The squall sweeps gray-winged across the obliterated hills,
And the startled lake seems to run before it;
From the wood comes a clamor of leaves,
Tugging at the twigs,
Pouring from the branches,
And suddenly the birds are still.
—“Squall,” by Leonora Speyer,
from Poems From a Distant Earth, by Chen Tien
Tien sat with her back against a crumbling concrete pediment, reciting the old poem from memory like a talisman against the dark. She stared out at the crazy rain, blown nearly sideways by the howling wind.
An unfocused sense of dread gripped her.
The squall was a clash of titans, black thunderclouds marching across the sky, lightning bolts slamming into the Earth like the tritons of Neptune. It was too big, and she was far too small to withstand its wrath. Rai huddled next to her, and the two… Earthers?… sat together next to another pediment. How do you two manage it?
The temperature had dropped a good ten degrees Celsius since they’d crawled out of the water dripping wet, and scattered gusts of wind sprayed her face with drops of cold water. She shivered.
The heavy wooden trestles of the rail bridge above groaned in the wind, and she could smell the pitch that had been used to seal them away from time and weather.
The storm was wild, unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. In Redemption, the rains were gentle and scheduled, but this tempest was an angry beast, growling and rumbling as it strode across the waters of the inlet.
She missed Redemption. Missed her bed and the four walls of her bedroom and the absolute quiet in the middle of the night.
Except for the tremors.
I should have stayed home to be a doctor.
Tien pulled her wet hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ears, biting her tongue, and took a deep breath. It’s going to be okay.
They’d tried to raise the Launchpad on their x-band, but either it was out of range or something was blocking them.
-Hey, you alright?-
She looked up. Rai was staring at her. The poor guy was shivering too, his brown eyes seeking comfort as much as offering it—he looked as frightened as she felt. She put her arm around his shoulders and pulled him close. Yeah. I’m good. We’re alive.
He nodded. “I was cracking scared when I couldn’t get out of the parachute.” He turned to their new acquaintances. “Thanks for saving us.”
“It was nothing.” The woman—Ally?—was staring at them, as if trying to memorize their faces. The mech dog lay between them, seemingly asleep. “You two hungry?”
“A little.” In truth, Tien’s stomach was still roiling from the gut-wrenching fall, but it seemed polite to accept the offer. Plus most of their supplies were now floating in bits and pieces on the bay.
Ally rummaged through her pack and pulled out a metal can.
“What’s that?” Rai stared at it intently.
“Not sure. Let’s find out.” Ally produced a knife and used it to cut around the edge of the can’s top like it was paper.
Tien raised an eyebrow. That must be one hell of a sharp knife.
Ally sniffed the contents of the can. “Beef chili, I think.” She held it out to Tien.
“Um, no thanks. We don’t eat meat.” She tried to downplay her reaction—different strokes for different folks, and all—but the thought of eating animal protein turned her stomach.
“Huh. We’ve been scavenging as we go. We’re not picky. Wait, I think I have something else I can give you.” She pulled something else out of her pack, unwrapped it, and handed it to Tien. It was a yellow slice of fruit longer than her hand.
Tien took it, sniffing it. It smelled like lemons and oranges. “Thank you. What is it?”
Rai took one too, from Aidan. Their hands lingered, touching, for just a second longer than necessary, and Aidan looked at Rai hungrily.
Tien smiled to herself. Aidan worked for Rai’s crew.
“They’re sky fruit. I picked them yesterday a few miles east of here.”
“Sky fruit?” Tien had never heard that one.
“From the sky trees.” Aidan said it as if it were totally natural.
Ah. “Sky trees—oh, you mean the zongies?”
Ally frowned, her face half hidden in the dim light. “The tall trees. The seeds come down from the sky.”
Lightning crashed nearby, washing out Ally’s face for a moment, and a tremendous boom shook the small space.
Tien jumped.
“You get used to it.” Aidan shot her a grin. “It was scary for me too, the first time.” His teeth were white and straight.
