In the days of the winnowing, a great fire swept the Earth, burning away the evils of men and mankind. The wicked and the good, the rich and the poor, all burned away by the wrath of the mother Earth.
Now she lays dormant, awaiting her time of awakening, when all manner of beast and bush shall once again thrive on her slopes. And the wicked works of mankind shall never be repeated.
—From The Book of Henna, Second Revised Edition
Sanya bounded across the lunar plain between the edge of Redemption and the transit center. She’d been there a few times before, when she’d taken a trip to Copernicus to see the zongi operation, and once when she’d taken a shuttle flight down south to the mines at the south pole, where the remains of a huge mineral-rich asteroid lay hundreds of miles below Aitkin Crater.
The southern crater itself was impressive enough—the largest discovered so far in the solar system. But the engineering that had been required to reach it and mine it for heavy metals had blown her away.
So much history. So much empty space above her head. It made her feel like an amoeba on the face of a zongi fruit.
The light was strange out here at night. Above, the gibbous Earth hung in the sky, the edge of Europe just visible along one side. The surface of Luna was in red darkness, but the glow from Earth, the stars, and the lights on their helmets were enough to guide them across the dimly lit landscape.
Above, the pressurized connector between Redemption and the transit hub—named Ride Station in honor of a long-dead astronaut—was dark and empty, apparently shut down by the lockdown.
-You okay back there?- Rafe’s voice echoed in her head.
-Yeah. Been a while since I was out here under the stars.- She looked up, taking in the view through her visor. Somewhere up there, the dropnauts were on the ground now, scattered around the various parts of the globe. If all had gone as planned.
Somehow, she was guessing that it hadn’t.
ALERT. Please do not leave your shelters. Please do not leave your shelters. Emergency lockdown is still in full effect.
The words reverberated through her suit helmet. Did Alpha—or whatever had taken over—know they were out here? No. It must just be another general warning.
The station was finally coming into view ahead. It had been built on one of the Marius “hills”—a lava cone in the middle of the Marius Hills that had been topped off to form a plateau.
-So how is a sledge from the station going to get us to my transmitter?- As far as Sanya knew, none of the lines came even close to the edge of Redemption except the one they’d just abandoned.
-We’re not taking a sledge.-
-Then what?- This whole cloak-and-dagger routine was wearing thin.
-You’ll have to wait and see.-
If she could have punched him, she would have.
Their path carried them to the edge of the station. Mag-rail lines led down its sides in six directions, disappearing in the distance toward the lunar horizon.
A sledge departed the station ahead, bound for the south pole. Must be an automated run. She wondered how things were down there at the mining station.
Rafe led her around the base of the cone. The Earth disappeared behind its bulk, leaving them in deeper darkness.
They approached the cliff side, and his helmet light illuminated a pair of double doors.
-Another old storage closet?-
-Something like that.- This one had a covered touch pad.
He flipped it open, and it immediately lit up, displaying a numerical keypad. He tapped in a sequence of numbers. The screen flashed red. Invalid passcode. -Dammit.-
-What’s wrong? Don’t you have the code?-
-I thought so. I haven’t been out here in a few years. Maybe someone changed it.- He punched it in again. Invalid passcode. -Cracking shit.-
-Let me take a look.-
He stared at her through his plas visor. -What good will that do? We don’t have the code. Maybe I can get around it and access the emergency release.-
-Give me sixty seconds.-
He put up his hands and stood back. -Okay. Whatever.-
She slipped past him and lifted the cover. She entered a six-digit code.
The doors began to rumble open.
-What the cracking hell?-
Sanya stepped back and pointed at the inside of the cover. -Whoever changed the code wrote it down. Crack security we have out here.-
His laugh was genuine… and surprising. She hadn’t taken him for one who didn’t mind being shown up—especially by a woman. -I knew I liked you.- He slapped her on the back and led her inside.
It wasn’t what she expected at all. Instead of a storage room like the one back in Redemption, this was a wide bay, full of objects covered in tarps. He whipped the first one off.
Underneath was a lunar buggy—a seriously old one at that.
