Fires of Man Page 2

  Finn pictured Tiger’s Eye. He felt the captain unfurl his fingers so he held out his palm.

  “Imagine you can move your star any way you like,” the captain said. “Up, down, side to side. Then, picture it drifting into your hand. Good. Open your eyes.”

  Finn did, and gasped. A perfect copy of Tiger’s Eye hovered above his hand, shedding silvery light. He grinned, exultant. He tossed the star over his head.

  It burst into a thousand twinkling particles.

  The captain let slip his first truly genuine smile of the evening—one that made the corners of his eyes crinkle. The other recruits burst into applause, cheering for Finn as they had earlier for Sonja. Finn looked for her, but she remained off to the side, awarding him with only a single glance that bespoke her approval.

  It was enough. The heaviness lifted itself from his shoulders.

  This was where he belonged.

  3

  NYNE

  The sky stretched above Nyne, a canopy punctuated by tiny lights too distant for man to touch.

  He sat in the back of a truck bed, thinking. Thinking about the recruits, about the war. Thinking that there was so little he could do about any of it.

  Across from him, Sergeant Douglass pulled from a bottle of whiskey. Eighteen-year oak barrel aged Lefrei. Confiscated from some “well-off,” as the sergeant had so eloquently put it.

  Douglass passed Nyne the bottle, and Nyne took a swig. The peaty, smoky flavor burned his tongue. When the liquor hit his belly, a warmth spread through him, saturating his limbs, girding him against the cool desert night. It eased his fatigue, too, though not nearly enough. He’d spent all day going from outpost to outpost, visiting the new recruits. He had promised himself that he would do no more than give “the speech” and be done.

  But there was one problem.

  He cared.

  Nyne knew his compassion had little practical value. No amount of it could shield these kids from harm. Often, he felt crippled by the knowledge that neither his influence nor his empathy could save even one life on the battlefield. So, he gave as much of himself to these kids as he could, knowing it would never be enough.

  “What’s on your mind, son?” Douglass asked.

  Nyne passed back the whiskey. His eyes scanned the barracks, where the recruits were settling in for their first night at the outpost. “Where does it all stop?” he asked.

  “That’s a loaded question,” Douglass said. “And not one either of us can answer.”

  “I know,” Nyne said. “Dammit, I do.” Absently, he rubbed a hand across the short buzz of hair on the back of his head. The friction against his fingertips felt good, somehow soothing. “Ever think what it’d be like to put our powers in the open? Stop living a lie, and pull back the curtain?”

  “Geez,” Douglass said. He took another swig from the bottle. “Think I’d hole up with a handle of the hard stuff and wait the whole shitstorm out.” He grinned. “You’re a thinker, kid. I give you that. I ain’t cut out for that sorta thing. That’s why you’re an O-3, and I’m still screamin’ at a bunch of punks till I pop a blood vessel.”

  “Keep up the reluctant drill sergeant act,” Nyne said. “Maybe someone’ll believe it.”

  Douglass chuckled and passed him back the bottle.

  Nyne held up his hand. “I’m good.” He had to keep his mind sharp. Couldn’t get complacent.

  “Suit yourself,” Douglass said. He cast a glance at Nyne. “Come on, out with it already.”

  “I’m worried about Calchis,” Nyne said.

  Douglass snorted. “Aren’t we all?”

  “They’ve been quiet for months,” Nyne said. “They’re planning something.”

  “So what?” Douglass asked. “We’ll manage. We always do.”

  “Yeah,” Nyne said. He didn’t quite believe it.

  “You’re a damn sad drunk, Allen,” Douglass said. “You know that?”

  “You’re a mean sonuvabitch when you’re sober.”

  Douglass laughed. “I’ll drink to that.” He took another pull off the bottle.

  Afterward, Douglass winked and tucked the whiskey back in his jacket, then strode off. Before long, Nyne could hear the old sergeant bellowing into the barracks that it was time for lights out. That made Nyne chuckle.

  He located his driver, Corporal Dallet, in the mess hall, having a snack. Nyne let the man finish up, and then they climbed into the ATV. They sped off, back to the city.

