BLEEDING FROM COLD SLEEP
Peter Fehervari
In a universe filled with monsters, the soldiers of the Frontline are humanity’s best defense. Vikram was one of them. Once. But when everything you’ve ever been taught is a lie, what is there left to fight for...?
The witness was close to losing himself when the hunters finally caught up with him. Years of hard labor out on the ice and harder oblivion in the confines of his cabin had buried him deep in the lie of another life, where one routine bled into the next, bereft of any purpose save the stark imperatives of survival.
And yet, somewhere down below, he endured, sustained by his betrayal like a ghost coveting a stolen grave.
Waiting.
He couldn’t have said how long he’d been waiting exactly. It was hard to keep track of time when his body refused to age and the days and nights were just different degrees of darkness and cold. His shadow could have told him, of course. She never lost track of anything, but there’d come a point where he stopped asking, then let the question slip away. It was easier to live a lie when you bought into it. Besides, when the time came, she would tell him the only thing that mattered.
“They are here,” a voice whispered into the sleeper’s ear, waking him from slumber and his deeper oblivion. He stared into the darkness above his bunk, breathing slowly as he shed the lie.
“How far?” he murmured through a wash of memories.
“Approaching from the town’s southern edge,” his shadow replied. There was no urgency in her liquid contralto whisper, but that meant nothing. There was never anything there. “They are moving slowly.”
“Coming this way?”
“Indirectly. Their probable destination is The Huddle.”
The town’s center... That was good. They had his scent, but they weren’t sure of anything yet. Probably looking for leads.
“How many?” he asked.
“Three, Vikram.”
Vikram... Though he’d worn himself into the name it sounded strange now, yet also right, like every name his shadow had offered over the years, along with the stories behind them. It was like she drew them from a nebulous wellspring of possibilities within him—a string of lives he might have lived for real if he hadn’t been dealt a pair of poisoned Aces. Every one was a loner drifting through the backwaters of human space, believing in nothing but the here-and-now.
His lives had grown more tenuous the farther out he went, much like the planets they played out upon. He’d begun his flight as Marko Sladek, a laborer with a knack for heavy machinery, working his way across the outer-world shipyards, then fled the Sol system as Harmon Rashe, a prospector who could handle himself in a fight. Later he’d become a hunter himself, tracking down lawbreakers among the rowdy worlds of the Third Orbit, but that drew too many eyes and he’d moved on quickly, both from the identity and the region. He’d been too good at the job. A natural, they said.
Now, a dozen nobodies later, he was Vikram Trager, a trapper who could last longer out on the frozen tundra than most folks who’d been born to it. True, there weren’t many of those yet. Iscarcha was still a fledgling colony, barely into its third generation of settlers and only a couple of orbits behind the Communion’s stalled frontier. He was running out of places to hide.
“Will you stay with me?” he asked the darkness. “If they take me.”
“Yes, Vikram.”
Will you give a damn?
He dismissed the question. Trying to understand her was a fool’s game. She was what she was, which wasn’t anything remotely human. Maybe that’s why she didn’t have a name. She’d dreamt up so many for him, yet never offered one of her own, or answered when he asked.
“Keep watching them,” he said.
“I will, Vikram.”
Her expanded perception was another mystery. He didn’t know what its limits were, but it easily covered the whole town. Her talk of a “diffuse consciousness” went over his head, like most of her explanations, but he was grateful for her talents. He’d be long dead without them. Then again, if she hadn’t latched onto him he wouldn’t be on the run, so who could really say.
It’s all dust in the wind, the mason-priests of the Stone Hand preached. Gone before you can grasp it. That was a rare scrap of faith-talk that still rang true to him.
He rolled from his bunk and his shadow followed, a richer darkness in the murk of his cabin. The lights flickered on as he crossed to the wall-sink and splashed himself with water. Green eyes stared back from the mirror above, bright among the swarthy crags framing them. His hair hung past his shoulders in a graying black tangle that matched his beard. It was a hard face, weathered by worse things than the wind, but its eyes almost redeemed it. There was a sadness there that defied the harshness. Something still lived behind those eyes.
I’ll keep the name, he decided, weighing up the familiar stranger. Vikram... It was more honest than the one he’d been reborn to.
It was dark outside, as it always was on this midwinter world, but the sky was cloudless and starlight washed the town, teasing an eerie viridian glow from its snow-swept streets. That was the strangest thing about Iscarcha—the green snow. Apparently it was infused with a bioluminescent fungus that thrived in the cold. Since it was cold everywhere the stuff was like the planet’s skin—sagging and prone to shedding, as though wasted by age. It could get under human skin too, staining it a sheen that looked reptilian. The settlers claimed the “winterskyn” was harmless, but Vikram didn’t trust it. Space was full of traps. Some just took longer to spring than others.
“Every sky tells a different lie,” he murmured in a rhythmic cant as he set out. “Quick or slow, they’ll kill you just the same.”
It was the opening verse of the Frontline’s battle anthem, drummed into every Pioneer like a second heartbeat, underlining their whole reason for being. Despite everything, he still believed that verse. His hunters certainly would.