-Ah.- She stared at it skeptically. -You sure these still work?-
Rafe nodded. -Emergency protocol. We check them all every two years.-
We? She looked at him with new respect. You have hidden depths, don’t you?
From under another tarp, he pulled out a few extra oxygen tanks and put them in the back, using some webbing to hold them down. -The great thing about this old tech is that none of it is hooked into the grid.- He strode to the side of the room and ran his hand along the wall.
-So how do you, a Redemption publicity flack, know all of this?- It hadn’t made any sense to her before. The further they went, the less sense it made.
-Publicity agent. And I have connections.- He prowled a little farther down the wall and stopped. -Aha.- He pressed against a spot that looked just like any other to her untrained eye.
A panel slid open, revealing a weapons cache.
-Whoa. Okay, seriously, who are these connections?-
He picked a couple things off the wall and tossed her one.
She caught it and looked it over. -Standard pulse disruptor. What, are we expecting another Crash?-
He nodded, looking impressed. -Maybe. You know your weapons.- His voice held a grudging respect.
-I am a reporter, after all.-
He grinned, and this time it was genuine. -And in answer to your question—Alpha. For years I’ve been part of a dedicated citizen militia created to protect Redemption.-
-Redemption doesn’t have a militia.-
-Right. And there’s also no organized effort to go door to door and ensure that everyone is safe and sound in the midst of this kind of attack.- He climbed behind the wheel of the buggy.
Holy cracking hell. This was the story of a decade. -You couldn’t have known about this… whatever this is. What were you training for?-
-I told you. The end of the world.-
-The quakes. Right? You… Alpha knew they were coming?-
He stared at her. Then he grinned his trademark grin, shutting her down. -I thought we were in a hurry?-
She stared at him, seeing him in a new light. He wasn’t at all who she’d thought he was. And he’d tell her everything, soon enough. She’d make sure of that.
She nodded. -You surprise me, Rafe Wilde.-
-Backatcha. You know how to use that?-
-Pretty simple. Release the safety. Point. Shoot.- She’d practiced with them—or at least, a virtual version—in vee at a firing range.
-Good. Then hop in. We’ve got a transmitter to reach.-
Rai stared at Rosemary across the wooden table. She reminded him of Tessa, his creche mother. But she showed none of Tessa’s kindness.
Rosemary held up the button. “One of you speak, or I’ll peg you both.”
Aidan looked at him, his face ashen. He opened his mouth as if to reply.
“Aidan lied for me.” Rai cut him off before he could carry on the charade.
Rosemary put her hand down, and Rai breathed a sigh of relief. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” She pushed the tray toward him. “Eat something. You need to keep your strength up. I’m sure you’re both starving.”
Rai tried not to look at the tray. He was hungry, but he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. Besides, who knew what was in it? “No thanks.”
It was like she read his mind. “It’s not poisoned. It won’t turn you into a zombie. Look.” Rosemary took a chunk of the bread, a bite of the cheese, and a couple grapes and swallowed them. She produced a small flagon from under her skirts and poured something red into the three glasses on the table and took a swig from the one closest to him.
Rai’s stomach grumbled. He reached out hesitantly and took a piece of the bread and sniffed it. It smelled good. Wholesome and nutty. He popped it into his mouth and grinned. “It’s really good.”
“Baked it myself this morning.” She allowed herself the slightest of smiles.
He tried the grapes next. They burst with sweetness in his mouth. He was starting to understand what Redemption and its people had been missing out on all these years. Even the fresh food from the ag annex wasn’t this good.
He handed some bread and cheese to Aidan, who was looking at him doubtfully. “It’s okay. It didn’t hurt me. See?” Rai took a bite of the cheese. “Oh fucking split that’s good—”
A sharp fleeting pain in his neck cut him off. “No swearing, young man.”
Rai frowned, then decided he was in no position to argue. He rubbed the peg, wondering if he could work it out of his skin. Or cut it out.
“It’s rooted directly into your nervous system. Try to take it out, and it will hurt worse than anything I could inflict with this.” She held up the button.
