Authors: Gavin Smith
‘Watch this,’ she said. She took me along a short corridor towards another membrane that led deeper into the rock. She pulled me towards it, reached out and pushed her hand through it
.
‘Morag!’ But her hand was fine. She stepped through into another area of the asteroid. As she did the springy comfortable moss that I recognised from our side of the membrane started to appear under her bare feet. She pulled me through. There seemed to be a rush of air and it was slightly colder but warming up. The moss was continuing to grow in front of our eyes down the corridor
.
Morag pulled me down the corridor into an area that I can only describe as a grotto. It didn’t seem to have the utilitarian but often beautiful look that Them-forms had. This looked like a human take on some kind of fairy-tale alien garden
.
‘You made this?’ I asked her
.
‘No, They did, but I asked Them to.’
‘Its not what you know,’ I said under my breath. She ignored me. Instead she lay down on the moss and pulled me down on top of her. I covered her mouth with mine
.
This felt like a reward. Not Morag giving herself to me but both of us being here, alive. It felt like a reward for everything we’d been through because we’d been trying hard to do the right thing. I don’t know if we had, but intent’s got to count for something
.
I just wish that Balor, Buck, Vicar and Gibby had made it and got their reward
.
I wondered if I was going to start wanting to go home. Morag took me somewhere else
.
‘So you’re really not coming?’
She was sitting up in the bed, the cover wrapped around her while I stood at the window looking out over the rooftops of wherever we were. The heat haze almost made it look pretty. I turned to look at her.
‘Morag, I know it seems like copping out to you but, as insane as the last three months have been, you weren’t there for the previous twelve years. The crawling through mud, the getting injured, starving, no sleep, bad drugs, fear all the time and seeing people you like die so often you stopped bothering to get to know them. I’ve had enough, and despite what you may think I have no stomach for killing humans.’
‘But it’s all right to kill Them?’ There was no judgement there, just a question.
‘It’s a lot easier, and They were mostly trying to kill me at the time. Look, I don’t know if I’m me or the alien …’ She started to interrupt me. ‘No, wait. But I should be dead, lucky breaks in combat aside.’ Though, thinking about it, none of them seemed lucky; they felt like they’d been won through blood and pain. ‘The radiation poisoning should have killed me. I’ve got a second chance in hopefully a changed world. I think it would be stupid and wasteful to just throw that away.’
She regarded me carefully for a while. I couldn’t work out the expression on her face. Then she smiled. ‘I think you are the alien.’
This confused me. ‘I thought—’
‘It sounds like you’re starting to care about yourself.’
Maybe she was right, but I didn’t want to analyse it too much. ‘I think you may have underestimated how much of a coward I’ve always been.’ I don’t know why I couldn’t look at her as I said it.
She dropped the sheet and climbed off the bed, coming over and wrapping her arms around me. I could feel how much her body had changed. How much tougher she had become. I could remember how fragile I’d thought she was. She kissed me. Brave girl after what I’d been drinking last night.
‘I don’t think you’re a coward. I don’t think you’re copping out. I just wished, you know …’ Now she couldn’t look at me. She laid her head against my chest.
‘That I’d be around?’ She nodded, her hair brushing against me. ‘Look, if you’re serious about this, if you think that we could be together without screaming all the time or trying to kill each other or me not doing anything stupid, then I can hang around. I just don’t want to have anything to do with that prick Sharcroft. Besides, I always fancied being a cowboy.’
She looked confused. ‘A cowboy? Like a cybrid?’ she asked.
I laughed. ‘No, really not.’ Then suddenly she was sad again. ‘What?’
‘It’s just that … being here wouldn’t help …’
I didn’t understand. Slowly it dawned on me what she was talking about.
‘Morag, are you going off-world?’
Any warm feelings I’d had were replaced by a very cold fear crawling through me.
‘We need to stop talking now.’
‘Morag,’ I grabbed her, my metal hand and my real one wrapping around the wiry muscle of her upper arms. ‘Tell me you’re not going to the colonies.’
