Carthage

A VAST UNLIT room stretched off in every direction, its ceiling supported by elegant pillars that resembled milky hourglasses. Pale spheres, one on the floor and the other above, which had somehow melted until they met in the middle. The floor was some kind of pitted metal, nearly black in color. It gleamed when it caught the wan light spilling in from the hole Skyler’s pod had made when it punched through from top to bottom. Above, the ceiling was similarly dark and also strangely elegant despite being more utilitarian, its span crisscrossed with tidy bundles of gently curved cabling and pipes whose purposes he could only guess. A temptation to start cutting those lines just to see what kind of damage it might cause to the Scipios faded as quickly as it had come to him. He had to remember now where he was. This world really belonged to the Creators; he had come to return it to them.

So Skyler pushed into the room, away from his crashed pod. The chamber seemed to have no end, no sides, no beginning. It stretched farther than the light, and its air was filled with the same swirling dusty particulate his entry pit had been. Other than the curvaceous ghostly pillars, the floor was entirely devoted to row after row of nondescript containers, vaguely and unsettlingly reminding him of sarcophagi standing upright. They were all identical, about four meters long, one wide, one tall, with hair-thin filaments connecting them to the conduits and pipes that lined the ceiling above. It resembled some of the data processing facilities he’d scavenged in back on Earth. And much like those abandoned places, this one seemed to be without power. There were no banks of blinking lights indicating electronic traffic, or even the oppressive hum of cooling gear. If this place was indeed a computer center, it was either abandoned or switched off. Of course, it was possible the place was working fine until he’d punched a hundred-meter-deep hole right through its heart.

“Or,” he whispered to himself, “it is a bloody crypt.”

He forced himself to look at all of it through the lens of what Eve had told them about this world. A once flourishing civilization, now held captive by the Scipios, who mostly lived on the space stations above. This world was like Earth had been just after the Builders came, most of it a wasteland where engineered viruses kept the population subdued. Only, their postapocalyptic state had lasted millennia. Earth had gotten off easy, in comparison.

Millennia.

The word echoed in Skyler’s mind. As he walked he looked—really looked—at the pristine surfaces around him. The metal floor, the pearlescent double-teardrop pillars, the containers—all practically gleamed under the wan light spilling in. This in stark contrast to the particulate in the air where he’d landed, which fell heavily enough to coat any floor in a matter of hours, much less years or centuries.

Which meant either this room had been sealed until his arrival, or it had been very, very well maintained. The latter implied a world far from the hellscape Skyler assumed they’d find.

The room seemed to have no end, and Skyler forced himself into a run. The desire to be out under the open sky and out of this tomb suddenly eclipsed all other concerns. He jogged for a long time, a sense of wondrous dread at the sheer size of the place growing with each step, until finally a wall came into view. The surface was smooth, entirely uniform, offering no hint of which way to go. He reached it and turned, at random, to the left, following the edge of the space until finally something doorlike appeared in the darkness.

A massive, almost zipperlike seam running five meters vertically up the wall.

He glanced around for a lever or switch. Nothing obvious presented itself. Skyler sighed. Perhaps this was some kind of vault, the only access being from the outside. He debated retracing his steps to the hole he’d made to get in, but a quick glance over his shoulder made him realize that the breach was either too far away now to be detectable, or the Scipio drones had sealed it off. Without that little patch of light spilling in, he had no way to find it.

“Fine,” he said to himself. “I made one hole, I can make another.”

He lifted one arm and fired at the zigzagging seam on the wall. He’d expected it to wither and melt under the intensity of the weapon, but what happened was decidedly more final. The energy lanced right through the barrier as if it were made of balsa wood. Fragments exploded into the space beyond, and on this side as well, pelting him and the ground around him. Skyler killed the beam and fumbled through the menus, dialing back the intensity to its lowest setting. This time he got what he’d wanted. A thin, almost surgical line of white-hot energy that required a few seconds in one spot before it could punch through the door or wall or whatever it was. In less than a minute he’d drawn an oval shape on the surface. Skyler stepped forward, kicked, and watched with satisfaction as the chunk fell away and landed with a dull thud on the floor beyond.

