Firefall finally gave the word, and we edged forward. Gravelight had calmed down again. She knew we offered the Scalers a better chance at survival than the Systies. The plan was for Alpha and the lifies to go first, and try to talk.
We all said our prayers. I slowly separated my mind from my body, and became all eyes and ears and muscles and nerves and blood, rushing, pounding through my veins. It was as if I had the view on a d-screen from someplace far, far away. I knew it would not hurt if I got hit. This time we would do it right. We were fully equipped, A amp;A and ready for anything. Each of us wore a plasmapak strapped to our back just in case. Into the unknown, again. If it all worked out, nobody would get killed. But I didn’t believe that. I don’t think anybody believed it, except maybe Warhound, and Warhound was a little slow.
Nothing ever worked the way it was supposed to, no matter how hard we tried. Today, we would try Plan A and when that failed we would go to Plan B, and when that exploded in our faces we would go to Plan C, my favorite. Plan C was to retreat before the Scalers committed mass suicide. No matter which plan worked, we figured we would get some live specimens out of it, thus accomplishing the object of the exercise: to establish contact, preferably friendly contact, and ask some questions about the exosegs and the Systies.
###
“I can’t get the leader,” Gravelight said. “It’s all jumbled. Can we get closer?”
Someone answered, “Can do, let’s go.”
We continued moving slowly down the corridor, in sync with Alpha. We could see the Scalers on our tacmaps, still two levels below us.
“Ohhh, I read them now.” Gravelight said. “They’re all waiting. They know…they know you are coming. They’ve sent more soldiers back to the city, because they’re not sure what you’re up to. There are no traps in the hall-the great hall. The side tunnels are death.
“They’re all very tired now. The fear has worn them down. You can capture the women and children in the shelters. Some of the girls are with the men, ready to fight you.” Her voice broke. “Excuse me, I’m going to be sick.”
A long silence. We waited for her. Central sketched out the probsit on our tacmods. I could see it all on the tacmap. The probes were stationary, waiting for us. I hated waiting.
“It’s very confusing,” Gravelight continued. “There are many war leaders. You cannot talk with them. When they see you, they will fight. All I get is fear and hatred. I’m going to try to reach the nearest war leader, the one in the outside corridor.”
We all prayed she would be successful. I did not want to begin our stay in this new world with a city full of dead children.
She began moaning, “It’s so hard…he’s so hard. He’s as hard as stone. Hatred. Terror! I try…I try to reach him…” she trailed off, and we all waited.
“He is so right, how can you oppose him? He wants life, for his people. He will die, for them. I try to give him love, he returns fear. He brushes me off. Shall I control him?”
“Yes, can you get him to hold off his men until Nomad gets to him?” It sounded like Lowdrop.
“Yes, but if it goes wrong, you have to attack immediately. Because otherwise, we are all going to die.”
“Tenners, we’ll do it right,” Lowdrop said.
“You’re damned right we will.” She was a tough little girl. I’d never dream of talking to Lowdrop like that.
Alpha and Beta were together now, in the same corridor. The lifies set up a portable spotlight and waited for the command to turn it on. Nomad was to make the initial contact. He was out of his armor, stripped down to his jox, streaming sweat. I imagined he was flying pretty high right then.
Lowdrop appeared with Alpha One, watching his tacmod. I could see Gravelight, by his side, on her knees, stringy hair soaked in sweat, her eyes closed. Her helmet lay on the ground and she looked sick to death. Alpha One and Snow Leopard did a quick check on the troops. The Scalers were on our level now, approaching our position.
“Initiating contact,” Lowdrop announced. “To the death.” The Legion battle cry was oddly inappropriate in this situation.
“Death!”
A chill whisper, our release from fear. Ahead of me were Snow Leopard and Coolhand, against the wall, and an empty, darkened stone corridor. Back there, the spotlight, not yet activated, sat in the middle of the corridor. Gravelight and the lifies huddled around it.
Movement. The tacmap flashed an update on my faceplate. The Scalers were coming down the corridor. We remained against the wall, frozen.
Soldiers of the Underworld approached, phantom shadow soldiers, glowing with faint phosphorescence. They hesitated, creeping closer to the corridor walls, peering up ahead. We were in the deepest shadows. I raised my E.
The spotlight flared incandescent. White-hot light glared directly into the eyes of the Scaler soldiers, ripping the darkness open. Our faceplates instantly adjusted. The Scalers were caught, frozen in mid-step, a whole corridor full of wild-looking dirtmen, filthy savages with matted hair, dressed in scale-skins, armed with spears and tridents, axes and slingshots and knives. Glaring vacant eyes and savage mouths caught in mid-gasp, black teeth snarling in rage and terror. A sudden, barbaric splendor, all on display for just that one moment.
Then Nomad stepped out, almost naked, right in front of the spotlight. The light ripped out all around him, and he was a creature of the light. He stood there, silent and motionless. The Scalers collapsed, groveling in the dirt, huddling in confused, terrified groups of two and three along the corridor walls. We could hear their chatter, a high-pitched wailing.
Nomad moved. He stretched out his arms, his hands open. He took a step forward, toward the Scalers, a Sun God, stepping out of the light. Open. Unarmed. There were at least ten different ways he could die in the next few moments.
Gravelight exclaimed, “I’ve got him!”
The dirtmen shielded their eyes from the brilliant light. Some of them got up carefully, still cringing from the light but slowly raising their weapons.
One of the dirtmen stepped out into the center of the corridor, a sharpened stone axe in one hand, the other hand half-raised in a signal of caution to his companions. He was a small-framed man, encrusted with dirt, wild white eyes glittering in the light, strange filthy objects dangling from his waist. Nomad took another slow step forward. To the dirtmen, he must have looked like a silver god from another world. A low growling arose from the dirtmen. It sent chills over my skin. I centered my E on the closest group of soldiers. They were completely unaware of our presence because of the light. All they could see was the Light-God.
There was no mistaking the gesture the war leader now made with his free hand-holding back his warriors. He crouched, coiled, bristling, axe ready, right there in the path of the God, hypnotized, staring right into the eyes of Death.
Gravelight whispered fiercely, “Do it. Touch him!”
Nomad slowly stepped forward, arms held out away from his body, hands open, fingers outstretched. Radiating light, a human star, burning out of the dark. The war leader trembled, snarling silently, eyes wild, axe poised, left arm still holding his warriors back. Nomad gently reached out his right hand to the dirtman, palm open.
In slow motion, the dirtman’s left arm moved. It came around slowly, trembling, flat to the ground. His warriors stirred. I heard their ragged breathing. The whole world focused right there, on Nomad and the dirtman. Slowly, ever so slowly, they reached for each other. They hesitated that way for a terrible moment, fingers almost touching, one hand encrusted with dirt, the other molten silver, as if from the core of a star. Two worlds, on the brink. The dirtman tensed, ready to explode, then he cautiously touched Nomad’s hand.
Fingers on fingers. A slight hesitation. See, it doesn’t hurt-not at all! Then their palms touched. Hand to hand now, reaching out to each other. Two worlds, coming together, across the brink, across the gulf, across the ages. All the way from the shallow seas of ancient Earth, and now, at last, together again, out on the far edge of the Galaxy.
The war leader’s axe slowly started to come down from the strike position, down all the way, now dangling
