After Earth: A Perfect Beast (52 page)

“Such as an Ursa,” Green said, rather unnecessarily.

“—you enter a sort of fugue state. It’s a rather fascinating
phenomenon, really. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to study it further and write a paper about it.”

“But I don’t understand.” Mallory was shaking her head in confusion. “My body’s undergone a chemical change? Why?”

“It’s actually more or less standard for a woman in your condition.”

“My what? What condition?” She looked in bewilderment from one to the other.

“Mallory,” said Green gently, “when was the last time you menstruated?”

Her face reddened with annoyance. “That’s an entirely personal question, sir, and I don’t see where your superior rank entitles you to …” Then her voice trailed off as her eyes widened.

There was dead silence in the room for a long moment.

“Oh, holy shit,” she murmured.

“Tests indicate you’re approximately two months along,” said the Savant.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

When she said nothing beyond that for a time, Green—who had remained standing, his hands draped behind his back—said, “Regulations are quite specific on this matter, Lieutenant. A pregnant Ranger may continue to serve at her discretion for as long as her commanding officer deems her physically capable of doing so. Obviously you are, at this point, still fully capable of functioning, and you have the right to do so.”

“So …” She struggled to find the words. “So you’re saying that my ability to ghost comes with an expiration date? That if the baby’s gone …” Her voice caught on that sentence, and she powered through it. “… I won’t be able to ghost anymore?”

“I wish I had an answer for that, but I simply don’t know,” the Savant admitted. “We’d have to wait and see.”

“Lieutenant,” Green said cautiously, “your phrasing
was … rather specific. Are you insinuating that you may not bring the child to term?”

Slowly she got to her feet, standing at attention. She looked straight forward, but not at anything in particular. “Is the colonel implying I do not have that right?”

“Not at all,” he said.

“Or is the colonel thinking of ordering me to continue the pregnancy so that he can have another Ghost at his disposal for a—”

“Stow that right now, Lieutenant.” Green looked well and truly pissed. “I have said and done nothing, in the entirety of my career, that would remotely imply I would have such a dehumanizing attitude toward my people, and frankly I resent the hell out of what you’re saying.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said immediately, and meant it. “It’s … just a lot to take in right now. I need some time to process it.”

“I understand,” said Green. “Take all the time you need to decide upon your course of action.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You have until tomorrow.”

She paused and then nodded. “Thank you, sir.” She pivoted on her heel and headed for the door.

Just before she reached it, Green called, “Lieutenant.”

She turned back to him.

“Congratulations,” said Green.

“We’ll see about that, sir,” Mallory said, and walked out.

Mallory lay in her quarters the entire night, staring up at the ceiling. She kept resting her hand on her belly, trying to sense whatever it was that was going on within her. “Talk to me,” she whispered. “Tell me what you want.”

The small passenger did not respond.

She drifted in and out during the night, sleeping for minutes at a time. Every time she did manage to slumber, she was pelted with an unceasing barrage of images: her husband, climbing out of the grave, his arms outstretched, falling upon her and clawing at her stomach, trying to rip the infant from her.

When the first light of the twin suns of Nova Prime began to crawl over the horizon, Mallory’s eyes were red with strain. Not with tears; she felt as if she had cried herself out after Jan’s death. Instead they were red with exhaustion. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she reminded herself of something out of an ancient tale of the undead.

An hour later she was sitting on the edge of her bed. She was wearing civilian clothes and her hair was wet; obviously she had showered and dressed, but she had no recollection of doing so.

Focus. You need to focus
.

There was only one thing she could think of focusing on.

Another couple of hours later—because it took her
that long to muster the will to leave her quarters—Mallory was standing at the site of her husband’s grave.

Well, at least he hasn’t crawled out of it
.

Valhalla Point was the official burial site for the honored Rangers who had fallen in the line of duty. The headstones were simple: small rectangles of rock with the name of the buried individual chiseled into them. Many preferred cremation, but others were more traditional, and the Rangers endeavored to accommodate all preferences.

