Trident's Forge, page 30
“How long was I out?” ze asked.
“Two minutes,” Mei answered. “Maybe less.”
“Ugh,” Benson clutched at zer chest. “What did you do? It feels like a lift car fell on me.”
Mei’s eyes rolled. “You’re welcome.” Ze turned to look up at Kexx. “Ze’ll be fine.”
Benson looked back at them both with a shocked expression. “What did you just say to Kexx?”
“I said you’ll be fine,” Mei repeated more slowly in their language.
“No, say it again in Atlantian,” Benson replied, still in human.
Mei did so, and Benson shook zer head uncomprehendingly. “It didn’t pick that up.” Benson slapped the side of zer head. “I can’t bring up my interface.”
“What’s ze talking about?” Kexx asked Mei, but ze only shrugged.
“My plant,” Benson shouted. “My… head tool. It’s not working!”
* * *
It was some time before Benson calmed down enough, and slowed down enough, that Kexx could make sense of zer words again. But once ze did, Benson’s plea was unequivocal.
“We have to turn around and go back to the village right now.”
Kexx took the demand in stride. “Why, Benson? We are only a day away from the Dweller village.”
“Which is exactly why we have to leave, the sooner the better. I can’t protect you like this.”
“Without your head tool?” Kexx asked. “Both myself and Mei can translate for you when necessary. I can make the others understand your, um, disability.”
“No, you don’t get it, Kexx. It’s not just about the translator. It’s my…” Benson leaned in and pitch zer voice low. “It’s my gun. It recognizes me by my head tool. Without it, I can’t use it. It’s just a big club. No gun, no defense.”
Kexx frowned. “You are a good man, Benson, but sometimes I’m not sure you think very hard about your words. We have over two fullhand strong backs here who have already sharpened their spears in battle. We are not defenseless.”
“But I can’t–”
“Right,” Kexx cut zer off. “You can’t rely on your gun. You have to rely on us for protection now, and it scares you because you don’t believe we are up to the task.”
“You told me you’re not up to it if the Dwellers don’t cooperate!”
“And you told me that you can’t win a war for us by yourself. So other than fewer dead Dwellers, how has the end result changed? Either we lose when our last spear is broken, or we lose when your last bullet is spent. In both cases, we’re still dead.”
Benson swallowed, hard. “I guess I hadn’t thought about it in such… stark terms. I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.”
“It’s OK, Benson. We remain friends. And friends must trust each other. I must know, are you still committed to this task?”
Benson straightened zer back. “Yes, completely.”
“Then we will see it through. We will get you a spear.”
“No, keep the spear. I’ll carry my rifle.”
Kexx paused. “But you said it was no better than a club.”
“It isn’t, but you and I are the only ones who know that.”
“And me,” Mei called out from where she was stitching up Benson’s shirt.
“And Mei,” Benson corrected zerself. “I’d like to keep it that way so as not to worry the rest of the caravan. And if any of the Dwellers have heard rumors about it, I’d rather they do worry.”
“A wise deception,” Kexx agreed. “All right, I will keep your secret. What else? What will you tell your people?”
“Nothing,” Benson said.
“I… don’t understand.”
Benson pointed a finger toward the sky. “Someone up there just tried to fry my heart. I don’t know how exactly, but that’s not really important. They probably used the exact same method to kill the captain.”
“Then why did your leader return while you live on?”
“I don’t know that either. Maybe help didn’t get to her as quickly as Mei got to me. Maybe her age worked against her to a greater degree. In any case, they’re trying to get rid of the people causing them trouble. I was obviously causing them trouble. And with my plant broken, they’ll think I’m really dead, sorry, that I’ve returned…”
“And you are free to keep causing them trouble,” Kexx finished for zer.
Benson opened zer hands and held them out, palms up, and smiled broadly. “Just so.”
“You are a very clever man, Benson.”
“Me? No, I’m dumb. But I make up for it by being very stubborn.”
