After Earth (47 page)

“I’m pleased you could make it, my friend,” Andropov said. He got up and extended his hand, which was large and meaty.

Cade clasped it. “I wish I could say it was easy. The Rangers are everywhere.” And though Velan hadn’t given Cade any formal restrictions, he might not have taken kindly to the idea of Cade visiting one of his old haunts.

He sat down opposite his mentor. Andropov looked the same. But then he had gotten away that day in the warehouse. He hadn’t been running in the desert with a full pack on his back.

“Drink?” asked Andropov.

Cade shook his head. “No thanks.” The last thing he wanted to do was return to his barracks with liquor on his breath.

Andropov grunted. “You’re not holding it against me, I hope, that I escaped the Rangers without you?”

Cade shook his head. “Not at all. It was every man for himself.”

“I’m glad you understand.”

“You said you had something to discuss with me.”

Andropov nodded. “So I do. Something that I discovered. Because, as you know, I have contacts in the courts.”

Cade knew, all right. When he was a boy, he had delivered things to people. One of them had been a court clerk.

“It’s good news,” Andropov continued. He put his elbows on the table and learned forward. “A week from now, the charges against you will all have been dropped.”

Dropped?
Cade thought.

“You look surprised,” said Andropov. “Me, too. I figured you would have to prove yourself as a Ranger first. But your superiors appear to be a trusting lot. They began petitioning the court to clear your record the day you joined them.”

Dropped
, Cade repeated inwardly.

“So you don’t have to stay with them,” Andropov told him. “You can leave a week from now, free and clear. Which brings me to my proposal …”

Andropov described a shipment for which he needed a customer. But Cade wasn’t listening to the details. All he could think about was that he could leave the Rangers in a week, and how sweet that would be.

“What do you think?” Andropov asked.

“I’m in,” Cade told him. After all, he would need some credits when he got out.

“Excellent,” Andropov said. “You were lucky for me, my friend. I think you can be lucky that way again.”

Maybe the man was right.
Maybe my luck is coming back
.

Cade got back to his barracks an hour and a half after he had left, flushed with the prospect of getting his old life back.
Who needs the Rangers?
he asked himself.

They had been on his case since the minute he showed up. Tolentino especially. He’d seen it at the ravine that first day. He’d seen it after he disabled the construct. He’d seen it after he beat Kayembe in the tournament, and again in the San Franciscos when he saw the plaque.

They hadn’t given him an inch. And he had taken whatever abuse they wanted to throw at him because he didn’t want to go to prison. But soon he wouldn’t have to worry about that.

Cade imagined himself walking up to Tolentino and shoving his uniform in her face. Maybe even decking
Kayembe before he left.
Yeah
. He would do all that and more.

He was thinking about that, thinking hard, when he heard yelling from inside the barracks. One of the voices was Nava’s.

A real Ranger would probably have entered the barracks without a second thought. But Cade wasn’t a real Ranger. He was a street kid at heart, a criminal, so he didn’t walk in. He went to a place where the fabric walls of the barracks came together and peeked inside.

Just in time to see Nava kick Kayembe’s cutlass, which had been propped against his bunk, halfway across the barracks.

Kayembe glared at her. “Are you nuts?”

“Cut him a break,” Nava snapped. She turned to Zabaldo. “You, too.”

“I haven’t said a
thing
to him,” Zabaldo protested.

“That’s the problem. It’s like he doesn’t exist.”

“What’s it to you?” Bentzen asked.

“He’s a
Ranger
,” Nava said.

Kayembe sneered bitterly. “Not a
real
Ranger.”

They’re talking about
me, Cade realized.

“Says who?” Nava demanded.
“You?”

“He didn’t earn it,” Kayembe said. “You
know
that.”

“Since when do they ask
you
to decide who’s earned what?”

Kayembe poked himself in the chest with his thumb. “I went through the selection process. I busted my
hump
.” He looked around. “We all did.”

“That’s great,” Nava said. “And why did you do it?”

Kayembe looked confused. “To become a Ranger.”

