Page 77 of Alliance
By my clock, it was early afternoon when we crested a smooth hill like half-kneaded dough and found an abandoned outpost. Dark, hollow holes watched us where windows had once been on the three prefab pods. The moss had overgrownthem entirely, inside and out, trapping the rusted doors in the walls so they looked like silly pinched faces. Their long shadows were devoid of flowers that bloomed in the pink and orange light.
“Let’s stop here for the night. Hide the needle in one of those,” he said through his linguitor directly into my head. I was wearing a helmet while he was not.
“Got it,” I responded, easing us down the slope.
We dismounted before raising the needle’s hover clearance with a burst of its charge and guiding it into the largest pod. Fásach jumped up after it, testing the integrity of the building. He nodded, grabbing his pack as the needle wound down. Then he took the helmet from me and set it on the seat, crouching in the raised entryway so our faces were closer to level.
“Let’s check the others, see if either one is good for bedding down.”
“We aren’t going to stay with the bike? It’s warmer.”
He met my eye, running his tongue over his teeth. “I'm worried about putting more weight on the floor.” Fásach pulled a vantablade from his pack and handed it to me. “Just in case.” Then we split up.
I unlatched the front of my coveralls and removed my gloves, clipping them to my belt. Compared to Svargapan Samudr, this place was balmy, and I craved that weak sliver of light on my skin.
Unlike the other two, the smallest pod still had a ramp. [Analysis] It held my weight without concern, even if my boots slid on the damp moss and rot. I breathed in the smell of fresh foliage and was hit with a memory of flower shops back on Earth. Slightly sweet, fresh with the scent of clean air. It made me smile. So different from the sulfur and heated rubber of Huajile. I breathed deep again—
And someone moaned. I froze, my eyes wide, skin pebbled in fear. When it happened again, I recognized the slight haze of an echo or memory. The sound of vomiting came next, prayers in Rosy’s native language, a man crying. My stomach cramped uncomfortably, watery pain sapping the strength from my limbs.
I clutched the entryway of the pod and swallowed hard. My heart still pounded in my chest, but the immediacy of danger dissipated. I waited for her memory to pass, easing my way inside.
It was overgrown like the larger pod, save for bumps along the wall that could have been the remnants of a table and a bed. Out of the corner of my eye, the bed was draped in yellow eyelet sheets. Tall white candles flickered in the corners. I heard Rosy’s papi praying behind my shoulder too, but every time I turned around, the moss swallowed up the yellow and the candles, and her papi shuffled away out of sight.
Fásach’s boots thumped up the ramp, and I gasped, turning to meet his eye.
“Everything okay?” he asked, hackles rising.
I licked my lips and nodded.
“¡Lo siento!I mean—” I patted my ears and shook my head. “I’m fine. It’s just Rosy.”
“Take your time.” Fás chuckled a deep and soothinghuhuhuhfor me, joining me inside. He squeezed my shoulder and looked around the room. “This one’s in better shape, but we don’t have to stay here.”
“Thanks,” I said weakly.
“Come on, let’s eat outside,” he said, jumping down to the ground. He held his hand up for me to take, and instead of steadying me as I slipped down the ramp, he picked me up. I slid down his front with a swish as our coveralls rubbed against each other, and his ears pressed back. He stared at my mouth when my toes found the ground.
“Eat?” I asked.
He swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
Fásach concentrated so hard on rations, you’d have thought he was making a three-course meal. He smashed a bag of liquid on the ground and massaged it in his palms as we both watched the horizon.
“That’s Dawn’s Razor,” I told him, nodding toward the black ridge of trees in the distance. “According to the maps, we’ll ride through there for two days, then hit the jungle.”
Fásach’s ears perked up with interest. “That soon?”
“Mm,” I affirmed, transfixed by the sun, already setting and fading before we’d had lunch. Fásach handed me the bag of liquid and I poured it into my mouth. Savory broth of some kind that warmed up my chest and hands. While he prepped his own, I pulled up Gilladh’s maps of the jungle, heart in my throat.
Traveler was right. The maps of Yaspur had been doctored. But Gilladh’s hadn't. [Analysis] A lot of things about the station clicked into place. The high volume of encrypted transmissions, the isolation, that they weren't pushy about hearing stories from Renata… Perhaps Pahadthi 03 was a watch tower as much as it was a planetary antenna. The only reason they'd have correct maps was because they were part of the force that protected the colony.
It took almost no time to find what I was looking for: a river that wound through the jungle like a snake, gouging a deep path through a valley basin I didn’t have a name for. The cliffs that overlooked it were relatively bare, a rare patch of black grasslands at a high enough altitude that one could see the valley as far as the horizon when they stood at the edge of the playfield.
And when Rosy snuck up to the top of the tower to take vid comms from Roka Lokurian—to make plans and check in on the progress of the doll that would replace her rather than flirt withher supposed venandi boyfriend—she’d stare out at the horizon and imagine what was next for her.
In one direction, she’d see the Pahadthi Mountains.
In the opposite, the valley.
