away at three hundred sixty degrees, like a whirling dervish running a marathon. Yet Michael mumbled to himself and frequently cursed at the AI to clarify its readings. He didn’t expect the great fortune of stumbling upon a human (immortal or otherwise) in short order, but if anyone ever walked this terrain or flew a vehicle using Carbedyne nacelles, he might establish a pattern which could be tracked.
When Michael interpreted the biometric data, he saw a familiar trend: The clusters of varied ecosystems were primitive in their construct, arising in the past few months or years. Yet the trees were often big enough to have existed for generations. The AI did not reconcile this contradiction, no matter how often Michael demanded an explanation. At one point, he sat alongside what Aldo called the Bengalese River and asked the sweep to track the river’s flow. Soon, he found the source: A tiny lake eight kilometers northeast. It twisted and turned to the ruins of Messalina, where the land dipped precipitously. Two miles on, a series of small waterfalls flowed into another lake, this one snaking through a high forest of cedars, poplars, and birches. It narrowed again at the edge of the range.
He began to understand Aldo’s initial reluctance to believe they landed on Hiebimini. This world bore no resemblance to the old one. It was pristine, like a freshly planted garden in springtime.
Eden without that damn apple tree.
A prospect which, Michael decided, was too good to be true. He agreed with the others: This went beyond human science. But if they were dealing with God in another form, would the end of this story turn out any better than the original?
He took a break, retracting his helmet while the sensors continued their work. He looked down the river’s edge and saw Maya and Aldo taste-test wild berries growing on vines amid the rocks. Where would they go next if Michael found nothing usable in the initial sweep? Dare he chart a course, knowing full well they might be headed away from their target? For all the remarkable tech embedded inside the DR29, the trio had few advantages over the first explorers charting early America’s western frontier:
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