  During daylight hours, the bright desert sun was oppressive; yet beneath the vast drapery of night, it was a different land. Several times, Nyne glimpsed short columns of lisk lizards waddling across the sands, their mottled bodies pebbled with spiny ridges. Some confused their languor with an inherent lack of speed, but it wasn’t so.

  As the ATV crossed over a rise, Nyne spotted a sand hare, hopping dangerously close to the lizards. The lead lisk broke into a vigorous shimmy, and though the hare was more agile, the lisk snapped out with its teeth and grazed its prey’s hindquarters. The hare slowed, then became still, its muscles weak from the lisk’s venom. Nyne’s ATV sped off before he could witness the end.

  War was like the desert, he thought: an unceasing succession of dangers. Blazing hot one hour, and deathly cold the next. The end could come from any direction. There was no respite, no relief. War, like this desert, swallowed you whole if you weren’t careful. The best you could ever hope to do was escape.

  Because victory was a lie.

  And, sometimes, death was inevitable.

  Nyne turned into the onrushing wind. It blew across his scalp and penetrated the layers of his clothing; the sting made his eyes tear. Aside from the sound of the vehicle’s passage, the silence was everywhere, as endless as the fine grains that carpeted the desert. The air was clean, without a trace of human industry. He found himself smiling.

  He remembered home.

  “Hey, I ever tell you how they recruited me?” he asked Dallet.

  The driver shook his head. “Lay it on me, sir,” he said.

  “You wouldn’t just be humoring me, would you?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Nyne smiled. “I ask because this place always reminds me . . . I came from Dorning. No deserts, but home to our country’s great savannahs. Or so they say.”

  “I’m sure they’re real great, sir.”

  “You know how to make a guy feel appreciated,” Nyne said.

  “I try, sir.”

  Nyne laughed at that. It felt good; it started in his belly, then spun up through his chest, his throat, until it erupted. He laughed so little these days—too much on his mind.

  His eyes scanned the dunes. “I made a bet with my friends,” he said, “that I could hit the Aelion state border in under an hour on my bike.”

  “Did ya make it, sir?”

  “Took a header twenty minutes in,” Nyne said. “Would’ve broken my neck, but . . . my power showed itself. Cushioned my fall. Didn’t have a clue what I’d done, of course. Just thought I got lucky, managed to land in the right way at the last second.”

  “And then, a few days later, someone showed up at your doorstep,” Dallet said.

  “You bet they did.” The Psi Corps had come for him fifteen years ago, in autumn. The vibrant hues of the leaves were still marked indelibly in his mind: red and orange and yellow; crimson and burgundy; copper and burnished bronze. “I remember sitting in the backyard, drinking a beer, reading a good book—nursing a whole bunch of bruises from my little spill.”

  “What book, sir?” Dallet asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “Spy Me a River, by Norett Jones,” Nyne said.

  “I like that one,” Dallet said. “You got good taste, sir.”

  “Thanks, Corporal.”

  ‘The best part’s when he’s driving that speedboat.”

  “Chasing the plane,” Nyne said.

  “And the plane blows up, and the girl falls outta the sky, and damn if he don’t catch her,” Dalle
t said. “Man, talk about excitement. Don’t get much of that ’round here.”

  “You can blow things up with your mind, Corporal,” Nyne said. “Maybe you should reevaluate your definition of ‘excitement.’”

  Dallet looked sheepish. “Sorry, sir. Guess that was a fool thing to say.”

  “Better to say a fool thing than do a fool thing,” Nyne replied.

  “You sound just like my pops, sir,” Dallet said.

  “A compliment, I hope?”

  “Mostly, sir.”

  Nyne grinned.

  “So about you getting recruited . . . ?” Dallet asked.

  “Right,” Nyne said. “I’m sitting out there in the yard, when my mom comes down the back steps with this uptight SOB in a uniform. And I’m thinking, crap, I must have wandered into military territory while I was taking my ride out across the plain. So this guy struts up to me like he’s in his own living room, and tells me I’ve got a week to get my shit together before I ship out.”

  “What did you do, sir?”

  “I shipped out,” Nyne said.