A snap and a pained yelp caught his attention. He turned to see four heavily muscled men, naked except for loincloths, bits in their mouths, pulling a cart full of grain up one of the white pathways toward the concourse. A woman held a whip as she guided the team up the pathway.
One of them stumbled, and she whipped his back, adding another red welt to the criss-cross of lines that were already there.
The man straightened up and began to pull again, taking his share of the weight.
“What the hell is this place?”
Rosemary ignored him. “So let’s start again. Who are you, and where did you come from?” This time she was looking right at him.
Rai swallowed the bite of cheese, cowed by the scene. “My name is Rylan Ramirez. I’m one of the dropnauts with the Zhenyi. We were shot out of the sky—this morning?” He had no idea how much time had passed.
He expected her to treat him with disbelief, but instead she simply nodded. “Are you from Redemption?”
He stared at her. “How do you—”
“She told us.”
Aiden looked at him in confusion and then back at Rosemary. “I don’t understand. Who is she?”
Rai grimaced. “I think Rosemary means the base AI.”
“Smart. That explains why you’re so tall and lanky.” Rosemary took another sip of her wine, her hand still holding the pain button. “She is our protector, the one who nurtures this place. She’s been aware of your kind for some time, since you sent probes down here to nose around. Since those seeds started falling from space. You haven’t exactly been secretive about your activities.”
“Why didn’t you ever make yourself known?”
“We just want to be left alone. Our job is to protect the Preserve and all that it represents. We’ve been down here on our own for more than a hundred years. We have our own way of life, and it seems to be far different from yours.”
“But this place… it’s amazing!” Your treatment of men notwithstanding. He stood and climbed up on his seat for a better look. “You have everything you need here to start bringing the old world back.”
“The wide-eyed innocence of youth.” Rosemary sighed. “We don’t want to bring the old world back. Look what men did to the Earth. They destroyed it in their greed and arrogance.”
Aidan picked that moment to pipe in. “It wasn’t men. It was the AIs….”
Rai shook his head. “It was the fossil fuels. They raped the world and filled it with climate-warming gas. In the end there just wasn’t enough to go around.”
“And who ran the world?”
“Wasn’t it the AIs?” Aidan looked surprised.
“No. It was men! Men who, in their pride, destroyed it all. Men who denied it was happening and denied the world was getting warmer.” Rosemary’s braids danced around her face as she spoke, punctuating her words with her finger, becoming more and more animated. “Men who kept women down, as second-class citizens. Men who started the wars. Men who huddled in their gated cities while the rest of the world starved. We won’t let it happen again.”
Rai sat down, letting the torrent roll over him. “What happens to all of you,” he said in almost a whisper when she was done, “when something goes wrong?”
She hissed. “We’ve faced challenges before.” She was waving him off, but he could see he’d hit a nerve.
“So have we. We only survived because everyone joined together to save what we had. When the Chinese base was destroyed, we took in the refugees. Some of their descendants are my best friends. We’re here because we realized we’re all just one good meteor strike away from total extinction up there.”
“My family are the last ones left under Boundary Peak.” Aidan took a sip of the wine. “There used to be hundreds.”
Rai nodded. “You said it yourself—that this place is ‘a promise for the future of the Earth.’ Think of what we could do together. The Preserve, Boundary Peak, and Redemption?” He looked around. They had saved so many things here… the botanist in him was dying to get a look at that forest.
Rosemary looked at Rai, then at Aidan. Rai could see the seeds of doubt he’d planted, taking root. “We’re thriving here.”
“The women, maybe.”
“We keep the men under strict control for their own good. And ours.”
Rai pounced. “Did you know the last Empress of the Chinese-African Alliance, Jian Chen, was a woman? So was the last president of the NAU, Marlene Thompson-Kennedy. Men weren’t the only problem.”
Rosemary stared at him as if he’d grown a tail. “Don’t talk to me as if you know anything about us, or our society.”
