Steal Across the Sky (2 page)

A long time later, a meter-square of hull fell inward, clanging on the shuttle floor. Lucca braced for the weapon that would follow, although of course nothing they could have would penetrate his shield. Would it be a spear? A club? An automatic rapid-fire gun? They had had ten thousand years, after all. The Atoners said that neither Kular A nor Kular B gave off electromagnetic signatures of any kind: no radio transmissions, no television, no microwave towers, nothing. Presumably that meant, at most, an early-industrial society. But on Earth, the Gatling gun, capable of getting off two hundred rounds a minute, had been patented in 1862.

A head poked through the opening in the shuttle. Just that—an unprotected head.

The head said something.

Lucca smiled. The translator needed native language, a reasonable amount of language, before it could decipher anything. Lucca pointed at his leg and made a grimace of pain. The head vanished.

A half hour later they had him out. By then his whole body ached, feverish. It was daylight, although with the blowing sand, that could have meant dawn or dusk or anything in between. Grit blew continuously
against everything, coating shuttle and clothing and tools with coarse dust. There were eight Kularians, and they worked with a cooperative energy that involved much arm waving, heated discussion, and foot stamping. There didn’t seem to be a formal leader. At no time did they show anything that Lucca could interpret as fear. They seemed intensely interested in getting a task done, and not at all hesitant about whether it should in fact be done in the first place.

Once they understood that Lucca’s leg was broken, they became more careful in handling him, although never really gentle. Finally, with a good deal more shouting and foot stamping, they loaded him onto a kind of travois, which at first Lucca thought they would pull themselves. But then someone led an animal from around the other side of the shuttle, a slow and seriously ugly beast like a shaggy elephant, ruminatively chewing God knew what. The animal’s yoke was tied to the travois, giving Lucca a clear view of its hindquarters. He saw no anus, but the beast smelled terrible. It lumbered forward, led by one Kularian, while four others walked protectively beside Lucca.

Lucca looked up into the face of the Kularian nearest him and smiled.
Thank you
.

The man nodded. A swarthy man with deeply weathered skin, a long black mustache, very dark eyes, and one front tooth painted dull red. The man wore a hat of animal skin with flaps now shoved onto the top of his head, tunic and leggings not unlike Lucca’s own although of coarser cloth, and clumsy skin boots. He carried nothing, which was unusual for a man in anything but an advanced culture. More primitive humans away from their homes usually had things that needed carrying: weapons, baskets, stringed instruments. But this was indubitably a human, just as the Atoners had said. A human being whose ancestors had been kidnapped from the plains of Earth and brought here ten thousand years ago, as part of the huge experiment for which the Atoners now dripped with inconsolable remorse.

Classification: Secret, Level 8

Recorded: April 18, 2020

Interviewee: Camilla Mary O’Kane, ID # 065-453-8765274 [personal data and background check attached]

Interviewer: Atoner, identity unknown

Place: Atoner Luna Base

Recorder: Col. John Karl Stoddard, USAF Intelligence

Present: Interviewee, Recorder, Atoner behind usual screen, all usual restrictions in place

ATONER:
Good day, Ms. O’Kane.

O’KANE:
Good day, sir. [NOTE: DESPITE EXHAUSTIVE PREINTERVIEW BRIEFING, INTERVIEWEE IS RESPONDING COUNTER TO SUGGESTION WITH HONORIFIC CHOICE. ATONER GENDERS REMAIN UNKNOWN.]

A:
I hope your flight up to Luna was pleasant.

O:
Yes. Your shuttle was smooth and fast. I never flew on a plane before.

A:
You have been chosen from a large number of applicants for this interview. Why do you wish to become a Witness?

O:
So we’re going to plunge right in? Okay. I’m going to be honest, sir. I’m twenty-three years old and I’ve always held pretty crappy jobs. Right now I’m a waitress. I was smart in high school, but afterward I couldn’t afford college, and the way things are in the United States right now . . . Do you know what I mean by that?

A:
Yes.

O:
The way things are, the best I can get are jobs where I can’t make any decisions or learn anything important or have an impact on anything. And I live in
Nebraska
. I don’t understand why anyone
wouldn’t
want to be a Witness! Here I am on the moon, something I never dreamed possible for me. And to go to another planet, see a whole different—Haven’t you had applications from all over the world?

A:
Yes.

O:
And that’s only from countries that permit their citizens to apply! I heard that on a podcast. If the repressive countries let their people apply, you’d probably get millions more applications.

A:
What do you think are your qualifications to witness for us on another planet?

O:
I’m intelligent, strong, and healthy. I’m brave. I don’t rattle easily—I really don’t. I notice everything. And even though I’m not trained or anything, I want to do this so much that I’ll study anything you want, do anything you tell me to.

A:
You notice everything?

O:
Well, maybe not everything—please don’t hold that statement against me!

A:
What would you do if we told you to do something you think is morally wrong?

O:
[long silence] Then . . . I guess I wouldn’t do it. Does that disqualify me?

A:
No. You say you are intelligent and strong and able to learn well. Why don’t those qualities enable you to create a life better than “crappy”?

O:
[long silence] I think—forgive me, sir—that despite what you said before, I think you don’t understand the United States right now. The economy sucks. The environment is going down the toilet. Even rich and educated people are scrambling to stay all right, and for somebody like me . . . You think intelligence and grit can succeed by themselves, but I’m telling you that’s a pretty illusion.

