Aftermath (21 page)

Hit flies with the same grace that marks her combat style, and soon we’re through the locks and chambers, rising into the atmosphere. Even now, the knowledge I’m about to jump sends a thrill of pleasure through me. Deep down, I’m still a junkie. The rush still calls to me more than anything else in this life; for me, being trapped dirtside would be the worst punishment imaginable, so I’m glad as hell that Nola got me out of prison.

While I’m thinking about it, I bounce a message to New Terra, asking for a status update. I figure since I’m footing the bill, I’m entitled to that much information. Hit glances at me as I record and send, but she doesn’t ask.

Instead, she says, “We’re out of range of the planet’s gravitational pull.”

Which means I’m on.

Sheer joy as I plug in. Blackout comes on cue, then Hit joins me in the nav com, contained as always. On a ship this size, the phase drive shakes all the way into your bones, a unique vibration that says
I’m getting ready to take you into the unknown
. The cations in my veins seem to rub against those flowing through the modified phase drive, throwing sparks in my mind. Neural blockers take any associated pain, then Hit pushes us through the corridor spiraling before us.

Then I’m home. Grimspace rushes in my head as if I’ve flown into a cyclone, spinning me in all directions, and yet it’s perfect, inexpressibly right. I open myself to the shimmering colors and the echo of the beacons. So strange to have fragments of me reflected in each pulse. I imagine this is what it’s like to have children you haven’t seen in turns; they resemble you in ways you’ve almost forgotten because you aren’t that person anymore.

And that’s just about the perfect analogy, for these beacons I’ve attuned to my DNA signature are the closest I’ll ever come to offspring of my own. This is my genetic legacy, my message to future jumpers.
Hello,
they say with each pulse.
Sirantha Jax was here.
And maybe that’s all that needs to be said.

Without further luxuriation, though I take great pleasure in being here, I cast out for the Marakeq beacon. They all feel different to me now in minute gradations, and so it takes a little longer to find it.
There.

Hit follows my directions, and the phase drive pulls through me. It’s a peculiar symbiosis, using the beacons themselves to jump, but I think this is what the ancients intended all along. I suspect we’ve only unlocked a portion of their capabilities. In a thousand turns, jumpers may be traveling in ways that I can’t conceive right now.

The ship responds with an eager leap, pushing through to straight space, and I unplug. Next, I check on Baby-Z2. There’s no gear small enough to protect him, and I examine him to see if he’s taken any harm from the jump. His vitals are good, and he doesn’t appear changed in any fashion I can see, still alert, still interested in lights and sounds, with his neck craning around so he can peer out of my shirt.

“The Mareq okay?” she asks.

“Seems to be.”

I assess our location on the star charts. “Not bad. Four thousand klicks off.”

Direct jumps aren’t foolproof, I haven’t done enough of them to guarantee my accuracy, and I’m a little out of practice, what with my trial and incarceration. So I’ll take this.

“Won’t be a long haul,” Hit says. “I was meaning to ask . . . do you want us to come with you?”

“The better question is, do you want to?”

The small bundle beneath my shirt twitches. It’s time to bathe him, clean my chest, and freshen the protein gel. But I can wrap up this conversation first. Baby-Z2 clings to life as fiercely as his sibling did, determined to take his place among his people. And I’m doing my damnedest to get it done.

Her strong face turns thoughtful. “While it’d be fascinating to be part of a first-contact encounter, I’m afraid too large a party might spook the natives.”

I consider that. “There’s that chance. We might also need you and Dina as backup if the mission goes bad.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

The
Big Bad Sue
is too small to have a shuttle, so we’ll all go down on planet.

That’s not optional. But we don’t all have to hike out to the settlement. I’m running scans as we speak, pinpointing the place where we put down here. I have the eerie feeling of retracing my steps, but I’m so fragging different now that it’s like seeing the same things through new eyes. And I’ve lost
so many
people that I care about. The old Jax thought she knew pain, but the universe had an ocean of lessons to teach her about grief. I guess it’s made me stronger, or at least more dogged, because I don’t think about how I’m going to die so much anymore. I mostly think about how to keep my promises, one step at a time, one minute at a time.