“Where are they?” he asked, glancing at the shape gliding over the snow beside him. Nothing showed through her. She was a skewed silhouette of himself cut from the void.
“Tithe’s Rest, Vikram.”
That made sense. The town’s only saloon never shut its doors. The difference between day and night wasn’t worth a damn here so most folks kept to their own time, working or resting when it suited them unless they were indentured to someone bigger. The whole town was a den of imagined liberty, bitter endeavor, and whatever precious little iniquities its citizens could dredge up, which mostly revolved around drinking, gambling, and whoring. None of the faiths had taken root here or likely ever would.
Vikram spat into the snow. No matter how things played out tonight he was done with Reliance. Calling the sprawl of prefab domes and cabins a town stretched the definition, but give it a few decades and it would swell up like a tumor. Or fizzle right out. Personally he’d bet on growth. Mankind was tenacious once it got its hooks into a place.
Just ask the locals, he thought. The planet’s indigenous species were out on the streets in big numbers tonight, their rangy green-furred bodies pressed against buildings or under carts, coveting any scrap of shelter from the wind. Some huddled in family groups, but most were alone, their boneless arms coiled about their slender torsos, as though mimicking the bond-collars around their necks. A repellently humanlike eye blinked from the center of each face, vast and mournful among a tangle of tendrils, tracking him as he passed.
Slaves, Vikram judged, like the rest of us, except they know it.
With its talons unsheathed an adult indigene was a fearsome sight, hence the name assigned to the species—the wendigo, a primal spirit that haunted frozen places. The Frontline always picked fancy names for the aliens it ran into, as well as its own forces. The practice gave its endless war a sparkle that masked the bloody reality, at least for those behind the frontier.
Most species lived up to their new names, but the wendigo fell far short. They were herbivores on a rare world without predators, seemingly incapable of anger, let alone fighting. Those wicked-looking talons had evolved to dig up icebound vegetation. The settlers’ efforts to provoke them into war had gone nowhere. Unsanctioned culls still went on, but the natives were too useful on the ice to exterminate.
Vikram avoided the searching eyes. He didn’t trust Iscarcha’s spawn any more than its tainted snow. How long could it take to learn anger?
Turning a corner, he caught sight of Tithe’s Rest at the street’s end. The saloon was just an oversized dome fronted by a lopsided sign bawling its name in blue lights. Why make an effort when there was nowhere else to go?
“There are two hunters in the street, Vikram,” his shadow cautioned. “One has entered the establishment.”
Vikram nodded, but kept walking. He ought to be long gone by now or waiting in ambush somewhere, yet he couldn’t bring himself to do either. His hunters hadn’t got this close in years.
I need to see them, he realized, though he couldn’t say why.
His hand reached for the pistol under his greatcoat when he spotted the pair outside the saloon. Restraining the impulse took effort, as though the hand didn’t belong to him, which was true in a sense. It was a miracle of synthflesh and bionics, forged in the Frontline’s biomantic vaults, along with most of his body. At some irredeemable level he still belonged to his makers. That’s why they’d never let him go.
You live, die, and sell your corpse to the corps, went the saying, then throw in your soul to seal the deal and keep on fightin’ down below!
He’d been in his early twenties when he was selected for the nascent Exo-Pioneer program, one among the magnificent seven thousand who’d made the cut from millions. Those lucky few would spearhead the conquest of space, pushing back the frontiers of Earth’s new-forged Communion, but the odds against them were long.
There was life everywhere, most of it hostile, either through instinct or intent. From the lava plains of Mercury and the acid jungles of Venus to the abyssal oceans of Neptune and countless worlds beyond, Earth’s explorers found monsters—ravenous, ruinous things with forms and abilities beyond measure. Even the gas giants were infested by horrors. Everything that crawled, swam, flew, or floated was predator or prey to something else, as the wendigo learned when human settlers arrived.
Mankind wasn’t special. It had no right to rule, either God-given or biological, except the one it earned with blood, grit, and courage. To survive and prosper you had to fight.
The pride Vikram felt at being chosen remained vivid, branded into his psyche as permanently as the silver starburst icon riveted into his right temple, but the rest of his old life had faded. The memories lingered without substance, like phantom baggage carried from a meaningless dream, impossible to handle or discard.
Focus, Vikram chided himself, weighing up the puppets who’d come to reclaim him for their masters. The pair stood beside their razorsleighs some forty paces ahead, facing the saloon. Both were tall and powerfully built, with broad shoulders and unusually long arms. Gamma Paradigms then, like himself, but probably more refined. How many waves of would-be heroes had been forged then broken on the frontier since his own, each a little tougher than the last?
Thirty paces...
The pair wore the hooded white parkas and armored leggings of local icebreakers. He couldn’t tell whether they were male or female, but that was a minor distinction beside their more fundamental nature.
Twenty paces...
“You must decide, Vikram,” his shadow prompted.
“Decide?” He halted.
“On your course of action.”
“What do you suggest?”