Mallory was far too practical an individual to think that Janus was “there” somehow. She knew her husband was gone. He would no more hear her at this site than any other. Ultimately it wasn’t about him. He was beyond caring about worldly concerns. It was about her voicing her problems and her inner turmoil.

“I don’t know what to do, Jan,” she said softly. “First of all, I don’t know what to do about the baby itself. You were the one who kept talking about having children. You would have been a great father. I don’t know what kind of mother I’d make, and without you …

“Besides, what kind of world would I be bringing our baby into? Monsters roam, trying to kill us. Aliens attack us from on high. We can never relax our guard, ever. A lousy mother bringing a baby into a lousy environment … why should I do that to him? Maybe it’d be better if he was never born …

“But …” She hesitated, her voice choking slightly. “How can I kill the only part of you that’s left? How can I do that to him? How can I do that to you …? Have I spent so much time focusing on killing things that I’ve totally forgotten how to worry about the living …?”

She sank to her knees in front of the grave. “And … what
about
the living? Don’t I have a responsibility to protect them? The citizens of Nova Prime are counting on me. And if I have the ability to ghost now, then don’t I have the responsibility to use it?

“But … then aren’t I putting the baby at risk? So
what if an Ursa can’t see me? It could still get lucky. A random sweep of its stinger … and I die, and your baby dies …

“It doesn’t even have to be an Ursa. Maybe somewhere there’s an unexploded shell with my name on it …

“How many lives are supposed to be on my shoulders? How am I supposed to be a good mother, or any kind of mother, if it means abandoning the people who count on the Rangers? But how am I supposed to put my baby at risk? How am I—?”

She lowered her head, put her hands in her face. Her sides shook, and she heaved agonized sobs, but her cheeks remained dry.

“Are you all right?”

She looked up.

There was another woman a short distance away. Dressed in the gray uniform of someone who worked in one of the tech divisions, she was crouching in front of a grave site and laying down a batch of fresh flowers. The fair-skinned, sad-eyed woman studied Mallory with what appeared to be quiet understanding. “Do you want to talk about it?” She did not ask Mallory what specifically the “it” was. She saw an individual in pain and was clearly prepared to listen.

Mallory didn’t move from where she was. She didn’t feel comfortable approaching. She did, however, tilt her head slightly and nod toward the grave site where the other woman was standing. “Your husband?”

“My daughter,” replied the other woman quietly.

“She was a Ranger?”

The other woman nodded. “Killed by an Ursa last year.”

“I’m so sorry.” She paused and then said, “I’m Mallory.”

“Faia.”

The name was vaguely familiar to Mallory, but she couldn’t quite place it. “That’s my husband,” Mallory said, pointing at Janus’s grave. “I guess we have something in common.”

“Members of a club no one wants to belong to,” said Faia. “I’d love to tell you it gets easier as time passes. But I’d be lying. All that happens is that scar tissue builds over it. The wound still cuts just as deep.”

“I appreciate your honesty.” She was still speaking stiffly and formally, not allowing any of her inner turmoil to show.

There was an uneasy silence, and then Faia said, “Okay, well … it was a pleasure meeting y—”

“I’m pregnant,” Mallory blurted out. “And I don’t know if I should keep doing my job.” She didn’t bring up the fact that the pregnancy apparently enabled her to ghost. She wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be classified, plus she wasn’t entirely sure that she herself accepted it yet.

“Oh … my,” said Faia slowly. “That changes everything, doesn’t it?”

“Does it?” There was desperate urgency in her voice. “That’s what I keep wondering. Whose needs are more important? This … this stranger”—she gestured angrily toward her stomach. “Or the people I’m sworn to protect? One life versus countless others? What makes this one life more important than all the others?”

“I don’t know. I wish I knew what to tell you …”

“This is what you can tell me.” She looked her in the eyes. “You lost a daughter. Is there anyone on this world whose life you wouldn’t trade to get your little girl back? Is there anyone whom you believe was intrinsically more worthy to live than your daughter?”