  “What about the guy who recruited you? You ever see him again?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Nyne said. “Except now instead of ‘S.O.B.’ I call him ‘Colonel Bringham, sir.’” He gave a conspiratorial look. “Don’t repeat that.”

  “Mum’s the word, sir,” Dallet said with a smile.

  “I’ll just pray that’s not sarcasm, this time,” Nyne said.

  Dallet guffawed.

  Nyne settled back in his seat and looked again at the sky. Even now, the satellites were watching, while a roomful of people pored over data, parsing real alerts from the false alarms. “I wonder, sometimes,” he said, “what people would think if they knew we were watching. Waiting for that . . . telltale electromagnetic signature. Soon as someone shows a hint of power, the lives they know are over. Kind of depressing.”

  “Actually, sir,” Dallet said, “uh, if you don’t mind my speakin’ freely . . .”

  “Go on.”

  “I think it’s a good thing,” Dallet said.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Puts my mind at ease. I know there ain’t no psions out there, runnin’ amok, not knowin’ what to do with their powers, not knowin’ how to control ’em, maybe hurtin’ people—by accident, on purpose, I don’t know. But either way . . .” Dallet glanced briefly in Nyne’s direction. “I got a wife and kid back home in South Brampton. I ain’t around to protect ’em, so . . . I sure feel a whole lot better that we scoop people up just as soon as we find ’em.”

  Nyne nodded, appraising Dallet silently.

  The corporal was smarter than he’d given him credit for.

  “Did I say a fool thing again, sir?” Dallet asked.

  “Just the opposite, Corporal.”

  Soon, the mammoth walls of Grisham broke the horizon line. The city gleamed dully in the starlight, its plated surface like the chitinous carapace of some behemoth insect. Nyne had read that Grisham had once been no more than a military base and trading outpost, but it had flourished into a true metropolis; its people were blissfully unaware of the labyrinthine Psi Corps complex beneath the northern end of Grisham’s titanic walls.

  As they neared, Nyne radioed in their arrival. Massive bay doors yawned open, admitting the ATV to Staging Area Two.

  The chamber was immense, with high vaulted ceilings that harbored row upon row of fluorescent lights. The floor was cold concrete, and sent off echoes with each slap of boots on its surface. There were more ATVs, offroad motorcycles, armored personnel transports, and gargantuan artillery tanks painted with the blazing sun of the Orion Protectorate. Gun and ammunition cages lay off to the far left, filled with an assortment of pistols, rifles, hand grenades, anti-tank weapons, and more. The Grisham Desert, bounded to the west by the Ephyric Ocean and to the east by the Atregard Mountains, separated Orion from Calchis. With outposts stretching the full width of the wasteland, the soldiers at Grisham were always prepared to safeguard their lands from incursion.

  Corporal Dallet parked the ATV with the other vehicles. “Have a good night, sir,” he said.

  “You too, Corporal.”

  Nyne remained in the seat a few moments, adjusting to the sudden brightness and clamor. Every time he returned from the desert, he felt an odd sense of loss, leaving behind the open spaces for the confined trappings of modernity.

  He vaulted down to the floor and made his way toward the elevator bank at the rear of the staging area. He offered perfunctory greetings to the familiar faces along the way, and moved on before he could get caught in conversation. He needed sleep. Early briefing tomorrow. Something Orion Intelligence had caught on surveillance had them all in a tizzy.

  When he arrived at the elevators, he jammed the call button. He could hear the machinery winding up below.

  “Hey,” said a voice behind him.

  He turned, already knowing who it would be.

  Kay—Staff Sergeant Katherine Barrett. She stood before him, chestnut hair tied up, tan skin caked with sweat and sand. Her leathers were dirtied. And she was still beautiful.

  She tilted her head, gave him her signature half-smile, one corner of her mouth quirking upward. Nyne looked away. If he didn’t, he knew he would just keep on looking. “Hey,” he said. “Where’d you come from?”

  “Surprise drills with the squad.” She boxed him in the arm—playful, but hard enough to hurt. Nyne had once compared her to a cactus, and she’d slugged him so hard that he’d had a bruise for a week.

  “How’d it go?” he asked.

