Skyland (19 page)
The old man said nothing.
Finally, Harper turned and left the room. He
left the door open as he'd found it and ran as light as he could
down the hall. Back at the heavy doors, he pushed against them,
then on the other side he pulled his sock from the hinge. The doors
clicked shut and he breathed a sigh of relief. But the curiosity
and revulsion and pity still mingled in his gut. His hands were
shaking even harder now with the relief of escaping, when–
"Hey, there you are!"
His heart stopped. He balled his socks into
his fist and tried to hide them in his sleeves. He turned slowly.
Wills, was standing behind him. He was smiling.
Harper tried to smile too. "Hey."
"Been looking for you. Had a good
wander?"
"Yeah, yeah. Hey what's behind these doors?"
He pulled up one corner of his mouth in a joking half-smile that
said clearly (he hoped)
I know you can't tell me.
"Hah! I don't even know. Arms, probably?
They don't let me down there, I'm too low-level. They're locked
anyway, and I don't have access."
"Right. Just wondering. Y-you feeling
better?"
"Yeah." Wills smiled, the big, carefree grin
lighting up his face again. He looked well-rested. "Thanks for
covering for me. Did you run into anyone?"
"No." Harper shook his head. "This place is
like a cave."
"Yeah, most people are at the Tenth
Day."
"Most of the Union soldiers are Infinite
Space?" asked Harper.
Wills shrugged. "Some of them. Well, yes,
probably most of them, but not everyone actually goes every Tenth.
Actually, I don't think most go at all."
"Oh."
"Hungry for lunch?"
No.
"Yeah, sure." he said. "I could
eat."
Harper's stomach was still in knots. The
smell of piss that lingered in his mind made the thought of food
sickening. But it was probably time for lunch, and he'd skirted
suspicion enough for one day. So he followed as Wills turned down
the hallway to the right. They wandered back through hall after
hall, a different way than Harper had come on his own. Their
footsteps echoed in the quiet ship.
Then a distant buzzing wavered through the
quiet hall.
Singing.
Wills stopped.
One step behind, Harper stopped too.
Whhhooooooohhhh...
waaahhhoooooohhh.....hhheeeeeehhhoooooohhhh....
"The Infinite Space."
Harper closed his eyes. The black void
behind his lids was the empty, empty space outside the ship, the
wordless call, the voice of the wordless void, and he felt the sway
of the ship's floor beneath him, hurtling, hurtling, hurtling
through space...
"Really drags you away, doesn't it?"
Harper opened his eyes and looked down. A
hand was on his arm.
"Doesn't it?" Wills repeated. The wide smile
was gone again.
"Yeah." Harper steadied himself against the
wall. "Yeah, it does."
The sound was coming from an open door a few
feet ahead. Harper could just see into it where a few figures
knelt, singing. He recognized the angry man's face immediately. He
knelt in the semi-circle, eyes closed, face serene, mouth open
around the wordless wail.
"Lets... let's get back to the mess," said
Harper. "I'm hungry."
He walked past the door quickly, and Wills
followed.
They walked down the halls and the wordless
keening of the Infinite Space fell behind them. But the empty,
empty space lurked behind Harper's eyelids and loomed at him with
every blink.
"He's not going to be much help, is he." It
was not a question.
Apep was silent.
He ignored the not-question. Or
tried
to ignore it. He tried to deflect the voice from his ears. It was
angry, impatient. As usual. Some of the lower ranks just didn't
understand war. Thought it was all fire and brimstone! They got
impatient when it wasn't.
No respect for the art at all!
Apep
grit his teeth.
It was maddening. The irritated and
irritating voice babbled on.
"I mean, he's just not. No help," it said,
head shaking. "I can't see it, anyway. He's just an old codger.
Nothing to say. Sir?"
Apep sighed.
Sir?
That was a
question. And he had to answer. "His wife died," he said. "Hit by
the debris or something. Burned up in front of him."