This was met by silence, as such questions invariably were. His companion was forthcoming with factual information or practical advice, frequently of the life-saving kind, but never broader opinions. She was an observer and facilitator, not a guide. She’d made that clear from the start, but that never stopped him asking. He saw it as a ritual between them—a kind of flirtation even, though her reserve never wavered.
“If you linger they will see you, Vikram,” she predicted calmly.
It was his turn to be silent. In that interval he realized he’d already made up his mind.
Enough.
Raising his hands, he called out to the hunters.
A smear of light was showing on the horizon when the razorsleighs sped out of town. Dawn was just another shade of gloom, barely bright enough to smother the starlight, but the prisoner gave it his full attention, knowing it might be his last. He’d watched a dozen suns rise over twice as many worlds, yet he’d never grown tired of them. Even his hard-wired distrust of the other couldn’t stifle his awe at the variety of colors, textures, and patterns that painted different skies. His shadow had once tried explaining the science behind it all, but her account left him cold.
“You’re missing the point,” he’d protested.
“It is an astrophysical process. It has no purpose.”
“Of watching them.”
“Which is?”
He’d been at a loss to answer her. Perhaps his firstborn self, who’d harbored a spark of poetry in his soul, could have explained it. Something of that sensitivity had survived his rebirth, which was why he clung to it, afraid it would wither if he didn’t exercise it.
“Being alive,” he’d answered finally. It was the best he had, but he knew it wasn’t nearly enough.
You should have picked an Aleph, he judged. They’d have found the right words.
The Alephs were the Frontline’s elite paradigm. They were stronger, faster, and sharper than their kin, but that wasn’t what set them apart. There was an uncanny magnetism about them, like they were plugged into something beyond the material world. Few recruits got a shot at the Aleph trials and most who did fell short and wound up as Betas, the Pioneers’ junior officer class. There were only thirty-three Alephs in the first wave.
Probably a lot more now, Vikram guessed, returning his attention to the present. He was riding behind one of the hunters, his wrists cuffed to a sleigh’s chassis. It looked like they were heading for the northern tundra, where the ice was hardest. Maybe they had a ship out there or planned on calling one in. Either way, there was nothing to do but wait. Oddly that didn’t bother him. He felt detached from things—serene almost—as though his surrender had freed him.
So far things had gone about as well as could be expected. The hunters had taken his gun and run a scan for hidden weapons, but said nothing beyond curt commands. There hadn’t even been a declaration of arrest.
The third hunter had turned up soon afterward. He or she—even up close he couldn’t tell through their hoods and padded coats—was shorter, thinner, and lighter on its feet than the others. A Delta, he guessed. They were geared for support roles, with a psych profile that prioritized caution. The ones he’d fought alongside were dull to the bone, but they’d rounded out Orpheus Company’s tactical capabilities nicely.
The thought of his former comrades dented Vikram’s tranquillity. They’d probably been wiped out to the last man, woman, and robot by now, even if the company’s name still staggered on, pumped up on fresh blood and dreams. Besides, that bond was broken past fixing. Any of the old guard would kill him on sight for his betrayal.
“Bitch,” he murmured, dropping his gaze to the dark shape skimming the snow beside him. He still blamed her for that loss, with his heart if not his head.
“You acted out of necessity,” his shadow whispered over the sleigh’s roar, though its driver couldn’t hear her. Her voice was only ever for him. That was fine by Vikram, but the way she read him rankled. She’d picked up the thread of his thoughts from that one halfhearted curse, as though she’d looked right into his head, but he suspected the truth was more humiliating.
I’m an open book to her.
A child’s storybook—the plots of his mind so obvious she could predict the next page from a single sentence.
“They would have killed you,” she added. “You know this.”
“Sure.” But was that true? Sometimes he wondered whether she’d been playing him from the start, rewriting his story as they went along, twisting it toward a payoff he’d never understand, let alone want.
And then he remembered what he’d seen.
“Argo Mace, Gamma-Two-Four-Five-One, First Wave,” the Delta said, enunciating each word precisely. Her lips were as bloodless as her complexion. Cropped black hair framed her long face. “Confirm?”
“I don’t go by that anymore,” Vikram answered. After his rebirth he’d been delighted with the name. Now it sounded hackneyed, like all the Frontline’s creations. They were a patchwork of mythology and martial history, probably slotted together by a machine to reflect each paradigm’s character.
“I was born Mathias Rees,” he added.
“Irrelevant. Confirm your forgeborn name.”
If his stubbornness irritated his interrogator she hid it well. The same couldn’t be said for her companions. One of the Gammas, a square-jawed woman with an ash-blond crew cut was frowning so hard her stony features looked set to crack. The other, a man with a head like a skin-wrapped sledgehammer, had closed his eyes, as though the sight of his prisoner might tip him into violence. His elaborately braided dreadlocks were at odds with his brutish appearance, not to mention Frontline etiquette.
There’d been no ship waiting at the hunters’ camp, just a ring of silvery tents and a hulking snow crawler. The vehicle was local, but the tents were military-grade gear spiked with sensor arrays. His captors had herded him into the largest and cuffed him to the central pole, which felt unbreakable. Though it was past sunset there’d been no pause for rations or rest. None of them needed it. Even the Delta could go for days without water.
