Shadow on the Sun (13 page)

CHAPTER 24

Tengu Monastery

Noctis Labyrinthus

ANNOS MARTIS
239. 2. 14. 12:51

 

 

Yadokai's words, “They were looking for you,” are still ringing in my head as he leads me out of the monastery through the pagoda forest to a path that a mountain goat couldn't walk. It winds around the mountainside until it reaches the caves in the side of the canyon.

“This way,” Yadokai says. He ducks into a tunnel in the canyon wall. “Watch your head.”

I follow him into the dark tunnel. For a hundred meters, we crawl on hands and knees until a light appears ahead.

“Almost there,” Yadokai says.

“Mimi,” I ask. “Any biosignatures ahead?”

“Two,” she says.

“Familiar?”

“Very,” she says.

“Who?”

“Guess.”

The tunnel ends at the mouth of the cave, which is about thirty meters long and two meters wide. There's a makeshift curtain cordoning off the north section. A few candles provide the dim light, and the air is full of the smell of udon noodles and something else that makes my stomach turn.

“It is me,” Yadokai says as he stands and knocks the dust from his knees.

“I know.” Mistress Shoei says, as she steps into the candlelight to greet us. “You have come,” she says, bowing. “Ghannouj said you would.”

“So he has come,” Yadokai says. “He is too late.”

“Mistress,” I say while trying to avoid the stink-eye the master is giving me. “What happened here?”

“You should know,” Yadokai says. “The fault is yours.”

“I—”

“Ignore that bag of bones.” Shoei leads me to the far end of the cave. She stops next to the curtain. “Ask Ghannouj your questions.”

She draws the curtain aside and pushes me ahead. Ghannouj lies on a rice mat. His ribs are wrapped tight in a compression bandage. There is a wound on his forehead, and his arm is in a sling. His wounds have the foul smell of infection. I look closely at the sling and can see something wiggling underneath it. Maggots. They're used to clean out gangrene.

I sit cross-legged next to him. “Mimi? How's he doing?”

She doesn't answer.

“Mimi?”

“Vitals are weak, cowboy.”

“Which means?”

She doesn't answer.

“Mimi!”

“You know damn well what it means, cowboy,” she says.

“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I do.”

As Ghannouj sleeps, I can see the lines in his face and the spots that dot his scalp. He is older than I thought, and his nose is much larger than I remember.

“My grandmother used to say it was a Roman nose,” Ghannouj says. “I am confident that she never met a Roman.”

I start. “You're awake?”

“Sleeping is a chore.” His voice is deep but strained. “I am glad to see you, Regulator.”

“How can you see me? Your eyes are closed.”

“You of all people should know that I do not need eyes to see you.”

Ghannouj once taught me to use my other senses to see in order to overcome fear. “That seems like it happened a really long time ago.”

“Many things have happened since you left.”

“Since you sent me away.”

“It is good that you make the distinction,” he says, straining from the effort. “Vienne struggled with it. You have come for her?”

“I came to see her, yes.”

He pushes back the bandages from his face.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I am looking to see if you are lying to yourself or just to me. I am glad to see that it is only me.” He laughs, then grabs his ribs. “ There is a sense of urgency about you.”

“I have a job to do.” Though I hadn't intended to, I tell him everything about the HVT, my father, and MUSE.

“Ah,” he says. “That is what the Sturmnacht were seeking.”

“Master Yadokai said that the Sturmnacht came looking for me.” My voice cracks. “I'm responsible for what happened to the monastery. And to you.”

Ghannouj shakes his head. “This HVT, do you have it with you?”

I pull the case out of my bag and hold it up. The green light blinks.

“What do you intend to do with it?” he asks.

I run my fingers over the locks. “I don't know yet. The first step is to find out what's inside. If I can.”

“Do you think that you will succeed?” he whispers. “Or fail?”

“Ghannouj,” I say, shaking my head, “I've failed so spectacularly in so many ways, even a kick-butt supersoldier like me has to consider it a possibility.”

“Time's up!” Shoei pulls open the curtain and snags me by the ear. “Ghannouj needs his rest.”

“Regulator, do your duty.” Ghannouj pats my hand. “But when you find Vienne, tell her what you have told me. So that she will understand.”

“Understand what?” I ask.

“That you love her.”