Faia looked down, unable to keep her gaze upon Mallory. Very softly, she said, “My daughter died defending the life of her brother. And I can tell you right now: Not a day goes by when my son doesn’t just miss his sister, but also wonders why he got to live while she died. Not a single day. Anyone who tells you there’s any fairness in life is lying to you. And we look for a reason for things, and we look to ourselves and our personal failures to try and figure out what we could have done to avoid what happened. But all we do is second-guess
ourselves. Because the truth is that you can make yourself insane worrying about these things. The harsh truth—as least as far as I’m concerned—is that the universe is indifferent to us. Our endless second-guessing just makes it harder for us to realize that it’s all utterly random. And all we can do, in deciding how to live our lives, is to make our best guess and move on.”

“I can’t move on.” She drew a hand across her stomach. “I’m carrying this constant reminder of what could have been …”

“It can still be.”

“Not with my husband. I can’t …”

Faia pointed a stern finger at her. “Don’t you dare let the next words out of your mouth be ‘
do it without him.
’ ” When Mallory said nothing further, Faia continued. “You’re a Ranger, Mallory. I’ve known a few Rangers in my time, including my daughter. I know the type; I know the mind-set. And there is nothing you can’t do if you set your mind to it. If some Rangers can stare down an Ursa and be unafraid, I think you can control your fear of an infant.”

“It’s not just the baby. It’s what it represents.”

“It represents responsibility. That’s what Rangers are all about.”

She had been walking steadily toward Mallory, and now she rested a hand on her shoulder. “Look … I have no intention of lecturing you.”

“I don’t feel like that’s what you’re doing,” Mallory lied.

“Well, I’m skirting it, at the very least. Ultimately, I can’t tell you what to do. It’s not my place and besides, my personal life is so difficult that I’m hardly the person to lecture anyone else. Listen: We both know the pain of losing loved ones. And we also know the incredible demands that a sense of duty places upon us. I may not be a Ranger myself, but my husband wrote the book on the Ranger mind-set … literally.”

“What?” Then suddenly everything fell into place. “Faia … Raige. Your husband is Cypher Raige. The
Original Ghost. The Commanding General. I’m so sorry. I … I should have—”

“Should have what? Stood at attention the whole time?” She smiled slightly, but then the smile faded. “I suppose what it comes down to is that no answer is the absolute right one. You have to choose a path, and it’s going to be irrevocable no matter what you do. It’s always daunting when there’s no going back. And there are always sacrifices to be made.”

“And who am I”—once more Mallory put her hand on her stomach—“to make decisions that could wind up sacrificing someone else’s life without them having the slightest say in it?”

“Making decisions on behalf of your children—some of them life and death—comes with the territory. Less hardy women than you have dealt with it and come through fine. Like I said, there’s no easy answer. But I know this: What’s the most important thing? Children being born? Or the world they’re being born into?”

“So you think I should—”

“I think,” she said encouragingly, “that you have to make a decision you yourself can live with. And once you’ve done that, everything else will fall into place.” She squeezed her shoulder in solidarity.

That evening, in his office, Colonel Green looked up from his desk and saw Mallory standing in the doorway. She was wearing her uniform, freshly pressed.

She saluted sharply.

“Lieutenant Mallory McGuiness reporting for active duty, sir. For as long as it’s physically possible, at any rate.”

He studied her for a long moment. “Are you sure?”

“A Ranger’s first priority is to serve Nova Prime. The sooner Junior here learns that”—she nodded downward—“the better off we’ll all be.”

For this? I went through all that agonizing for this?

Mallory glanced at her two fellow Rangers. Corporal Abbey was tall and powerfully built, and his enthusiasm for his duty as a Ranger was palpable. Private Sutton was wiry and easily one of the most athletic Rangers in the corps. There was nothing wrong with her companions.

What was wrong was the mission itself.

The delivery shuttle skimmed across the Falkor Desert of Nova Prime. Sutton was at the helm, keeping a steady hand. Every so often it bobbed up and down as a powerful gust of wind would endeavor to blow it sideways. The Falkor was renowned for its strong winds; of all the desert areas of Nova Prime, it was most prone toward sandstorms. Why anyone would have the slightest interest in setting up shop out here, Mallory couldn’t even begin to fathom.