The Darkness of God: Book Three of the Shadow Warrior Trilogy (12 page)

“Damfino,” Joshua said. “Whyn’t you go play bait? I’ll try to rescue you before the horrid beasties get more than a nibble or two.”

She kicked moss at him, stripped off her coveralls and boots, and cautiously waded into the water. She kept her gun in one hand for a while, then set it close at hand on the bank and started splashing water about. “Come on, you filthy disbeliever. Clean your vile hide,” she called.

Wolfe obeyed, taking soap down. They washed, shivering as it grew colder, and the storm grew closer.

“Look,” Kristin pointed into the water. A foot-long brown creature drifted past her foot. “A fish?”

“Maybe.”

“Could we eat it?”

“Maybe. Come on, Lady Crusoe. Later for the local fauna. We brought dinner.”

• • •

They’d finished the self-heating ship rations before the storm broke, and rain came down in soft, drifting waves around the shelter, beading on the plas, then pouring down it. Joshua leaned out and let rain drizzle on his tongue, feeling like a boy. Bitter, but drinkable, he thought, and ducked back into the shelter.

Kristin, aided by a small flash propped on a rock, was arranging the blankets. She slid into the improvised bed. “Are you planning to sit up all night?”

Joshua joined her, lying back against the moss. Kristin turned the flash off and put her head on his shoulder. After a while, she sighed. “This is nice. It’s like this is the only world there is.”

“Maybe it’d be nice if it were.”

“Why couldn’t it be? We could eat fish, and — and maybe the moss is edible. We could live on love for our desserts. These shipsuits won’t ever wear out. And maybe you’d look good in a long beard, my little hermit of Ak-Mechat.”

Wolfe laughed, realizing the sound was almost a stranger.

Kristin ran her fingers over his lips. “I do
like
this,” she said again. “All alone on what feels like an island.”

“Thus proving John Donne a liar,” Wolfe said, yawning.

“I know who he was, you overeducated name-dropper,” Kristin said. “I had to analyze the illogic of some Christian thinkers when I was in creche, and he was one of them.”

“Damned odd training the Chitet have for their warriors,” Wolfe said.

“But I didn’t think John Donne was always wrong. We all
are
part of the main, aren’t we?”

“Hasn’t been my experience,” Wolfe said, voice chilling, remembering a teenage boy in an alien prison camp, alone, staring down at rough graves.

“Or have you just chosen not to be a player?” Kristin asked. “I read the fiche Chitet Intelligence had, Joshua. It was pretty scanty, but it said you were a prisoner of the Al’ar when you were a boy, and then you escaped and were a soldier until the Al’ar vanished. Perhaps if I’d gone through something like that, I wouldn’t feel connected to the main very securely either.”

“Sometimes,” Joshua said, “it’s the least painful way.”

“Which is why you’ve gone through so much for the Lumina. Just for your own benefit. Of course.”

Wolfe was quiet for a very long time.

“You Chitet sharpen your razors way too damned much,” he said. “Goodnight.”

• • •

The field was as advertised — nothing more than a square mile of hardpack, with reflectors at the perimeter. There was no sign of life. Two stripped wrecks lay drunkenly nearby, not far from a long shed, with the navbeacon in a square cupola atop it.

The shed was unlocked, and had a sign, stamped in duralumin:

“I was hoping,” Wolfe said, “there might be at least a watchman with a com we could rent to call offworld. Let alone something like a freelancer with a ship for hire. Ah, for the rough freedom of a pioneer world.” He scanned the sign again. “Naturally, according to the gazetteer, Graveyard’s the biggest mining town. Wonder who the cheery bastard was that named it?”

“Why didn’t they build the field near the mines?” Kristin asked. “Or relocate it, once they found whatever they’re digging out.”

“A lot of people like to see visitors coming from a long way off,” Joshua said. “Or maybe none of them could agree about where the new field ought to go. The less I try to figure out why people do things, if I don’t have to, the better I sleep at night.”

