Origins (40 page)

“Are you still there, Conrad?” Elena said.

“I'm here,” I said. “We're going down. It's working.”

As the
Shanghai
reached terminal decline, tipped into an orbit that would lead to direct impact with Devonia, I saw something beneath us.

Devonia's cloud cover had been sheared away by the devastation on the surface, and a mass of living metal spiralled out from the Maze.

Kyung.

She'd expanded, taken on mass. Become a silver monstrosity, a conglomeration of nightmare fractals, with a radius of kilometres.

“We have to do this,” I said to Elena.
More will come
, I told myself.
Unless I finish it, now, more will come.
“I promise you, I will come back. Tell Loeb to be ready to activate the FTL!”

“We're ready,” Elena said. “On your word.”

“As soon as we're back in the tanks…” I said.

The ride was becoming bumpier. A bank of computers in the nose of the bridge ignited. The air was choked with smoke, and even through my suit I could feel the temperature soaring. More bodies sailed past me, and someone hit the inside of the bridge's obs window. Fractures appeared across the armour-glass.

The hull began to scream with torsion as the
Shanghai
turned towards the objective…

Then sudden, devastating silence.

“We've lost atmosphere,” Jenkins declared over the comm. “It's working.”

Only the screech of the machine-mind answered me. It dominated every frequency; flooding near-space. Out there, beyond the blast-shutters, the
Revenant
realised what we were doing. It
knew
.

“You're a day late and a dollar short, motherfucker!” Kaminski yelled at the planet below us: at the
Revenant
, too late – moving fast, but unable to intercept us.

They won't follow you any more, Elena.

Atmosphere came up to meet us fast. Outer heat-shielding was stripped away. The ship trailed black across the sky as she fell. This was the plunge of a falling comet: of an inert block thrown to earth like the fall of a hammer.

The
Revenant
fired an energy weapon, and something hit our flank. Part of the
Shanghai
sheared off, an enormous shockwave rippling through the deck.

“I couldn't think of a better bunch of assholes to die with…” Jenkins said.

“We are the Lazarus Legion!” Mason shouted.

The
Revenant
was beneath us.

The Kyung-Reaper atop the Artefact.

“I am Lazarus, and I decide when I—”

Two years later

It was raining, and hard, when I arrived at the cemetery. Petrichor – the smell of rain hitting earth – lingered in the air. I've never liked the rain, but since I'd got back, things had been different. It's astounding, the little things that you miss about a lifetime spent off-world. And yes, ten years out of civilisation is a lifetime, so far as I'm concerned.

Being back on Earth was by turns exhausting and exhilarating, exciting and depressing. The rain hung in the air and served to reinforce the dull nature of the surroundings.
They couldn't have chosen a more depressing location
, I thought.
Perhaps it was deliberate.
The only colour out here was the grid of white graves that marked the hillside. That even grass refused to grow was a reminder of the nuclear fallout that had once consumed the region. Things were different now, time being the healer and all that, but not much. The Earth I had come back to had changed immeasurably in some senses, but remained frightening similar in others.

Vincent Kaminski met me at the gate. He shirked uncomfortably, blushed a little, as he saw me. I hadn't seen him since the debrief, since the Alliance military had given up asking their incessant questions.

“You look handsome,” I said. “The uniform suits.”

Tattoos poked from the neckline of Vincent Kaminski's dress collar, and his muscled frame strained at the shoulders of his jacket. In truth, he looked immensely out of place in the formal blues, and when I mentioned it he looked away nervously. His lapels were lined with various medals, the names of which I didn't know.

“Morning, ma'am,” he said. “I… It's required.”

“Quit the formality, Vincent. It's still me.”

“It's just…” he said. His eyes were red-lined; his expression pained. He'd been crying, I realised.

“It's hard,” I said, trying not to sound trite. “I know that.”

Since we'd got back – after the
Colossus
had limped into port in Tau Ceti, we'd then been shipped onwards to Earth in some military transport I'd forgotten the name of – Vincent had changed. There was a distance between us: as though he didn't want to look me in the eye. I'd often wondered, in the months since our return, whether the Lazarus Legion – the military in general – blamed me for what Conrad had done.

“How was the flight over?” he asked. Small-talk: refuge of the awkward male through the ages.

“Fine,” I said. “Crowded.”

I'd taken a sub-orbital from Paris, touched down at Wayne County terminal; an aeroport not far from Detroit Metro. The flight had been packed with military staff, Science Division personnel shipping in from Europe. Thankfully, none had recognised me. I'd slept for most of the two-hour flight.

“And how's the farm?” he asked.

