by J. N. Chaney
“A…conversation?” he asked, trying to focus on my face.
I nodded. “About a few things, if you think you can handle it.”
He held the side of his head. “Your nurse here has me on some kind of—”
“Not a nurse,” interjected Octavia.
“—some kind of painkillers. I’m not sure…what, exactly, but…they’re definitely working.” His voice was suddenly wavering, like he could barely keep the words together.
“You stuck him full of drugs?” I asked.
Octavia shrugged. “I had to do something. He kept screaming when I tried to sew the wound.”
Alphonse started to close his eyes.
“Hey!” I snapped my fingers in front of his eyes. “Wake up, you idiot!”
He blinked, rapidly. “Sorry! I’m just so tired.”
“Before you pass out, tell me what happened with Docker,” I said.
“He tried to hurt the girl, and I…” He closed his eyes, briefly, then reopened them. “I…don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I didn’t want to do it. He was right. We could’ve left. Taken the shuttle. Ran away. Stole the girl. She’s valuable. I couldn’t do it, though. She’s just a child. I…”
His eyelids drooped, and he began to waver where he sat. I took his shoulders and helped him lie down again. “Easy,” I said.
“Sorry,” he muttered, right as his back touched the table.
“One last thing,” I said, staring down at him.
He gave me a slight nod, and I could see the tiredness in his eyes. “Okay.”
“Who are you?” I asked. “And I want the truth about it.”
He took a long and steady breath, like he was savoring the air, like it was something to cherish, and exhaled it back out, licking his lips. “I’m Alphonse,” he finally answered. “An ensign in the Union Fleet.”
I sighed. “Not this again. I know there’s more to—”
“And I’m also a member of the Constables.”
My eyes suddenly widened at the sound of the term. The Constables. The assassin spies of the Union. I’d never encountered one before, not up close, never in-person. Not many had, the way I heard it. Constables were secret arm of the government, sent to deal with every major threat in the known galaxy. They went where the Union couldn’t, drifting like ghosts in a field, never seen, but always there. Always watching.
I took a step back.
“Did he…” Freddie’s mouth hung open. “Did he just say he was a Constable?”
“I believe he did,” said Hitchens.
I stared down at Alphonse. His breathing had changed to a different cadence, indicating sleep. “Holy shit,” I finally managed to say. “Holy shit almighty.”
Twenty-One
“What kind of drugs do you have?” I asked, standing beside the table where Alphonse was lying.
“We managed to pick up a healthy supply at the station,” informed Octavia. “What kind were you after?”
“Something to keep him knocked out for a while,” I said.
“He has a head injury. I wouldn’t advise giving him any opiates right now, unless you want to risk putting him into a coma,” she said.
“I don’t want to leave you here alone with him,” I said. “What if he wakes up and tries something? He’s a goddamn Constable.”
“You or Abigail could simply stand guard beside me,” she said.
I shook my head. “We’ll have another job.”
She and Hitchens exchanged looks. “What job?” asked Hitchens.
“Did you already forget about the planet outside? We have to act now if we’re going to beat the Sarkonians and the Union. If they figure out where we are, I want to be gone before they show up.”
“Oh! Of course, Captain,” said Hitchens. “Pardon my ignorance.”
“It’s fine,” I said, tapping his shoulder. “We just need to figure out exactly what the fuck is down there and why that map of yours brought us here.”
“What about me?” asked Freddie.
“Someone has to stay with Octavia, just in case she needs help with Alphonse.”
“You think because I’m in this chair I can’t kick an ass or two?” asked Octavia.
“Are you kidding? I have no doubt you could take down a dozen guys if they came at you, but someone has to watch your back.”
She looked at Freddie. “We’ll hold down the ship until everyone returns, then, won’t we?”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Remember,” I said, “you need to keep Alphonse contained. Even though he saved Lex from Docker, he still works for the Union.”
“Speaking of Lex, what are we doing with her?” asked Freddie.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Should we keep her up here with…” He paused, glancing at the unconscious Constable on our table. “…this man?”
“She should be fine as long as the two of you stay on your guard,” I said.
“Actually, Captain, if I might,” interjected Hitchens.
“You have a better idea?” I asked.
He nodded. “Lex has the ability to activate the artifacts. It may behoove us to involve her in our expedition. If we encounter another atlas or a Cartographer, such as we did back on Epsilon, we may want her by our side.”
I considered what he was suggesting. Hitchens always had a talent for helping me to see the logical solution. “That makes sense,” I said, after a second.
“Besides,” he added with a smile. “She’s been aching to go outdoors. Imagine the joy it would bring her.”
* * *
I decided to go with Hitchens’ suggestion and let Lex join us on the surface, not because she wanted to be outside. No, I wasn’t as sentimental as the good doctor. I just knew the safest place for her to be was by my side, where I could keep an eye on her. The same was true for the rest of my crew, but circumstances prevented that from happening right now, which meant I had to pick and choose.