Kexx chuffed. Kuul had asked what the humans would be without their guns. Kexx saw the answer in Benson sitting in the dirt, battered, betrayed, defenseless.
Yet still unbending. Like a halo tree in a spiralstorm.
Ze felt zer affection for the strange creature grow further. The sun was past its apex. The day grew long, and they had made virtually no progress down the trail.
Kexx held out a hand to the human. “Can you walk?”
Benson took the hand and stood, albeit on a shaky foundation. “I can fake it.” Benson’s expression changed without warning. “Kexx, what are they doing?”
Kexx glanced back over zer shoulder. Half the members of the caravan had formed two parallel lines, sitting legs folded beneath them, hands held behind their backs and heads bent forward.
“They are awaiting your blessings, Benson.”
“Sorry. My what?”
“Your blessings.” Kexx took a moment to listen to their murmured prayers. “They think you have been resurrected by Varr, and they–”
Benson held up zer hands. “Oh no. Nononono.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Mei!” Benson called the smaller human over.
“What’s wrong?” Mei asked.
“They want to worship me,” Benson said. “Tell them I wasn’t resurrected. Tell them you brought me back with a… a trick.”
“That’s not a good idea, Benson,” ze answered.
“I agree,” Kexx said.
“I am not going to be twisted into some Messiah figure,” Benson protested. “That’s not what we’re here for.”
“Refusing them blessings would be, ah…” Kexx struggled for the right word.
“Disrespectful,” Mei contributed. “Sacrilegious. Rude.”
“Yes, those.”
Benson’s arms dropped to zer sides. “I won’t do it.”
“You have to,” Mei said.
“We’re not gods, Mei. Or touched by gods. Or sent by gods.”
“No, we’re running from gods,” Mei snapped back. “Gods chased us away from Earth. We’re here now. Then where? If we’re ever going to stop running, we need them.” Ze pointed at the members of the caravan sitting in rows, exchanging nervous glances with each other. “And they need us.”
Benson shook zer head. “I won’t lie to them.”
“You lied about the gun working,” Mei accused.
“It’s not the same,” Benson said, suddenly on unsure footing.
“How’s it different?”
“Well…” Kexx and Mei both waited patiently for zer answer. “It just is,” Benson said finally without much conviction.
“If I may say it, Benson, this isn’t about you lying. They already believe what they’re going to. This is about respecting our beliefs.”
“‘Our?’ Don’t tell me you’re looking for my blessings too, Kexx.”
Kexx shook zer head. “Not just now. I’ll let you know.”
Benson let out a defeated sigh. “What do I have to do?”
“Just touch them gently on their first row of crests with three fingers of your left hand and say, ‘Atumi Varr.’” Benson repeated the words three times more until Kexx was satisfied with zer pronunciation.
Kexx watched as Benson nervously made zer way down the receiving line, repeating the words without understanding their meaning in the least. The human’s discomfort with the duty was obvious, but ze proceeded anyway, giving each person zer focus and attention before moving to the next.
Despite being bound and lashed to the back of a dux’ah, their prisoner, hostage, whatever ze was, felt compelled to start shouting. Kexx could only make out a handful of the words spewing forth, but “blasphemy,” and “perversion” featured prominently. Benson paused and looked up at the disturbance. Kexx was about to move to silence the stranger, but Kuul beat zer to it. Ze ran up the back of the dux’ah in two strides and smacked zer smartly across the mouth.
Silence returned. Kuul locked eyes with Benson and motioned for zer to continue with the blessings. Benson nodded zer thanks and moved on to the next head.
Remarkable, Kexx thought. We might actually pull together just in time to get slaughtered.
Thirty
Benson and Mei walked together most of the rest of the day, her spot on the dux’ah occupied as it was by their increasingly unpleasant captive. Not that Benson really blamed zer for being in a cross mood, even if ze had tried to kill him. The dux’ahs were entering musk and smelled, like, well, dux’ahs in musk. It was an odor of an intensity and unpleasantness outside Benson’s experience, and he’d spent his teen years working in an aeroponics farm fed with waste water. He wouldn’t want to be tied to one in the hot sun either.