"Sentimental fool."
"No. Perfectly reasonable. He wants to
follow her."
Surprise, you moron.
The angry man snorted. "Of course."
No respect. No respect at all.
"He
will recover," said Apep. "Not completely, of course. He is
wounded, irreparably probably. Not that we helped with that. But he
will recover. Eventually."
The angry man grumbled impatiently. "We had
to get a widower, didn't we!"
"Yes, we did. And, sergeant?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Sergeant, he is no use to us dead."
Apep kept his voice soft, calm. He stroked
the white stubble prickling out from his chin. He watched the
screen and the shivering chair maker curled up on the sleeping
platform. That "old" man was probably younger than himself, but
without the opportunity to preserve his youth, he looked worn,
decrepit, more than halfway to the grave already. Yellowed nails
scratched at folds of skin hanging off his jawline and neck and
down from his eye sockets. Laying sideways, the "old" chair maker's
face look lopsided, pulled down from the bone by gravity. And when
he shivered in the cold of the cell, the wrinkles jiggled.
Apep watched intently, trying to ignore the
agitated sergeant next to him.
"So... sir?" came the annoyed voice beside
him. "Raise the temperature?"
"For now," said Apep. "Just a little."
"But–"
"For now."
Again, Apep kept his voice calm. There was
no warning in the tone. There didn't need to be. His subordinate
was silent for a moment, and Apep closed his eyes thinking,
thinking into the silence. Then,
"What will you do then?" the annoyed and
annoying and angry –
always
angry – voice started up
again.
Apep sighed. "Are you taking care of the
farmer?"
"Yes."
"Are you
taking care
of the farmer?"
he asked again. He turned to the sergeant with a raised eyebrow and
a withering tone, "Hmm?"
"Yes! Yes, sir. I gave him the nice room
and–"
"Hm," Apep snorted.
"What? I made it nice and all. I gave him
pillows! You ever seen pillows on Skyland? Where
he's
from?"
Apep glared.
"The farmer is doing fine," said the angry
sergeant, sullenly.
"Then we have another source of help," Apep
reminded him. "Besides the old man."
"But you're keeping him, too? The old chair
maker, as well as the farmer? Both of them?"
"For now. Yes."
The angry voice had no retort to that, and
the observation room again lapsed into silence. Apep shook his
head. He blinked his eyes hard. His spine tingled with that
uncomfortable feeling he always got in this room.
Color...
The room itself was dark except for the
monitors. They were color screens, but there was almost no color to
show on them. The cell on the screen was black, the light stark,
and the skin of the prisoner glacial white. Only the clothing stood
out against the monochrome. Blue denim pants, faded, and a blue
blazer, less so. It looked like an ancient colorized picture.
"He'll shit himself if he's in there much
longer," said the angry man. There was not even a shade of
compassion in his voice. "Your drugs aren't going to keep him
stopped up forever. We should just kil–"
"Yes, thank you, sergeant," Apep cut him
off.
Useless tool.
Each word took more and more effort to
keep calm. "We've got it all under control," he said. "The old man
is still useful."
Unlike some people.
"And how's that, sir?"
Apep turned his head. He looked at his
red-faced and rather pudgy underling. "Excuse me?" This time, the
warning broke through.
"How's he useful?"
"Don't worry about it."
"But–"
"Don't."
Apep shook his head.
No respect for art.
No respect.
"Don't. Don't even–" he paused and took a breath,
swallowing his irritation.
Stupid questions.
"You don't need
to know that. And better you don't. You just fuck things up, don't
you?" His tone had returned to it's calm pitch, but the irritation
at the impatient sergeant couldn't be concealed -
shouldn't
be concealed.
"Sir..."
"Leave the chair maker alone for now. And
the farmer. We need them both."
"Yes, sir."
Apep basked in the moment of silence, but
the twit next to him wouldn't let it last.
"I don't get it, sir."