She looked straight into the black lenses of my eyes. ‘Let me go, now.’ There was steel in her voice. ‘Didn’t take you long to change back, did it?’ I let her go.
‘Morag, it’s—’
‘Too dangerous? Again? What is dangerous is you keep talking about this.’
‘I was going to say a death sentence.’
‘You need to stop now.’
‘You’re right. There’s no need to hang around here because that twisted, evil half-dead bastard is going to get you killed out of pure fucking speculation.’
‘If you don’t with your big mouth.’
She grabbed her clothes and stormed out past a surprised-looking Rannu. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen the normally calm Nepalese look surprised before. I don’t know why he looked surprised. Morag and I were always fighting.
Being naked I decided to climb back into the bed and pull the sheets up. Then I tried looking for any leftover rotting whisky. Rannu stood at the bottom of the bed. He seemed uncomfortable.
‘Sit down, Rannu,’ I told him. I’d finally found a bottle with some tequila left in it. I took a swig and offered it to Rannu. He looked pained.
‘Hangover?’ I asked.
‘Either that or I have severely offended the gods.’
‘It was a good send-off,’ I said, mostly for something to say. It had only been three ex-squaddies, a computer hacker and a journalist getting drunk in whatever shithole this was. I think they deserved parades and celebrations like the sort I’d seen in history vizzes and read about. Rannu nodded anyway, I think to humour me.
‘You’re leaving?’
‘Apparently there’s nothing to stay here for.’ Though I had no idea what I was going to do next. ‘You going home?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You have a family, kids,’ I told him.
‘Which is why I must go.’ I recognised the resolve in his voice.
‘You ever done anything this dumb?’ Being a member of the Regiment he would have done a number of really dumb things under orders. He’d also done some dumb things with us.
‘Not quite,’ he said.
‘It’s a death sentence. This isn’t Them; this is people with near-total surveillance who understand strategy, tactics, tradecraft, who know your training and have superior physical and possibly technological abilities. This is not the way to fight this war.’
‘More than anything we need information.’
That I couldn’t deny. ‘How are you going to get it out?’
He just looked at me.
‘We can’t hide from God; how can you hide from Demiurge?’
‘If I couldn’t hide from God then we wouldn’t be having this conversation,’ he said evenly. He seemed more blasé about operational security than Morag had. He must have checked out the place for surveillance first.
‘Are you going to let her go on her own?’ he asked. I had not been so pissed off at him since he’d pulled my arm off and used it to beat me unconscious.
‘Fuck you, Rannu. Fuck you and fuck your emotional blackmail!’ I think he was taken aback by the amount of anger in my response. ‘But as we’re raising the stakes a little, when your body isn’t found what do you want me to tell your kids? Daddy died on a fool’s fucking errand working for exactly the kind of pricks we all nearly died fighting in the first place.’
He looked genuinely hurt by the time I’d finished. Genuinely upset and the most emotional I think I’d ever seen him.
‘Don’t talk about my family again,’ he said and turned and walked out of the room. I felt like shit. Despite one-sided attempts to kill each other early on in our relationship, Rannu had been a rock. He’d dealt with all the shit that had been thrown at him and never complained.
I saw the cigarette smoke in the doorway.
‘Are you recording this?’ I asked Mudge.
‘Yep. Fuck their operational security. You know there were a couple of Sharcroft’s people watching us last night and apparently a surveillance team in the opposite building?’
I’d seen the tails but didn’t know about the team. Made sense though. Problem was, these days your surveillance couldn’t go over the net. Even radio waves were a risk, because the moment God knew then everyone could know if they just asked.
‘Rannu dealt with them?’ I asked.
‘Non-lethally.’ That would explain why he disappeared for half an hour at the beginning of the evening. ‘He then cleared our rooms of bugs. Made sure that there was nothing God-like nearby and set up white noise and other counter-surveillance stuff. Hence the reason your total lack of discretion didn’t kill anyone.’
