The Recusant Page 5

  Balien looked down, still in shock. “Scouting. For food. Supplies.”

  V’delle looked at the crumpled body of L’aurc. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before. From your own brother. Balien. Help us take back our planet. We need numbers. Please.”

  Balien gave her a look of sorrowful exhaustion. “I am sorry, little one. It is not my decision to make.”

  The consequences of war were in her heavy sigh. The death of L’aurc should have been evidence enough. Before she left the glade, she said: “You captured me for a reason. What were you hoping to get out of me?”

  Maora lifted her head, suddenly alive and interested. “Have you heard of a place called Zelyony Pech?”

  “No,” V’delle said. “What is that?”

  “Do you think people in your group would know?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of anything like that.” She stopped herself before saying “I’m sorry.”

  Balien and Maora looked at V’delle for a moment, as if there was still some shred of hope in their search left over in something else V’delle might say.

  “Good luck, girl,” Balien said, then turned to attend to L’aurc.

  V’delle wasn’t any kind of language expert, but that phrase sounded Russian. Zelyony Pech. What were three Khor’Zon defectors doing looking for such a place? If they had been living in seclusion for the last twenty years, how would they know of its existence? And why would they put themselves at risk—literally dying—to find it? Though intrigued, she couldn’t become invested; Beliveilles awaited her return. Slowly, she backed away and entered the forest, leaving the two Khor’Zon to their crude funeral.

  CAPTIVE

  V’delle spent the night in a hollowed-out log. Her suit and helmet kept her warm. Centipedes and beetles climbed over her body. Tiny legs cutting trails. She lay as if in a coffin, staring at the mossy ceiling. Balien and Maora could not tail her back to Beliveilles. The actual city was easy to find on a map, but the main entrance to the secret Calcitra base was not and would remain so if she didn’t leave tracks. Perhaps staying an entire night was a little excessive, but she had to be sure. The Calcitra had maintained secrecy for three months; V’delle wasn’t going to be the moron who spoiled it, even if her pursuers weren’t traditional Khor’Zon.

  But a night to herself without any comms was bliss. An ear liberated. Each week the Calcitra piled tasks and missions upon her and Farin. Unborn talent wasn’t going to waste on their watch. An Outpost raid, a Zealot ambush, a supply heist, prisoner recovery, and soldier training—so much training. V’delle had seen the wide eyes of so many dirty children. Shaken the hands of so many veterans. Spoken about war until her mouth was dry. So much needed to be done. The crawling insects of the hollow trunk brought relief.

  On top of all that, the main stressor remained victor: Penelope. Sleepless nights provided hallucinatory visions of that day three months ago. Running from the water treatment plant. So defiant. So adamant. Never giving it a moment’s thought. That day remained on V’delle’s skin like scourge lashes. The missing Unborn had no scent to catch. No manifests obtained in Outpost raids, no forced divulgence of intel by knife’s edge, and no hijacked comms resulting in information. V’delle feared the farther she traveled from Divask and the canal, Penelope would remain a casualty of war. Would it be worth the mental harangue to finally find a corpse in the cave of some demented Khor’Zon?

  The smell of sweat compromised her helmet. Time to leave. She pulled herself from the log. Bugs and dirt fell from her body. A tap underneath her jaw collapsed her helmet. Bright green forest muggy like the inside of a palm. Moist leaves. Moving circles of light on the floor. She trudged through scrub to the forest’s edge, parting the foliage veil like bushy hair over eyes. The grasslands rose and fell into the horizon. Dark green mounds like spinach dotted the lands, bouquets of wet forest. In a day’s time, she’d find Beliveilles.

  Here and there, remnants of war. Divots, snaking trenches, concrete pillboxes, decimated barns, crumpled houses. All filled-in by grass and flowers and vines. Skeletons of a historical war V’delle hated, a war between humans. They couldn’t have chosen this war now, so why did they choose that one then? Would she leave remnants of her own? Would a girl like her walk the same paths one day during another war and wonder why people chose to kill? No matter how much renewed nature grew over these remnants, all they brought her was hopelessness.

