Wings of Retribution (54 page)

Upon seeing Ragnar, the man’s tattoed face twisted into a grimace. 

“What?  Are you ill?”

“I need food.”

The man gave him an odd look.  “It’s not time.  Do you need to see a priestess?  You’re sweating.”

“No,” Ragnar gasped.  Streaks of agony were lancing his innards in arcs of white fire.  He could barely stand.  His entire body trembled, and it was all he could do just to remain in control of its form.  “Please.  Food.”

“You didn’t eat already?”  The man looked suspicious.  “If this is some trick to get more rations…”

“No, I’m new,” Ragnar managed.

The man’s frown deepened.  “New to what?”

“Here.  This.”  He motioned at his face.  “I don’t know where I need to be.”

“What class are you?”

“Stranger,” Ragnar said.

“I know that.  What
class?”

“I’m not sure,” Ragnar said.

The man lifted his chin and stared down at him in a sneer.  “You must not have an ounce of the sacred blood.  You’re as stupid as a floater.”

Ragnar bent his head in acknowledgement, even though it hurt his skull to move it.  He was feverish and every part of him was trembling with the pressure of his body’s own cannibalism.  He could
feel
himself losing mass with every moment, feel his memories sliding…

“What were you trained to do before the ceremony?” the man demanded, looking him over like a sick head of cattle.

“Uh,” Ragnar managed, “cook?”

The man stared at him.  He motioned at Ragnar’s undergarments.  “You’re wearing working clothes.  I think you should come with me.  I’ll ask if one of the Traders is missing an idiot.”

“No,” Ragnar said quickly.  “That’s not necessary.  Please, I just need food.”

“You a runaway, then?” the man’s eyes narrowed.

“No.  I need food, then I’ll get back to work.”  Over the last few hours, Ragnar had lost control of his salivatory glands, which had spilled their contents into his bloodstream.  He had thought he could hold out longer, but apparently three jumps after a long dormancy was too much for him to take.  Starved for nutrients, his body was busy devouring itself.  Now all he could think about was the throbbing agony that was his flesh disintegrating from the inside.

“What work?  I’ve never seen that uniform before.  Who’s in charge of you?”

Ragnar glanced down at his underwear.  They were spacer-grade, with a collection canister imbedded in the fabric in case he had to go off-ship.  “Dock,” he said. 

“Dock what?”

Ragnar lunged forward, unable to take the strain any longer.  He grasped the Stranger by the neck, making the man’s eyes bulge in his demon mask.  “Just
tell
me where I can get
food.”
  The roar that came out wasn’t quite human.  He’d lost too much control.

“You’re the
shifter
,” the man gasped.  “A Noble of the Second House.”

“
Yes,
damn it,” Ragnar snarled.  “Now
where?”

“Please, don’t ask me to disobey the Emperor’s Will.”

“I don’t give a damn about the Emperor’s Will, and right now, neither should you.  Tell me where I can find some goddamn food!”

“I can’t,” the man whimpered.  “I’ll die.”

“
Do
it!”

The man rolled his eyes into the back of his head and passed out.

Ragnar dropped him, too weak to hold up the dead weight.  He cursed.  “Get up!”

The man was still.

Ragnar kicked him in the chest, but the man never moved.  Had he pressed too hard on the artery?  Shaking, he knelt to check the pulse.  Nothing.  Dead?

How could he be dead?  And why?  Ragnar was too starved to think. 

Now he had a new problem.  He had to get rid of the corpse, or his pursuers would know which direction he’d gone..

Sweating, weak as he was, Ragnar dreaded the thought of dragging the corpse anywhere, much less all the way across the hall to one of the open seaward windows.  He nudged the corpse again with his foot.  It flopped lifelessly.

Oh gods,
Ragnar thought, his desperation growing to a crescendo. 
I can’t do this.
  Hours of walking in this place and he still hadn’t caught the slightest whiff of food.  He had forty stories and miles of building to cover, and he just didn’t have the
energy
…

Ragnar’s eye caught on the curved brass knife strapped to the man’s belt.  He eyed the corpse a long moment, then bent to retrieve the knife from its scabbard.

