“I know!” Then, more calmly, “I know.” This was a conversation that had repeated itself several times in their fourteen wakes. Frustration, suppressed most of the time, would now and then boil to the surface. It was good, a reminder that they still had an emotional connection to those left behind. “It’s better if they don’t know, since there’s nothing they can do.”
Niks did not respond. There was no need. Instead, he stood and took her hands. “We should start our exercises,” he said quietly.
With that, they were back on duty, and they moved to the exercise mat to begin their first-day stretching routine. As they went through the motions together, arms and legs holding positions, reaching, energy concentrated and directed, they both felt their minds clearing. These were peaceful exercises, and they held the comfort of long familiarity. This was one of the first routines they had been taught as young children. The motions were a reminder of their peers, their fellow soldiers. Some of those peers might be alone together, also hurtling through space as Pruit and Niks were, though several years behind. The rest were back home on Herrod, brothers and sisters who bore the weight of the world.
Five days later, their bodies had begun to recover. Pruit and Central agreed that it was safe to return to hibernation.
Naked, Pruit lowered herself into her crib. Her body looked much healthier than it had upon waking, but it would take more than five days to erase the marks of so many years asleep. That, however, would have to wait until their mission reached its next stage. The crib walls and floor felt dry against her skin, but they would soon be refreshed with fluid. She manipulated the controls on the outside crib wall, and the inner web kicked into motion. In moments, the reedy arms were growing out, seeking her body so they could put it under control.
Niks sat over her, still dressed, violating regulations again. They were supposed to enter hibernation simultaneously, each following the sleep checklist and verifying the other’s motions. It was Niks’s only quirk. He liked to be there when she woke and when she went back to sleep.
“We really should do this right,” Pruit said.
Niks knew what she was referring to. “I’ll just make sure you’re safely sleeping.”
She didn’t protest. He never listened on this point, and in truth, she was happy he was there. They were equals in almost everything, but sometimes he protected her in ways that were at odds with their positions and their lives. Secretly, she enjoyed it.
The bloodarms gently entered her veins. The crib was filling with biofluid, warm and inviting. Niks leaned over and kissed her. A breathearm curled up her chest. She touched Niks’s cheek and then leaned back into the crib, letting the breathearm find her mouth and snake down her throat. She suppressed the urge to gag and then felt herself relaxing. There was a gentle hiss of air as the plantglass slid into place above her. The biofluid covered her now, and she opened her eyes in it. There was Niks, a faint blur. And then her eyes closed and she was diving into darkness.
CHAPTER 2
Eighteen Years Ago
“It’s so big,” Makus said, looking out through the dome at the wastelands.
“That’s why we’re needed,” Pruit said. “To protect everyone in the cities and all of that out there.”
Makus was her younger brother, just thirteen. They were standing together in Evansquare, a large park up against the Kellersland city dome. Outside the dome, the ground was covered with green-yellow glass, ugly and radioactive, stretching in every direction to the horizon. Much of the glass was perfectly smooth, but here and there it was broken by enormous piles of rubble, small at this distance, that marked the spots where great outdoor cities had once stood. That was in the ancient times, long before the bombs. It was late afternoon, and the green sky was darkening.
“It’s hard for me to think about it,” Makus said. He took a seat on the bench behind them and started eating the lunch they had brought.
Pruit joined him. “It’s hard for all of us. But that’s our job. Now it’s your job too.” She tried to say it with a smile, but it was difficult. Makus had just been accepted into the Sentinel, the elite military organization that bore the ultimate responsibility for the future of their race, who were known as the Kinley. The job was not easy. She and Niks, now in their mid-twenties, had also joined the Sentinel at Makus’s age.
“Yes, I know.”
He said it heavily, and Pruit pushed him playfully on the shoulder, trying to lighten the mood. “This is a celebration lunch,” she said. “Congratulations on being accepted. You’ll get used to the responsibility soon enough.”