  She sometimes collected trinkets as she traveled. In homes and schools and supermarkets. A wooden toy car, the single spoke of a bicycle wheel, a coffee pot, an empty pack of cigarettes. This time she found a pair of cracked glasses lying on the floor of an abandoned farmhouse. She put them into her hip pouch. Was she a collector? It wasn’t fascination. Not some hobby. She plucked things from their forgotten tombs then reassembled them back at Beliveilles. There were no categories, no mode or structure to it. It was an urge that needed to be satisfied. A passive gesture with no purpose.

  Her cautious journey brought her to the edge of the country’s northern cliffs, the same cliffs she had once traveled with Farin and Ketterhagan three months ago, only miles westward. Fifty-feet high. Soot black and glassy. Rough grass and clumps of dirt hung over the edge. Moisture in the air permanently dampened everything. The sun was setting. Memories of Ketterhagan and Farin. Children’s songs of goats. She looked east. No lighthouse. No Vippa. Only jagged black rock swerving and fissured, obscured by mist. She took a moment and sat at the edge. A vast blue sea ahead. Shoals broke below, soft and consistent. She inhaled salt and wet rock. A phantom pain in her chest where she’d taken the bullet for Ketterhagan. That all felt like another life. An alter ego.

  An old switch-back pass took her through lichen-infested corridors to the beach at the base of the cliffs. It was hard to avoid staring at the sea. Lethargic waves lapped the sand’s edge. Full gray clouds hung low over the horizon. Diffused orange sun drizzled lines of honey glaze across the water’s ripples. It was all a beautiful mockery toward her, a tease, a middle finger at her wishes of being free from responsibility.

  At the base of the cliffs, nestled in a circle of eroded rocks and sand grass, an old coal mine adit appeared. A tunnel, directly north of Beliveilles. A single wooden beam marked the entrance, half-absorbed by the rock. She ducked underneath the beam and found the light switch hand-fastened to the cave wall.

  A string of small bulbs flickered to life along the spine of a tunnel tall enough for a horse. V’delle walked briskly; cold dusty tunnel could go screw itself. The recently deceased Swifty had its own helipad on the east side of Beliveilles, a much easier journey not under fifty feet of solid rock. But that was the point of the Swifty: in and out. Now V’delle feared she would be seeing much more of this tunnel. Bazek Pavlin, Beliveilles’ tech aficionado, frequently told her the new supports they installed in the adit could withstand an earthquake. Facts weren’t important when the imposing pitch of the ceiling glowered down upon her minuscule husk.

  Elevation rose. The lights behind her began turning off one section at a time. V’delle reached a large chamber. Orange cave lamps emitted a rusty glow. On her right, a defunct elevator shaft, its green-flaked iron struts surging through the rocky ceiling, bottomless square pit below. To her left, a corner building made of harsh metals that merged with the ceiling; a small cubicle with tinted windows. Straight ahead, a steel warehouse door covered in brown corrosion. Crinkled wire lay about the dirt floor. Stacks of cut wood covered in cobwebs. Shredded coils of tubing hung on walls. The final lights behind her turned off. She, a black mirage in a rust cave.

  She waved to the tinted windows of the corner building. A few seconds later the door opened. A man in gray leathers approached her.

  “I kept telling them you’d show up,” he said, a fast and pointed voice. Broad, forties, with greased jet-black hair and a leathery face. “We made bets.”

  “Glad I could help you win some money,” V’delle said. “Did Farin make it back?”

  “I said, ‘You
boys know who we’re talking about, right?’ and they said, ‘She’s got no comms!’ and I said, ‘Comms are nothing to her!’”

  “Jerky,” V’delle groaned, “just tell me Farin made it back.”

  “Oh,” Jerky gasped, “of course she did! I’m sorry. I’m ever the open mouth.”

  “And I’m ever the hungry,” V’delle said. Anxiety evacuated her chest; Farin was safe.

  “That’s why I bet on you!” Jerky said, rushing back to the building. Before going inside, he clung to the threshold. “Opening the door, Unborn.”

  V’delle cringed. People still called her that. To people like Jerky, it meant nothing more than an off-handed identifier. But to others, like many of Breckenridge’s underlings, Unborn meant miscreant, untrustworthy, annoying, pretentious. To be fair, V’delle had earned distrust when she broke Ketterhagan out of Contra Mare. But hell, that was three months ago.