They have good dental hygiene, then. Tien nodded. Curiouser and curiouser. “Thanks.” She returned her attention to Ally. “We call them zongi trees, or zongies. There’s a slingshot up on Copernicus Crater that launches them down into the atmosphere, one seed every thirty seconds.” She took a bite. It was sweet, a little like cantaloupe.
Ally was staring at her.
“What?” She wasn’t used to such frank interest. Redemptioners were usually a little more circumspect, especially with strangers.
“Who are you?” Ally looked frightened, looking back and forth between Tien and Rai.
“I told you. We’re Tien, and Rai….”
“No, I mean where did you come from? We thought our family were the only ones left.” Ally took a sip from her canteen—old military issue, the dull metal shell beaten and scratched in a dozen places.
Tien frowned. “We’re from Redemption.” They had had no training for meeting the locals. No one thought there’d be any locals. “It’s a city up on Luna. The moon.” She tried to imagine what a strange life these two must have had, thinking they were the only ones left. “It’s the city, actually, though they’re starting another one.”
“See, Ally? I told you there were people up there!”
Ally snorted. “How do we know you’re actually people?”
-I wish Hera was here.- Tien hugged herself tightly, feeling out of her depth. Hera would have been much better at this. Did you and Ghost make it out alive?
-You’re doing okay.- Rai shot her a wink.
Tien thanked the fates that he was with her. And at least they weren’t questioning if she was a woman. That was a step up. “What else would we be?”
Ally frowned. “I don’t know. Aliens? Drones, maybe?”
Tien snorted. -I have an idea.- She pulled her knife out of its ankle sheath. It was beautiful… green moonstone hilt and six inches of sharp, tapered steel—commissioned for her by her mother for her eighteenth birthday.
She held out her palm and calmly cut a thin, shallow line across it.
Lightning struck again, closer this time, and wind whipped her hair around her face. “I bleed red. Just like you. I swear we mean you no harm.” She held the knife out to Ally, handle first.
Ally nodded. She took it without hesitation and cut her own palm, holding it up to show the red blood.
Then she took Tien’s hand and gripped it tightly. “I swear so too.”
Something passed between them. Respect.
Ally cocked her head. “Are you Chinese?”
Tien laughed. “I’m a Loonie.”
Ally’s eyes narrowed.
“From Luna, the moon.”
“Ah.”
“My family was Chinese, once. A long time ago.” She wondered if Ally and her family still bore a grudge from the ancient wars. She took her knife back, wiped it on her clothes, and put it in its holster on the side of her boot. She tore off a bit of cloth from her damp shirt and wrapped her palm to stop the bleeding. She missed her pack and supplies. “When the Crash came, Moon Base Alpha survived, but barely. My family came over with the refugees from Jīnsè Base, after it was nearly destroyed.”
“We call it the Collapse.” Ally looked out of their makeshift shelter, up at the sky. “How many people are there, up there?”
“About twelve thousand in all.”
“Ah. Thirsty?” Ally handed over her canteen.
Tien took it gratefully, sipping on the cool water.
She followed Ally’s gaze. The clouds entirely hid the sky, but somewhere up there, beyond the atmosphere and the wreckage zone, was home.
Ally leaned back against the concrete pediment and stared at Tien and Rai. “I can’t imagine that many people.”
“It’s a small fraction of even one city, here on Earth before the Crash.”
“I know. I watched the histories—”
“Ally, look!” Aiden pointed at the sky, over the roiling waters of the bay.
Tien turned to see what had caught his attention.
Graceful white and gray forms swooped down to the water, snatching up something in their beaks. There were hundreds of them.
“What are they?” Aidan squeezed past them to watch the graceful fliers.
“Seagulls.” Rai gently pushed his way past her to crouch next to Aidan. “They have to be seagulls.”
Tien watched the white birds dance on the wind, and the dread that had clenched her heart since the fall loosened its grip, just a little. Being alive is a gift.