“Then why don’t you remain on the ship. Can you take us down without crashing?” I ask, remembering the last time.

March is a good pilot, and between the atmosphere, the utter lack of ground support, the jungle, and the deceptive readings, we were lucky to get the
Folly
down in one piece. As I recall, that was when everything changed between us. I see his face now, so dark and ugly-beautiful with his broken nose and too-strong jaw, smeared with mud, rain spiking his lashes. There’s that damn ache again.

Hit glares. “I can’t even believe you just asked me that. Damn. Do you think this is my first low-tech landing?”

Despite my fear about things to come, I grin. “Sorry. Put us down right here.”

I slide the coordinates her way, and she studies the terrain, weather conditions, and the trajectory before giving a sharp nod. “This is gonna be fun.”

Hit takes her own scans after I do, compiling data. It
would be just our luck to arrive during hibernation season again. I’d come in trying to bring a hatchling home, and wind up waking another one. But no. That can’t happen, not without March. I won’t touch any birthing mounds as he did, nor will I sing the Coming-Forth song. Things will be different this time. I’ll make it better.

So I ask, “Do you see any life signs down there?”

“Thousands.”

Thank Mary.
Unlike last time, the ship sails through the atmosphere smoothly. I stare out at the tangles of green jungle flashing past the hull. It’s raining, but on Marakeq that’s nothing new. If the Mareq are active, then it’s a warm shower.

Either Hit’s a better pilot than March—and to be fair, he was out of practice when we put down here the first time—or this ship’s more maneuverable. It might be a combination of the two. Either way, within moments, we set down gently in a muddy clearing less than a klick from the river. No damage that I can see.

“Really well-done.”

She flashes me a cocky grin. “Like you expected anything else.”

“True enough.”

I check the small bundle beneath my shirt, and Baby-Z2 seems content enough, plenty warm and lapping at the protein on my chest. If things go well, I won’t be wearing him for long. I’ll give him back to his mother to assuage my sore conscience. Leaving the cockpit, I head for the hub to look for Vel.

Not surprisingly, he’s already waiting with his ubiquitous bounty-hunter pack, weatherproof gear in hand. We can’t afford to let the hatchling get cold or to have the rain wash his food supply off my skin. It’s a couple of kilometers to the settlement from here. While Hit might have been able to take us in closer, I was afraid of frightening them. I want to ensure a peaceable exchange.

In transit, I downloaded all the sounds Fugitive scientists have recorded, and my chip has been working on processing them. Nonhuman languages are more difficult to decipher because sometimes the sounds don’t have equivalent word meanings; they’re more nuances, intimations, and hints. But the Mareq tongue appears to be fairly complex, and my chip now has some idea how to decode them, which means my vocalizer can attempt a reply.

After checking Baby-Z2 one final time, I shrug into the slicker and take my pack from Vel. “Ready?”

“I am.”

“We’re gone,” I call, without touching the comm since it’s a small ship. “I’ll signal when and if it’s safe for you to join us.”

“Because I can’t wait to take my own walk in the mud,” Dina grumbles.

But she smacks me on the back as a measure of her affection when I go past her toward the exit ramp. I lead the way with Vel at my back, the way it should always be. He’s been quiet since we left Gehenna, but I’m hoping this mission will distract him from his loss. Deep down I know one person can’t replace another, but at least he’s not alone.

“Do you need scrubbers?” I’m already fitting mine in place.

The last time, Doc reminded me to wear them, but he’s gone, and I have Vel at my side instead of March. Everything changed once on this planet. I think this is where I started to love him, no matter how much I didn’t want to. I can’t shake the feeling that everything is about to change again.

“Yes. The atmosphere has spores and pollens that make raw inhalation a risky proposition.”