The area outside defied explanation. Part hallway, part stairs, the wide passage was tilted at a shallow angle, its floor resembling a wave pattern more than what Skyler would consider steps. The hall was curved as well. Part of a very wide, very large spiral, with doors just like those he’d come through spaced in even intervals on both the inside and outside walls.

Everything here was coated in dust. Creeping vines snaked their way along the surfaces, all black and gnarled. The sight of such decay filled him with a strange nostalgia. Suddenly he was back on Earth, creeping through the ruins of Brisbane or Taipei, Auckland or Phuket. If not for the strange rippled floor this could be any one of a dozen hallways he’d slogged through in the dead cities of Earth.

Go up, he told himself, and moved to his left, picking his way over the undulating surface and the root systems—roots of what, he could not imagine—that sought to reclaim the whole place back to nature. Particulate blew in lazy swirls down the passage, filling his field of view like ash. He glanced at the displays on the visor’s interior. The air mixture hadn’t changed, but there was a definite breeze here. Skyler amplified the exterior sounds, heard only his own cautious footfalls and the sigh of air pushing past. No more sirens, no hint of air processors or plumbing. None of the telltale signs of a technological civilization. A dead place, then. He felt sure of it. Which meant the breeze came from…?

He saw the opening before he could finish the thought. At the edge of his view of the curved hall, the space expanded into a larger room, one side of which was open to the elements. Leaves, or something like them, swirled in a conical eddy in the center of the room, like a wandering ghost searching for a way out. The sight reminded him of the first time he’d ever seen Ana, dancing in an abandoned courtyard, unaware he was watching. The memory sent a tingle down his spine. He swallowed the pain and regret that thinking of her always brought.

Skyler crept to the end of the hall and crouched in the shadows, watching. Other than the meandering cone of swirling dust and leaves, nothing moved. The far wall of the lobbylike chamber was made up of four massive slabs of filthy but clear material—glass, or something like it—which were attached to huge circular columns so that they could be rotated. They’d been open the last time anyone had actually been here, and left that way.

Beyond lay the ruins of several more buildings. Just shadows, really. It was dusk outside, the system’s one star already below the horizon, painting shades of dark red and purple between the dark gaps. Above, through the hazy swirls of the ash-filled air, he saw wisps of clouds and the faint but imposing clusters of hundreds of space stations beyond. Fiery objects—chunks of Eve’s wreckage, he had no doubt—streaked across the magnificent view, burning up well before they reached the ground. He’d made it, though. Maybe the others had, too.

With an effort he tore his gaze from the sight and focused on his immediate surroundings. He’d exited into something like a plaza. A long, flat space surrounded by structures of varying height, the tallest being perhaps fifty stories. The bottom floors of each were choked with climbing vines that made odd geometric patterns as they wormed along the existing grooves and panels of the manufactured walls, windows, and doors. But above, where the vines couldn’t reach, Skyler caught a glimpse of what had been. Even in this one tiny example of Creator society, their former greatness was evident. He felt like a caveman transported through time to Manhattan or Dubai. All around him were the towering examples of a highly advanced alien culture that prided itself on architecture. No two buildings were alike, and yet they all meshed together as if no one piece had been designed without consideration of the whole. Their profiles curved and intertwined. Soaring bridges connected their highest levels, writ in graceful arcs. Here there were pillars and what must be classical elements, while there stood a monolith of severe edges and cleaved sublevels. And yet it all worked. Rather, once worked, thought Skyler, it’s all dead now.

No lights. No sound but the wind. Not a single face staring down at him from one of those soaring balconies.

No roads, either, Skyler noted. None that he could see.

