Well, let them have the place! Let them have his job too, if they wanted it. He would sell his contract more cheaply to someplace in Twilight next time. The money was better for those who were willing to work Sunside, but it wasn’t worth it. He was sick of everything here. He was sick of the crappy rations, the sandstorms that continually knocked out satellite reception, and more than anything else, he was sick of the blinding light and heat of the place. You couldn’t even sit on a steel toilet without getting your buttocks burned. If ever there had been a true Hell on a planetary surface where men were expected to perform work, Ignis Glace’s Sunside was it.
Megwit shook the last drops out of his thermos. He nursed and licked long after it was gone, and then he experienced a wave of dull despair. He’d just killed his one and only allotted of refreshment for the day. It would be at least seven more long hours before he could open a new thermos and sip it, sending his mind away to a fresh oblivion. He heaved a great sigh, and put his feet on the desk. Unfortunately, his boots kept slipping off the surface, such was his level of intoxication. After a while he gave up on the effort.
Each thermos was supposed to be comprised of only caffeinated liquids to keep the operator awake, but Megwit had altered the brew. What was supposed to be his limited ration of daily stimulant had done far more than just stimulate him throughout his tenure here at the mine. But despite his having managed to tamper with the contents, the machine that controlled the allotments was a harsh master. It would not allow any alteration of the schedule itself. He was to be given a single dose of liquid refreshment per day, and thusly the stingy allotments would continue to be doled out slowly until he signed out of this place for the last time.
Within a few minutes of completing his beverage, Megwit was bored. His mind was still numb, but he was not yet ready for sleep. Besides, the monitoring systems would protest and prod him if he attempted to climb into his bunk now. He eyed his bunk with longing anyway. The steel chair and angular steel desk were not terribly comfortable to nap upon.
The alarm chime began again. Megwit gargled with rage. He slapped at the screen with floppy fingers. It would not stop its infernal beeping! Finally, he managed to silence it. How many times had he done so? How many times had he silenced that particular alarm? He could not be sure.
He frowned and squinted through bleary eyes, trying to focus on the screen. Normally, the system would have given up by now. It would have taken his repeated acknowledgements and dismissals as a lowering of priority. In time, it should have forgotten about whatever was upsetting it, much as Megwit himself had given up on such trifling matters long ago. But the system had
not
given up. It had continued to insist.
Grudgingly, he checked it, dialing up a menu with one sloppy forefinger. It was not out of any sense of duty or responsibility that he was moved to follow-up on the alarm now. He did so out of a sense of curiosity, heightened by boredom and the random behavior common among those affected by blur-dust.
A map of the complex sprung up on a small screen. A blinking red light showed an external hatchway was open. Megwit frowned. The hatches all sealed themselves automatically when a storm blew up, and this storm had been raging for hours.
He checked outside, but saw no change in the grim conditions. The winds screamed in excess of fifty miles per hour, with gusts up to ninety. All of the mech laborers had long ago been safely stored or had taken shelter inside the mine itself. How could this door have been opened? The only answer that came to his foggy mind was the most likely one: the hatch had not been properly secured in the first place and had somehow been blown open.
Relieved it was nothing more serious, he all but dismissed the matter from his mind. If it had been something truly damaging, he might be held liable, even after his termination. This open hatch could be safely ignored. Certainly, the mechs would have a lot of sand to clean up when the storm passed, but that did not concern him.
A nagging thought, however, made him check into the situation further. He had the feeling he’d forgotten something. Exactly which chamber had been left open to this blasting storm?
He frowned at the screen in his weak-fingered hands as it zoomed in and showed him the source of the trouble. What was that? The processing chamber? He shook his head. There was no one in there.
Then he sat back and laughed suddenly. He shook his head and licked the rim of the thermos, tasting the final stinging drops of blur on his tongue. Why was it, when one waited long enough, a few more drops always seemed to accumulate at the bottom of a vessel?