I stand. “I thought she'd know that by now.”

Ghannouj looks at me with fading eyes. “Do any of us really know we are loved?”

CHAPTER 25

Southbound on Bishop's Highway

Noctis Labyrinthus

ANNOS MARTIS
239. 2. 15. 06:28

 

 

Standing atop a Noriker with a large red flag, Tahnoon the Elder gives the signal for the caravan to roll out. At the rear, half a click away, Vienne returns the signal. Then, with a revving of engines and the squealing of brakes that are more rotor than pad, the caravan begins to move slowly, vehicle by vehicle, on the highway that will take it to New Eden.

Vienne rides up to the front. The defensive plan is simple: Zhuk and Pushkin in the back of the caravan manning a fortified Noriker with a minigun, Mother Koumanov in the Noriker up front to guard the petrol tankers, leaving her, Jenkins, Nikolai, and Yakov to patrol the line as it moves. It's not the plan Vienne would've put into play, but maybe it will work.

Maybe. Miracles do happen.

“Some mess of an operation, huh?” Jenkins calls to Vienne as he pulls up beside her in an oversized motorbike, a familiar-looking design that reminds her of a turbo sled.

“Did Fuse make that for you?” Vienne shouts over the grind of his engine.

“Don't mention that name to me.” Jenkins spits into the wind. “That rotter's went and got himself domesticated!”

Domesticated? “You mean, married?” Who in their right mind would marry Fuse? She couldn't imagine spending a week with the annoying, rat-faced pest, much less a lifetime.

“Right that,” he hollers. “Married off to that bossy girl Áine. It ruint everything when she started getting fat!”

“What do you mean, fat?” The miners of Hell's Cross barely had enough food to keep from starving. There's no way any of them could get fat.

“I got nothing else to say on the subject! Ain't like me to go chewing another man's cabbage!”

“What?” she yells. “That makes no sense!”

But without another word, Jenkins peels off to patrol the line.

“No wonder you and Fuse split up,” she says, even though he's out of earshot.

Vienne pulls over as the caravan moves on. She watches every vehicle that passes, trying to commit each one to memory, matching the faces of the riders with the make and model of their rides. Problem is most of the vehicles are mud colored, and the people, dressed in whatever they could hang on to, all have the same godforsaken look.

“What does girl see?” Nikolai pulls up beside her. His Gorgon idles, the precision engine a purr lost in the hurly-burly of the caravan.

“People,” she says. “Lost souls.”

“Girl sees with heart, not brains.” Nikolai shakes his head. “Think of refugees only as cattle. Cattle we drive to New Eden. If you think of refugees' pain, such pain becomes yours, and focus is lost. That is when Scorpions attack,
jaa
?”

“You've fought Scorpions before?” she asks.

“Many times,” he says. “Even before Flood. Then they worked for Lyme and only killed when he let them. Now, Scorpions are animals, starving animals preying on rest of us. You are fighting them before?”

“Some.” She thinks of the many times she and Durango faced them while hiding out in the slums of Favela. “But not as much since the Flood.”

“
Jaa
.” Nikolai circles her. “Flood changed everything. Even for Lyme. Before, he made rules. Now, rules are kaput. Only strong survive, eh? The big eat small.”

“That's where you're wrong.” She revs her engine. “It's not that the big eat the small; it's that the fast eat the slow.” She points out the stop-and-go line of refugees. “And these people are the slow.”

“No problem. We make faster.”

Over the next several hours, the caravan snakes its way through the southern canyons of Valles Marineris. Then it climbs onto the Tharsis Plain, which covers a third of the northern hemisphere. The horizon is dominated by the sun to the east and to the west by Olympus Mons, which, even over a thousand kilometers away, reaches into the sky.

Covered in road dust, stomach complaining about her skipped breakfast and lunch, and bored out of her mind, Vienne patrols the line.

“Is Pushkin's turn to hold gun!” Pushkin yells at Zhuk as Vienne and Nikolai lead a small truck carrying seven children and two women to the space in front of them.

“Nyet!”
Zhuk says.

“When is Pushkin's turn?”

“Nyet!”
Zhuk yells.

“Stop saying
‘nyet'
!”

“Nyet!”
Zhuk yells.