Rai eyed the pain button but pushed ahead anyway. “You geld your men for being too aggressive and treat them like cattle. You’ve created a matriarchy that’s every bit as oppressive as the patriarchy that came before it. But even if we look past all that, the Preserve is just one major catastrophe away from extinction, like we are. Like Aidan’s family is.”
She was silent for a long time, staring at him.
Rai couldn’t tell if she was angry or just flummoxed.
“Even if you’re right—”
“Why did you bring us here?”
Rosemary frowned. “She wanted you eliminated. For the good of the Preserve.” It sounded forced out of her, as if she hadn’t really wanted to tell him.
He winced. He’d suspected as much, but hearing her say it…. “So why are we still alive?”
“Some among the Council argued that you were more valuable alive than dead.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Myself included.”
“Or gelded?”
“That’s still to be determined.”
Rai’s hand slipped instinctively to his crotch. “I want to talk to Her.”
Rosemary shook her head. “That’s not a good idea. She can be capricious.”
“It’s my life. You said yourself that you might… eliminate me. Or geld me. I’d rather look for a third option.” He had no desire to live as a eunuch slave in the Preserve, no matter how beautiful the place was.
Rosemary threw her long braid back over her shoulder. “I can’t promise anything. But you’re right. I’ve argued for some time that we are vulnerable to extinction here. An earthquake, or a plague… still, not everyone thinks like I do.” She stood, picking up her cane. “Finish the meal. I will send someone to collect you and take you back to your room in the men’s dorm.” She pocketed the button.
Rai reached out and touched her shoulder. “We don’t have to be enemies, your people and mine.”
She searched his eyes. “Perhaps not. But you’ll forgive me if I have a hard time trusting the word of a man.” She turned, breaking contact. “I will send word.”
Rai watched her shuffle down the hill. He shuddered at the thought of being gelded.
They could run… but where would they go? He had no idea where the exit was, or from how far away that pain device worked.
He wished he still had his knife.
Still, there was kindness in her, after all. Or at least a sense of practicality.
Rai stared at the abundance of food spread out before them. “We should eat. She’s right, we need to keep up her strength, and I don’t know about you, but I am starving.”
Aidan already had a mouthful of bread and cheese. “Me too.”
Ash—the young man who had brought the news before—arrived half an hour later to lead them back to their room in the “men’s dorm.” By then they had cleaned up every piece of food on the heaping platters Rosemary had left them. Rosemary knew how to lay out a great meal—Aidan had to give her that much.
That it was prepared on the backs of men didn’t sit quite so well with him.
Ash looked like he was about Aidan’s age, with dark curly hair, brown eyes and light skin. He was dressed in the gray cloth Aidan was coming to recognize as men’s clothing in this strange society, including a shirt.
“You’re Ash?” Rai flashed the man a smile.
The man wouldn’t meet their eyes. “Yes. Please follow me.” He turned and headed off, not looking back to see if they were following until he was halfway down the grassy hill.
“I’m Rai. Nice to meet you.” Rai said it quietly, his eyes darting around to see if anyone was listening.
Aidan frowned. “Yeah, you guys aren’t very sociable around here.” He was still trying to wrap his head around the idea that there were so many other people in the world, let alone the fact that he was here in the middle of all of them.
The whole gelding thing worried him, too. The thought of it sent a shiver down his back.
His life under Boundary Peak seemed so small now. He didn’t know how he was ever going to go back to it. If they even let me.
They followed the man down the hillside and back to the concourse. It was much quieter now. “Ash, what time is it?”
“Almost midnight.” He still wouldn’t turn to look at them.
No wonder I’m so tired. Aidan yawned despite their dark situation, wondering what Ash’s life had been like in this strange, insular society.
They reached the doors that led to the dorm. Ash knocked, and soon the doors swung open.
There was a different woman at the desk, this one tall and thin, her skin almost as white as Ash’s. “Name, rank, and serial?”
Ash stood to attention. “Ash, G22, M1266T.”
“And these?” She looked Aidan and Rai up and down. “They’re dressed strangely.”
“These are the outsiders. Mistress Rosemary tasked me to return them to their room.”
“Ah.” She stood and walked around them, looking them up and down from head to toe. “Open your mouth.”