‘I thought you hated all this operational security stuff.’
‘I do. Stops me from finding out all sorts of things. You don’t though. Were you trying to blow their op before she gets started?’
‘Are you coming in?’ I asked. Mudge spun into the doorway. He had a pair of expensive-looking designer sunglasses over his camera eyes and a bottle of tequila in one hand.
‘You hear everything?’
‘I didn’t listen to you have sex. Much.’
‘That’s weird, man.’
Mudge dragged a chair over and sat down, putting both his cowboy boots up on the bed.
‘Give me a drink,’ I demanded.
Mudge shook his head and took a swig from the bottle, grinned at me and then lit up a cigarette.
‘Fag?’ he asked. I was sorely tempted.
‘Just give me a drink. Stop being selfish.’ He threw the bottle to me. I took the top off, ignored the glowing worm and took a long swig of the foul-tasting stuff.
‘Mudge.’ I examined the bottle. ‘You basically go around being obnoxious to people yet they still talk to you. I try not to be obnoxious and always end up pissing people off.’
He gave this some thought. ‘I think you’re more hurtful than I am,’ he finally said.
‘I don’t mean to be. Besides, you say hurtful things.’
‘Could you sound any gayer? I manage people’s expectations. They expect me to be obnoxious so when I tell the truth they’re less surprised. So what’s next? Gonna alienate me?’
‘May as well. You going as well?’
‘Fuck that. It’s a mug’s game. Look, I got a rush driving around in landies, or flying around in gunships, shooting stuff and blowing shit up, but you’re right. They don’t know what they’re getting into. They’ve got the training, or rather Rannu has, but he’s never had to put it into action. It’s an insurgency and they’ll have to be criminals, terrorists …’
‘We’ve done that.’
‘Not like this. Look, God love you, Jakob, but your big plan to deal with the Cabal and not kill any more people – and, you know, good for you, as much as I disapprove of this new pacifist you – was to get some big guns and go on system-wide TV. I mean, I get it. I loved it, but fucking subtle we are not. There’s just too much we don’t know, and without any way to communicate or feed back intelligence it’s a waste of time. Actions like this are part of a big plan; if they’re completely isolated then it’s a waste of time.’
I was taken aback by Mudge’s understanding. ‘So I’m right?’
‘You sound surprised. Yes, you’re right.’
‘But they’re not stupid. Did you tell them this?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Its funnier when they all hate you.’ I glared at him. ‘Besides, I’m not sure I liked the look in their eyes.’
‘Mudge, none of them have real eyes.’
He just smiled at me and took another drag on his cigarette.
‘What are you going to do then?’ I asked after taking another disgusting swig.
‘Can I get you some lime and salt? No? Well we’re fucking celebrities now.’
I wasn’t sure about this. Fortunately I’d been dying of radiation sickness at the time so now that I was a healthy alien/human hybrid I looked different, but I’d still been recognised several times. Reactions were different. Some were supportive, enthusiastic, got what we’d done and why we’d done it. Many were downright hostile, blaming us for the war and their new near-total lack of privacy. Most were just suspicious. I’d punched the first guy who’d asked me for an autograph. I hadn’t meant to; he’d just come up to me a little too quickly.
‘I’ve been offered a number of jobs,’ Mudge continued. ‘Mainly in journalism but some in presenting. I intend to take the most prestigious and well paid first and then work my way down as I get fired for doing the most outrageous thing I can think of.’
‘I think you’ll like that. Good luck.’
‘You?’
He was regarding me carefully. I think he knew that this was a question I was dreading. I didn’t want to go and die in some shitty colony but I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t have any cash. There was no way I was ever going to be psychologically capable of cashing in on my notoriety. I’d seen ex-special forces in the world of entertainment – it always made me cringe. Also I was well enough known and the results of our actions were still suitably up in the air for my notoriety to work both ways. Was I really just going to go back to pit fighting, scheme racing, ripping off people weaker than me, and the booths? If I was, then I still had to get back to Dundee.