I rewound that image a dozen times just like countless others had. You see something different each time. And really, you see nothing concrete. I’m sure it’s been analyzed ad nauseam.
“Well, here goes nothin’,” Ol’ Amos says. Famous last words. And then exits the airlock. Him walking across the burning white sand toward the black smoke is the last image we see.
He was never heard from again.
“The caveat requires that you believe in something, Sergeant Orion. And as you said, you don’t believe in anything.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
We drove away from the lake, skirting its event horizon edge. It was hard at times to tell where the hypnotic waters and orange creamsicle sky met. It was like we were driving into a hallucination and the only thing we could keep track of was the ghost trail of the old smugglers’ run we followed. Archived drone data said there was a system of land bridges we might take to get around its milky vastness.
I’d walked away from her, the Seeker, the Monarch, after she said that last bit about me needing to believe in something. I didn’t need that right now. And honestly, I didn’t know if I needed that ever. That part about believing in something which felt specific and which was going to change my universe-view. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with that. What she was asking. In fact, I was downright uncomfortable with what she was asking. Most who’ve seen my face say that’s some kind of natural state for me. Default uncomfortable. But in my defense… there’s always something to worry about. You learn that early on being a soldier. So there’s that. Also, I didn’t have time for her Monarch power games. Or any games at all. We didn’t even have any more time for this break beside the lake of unending hypnotic illusions. I wasn’t interested in mysteries because I wasn’t paid to be interested in them. Except, if I’m going to be honest, as I keep saying throughout this account that we have to be honest about certain things… then, yeah… I was bothered. Some small voice whispered to me that mysteries are like history, which is really nothing but a mystery in the age of the Monarchs, may it never end, and that’s why it’s my jam. That need to know the truth even if it’s uncomfortable. Even if it’ll get you killed.
You have to be honest about these things, Orion.
Shut up. Shut your pie hole right now, I told the whisper and knew it was like trying to throw sand at the ocean.
You don’t want to end up like Ol’ Amos, do you, I silently yelled at myself. You’re surrounded by mysteries and none of them are as important as getting your men off this dog of a world, Orion. We don’t need to get involved in mysteries, causes, or know the big picture. We need to get it on and get off this mess.
Above my pay grade.
Not my monkeys.
I lived my life, in combat, front sight forward. That was the best I could do to keep it working. Give me something to go kill and the right equipment to do it with and I’d try to make that happen for whoever was doling out the mem on that one. That was what I did.
That didn’t feel right. Caught myself.
That’s what I do.
Right?
That’s what I do. Past tense is for the dead.
Except she was dangling the real dark fun mystery-history stuff right in front of me, a wannabe scout who hadn’t had the currency to scrape together to get out of there, like she had a window into my brain and she could see that part that liked history. The knowing part of my mind. The part that had wanted to be a scout if things had shaken out better, except they hadn’t. The mystery addict part. The curious part. She could see it like it was a window into my skull.
Hey buddy, I told myself. Maybe this is the universe paying you back for all the sacrifice and service. A last chance to solve the big questions before you buy it in some ambush you shoulda seen coming, or dropping on a world where the odds are stacked against you. Last chance, Orion… going, going… past tense. It’s waiting for everyone.
Don’t they say curiosity killed the vaporcat?
At least on Cyria they say it. I don’t know about the rest of the universe. I don’t know if they say it on other worlds. But there’s probably some equivalent. That’s the thing about the universe. Everything’s different, and the same.
I sat there stewing in the TC seat as we drove on, not wanting to play, knowing I needed to. Passing melted terrain and forests of strange crystals that grew like low shrubs and sang on the notes of the wind. Singing crystalline plants. In harmony. On pitch. To some score that reminded me more of mysteries all around us. That there was more to see if you were willing to open your eyes. And that whisper was calling me a chicken. For all my big talk about wanting to know, about history, about the truth and the clarity of war, here it all was… and I was ducking my head in the sand because the ticket was too expensive.
Except that I always thought it was cheap. Belief, that is.
We hit a serious hole in the trail we were following once we made our way across the lakes. Crossed strange yellow salt flats where the sun beat down on us, and then made our way into a series of badlands ravines that took us lower and deeper