"What now?"
"Why leave them alone? Especially the
farmer. We can just
ask
him! He's been forthcoming with us,
and if he's not... well, we have ways of dealing with that.
He's
still got a living wife. The old guy doesn't care what
happens to himself–"
"He does."
"He wants to die."
"No he doesn't."
"Look at him!"
Apep did. He looked at the balled up,
shriveled old thing on the cot on the monitor and shook his head.
"Nobody wants to die," he said.
"Maybe... But the young one – the farmer –
would be so much easier."
"Just shut up sergeant."
The angry man went silent. Apep kept his
gaze fixed on the monitors. His jaw tightened – this time with the
effort of keeping a smile from breaking across his face. After a
moment, he broke the silence himself.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
"I..." The angry man faltered. "Our unit was
sent here, sir."
"I ask again. Why are you here?"
"Sir?"
Primitive. Primitive man.
"There are
soldiers still back in Union Proper and in our bases on the
periphery – they are sitting in the brig for refusing to come to
Skyland."
"They are?"
"Yes."
Why are they always so surprised
to learn that they have a choice?
"One or two of them."
"I see, sir."
"Why are you not with them?" he prodded.
"Why did you come here?"
"To protect the Union."
"Why?"
"Because it is worth protecting. Because the
spread of the cults will threaten good society." The sergeant
rattled off the already well-worn directive.
Yes, tool, if you can't think for
yourself, default to the rote.
"And you believe that we are
doing that, correct?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you trust enough to follow orders?"
"Yes sir."
"Then trust that there is a plan. You do
that well, don't you?" He looked straight into the man's eyes, the
slow, belligerent eyes. "Trust. You trust that war is more than
brute force. That it is a strategy... an art, if you will... you
trust that, right? That things work out because the art falls into
place?"
"Yes, sir."
"Because otherwise, you would not be here.
Isn't that right? "
"I am here to follow orders, sir."
"A good soldier does not follow orders. A
good soldier
trusts
the orders and follows that trust."
"I-I do. Sir. I do trust."
Apep felt his smile struggling harder
against his jaw.
The big man, angry and rough and impatient,
was scared. Scared of him. And Apep did not feel bad. Now he stared
down his underling. These tools were taught to respect strength.
They did not hold with compassion. Show a hard exterior and they
would stare up at it in awe.
Simpletons.
"And a good soldier
trusts," he continued, "he trusts the things beyond his
comprehension. Things beyond his need to know. He trusts."
"Yes, sir."
Apep turned away from the angry man. He
looked back at the monitors. "We are not so simple that we have no
choice but to force answers from people. We are better than that,
sergeant."
Much better.
"Yes, sir."
Finally, Apep let himself smile at those
words, words he could tell were forced through gritted teeth. "Now,
sergeant?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Do shut up."
"Hey."
Harper kept his voice barely over a whisper,
but he looked over his shoulder up and down the long hall of cells
anyway. Nothing moved, not a shadow, not a footstep. Everything was
still. Still and silent. Not even a breath of sound came from the
dark hall.
It was still and silent inside the cell
too.
The old man hadn't answered the whisper and
hadn't moved from the bed – or the horizontal surface that passed
for a bed in this cell. Harper cleared his throat and tried again,
just a little louder.
"Hey, old man."
This time, the old man rolled over – at
least, his head and shoulders twisted around from the fetal
position he was in, as if his body couldn't muster the energy to
roll the rest of the way over. Fatigue was etched in the grey eyes,
flat, empty eyes over dark, bulging circles, over cheeks red from
the cold. Limp white hair hung in strings, stark contrasts against
the blotchy face. He groaned, his only answer to Harper's greeting.
Harper looked over his shoulder once again then stepped past the
open door of the cell to lean just inside the door frame.
"Are you hungry?" he asked.
Still there was no response. The old man
just blinked. His tired stare rested somewhere around Harper's
forehead.