He walked now, keeping to the shadows, deciding to first circumnavigate the building he’d exited, hoping to find somewhere that offered a better view of the surrounding landscape. If not, he’d go back to the spiral, and climb as far as it would take him, until he found a roof.

A noise made him stop. He ducked behind a triangular pillar and went to one knee on instinct, eyes scanning the vine-choked entryways all around him.

It had been a low grunt. And a crackling sound. He strained his ears, and realized he could let the suit do that for him. Skyler ramped the audio gain to maximum.

“Gnngh,” a familiar voice grunted, hazy and yet very close. “Anyone there?”

“Tim?” Skyler asked, baffled.

Only then did he realize it was the comm. It showed a link now, where none had been before. “Tim,” he said with more certainty. “Tim, it’s Skyler. Where are you?”

“I don’t…It’s dark. I don’t know.”

“Activate your headlamp.”

Silence stretched. Then, “Some kind of machine room. I can’t really…I don’t know what it is.”

“Are any of the others with you?”

“No,” he said.

“Is there gravity where you are?”

“Huh?”

“Gravity, Tim.”

The scientist was likely in shock, and perhaps injured. Skyler took a breath and tried again. “I’m on the planet. Carthage. I’m trying to determine if you’re here or—”

“There’s very little,” Tim said. “Gravity, I mean. I just jumped and went about two meters up.”

Skyler jumped himself and barely managed one. “You must be on one of the orbitals.”

“Where’s Eve?”

“Gone,” Skyler said. “Destroyed, I think. We’re on our own now.”

The other man went quiet. No doubt his mind churned through the same thoughts Skyler’s had. “Tim, we have to—”

“Over here,” Tim said.

“What?”

No reply.

“I’ll be okay,” Tim said, after several seconds.

“Uh, good. That’s good. Now listen, we—”

But Tim interrupted again. As if he were talking to himself. Or someone else.

“I’ll follow you? Nothing. My long range is out, too. Haven’t heard from anyone.”

Skyler stood there, dumbfounded, then angry. “Tim, are you still receiving me? What the hell are you talking about?”

No reply. Not to Skyler, at least. Tim’s conversation went on. He was uninjured. He agreed the air appeared to be breathable, but felt they shouldn’t risk it. His pod was also stocked with some supplies—water, food, ammo—and also had a small version of an aura shard.

“Tim,” Skyler tried again, asserting as much authority as he could. “Who the fuck are you talking to? Please respond!”

The man went on. It wasn’t hard to imagine that Skyler’s transmissions weren’t actually reaching him, but the fact remained that Tim had specifically said to whomever he spoke, Nothing. My long range is out, too. And, worse, Haven’t heard from anyone.

“Tania?” Skyler tried. “Prumble? Sam? Anyone?”

Tim kept talking, then the conversation went quiet as he and his companion embarked on a plan to “find the others.”

Skyler glanced at his visor’s display. The comm still showed a link to the bastard. “God fucking dammit, Tim, if you can hear me you’d better explain yourself.”

Still, he did not reply. He continued his other conversation, referring to his unseen companion as “Prumble” at one point.

Well, at least there’s that, Skyler thought. The big man had made it, after all. If only he could talk to him. No amount of fiddling with the comm interface would allow him to do anything other than talk to Tim, however.

Skyler continued his circuit of the building, but his attention was split between Tim’s chatter and his own frustrated navigation of the visor’s menu system. He must have accidentally locked himself into a private channel with Tim. Maybe during those hazy moments after the crash. And Tim evidently had taken a nasty knock on the head, because he clearly thought his conversation with Skyler hadn’t happened.

Yet the comm seemed in order. Everything did. Just as he’d left it.

No, wait. Eve warned me of this. In the fog of his arrival he’d forgotten, but the memory rushed back now. She’d said only one of the crew would be able to communicate with everyone else. “A necessary precaution,” she’d called it, her logic inscrutable, as always. Whatever the reason, she’d evidently given Tim the role of bridge between Skyler and the others, and Tim wasn’t playing along.

