After Earth: A Perfect Beast (44 page)

“Meaning—?”

“Meaning I’m inviting you to become one of us, Mr. Silver. I’m giving you the opportunity to become a Ranger. I’ve taken the liberty of pulling your medical records …”

“That stuff’s supposed to be private!”

Freed smiled thinly and chuckled as if the notion of keeping secrets from the Rangers was quaint. He tapped his monitor screen. “You’re in perfect physical health. You have a good deal of stamina. You’re athletic. You are, in fact, an ideal Ranger candidate and I’m frankly surprised you haven’t enlisted before this.”

“Who said I’m enlisting now?”

“No one,” said Freed, spreading his hands wide. “I could point out, of course, that by ignoring a priority one Ranger directive you are in fact a criminal. You and your entire hunting party. The others are beyond Novan justice, but you aren’t.”

“So if I don’t join up, you’ll prosecute me? Is that it?”

Freed’s face was unreadable.
Never play poker with this guy
, thought Daniel.

“No, Mr. Silver,” Freed finally said. “I won’t have anyone on the Rangers who isn’t dedicated to the cause and isn’t here of his own free will. And, trespassing aside, your main crime is stupidity. If we start arresting people for that, half the population will be in front of a magistrate. So you’re free to go home, Mr. Silver. Just for our records, where
is
home, by the way?”

Daniel opened his mouth and then shut it again.

“Yes, as I thought.” He actually sounded gentle, even understanding. “You know, Daniel, the streets can get cold at night. Very cold. There are public shelters, as you know, but they don’t always attract the best elements. So as homes go, you can do far worse than the Rangers. Will you think about it? At least promise me that in exchange for my not throwing your ass in a cell.”

“Yeah. Sure. Fine. I’ll think about it,” said Daniel. “But just because I don’t have a home address listed, don’t think for a minute that I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

“That’s good to know,” said Freed.

He thought about it for exactly one night. A night when he walked through downtown, the winds whistling harshly through the canyons of the city. He saw the apartment buildings glowing softly against the darkness, imagined people going through their happy lives. Eating, drinking, smiling together. Lovers’ bodies entwined with each other. Children sitting at the feet of their parents, hearing stories about the past of Nova Prime.

He wondered if Ronna had found someone new already. Hell, there was probably someone already lined up when she dumped him. She probably felt she had wasted enough of her life with him and couldn’t wait to move on.

He took refuge for the night in Tucker’s firing range. He’d crashed there a few times, particularly when he’d gotten drunk at a bar—as happened from time to time—and wanted to get sobered up before Ronna saw
him; she hated when he was drunk. It was after hours, but Daniel knew the lock’s combo and entered, closing the door firmly against the harsh winds.

He sat there in the darkness for a time and then started running a holographic simulation. It involved a family having a picnic that was disrupted by incoming Skrel attack vessels. Daniel rigged it, putting it into a loop so that the Skrel never arrived. It was just the family—father, mother, son—locked into a pleasant outdoor meal, enjoying one another’s company, laughing and joking.

It was completely artificial, and yet it was more than Daniel had ever known.

Daniel Silver had never felt more alone in his life than he had at that moment.

The next morning Captain Freed arrived at his office to find Daniel waiting for him.

“I still think you’re all a bunch of idiots,” said Daniel without preamble, “but I’m starting to think that I am, too. So maybe I’ll fit right in.”

“Believe it or not, I’ve heard worse reasons to join the corps.” Freed put out a hand and Daniel shook it reluctantly but firmly. “Welcome to the Rangers.”

The recorded sounds of trumpets flared across the sky, and Captain Green was reading out the list of names of those who had graduated Ranger training with honors. The loudest applause, however, came for Daniel Silver as he stood resplendent in the white uniform denoting his status as Ghost.

Captain Freed had handed him his cutlass as Green continued to intone the names of the graduates. Daniel snapped off a sharp salute in response. It was impressive that he was receiving so much of an ovation, considering he had no outside friends or family there. The corps was where all his friends were. The corps was his family.