  The warehouse door rose. A steel-ripping screech. Light broke from the other side like a supernova. A bright corridor continued for another ten yards. Polished corrugated metal siding braced by long struts of reinforced steel. Sophisticated lighting built into the ceiling, luminous enough to define specks of dust and dirt at the base of the walls.

  “Thanks, Jerk,” V’delle said.

  Jerky leaned out of the door to watch her, as if swinging from a lamp post. He yelled: “Tell Farin I said hi!”

  “But you didn’t!” V’delle called back. She questioned the strength of her humor, and decided she was too tired to care; what was another awkward attempt at humor to her?

  At the end of the bright hallway, another warehouse door opened as the one behind her closed.

  The true face of the Beliveilles Calcitra revealed itself. V’delle walked into an open circular cavern shaped like a doughnut. Hundreds of people vibrated across her view. A massive, undulating doughnut. Concrete walls stretched forty-feet high. Corrugated steel paneling and struts of thick metal galore. A ten-foot-wide hole dropped through the center of the room, caged in orange iron lattice-work. A defunct drilling rig sat next to the hole. The rig was a four-wheeled behemoth with a straight crane system extending over the cage. A fabric cord attached to the crane dangled into the abyssal maw through a hole in the cage. More drilling equipment hid under large tarps surrounding the cage. Offices hung from the circular walls of the chamber like floating blocks, glass windows and thin blinds. Two tunnels connected to the main chamber, south to Beliveilles and west to another circular plaza: the mess hall. Resealed concrete floors glazed under the light. Light fixtures had been defogged. Three months of cleanup, redesign, and renovation. A new home for the Contra Mare Calcitra.

  V’delle was anxious to hear how Peavey had affected Farin on their journey back to Beliveilles. She maneuvered through the busy crowds toward the west tunnel. Workers hauled slabs of wood and metal on stretchers. One nearby cart’s load almost fell, and V’delle quickly jumped to bolster the stack of wood. She and a few other Calcitra pushed the load back to its upright position and the cart workers slowly resumed their march. Hydraulic drills and presses whirred intermittently while constructors yelled across scaffolding astride new offices being refurbished. Children carried buckets of tools and cold sandwiches, wearing stained jumpsuits and knee-pads. A constant stream of crates and wheelbarrows came from the southern tunnel. The tunnel was full of yellow and blue tarpaulin tents and bedrolls, hammocks and bunks, an overflowing mess of personal belongings and cramped citizens; before more rooms were made ready on the other end of the mine, most people had to settle in the tunnel. Soldiers wearing full Calcitra leathers marched in packs around the doughnut chamber. Sparring occurred in a roped-off square on ripped gym pads. Two half-naked men grappled each other while groups observed and called out mistakes. Overhead, a repurposed drone hovered toward a second-floor office while snickering children threw pebbles at it. When the pebbles landed on various human heads, the kids scattered in laughter. A pipe burst in the southern tunnel, spraying water over the incoming supply crates and the tents. Commotion ensued as people in proximity swarmed to help seal the puncture. V’delle kept walking, undeterred, as momentary chaos was a staple of this kind of life.

  “V’delle!” shouted a boy’s voice from the crowds.

  She kept her head forward.

  “You’re back! V’delle! Hey!”

  Someone tugged on her arm.

  V’delle sighed and turned. Roland Fillion faced her, a few inches shorter. Fourteen and some months. His mane of straw-colored hair sprayed everywhere, but friendly blue eyes made the homeliness disperse. A goofy smile that showed the minor gap between his front teeth. Traditional gray and black Calcitra uniform, a little baggy, with a crimson bandana, his favorite color. A gift she’d given him from a gutted Beliveilles mall. And she regretted it daily.

  “You’re back,” he said. “I mean, I wasn’t worried; you’re the best soldier here.”

  “Roland,” she said, smiling in pity. “Thanks for checking in. Did you see Farin?”

  “She’s in Medical—but not hurt. I don’t even think she was supposed to go there. Hayla made her stay.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Farin went to see someone they brought in,” Roland said.

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Rain and his group.”

  V’delle forgot Rain had been outside Beliveilles for two weeks on a scavenging mission. Hearing of his return made her relax.

  “Who’d they bring in?”