He stopped dead. He’d almost walked right into them.

Ahead, a veritable fleet of small drones was clustered around the entry wound his arrival had punched through the bottom four floors of the building. The Scipio machines—perhaps vehicles, he couldn’t be sure—were all turned in toward the gaping hole, like a rescue team after an earthquake. Or, perhaps, like a squad of police investigating a bombing. Skyler had the presence of mind to flatten himself against the wall and take two slow steps backward. Shielded from view by the curving wall, he leaned out and took in the scene.

The Scipios had arrived in four large aircraft. Bulky things that resembled mechanical whales, their design likely guided by the atmosphere and gravity of Carthage. They were parked in a half-circle some distance off from the impact zone, their cavernous bellies exposed by large ramps that opened from the sides rather than the back, as the Melville had.

Smaller dronelike pods swarmed around the place where Skyler’s pod had met the building. As he watched, one ducked inside and extended those climbing tentacles he’d seen, suspending itself over the opening. The machine or vehicle trembled slightly, and then puffed a glowing cloud of shiny particulate into the space. The blue-white material coated what little he could see of the interior walls of the pit his escape pod had dug.

More of the Scipios were milling about on the ground level, just a few dozen meters away from his position. These were the actual creatures, not machine augmented like those in the Swarm, but suited, intelligent alien beings. About a meter tall, they resembled upright-walking bats with roundish, flat faces and flaps of leathery skin that stretched from forearm to calf. They wore ugly outfits of grays highlighted in places with patches of color—yellows, blues, and greens. Perhaps an indication of rank or discipline, or merely some element of what passed for Scipio fashion. No way to know. They were huddled around some gear, gesturing to one another and making incomprehensible sounds. Their speech, he felt sure.

None appeared to be armed. Perhaps they were a scientific team, sent to investigate a potential meteor strike or salvage a fallen chunk of one of their massive space stations. They hadn’t noticed him, or if they had they made no sign of it. Whatever their purpose here, though, it surely was only a matter of time before they realized the shell of material at the bottom of that pit was not natural or of their own making, and that something had walked away from it.

“Likewise,” Tim said, so abruptly Skyler thought he’d misheard or missed something. Then came the sounds of relief and hugs. “Any sign of Sam or Vaughn?”

“No,” the reply came. From Tania.

“And Skyler?” Tim asked. “Any idea where he is?”

“No,” she said again, sounding more distant than she ever had before.

Oh, fuck no. Tim, you son of a bitch…Skyler ground his teeth and sent nothing in rebuke this time. These Scipios might have the equipment to sense a transmission. Besides, he could think of nothing to say. Tim had never made much of a secret of his feelings for Tania, and the complication Skyler posed to that equation. The sad bastard saw this whole thing as an opportunity for romance and was taking it.

But then, Skyler recalled Tim’s battle prowess during those final moments aboard the Chameleon. Perhaps something had awoken in him, there, faced with such a formidable enemy and armed so. Or, maybe, his true nature had finally shown through.

A shrill mechanical sound forced Skyler’s attention back to the Scipios. They were fanning out, suddenly. One of the airships lifted vertically into the air on a plume of vectored thrust. It went straight up, then hovered about two hundred meters up. Overwatch position. “Oh shit.”

He heard a click. It came from behind, and he knew instantly what had happened. They’d found the door he’d cut through. If they’d been under any illusion this was some meteorite or fallen part of one of their space stations, that had ended there at that clean deliberate cut.

And they’d followed his trail, which led them—

Skyler whirled. Three Scipios stood just five meters behind him. The sound of their movement must have been masked by the liftoff of the airship.

They seemed as surprised to see him as he them. Skyler raised an arm and fired. The creature took the blast in its chest, staggering backward. The other two hopped away, one gliding back to the ground using flaps of skin that stretched from forearms to calves, the other landing up on the wall, gripping its vine-covered surface and hanging there.