In fairness, ze hadn’t been the only person to try to kill him in the last twenty-four hours.
Someone did kill you, old man, Benson thought. And that kid pulled your feet out of the fire. Again. After you told her not to come. He shivered at the thought, his chest and ribs still sore from the intense convulsions that had accompanied the defibrillator’s attempts to restart his heart. He glanced over at Mei. It was past time to stop thinking of her as a kid. Maybe she’d never really been one to begin with. Maybe she’d never been given the chance.
“Thank you,” Benson said quietly, tapping his chest.
Mei didn’t look over to answer. “Thank me by getting me back to Sakiko.”
“I’m trying. I’ll just need to think of something.”
“We’re doomed,” she said flatly.
“Well aren’t you just a little fucking wellspring of encouragement.”
“I don’t need to lie to you. You’re a big boy. You can take it.”
Benson chuckled. “Your English is much improved.”
Mei shrugged. “I’ve been practicing.”
“Still, a smidgeon of faith would be nice. We’ve gotten out of worse.”
“Have we?” Mei asked.
“Well I doubt the Dwellers have a nuke.”
It was Mei’s turn to giggle. “Thank Xis for small favors.”
“Xis? You’re not going native on us, are you Mei?”
She shrugged. “They have a simple faith. You can learn it in a week, but it runs deep. They know how to take time for things.”
Benson pondered that. For eleven generations, mankind had just been sitting on its collective hands on board the Ark, waiting for their turn to come up. But since landing, there had barely been time to breathe. The city was ever growing, and that meant work. Endless work. Benson’s entire job was to make sure everyone enjoyed their prescribed amount of recreational time, whether they liked it or not.
He had to admit, there was a certain attraction to a culture that hadn’t yet developed a concept of time broken down into units any smaller than morning, evening, and night. It certainly streamlined schedule keeping.
“Will they make us leave, Benson?”
“Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you? I thought we were doomed.”
“I mean my people in the village. Will they be able to stay?”
Benson smiled at her. “You really like living with them, don’t you?”
Mei nodded. “Yes. They have been kind and welcoming. Life is uncomplicated. They laugh easily, even if I don’t get all the jokes yet.”
“The cat’s already out of the bag. I can’t speak for everyone, but I doubt anybody on our end will be in a hurry to round you up and deport you back to Shambhala. Besides, we’re going to need a connection between our people and theirs. The Unbound may have finally found their proper place.”
“Our place?”
“Well, you’ve always existed in the inbetween spaces, yeah? Here’s something you’re built for.”
Mei swelled at the possibility. “Something worth dying for.”
“Indeed, but if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to try very hard to keep us alive anyway.”
“I know you will.”
Benson noticed the resigned, accepting tone in Mei’s voice, but didn’t comment on it. The whole mission was insane to the point where he couldn’t remember why he’d agreed to it in the first place. Maybe it had been anger at the people they’d lost. What they’d done to Atwood was barbaric. In the moment, he’d wanted to hurt whoever had killed her. But he wanted to believe he wasn’t out here for revenge. Maybe it was the way an unsolved crime itched at his brain. Maybe it was pride and a selfish desire to relive the glory days. Maybe it was a little bit of all of them.
Now he walked through a hot grassland in a bloodstained shirt, reeking of sweat and caked in dust, unarmed, without his plant. He was marching into the heart of enemy territory with only a thin hope of staying alive against the same people who tried to massacre an entire village a few days earlier.
Tactically, it wasn’t a great position to be in.
All he wanted to do was call his wife and let her know he was alive, for the moment at least. But if he did, they’d both be at risk. Whoever had tried to fry him would know he was still on the board, and she would know someone had tried to kill him. Benson knew his wife well enough to know that she would not react well to that. She would go straight after them like a missile, drawing a target on her own back in the process. He couldn’t have that, so he had to keep her in the dark. The logic was airtight. That didn’t make him any happier about it.