Aidan complied. He felt like livestock.
“Good dental hygiene.” She moved on to Rai. “Open?”
Rai refused, shaking his head and keeping his mouth shut.
The woman grabbed him without warning and and shoved him up against the wall. “When I give you an order, you will obey. Now open your mouth.”
Rai’s mouth fell open, and Aidan saw fear in his eyes. She was strong as an ox.
“Very good.” She let him go and slipped back behind her desk. “Go ahead. They’re in room C72.”
Aidan looked around, seeing now that there was more than one set of doors leading off this room. He’d missed that in the confusion earlier.
The woman pressed something under the desk, and one set of doors opened up.
Rai took a deep breath. Then he did something totally unexpected. He crossed the space between them, holding out his hand to the woman who had just roughed him up. “I’m Rylan Ramirez.”
She looked at it, then up at him as if he’d just spit on her. “Fenn.” She pointed at the open doors. “Ash will see you to your room.” She turned away, dismissing them all.
Aidan followed Ash up the long stairs, wondering how it was possible that these people had been here all this time, unknown to anyone. The histories written just after the Crash detailed the attempts to find out if there were any other survivors, but all the other pockets of humanity had long ago died out. Didn’t they?
Boundary Peak had been under strict orders to remain radio-silent. Papa said the founders had been afraid of attracting the wrong kind of attention. Maybe the Preserve had been the same.
This time he paid more attention to the mural as they passed it. It began with fire, loads and loads of fire—the Collapse, he guessed. Or the Winnowing, as Rosemary called it.
Next was a tall woman in warrior garb, standing on a hill with a man kneeling at her knees.
Aidan frowned. He didn’t like the idea of one sex being subservient to another. His mother had always been his father’s equal, up until papa died.
He wondered, too, if the Preservers had any faith to guide them.
Rai’s own people seemed to follow some kind of religion. At least he hoped it was a religion. Rai had mentioned the precepts that all of Redemption lived by.
They reached their room, and Ash opened the door for them. It emitted a loud squeak as it opened.
Didn’t these people have oil? “Why don’t they lock the doors?”
Ash looked at him blankly. “Why would they do that?”
Rai and Aidan exchanged a glance. “Because you might try to escape?” Rai’s eyebrow arched.
“They can peg us anywhere. And they lock the main door out of the dormitory. But we’d have nowhere to go.” Ash pushed open the door all the way, gesturing them inside. He looked nervous, the side of his neck pulsing.
Aidan wasn’t done with his questions yet. “Has anyone ever tried to escape?”
Ash looked pale. “I… I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make you nervous.”
Ash looked down at the floor, his cheeks reddening. “No one ever asks me personal questions.”
Aidan looked at Rai, who nodded. “Is it allowed? For us to talk to you?”
“I don’t know. My mistress didn’t give me any instructions about that.”
Aidan looked up and down the hall. Probably best not to make a scene out in the open. “Please, come inside for a minute. We won’t keep you long.”
Ash looked doubtful.
“We’d really like to hear what you have to say.” Rai put a hand on Ash’s shoulder.
Ash bit his lip. “Just for a minute?”
“Yes. It would be very helpful.” Aidan kept his voice calm, leery of scaring the poor man away.
He looked down the hall. “I guess that would be okay.”
Aidan sighed with relief and gestured for Ash to go inside.
They shut the door behind them and sat down on the mattress. Ash took the one chair in the room.
Rai gestured toward Ash. “Go ahead.”
Aidan nodded. It was strange how easily he and Rai worked with each other. “Ash, do you like it here?”
“I like it, mostly. Especially when my mistress is happy with me.” He shrugged. “I’ve never known anything else. Sometimes she gives me a gift, or something special to eat.”
“I understand. Are you… are you gelded?”
Ash frowned. “No. I’m not aggressive. There’s no need to geld me.” He sounded taken aback by the question.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. We’re not from here. We don’t know how these things work.”
Ash looked from one to the other, as if trying to decide how much he should say.
“You can talk to us. We won’t tell anyone.”
“You sure?”