He’d found his food.

“We have a problem, Captain.”

Both Dallas and Athenais looked up.

“Take a look at this.”  Tommy dropped a memchip into the console in front of Dallas.  “I can’t make heads or tails of it.  The whole planet’s water.”

Dallas cast Athenais a smug look before examining the file.  The sphere rotating on the screen in front of her was blue and white, with several megastorms roving across the surface.

“That doesn’t look like a very happy place,” Dallas observed.  “Are they living underwater?”

“They’re living on islands,” Tommy replied.  “Each one walled like a fortress.  Forty-two stories high.”  Island after island popped onto the screen, displaying the same huge towering walls, even on the tiniest specks of land.

“For the storms?” Dallas asked.

“That would be my guess, though I think they’re living in the walls.  See those windows?”

Dallas nodded.

“So where’s the capital?” Athenais interrupted.  “Juno will be at the capital.”

“That’s the problem, Captain,” Tommy said, still addressing Dallas.  “We can’t find any identifying markers.  They’re all the same.  To figure out which island is the central government, we’d have to go down and take a look.”

“What about the biggest island?” Athenais demanded.  “That’s the place to start.  Authority will drift towards power, and on that world, power is land.”

For the first time, Tommy looked up at the pirate.  “That’s the odd thing, Athenais.  The largest island’s settlement is completely destroyed.”

“Civil war?”

“I don’t think so.  The ruins are ancient and there are no other signs of war.  You can still see the foundations of several very large buildings if you look closely.  We’re talking a huge civilization, gone in a couple days.”

“There’s no wall,” Dallas noted.

“That’s true.  So I’m thinking whatever wiped out that island is the reason they now build walls.”

“Well, that’s obvious,” Athenais said.  “They got hit by a storm.”

“So they weren’t hit by a single storm for the centuries it took to build that huge civilization?  We’re talking thousands of years, here.”  He pointed.  “If you look closely, the walls are dome-shaped.  Wind resistant.  They were hit by storms in the past, Athenais.”

“Maybe a tsunami.  Something they weren’t used to.”

“The buildings have crumbled in a manner that indicates slow decay.  Nothing has been washed to sea.  I’m not even sure that Xenith is tectonically active.”

“Why do we even care about that island in the first place?” Athenais said.  “We want to find the shifters, not study Xenith’s ancient history.”

“I think it’s important to figure out what happened there,” Tommy said.  “It will give us an enormous window into the inhabitants’ psyche.”

Athenais scoffed.  “You sound just like Juno.  I think she would have worshipped PsyOps if she got the chance.”

“He’s right,” Dallas heard herself say.  “There’s something there that needs to be investigated before we make any attempt at landing.  It must have been significant, or they would have rebuilt there.”

Tommy gave her a sour look.  “Is that your professional opinion, worm?”

“Don’t call him a worm,” Dallas said automatically.  Then, she thought,
I was beginning to think you were asleep in there.

I don’t like this, Dallas,
Stuart responded.
  Something’s not right with this planet.

“I say we hold off another day,” Dallas said.  “Do some more research.  Get our bearings first.”

“Well,
Captain,”
Athenais sneered, “if you’re worried about it, we can always land on that island and take a look around.  We can do our research from there.  It’s deserted, right?  What better place to make landfall?”

“Yes, but…”

“Good.  I can do with some fresh air.  Do you want to drive or shall I?”

Dallas bristled.  “I said we should wait a day.”

Athenais’s smile faded.  “Look, kid.  I
know
Juno.  Better than you, better than Rabbit, better than anyone.  She’s smart.  Very smart.  The longer we stay hidden like this, the sooner she’s gonna find us.  We need to get on that planet before her equipment picks us up.”

“We’re waiting.”

Athenais stood up abruptly.  “Say goodbye to your ship.”  At that, she grabbed her half-eaten sandwich off the console and left the helm, whistling.

Ragnar dropped to the dock in silence.  The last dockworker had already left for the night, leaving the ship moored and silent behind them.

Silent except for a high-pitched keening.