“Joshua, do we have enough credits to get someone to pick us up?”

“Probably,” Wolfe said. “But we’re not looking for simple transport. At least not for long. Eventually, I need a ship of my own. I’m pretty sure they don’t run passenger lines where I’m headed. But there’s all kinds of ways to pay for things. Mount up, and let’s see if we can make Graveyard before dusk.”

• • •

The moke was as simple as engineering could make it: a nearly rectangular craft with a bench seat behind an open windscreen, a small cargo department, controls for starting/stopping the drive, a joystick, an altitude control, and the three buttons for the programmed destinations, with a small satellite-positioning screen that gave nav instructions.

Wolfe and Kristin loaded aboard the least-battered moke, lifted it out of the shed, and followed the screen’s directions. The moke beeped if they tried to make any deviation from the preset course.

It grew colder the closer they got to the mountains, and clouds lowered. A wind spat flurries of snow into the cockpit. They were moving uphill, following a track that had been leveled some time ago by earth-moving machinery, curving between trees, storm-twisted evergreens with hand-size leaves.

“We’re not going to make it before nightfall,” Wolfe said. “Let’s start looking for the least dismal place to camp.”

A creek crashed over rocks not far from the trail, near a downed tree and a cluster of rocks that would serve for a windbreak. They grounded the moke and lifted out their packs. Wolfe used the plas to form another tent with the downed tree as a back, and Kristin spread the blankets. He found dead branches for a fire, piled them high, and sparked them into smoky life with his blaster on low.

“What do you want to eat?” he asked. “Stew, featuring the ever-popular mystery meat, or seven-bean cassoulet?”

“Let’s go with the stew,” Kristin said. “The tent’s too small to chance the cassoulet.”

Wolfe set out two mealpaks, then opened the improvised pack that held the Lumina. “I’d like to try something,” he said, “and I need a lab rat.”

“Charming way to put it,” Kristin said, sitting cross-legged on the blanket. “And I can’t say I care for doing anything with
that.
”

“Why not? It’s just a tool that was built by some weird-looking folks.”

“There’s too much blood — too much strangeness about it,” Kristin said. “But go ahead. What are you going to try to do?”

“I won’t tell you — I don’t want to suggest anything. But whatever you feel like doing — try not to do it.”

Joshua knelt, set the Lumina in front of him, and breathed deeply, slowly, for several minutes. Then his breathing came quickly, and his hands came out, palms up.

The gray, nondescript stone flamed to life.

Wolfe’s fingers curled, and the heels of his hands touched. Kristin started to get up, then sank back. She moved once more, returning to her cross-legged position as Wolfe’s breath exploded out.

“No,” he said. “It didn’t work.”

“You wanted me to get up, and go out to the lifter, right?”

“I did.”

“Why didn’t the Lumina make me do it? You’ve used it to kill people. Why did it fail on something simple?”

“I don’t know.” Wolfe thought about it. “Maybe because you’re close to me — maybe because you’re strong-willed. Or maybe I didn’t have a gut-drive to make you do something.”

“So you’re not an Al’ar,” Kristin said.

“No.”

The thought flashed:

Not yet.
Wolfe thought — hoped — he felt relief. “All right,” he said. “Once more. Think of something. Anything.”

Kristin closed her eyes and was silent. Wolfe began breathing rhythmically once more.

His breath pattern stopped.

“A black tube,” he said. “With something white, reflecting at the top. Some sort of industrial tool?”

“I’d give that one a close, but lousy on the interpretation. I was thinking about that formal you bought for me, back on Rogan’s World, that I never had a chance to wear. With pearls.”

Wolfe looked at her for a long time. “When — if — we get a chance, I’ll get you some more pearls. And take you somewhere you can wear them.”

The dusk shattered in a scream, and Wolfe and Kristin rolled out of the shelter, guns ready.

A creature slashed madly at the ground, three yards on the other side of the moke. It was about twelve feet long, moved on four legs, and was almost Wolfe’s height at the shoulder. It had long, dark brown hair, with two arms ending in scoop-shaped claws. It had no neck, and its skull was set close into its shoulders, with red, glaring eyes and dark incisors lining a circular mouth.