Before Daniel could step farther down the line, Freed leaned forward and said to him softly, “Fastest trainee in the history of the Rangers. You should be very proud.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Your parents should also be proud.”

“I’m sure they are.”

Freed glanced toward the stands. “Are they here?”

“No, sir.”

“Why not?”

“They think I’m a bum, sir.”

“Do they.” He paused and then said, “Silver … I can’t account for the man you might have been. But I know the man you are now. The one who, as a Ghost, has been monitored over every step of his progress.
Your evaluations indicate the same thing: You started off slowly, but as time passed, your interest in helping your fellow cadets developed very quickly and very naturally. You moved in natural formation, and your desire to protect others in your squad was instinctive. The general consensus is that you see the others, not as your fellow Rangers, but as your family. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.”

“You’re … not wrong, sir,” said Daniel, his voice husky.

“I never am,” said Freed. And he tossed off a brisk salute that Daniel, displaying some confusion, returned.

Minutes later he was standing alone, whipping the cutlass back and forth. He felt a swell of emotion: He had worked toward something and now he was holding it in his hand. He’d accomplished his goal; the cutlass was the proof of that. It created a vicious arc in the air as he snapped it around with expert dexterity. He looked at it with pride.

With accomplishment.

With naked fear.

I’m a fraud
, he thought.

He thought of all the times on the obstacle course as he pushed his body to do more than it ever had before. He pounded across it leaping, jumping, and scrambling, avoiding or dealing with anything that they threw at him. With every new challenge that he met, he felt a surging rise of confidence in the things his body was capable of doing.

Fraud
.

He took classes in self-defense, in combat, in survival. He further honed his mind and body, faced off against his fellow cadets in sparring duels, each of them wielding practice cutlasses. Daniel took to the practice as naturally as an infant did to breathing: All he’d needed was that initial slap on the behind and then he was doing it as well as anyone and better than most. His mastery of the cutlass, once he had been drilled in the basic moves, was absolute. Long after other cadets had
gone lights-out, he would be outside, stripped to the waist and whipping the practice cutlasses around so fast they were nothing more than a blur. His muscle memory became so drilled into him that his reaction time was measurable in nanoseconds. To attack Daniel Silver was to court disaster, because you would have your practice cutlass knocked out of your hand and your back on the floor before you even knew what happened. “Absolutely deadly.” “Never make him angry.” That was what his fellow cadets would say about him.

Fraud
.

He walked across the field, newly graduated, and people automatically bowed or saluted whenever they saw him. No, not him so much as the gleaming white uniform denoting his status.

Fraud, fraud, fraud
.

When he’d first undergone his psych evaluation, he had been entirely candid with them. He had told them flatly that he’d had no trouble ghosting because he was indifferent to whether the Ursa attacked him or not. He was worried this would disqualify him or be perceived as suicidal. Instead the conclusion drawn was that he was simply supremely confident, like an old Earth matador or animal trainer. Subsequent testing determined, to the satisfaction of the doctors, that—if nothing else—Daniel Silver
did
care if
others
lived or died. Were he in a situation where other Rangers were depending on him to save their lives, then he could be counted on to get the job done.

He had told no one of his relative indifference during the assault on Ryerson and his crew. He didn’t consider it to be of any relevance. They were fools tempting a vengeful fate, and they had done so with an attitude so cavalier that the gene pool was well rid of them.

The Rangers, on the other hand …

His earlier contempt for the Rangers had long since dissipated. As one month rolled into another, Daniel became not only more and more impressed by the character
and caliber of the Rangers, but thrilled and honored to be a part of the organization.

And the better he felt about the corps, the better he felt about himself. He had become part of a brotherhood, and he now had something to live for: to serve alongside them and help keep them alive to the best of his ability.

Fraud. Fraud. FRAUD
.

“You okay?”

