wordlessly calculating, running a tongue over toothless gums. No questions, no refunds, no negotiating, and most of all, no identity check.
He made his way over the countryside to the still-vast forests. The Ayamara farmers barely paid him any heed as he passed through. Mountain climbers were still a regular sight. The llamas were the only ones who paid him any mind. They all trailed behind him, bleating wistfully for a treat.
He gave them slivers of the fruit that he’d brought with him. After that foolish move, they adored him over quite a distance before heeding the herder’s flute. Once they were gone, his only company was birds and monkeys. They only watched him from a safe distance, sensing that he had nothing of interest for them.
۞
She was still, buried, exhausted. All the digging and scrabbling in the debris she’d done had accomplished very little. There was no budging the long beams of wood and piles of concrete pinning her down. It was beginning to seem clear that she’d been drawn into her subconscious by this other entity. She still did not recollect how something as deliberate as this could have ended up in her brain. Maybe this was why her friends always seemed to be watching her, as if waiting for something.
Yes, she had been lured in, and trapped, deliberately. If this other…thing…could manipulate her mindscape, though, why shouldn’t she be able to do the same? It was hers, after all. The trick was figuring out how to exert that much control. Or maybe it wasn’t about a quantity.
She’d put out the fire after all. How had she done that? It worried her a little; what if she hadn’t been the one to do it? Had it been part of the lure? The biggest unknown, though, the fear that weakened her resolve, was what would happen once she got out. What sort of battle might she face once she caught up with this invader? The uncertainty ate away at her until she decided to rest. Sleep would probably help her sort things out.
۞
“What’s up Dem? You have a really crummy sense of timing, you know?”
“What did I interrupt?” There was silence on the other end. “Never mind. I’ll just assume that you’re with Sa’andy and leave it at that.”
“Would you mind telling me why you had to send a PFC to come pound on the door to my domicile?”
“Sorry. Yes. Uh, the thing is, I ran into Maeve.”
“I thought she was due to stay overnight in the clinic. No?”
“She was. They called me and said she was discharged against doctor’s orders.”
“This doesn’t sound promising.”
“So, no, not really. She was behaving a bit oddly, and then she knocked me on my ass.”
“Define oddly.”
“She referred to herself in the third person. Sort of. Accidentally.”
“So you called me.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m missing a step here.”
“You recall when her friends told us that she had been, at one time, subject to some sort of brainwashing scheme?”
“Ah, now I see the big picture.”
“I thought you might.”
“Any idea where she is?”
“Mrs. Han’s.”
“Shit.” How the hell were they going to go in? He had no reason to try and take her out of there.
“They’re planning on leaving soon anyway. What happens if they go back to Earth and she goes on her little mission?”
“I really have no idea. Christensen said he didn’t even know what she’d been programmed to do. They were only guessing. I just don’t want to see a war started for no good reason.”
“Tark, man, one thing you may not want to hear, but you need to; we might not have a lot of control over that anymore.”
“Bull. If we can keep them from going and causing trouble…I think things will quiet down.”
“You know I love you like a brother, but you are a dude who can live in denial like a madman.”
“You’d rather I wasn’t such an optimist?”
“Not really. I mean, optimism saved my ass.” Dmitry drew in a deep breath before trying to say what he knew he needed to say. “Maeve and her friends haven’t exactly angered a sleeping bear. If anything, they’ve managed to point out the fact that we’ve got an already angry bear at our back door.”
“A bear?”
“You’re the one who likes metaphors. My point is, maybe we ought to be supporting this. Maybe we ought to get on the right side before things get crazy.”
“What, you think conflict is inevitable?”
“I do. But if we can contain it, keep it on Earth, then it might not get as bad as it might otherwise.”
“That’s an awful lot of vagueness. Any reason in particular you feel this way?” Tark stared at the comm piece, wondering where all this newfound passion had come from. Could Maeve have had such a big impact on him in this relatively short amount of time?
Dmitry felt in his trouser knee pocket for his tablet. He’d held off from showing Tark the correspondence between Hawke and whomever she’d been in touch with back on Earth. It had seemed irrelevant at first, until things began to happen….
“I’m sending you a file.”
“What of?”
“Just read it. I think it’ll give you the context you need to understand my saying that I believe we need to act first. We ought to be on the offensive.”
“Are you in support of Maeve and her friends leaving to be part of this?”
“Yes and no.”
“Because of how she was acting? I don’t know. If what they said was true, she might be equipped to go after some group like this Mithraic bunch.”
“And yet…I keep going back to a doubt. Christensen says that they never knew who took her. They don’t know what she was given for orders. What if she’s trying to lead them into an ambush? I mean, not her, but whatever is in control…I still didn’t even know this was possible.”
“Any super soldier programs we ever heard about were complete flops. I don’t know. Maybe everything they’ve said is true. If that’s the case, maybe the best we can do is let them go and follow close behind.” Tark’s voice had gone suddenly hard. He was scanning the file Dmitry had sent him on his tablet. There were years’ worth of messages, but the important ones Dmitry had highlighted.
