After Earth: A Perfect Beast (20 page)

The Primus took several steps forward, his hands draped casually behind his back. The crowd took the same several steps back.

“When the Skrel attacked us in force,” he said, “we pulled together. All the factions of Nova Prime were as one. Together we were unbeatable. And now here we are, turning on one another. The Skrel sent the devourers, and we wind up devouring each other. I suppose, in a way … they followed us. Followed us from Earth. Followed us from the earliest days of our people.

“It’s all there in the old writings. I’ve studied them, you see. I’ve studied them all. Christians routinely referred to Satan, the ultimate evil, as the Devourer. But it goes back even farther. Ancient Egyptians had a creature they called Ammit—a beast composed of equal parts lion, hippo, and crocodile. I suppose, in their fear
and superstition, they chose those three because they were the three most fearsome, voracious animals in their experience. And Ammit, well … he was the guardian of their place of death.” The Primus’s voice rose and dropped steadily in a singsong tone that he customarily adopted when he was acting in a teaching capacity. “When the dead would arrive for judgment, the Ammit would determine whether or not the deceased was worthy of advancing along the path to their version of heaven. And if they were found unworthy, why … the Ammit would devour their hearts. The Egyptians called it the second death.

“And we should know about second deaths, should we not? After all, our planet died. Earth died all around us because we were greedy and uncaring and faithless. Our souls”—his voice began to soar—“were traded for credits, our aspirations replaced by rapacious greed. Our better angels were destroyed by our inner demons. And God saw that we were no longer deserving of the paradise that He had given us, and God drove us away. We were punished for all that we had done wrong, and we deserved that punishment.

“And after centuries of wandering we were brought here because God forgave us. He saw our penance and was pleased, and so He delivered us to a new world. Not a paradise, to be sure”—he looked around ruefully—“but we did not deserve to have paradise handed to us, for we had failed to protect the one we had. So instead we were given this world to make
into
a paradise. That was the new mandate, the new goal for humanity.

“And now look. Look at what has been sent down upon us.

“Devourers. As voracious as anything the Egyptians could have concocted. As evil and devoted to destruction as Satan ever was.”

The Primus abruptly pointed a finger at the crowd, his voice rising with loathing and condemnation, as if
the crowd were an abomination in his eyes.
“The explanation is obvious! We have failed in God’s eyes! He has looked into our souls and found us wanting! He has sent us a test, and we have failed! And you dare—YOU DARE—to come here to the Citadel and demand justice of me? There is your justice!”
He turned his finger upward and stabbed it at the heavens.
“There is your justice, for He is bringing His heavenly retribution down upon us, and instead of standing here like mewling sheep, you should be at home with your families, praying for forgiveness! Now go! Go to your homes and pray for God’s mercy, for you all know in your hearts what sins you have committed to warrant His fury! Go, I said!”

They went. A few hesitated, but they saw the anger in the face of the Primus, and none of them was strong enough to stand up to it. Within moments the entire area in front of the Citadel was devoid of people. Even so, the Primus stood there for long minutes, saying nothing, doing nothing.

Then he turned and walked back into the Citadel.

“The mob is gone,” he said to everyone within hearing. “You are free to leave if you so desire. Or you may stay here for as long as you wish. Either choice is acceptable.”

He started to head up the stairs toward his sanctum, and then the Ranger named Marta called out, “Not that I’m knocking the fact that there’s no longer a bunch of people out there shouting for our heads, but telling them they brought this all down on themselves? That’s rough. You don’t think it would be better to tell them something that will give them hope at a time like this?”

The Primus studied her silently. “What would you have me say? That I hope their deaths are quick and easy?”

Marta had no response to that, and the Primus went upstairs in silence.

*   *   *

Conner’s squad, in which he was one of only two cadets, was patrolling the North Side, where an Ursa had been sighted by his father’s pilots only minutes earlier, when he saw a cageball court up ahead.

It caught him by surprise.

Conner had been focusing on rooftops and alleyways, anywhere an Ursa might hide. Not the street ahead of him. And surely not the open area of a cageball court, where nothing could conceal itself.