Megwit now recalled working in the processing chamber. He’d been there when he’d gotten the news, when he’d learned of his contractual termination. He’d been doing something in there…
He recalled what it was now: he’d been working on a mech in that chamber, a fresh delivery. Frowning, he activated the cameras. He was liable for all the equipment at Facility #4, and the mining lords weren’t known for their compassion when losses were traceable to a clear-cut source of negligence. They might even sue him, attaching a rider to the wages of his next contract.
The security cameras showed an empty chamber, filling with sand. There was no one on the table, and the clamps were open. Megwit slapped himself in the temple, but his mind did not respond by operating with greater efficiency. He flicked to the records.
Sixty-Two,
the records stated. Prisoner number Sixty-Two had been there, in those clamps. He was sure of it. The mech had been left there during processing—which had never been completed. But where had the prisoner gone? How had he left?
Megwit spent the next several minutes consulting one camera after another. It was difficult to see anything other than blowing sand. Piles of it had drifted over some of the video pickups. Others could rotate and scan, but he saw nothing other than the dark humps of half-buried buildings.
Once he thought he saw a figure for a fleeting instant, when a gust of pure air cleared the sand and allowed a longer-range view. But it was only for an instant. He was left with the impression in his fogged mind of a man wearing a flapping scarf.
That could not be,
he told himself. How could there be a man out there? Megwit was the only living human within a hundred leagues. After continuing to scan every video pickup for half an hour or more, he finally sagged down in relief and defeat. Whatever it had been, the figure was gone now.
Then came the knock. It was incredibly loud, being created by one large hunk of metal banging against a flat slab of even thicker metal. The sound reverberated through Megwit’s office and caused his brain a good deal of pain. He clamped his swollen eyes shut and slapped his hands to his ears, gritting his teeth and crying out.
When the sound finally, blissfully ceased, a fresh sound replaced it. Megwit tentatively removed his hands from his ears, and forced open a single, puffy eye.
The valves on the doors were opening. There couldn’t be any doubt of it. The bottom one had twisted fully around to the vertical, and the upper was squeaking and turning slowly even now. He thought of jumping up to twist the lower valve shut again, but something kept him in his chair. There wasn’t enough time left, and so he did nothing. He sat and stared dumbly. Perhaps it was shock, or simply apathy brought on by the blur-dust that coursed through his system.
A moment later, the second valve was vertically aligned and the door opened. Megwit barely had the time and forethought to claw his goggles into place. The sandstorm would be coming through that hatchway with a vengeance.
A blast of grit and howling wind flood his office a moment later. Every report, faded decoration and scrap of clothing lifted up and swirled around the chamber as if caught in a tornado. Sand stung his lips and shot up his nostrils. He had not had time to get his breather into place.
His eyes, looking through the grimy goggles, beheld a surprising sight. It was a mech, he could tell that much. But unlike other mechs, this one had a scarf around its face. That flapping bit of cloth seemed like a human affectation, and somehow it was frightening. Still, he knew who this visitor must be.
Megwit watched as the mech closed the door behind it. The mech had a missing arm, he noticed. A slurred moment later, he realized the missing arm was in the mech’s other gripper. The mech was carrying its own broken arm. Somehow, this did not make sense to him, and he almost laughed aloud. Almost.
“Sixty-Two?” Megwit asked. “Are you Sixty-Two? Report your status, then shut yourself down for maintenance.”
The towering figure said nothing in reply. Instead, the mech approached Megwit’s desk. It hefted its broken arm with its good one. The mech then began the methodical process of beating Megwit to death with the broken arm, wielding it like a club.
As the only human within many miles succumbed, he saw the scarf covering the mech’s face slip away due to the heaving effort it undertook. The steel orbs behind the scarf stared down with a burning intensity.
Soon, the walls of the Megwit’s office were slick with blood and shreds of flesh, and the wretched operator knew no more.