  “Oh, real good.” She smiled again. “Jensen took a header off his bike. Maddick skidded out so hard, his pants shredded and he got sand up his ass. So, yeah, those are wins in my book. If only I’d taken pictures.”

  He laughed. She could pull that out of him with ease. Why did she still affect him so deeply, when nothing he did ever broke through her exterior?

  “So . . . ?” Her dark eyes shone in her finely angled face.

  “What?”

  “How was your day?”

  “It was fine,” he said.

  “And?”

  Nyne sighed. “What do you want me to say here, Kay?”

  She pulled the tie out of her hair, then ran a slim hand through it. “I thought we were going to stay friends,” she said.

  “We are.”

  “This is what friends do, N. They talk.”

  He didn’t know what to tell her, but an apology was always a good bet. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s been a long day. I’m tired.”

  “Aren’t we all?” For a moment, she rubbed a hand along his back. Then she realized her mistake and quickly withdrew it.

  “I didn’t mean to snap at you,” he said.

  “You were just a little pissy,” she replied.

  He chuckled. “You saying I’m acting like a baby?”

  “Those are your words, not mine,” she replied.

  He drew a breath, ready to retort, but the elevator’s arrival cut him off, creaking as it lumbered up to greet them. Its metal rail squealed as it opened.

  Nyne exhaled and entered. Kay followed. Their conversation suddenly felt dead in the water.

  The elevator shuddered and began its descent.

  As they went farther into the bowels of the Psi Corps base, past layers of construction embedded deep in the earth, Nyne could feel Kay watching him. Too often he felt like a science project being dissected by her laser focus. She said nothing for the entirety of the minute-long trip to the officer’s quarters.

  Nyne didn’t dare look at her. In some childish way, he thought it would mean she’d won the . . . what? Chat? Argument? They hadn’t really been fighting. Or had they? He never quite knew.

  At last the elevator came to a stop; the metal cage screamed open. Nyne stepped out and she remained. He did look at her then, questioning.

  “Gonna hit the treadmill,” she said. “I’m dirty already.” She smiled.

  “That you are,�
�� he said. He looked her up and down, grinning.

  “Shut up,” she said. “Don’t make me kick your ass.”

  “Like to see you try,” he said.

  “I’d wipe the floor with you,” she joked.

  “The hell you would,” he shot back.

  They met each other’s eyes, both of them smiling. Nyne’s heart fluttered, ba-bum, ba-bum. The attraction in the air was palpable, electric. He’d missed this so much. Bantering, laughing . . . Just being able to look at her like this, drink in the sight of her, was all that he wanted.

  Abruptly, she looked away, and the moment died. “Well . . . I’ll see you,” she said. She jabbed the elevator button with her thumb.

  “Yeah,” he said. “See you.”

  The elevator ascended, and she was gone.

  On the way to his room, Nyne tried not to think of her. He focused on his surroundings: the smooth-tiled floors; the white walls and ceiling; the overhead lights, shining down bright and sterile. Here and there lay the emblem of Orion—a golden sun—emblazoned somewhere in each hallway.

  Nyne arrived at his quarters and placed his thumb on the mounted security grid. There was a beep, a click, and the steel door slid open. He stepped inside; it whirred shut. He flipped on the lights.

  The room was small, sparse, lightly furnished. In the several years he’d lived there, Nyne hadn’t put much effort into personalizing it. He still used the standard-issue white bedding, the standard-issue gray woolen blanket. The walls were unadorned. His furniture was limited to the bed, dresser, and writing desk the room came with. He had procured a laptop computer, and a thirty-two-inch flatscreen television. He also had some framed photographs: his family; his old squad; Kay.

  Everything else was exactly as it had been on the day he moved in.

  He kicked off his boots, feeling the threadbare carpet through sweat-soaked socks. He decided a shower was in order, to wash away his troubles as much as the grime of the day. He hung up his jacket, undressed, and stepped into his room’s adjoining bathroom.

  This late, the hot water was plentiful. He turned it up high enough that his skin turned pink. It felt good, cleansing. He washed his hair and body twice, then wrapped himself in a towel and collapsed onto the bed.