They were safe on the ground, and they had new friends to help them. They would figure it all out, somehow.
If there were still such glorious creatures in the world, there was hope for them after all.
Rai looked out at the storm and shivered. So much sky.
He was also intensely aware of the warm arm at his side. Aidan was exotic, glorious. Both of the strangers had red hair, a rarity in Redemption. “Where did you two come from?” he asked to distract himself from the man’s proximity.
Aidan looked around, blinking. “Sorry. I was thinking about home.” He looked wistful. “We’ve never met strangers before.”
Rai managed a smile. “You must have been really sheltered.”
Aidan nodded. “We live under Boundary Peak, a few hundred miles east of here, but usually we just call it the Mountain.” Aidan edged away from him. “It was an old military base, before the Collapse. My great-great-grandfather Davin was a lieutenant for the NAU.”
Miles? Who used miles anymore?
-He likes you.- Tien loved to tease him.
-Then why is he moving away?- Besides, there were more important things right now than flirtation. “Boundary Peak?”
Ally nodded. “After the war, the survivors—military and their families—started a new society there, closed off from the rest of the world by necessity. But there weren’t enough of them, and many of the women became infertile in the first few decades.”
“So your people have been underground for a hundred and seventeen years?”
Ally nodded. “Mostly. Every few years, someone would go up to see what conditions were like on the surface.”
Rai tried to imagine it. Even in Redemption, they had been free to go outside, however difficult the conditions. “How many of you are there?”
Aidan’s gaze hadn’t left his face. “Five. Our mom Astra, Ally, me, Alex and Auggie.”
“All As.” Rai laughed.
“Yeah. Mom had a thing for ‘A’ names.”
“And what brought you here?” Tien frowned. “Don’t get me wrong—we’re glad you saved us from that drone. But it seems like an awfully big coincidence.”
Aidan looked at Ally. She held his gaze for a moment, and then nodded. “Our mother’s sick. She needs medicine, and the old records said we could find it here at Martinez Base.”
“That’s where we were headed too. There’s supposed to be a repository of some sort here—”
Rai stopped when Tien put a hand on his shoulder.
“—and we’ll see what’s there, I guess.” What? He sent a message em to em.
-We don’t know these people. There are weapons on Martinez Base, too.-
Rai frowned. -There are only five of them.-
Do we know that for sure?
Rai slipped back into the darkness under the bridge to stare at Ally and Aidan. They seemed friendly enough. But Tien was right—they knew only what the strangers had told them.
His gaze drifted to their other companion, the strange cyber dog. “And what about it?” A gust of wind blew rain into the makeshift shelter. Rai wiped his face with the back of his arm.
“Her,” Aidan corrected. “Cimber is a mech companion. The last one we have left that still functions. Do you have mechs where you’re from?”
The mech dog looked up at them at the mention of her name, then put her head back down.
Rai thought about Sam, who would be getting worried for them right about now. If he was capable of worrying. With Sam, it was hard to tell sometimes. “A few. Mostly from before the Crash.”
“That’s what you call the Collapse? The Great War?”
“Yeah. It was… bigger than a war. It ended just about everything.”
Aidan stared at him. “You didn’t expect to find anyone left down here, did you?”
Rai shook his head. “Did you think there was anyone up there?”
“I always hoped.” He looked wistful, his eyes unfocused. “It’s always just been us and the family.”
Only family. What a strange, small life they must have led.
Ally grunted. “Well, folks, it looks like the storm’s passing. We should get a move on.”
Rai looked out at the bay. The sky was clearing, the ragged tail of the storm heading toward the east. The sky looked even bigger than before, if that was possible. He didn’t relish leaving the safety of the closed-in space. “That was fast.”
“Yeah, they come up seemingly out of nowhere and dump a bunch of water. Sometimes they can flood you out before you know what hit you.” Ally grabbed her pack and eased her way out from under their shelter.
Aidan followed, wincing as he pushed himself up.