A:
Thank you for your interview, Ms. O’Kane.

 

 

O:
What? You mean that’s it? That’s all the time I get? [NOTE: INTERVIEWEE IS STRONGLY ACTING CONTRARY TO PREINTERVIEW BRIEFING.]

A:
What more would you like?

O:
Can
I
ask some questions?

A:
[long silence] Yes. [NOTE: THIS SILENCE OF 6.3 SECONDS HAS BEEN NOTED IN NO OTHER INTERVIEW RECORDED BY USAF INTELLIGENCE OR BY THOSE COUNTRIES PARTICIPATING IN THE ALIEN DATA-SHARING INITIATIVE.]

O:
Why do you want to send human Witnesses to those other planets anyway? You’re the ones with starships, why not go yourselves?

A:
We cannot answer that.

O:
You mean—and I say this with all due respect, sir—that you choose to not answer it?

A:
Yes.

O:
Well, okay. Then . . . you call yourselves “Atoners.” What are you atoning
for
? [NOTE: STRONGLY ACTING CONTRARY TO PREINTERVIEW BRIEFING. INTERVIEWEE WAS SPECIFICALLY AND REPEATEDLY INSTRUCTED NOT TO ASK THIS, AS A MATTER OF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS.]

A:
Were you told to not ask that question?

O:
Well . . . yes.

A:
Then why did you ask it, Ms. O’Kane?

O:
Because I . . . Oh, fuck, I really blew it, didn’t I? You’re not going to accept me as a Witness. So I don’t have anything to lose, but I still would like to know. Shit, the whole
world
would like to know! What are you atoning for?

A:
We choose to not answer that.

O:
Okay. Your right. Anyway, thank you for the trip up here. I never thought . . . This is something I’ll remember my whole life. And I wish you luck, sir, with your project, whatever it is.

A:
Thank you.

DATE: May 16, 2020 INTERVIEW RESULT: Interviewee Accepted

THE SOLDIERS CAME FOR HIM
at his son’s burial. Aveo saw them on the other side of the pit, which was already half-filled with wrapped bodies. Although a few of the green burial cloths were spider-silk, smooth and glossy, most were only coarse sarel fiber. The corpses of the very poor were barely wrapped at all, merely wound with two token strips of rough cloth around chest and head. Over all the dead, of whatever caste, lay the clumps of lime that partly masked the reek of decay. Ojea had not yet been covered. Aveo’s son’s strong young body, decently wrapped in green to please the Goddess that Aveo did not believe in, lay on top of several shovelfuls of white lime, a pristine bed.

Ojea had always valued cleanliness.

The soldiers were silhouetted against the moon, rising huge on the horizon. They marched along the edge of the pit, four of them in bronze breastplates and helmets, plus a
cul
with the royal slashes of blue painted on his bare breast. The mourners around Aveo, none of whom had come for Ojea, melted away. Aveo didn’t run. It would have been undignified, and useless.

“Aveo ol Imbro.” It was not a question. They did not give him his title.

“I am Aveo ol Imbro.”

“Come with us.”

Aveo did, a little surprised that he was not struck, or tied, or even touched. The four soldiers formed a square around him and marched him toward the city. The wind followed, smelling of death and lime and loss.

Death lay on the hot land as well. Fields that should have been bursting with grain near harvest had already been stripped. Broken stalks poked at the sky. Empty
gleisin
pens, shorn orchards, all gone to feed the army. What would the city eat this winter?

He would not be alive to find out.

At dusk the silent procession entered the West Gate. Beggars and slaves shrank from the soldiers; market women cast down their eyes and made themselves small. To Aveo’s surprise, the
cul
didn’t lead him toward the prison close against the city wall. Instead the
cul
marched toward the palace, through its gates, and—yes—to the Hall of the Goddess of All Green.

Aveo had been here before, many years ago, when everything had been different. A reception for scholars from the university. Wine, laughter, smiling slaves in white skirts serving delicacies. Uldunu Three had been on the throne then, not his murderous son. Before the assassination, before the war, before the university had been closed and the slaves stripped and branded. Before.

They marched into the Hall. His Most Sacred and Exalted King Uldunu Four sat on the Green Throne. Advisors in their red robes clustered behind him. Aveo recognized Ilni and Omoro, and looked away.
Which of you betrayed the university, betrayed the city, betrayed my son?

Aveo and the
cul
halted before the throne, sank to their knees, and crossed their arms over their breasts. The soldiers, who were not people but only utensils, remained standing. They had no souls and thus were incapable, like animals or plants, of meaningful homage to the Goddess of All Green and Her son, Uldunu. Aveo gazed at the king’s toenails, painted with tiny green swirls and encased in green sandals set with gold.

“Up,” Uldunu said.

Aveo rose.

“Raise eyes. You are a traitor, Aveo ol Imbro.”

It was not permitted to speak, since Aveo had not been asked a question. It was permitted, now, to gaze, and he and the king studied each other. Aveo saw a young man fantastically painted, every inch of his bare-chested body in intricate green designs, petals inside petals, sensuous curving vines and lashing textured branches, a strong and brutal body turned into a support for the living world. The king’s short skirt was green spider-silk. His eyes were bluer than those of the father he had murdered.

What did Uldunu see? A coarse brown skirt instead of the red Aveo had once worn, no caste paint, a man neither young nor old but infinitely more aged than before grief had broken him.