  He shrugged. “Are you hungry? I bet you are. I would be hungry. I’m hungry right now. Do you—”

  “Thanks, Rol,” she said, backpedaling. “We’ll play some chess later, okay?”

  “I’ll come with,” he said, eager to keep up.

  V’delle maintained the same space between them as she backed away. Bumping into a passerby stopped her.

  “I want to speak to Farin alone,” V’delle said. “Why don’t you go tell your dad I’m back?”

  He looked disappointed.

  “All right,” he said. “Are you sure you’re not hungry? Seems like you’re always hungry.”

  “Just go tell your dad.”

  He smirked and vanished into the crowds.

  V’delle breathed a sigh of relief. She turned around and slammed into a bony, wrinkled man with white plumes of hair firing off the sides of his head. He had been carrying a box of rolled up papers now being kicked about by Calcitra traffic.

  V’delle groaned. Who else was left?

  “Ketterhagan,” she said, helping him gather the papers. “I really need to see Farin. Good to see you, too. I’ve gotta run.” She handed him the box.

  “Wait!” he said, catching her arm, his thick German accent damaged by age and hoarseness. “I need to speak to you when you get a moment.” A gaunt, bespectacled face. Patchy stubble. Yellow, bloodshot eyes. Rubber sandals, socks, cut-off shorts, and a brown Greer t-shirt (a pre-war robotics company, as he had told V’delle multiple times without invitation). Left pinky finger blackened and smashed.

  “We’ll talk later.”

  V’delle took off down the western tunnel. Some remorse struck her. Ketterhagan’s bruised pinky finger wasn’t abnormal for a hands-on scientist, but coupled with the tone of his voice, she worried. First thought was obviously torture, but Breckenridge had forbidden it; Ketterhagan was more valuable to the Calcitra as a scientist than dead. Breckenridge’s “word” didn’t mean much to V’delle, but despite what others thought of her, she didn’t want to constantly be the nuisance. She wanted to blend in and help. She wanted to strip herself of her Unborn mantle and be this world’s version of normal. Or did she? She went back and forth. Breckenridge’s ban on the torture of Ketterhagan hadn’t stopped Fernand Bonfils, the unofficial interrogator, from treating Ketterhagan with disgust and passive aggression, though. V’delle hoped the ban hadn’t been secretly lifted. She didn’t need another stupid thing nagging on her conscience.

  She entered the mess hall, a clone of
the main chamber without the center hole. The concrete floor was filled with rows of tables that would have made the Chalis perfectionists proud. Here and there Calcitra began greeting V’delle and hitting her shoulders congenially as they passed. Three months had been kind to her in the social department. A lot of effort went into ameliorating the Contra Mare escape. Surprisingly, most of the members of Breckenridge’s Calcitra had accepted her and Farin without any extra persuasion—save a few individuals whose bones may or may not have been broken by V’delle upon her exit of Contra Mare. V’delle was astounded to find each soldier well-versed in war. Not one of them whined. Their backup was always comforting.

  “Unborn,” called a hardy voice from the crowd.

  V’delle’s blood churned. What now?

  “Thought that was you,” said a brutish, tan, six-foot soldier with a square jaw and a thick black beard.

  “Naaman, hi” she said.

  “When’d you get back?” he asked.

  “Just now. On my way to see Farin, actually.”

  “I won’t keep you,” he said, “I just wanted you to know I thought about your proposal.”

  V’delle racked her brain.

  He made a shifty, awkward face. “A couple days ago, you asked me to join your mission.”

  The second V’delle heard the word “mission,” everything clicked. But it wasn’t a satisfactory click. It was a hollow, mentally-absorbing click.

  “Oh, of course,” she said. “Sorry, my head’s a little cloudy right now.”

  “Listen, V’delle. I have nothing against you. Nothing against where you came from. We fought together in Larsk last month, I would trust you on any battlefront. That Outpost fell faster than any I’ve seen before. I get your knowledge of the Preen’ch world—”

  “Just say it, Naaman, for God’s sake. I can only take so much praise before it turns into moldy cheese.”

  He grimaced, but understood he’d padded too long. “I just can’t do it, Unborn. I spoke with Archick and Vonn. They’ve spoken with their mates. We can’t support it. I’m sorry.”