“How many waves has it been?” Vikram asked. “Since I’ve been gone.”
“Name,” his interrogator repeated.
“Vikram,” his companion whispered. She was smeared across the canvas floor, mimicking his kneeling posture. Her darkness looked hungry in the glare of the tent’s thermo-lanterns, but only to his eyes. To the others she was merely a shadow. “Is it your intention to provoke aggression?”
“No,” Vikram muttered. “That would be stupid.”
“It is protocol,” the Delta replied dryly, assuming he’d spoken to her. “You will comply.”
“It’s him, Thetis,” the female Gamma growled.
“Protocol requires—”
“To the hells with protocol! We’re long past that.”
I like her, Vikram decided. She’d probably end up being his executioner, but she was a straight-talker.
“Argo Mace, Gamma-Two-Four-Five-One,” he said, addressing his fellow Gamma. “How many waves?”
“Eleven.” She dropped to her haunches so she was level with his face. “That I know of.”
“Are we winning?”
“Winning?” She laughed—a harsh, humorless bark. “Why would you care?”
“I’m built to. Got no choice in it.”
“You chose to betray your company, Mace.”
“I wasn’t the first. Or the worst.”
“There’s worse than betraying your species?”
“Never have. Never will.” Vikram expected a fierce rebuke, but it didn’t come. She just kept staring at him, her expression unreadable. The moment stretched, but neither of them looked away.
“Why didn’t you run?” the male Gamma asked, finally opening his eyes. There was no anger in them and his tone was mild. “You have been running for fifty-six years. Why stop now?”
Fifty-six? The number wasn’t really unexpected, but hearing it aloud was sobering. Shaming.
“Mathias?” the man prompted then smiled at his prisoner’s surprise. “Yes, I will use your firstborn name if you wish. I also prefer mine. It is Guillermo.:
“Guillermo...” Vikram echoed, still thinking of those wasted years. How far had the cancer spread while he’d lost himself in one nowhere after another?
“I agree the name is incongruous with this form.” Guillermo rapped his slablike chest. “But it is the one my mother gave me and I choose to honor her.” His rumbling voice was softened by a singsong accent. “Moreover, the disparity amuses me, Mathias.”
“Vikram... It’s Vikram now.”
“So be it. My sisters here still cleave to our makers’ artifice.” Guillermo indicated the Delta. “This is Thetis Ombra and—”
“Skaadi,” the female Gamma hissed, sharpening the name into a threat. “Just Skaadi. I’ve junked the rest.”
Vikram nodded, trying to mask his confusion. The Frontline’s enforcers shouldn’t be talking this way. Was this an act to soften him up?
“You were the first, Vikram,” Guillermo said gently.
“The first what?”
“To wake up,” Skaadi spat. “I’ll give you that. But you’re not so special, deserter.”
“We are all deserters here, sister,” Guillermo admonished. “All betrayers of our kin.”
“No, we are not,” a voice said behind Vikram, accompanied by a gust of freezing wind as the tent flap opened. “If you believe that you’ve lost the war before it’s fought.”
“I stand corrected, Captain.” Guillermo bowed his head. “I spoke without care.”
“I doubt you’re capable of that, comrade,” the unseen speaker said, “but let us agree you spoke in haste, from the heart.” The voice was resonant and male, but its authority was tempered by sincerity—the voice of a leader who was also a faithful friend. Vikram recognized that precision-engineered alloy of qualities immediately. He’d know it even if he buried himself a hundred-lives deep across as many decades.
An Aleph.
Why hadn’t his shadow warned him? She must have sensed another presence nearby, yet she’d said nothing.
“Yes, we are deserters, but never traitors,” the newcomer continued. “It is the traitors we have betrayed.” There was a perfectly timed pause. “That makes us patriots, comrades.”
Buried emotions welled up inside Vikram, reeled in by the speech like treasures trawled from the depths—dignity, pride, conviction, and the purest, most precious of them all: hope.
We are for the light! the speech proclaimed, powered by something beyond words. Join us! It offered fellowship and redemption, yet Vikram resisted the call.
It’s too much, he judged, staring at his captors’ rapturous expressions. Even Thetis’s sour face had lit up. Too much like The Lie...
“My name is Niemand,” the Aleph said quietly, as though sharing a confidence. “It is neither the name of my birth or my rebirth, yet it is my true name. Do you understand?”
“No.”
“Nor I... Not entirely, but I recognize truth when I find it.” Niemand pulled the tent flap closed, stifling the wind. “Will you answer my comrade’s question?”
“Argo Mace, Gamma—”
“I know who you are, pathfinder. Tell me why you surrendered.”
Pathfinder? Vikram started to turn around then decided against it, though he couldn’t say why. He felt an irrational certainty that Niemand had sensed his earlier rejection.
“I’m done running,” he said.
“It took you long enough,” Skaadi mocked. “You’ve been—” She fell silent, clearly obeying some unspoken signal, but Vikram answered her anyway.