Theresa had tried to tell him. Tried to warn him off. Tried to get him to just step onto the shuttle for home and let someone else deal with it for once. With the benefit of hindsight, she’d probably been right.
She usually was. Damn her.
Benson tried to shake the thought, refocus on the facts of this case, come up with a plan to pull their butts from the fire. But he couldn’t. He kept coming back to one idea. If he died out here, he would leave nothing behind. No family, no legacy. They’d probably pour some gaudy bronze statue of him as the man who saved the Ark and stick it in the museum where it would collect dust for centuries. But Theresa was still young and beautiful. She would mourn, but ultimately move on with her life and find a nice young man who wasn’t shooting blanks. Not that he’d deny her that, but he still couldn’t shake the thought of someone else giving her the family he couldn’t.
There was only one chance of avoiding that future, and it was to survive the next few days.
“We’re doomed,” Benson announced to the universe, trying to pull it into his little pity party.
“Shush.” Mei pointed to the head of the caravan. “We’ve stopped. Something’s up.”
She was right. Kexx and Kuul had stopped at the head of the line while everyone else ground to a halt to avoid bumping into the person ahead of them. Benson pulled his head out of his own ass and pushed through the crowd toward Kexx.
“Hey, Kexx. Why’ve we–”
“Stopped” never made it out of Benson’s mouth. Instead, his lungs filled with a sudden inrush of air as he realized the ground simply… ended. What he’d thought was the crest of a small hill was instead the very top of an immense canyon. The ground fell away at a ninety-degree angle. A thousand layers of multicolored limestone cut into top-heavy towers, needle-thin chimneys and sweeping arches filled the canyon floor in three, no, four distinct levels.
“Holy shit,” he said, taking a big step back from the edge. He’d known from the terrain maps loaded in his plant that there was an enormous canyon coming up, but without access to them, and with his mind otherwise occupied by a little thing like clinically dying, he’d forgotten. He’d even read how wide and deep it was in meters. But the abstract numbers paled in comparison to the dizzying reality spreading out before him. The canyon itself was so deep and so wide that Benson’s brain simply refused to believe what his eyes were telling it, screwing up his depth perception and causing a sudden bout of vertigo.
His breath quickened, and he felt a chill despite the heat. “So, end of the road, huh?”
Kexx and Kuul glanced at him quizzically. Kexx translated Benson’s words for Kuul, then turned to look at him. “What do you mean, Benson?”
“Well we’ve run out of ground, haven’t we?” Benson glanced over the edge and immediately regretted it. It didn’t make sense. He’d spent the first three plus decades of his life inside Avalon module, and it was “deeper” than this. Then again, there was no top of it to fall off. If you stepped off from the hub, the worst that would happen is you’d float off waving your arms ineffectually while people on the lifts pointed and laughed at you until someone threw you a tether.
The stakes here are a little higher, Benson thought, then chuckled nervously to himself at the unintentional pun.
Kexx put a steadying hand on his shoulder, then pointed at more than a dozen black specks at the base of the far canyon wall. “The entrances to the Dwellers’ caves are there. That’s where our trail leads.”
“But,” Benson pointed down the rock face, “there’s a bit of a drop off!”
Kexx gazed back at him, face blank as if ze didn’t understand the objection. Then, Benson remembered the lava tube. The ease with which the Atlantians had stuck to the rock, almost like geckos. Kexx didn’t understand, because the cliff was no obstacle to zer.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
* * *
After some frantic explaining and ad-hoc translating, Benson and Mei managed to get across to their new friends just how ill equipped they were for making a thousand meter near-vertical free rock climb. They spent the waning hours of light scouting out a more manageable line of descent. About a kilometer and a half west, they found an outcropping that, while hardly inviting, was something less than straight down and offered several small plateaus along the way that would give them a chance to rest before the next leg.
