Every muscle and joint in Vartan’s body ached; his brain had that fevered feeling of fatigue. His thoughts had gone muzzy in a head that felt stuffed with wool. When he blinked, the lids seemed to scrape over his eyeballs. The ability to carry a thought to its conclusion had congealed. He’d forgotten how much he hated exhaustion and fatigue. All he wanted to do was sleep.
The cave had been terrifying. Draining. First the descent filled with mind-numbing fear of being shot from the blackness, then the sapping ascent back to the door. Climbing the stairs from the basement took every bit of his concentration. His muscles screamed, his lower back ached under the weight of the rifle. Just those fifteen stairs—not to mention Donovan’s gravity—had him winded by the time he reached the ground-level hallway.
The way his feet kept tripping over themselves it was as if they had become disconnected from his brain. His legs had a loose and rubbery feel.
Vartan plodded his weary way into the cafeteria where the Messiah slouched in his throne. The man sprawled more than sat, chin propped on his chest, dark eyes dully fixed on the wasted body lying prominently on the table just before the throne. The eye in the middle of The Messiah’s forehead seemed to stare at infinity.
Vartan thankfully slipped the heavy rifle from his shoulders, let it clunk onto the nearest table. He pulled a chair out, slid it around, and dropped into it with a sigh.
Irdan. That’s who lay upon the table.
Off to the side, Callista and Guan Shi were each being sponged by a couple of the children. Not that either of them looked more than half past the shade of death.
“What news, Second Will?” the Messiah asked softly.
“We followed the tunnel as far as a drop off, Messiah. By then the hand lights were failing, getting too feeble to see into the depths. We turned back. Blocked the door with enough heavy items they can’t shoot their way back inside.
“Meanwhile, Tamil has discovered a blueprint of the admin dome. The tunnel apparently has an outlet down in the forest. That’s where they’ll come out. The cliff is pretty sheer immediately above the lava tube. The trails they’ll need to climb back up are to the north and south. We have enough people to defend them if they try and return that way in an attempt to get the airtruck.”
The Messiah kept his gaze fixed on Irdan’s corpse, as if momentarily expecting the dead Prophet to utter some startling revelation.
“What of the armed drone?” The Messiah’s words were barely a whisper.
“Petre has it on the charger again. It should have a full charge, or as much as it will take anyway, in another hour or two.”
“Tell the First Will that my orders are as follows: He, you, and Tikal will each take a squad of fifteen people. He will descend the north trail. You and Tikal on the south. Once down the escarpment, you will have your teams fan out in three groups of five to comb the forest floor. You will sweep your way forward, closing on the vicinity of the cave exit. Where—”
“Messiah, I don’t think—”
“What you think doesn’t matter.” The Messiah shifted his gaze, eyes like cold black stones in his head. The hollow created by his missing nose whistled as he inhaled.
The mad power of the Messiah’s gaze and the intensity of his anger sent a shiver through Vartan. The painted blue eye in the middle of the man’s forehead seemed to bore right through Vartan’s soul.
Implacably, the Messiah said, “Each team of five will search. When they locate the Supervisor and her party, they will not engage. They will only alert you or Petre as to the Supervisor’s location. You will then use the drone. Fly it right into the middle of the Supervisor’s party. There, you will detonate the explosive. At that time, everyone will converge upon the location, recover the bodies, and bring them to me.”
“Messiah, I—”
“My orders are not up for negotiation, Second Will.”
Vartan chewed his lips. Blinked in the glare cast from the cafeteria lights and jerked a short nod. It took all of his effort to push himself up from the chair. Took three steps before he remembered the rifle and plodded back to retrieve it.
Ten years in Deck Three, doing nothing. Now he was planetside, malnourished, dealing with a heavier gravity. His physical endurance was spent.
Outside, he glanced up at the starry sky, wondering when night had fallen.
“You all right?” Shyanne asked as she appeared out of the dark.
“I just want to sleep for a week. Lay in the sun and eat steak before sleeping again. He’s ordered us to put together teams, to go into the forest in search of the Supervisor.” He hesitated. “You heard about Fatima?”
“She’s dead. And they never even let me see her. For that . . . Well, never mind. It’s all going to shit anyway.”
“Be careful, Shyanne. I know how you’re—”
“Vart, you don’t have the first fucking notion about how I’m feeling.” The anger and grief in her voice made him wince. To change the subject, she said, “You heard about the prions?”
“Something.”
“Vart, everything that happened? The Prophets? It’s a disease.” She hooked her fingers in quotation as she said, “Divine revelation? Hardly. It’s dementia from a physical source. From eating contaminated brain matter. We weren’t saving the dead. They were poisoning us.”
“Best not say anything about that where any of the Will could hear. You’ll be sliced up, boiled, and put on the table next.”
She chuckled humorlessly. “Look around. Okay, we’re off the ship. But we’re still on our own. And so what? Think back. Remember who we were when we first set foot on Ashanti? Remember those people? The things we believed in. The kind of human beings we were? We’ve given up so much of ourselves to madness. Justified . . . well, everything as the price of survival.”
“Yeah.” He hung his head, rubbed the back of his sore neck. “Used to be human.”
“You were a security officer. I was a vet tech.” She shook her head, curled her hands into desperate fists. “I look back to the woman I was, to the man I was in love with and married to, to all the dreams.”
“Those were good days. Maybe . . .”
“Maybe would be a lie. We’re monsters, Vart. That’s what Batuhan and his supposed Prophets have made us. Look at the scars.” She traced fingers along the lines that led to her breasts. “This is the mark of Cain. The visible proof that I participated in the sick murder of my friends, that I willingly seared their flesh and ate it. That I sold my humanity and self-respect to keep breathing, whored myself to that twisted Mongolian monster and his minions in order to bear their children. So I lived? To become . . . what kind of thing?”
“Hey, Shyanne, don’t—”
“Vart, wake up. We’d have been better off dead. You, me, all the rest of us. Now we’re, well . . . Let’s just say we’re a sort of human pollution.”
The words stung. He’d loved her once. With all of his heart. Could remember how they’d delighted in each other. They’d been so young, so possessed of each other that they’d soared. Like two souls who’d fit like meshed gears . . . and lost it all.
“I’ve got work to do.”
“Vart. There’s a way, you know. An out. You know Batuhan’s batshit crazy. This whole living graves and immortality sham is a lie to justify the most heinous crimes human beings can commit. But just ’cause we played along to save our worthless lives doesn’t mean we still have to.”
“Shyanne, don’t. If the wrong people hear you—”
“You can fly the airtruck, can’t you? It’s a way out of the insanity. We can find a place. Somewhere—”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. Now, Shy, take my advice: Don’t. Say. Another. Word. Not to anyone.”
She stared at him in the dark. Nodded. Finally said, “You take these search parties down into that forest, most of those people are not coming back.”
“Oh? Think they’ll just wander off looking for Eden?”
“I’ve read the reports. The ones Batuhan says are all lies. I’ve tried to treat the ones Donovan’s already claimed. You were a smart man once, be one again.”
He yawned, wished the fatigue would let him clear his head. “Sorry, Shy, I’ve got to get ahead of this thing with the Supervisor.”
“You really believe that Batuhan’s a divine messiah?”
“You keep your head down, Shy. I know you’re hurting. And I’m so sorry about Fatima. But promise me you won’t do anything stupid, all right?”
Her laughter sounded heartless. “Oh, you know me, Vart. I don’t have any stupid left in me.”
He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, took a deep breath, and forced his trembling and weary legs to leave her standing there as he plodded toward the dormitory to form his search parties.
What he would have given for a short, quick nap.