“It was never about me. That’s not why I ran, sister.”
“I’m not your sister.”
“But you are, Skaadi,” Niemand demurred. “Our fellowship walks in his footsteps.”
“How long have you been on my tail?” Vikram asked, stalling for time to think.
“We terminated the sanctioned hunter triad over two orbital years ago,” Thetis answered. “Subsequently your pursuit has been one of our primary objectives.”
“Why?”
“Because you have a story to tell,” Niemand said. He was much closer now, though Vikram hadn’t heard him approach. “I think it worth hearing.”
And there it was—the opportunity Vikram had staked his life on, offered freely by a judge who might even be on his side. The best he’d hoped for was a chance to make a defiant confession—to get the truth out there and maybe seed it in someone who might actually use it. Why hold back now?
Vikram glanced at his shadow, seeking advice she’d never give. “Should’ve warned me,” he mouthed silently. “About him.”
“I did not perceive this one,” she replied. “It was absent until it entered our immediate proximity. Even now it remains incoherent.”
Absent? Vikram frowned. Incoherent? What the hells did that mean?
“I already know the color of your tale, pathfinder,” the Aleph said. “So I shall begin for you.” He placed a gloved hand on Vikram’s shoulder. “There are worms at the world’s heart, coiled at the seats of earthly power like a manifold tumor that has awoken to its own hunger and craves more. There may be many worms or only one that manifests as many, or perhaps myriad strands of the One True Wyrm, but it equates to the same misery. The parasites feed, grow, and spread in Mankind’s wake, infesting new worlds through the blood, sweat, and fears of their hosts, leaving us enough to survive and occasionally even prosper, but only ever in service to the sickness we bear.”
Vikram was staring straight ahead, his teeth gritted and his fists clenched. He realized he was nodding along to the tale. Worms? Yes, that was the right name for them. Why hadn’t he found it himself?
“Our masters probably delight in cruelty, for that has been the most constant thread in human history,” Niemand continued, “yet it is possible they imagine themselves equitable, benevolent even. Have they not driven Mankind to survive, strive, and conquer with a ferocity its foes cannot match? Would there be a union of faiths and nations without the invisible coils binding us to a common cause? Would we have seized the stars without their hunger to drive us?’ Would we have endured at all?” Niemand’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Perhaps worms are the gods we deserve.”
“No,” Vikram rasped. His eyes met Skaadi’s and found a rage that mirrored his own. “No,” he repeated, fiercely this time.
“No,” Niemand agreed. “Never. We will raise our own gods—or better yet, do without them.” The grip on Vikram’s shoulder tightened. “So tell me, pathfinder, how did you wake up?”
There isn’t much to tell, really. Not if Vikram leaves out his shadow. Without her his tale is full of holes, but he isn’t ready to share that secret yet. She hasn’t forbidden it, but she’s warned there might be consequences. Does that mean she’d quit on him and latch onto someone else? No, he can’t risk that. She makes no sense, but what does anymore? Besides, she’s all he has left.
So he tells it without her.
He is Argo Mace again, back on Fort Io with the rest of Orpheus Company, or what’s left of it. They’ve taken a beating on Mars nobody saw coming. All the real action is out in the Sixth Orbit, where the frontier is being hammered on multiple curves by Seti fleets. There’s even talk of falling back to the Fifth Orbit, but that’s got to be crap coz the Frontline never falls back. Anyway, once Orpheus is patched up they’ll be shipping out there to do their part.
That can’t come soon enough for Argo.
Things haven’t been right with him since Mars. The vermin that swarmed out of the Red Planet’s guts were the worst he’s seen—a scuttling tide of maws and claws that sang sweetly as it chewed through everything in its path, leaking more filth as it came. It was the stuff of nightmares, but burning monsters is what Argo lives and expects to die for.
No, it’s what came after that got to him.
Mars is the first planetary colony, wiped clean of hostiles centuries ago, right down to its shrivelled core, so what went wrong? How could an army of monsters come out of nowhere? Well, not exactly nowhere. The vermin crawled out of a pit under one of the Martian ruins. Thing is, that pit hadn’t been there before. Nobody could say how it got there, but somebody had to go down and take a look. That somebody was the 3rd Platoon, along with Argo Mace.
Well, they didn’t find any answers in the pit, but they did find the grave chamber. At the time Argo couldn’t suss out why the Aleph in charge called it that coz there weren’t nothing buried in there, but later he wondered how she’d guessed, and whether she knew more than she’d let on. He’d never met an Aleph he really trusted. Maybe that part of his wiring was busted.
Anyway, the chamber was what you’d call a sphere, like the inside of a giant crystal egg that’d cracked open and spilt its slime into the world above. The walls were still slick with vermin goo, but real sharp to the touch, like broken glass. There was a blue tinge to the white crystals that made Argo think of corpse-skin, but they glowed so bright it hurt his eyes to look at, even with his visor’s shades maxed out. As the team rappelled through the chamber he noticed he didn’t have a shadow. There was too much light coming from all sides, like the place was built—or grown?—to drown out the dark.
