by Erica Rue
Now the universe had put his corpse, and his machi’s, in her path. A reminder that her choices had consequences.
“Dione, what’s going on?” Professor Oberon asked.
She couldn’t explain it. She was too upset. Too ashamed. She longed to tell Brian. He would understand, but then it would be his burden to bear, too, and she wouldn’t do that to him.
She brushed away a few more tears, then got back up. There was no time to bury them, and Dione didn’t know what Aratian funerals were like, or if they even had them. Instead, she took a handful of earth and sprinkled it over each body. There was no prayer in her heart, but she felt the universe listening to the chaos of her thoughts. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
“Dione?” the professor asked. The question was an invitation to talk, one she refused.
“Let’s go.” She avoided eye contact with Zane and the professor, leading them away from the bodies. “We need to find the beacon.” She continued in silent contemplation for the next hour, walking close enough to Canto that every so often, she could reach out and give his fluffy, golden neck a reassuring pat.
***
Zane tripped over the first piece of debris, but Dione caught him. It was dark green, just like the hull of every Ven ship.
“Well, we’re in the right spot,” he said. “Now we just need to find the source of the distress beacon.”
They passed a large section of the scout ship, but Dione couldn’t see any bodies. With a long-dead human, the flesh decayed to leave behind yellow bones. She wondered what a decades-old Venatorian corpse looked like. She hoped she would find out, and then grimaced at the thought. Where had that idea come from?
“I wonder what happened to the Vens who didn’t survive the crash?” she said instead, coming out of her daze.
It was Sam who answered through her manumed. “Jameson burned all their bodies. He didn’t know as much as you do now, but he knew they didn’t always stay dead.”
“Holy crap, Sam, are you always listening?” Zane said.
“No. Actually, it’s hard for me to split my consciousness. I think a normal AI can do it easily, but it’s a human limitation I wasn’t able to fully shed. I just started listening minutes ago. You’re close.”
The professor knelt down to study the ship, perhaps the Venatorian glyphs on the wreckage. When Dione approached, she saw something else entirely. A few neatly stacked rocks. The top rock had a symbol carved onto it, a spiral inside a triangle. She had seen it before, on a tree, when Brian was leading them to the Forest Temple.
She took a step closer and saw something stranger. Recently cut flowers. Three gaping orange blossoms lay at the base of the pile.
“What is that?” Dione asked.
“I’m not sure. A shrine?” Professor Oberon replied.
“A shrine to the Vens? That makes no sense,” Zane said.
“These stones are smooth,” Dione said. “They came from the river.” She reached into her pocket and brushed her thumb over the surface of her own river rock.
“Whoever did this spent time moving them,” the professor said. He had come close as well, and frowned over the stones. “And these flowers are fresh. Probably a day or two old.”
“That’s when the Vens came,” Dione said.
“Do you think it’s for the Aratians who died fighting them? That would make sense,” Zane said.
Dione took another look at the shrine. Something seemed off. “This symbol, though. It has to be Venatorian.” She glanced at the scabbed-over cuts on the professor’s arms. “Why put a Venatorian symbol on a memorial shrine for dead Aratians?”
“It’s a bit strange, but not completely unheard of,” the professor offered.
“I’ve seen this symbol before,” Dione said. “Carved onto a tree when we first got here. I thought it was a trail marker or something. But it’s too Ven.”
Zane stepped forward. “Let me see.”
He removed the engraved rock from the top of the pile and inspected it. Dione noticed another carving on the other side. It was worn but legible, despite being written years ago.
“Zane, flip it over,” she said. “There’s something written on the other side.”
“What does it say?” Professor Oberon was just as curious as Dione.
“The Farmer lies.” Zane read. “Do the demons tell the truth?”
The hairs on Dione’s arms stood on end. “They mean the Vens. Who would do this?”
“Who do you think?” Zane shot back. “It has to be the Ficarans.”
Dione furrowed her brow. The Ficarans did hate the Farmer, so it made sense.
“I think the better question is why,” Professor Oberon said. “Why would someone create a shrine to so-called demons?”
Dione thought a moment. The Farmer lies. “Because they might be telling the truth. Whatever that means. Think about it. If the Farmer is a liar, then you can’t trust anything he says, including his warnings about the Vens.”
“But the Vens killed some of the colonists. You’d have to be crazy to worship a Ven,” Zane said.
“Maybe, but there’s usually a reason behind a person’s actions, even if it’s a bad reason. Humans are amazing at justifying their actions,” the professor said.
“Yes, we are.” Dione looked down and felt the knot of guilt in her stomach tighten. It had developed days ago, and though she could forget about for a while, it eventually constricted again.
***
As it turned out, the beacon was easy to find. Finally, something easy. It was larger than Dione expected, but she supposed it was attached to some other ship component. This was more Zane’s area of expertise. In fact, she was coming to realize he was kind of brilliant.
“Zane, how did you end up qualifying so low? For the internships, I mean,” Dione asked. After the plant experiment fiasco on the ship, she had looked up his ranking. Now that she had gotten to know him a little better, she didn’t understand.