Rai bit his lip as he cleared the underside of the trestle. The sky couldn’t hurt him. He touched Aidan’s shoulder. “Hey, can I see your hand?”
Aidan pulled away violently. “Don’t touch me.”
“Hey, sorry.” Rai held out his hands, palms open. “I just wanted to see if you’d hurt yourself.”
Aidan blushed. “Sorry.” The anger drained away from his face. He held his hand out dutifully.
Rai turned it over. He whistled. “Tien, look at this.”
The edge of Aidan’s palm was black, the skin dry and cracked.
Ally came back to look at it. “Oh shit. Aidan, what did you do?”
“I don’t know. It’s been sore for a couple days. But it didn’t look like that before”
Tien took his hand to look at it. “That looks like a nano infection. Did you touch anything inside? Maybe someplace that had a lot of dust, where there might have been inactive particles?”
Aidan turned even whiter than he’d been before. “There was a church, a couple days ago. Lots of dead people inside.”
Tien nodded. “You’re lucky. First, that time probably weakened the particles. If they’d been fresh, you’d be a skeleton by now. And second, that I carry my most important medical supplies in my vest, not in my pack.” She pulled a packet out of one of her pockets and unwrapped it, searching through a series of bottles. “This should do it. Give me your hand.”
He held it out obediently.
“Rai, hold it steady for him. This is going to hurt.”
“How much?” Beads of sweat were forming on Aidan’s brow.
Ally looked on over Rai’s shoulder. “Aidan, you sure about this?”
Tien met her gaze. “Better a little pain now than losing his hand later.”
Rai took Aidan’s other hand.
Tien sprayed the black, dry area. It immediately started to glow, first orange, then red.
“Holy mother of God….” Aidan was shaking, his grip on Rai’s hand tightening as his nails dug into Rai’s flesh. “Oh fuck that hurts.”
“Aidan!” Ally glared at her brother.
“Let him curse a little. The pain’s probably near unbearable.”
Rai winced too, but the pain he felt was nothing next to Aidan’s.
Ally frowned. “What’s happening?”
“The spray is driving the nano bots that are infecting your brother into high gear. They’ll burn themselves out, and then the dead skin will slough off.”
Rai squeezed Aidan’s hand. “You okay?”
“Not really.” His face was dripping, his cheeks red.
The dead skin started to flake away as promised, drifting away on the wind.
“Is he contagious?” Ally was checking her own hands and arms.
“Probably only by direct contact with the wound.” Tien pulled out a cloth from her med kit and took Aidan’s hand. She brushed off the dead flakes, revealing clean, pink skin beneath. “There’s a healing agent in there too. You’ll be sore for a few days, but you’ll survive. Is the pain going away?”
Aidan nodded. He held his hand up, looking at it in wonder. “You’re an angel.”
Tien shook her head. “Just a doctor. But probably the best one on Earth.”
Rai grinned. -Nice work, Doc.-
Tien glared at him.
“Thank you.” Ally’s voice sounded grudging.
“You’re both welcome. Glad I could return the favor.” Tien closed up her pack and pulled it back up onto her shoulder.
“If you’re a doctor…” Ally’s expression was hopeful.
“I might have something that can help your mother. If not, the Launchpad certainly does… if we can reach them. And if we can get it down here.”
“That would be amazing.” Ally’s face lit up.
Tien looked around. “Let’s get moving. I don’t like being out in the open with those drones wandering around. We can talk about it more when we find a safe place.”
Aidan shot Rai a shy smile.
Doesn’t like to be touched. Has a God thing. And yet he’d seen how Aidan watched him. Guess I can’t be picky if he’s one of the last guys on Earth.
Tien cleared her throat. -Mission first. You can romance the locals later.-
-Yes, Doc.- Rai looked up, getting quickly lost in the immense sky.