These all detailed Hawke’s feelings, certainly, but more importantly, they were the writings of an informer. All of Tark’s courtship with Sa’andy was written in minutiae. Many other personnel and civilians on board the station were apparently monitored as well. They were regularly referred to as “enemies of humankind” throughout Hawke’s messages. Tark had the feeling he could read on for several hours.
“Am I to assume you have read the entirety of these messages?””
“I have.”
“I apologize, then. I had her for a garden-variety kook.”
“I think she was chosen for that reason. She was eccentric, total crap for people skills; we all figured she was just a nut with unpleasant opinions.”
“This explains why my requests for her transfer were denied three times.”
“Three times?!” Dmitry was both surprised and not. Tark shrugged into the darkness and said nothing as he continued to read. Hawke’s words certainly lent an air of truth to Maeve and her friends’ talk of mission. Moreover, it seemed to point to some potentially influential people having a vested interest in the Mithraic Alliance. They were going to have to be a bit more cautious in their movements and communications from now on.
“You think that this alliance is going to try to initiate hostilities with other species?”
“It’s difficult to say whether that’s the primary goal, or whether they plan on sealing the borders to the system first. It seems obvious that something big is in the works, and the timeframe is not terribly far off at this moment.” Dmitry paced in circles through the arboretum. The section he stood in was the edge of the rain forest; a stream ran its watery fingers through a mangrove stand. It was distracting, but only just so.
“Dem, you still ther
e?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re trying to decide what to do.”
“I’ve always been pretty obvious….”
“That’s a flipping understatement. Go get some rest. We’ll find them in a couple hours and try to settle on a common plan.”
“But….”
“No arguments. You said yourself that she wasn’t acting herself. You can’t fix that on your own.” Tark disconnected, leaving his words to echo painfully in Dmitry’s head. He still wasn’t sure which was worse; knowing that she was beyond his reach, or that she might be killed before he had a chance to figure anything out.
Maeve had told him to leave her alone, in so many words, in a voice that had sounded like hers. He was assuming that she was under the thrall of preprogrammed directive, but he couldn’t be certain.
Perhaps it actually had been her. Then what? He shook the thought from his mind. It wasn’t any help to allow himself to get depressed. There was no altering the situation as it stood. He was unlikely to find sympathy from her friends. Leif clearly wanted no part of him. And now this Wallace person had risen up from the past…it was untenable. He had to focus on what he could.
That thought firmly in place, Dmitry stalked back to his quarters, trying to sort through his conversation with Tark. It seemed as though he’d gotten his friend to see reason. It was a bit troubling that Tark had begun talking as though he intended to be a part of any return to Earth. One thing at a time, he told himself. While sleep might prove elusive, he did have alternate plans.
۞
Leif sat across the room, watching Maeve warily. Everyone else ate uneasily, silently, watching Leif. He hadn’t uttered a word since coming back to the library with Julieta. She had resumed her spot next to where Maeve was still looking over intelligence and maps.
“There must be some way of identifying Warden.”
“Boko will be that way.”
“And what will happen if he fails to comply with his part of the agreement? His file states that he has only recently been turned.”
“He came back on his own. He won’t fail.”
“And if he was sent by Warden?”
“Are you going to do this the entire time?”
“I do not understand.”
“Naysay? You have a problem with every detail I have given you so far.”
“If all your information is interpreted incompletely, then yes.” Julieta threw up her hands in disgust and flung herself into a chair. Grace discreetly made her way over to perch on its arm.
“You okay?” She spoke as softly as she could. Julieta scowled. “So, no. Do you want something to eat?” Grace smiled disarmingly, her blue eyes twinkling in flickering candlelight. Julieta relaxed her frown as a few cheerful memories surfaced. It hadn’t been long enough the first time around. Her second chance sat within reach; a happy distraction from being irritated to death.
“Sure. Let’s go closer to the fire.” She held her hand out for Grace to take hold of. The gas logs were across the room in the other direction. They walked past Wallace, Julieta jabbing him in the shoulder as they did. He looked up at her in startlement, and then smiled as genuinely as he could muster. It was about time. Julieta followed up her action with her trademark eye roll in Maeve’s direction. He shook his head vigorously. She summoned up her mom face, and held up a warning finger. He sighed and stood up to walk over to Maeve.
“How’s it going?” He looked over all the intel she’d taken to pieces so far.
“The question is irrelevant.”
Great, he thought, this ought to be loads of fun.
“What do you need?” He was a little afraid to hear the answer.
“An alternate means of identifying Warden. There must be an image, a recording, anything.”
“I don’t know. We can try to see if Master Kun has anything, or whether Boko knows of something.” He caught a look in her eye. “You distrust Boko.”
“Not him, necessarily. Just the timing, as I previously stated. Coincidence is less frequent than one might