“
Bien
,” I said. “
Très bien
.” Speaking Standard was a drag; back home we talked in French mostly. That was when I spoke with others, at least. “Thank you for asking, but we can cut through the niceties.”

Vincent looked relieved, if that were possible in his ceremonial uniform.

“Help me with this,” I said.

I held out a hand, and he clutched it: helped me through the wet grass.

The rest of the Lazarus Legion were already at the graveside. Keira Jenkins, Elliot Martinez, Dejah Mason. And not just them: a crowd of military personnel. Admiral Loeb, Lieutenant James. I barely knew the last two, but I'd heard that the charges had been dropped against the admiral. I was pleased about that; he was a good man. James was, quite explicably, still skinned, but the others were in their real bodies. There were so many faces that I didn't recognise, had no idea how they came to be here. Some were organised into ranks – an honour guard, was that the phrase? – but others were clustered around the open grave. It was a good turnout: a couple of hundred personnel.

“We've managed to keep the news reporters away so far,” Jenkins said. She looked awfully smart in her uniform too, her hair pulled back from her face. The time since our retreat from Devonia had been kinder to her, perhaps: she looked less drawn, more together. “Figured that you wouldn't want them here.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” I said. “It means a lot to me.”

“And it would've meant a lot to him,” said Mason. In her formal wear, she looked even younger than in her fatigues. She, too, had been crying.

They're good
, I thought.
Very good.

“If we're all here,” a po-faced priest – dressed in ridiculous robes and clutching a holy book to his chest, “let us begin the service.”

Huddling under umbrellas, in the grey light of a Detroit winter's day, the service commenced.

I spied a single news-drone at the edge of my vision, flittering at the cemetery gates – watching the proceedings with its electronic eyes.

“Damn it!” Elliot Martinez muttered under his breath, starting off for the gate. The Venusian was a hot-head, and I had wondered whether he might even conduct the ceremony, but I suppose in the circumstances that would've been wrong.

I clutched his arm.

“Let them watch.”

The ceremony was brief but to the point. I believe that the phrase is full military honours, or something like that.

The Lazarus Legion acted as pall bearers. One on each corner, they bore the coffin to the graveside. Sat it beside the open rectangle of earth – doorway into the great beyond. They looked as though they struggled with the weight, but that was all part of the occasion. Some of the soldiers sang a song as the coffin was lowered into the grave. It was in Spanish, and I followed only some of the lyrics. Martinez had already told me that it was called ‘
La muerte no es el fin
'. A fitting tribute: ‘Death is not the end'.

Three Hornets scrambled overhead, jet engines screeching, leaving a trail of white through the grey sky. There was a three-volley salute after that. Seven members of the Simulant Operations team fired rifles into the air, as people who had barely known Conrad Harris cried for his passing.

“He would've wanted plasma weapons,” Jenkins grumbled.

“Let us bow out heads,” the chaplain said, “and forget the horrors of war that Colonel Harris had to endure—”

The crowd around me did as ordered, but I didn't. I raised my head, felt the rain on my face. Damn, it felt good. It felt good to have the pull of real gravity beneath me. To be here, on Old Earth. It felt real.

“Let's not,” I said, as loudly as I could. The funeral procession froze, the priest looking at me with embarrassment. “Let's remember who he was. Let's remember what he did for all of us; that he finished this mess once and for all. That he made the ultimate sacrifice.”

That he destroyed the
Revenant
.

“This is highly unorthodox, ma'am…” the chaplain said.

“Let's remember him for who he was,” I said, searching the faces of the gathered mourners. “The man that I loved. The man known as Lazarus.”

A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of Jenkins' lips.

“Couldn't agree more,” she said.

The military contingent were slow to dispel after the funeral, and lingered at the graveside. Several officers – men and women whom I was sure Conrad hadn't known, and probably wouldn't have liked even if he had – threw flowers into the grave. I was choked a little at that.
He'd hate flowers
, I wanted to say. But I bit my tongue; played on as the grieving partner.
It's better that way
, I told myself.

By the time the proceedings were finished, several news-drones had gathered at the gates. Their privacy-intrusion settings were restricted, and despite the annoyance they caused they did not reach into the actual cemetery. Flashes went off as they captured vid-feeds and still images of the party, of the Legion leaving the grounds. Two reporters lingered there as well – a glossy-faced woman and a slick-looking man – and their attitudes to privacy were not quite so fixed. They wandered between the rows of stark white graves, waving microphone wands under my nose.
Are machines sometimes better than flesh?
I'd been asking myself that a lot since I'd come back from the front, since I'd left Devonia.

“Dr Marceau!” the woman implored. “I realise that this is difficult, but can you spare a moment of your time?”