“Why does Zhuk do that?” Vienne asks Nikolai as he scoops up the last child and deposits him into the truck bed. “And I thought you said to treat the people like cattle.”

“Was baby calf!” They jog back to their bikes. “Zhuk cannot hear Pushkin. So says
‘nyet'
to everything.”

“Zhuk is deaf?”

Nikolai waggles his hand as if to say “so-so.” “In quiet room is okay. In field, not so much.”

“That's good to know,” she says as they resume patrolling the line. “In case I ever have to communicate with him or, gods forbid, tell him to duck.”

“No worries,” Nikolai says. “Zhuk has good nose for trouble.”

“But it's his ears I'm worried about.”

For a while, until dusk, the caravan marches on. Each successive hour brings a subtle but steady shift in terrain, from the flat plains to the hills formed by hundreds of decaying craters, and then finally to a straight pass through the southern highlands that continues to the outskirts of New Eden.

An hour into the pass, the skin on the back of Vienne's neck begins to crawl. She circles slowly, scanning the perimeter. The hills are divided by low stone fences, scrub trees, and underbrush, all perfect places for a scout to take cover. But she spots no one, even though instinct tells her that someone is there, watching.

“We are being followed,” Vienne tells Nikolai when she catches up with him.

“How do you know this?”

“I can feel it,” she says.

“Nikolai has soldier's gut, too, remember?” He pats his belly. “And I feel nothing. But if makes you happy, I tell brothers to watch for followers.”

“Don't patronize me, Nikolai,” she growls. “You brought me along to help. This is how I help.”

“Nikolai brought girl along for shooting,” he says. “Not for jumping at shadows.”

“Be careful, Koumanov,” Vienne says. “You never know what might be hiding in the shadows.”

CHAPTER 26

The Barrens

Noctis Labyrinthus

ANNOS MARTIS
239. 2. 15. 07:39

 

 

There were a lot of female cadets at Battle School, but none of them made the males go bonkers like Rosa Lynn Malinche. She was three years ahead of me, the top of her class, and leader of First Company. Her expertise was technology, the kind of stuff that made your eyes cross just looking at the schematics. She spoke computer code like I spoke languages—easily and without effort—and while still a cadet, she invented what became the multinets. She was surefire to make officer right out of school.

Then a couple of months before graduation, she and I were training for routine tube jumps from space elevators. Other than the obvious problem of being a kilometer above the surface in a tube meant for cargo, a jump would be easy for Rosa Lynn—she'd just fall and let her symbiarmor take the force of impact. Problem was when her time came, something happened, and her armor malfunctioned. Not an egregious malfunction that killed her, but a microscopic one that didn't dissipate the energy correctly. I jumped after her and managed to break her fall, but the impact nearly killed her, and the bones in her legs were shattered below the knee.

She graduated in absentia and refused to accept a commission when she got out of hospital. She found work as a programmer, then as a design engineer. After serving as director of the project that brought all of the various telecom protocols into one central system connected via the multinet, she dropped out of sight.

Out of sight being an old bunker in the middle of the Barrens where she could work in peace without the meddling of corporate bureaucrats. “I want to do work with real significance,” she told me the day she resigned from my father's company, which was a couple of months before my unit was attacked by Big Daddies. “If you ever find yourself in the wilderness, look me up.” So I'm looking her up, because despite wanting to find Vienne more than I want to save Mars, Rosa Lynn is the best chance I have of opening the case.

I leave the Founder's Highway and take an eastbound side road that leads to a dirt path that narrows to a dry gully. When the gully ends at an expanse of rocky terrain marked with only scrub and prairie grass, I know I'm close.

Ahead are the Cliffs of Moher, a forbidding sheer wall of granite with a narrow pass that I follow for a couple of hours. On the other side of the cliffs is a stretch of terrain that looks like the lava flow of a volcano. It's called the Barrens, a landscape like an ocean of smooth rock, and it runs on for many kilometers, with only pockets of wildflowers, grass, and mosses growing between the cracks.

“ ‘All the days he would sit upon the rocks,' ” Mimi says, “ ‘breaking his heart in tears and lamentation and sorrow as weeping tears he looked out over the barren water.' ”

“More
Odyssey
?” I ask.

“Affirmative.”

“Could you not think of another poem? There must be at least two or three more in your data banks.”