“I never turn in homework.”
Dione gasped. “Why?” She had forgotten her homework once. It had been such a stressful experience that she had never let it happen again.
“Better things to do. Like learn.”
Dione looked to the professor, who was smiling. “So he didn’t do your homework either?”
“He did the practical assignments. Read up enough to figure out how to do them. I don’t know if he told you, but he was working on some modeling programs to predict what we would find on Barusia based on past data. His project wasn’t hands on like yours and Bel’s, but it would have been a great tool.”
“I didn’t know, Zane. That’s really cool.” Dione meant it. She had played around with some existing programs, but she didn’t have the skills to create something that complex. Yet. Maybe Zane could teach her when they got back home.
Home. It hit her hard in that moment. They were so far away, without a jump drive. She probably wasn’t going home again.
The professor saw her blink hard, and she hoped he wouldn’t say anything to make her lose her composure. One reassuring word, and she’d be bawling. Zane was busy at work on the beacon.
“Did Zane ever tell you how he got the open spot on this trip?”
“No, how?” She just wanted the professor to keep talking. She couldn’t handle a moment alone with her own thoughts right now.
“I borrowed this beautiful, antique harmonophone from Headmaster Halloway and, I don’t know what happened, but it stopped working. I was trying to fix it when Zane came in. He took one look at it, and figured out what the problem was. The regulator.”
“When a harmonophone breaks, it’s always the regulator,” Zane said over his shoulder.
“Well, if I had broken it, Halloway probably would have fired me. Or at least moved my office to the basement. When I realized Zane didn’t have an internship placement, I talked him into it.”
Dione smiled at the professor. Here was a man who really got what it meant to be a teacher. Dione was easy. S
he played by school rules. Yet somehow he had found a way to give Lithia and Zane these unique opportunities to bring their talents to the program in unconventional ways.
***
Zane had been pulling wires out of the beacon for nearly twenty minutes, so when he turned and asked if she could help him dig out another access panel, Dione leapt at the chance. Finally, something she could help with.
“Sam, are you there?” Zane said.
“Yes, but the beacon is not yet disabled,” Sam replied through his manumed.
“I know. I can’t find the active connection. I can see where you severed the first beacon linkup, but I have no idea what I’m looking for.”
“Can you just cut everything?” Dione said.
“Maybe,” Zane said. “Sam, why were you so precise when you did this the first time? You only focused on shutting down the flow of energy from the power source to the transmitters.”
“I didn’t know much about the technology or what would happen, so I interfered with as few systems as possible.”
“Hmmm.” Zane was staring at the beacon. “I have an idea. Dione, get back.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
His reply was to take the gun from the makeshift holster on his hip. When he aimed at the beacon, the professor said, “Why don’t you let me? I’m sure I’m in enough trouble already without letting you shoot things.”
“Well, I tried conventional problem-solving methods first,” Zane said.
“Sorry for the confusion,” Professor Oberon chuckled, taking the gun from Zane’s outstretched hand. “I didn’t mean we weren’t going to shoot it. I just meant you weren’t going to shoot it.”
Dione and Zane moved back to a more-than-safe distance. Canto, who had been curled up into a giant, fluffy ball, stirred next to Dione, ears perked.
The professor took a few calculated shots.
“Sam?” he called back to them.
“The beacon is still active,” she said.
He fired a few more shots.
“The signal has stopped,” Sam said.
“You got it,” Zane said, and that was that.
Dione laughed. It was so anticlimactic. No giant explosion, no dramatic music. The beacon looked the same, except for several large holes smoking in the exposed control panel.
***
When Lithia arrived in the Flyer, Dione was surprised to see Brian with her. He looked tired, but still beautiful. His hair was wet, probably from a shower, and it went all the way to his shoulders. He wasn’t smiling at her like he had when they first met. He had the shuttle, and his people, many of them at least, were safe. Why would he come with Lithia to retrieve them?
Canto. Of course.
Brian went straight to his maximute. “Brian, I tried to call when it happened, but Canto was hurt,” Dione said. As if in response to his name, or maybe the sight of his master, Canto came bounding up to Brian, licking his face.
“Hey, boy, looking good,” he said, rubbing the dog’s giant nose. “What happened, tough guy?”
Brian was clearly talking to Canto, but Dione answered, wringing her hands as she did.
“There were Vens, and he killed one, but it scratched him. Then two more Vens showed up, but some wild maximutes came and helped, too.”
“Wild maximutes?” Brian asked, giving her a puzzled look for just a moment. He turned back to Canto and smiled. “Or were they old friends?” Canto licked his arm in response.
“What do you mean?”
“When our food stores got low,” he explained, “we couldn’t keep very many maximutes anymore. We had to release most of them into the forest so they could hunt for their own food. I’d bet those maximutes that came to Canto’s rescue used to be Ficaran.”
Dione hadn’t thought about the extra resources needed to care for machi and maximutes. She wondered how Brian had secured rations for Canto. Probably by smuggling, and he needed Canto for that. She continued her story.
“After the fight they licked him, and I think it helped heal him, because he looks a lot better today. I’m sorry, Brian.” For everything. I’m sorry.