Weeks later, when Argo notices his shadow getting darker, he remembers that light and thinks maybe the place wasn’t a grave after all, but a prison—or maybe both at once. Either way, something was in there and it’s hitched a ride out with him.
A ghost, maybe...
Or is he just losing his shit? Nobody else can see the change in his shadow so it’s gotta be in his head, right? Pioneers aren’t meant to go void crazy like regular grunts do, but everyone knows it happens. That’s why every company has Wardens to weed out the head-jobs before they turn thermo.
Let it go, Argo tells himself. It’ll pass when he ships out and gets back to burnin’ vermin. It’s just the dead-time getting to him.
But as the wait on Io stretches he quits kidding himself. This is real. He can feel the ghost’s presence all the time, even in his dreams.
“Why me?” he asks whenever nobody’s around. “What you want from me?”
And eventually he gets an answer and discovers it’s a she. There are no words at first, but messages bleed through, telling him there’s nothing to worry about. She’s just a visitor come to see what’s going down with the galaxy...through his eyes...coz he’s her witness.
Argo is psych-wired to distrust everything except the Frontline. He knows she can’t be on the level. No alien ever is. He knows he should go talk to Pastor Gary or report himself to the Wardens—tell ’em he’s been compromised, like what happened to the whole of Perseus Company when the Siren Sharks got into their heads on Neptune.
He knows all this, yet he waits. Maybe that’s because he’s started to notice other things around Io that don’t feel right. Worse things than his shadow...
“You believe this chamber in the Martian abyss awoke you to the deception?” Niemand asked. “How exactly?”
“Can’t rightly say,” Vikram lied. “The light... It was so bright. Maybe it did something to my eyes. Changed ’em.”
“The eyes are conduits for the worms,” Niemand said, sounding strange—pained almost. “They are both the door and the key. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Vikram agreed, surprised he meant it, but not by the anger that followed. “We’ve been seeing ’em all along, but they’ve made us blind inside.”
He breathed deeply as he slipped back into Argo Mace again. That self felt like a child now, his thinking stunted by the worms’ neural tinkering. They’d dazzled him with easy answers and robbed him of the words to frame the growing cracks in his world. Even now, all these years later, he hadn’t entirely escaped those chains, but he’d come a long way. His shadow had woken him in more ways than one.
“Someone once said eyes are like windows,” he murmured. “Windows into souls.”
Argo remembers that line from his old life, when his head was full of fancy notions. He hasn’t thought of it since his rebirth, but lately it keeps running through his mind, over and over, coz it’s so damn true.
It’s their eyes that give the worms away.
Argo never used that name for the deceivers, but now Vikram has it he can’t remember them any other way. They’re not actual worms, of course. The galaxy is full of worms, plenty of them killers, but these don’t look like any sort he’s run into before. No, it’s not the way they look, but how they work—burrowing under the skin of things so they can hide and seek out more ’n’ more coz there’s a hunger in them that won’t ever let up. But on the outside they look like people.
Mostly.
Once Argo notices them he starts picking up on small things that keep getting bigger until he can’t stop seeing them, even if he tries.
There’s something off about the way they wear their faces, like the skin’s stretched so tight it’s strangling the muscles beneath, making them play all the familiar tunes outta key. Every smile, sneer, grin, or grimace might be something else. Most of the time context makes up the shortfall and he can guess their expressions from the things they’re saying or doing. That’s important coz he doesn’t want them to know he knows. If they find out it’ll be the end of him. He can see that in their eyes, coz that’s where the worms are closest to the surface.
Those eyes aren’t black or milky white or anything like that. They don’t glow or wriggle around on stalks like some he’s burned on the frontier. Fact is they don’t look wrong at all, but there ain’t nothing right about the way they look at you. They’re full of hunger and contempt for the blind, which is everybody except Argo Mace.
And his shadow, who sees everything.
Argo still isn’t sure how he feels about the ghost, but having an ally in the game feels good, especially since she’s so sharp. She never tells him what to do, but she’ll pick apart whatever’s on his mind when he asks and let him know how it’ll go wrong, like his plan to kill a worm and take a look inside its skull.
“You can see them,” she’s warned, “but you are not impervious to them.”
That means the bastards can still play him. That’s their other trick: They can grab hold of your body in a heartbeat and run it like a robot—right into the ground if they’re in the mood, which is often.
The worms love messing with the blind. Sometimes its terminal stuff, like making folks cut their own throats or go skin diving into the void, but mostly it’s longer-lasting hurt they like—things that’ll leave their victims torn up inside, like making ’em screw over a mate or act like head cases. He’s seen good men turned into the animals then set free, leaving them believing the sin was always in them and there’s no way back. The worms enjoy playing with their prey.
Prey? Yeah, that’s about right, Argo reckons, coz wrecking lives is how they feed. He feels that in his gut. Killing might be part of it, but it’s not the point. It’s suffering that really gets them off.
But they’re not stupid. From what he’s seen they mostly feed on newbies from the regular troops or vets who’re nearly over the hill anyway, spicing things up with tastier pickings from time to time, but they never ruin Pioneers. That’s not because they can’t—he’s seen his comrades being played as easily as common folks—but the worms play nicer with them, like they don’t want to break them.