It wasn’t the court where he had seen Lyla Kincaid, but it might as well have been. He thought about the way she had looked that day, the way she had smiled when she watched her twelve-year-old client dribble the length of the court. It made him smile, too, even now, even in the middle of a perilous hunt for a deadly predator. He wished she would have stayed a little longer.

But he understood why she had bolted. She was Lucas’s sister, and Lucas hated Conner’s guts. And the shock of recognizing Conner after all those years …

He must have changed.
She
had—that was for sure. She wasn’t a skinny kid with scabs on her knees anymore. She wasn’t running to her parents, tattling on Conner and Lucas for getting into some scrape.

She was … pretty. Really pretty.

Too bad
, he thought.

Suddenly, Conner’s squad leader got a call on his comm unit. “Rivers here,” he said. “Uh huh. Right. Copy that.”

Everyone in the squad looked to him.

“Our Ursa’s been spotted heading south,” said Rivers. “Too far from here for us to pick it up. Another squad’s been assigned. Looks like we’re off the hook for now.”

Everyone in the squad breathed a sigh of relief. It was noticeable even though none of them would have wanted anyone to notice it.

“We continue to patrol the area,” said the squad leader. “Just in case. Slowly. With eyes open.”

The rest of the squad nodded or muttered in agreement.

“Let’s go, then,” said Rivers.

Everyone fell in, Conner included. He took one last look over his shoulder at the cageball court and remembered the color of Lyla Kincaid’s eyes. Then he left it all behind.

Cecilia Ruiz hated every moment of being where she was and doing what she was doing, but she had absolutely no choice.

She had no idea if she was wasting her time. Everything she had heard, everything she had done, had been through third parties and even some outright rumors. People might well have lied to her. Perhaps she had walked into a setup. Perhaps the man she was supposed to meet didn’t have the goods. It was simply impossible to tell until it actually happened.

The spot where she was supposed to be meeting her contact was on the western border of the Inner Wilderness. The terrain was fairly flat; it was easy to see in all directions. That was by design as far as her contact man was concerned. Being able to see for kilometers in all directions reduced the likelihood of
his
walking into a trap.

“A man in his line of work is, naturally, concerned about that,” is what Cecilia had been told. She had nodded. If anyone was going to understand that, she would.

As Cecilia paced back and forth at the meeting place, her movements displayed an almost balletic grace. She had a head full of thick black ringlets; she’d actually been rather surprised when her hair grew in that way. She’d had a buzz cut for as long as she could remember, and every so often she would run her fingers through her hair in wonderment, as if she had accidentally
put on someone else’s head that morning. Her face was angular and an odd combination of dark skin and freckles.

She was wearing very tight black shorts, an undershirt of such thin material that it was practically see-through, and a pair of boots that reached to midcalf. The outfit made her feel extremely self-conscious. Even on the hottest days Nova Prime had to offer—and they could pack some formidable temperatures—Cecilia wasn’t accustomed to displaying that much skin. But she’d had no choice; it had been mandated by the man she was meeting. He wanted to make sure she wasn’t packing any weapons out of fear that she might try to rob him.

“Be happy he didn’t make you show up naked,” she’d been told by the contact who had set up the meet.

It was an effective strategy. Her old pulser was much too big for her to carry and have it remain unseen. Such weapons were designed for power, not concealment. It didn’t mean that she had to go into the situation completely unprotected, though. She had a long serrated knife concealed in the top of her boot out of habit. It gave her some measure of protection against her contact should he try something, plus she had her Ranger training.