Skyler relented, and to his surprise the one he’d fired on came back to a stand, looking down at its chest. Why hadn’t it—the door. The door he’d cut through. He’d dialed back the weapon’s output. Skyler dove left as the two on either side fired on him. Their weapons sprayed directed plumes of a bluish powdery substance, and he wanted nothing to do with it. He rolled, came to a knee, fired again, this time at increased output. The white-hot rail of energy annihilated the head of the one perched on the wall. It fell and landed in a silent heap. Skyler aimed, fired again. This time the one in the middle did not stagger back. It flew. Arms and legs flung forward like a rag doll, the creature vaulted backward on the power of the beam. Landed five meters away, rolled, came to a sprawled stop, flame and smoke billowing from its chest now.

A blast of blue powder washed over Skyler, forcing him backward onto his rump. He raised his gun arm to shield his visor from the sandlike spray, ignoring the sudden eruption of alerts from his suit. Breaches, everywhere. That was no powder he’d been blasted with; it was like a mist of razors. It filled his vision even as it shredded his protective suit. Thousands of little craters clouded the surface of the visor. He gave up protecting it. He aimed blind, into the torrent of microscopic knives, and swept his beam across the entire space. For good measure he told his mortar to activate and launched eight of its potent bombs in a cluster pattern in a wide circle around his position. He felt the barrel extend from his back and fire—a series of deep whoomps. Skyler let the bombs fly and continued to swing his beam across the space in front of him. The powder attack died off. The third Scipio lay on the ground a few meters away, in several smoldering pieces.

Skyler forced himself to his knees and covered his head with his arms.

There was commotion all around him. Alerts and the excited chittering of Scipio-speak. And then the explosions. Eight, in rapid succession. Shock waves shook the ground and buffeted him like the fists of an angry giant. Skyler screamed and kept his arms clamped over his head, unsure how much his suit would protect him, but knowing he was in the shit like he’d never been before.

Orange-yellow light flickered around the edges of his slammed-shut eyes as the fiery explosions tore up the dead city.

“Move, damn you,” he roared at himself, and then he was up. Sprinting away from the shrapnel and falling debris. He could see nothing at all through the fractured glass before his eyes. Angry, he reached up and tore at the panel, but it wouldn’t budge. Fine, he thought. He leaned forward. He closed his eyes and mouth, then poked two fingers through the surface. The material, once, no doubt, super strong, had been weakened and came apart easily. Skyler moved his fingers around a bit, widening the openings until they met in front of his nose. Soon only a few centimeters of jagged yellow glass remained around the perimeter of the helmet’s opening. He looked up, could see again. Cold air bit at his cheeks. Luckily, the readouts Prumble had designed with Eve’s help still hovered in the lower left of his vision, though they were blurred now and parts were missing. Legible, but only just. He glanced around.

One of the mortars had exploded into the side of the building he’d been circuiting, ten stories up. Huge chunks of broken wall slammed into the ground where he’d lain. Another piece smashed into the vine-covered walkway in front of him, showering him with debris. Skyler put his trust in his Earth-adapted strength and leapt. Here, on Carthage, he could about double his usual jumping height, and he cleared the lodged section of broken wall with a few centimeters to spare.

Landing, he ran on, unwilling to stop and look at what kind of actual damage his desperate attack had wrought. He needed to get far away from here, and hope they never quite figured out if he’d lived or died in the violence of that assault. With any luck they’d yet to even report an anomalous finding back to whomever they reported back to.

Skyler rounded a corner, surged down a gently curving ramp and through a plaza lined with teardrop-shaped pillars. Air crept in through the punctures in his suit. It felt wonderfully cool on his skin, and smelled of spring rain. He tried not to think about all the alien pathogens flooding his lungs, or the engineered viruses of the Scipios floating like thick dust in the air. He hoped his immunity held on this planet as it had on Earth.