An arm draped around his shoulder. It was Martes, who was arguably the best friend he had in his squadron. Martes was tall, lanky, with a sense of humor that was funny mostly to him. When he’d first encountered Daniel, Daniel had been uncertain and a bit standoffish. This had proven an irresistible combination to Martes, who had taken it upon himself, for no reason that Daniel could discern, to drag him, “kicking and screaming,” from his shell. Martes, as much as anyone and more than some, was responsible for the Ranger that Daniel had become, the one who had earned such unreserved compliments from Freed. Eventually Daniel and Martes had bonded during a particularly brutal survival training episode, and they’d had each other’s back ever since.

The only frustration that Martes had met up with was when he’d tried to get Daniel to consider the romantic possibilities with some of the more comely female Rangers. Daniel had declined all comers. This had prompted Martes to wonder where Daniel’s interests lay, but Daniel had informed him that, yes, females were his “outlet” of preference. At this point in his life, though, he just preferred not to. The fact was that Ronna had so destroyed him inwardly, he simply didn’t want to open himself up to that kind of heartache anymore.

“Why, don’t I
look
okay?” he said to Martes.

“Dan, this should be the best day of your life and you look like you’re about to step off a cliff.”

Wow. That is so on target it’s not even funny
.

“I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

“What else can you possibly have on your mind, aside from the obvious?”

“The obvious being?”

“We—you and me—are officially the hottest things on two legs. You are a Ghost, and I’m the friend of a Ghost, and we are young, sexy, and incredibly handsome. We are irresistible. Which means the sooner you get over your obsession with Donna—”

“Ronna.”

“—the better off you’re going to be. Because you, my friend, have a lot to live for!”

And that’s the problem, isn’t it, old friend, old buddy, old pal. What made me of interest to the Rangers is that I felt like I had nothing to live for. And over time, I found something to live for. And because of that, I might well get myself killed. Myself, and others
.

Because I’m nothing but a great, big fraud
.

In the end, Daniel knew that it had to come back to here, back to the Tangredi. These things have a way of coming full circle. It started here and it’s going to end here, too.

It had been a year since there had been any report of Ursa in the Tangredi Jungle. Ranger squads had continued to patrol there regularly for more than two months, but with no further encounters it was decided that—for the time being, at least—the area was clear. The most hopeful interpretation of the Ursa’s absence was that the multiple wounds inflicted by the Rangers had done the creature in, but the corpse remained unfound and so it was generally conceded that thinking the creature was dead was, at best, optimistic.

And now it was back. Or, at the very least, something had taken up residence in the Tangredi Jungle. Since the previous incursion, the Rangers had installed pressure-sensitive bio-detectors at random points throughout the jungle. They had remained undisturbed for many months.

But then, exactly two weeks after Daniel and his squadron had graduated, something tripped one of the detectors. To Daniel’s imagination, it was as if the Ursa were sending him a message.
Are you ready for me, Daniel? You may have fooled me last time, but now we both know you for what you are. Come to me, Daniel. It’s time you joined Ryerson and his little friends
.

As absurd as it may have seemed, Daniel was secretly glad for the opportunity. He still felt as if he needed to
prove something to Ronna’s voice: the one in his head that continued to berate him and tell him that he would never amount to anything. If he could truly prove himself worthy of the designation of Ghost, the highest rank of the Rangers, then
that
would show her. And him. It would show once and for all that she was wrong to have dumped him and would go a long way toward mending his broken heart.

Martes was with Daniel, as were Rangers Xin, Ephraim, and Bastante. Three others—Calhoun, Ryan, and Stewart—had gone on ahead. He hadn’t wanted any of them along; Ghosts typically hunted alone, and he didn’t want to risk others in his squad if it wasn’t necessary. But they wouldn’t hear of it. “You’re not going to take down your first Ursa without us around to have your back.”

Captain Freed was heading up another squadron operating in another section of the jungle. Daniel desperately wished that Freed were with him, and had even suggested that Freed accompany their squadron, hoping he didn’t sound too desperate when he put forward the idea. Instead Freed had clapped a hand on his shoulder and said confidently, “You’re a natural at this, Silver. This is what you’ve been training for. You’re going to be fine.”