Kristin was kneeling, aiming, pistol butt cradled in her left palm, elbow on her knee as the monster screamed again, stumbled toward them, reared, claws stretching.

“Wait,” Wolfe said, his voice calm.

Reach …
nothing is here … calm … peace … not-prey … not enemy … soft wind … not harm …

The beast roared again, but this time not as loudly.

Calm … not-prey … not enemy … wind … full belly … not-thirst … not-hunger …

The creature stood still for an instant, then turned, and, unhurriedly, shambled away.

Kristin let out her breath, lowered her gun. “Now why did
that
work?”

“Let’s add another guess,” Wolfe said. “Fear is an excellent motivator.”

“Let’s see if you’re still at peak drive,” Kristin said. “Read my mind now.”

Wolfe began to breathe, then a smile came. “I got the signal perfectly.” He came toward her, lifted her in his arms, and carried her back into the tent. “It didn’t hurt that you were playing with the slider on your shipsuit,” he said.

“I’m still transmitting,” Kristin said throatily. “Do you know how I want to love you?”

Her hands reached for his suit fastener and pulled it down; her head came forward and she took him in her mouth.

• • •

Early the next morning, they reached Graveyard.

A new,
highly infectious,
almost
invariably fatal
disease has been reported on several worlds at the fringes of the Federation and appears to be spreading rapidly with no discovered means of transmission.

The incubation period is unknown. The onset is very rapid, beginning with
intense pain
and a
high fever,
spiking as high as 106–109 degrees Fahrenheit. The pulse is rapid and thready and hypotension occurs. Almost immediate
inflammation
of the entire skin occurs, accompanied by
delirium, confusion,
and
incoordination.
The secondary stage of the disease produces what appear similar to
deep burns,
with destruction of the epidermis and dermis over the entire body. Unusually, the common loss of feeling accompanying deep burns never occurs, and
pain
continues to grow to an intolerable pitch. Patient will enter advanced shock almost immediately, while disease continues to destroy tissue. Death generally follows within one to two hours after the first symptoms are noted.

No recoveries known from full onset of disease. The few survivors evinced only beginning signs of the disease which then disappeared without any treatment. Current fatality estimates: Over 99%.

Unknown.

Unknown.

Unknown. Disease seems to strike at random. Two reports, which cannot be taken as believable, suggest those who had contact with the Al’ar or who have “psychic abilities” (phrase not admitted as meaningful) are most at risk.

None reported as effective. Patient should be treated for extreme shock and given standard third-degree burn treatments. Beyond that, treatment is symptomatic.

This disease is highly contagious, with no known cure, and few reported recoveries. Patients should be isolated, as should medical teams involved with their treatment. Any information suggesting effective diagnosis or treatment should be immediately communicated with this station. To prevent possible panic, this information should be regarded as highly secret and should not be given to the general public or media.

The canyon was a deep vee-notch, with bluffs towering overhead. There were half a dozen mine entrances cut into the walls, high rectangles. Around each were scattered outbuildings.

There was a mine not far distant from the track, and as the moke slid past, a long line of ore cars slid out, controlled by a miner in a tiny overhead gravsled.

Kristin waved, but the man had no response until he realized what he was looking at. Then he waved back frantically, almost tipping over the ‘sled.

“It appears,” Joshua said, “that Graveyard’s male-female ratio’s about normal for the outback. What a place to settle down, Kristin. Total adulation until somebody gets drunk or jealous and grabs for a gun.”

They rounded a corner, and Graveyard spread below them. There was one central street, with a dozen dirt ruts radiating off it. Buildings, mostly prefab, dotted the canyon’s floor and walls; rocky outcroppings covered with dirty snow lay between them. Above the town were large, two-story buildings.

“Superintendents’ quarters,” Joshua said. “Looks like things have gotten prosperous enough to have absentee owners.”