Abigail, Lex, Hitchens, and I boarded the shuttle and set a course for the semicircle of habitable atmosphere on the planet’s surface. It was a twenty-minute flight, although it felt much longer. The little ship rattled and shook as we entered the heavy atmosphere of the toxic section of the planet. I asked everyone to gear up in proper spacesuits, including Lex, who needed help getting into hers. I’d managed to buy a child’s sized suit while we were visiting the hospital, only a few days before this.
I could tell Lex was excited. Her eyes lit up as she watched us tear through the clouds and brown gas, slowly entering the lower section of the sky. “I wonder if there’s any animals,” she said, trying to catch a look at the valley below us, although it was too far out of view.
“No lifeforms were detected, upon early scans,” said Sigmond.
“Nu-uh,” she told him. “There still could be some.”
“Highly unlikely,” said Sigmond.
“What do you know, Siggy? You don’t have eyes.”
“While true, my sensors are capable of observing a wide spectrum that far exceeds that of—”
“Both of you stop arguing,” I said.
“Siggy started it,” said Lex, trying to give me a pouty face.
The ship suddenly vibrated and I saw a flash outside the window. “What was that?” asked Abigail.
“It would seem we have passed through an electromagnetic field and into the habitable region of the planet,” informed Sigmond.
“A field?” I asked, looking outside. The sky was still brown and cloudy, but the air closer to us was thinner, less congested. “Are you saying this pocket is protected by a force field?”
“Unknown, sir,” said Sigmond. “I was unable to detect it from orbit.”
“Unable? Why not?”
“Unknown,” he repeated.
“Does that mean the rest of his scans were useless?” asked Abigail.
“Could be,” I said. If Siggy couldn’t tell us what was on the surface of t
his place, then we could be walking into anything. “We’ll have to be ready.”
Abigail gripped her rifle with both hands. “Way ahead of you.”
We touched down a moment later, waiting a few seconds for the hull to decompress while the coolant kicked in. In the meantime, I secured my helmet and checked my suit’s seals, telling the others to do the same. When we were finally ready to go, I slammed the release button near the gate, unlocking the clamp. The door cracked, and a beam of light shined through, hitting Hitchens’ knees and growing.
As the door continued to open, I could see the excitement on Lex’s face as she bobbed on each foot, ready to run. Hitchens held her hand, making sure she didn’t just run out blindly into the field. We’d secure the area first, long before she left the ship.
The sky outside was slightly overcast with clouds, a brown tint, mixed with shades of red, but none of that seemed to stop the two suns from shining their warm light on us. It felt nice against my cheeks, even through the tinted visor, and I had to admit I liked it.
I checked the thermometer to find it was 30.05 degrees. Hot, but not so much that you couldn’t stand it.
Abigail kept the anxious Lex by her side, right on the edge of the shuttle’s gate, which had dropped into the soft dirt and thick, green grass.
The readout of the atmosphere indicated that the air was breathable, just as Siggy had suggested.
87.084% nitrogen
2.946% oxygen
0.934% argon
0.04% carbon dioxide
0.001818% neon
0.000524% helium
0.000179% methane
So Sigmond’s readings were correct, at least as far the atmosphere inside this bubble went. Why he couldn’t detect the field around it was anyone’s guess. Could that mean his scans had been mostly right? Or had we simply gotten lucky with the atmosphere?
I supposed we’d find out soon.
“Is it safe?” asked Abigail.
“Looks like it,” I said. “Let’s keep our suits on for now, just in case. This place doesn’t make sense, so we should probably stay cautious.”
“Agreed,” she said.
“I can’t take the suit off?” asked Lex.
“Not here. It’s too risky,” said Abigail.
Lex frowned, slightly, and nodded. “Okay.”
I touched the screen on my wrist, activating the planet’s map. A holo formed above my arm, lighting up in a flash to show me a three-dimensional recreation. Using my two fingers, I touched the floating orb and zoomed in on our present location, revealing the circle. Another zoom, and I had our position. “It looks like we’re a kilometer away from the center of this, which is weird since I asked Sigmond to land us as close as possible.”
“Apologies, sir. I don’t know what happened. I input the proper coordinates, based on your suggestions,” said the A.I. “This is most perplexing.”
“It’s not a long walk,” said Abigail. “We can do that in ten-minutes. Five if we hurry.”
“Let’s get going,” I said, waving them on.
The valley’s grass grew thinner as we walked. I could see the dirt between the blades, hard and cracked, like the salt flats of a dry desert. By the time we reached the middle of the circle, we were nearly out of the grass altogether, though there were still patches of it. I was surprised there were no trees here, not to mention rivers or lakes. The more we walked toward the east, the brown began to overtake the green.
Soon, it would be nothing but desert sand and dry stone.
* * *
Hitchens spotted it first.
A structure in the distance, big enough to see from far away. It looked like a round building, broken in places and ragged, although we’d need to get closer to see for sure.
The heat was beginning to grow stronger, perhaps because we’d entered a drier area. I checked my thermometer and saw that, yes, the temperature had risen nearly two degrees. No wonder I was sweating my ass off. If it got any worse, we might have to turn back.