Aidan nodded, trying to put on his best you’re safe with us look.
“Okay.” He sat forward, and it was if he transformed into a new person. A grin spread across his face, and he looked awake, alive for the first time since they had met him. “You have to be careful here to survive without being gelded. The mistresses are watching you all the time, except in the dorm rooms where they give us a little privacy.”
“Go on.”
Rai was watching the man raptly, now that he’d dropped his cautious, diffident tone.
“I’ve seen more than twenty-two summers, and they’ve never gelded me—most gelds are done shortly after a boy hits puberty. I am always deferential to the mistresses. ‘Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am. What else can I do for you, ma’am?’ You play the game, and you don’t get gelded. Sometimes you even get to use it with one of them.”
“They… make you have sex with them?”
“Not exactly. But most guys are happy to finally get the real thing, instead of….” He gave the universal symbol for self-pleasure with his hand.
Aidan managed a grin. “And the gelds?”
Ash sat back, a look of distaste on his face. “They’re the ones who didn’t play the game. Every year there are a few who decide the system is rigged against them. They start acting out, maybe plotting against the women. When the Council finds out, and they always do, they order them gelded. It calms their more aggressive impulses. And they are reduced to working physical labor.”
Like the cattle men. Aidan covered his own crotch again and saw Rai do the same.
“Has anyone ever escaped?”
“I don’t know. Maybe once. They told us that it’s poisonous outside. So where would we go?” He stared at them. “But you’re here. So it’s not true, is it?”
Aidan glanced over at Rai.
“It’s not poisonous outside, not anymore. We came from there. There are dangers, but humans could live on the surface again.”
A strange look crossed Ash’s face. “Are you sure?”
Aidan nodded. “Some places still have poison dust. Sometimes there are big storms that blow up out of nowhere, or really hot nights. But you could live out there, if you wanted.”
“I—”
The door opened with a squeak. It was Fenn, the dorm guard.
Ash transformed instantly from the living, breathing person he’d been to an automaton, sitting rigidly on the chair. Only his eyes showed that he was human. The transformation was breathtaking.
Fenn glanced around the room, and then her gaze fixed on Ash. “Ash, your mistress is looking for you.”
“Yes, mistress.” Ash got up like a robot and slipped out of the room, his head down.
“We’re sorry,” Aidan said, holding out his hands. “We kept him to ask him what to expect here. He didn’t tell us much.”
She frowned, but let it go. “Get some sleep. Breakfast is at 0600 hours.” She closed the door behind them.
Aidan let out a sigh of relief. And how are we supposed to know the time? He turned to Rai. “You think you got through to Rosemary?”
Rai shook his head. “I don’t think so. Maybe. I don’t know.” He stood and started to unbutton his shirt. “I gave her something to think about, at least.”
“Ally and Tien will come to find us.” Aidan missed his sister. As much as she was a thorn in his side, he would have given his left arm to see her come through that door just now.
Rai was silent. He pulled off his boots one by one and stretched his toes.
“They will find us.”
Rai looked up at him, his brown eyes narrowed. “Unless they’ve been captured too.”
Aidan chewed on that for a moment. The room’s bare gray walls suddenly seemed just a little closer.
The thought that he might never see his sister or family again made him want to weep. I’m too old to cry. Crying was for sissies, his Papa Astin had always said.
He took off his own clothes down to his underwear as Rai lay down the mattress. When he was done, he stood there, staring at Rai’s back.
“What?” Rai looked up at him. He sounded worn out, and there were dark circles under his eyes.
“Could I… just lay next to you for a few minutes? I’m scared.” There. He’d said it.
Rai sat up, staring at him, his bare chest exposed above the covers. “Sure.” He lay down facing Aidan and patted the mattress. “Come here.”
Aidan settled in next to him, his back against Rai’s chest.
He was filled with roiling emotions, especially fear and excitement, but anger and sadness too.
Rai pulled him close and draped the covers over the two of them.
For just a moment, Aidan felt safe.
He closed his eyes, basking in Rai’s warmth. In less than a minute, he was fast asleep.