At this, Makus cheered up and even smiled. “Thanks, Pru. Is Niks coming?”
“He’ll try and make it. We’ve had a busy few weeks.” She twisted her left shoulder, which was in a sling, recovering from a laser burn. She saw Makus glance at her, but he did not ask about the wound. He knew too well that she would not be able to tell him its cause. Her work in the Sentinel was almost always secret. “What about Mom and Dad? I haven’t seen them for ages.”
“They’re sleeping,” he said. “They’ve switched shifts.”
Pruit nodded. Outside, she caught sight of a reclamation crew picking its way through the fields of glass. Reclamation of destroyed land and water was a constant and achingly slow project. “That may be one of your first assignments, Makus,” she said, pointing at the squad. There were several members of the Sentinel, recognizable by orange-colored fullsuits, walking with the reclamation crew and carrying weapons.
Makus was silent, and a sudden thought occurred to Pruit. She turned to him. “Makus, have you ever been outside?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“I’d forgotten. Of course you haven’t.” Only members of the Sentinel, reclamation workers, and scientists went outside. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” she said, knowing this was a lie. “I mean, it’s not pleasant, and it’s hard to feel totally at ease in a fullsuit. But you’ll get used to it. In the Sentinel you’ll have a lot of work outside.”
Makus looked outside again at the barren landscape. “It scares me a little. Like I’ll be out there with all the ghosts. And sometimes I’ll be walking right where the bombs dropped.” He could even see one such location, a clearly defined bomb crater a few miles away.
Pruit followed his gaze. She had spent months outside, and the feel of her heavy boots walking across that ancient, poisonous glass was now an inherent part of her. “No,” she said. “The ghosts have given up on it. It’s just dead out there. I wish I could say the same for the Lucien.”
The name affected both of them. Makus almost shivered. “Have you ever seen one?”
“You know, I can’t tell you,” she said. The truth was she had never seen a Lucien. They were the silver, insect-like creatures who had rained fusion and fission bombs down upon Herrod five thousand years before and nearly wiped out all Kinley life. She had never seen a true Lucien, not in person, but she had seen their minions; she had seen humans who were bred in Lucien laboratories from stolen Kinley genetic material and used as spies.
Just then, a large meteor shower streaked across the dusking sky, brilliant lines of fire cutting across the upper atmosphere. Impulsively, Pruit massaged her laser-burned shoulder. As she watched the meteors, she felt deep hatred of the Lucien. It was an emotion she had been aware of since childhood, perhaps before. It was not anger. It was much calmer than that, a hatred that had softly infiltrated every fiber of her, and it was matched by the thought that kept her living: They will not win.
“There’s Niks!” Makus said, looking across the crowds in the square at a figure approaching. The glum mood that had settled on both of them lifted abruptly.
In a moment, Niks was there, dressed, like Pruit, in the informal fatigues of the Sentinel: pants of a lightweight material, dark red and falling to mid-calf, snug jersey with rank insignia around the collar, and flexible black boots, designed for running.
“Hello there,” Niks said with a big smile as he shook Mak
us’s hand and drew the boy into an embrace. “Congratulations, Skinny! It’s great to have you on the team.”
Makus smiled back and saluted. “Thank you, sir.”
“Sorry I’m late. But, unfortunately, Pruit and I have to go.” He caught her eye, and she saw that he was, in fact, quite perturbed about something, though he was covering well.
“I understand,” Makus said, now holding himself a little straighter. Niks always had that effect on her little brother.
“Pru, our Chief is calling us,” Niks said.
Pruit nodded and took one last bite of her lunch. Then she gave Makus a final hug. “Tell Mom and Dad hello,” she said. “I may have a free day coming up to spend some time with them.” Though somehow she doubted it. Then she moved off with Niks, leaving her brother staring out through the dome and contemplating the future.