“I
chose
this one,” Mimi says.

“Can't you
choose
another one?”

“Negative. It is the most apropos.”

When I reach the Barrens, I come to the end of the road. I hide the bike and head out on foot.

“How do you know where to look?” Mimi says.

“I have a feeling, an urge,” I say. “Call it intuition.”

“I doubt that,” she says. “Intuition is simply the subliminal accumulation and processing of data through a filter of experience.”

“Right—a hunch. That and she told me I could find her in the wilderness.”

“How do you know she meant the Barrens when she said wilderness?”

“Also a hunch.”

“You are willing to risk everything for a hunch?” Mimi says. “May I remind you that Lyme may well be right on your tail?”

“Go ahead.”

“Lyme may well be right on your tail.”

“Lyme has been on my tail since I was born,” I say. “You know what I should have done, Mimi? Back when Vienne and I were at the monastery the first time and I was hell-bent on finding out about MUSE, I should've just said, cark it all. I should have told her how much I loved her and asked her whether she loved me or not.”

“You are more dense than pig iron, cowboy.” Mimi says. “Why do you think she stayed? Why do you think that she lopped off her finger?”

“Because of the Tenets,” I say. “Because of her sense of duty.”

“Yet she stayed with someone who neither ascribed to the Tenets nor had the same idea of duty,” Mimi says. “You are a smart boy, but sometimes, I just want to shake you.”

“You can't shake me. You've got no hands.”

“I can shake you from the inside out, so do not tempt me.”

“Instead of lecturing me, how about running a sweep for any form of electronic device?”

“Done. I detect no form of—that's odd,” she says. “I detect nothing at all.”

“How about interference?”

“None,” she says. “The Barrens are one of the few highly magnetized areas on Mars. They naturally interfere with electronics, so I expected that.”

“And if you're a hermit who wants to be left alone but still wants to monitor the comings and goings of the big wide world, you—”

“Neutralize that interference,” Mimi says. “So it was a rational theory, not a hunch. I am impressed with you, cowboy. Clearly, my deductive process has positively affected your reasoning skills. Still, how can you determine her precise location? The Barrens cover over a hundred square kilometers.”

“Right,” I say. “But how many of them are marked with
that
?”

In the middle of the Barrens, maybe a kilometer away, I point at a tattered flag flying above a rock pile cenotaph. On the flag is the profile of a skull with wings, the insignia of First Company at Battle School.

“If that's not a sign,” I say, “I don't know what is.”

“There is no possible way that you could know that flag was there,” she says.

“Ha! Just admit I've got righteous locational skills.”

“Hardly. Like the proverbial blind squirrel, you got lucky.”

I pick out a path to the flag. “You know what's really bugging you? That I was right. And not only that, you couldn't read my musings well enough to guess what I had in mind.”

“I do not guess,” she says. “I gather data and extrapolate based on said data.”

Then an idea occurs to me—if I can keep secrets from Mimi, does that mean she can keep secrets from me?

“If I can,” she says, “you will never know.”

That's a scary thought.

“Here is another thought,” she says. “What kind of greeting do you expect from this Rosa Lynn person?”

“Hadn't given it much consideration.”

“You are planning to drop in on a recluse with advanced training and technological expertise, and you have not given it much consideration?”

“Nope. Rosa Lynn was a massive extrovert. She always liked company.”

“You do not think living alone in the Barrens may have changed her?”

“People don't change that much, Mimi.”

“With every atrocity and war crime you have witnessed, you still believe that?”

“That's me, the eternal optimist,” I say. “It's how I roll.”

“Be careful cowboy, or someone is going to roll
you
.”

“That's not to say that Rosa Lynn doesn't like her toys, so keep your eyes peeled.”

“I infer that you mean there will be some sort of advanced security system,” Mimi says.

“Yes, one with lasers and plasma darts and trapdoors, stuff you could only dream of.”

“I can dream of many things, cowb— Alert!” Mimi says. “My sensors are picking up a powerful energy surge!”

A trapdoor opens, and a large mechanical arm rises from it. At the end of the arm is a loaded minigun.

“You know,” I say, “a security system sort of like that.”

A vid screen pops up on the arm and a highly digitized voice barks at me, “Surrender! Or I'll blow your bleeding head off!”