After Earth

  Raige has spoken at length with the survivors of Blackburn’s squad. They have all said the same thing, that both Blackburn and the Ursa were destroyed in the explosion.

  The magnitude of the blast seems to support their observation. There are chunks of ceramic composite—pieces of the relay facility—hundreds of meters from the building’s footprint. Nothing exposed to such a massive release of energy can have survived.

  Raige frowns. And yet …

  The Savant’s forensic team has discovered bits of flesh containing Ursa DNA. Plenty of them, in fact. It’s no less than what Raige expected.

  But as many scientists as the Savant has put on the job, not one has been able to turn up a sign of human DNA.

  It’s puzzling, to say the least. And Raige doesn’t like puzzles. Especially when they have such a profound effect on his colony’s prospects for survival.

  He considered approving four surgical procedures along the lines of Blackburn’s. However, given the mysterious circumstances of Blackburn’s demise, he will have to put those procedures on hold.

  A shame, he thinks, but he has no choice. Until he knows more about Blackburn’s death, he can’t allow another Ranger to undergo amygdala surgery.

  It’s a bitter development, as bitter as the smell of ashes in Raige’s nostrils. He’d had high hopes for Nizamani’s program.

  Such high hopes.

  The second sun is beginning to melt into the western horizon, its race run, and every rock and grain of sand in the desert is touched with fire. The San Francisco Mountains in the north seethe as if made of lava. A much smaller, more distant chain in the south writhes in what seems like agony.

  From Jon’s vantage point on a high bluff, he sees for miles in every direction. What he doesn’t see—doesn’t wish to see—is any part of Nova City.

  That is why he has made the trek out here. To be alone in the desert, far from his fellow human beings. Far from their striving and their purposes and their emotions.

  If he had stopped before reaching this point, someone might have found him and tried to persuade him to go back. But not now. He is beyond their reach, beyond their help. He is exactly where he meant to be.

  It has taken him days to reach this bluff. On the first day, he became thirsty and then hungry. On the second, his hunger and thirst got worse. On the third, it was difficult for him to go on.

  But he went on anyway.

  A normal man would have balked at the idea of walking into the desert without food or water. A normal man would have done whatever he needed to do to survive.

  Jon has no needs. No needs at all.

  He only has preferences. He prefers to escape the way others look at him. He is tired of explaining his lack of motivation to them. Not that he blames them. He was their hope, after all. But he’s become something else, something more like the Ursa he was supposed to destroy. They have to accept the fact that their hope was misplaced.

  So he has come to this place to be alone, to let nature—his nature—run its course. To let the desert claim him in its own good time.

  Does he wish he had never become a Ghost? Never undergone the operation that gave him the ability to go undetected by the Ursa at the cost of his humanity?

  Certainly, his life would have been different. He knows that, thinks about it. But he doesn’t feel any regret regarding his decision.

  He doesn’t feel anything.

  And in the fiery stillness of the desert, under a perfect blue dome of sky, he waits. For what?

  For something that might not appear. After all, he can’t control his life, not even the last bit left to him. Even as he searches for it in the great, dark expanse, he knows he may be denied it.

  The sky turns black. The stars come out. He falls over on his side, too weak to sit up. But somehow, he finds the strength to right himself.

  Then he sees something off in the distance.

  A tiny figure, limned in starlight. A feminine one in a white lab coat. It’s an odd garment to wear in the desert.

  As the figure gets closer, he recognizes the blond hair. It tosses in the breeze, obscuring the figure’s face. But only for a moment.

  Then he sees it clearly and knows it’s her.

  Again he falls over on his side, and the ground is cool under his cheek. But this time he can’t push himself up no matter how hard he tries.

  “It’s all right,” she says, her voice as soft as the wind. She sits down beside him. “Don’t get up on my account.”

  “I didn’t know if you would come,” he says.

  “Yes, you did. I told you I wouldn’t abandon you.”

  He realizes that she’s right. He knew. He knew all along.

  She looks up at the stars. A tiny piece of their light is reflected in her eyes. “It’s beautiful here.”

  “Is it?” he asks.

  “I guess you’ll have to take my word for it.”

  She puts her hand over his. It’s warm with life, much warmer than his hand. There was a time when he would have loved that touch, or so he believes.

  “How long can you stay?” he asks.

  “As long as you need me,” she says.

  Jon waits for her to look away, as his training has taught him.

  She never does.

  Cade Bellamy had it all planned out.

  His men—Andropov’s, really—were posted throughout his warehouse as well as outside it, their pulsers set on an only slightly less than lethal level of force. His supply of stolen electronic components—also Andropov’s—had been extricated from ample stacks of legitimate goods and piled in the center of the floor for inspection. And his client, a manufacturer of vintage ground vehicles who loved the idea of paying less for parts, was due to arrive in a matter of minutes.

  All set.

  This was the first deal Cade had set up entirely on his own. But if all went well, it wouldn’t be the last. After all, Cade had his sights set on a black market operation of his own someday—one that would be even bigger than Andropov’s.

  That was how the world worked, wasn’t it? You take care of yourself. He had learned that the day his mother died. You take care of yourself.

  “All over but the accounting, eh?” said a voice behind him.

  Cade looked back over his shoulder at the man to whom he owed most of the credits he had ever made. Andropov’s features were thick, blunt, as if someone had started to make his face out of putty and lost interest before he got around to finishing it. Andropov’s eyes, which were light colored, seemed alive only because the rest of his face looked so dead.