The ground beneath him seemed to tilt. He stumbled, caught himself. Little white dots swam before his eyes. He blinked, hard, but the spots remained. Breathing became a chore.

“It’s the air,” he wheezed. Oxygen levels had been marked in orange. Too low, or too high, he hadn’t bothered to check. Breathable to humans, that had been the extent of his interest. But then the top of Mt. Everest was still technically breathable to humans, wasn’t it? Until you died, of course. He slumped against one of the teardrop pillars and put his head between his knees, forcing himself to take long, even breaths. His nose began to run. Skyler swiped at it with his armored sleeve and saw a smear of blood there, black as ink.

Altitude sickness. Had to be. Well, he thought, it didn’t have to be. “Get moving, then,” he muttered, and pushed himself to a shaky stand. He took several long swallows from the water tube in his helmet, hoping he wouldn’t regret the draw on his supplies later.

Skyler glanced back the way he’d come. Several small fires burned in the distance, judging by the flickering orange glow that now lit the buildings around him. Of the Scipios he saw nothing at all. Whatever they were doing, however many yet lived, they weren’t following him.

He turned and walked now, intent to put as much distance between himself and the crash site as he could. At the far side of the pillared plaza he found an archway that led out into a long, meandering, narrow lane. Circular patches of ground dotted the length of it on either side, and must have once been home to magnificent trees. Now they were choked with tall spikes of sandy-colored grasses, and the trees were nothing more than gray shapes lying on the ground, their long-petrified remains now sprouting smaller plants and wispy vines.

Skyler hardly paid the scene any attention. His gaze was firmly fixed on what lay beyond. The undulating pathway led down to a bay, where foamy water lapped against a rugged shore. Beyond, perhaps two kilometers distant, was another city perched on a headland. The twin of this dead place, only over there the lights were on. Most of the light clustered around the tallest of the buildings there, a majestic shard that vaulted easily a full kilometer into the sky. And where the structure ended the thread continued. A space elevator, like a ribbon, extending straight up and through the clouds.

For a long moment he simply stared, part of his mind convinced that he was back in Darwin. This was Nightcliff he gazed upon, as seen from the water processors on East Point. The geography was remarkably similar, in fact, and he suspected that was no coincidence.

“Tim, are you there?”

He waited. He wasn’t sure if his comm even worked anymore. No reply came.

“Listen up, you bastard. I’ve found a way up. I’m coming. I’m going to find the rest of you, and you’re going to have to answer for yourself. Do you understand? So, last chance. I’ll give you a pass, if you just pretend right now that you’ve suddenly made contact with me. Let the others know I’m okay.”

Silence, save the water lapping on rocks in the distance, and the wind.

“We can still do what we came here to do, Tim. I know you’re a good person. Stop this deception now and no one need ever know.”

The link remained silent. Skyler shook his head and took a step forward.

“We’re leaving,” came the whispered reply. “You won’t reach us in time. Finish the mission or not, I don’t care, but we’re leaving.”

“Tim—”

“I have a chance to save the one I love. I have to take it. I say now what I’ve wanted to say for a long, long time: Piss off, Skyler.”

This time the link did close. A barely audible click that somehow was the loudest sound Skyler had ever heard. Alone, then. Betrayed by a self-styled knight in shining armor, a man who no doubt envisioned himself carrying Tania, literally, away from all this with no consideration for what she might want. Oldest mistake there was, and one it seemed some men would continue to make for time eternal.

Skyler rested his chin on his chest and let out a long breath. More blood trickled from his nose. He ignored it. What now? he thought. What now, what now, what now.

The answer was the same as it had been every time he’d asked the question of himself. The same as it had been when he’d found himself alone when the plague had arrived in the Netherlands. The same when he had crashed the Melville in the Outback far from the safety of Darwin: Press on.

And that’s just what he did.