Together, she and Niks quickly crossed the park, threading their way through its heavy foot traffic, and made their way to the escalators, which led up and inward to the stacked levels of Kellersland. The city was a dense warren of residential, business, industrial, and military sectors piled on top of each other and nestled beneath the dome.
“Urgent?” Pruit asked.
“Sounded like it,” Niks said.
They rode the reed mat of the escalator up five stories, then exited. A group of young schoolchildren ran through the crowds in front of them, creating a momentary path. Niks grabbed Pruit’s arm and followed in the children’s wake.
Around them were faces of their fellow Kinley citizens, their skin a uniform copper color and their hair, while varying slightly here and there, for the most part reddish brown. Their eyes were blue or green, with blue the dominant color. Overall, there was little variation from one person to the next. The gene pool after the Great War with the Lucien had been so small that all Kinley were as closely related as brother and sister.
They worked their way through a labyrinth of corridors. Beyond a security checkpoint, they passed down into one of the lowest levels of the city, far underground. Here they moved through narrow hallways, with ceilings that hung just a foot overhead. Stopping at several more security checkpoints to identify themselves, they were quickly passed along and, in a few minutes, had arrived in a small meeting room, where their commander, Chief Sentinel Guardian Haren, waited for them.
“Sir,” they greeted him in unison, not saluting, for they were not properly uniformed for this, but standing at attention.
“Pruit, Niks,” he greeted them. “Good. You’re in time for a recap.”
The meaning of this was not immediately clear to them, but he gestured, and they moved over to stand by him. He sank his hand into a putty control pad mounted at one side of the wall, and the wall itself seemed to dissolve as the plantglass that comprised it changed color from a milky white to clear. It was one-way glass, and through it they could see a neighboring interrogation room. This room was all white, almost disturbingly so, and contained only a small white table, with chairs on either side. There were two men inside. One they recognized as Kep Tellie, one of the Chief’s top aides. Kep’s back was to them.
Across from Kep, and thus facing them, was a young Kinley man, wearing civilian clothes and sitting up very straight in his chair. The expression on his face was unreadable. He was speaking, but his mouth hardly moved as he formed the words.
“We captured him five days ago,” the Chief explained. “He managed to get into Marretland,” one of the secondary cities on Herrod. There were only three cities and a few other outposts on the whole of the planet. “He was passed through with a reclamation crew, but he attracted the attention of a security guard in the park, if you can believe that.” He said this last in a disgusted tone, and Pruit and Niks understood him immediately. The captive in there was not one of their citizens. He was a Lucien spy who had, without apparent problem, entered one of their cities and, only by the merest luck, been found.
Neither of them said anything. It was unnecessary. All understood what such an easy breach bespoke in terms of general security. If one spy could get in, a dozen could get in. Or more. Perhaps they were already here.
“We haven’t tortured him,” the Chief continued. “He sat in his cell for two days and meditated—in the way they do—then he started talking to us.” Ordinarily, torture was necessary to extract information from such spies, but more often than not, those Lucien humans somehow willed themselves into death before giving up information. A spy willingly speaking was a new thing.
The Chief used the putty pad again and then spoke, and his voice was transmitted to the ear of Kep within. “Walk him through it again,” he said.
Kep made no physical acknowledgment of the order, but as the Captain turned on the sound, allowing them to hear the conversation within the interrogation room, Kep addressed the prisoner. “I’d like to go over this again,” he said patiently to the captive across from him. “Is that all right with you?”
The Lucien human’s face did not change. “Yes,” he said. “I will tell you again.”
“Good. Tell me how you got to Herrod.”
“I came in mimicking a meteorite. The landing was hard but bearable.” This was the usual way for Lucien spies to arrive on Herrod. Because meteorites were so common and because the deserted area of Herrod was so large, it was impossible to track every impact with the surface. Pruit had received the laser burn on her shoulder while chasing and killing another such spy just weeks before. “I walked for three days and then fell in with a mining party when the shifts were changing,” the man continued. He spoke Soulene, the modern language of the Kinley, very well. He made only the faintest of lisps on certain words to give himself away. He went on to describe how he passed undetected through the checkpoints leading into the city, using duplicated identity tags, stolen from a reclamation worker he had killed. Pruit and Niks blanched at his description.