However, she wasn’t sure a knife would do a thing against an Ursa (not even pulsers appeared to be accomplishing anything). And it seemed lately that the damned things were everywhere. Even that impression, though, was taking a toll. On hot days when the air would shimmer, as it was wont to do, it was easy to be startled because it seemed that one of the beasts had appeared and was about to charge. On dark nights, as the shadows would stretch, it often seemed that an Ursa was concealed in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Cecilia leaned against the landmark the man was supposed to be using to meet her: a single spire of rock that through happenstance of nature stretched ten feet in the
air like a dusty red monument. She kept glancing around, Ursa on her mind. What if one attacked her now? She wouldn’t last a second against it. She’d never return home. “What happened to Mom?” her children would ask, and her husband would have no answer. They might find some tattered remains of her body, but there was no way to be sure of that. Her disappearance would simply be another unanswered question in the history of Nova Prime.

Then, in the distance, she heard a whistling of wind. She turned immediately to face it and saw a skipjack heading her way. A skipjack was a single-person vehicle, similar to an Earth bicycle except airborne. It was extremely maneuverable and solar-powered, and so it was very quiet and, thanks to its size, not easy to spot. Consequently, it was a favorite of black marketers because it was easy for Rangers’ scanning equipment to miss.

There was a man astride it with a pair of goggles drawn over his eyes. Even more encouraging, Cecilia saw several large sacks dangling off the back of the skipjack, as if the fellow were some sort of bizarre latter-day Santa Claus. She waved to him. He didn’t wave back. Instead he executed a slow circle, doubtless making sure that there was no one within the area.

Once he was satisfied, he glided to the ground and settled in. Then he swung his leg around and off the skipjack and stood to face her. Cecilia was pushing six feet, but this guy was taller than that. Slowly he walked toward her, taking measured strides, seemingly appraising her with every step. Cecilia could feel her heart pounding in her chest. He didn’t need her, but she sure as hell needed him and didn’t know what she was going to do if this didn’t pan out.

He looked vaguely familiar, but she wasn’t sure why. His clothes indicated that he was a farmer by trade, although who knew for sure if that was the case. He might indeed be a farmer who had conspired to keep his crops hidden from collection for the common good and
was instead trying to profiteer despite all Nova Prime laws to the contrary. Or he might have taken the clothes from a farmer. He might have been part of one of the raids on the storage depots that she’d heard about.

It didn’t matter to her, and it grieved her that it didn’t matter. Because once upon a time she had stood for something, and now she was consorting with this … this person. She felt unclean.

But her family was counting on her. That was all that mattered.

“Turn around,” he said.

She didn’t like the sound of that. Presenting her back to this guy? Nothing good would come of that. “I think I’ll stay facing you if that’s all right.”

“You’ll do what I say. I want to make sure you don’t have anything behind your back.”

“I don’t,” she said firmly.

“Look, lady.” He took two more steps toward her, his eyes narrowing. “If you want any taste of what I’ve got on the back of my vehicle, then you’ll do exactly what I …” His voice trailed off.

Recognition suddenly seemed to glint in his eyes. “Oh, you gotta be kidding me. How stupid do you think I am? Deal’s off.” He pulled out a pulser from a holster on his hip. It was an older model, larger and clunkier than what Rangers carried. But it was still lethal, and Cecilia was standing there flat-footed. “In fact, I should just put a shot through you on general principles.” He started backing up hurriedly.

“Wait!” she said, and started following him. “I don’t understand!”

He fired a warning shot directly at her feet. It kicked up dirt and rock right in front of her. She froze. He raised his voice, and it echoed across the arid plains. “Any of you try anything and she’s dead!”

Remaining where she was, she said in frustration, “What are you talking about? Who are you talking to?”

“Do you think I’m stupid?!”

No, but I wouldn’t put much stock in your sanity.
“There’s no one here except you and me,” she said with forced patience. “You saw it yourself.”

“And I saw
you
myself, too. Back when you arrested me nine years ago. I had a good thing going on a weapons racket, and you and your Ranger pals put an end to that! You look different, but I never forget a voice.”

Oh, shit. That’s why he looked familiar
.

He was continuing to back up, keeping the pulser leveled on her. At that moment she realized she was faced with a hopeless choice. She had to try to convince him of the truth. Except the only thing that was preventing him from shooting her was the belief that he had wandered into a trap. If she managed to make him believe her about the truth about her living situation, she might well be rewarded with a blast to the face.