“To fight Ursa,” Bentzen said, who seemed to have a better grasp of where Nava was going with this.

“To fight Ursa? Well,” Nava said, “that’s a coincidence, because that’s why Bellamy’s here, too. He wants to fight Ursa as much as we do. He wants to make a difference. Who are we to tell him he can’t?

“Especially if he can ghost. You know what that would mean to us? How many Ursa we’ll be able to take
off the board with a guy like that? Or do you
like
losing your friends and having not a damned thing to show for it?”

That seemed to shut them up.

“If they’re right about Cade,” Nava continued, “the Ursa can’t see him. But
we
can. So stop pretending he’s not here, because he’s one of us. One of
us
.”

No one objected. Not because they had gained respect for Cade, because as far as he could tell, they didn’t have any to begin with. It was because of how they felt about Nava.

And how Nava felt about
him
.

Cade was touched. Hell, no one had ever stood up for him that way before.

But what if his ghosting turned out to be a fluke—
a one-time thing
, as Velan had put it? What if he wasn’t the difference maker Nava hoped he was?

How hard would she fight for him
then
?

That night, Cade’s squad was assigned crowd-control duty at the East Side Arena, a huge, ivory-colored amphitheater open to the stars.

The occasion was a concert for kids who had lost loved ones to the Ursa. Cade had never heard of the performers, but they were loud and quirky and perfectly suited to their youthful audience if the applause they got was any indication.

Cade and Nava had been stationed on the curved walkway just behind the nosebleed seats. In the Arena’s early days, a couple of mischievous spectators had gone over the rail and tried to climb down the facade, only to fall to their deaths. Since then, it had become the Rangers’ job to watch the walkway.

Nava smiled. “If I’d known they used Rangers here,” she said, “I’d have tried out even earlier.”

“We’re not just here to enjoy the music,” Cade reminded her.

Tolentino had made him paranoid. He was sure that if he lost focus for even a second, she would find out about it.

Nava shrugged. “Who’s enjoying the music?”

“Then what?” Cade asked.

Nava looked around. “The way the place lights up the night. The way the air smells, like some kind of perfume. It’s nice.”

He slid her a look. “Really?”

“Uh huh. And it’s even nicer being up here rather than down there.”

“If you say so,” he said.

Suddenly, he realized that her eyes had locked with his. What’s more, he found it hard to turn away.

Cade had thought Nava was nice-looking from the moment he met her. But now that he saw her with the stars in her eyes, she looked absolutely beautiful. And her scar only made her more so, somehow.

Before he knew it, she was leaning closer to him, bringing her mouth up to meet his.

“Don’t,” he said suddenly, surprising himself.
Am I crazy? A pretty girl is trying to kiss me and I’m turning her down?

Still, he couldn’t do it. Nava thought he was going to be a Ranger for the long haul, and he wasn’t. In no time at all he would be free of the Corps, doing what he did best—working the black market.

She was the one person in his life who had stood up for him. He wasn’t going to let her get hurt.

“Why not?” Nava asked. “No one’s looking.”

“Because we’re
Rangers
,” he said, lying through his teeth.

“And Rangers can’t have love affairs?” She made a face. “Is that a rule or something? Because if it is, I’ve never heard of it.”

“I don’t know if it’s a rule, but it’s still a lousy idea.” His mind raced. “What if we wind up fighting an Ursa side by side? How are you going to survive if you’re
worrying about me? How am
I
going to survive if I’m worrying about
you
?”

“I’d be worrying about you anyway. You’re a member of my squad.”

“I mean me in
particular
. There are a million things to think about out there. You don’t want to add one more.”

Nava shrugged. “Then I’ll ask for a transfer to another squad.”

“Squads work together sometimes. They get mixed and matched. We can’t take that chance.”

“You don’t think this is stupid?” she asked. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

Cade could see only part of her face, but she looked like she was in pain. “This is hard enough,” he said. “Don’t make it harder.”

Nava eyed him a moment longer. Then she said, “All right,” with only a faint note of bitterness in her voice and moved farther down the walkway. “If that’s the way you want it.”