“Tell me the purpose of you mission here,” Kep said.
“I was sent to study your cities, especially their systems of defense. I was ordered to return with schematics of city construction, if possible.”
“Why would such information be needed by the Lucien?” Kep asked. He did an excellent job of keeping his voice level and pleasant, Pruit thought. It would take all her self-restraint to prevent herself from wringing the man’s neck if she were sitting in Kep’s chair.
“We seek information that will allow us to plan an effective attack on Herrod.”
“Is this a contingency plan or a plan that has already been set in motion?” Kep asked.
“The plan is already underway. We are currently preparing for a devastating attack upon your planet.” The captive’s voice was level, somewhat thoughtful, but not colored by emotion.
Pruit and Niks both glanced at their Chief. He gestured for them to keep watching.
“Why?” Kep asked.
“Our Council of One Hundred has been watching your development very closely over the last two centuries. You have developed rudimentary space travel during this time and have begun to mine the asteroids that lie between you and the next planet in the system.
“You could conceivably develop ships to rival our own within the next two hundred years. We cannot allow this. Based on the history of our two races, we know the threat you pose to our continued survival. You nearly destroyed us once in the past, and we will not allow this to happen again.
“After fifty years of careful deliberation, it has been decided that the proper course is destruction of your race.”
Pruit and Niks gasped quietly in unison. After the Great War, Lucien civilization had recovered far more quickly than the Kinley, and the Lucien had established a space-based blockade of Herrod. Lucien ships were constantly in orbit just outside the neighboring asteroid belt, watching the Kinley. If a Kinley ship ever ventured beyond the belt, it was summarily destroyed. The Kinley had accepted the blockade, for they had no choice in view of the Lucien’s much greater space-faring power, but they had never suspected that their
ancient enemies would grudge them even their meager existence on their own planet.
“The destruction of your race will not be total,” the captive continued, in the same bland tone. “We feel it is in our interest to preserve human genetic information so the race can be used if needed to serve Lucien interests.”
Pruit felt her hands clenching as he said this.
Without any apparent concern for the content of what the prisoner had said, Kep continued. “Please lay out the Lucien plan for me in detail.”
“Within twenty-five years from now we will double the number of military spacecraft watching Herrod. During the same period we will increase infiltration of your cities with the aim of gathering all pertinent information to our attack plans.
“By thirty years from now we will have all military ordinance in place and fully developed plans of attack.
“On the thirty-fifth year we will attack.”
Pruit and Niks looked to their Chief desperately. His face was set in a contemplative attitude. He had already had opportunity to digest this information, and his shock, while still real, had somewhat abated.
Next door, Kep continued. “You are human, aren’t you?” he asked the captive.
“I have a human body, yes,” the man replied.
“How do you feel about destroying your race?” It was a tactic they often tried on Lucien spies—forcing them to exhibit emotion. It did not often work.
“It is not my race, for I am Lucien,” the man replied. He paused, then, for the first time, his expression changed and took on a slightly pained look. “I have thought long about my feelings in this matter, and it distresses me that my mind is not fully my own. As a Lucien, I know that you must be destroyed. We have our own future generations to consider, and this outweighs all else. You are not to be trusted. However, there is some part of me…some part beyond my control.” He paused. His lisp had become stronger as emotion crept in, and the slight motions of his head and arms were more birdlike, just as a Lucien’s would be. Under stress his Lucien upbringing became more apparent. He took a long, deep breath and composed himself. “Some part of me is saddened by what we must do, and though I betray my loved ones and myself, I have decided to tell you our plans. Perhaps you can put your houses in order and find peace for your souls before destruction comes. That would give me happiness.”