It also contains trace elements of chlorine, hence the scrubbers. Vel fits himself with compact breathing apparatus, slightly different from my nasal plugs, but they function in the same fashion. Once we’re ready, we step off the ship and into the muck. The planet is every bit as dismal as I remember, algae growing in the mud sucking around our feet. All around us, the jungle breathes, leaves rustling, rain spattering on the sodden trunks. But even the plants have a secondary layer of green growing over the top of them, moss or mold in swirling patterns.

Before we move away from the ship, he scans the area with his handheld. “No large predators.”

“The Mareq hunt to keep the territory surrounding their settlements safe.”

That’s all I remember from Canton Farr, other than the fact that he was a terrifying lunatic. As far as I know, none of the Fugitive scientists who studied the Mareq ever made contact, which means this is a historic moment, and it should be recorded for posterity.

“Turn on your ocular cam?”

“Already done,” Vel answers.

“Then let’s move out.”

The air is hot and sticky, even beyond the rain. There’s a heaviness to it that weighs on a warm-blooded creature, though I imagine it’s quite comfortable for the Mareq, who depend on the weather to regulate their body temperature. It must be simple and peaceful to live according to the changing seasons.

Vel follows a path down to the river, no more than an area where the vegetation has thinned from frequent passage. Rain sluices down his back; he isn’t wearing protective gear. No need when you’re already armored. Beneath my shirt and slicker, Baby-Z2 wriggles around, a testament to his fortitude.

The hike is miserable. Neither of us complains, however. At the swollen stream, Vel reaches for my hand, and we cross together, fighting the current. It rushes at my legs, trying to topple me, but with his help, I push onto the other shore. He stands for a moment in the rain, face upturned.

“Did you know, Sirantha, that my people cannot weep?”

I didn’t, actually.

He continues, “We have no tear ducts. Instead, on Ithiss- Tor, there is a mourning song, uttered by every surviving member of the clutch.”

“Do you only sing for clutchmates?”

“Or progenitors.”

“Never for friends or partners?”

He shakes his head, water dripping from his mandible. “It is not done. But here, it is as if the whole world weeps.”

“Teach me,” I say impulsively. “Teach me, and I’ll sing with you. For Adele.”

“Now?”

“Yes. Please.”

And so I learn the mourning song. It is full of clicks and hisses and long-held low notes, sounds I could never make without my vocalizer. Though I know it’s imprecise at best, the chip in my head translates it thus:

The last note stretches for an unbearably long time. I’m sure I would find it painful, were my throat doing the work. All around us, the jungle falls quiet. And then the most extraordinary thing occurs. The insects in the wetlands echo the sounds back to us, imperfect, but mimicked, as if they recognize the gravitas of this moment. For a glorious, astonishing moment, it’s as if a whole clutch mourns Adele properly.

Vel reels with it, stumbling back to brace against a rain- slick tree. His posture communicates such raw pain that I’m helpless as to how to help. And then I realize he’s shaking, not from cold, but the Ithtorian equivalent of silent tears. I pull him to me because that’s the human way, and he’s lost a human love. Surely it will offer him some comfort.

He rubs the side of his face against the top of my head. It’s not a kiss like he gave Adele, cheek to cheek, but it’s more than he’s ever done before. So I guess I’m doing something right. His claws dig into my back, hurting me a little, but it’s a pain I’ll bear gladly. Endless moments later, he steps away, composed once more, and now the rain is only rain.

“Better?” I ask.

Vel responds with a quiet inclination of his head. He is not prone to such emotional displays, but that doesn’t mean he feels nothing. “Shall we continue?”

The rest of the journey passes in silence. As before, I glimpse the settlement through a tangle of trees. This time, however, the mounds are not dark and silent. Small lights are set all around; they look to be some natural-glowing lichen, and there is movement, the Mareq going about their daily lives. My stomach coils into a knot, and I touch Baby-Z2 reflexively. The hatchling makes a quiet sound beneath my hand, a little trill. He’s still there, still whole and healthy, my offering to those from whom I stole. Mary grant it’s enough.