I glanced directly above us, expecting to see one or both of the suns towering overhead. It felt like noon on this planet, but instead, I only saw the moon. Strange, that it should be so big or out in the daylight when it was so bright out.
The bright sunlight forced me to look down after a few seconds. I activated my visor’s tint to keep it dimmer.
When we were no more than a hundred meters away, we began to see strange rocks, half-sunk in the ground.
They had markings—etched lines on their sides, almost like the relics Hitchens had on the ship. The jolly doctor picked one up to examine it, turning it in his hands, studying it. He had fascination in his eyes, and I saw the sparkle of a man in his element, in the place he belonged.
“Look at the way the lines are engraved,” he said, following the lines with his finger. “It’s reminiscent of the ruins we found on Epsilon.”
“The Cartographer?” I asked, remembering the walk we took to reach the mountain, discovering the ruins beneath it, the buried technology that came to life when Lex found her way into that chair, and the animals that came afterwards. There was so much I didn’t understand about all this. The stone he had looked nothing like the relics, not to me and my untrained mind…but Hitchens—he had an eye for this. He saw the connections that I just couldn’t make.
“See here,” he said, motioning for me to get closer. He touched the indentation in it, following the line until it looped into a circle. “This is the same pattern as the Cartographer. It was all over Epsilon’s ruins.”
“Can I touch it?” asked Lex, who was standing just a meter away. She ogled the stone, a strange curiosity in her eyes.
“Of course, my dear,” said Hitchens, handing it to her, gently.
The moment she touched it, the markings began to glow a strange blue, as did her tattoos. She smiled as the light hit her cheeks with a soft glow. “Pretty,” she whispered, staring into the stone.
We all watched with some reverence, having no explanation for what we were seeing. Somehow, this little stone on this remote planet in the middle of nowhere had a connection with this quirky albino girl. What that was, none of us could’ve told you, but it was evident, here in this moment, that we had come to the right place.
Twenty-Two
The rocks were sparse at first, but grew more abundant the further we walked, and soon I saw the object that had once been their home.
A building, round and tall, although I could only barely make out the design, and I really couldn’t tell you what it was. Not even when we were there, right outside the broken wall, staring up at it in awe.
It seemed to have a tube behind it that stretched up into the sky. Round and thin, with cables coming from the ground, firmly strapped to the tube’s sides. It continued on into the sky, far out of view, heading into the gas of the other atmosphere, disappearing into the horizon, as though it went on forever.
“What in heavens could this be?” asked Abigail, once we were close enough to see it.
Despite how close we were, I still couldn’t say. The building was round and had a hole in the middle, like a donut. There were markings on it, the same as the stones in the sand, and they formed strange glyphs all across the walls.
“What do you think it means?” I asked, looking at Hitchens for answers.
He had none to give. “I wish I knew, Captain.”
At the center of this structure, we found a small building, half decayed and falling in on itself. Behind it, I saw what appeared to be a track, or the start one, and it continued on into the tube, which began here and went up into the sky. There were no vehicles here, no transport to board so that you could ride the railway. Not that we would, of course, given how little we knew of it, but I could tell this was something made to travel on. At least, that’s how it looked to me, but what did I know? Not as much as I thought, I was quickly realizing.
I walked closer to the tube’s opening, which was far larger than me, and dark inside. “This is some om
inous shit,” I muttered, turning back around to look at my crew.
“A fitting description, if ever I heard one,” said Hitchens, leaning so far into the tube that I thought he might fall into it.
“Look at this building,” said Abigail, still holding Lex’s hand. “What do you think it is?”
I approached the structure and examined the cracked walls. By the look of it, I guessed this thing was only a fraction of its original size, which must have been several stories tall at one point. The bulk of the tower was covered in its own corpse, surrounded by fallen debris and no doors to speak of.
I checked the map, bringing the holo up on my wrist. According to the readout, we were directly in the center of the circle, although I saw nothing on the map to indicate that this tower (or any of this) was actually here. Another sign that the sensors had been unable to penetrate the atmospheric shield.
A sudden chill ran over me as I quickly realized that I actually had no fucking idea what was on this planet, and I didn’t just mean the buildings.
The fallen tower had walls like all the rest. Only more markings along the stones, broken and cut off. Lex wanted to get closer, but I told Abigail to keep her back.
“Captain, look at this,” said Hitchens. His voice pulled me out of my thoughts. He was standing near the back corner of the building with his hand on a piece of stone. “I believe there’s something here.”
I went to him, looking at the wall he had his hand in, only to discover that the stone wasn’t actually part of it. This was a separate piece, or perhaps it had broken off some time ago. Either way, it was loose, and maybe it meant a way inside. “Help me with this,” I said, gripping the edge.
He did, and together we pulled, heaving until we had it sliding back. We both moved out of its way as the rock tipped and fell into the sand, slamming with a heavy thud. “Very good,” wheezed Hitchens, already out of breath. “Very good, indeed.”
The hole in the wall was large enough for a smaller person than myself. Abigail, maybe, and certainly Lex, although I wouldn’t let the girl go first. “Think you can squeeze in, Abby?”
“I believe so,” she said, looking it over.