It wasn’t. But he wasn’t going to put Nava in a position to hurt herself. Anyone else, but not her.

As the days passed, Cade became more and more certain that he had done the right thing back on the walkway.

Nava didn’t speak to him much, but that was all right. She was better off this way.

It occurred to him that they could get together after he left the Rangers, but he didn’t think she would want that. She was a Ranger. He was going back to the black market. Not exactly a match made in heaven, was it?

Meanwhile, something funny happened. The less Cade gave a crap about impressing Tolentino and the others, the better he seemed to do his job, at least in everyone else’s minds. And the more he did that job, the more easily he was accepted.

Even by Kayembe. At least a little bit.

Go figure
, Cade thought.

Then, the day before Cade’s charges were supposed to be dropped, he and his teammates got the news from Tolentino: They would be engaging in an Ursa hunt, Cade’s first. To his surprise, he was excited about it. But then he would have a chance to ghost again.

Or fall flat on his face.

But at least he would
know
.

They were dispatched by mag-lev transport to Old Town, the original settlement from which Nova City had grown. Old Town, as Cade remembered it, was a place full of narrow streets and alleys, any of which might afford an Ursa a place to hide.

When he got there, he saw that the streets were even narrower than he had recalled. It wasn’t a plus from a strategic point of view. Rangers had always done better when they had a chance to surround the beasts.

Still, Tolentino put half of them on one side of the street and half on the other. They stopped at each intersection, knowing that any Ursa they encountered probably would be camouflaged but might betray its presence with a set of tracks in the soft red dirt underfoot. When they didn’t see anything, they moved on.

Suddenly the monster appeared—out of nowhere, it seemed—a sinewy six-legged mass of pale flesh and blue-gray smart metal with a huge black maw and razor-sharp talons.

Tolentino called out an order that sent Kayembe and Bentzen at the thing from different sides. Cade could see that the Ursa was confused—so much so that it didn’t know which of them to imprint on first.

Then it made a choice—and it was Kayembe. It took a swipe at him with one of its paws and nearly got him, but he managed to scramble backward in time. Seeing that the creature had picked its prey, the other Rangers knew they had to distract it or see Kayembe sliced to ribbons.

Zabaldo was the first to take a serious hack at the Ursa. Nava followed suit. Cade caught himself watching
her every move and forced his eyes to avert.
Focus
, he reprimanded himself.

With each Ranger attack, the monster whirled and roared, but it didn’t go after its tormentor. Having imprinted on Kayembe, it wouldn’t go after anyone else until it had ripped the big man apart.

Cade knew he was leaving. He didn’t have to risk his life to save Kayembe’s. But if he hung back, he might never know if he could ghost again as he had done in the warehouse.

Was it worth sacrificing himself to find out?
Hell no
. But he wouldn’t have to. All he had to do was keep his cutlass at the ready. If it looked to him like the Ursa was going to attack him, he could defend himself.

Was there a risk? Sure. But Cade was a gambler. He
liked
the idea of a little risk. All he had to do was get between Kayembe and the creature, where it would perceive him as an obstacle if it perceived him at all—and remove him as only an Ursa could.

Here goes
, he thought, allowing the others to continue the fight as he sprinted past Kayembe and took a position behind him. That was where Tolentino had told him to go in an encounter. “Behind whoever the Ursa imprints on,” she had said.

This Ursa was noticeably bigger than the creature Cade had encountered back in the warehouse.
Bigger and faster
.

He remembered the way that other Ursa had gone by him as if he weren’t there. At the time, he hadn’t even realized what was going on. But this time he knew
exactly
.

But what if what had happened in the warehouse was a fluke? What if it was only that first Ursa he could hide from and no others?

Then Kayembe won’t be the only casualty today
.

As the big man retreated past Cade, the Ursa followed. And Cade stood there, counting on the luck that had always seen him through, no matter how tough the situation.

The creature opened its maw and shrieked. Cade could see its teeth, a jagged circle of death. He could smell its breath, rank with the shreds of its last human meal.