At first Argo is stumped by this, but slowly the truth dawns on him. The worms want to win the war. There aren’t many of them on Io, but most he’s seen are high-ups in the Frontline. The fort’s colonel is one, along with all his top flunkies. They’ve even got their hooks in Orpheus. Captain Ortega is clean, but both the company’s Wardens are worms. Pastor Gary too. If that’s how it is across the whole Communion the bastards are running everything.
The thought sickens Argo, but he’s got bigger worries right now. He’s not built for keeping secrets and pretending one thing’s another. Without his shadow’s help he’d have slipped up long ago, but she won’t be enough. It’s just dumb luck one of the worms hasn’t tried to play him since he woke up. One look inside his head will give the game away.
“I’ve gotta get out, don’t I?” he keeps asking his ally.
“If you want to live,” she always answers.
They both know it, yet he keeps stalling. There’s no way off Io without kicking up a storm, but that’s not why he hesitates. No, it’s the thought of throwing his world away that stops him. The Frontline is his life, even if it’s a lie.
And then it’s nearly too late.
As he’s leaving the mess hall one night his wristcom buzzes. It’s an order to come see Pastor Gary before lights-out. The preacher likes dropping one-to-one “spiritual catch-ups” on his flock so maybe it’s nothing, but that doesn’t matter. Argo can’t be alone with one of them, staring right into its eyes and acting like everything’s rosy, especially not Gary. He used to look up to the old man and his hellfire sermons. Was that all a lie too? Was there a worm under every church?
Rage flares up inside him, but he clamps down on it before it turns him stupid. Now’s not the time for fire, but ice, though fire will be part of it. He’s planned for this moment with his shadow.
“We’re on,” Argo tells her, heading for the docks. On the way he picks up his stash from an air vent—a pistol, a coilblaster, and a bandolier of grenades. He’s been squirreling weapons away for weeks, filching them from others during drills so the flak wouldn’t fall on him. The blaster caused a storm when it went missing, but he’s glad to have it now. Armor would be even better. He mulls over cracking the armory to grab his Hammersuit, but that’s not in the plan—too much heat too soon—so he presses on.
“You find what we need?” he asks.
“Yes, Argo,” she replies. “I have identified three viable vessels.”
“You sure I can fly one?” Like all Pioneers he’s psych-wired to handle land vehicles, but wings are something else.
“With my guidance, Argo.”
All too soon he’s at the dockyard, on the edge of no return. He halts on a gantry above the sprawling steel expanse, sizing it up. The fort is well into its night cycle, but things never stop here and there’s still a crowd. It’s mainly regular troops and workers, but Argo counts two Pioneers among them, both Deltas. He’ll have to take them out first. His skin crawls like it’s rebelling against the betrayal, but he’s been over this with his shadow. A ship can’t be stolen by stealth. His only chance is to hit hard and fast, then be gone before the worms work out what’s going on.
“What’s your business here, Gamma?” someone demands behind him. “You don’t—”
Argo slips his dagger free and lashes out as he turns, cutting so deeply he almost takes the guard’s head off. There’s another man behind the first, his mouth gawping with shock. Argo’s hurled dagger slams between his jaws before he gets it together.
“Burn cold and smell the stars,” the traitor growls, yanking a grenade from his bandolier and raising his blaster. It’s the last time he’ll utter Orpheus’ motto aloud. Then he amps up the killing cold inside and tunes out everything else. After that there’s smoke, fire, and the bright crackle of killing current, along with the booms and screams they rip from the world.
It’s just like being on the frontier, except this time he’s the monster. He can see that on his victims’ faces whenever he kills them up close, the regular troops and the dockworkers alike. Their terror pierces his combat fugue, skewering what’s left of his loyalty. His creed is a lie. His war is a lie.
“I’m a lie!” he yells as he swings his coilblaster in a wide arc, lighting up a chain of charging guards. He knows he’s running too hot, but with every kill it gets harder to rein in the rage. He’s been holding onto it too long. Now it’s loose it won’t be muzzled.
Right at the tail end of his escape, with his chosen ship in sight, he almost surrenders to the madness. He’s barrelling through a panicked mob when a figure staggers into his path. It’s more a human-shaped tangle of fire than a man, but the heat hasn’t popped its eyes yet. They glare at him from the charred husk of its face, brighter than the flaming halo around his head.
Too cold to burn...
One of them, Argo realizes as it reaches for him, not with its hands, but with the will powering those unholy eyes.
The psychic blow hits like a spiked hammer, making Argo stagger, but the wielder’s pain bleeds through it, blunting its focus. That’s what saves him. It hurts like all hells, but doesn’t stun him. Blood spurts from his nose as the hammer splinters into a claw and clamps around his head, clawing at his thoughts wildly. Desperately. It’s trying to rip his mind apart before its own burns up.
“No!” Argo bellows, throwing his fury into the denial as he rams a fist into the worm’s charred face. His punch tears through skin, bone, brain, and soul, annihilating the malignant thing squirming at their core. It’s the best kill he’s ever made. He can smell its finality through the stench of seared meat. There’s a purity to it he’s never felt before.