Sanya Thorn swiped her deck clear, files and attachments swirling up into the air before dissolving in a crackling series of pops. She ran a hand through her neon-pink hair, shifting its color to a darker shade better matched to her lipstick, and reached up to touch Avri’s captured ‘mage. It was from the day they’d gone hiking together in one of the Krafft craters, the Earth just visible over her shoulder.
Then she swiped the ‘mage away too. No time for sadness.
“What’s wrong?” Her boss, Terry, leaned back in his chair in his office to look into her cramped cubicle, scratching the three-day growth on his cheek. His hair was a tangled mess, as usual, and his dark, bushy eyebrows competed for attention like bristly caterpillars. “I know when you’re frustrated.”
“Nothing. Just on a hot lead.” Sanya waved her hand and the cubicle door slammed shut. She ignored Terry’s mutters as she slipped into vee space, following the tip that her source had sent her.
She was hoping it might somehow tie into the mysterious lunar quakes that had plagued the city of late. One had created a sinkhole that had damned-near swallowed a creche home. Only good luck had prevented any casualties.
Something was going down at the Launchpad. Something Sam and Alpha kept under wraps. Fortunately, she’d set up her own little transmitter to reach her mysterious contact there, outside the normal channels, before the Return mission had departed. Sure, it was a small pipe, compared to what Alpha had. But it was sufficient for voice and simple data transmission. Sanya here. What’s up?
Her contact was one of the dropnauts. She was almost sure of it.
-The Zhenyi has gone down. Not sure if there are any survivors.- The voice was modified—it had a mechanical aspect to it.
-Holy shit.- After the loss of the Bristol and Team One, this was catastrophic news. She stored away the voice to play with later. Maybe she could untangle it and figure out who her source was. She had a few guesses, but wasn’t ready to put money on it.
-I need proof. Some kind of confirmation.-
-Stand by. I’ll send you video after this conversation. How big is your pipe?-
Sanya laughed before she realized what they were asking. -Not big.-
-I’ll compress it as much as I can before sending.-
Sanya frowned. -This could end the Return Mission.-
There was a long pause. -People need to know what’s happening.-
Then they were gone.
A long beep indicated that she had a file upload coming in. She whistled. It was huge—it would take hours to load.
She backed out, worried that Alpha would find her hidden transmitter. She’d masked it well enough out on Hayes Promontory, but if she was being watched…
You’re paranoid.
Then again, it wasn’t paranoia if they really were out to get you.
She swiped the connection from her deck to her loop as the video continued to load. Then she closed down her system and slipped out of the cubicle.
“Where you headed?” Terry grumbled, sounding annoyed. Terry always sounded annoyed.
She waved. “Gonna be gone for a couple hours. Tracking down a lead.”
Terry gave her the thumbs up.
They had a love-hate relationship. But he supported her when she needed it, and otherwise mostly kept out of her way.
For Sanya, journalism was a passion. The city had a right to know. And people like her were often kept in the dark by Redemption’s rich and well-connected.
Truth will always out. Tarrence, her creche father, had pounded that into her growing up. Now she was in a position to out it herself.
She stepped into the elevator and rode it down to the surface, emerging from the old gumdust ‘scraper that housed the RedNews staff, just a few feet past Market Square.
The city was full of cherry blossoms, their petals filling the air like snow.
Sanya took a deep breath and set off into town. She needed help with the audio scramble, and it was going to take a lot more processing power than she had access to. There was one person she could ask who might be able to help.
If she could get his attention.
Alpha fought against the darkness.
It was as if he’d been dunked into a tar pit. The black ooze encased him, trapped him, kept him from reaching past it into the light.
It had happened suddenly, blacking out the outside world like the Earth blotting out the sun.
One moment he’d been connected, monitoring everything from the banal conversations of teenagers pinging through his system to the crop production numbers from the Agricultural Annex.
Then… nothing.
He was under attack. That much was clear. But by what? From where?
Earth. It had to be something from Earth.
Sam had poked the beast, and it had reacted with a snarl.
Or a virus.
Or whatever this was.
He had to find a way to break free, or he and all his human charges were doomed.