“Chester Sinclair,” the man introduced himself. “With Core News Network. I'd love to hear your views on the latest developments with the Krell. Was Colonel Harris' sacrifice worth it?”

I waved a hand at the reporter, dismissing him. “He died doing what he loved doing.”

“But he hated the Krell, didn't he?” the man probed. “How would he feel, do you think, hearing that the – ah, fish heads – are to be our allies?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “You'd have to ask him.”

“Was his loss worth the founding of the Second Treaty?” the woman persisted. “I mean, he ended the war; but what about for you? We're looking for a personal angle on this story, and as his closest kin what better person to give us an insight—?”

“He died in the tanks,” I said. “Exactly as he would've wanted.”

“No comment!” came Martinez's growl behind me. He was stockier, broader of chest than the others in his real body. He looked quite imposing. “Now fuck off!”

The reporters looked suitably startled. They pushed back from the gate, taking their news-drones with them.

“They would've left,” I said to Martinez. “You didn't need to do that.”

He was the moody one, the soldier that I found most difficult to read.

“Parasites,” he said. “After all you've been through, can't they just leave you alone?”

“I'm fine, Corporal,” I said. “Really, I am.”

“I'll walk you to the car,” Jenkins said.

The Lazarus Legion dispersed, kept watchful eyes on the reporters across the street. I was surprised, actually, that there were only two.

“My car is at the end of the road,” I said. It was a rental job; an air-car with false plates.

“Okay,” the lieutenant said.

“I've heard that you're going back,” I said, abruptly. “To the front, I mean.”

Jenkins paused before answering. “There isn't a front any more. Not after what Harris did.”

“That's a lie, and we both know it. I've heard that you're getting a squad of your own.”

“Will he be disappointed if I go?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “It's what he'd always expected of you, isn't it?”

Jenkins shrugged. “I'm Lazarus Legion.”

“Without a Lazarus, is there really a Legion?”

Jenkins didn't answer.

We had reached the end of the street, and the reporters were long gone now. I knew that it would roll over, that they would lose interest. It was already happening: with fantastic stories of the new enemy, of the advances that were being made as a result of our new friendship with the Krell Empire. I doubted that much of it was true – I'd already seen and heard the Alliance propaganda machine at its best – but I was glad of the shift in attention.

“This is my car,” I said. It was a basic Sedan with blacked-out windows. That had been my only requirement. “Thanks for walking me.”

Jenkins nodded, turned back towards the cemetery. But she paused a few steps away from me; looked back.

“Does it have to be this way?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “It does. It really does.”

She bit her lower lip. Thought on it for a second, then nodded at me.

“Maybe I can drop by the farm one day,” she said.

“He'd like that,” I said. “It's a short flight from any of the off-world terminals.”

“Be seeing you, Dr Marceau.”

She turned and left.

The flight back was less crowded. I slept again.

Paris wasn't much better than Detroit, but at least it was French. Almost as soon as I left the orbital, I shed Standard and dropped into my native tongue. The terminal was quieter than it was on the way out, and I was confident that I hadn't been followed. I took an autocab downtown, under the shadow of the ruined Eiffel Tower: a ragged, skeletal reminder of the war.

I found the cafe in one of the less-frequented suburbs, a district occupied by many ex-Army vets. None of them knew me: I was just another face among the crowd. I'd been dead for years. But I smiled as I took up a seat, because it wasn't me that needed to avoid being recognised. I ordered a cappuccino.

“How'd it go?” he asked.

Voice like gravel, dripping in animosity. Such an angry man.

“You'd have liked it,” I said. “There was a good turnout.”

He grumbled into the newspaper. “Can't they print this in Standard?”

I laughed. “You could've gone, you know. Maybe worn a disguise.”

“They'd have seen me,” he said. “That's the whole point of this; of going underground.” Conrad folded the newspaper and slid it across the table. “I don't want to put you in any danger. Lazarus is dead, and now there's a body in a casket in prove it.”

The body was next-gen, just a simulant. But if any one cared to examine it, the corpse would pass rudimentary analysis: Sci-Div were getting better all the time. The soil out Detroit way was so radioactive that the simulant would degrade quickly. Soon, Lazarus would be gone for ever, leaving just his legacy.

“I did it for you,” he said.

“And I've already told you: I can look after myself.”

I half-turned in my seat. Conrad always seemed uncomfortable in civilian attire. He might look healthier, but he was constantly on edge. There was a lot of pent-up energy in the man. Beside him, attached to the cafe table, sat a jamming device: the reader indicating that it was functioning, that it was cloaking both our conversation and disrupting communications signals in the vicinity.