Two
On another world several lightyears away from Ignis Glace, a Nexus Senator worked late into the evening. Neu Schweitz was the third planet from the star Kale, the same position as was held by Old Earth in the Sol system. It was however, a smaller world than Earth and heavily-cratered. Due to natural biomass growth and heavy erosion from frequent storms, these craters took the form of thousands of sharp, striking mountains intermixed with vibrantly green, circular valleys. There were many cold, black lakes between the towering peaks, often as deep and dark as they were wide.
Lucas Droad’s desk sat atop a skyscraper in the capitol city of the Neu Schweitz colony, the seat of local government presiding over a handful of nearby star systems. He remained in his office long after the majority of high government officials had left for their homes, favorite nightclubs or the beds of underlings who sought advancement. He was that rarest of individuals: a tireless, visionary politician.
It had been fifteen months since the star-hauler
Gladius
had departed from the Kale star system, following its prelaid course for Ignis Glace. Aboard that ship were aliens more dangerous than those encountered anywhere else in human history. Since their departure, Droad had never considered relaxing and reaping rewards from his role in driving the aliens out of the Kale system.
No, Droad had not wasted those fifteen months gloating and doing commercial vids. Instead, he’d managed to parlay his heroic part in defending the Nexus against the alien invaders into a Senate seat. His incumbent rivals had attempted to paint him as a grasping bystander who sought to take credit for the efforts of his betters—or worse, as a man who’d brought doom with him wherever he traveled in the Faustian Chain. Although there was some truth to this latter claim, the people had seen through the rhetoric and voted for Droad. They’d seen him as the sole herald of the approaching danger, and sent him to high office rather than reelecting those who’d sought to ignore him.
Droad’s meteoric rise in political popularity had not been matched by successes in his personal life, however. Sarah Engstrom had left him for Aldo, and he’d subsequently taken up with Ensign Tolbert. Unfortunately, Tolbert’s infatuation with an older, extremely busy and driven man had faded quickly. Within a few months, he was alone again. He’d thrown himself into his work as usual, and managed to get warning transmissions out to planets in every direction—even to Old Earth itself, a world no one had heard from in nearly a century.
A little over a year after the aliens had been defeated in the Kale system, Droad called upon an old friend for a visit. He called Aldo Moreno. The man came that very morning, as he’d been residing in the capitol city near the Nexus headquarters. Droad had known this, but hadn’t expected such a rapid response.
Aldo appeared at the doorway as it dissolved away with a shimmer. He was of Swiss-Italian descent, as were many on Neu Schweitz. His hair and eyes were dark and thoughtful. His large nose tended to tilt high into the air when he was annoyed.
“Fancy door,” Aldo commented. “May I come in?”
“By all means,” Droad responded, providing a politician’s automatic smile.
Aldo stepped inside and inspected the office. He whistled in appreciation, toeing the rich carpet that was over an inch deep. He thumbed the tail feathers of a stuffed rook he found hanging near the corner window, which offered a panoramic view of the capitol city far below.
“A real bird
and
a real window?” he asked.
Droad nodded. Droad’s eyes slid to the dueling sword at Aldo’s side then back up to the man’s face. Aldo had the eyes of a calculating killer, but Droad considered the man to be a valuable friend.
“Why did you summon me here, Senator?” Aldo asked, turning his attention again to the stuffed bird. Although the natives of Neu Schweitz’s cantons
called
them rooks—and they were black-feathered birds—they were not the same species that flew upon Old Earth. They were far larger, being nearly a meter tall in some cases. They were quiet birds, as well. They did not twitter and squawk. Instead—they stared. Today, this dead rook stared down at the two men from its timeless perch. Aldo tapped at one black, reptilian foot thoughtfully.
“I needed to speak with you about a serious matter, Aldo.”
“Is this about Sarah? I left her some time ago. You may not have heard.”
“Yes, I know,” Droad said.
“Is it about my dueling, then? I’ve taken care to keep kills to the minimum and my records will show every instance of a disagreement has been documented and witnessed.”
“Meticulously,” Droad murmured.
Aldo spun around and stared at the Senator intently. “You didn’t have a hand in getting me out of that misunderstanding in the tavern, did you?”