I want more!
The exterminator grins, picturing himself striding through the fort with his coilblaster blazing, purging it of worms one by one. He’ll burn down the whole damn place if he has to, along with every slave who stands in his way. It’s the only way to be sure. The only—
“There are reinforcements approaching,” his shadow observes. “Pioneers. Many of them.”
Argo’s rage recedes, cooled by her voice as much as her warning. He doesn’t want her to think he’s a savage, or worse, stupid. His head is pounding from the worm’s attack. It feels like there’s filth left inside, trying to beat its way out. The pain doesn’t bother him, but the violation does.
That’s why he has to live. Somebody has to get the truth out.
A glance at his wristcom tells him it’s been under two minutes since the slaughter began. The alarms are blaring like tortured bots and sprinklers have kicked in everywhere, turning fire into steam.
“Did you get the cams?” he growls, glancing at the nearest monitor globe.
“I have impeded all signals in our vicinity.”
Argo takes that as a yes. Hopefully that means nobody knows what’s going on yet, otherwise the fort’s cannons will blow him outta space the moment he takes off. Anyway, it’s outta his hands.
He staggers toward his escape ship. It’s a compact one-man scout with enough grunt for short interplanetary jumps. With luck it’ll get him as far as Neptune. After that...Well, he’ll deal with after if he makes it that far. He’s sure his shadow will come up with something.
“The rest don’t matter,” Vikram finished. “All I did was run.”
“You survived, brother,” Guillermo shook his head. “Few could have done that.”
“How’d you fly a planet hopper?” Skaadi challenged. “I’ve never known a Gamma to do better than a skimmer.”
“There are multiple improbabilities in the sequence of events as described,” Thetis added. “Firstly—”
“I’m sharp,” Vikram cut in. “And I got lucky.” It was a thin answer and they all knew it, but he couldn’t give them more. Besides, these three weren’t important. There was only one judge that counted here and his silence was telling.
“The worms,” Vikram said, tilting his head toward Niemand. “Do you know what they are?” If he’d reached the end of his road he’d prefer to go out with some answers.
“I know they are old,” Niemand replied. “They have walked beside humanity since its first steps into sentience. Perhaps long before that.”
“They aliens?”
“Not as you imagine. Their claim on Earth is as valid as our own.”
“Devils, then?” Vikram asked, not liking that possibility at all.
“There’s no such thing, whatever the faiths may say.” Niemand sounded amused. “You need not fear the hells, pathfinder.”
“How’d you know? About them, I mean?”
“I have a prisoner. It is uncooperative, but I am persistent.”
Vikram’s hackles rose at the prospect. Was the worm nearby? How could something like that be contained safely?
“So you going to tell me your story now?” he asked, covering his revulsion.
“Yours is better.” Even if I don’t believe it, the Aleph’s tone suggested. “And the time for stories has passed. It is imprudent for me to linger anywhere for long. I am also hunted.” He stepped away. “Call in the Astaroth, Thetis.”
“Did you get what you were after?” Vikram pressed.
“I was after the truth. And an edge.” There was an implicit challenge in Niemand’s reply. “Can you give me that?”
Vikram’s eyes slipped to his companion.
“Yes,” she answered. It was the first time she’d openly led their shared fate, even if she’d been casting it all along.
“Yes,” the shadowed man echoed. “I’ll be your edge.” He rattled his cuffs. “Do I get to see who I’m fighting for?”
“You are fighting for yourself, Vikram Trager,” Niemand countered. “Like all who have the eyes to see.” The cuffs clicked open, seemingly of their own accord. “And those who see without them.”
Vikram rose before turning, unwilling to face the Aleph on his knees. The others were watching intently, as if this was a ritual of some kind. And perhaps it was. Despite his denial of the otherworldly, Niemand talked like a man who’d found one of God’s true faces. Or maybe one of the Other’s...
Screw it, Vikram decided, turning. It’s dust in—
The Aleph had no eyes. His face was an echo of fallen glory, its flesh withered and deeply lined, like gray parchment scribbled with pain. Every drop of vitality had drained away into its hungry sockets. Staring into those pits Vikram understood where the Aleph kept his prisoner.
“I am also a first, pathfinder,” Niemand said gravely, fixing his empty gaze on Vikram. “The first Pioneer our makers dared to seed with their stain. They cleave to the shadows, but they resent being overshadowed. Their envy was as inevitable as their folly.” He smiled, melding sorrow and satisfaction into something inhuman. “That’s why I am also the last. The Aleph and the Omega.”
Vikram stiffened as the revenant reached out to grip his shoulders. “Will you stand with me, Vikram Trager?”
He’s insane, Vikram realized. On the back of that revelation came another: And maybe that’s how it’s got to be.
Perhaps madness was the only way to wake the worlds before they were bled dry. Or was that just an easy way out? Another lie pretending at Truth? Or a truth that would turn on you the moment you bought into it?
What do I know?
He glanced at his shadow.