“I know,” he said. “Canto’s gonna be fine.”
He looked her in the eyes for the first time since the Vens had landed. Really looked at her. She couldn’t read his expression. It was heavy with sadness, or maybe guilt, but none of it was directed at her. She was beginning to feel uncomfortable, but she couldn’t break his gaze. He was studying her, though she didn’t understand why.
At that moment, the professor stepped in between them and extended a hand.
“I’m Professor Elian Oberon.”
“Brian Caldwin.”
“Oberon!” Lithia said, running up and embracing him. When she finally released him, Dione got a good look at her. She couldn’t place it, but something seemed wrong. She knew her best friend.
When the professor took the copilot seat, though, she had to settle for talking to her later.
Dione strapped into a seat along the side, and Zane settled in across from her. Not that she could see him, because Canto was still standing in the back of the shuttle. Brian sang him into a lying-down position and buckled in on her side of the shuttle, leaving one empty, awkward seat between them. He nodded to Zane, who nodded back. That communication was all they needed. Zane closed his eyes.
Dione looked once more at Brian, who was staring hard at nothing, and then closed her eyes as well. Despite the welcome reunion, no one seemed in much of a talking mood.
21. DIONE
The Mountain Base was a completely different place from when Dione had left it. When their Flyer returned, there were so many shuttles on the landing pad that there was barely any room left to set down.
Canto had been especially glad to leave the shuttle. Brian followed to find a place for him. Zane took the professor to see Bel, who was busy cataloging supplies for the refugees.
Alone at last. Dione turned to Lithia, but before she could ask, her friend shut her down. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, I’m here when you do.” Dione examined Lithia’s crossed arms and clenched jaw. Yep, classic signs that she just wanted to be left alone. “I’m going to go to the Calypso and change,” Dione said.
“Okay,” Lithia said.
The landing pad was a mess. Dione could see patches of dried blood. Every face she passed looked grim. She dreaded going inside the building. Things here were worse than she had anticipated. While she had been out in the woods facing down four Vens, the Ficarans had taken on the rest of them and lost.
Her cabin was undisturbed. Dione put on a clean StellAcademy uniform. As she changed, she heard something clatter to the floor. The river rock. She picked it up and put it in her pocket again.
After she changed, Bel called to tell her they were all coming to the Calypso.
The professor’s arm was in an improvised sling, his cuts were bandaged, and his head wound had been cleaned. He had a new manumed, or rather, an old one. Probably a backup. Bel looked much better, and Evy was practically her shadow. Zane and Brian followed, talking softly, and Lithia came in last.
They all sat in the common area. There were not enough seats. None could be brought over, since all the chairs were bolted down, so Dione took a seat on the floor. Evy joined her.
She stared up at the professor, but he looked lost. It was disconcerting, really. He always had the answers, or at least the right questions.
The professor seemed to feel all eyes on him, because he spoke first. “I know you all expect me to have a plan, but I don’t. Zane caught me up on the details of the charging matrix, and he’s right. There’s no way we can reintegrate it into the Calypso.”
“We’re stuck here,” Lithia said.
“We owe it to the colonists to help,” Bel added. “Not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because if they fail, we’re doomed, too.”
“I have practical self-defense training,” Professor Oberon said, “but
no military training. Certainly nothing on the scale of addressing a colonial assault, even though this is not a large colony. I think the best thing we can do right now is share everything we know, and come up with a plan.”
Dione really wished he would just tell them what to do, but he had never been that kind of teacher. In class, it was because he wanted students to figure things out for themselves. Now, it was because he himself didn’t have the answers. Dione realized she had been holding her breath, and she slowly exhaled. Trial and error were their only options, but there was no doubt what “error” meant in this case. Error meant real-life consequences. Mistakes meant death.
Bel spoke up. “Oberon, I want to—” She broke off at the sound of footsteps. Dione’s back straightened and her heart picked up its pace, but with relief, she realized that it could not possibly be a Ven. Sam would have warned them.
It was the next worse thing, though. Victoria and Colm. Brian tensed, and next to him, Lithia stood up, her eyes as dark as Dione had ever seen them.
“Get out.” Lithia’s voice was low, almost a growl.
Colm stepped forward to respond, but Victoria held up a hand. “I’m here to listen.”
“It’s a little late for that,” Brian said.
“I’m not asking for your forgiveness or approval. You all seem to have more information about this threat than I do, so I’m looking for your help,” Victoria said. She turned toward the professor, sensing the other adult in the room. “I’m Victoria, the leader of the Ficarans, the people in this Temple. And this is Colm.”
“Elian Oberon,” the professor said, extending his hand. Victoria gave it a brief shake.
She turned to address everyone. “The current number of survivors cataloged by Samantha is four hundred and fourteen. There may still be survivors in the woods, but we do not expect to find many more.” Victoria paused a moment as if the words were painful. “There were six hundred and ninety of us. I knew the name of every single person in my settlement. I feel our losses keenly, and I don’t need to hear it from you all. Don’t forget, you brought these… aliens here.”