  But he had been good to his protégé. Damned good. And his protégé, in exchange, had made him a pile of credits.

  “The accounting is my favorite part,” Cade said.

  “How well I know that,” Andropov said. “No doubt you’ve decided how you’ll spend your cut?”

  “I think I’ll get me a new skipjack,” Cade said. He stroked his day’s worth of beard as he pictured it. “The latest model. Bright red. Hell, make that a fleet of skipjacks, one for each day of the week.”

  “After this,” Andropov said, looking around the warehouse, “you’ll have earned a fleet of skipjacks.” He consulted his wrist chronometer. “You’re sure your client will be on time?”

  “I’d bet my life on it,” Cade said.

  Then he heard the shout from outside: “Rangers!”

  It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him. After all, he had gone a long time without the Rangers catching him. Five years.

  People who made their living on the black market generally figured they would last a year, maybe a year and a half, before the authorities caught up with them. Two years was almost unheard of—and Cade had lasted five.

  So even though he had known the odds were stacked against him, he had begun to feel like he would never get caught, like his luck would never run out.

  And now it had.

  Cade would have reached for his hip pulser if it had just been a rival busting
in on him. But the Rangers? There was no point. Not when they had those cutlasses in their hands. As good as he was with a pulser, he was no match for those things. They’d slice and dice him before he got a decent shot off.

  So he followed plan B: He ran.

  Not out of the warehouse, because Cade was sure the Rangers had blocked all the street exits. They were known for that. Instead, he resorted to a way out they didn’t know about: the trapdoor under a container in the corner that looked as heavy as all the others but was in fact completely and utterly empty.

  Andropov, who was closer to it, was already moving the container aside. Even better, Cade thought.

  Using the other containers for cover, Cade took two quick steps and dived full out across the room. He heard more shouting: the Rangers reacting to his attempt to escape. But none of them had a clear look at him or he would already have been pinned by someone’s cutlass.

  He hit the floor, rolled, and dived again. Still nothing. I’m going to make it, he thought.

  Another voice inside him, unbidden, said: Of course you are. You’re Cade Bellamy.

  As he landed on the floor again, skidding forward on his belly, he saw that Andropov had already lifted the trapdoor and was slipping into the tunnel beneath it. But before Cade could join his mentor, Andropov closed the door.

  Cade cursed—but not because he was disappointed in Andropov. Had their positions been reversed, Cade would have done the same thing, no question about it.

  Scrambling over to the door, he tried to yank it open. But it wouldn’t budge. Andropov’s locked it from below—so the Rangers can’t follow him. Again, it was no less than what Cade would have expected.

  He looked around for another option. He wasn’t going to let the Rangers catch him. No way. Another escape route would present itself somehow. He just had to be ready for it.

  What he wasn’t ready for was for the wall beside him to implode.

  The impact sent pieces of wall flying at him. Most of the pieces missed, but one caught him square in the temple.

  Everything went red for a moment. A long moment. Then Cade’s vision started to clear, and he saw what had happened to the wall.

  An Ursa had crashed into the warehouse like a transport cruising at full speed. The genetically engineered creatures were created by the Skrel, a hostile alien species. After a failed attempt to eradicate mankind centuries earlier, the Skrel introduced the human hunter-killers to Nova Prime in order to cleanse the planet of all human life.

  He caught a glimpse of the thing’s black hole of a mouth, its alien weave of pale flesh and gray smart metal, its cruel curved talons. Then it was on top of one of the Rangers, pinning him to the ground, spewing globules of black venom on him. The Ranger screamed as the venom ate through his uniform and into his chest. A second later he stopped screaming, twitched a couple of times, and lay still, his insides hissing away.

  Cade felt his gorge rise, battled it back down, and reached for his pulser. But it was gone. He looked around, couldn’t find it in the swirl of dust and debris. Obviously, it had fallen off his belt when the Ursa had burst into the building.

  Sometimes a single kill was all the creature required. It would dig in and forget about its other potential victims. But not this time. The Ursa’s head swiveled around, its maw opening and closing, its jagged teeth clashing as if it craved something more. It had no eyes; Cade knew that in lieu of sight Ursa were able to detect pheromones secreted by fear and lock onto their victims.

  And from all appearances, it seemed to settle on Cade.

  The thing was only a couple of meters away from him—a pitifully short leap away. Too short for him to scramble for cover and have any hope of making it.

  All he could do was steel himself, fully expecting the Ursa to grab him and dissolve his guts as it had dissolved the Ranger’s.

  But for some reason, it didn’t. It lumbered past him as if he weren’t even there.

  It’s not going after me, he thought wildly, scarcely able to believe his luck. It’s not going after me. Why isn’t it going after me?

  It sprang at another Ranger instead. Her squad mates slashed at it with their cutlasses, keeping the thing at bay. But the Rangers’ defense wouldn’t last forever. Eventually, the creature would break through and dismember its prey.

  As it always did.

  And then what? Cade wondered.

  How long would it be before the monster finished the Rangers and remembered the morsel it had left behind? It might not even wait that long.

  Escape, he thought. There’s got to be a way out. And he had to find it now, while the Rangers were still distracting the creature.

  But he was trapped in a corner of the warehouse, the Ursa blocking his way out. He couldn’t get to the front door, couldn’t get through the hole it had made in the wall, couldn’t even find the trapdoor under the wretched landscape of debris.

  That was why he had to do something to the Ursa before it did something to him. But what?

  Then he realized that the answer to his question had been a few strides away from him all along. He had just been too focused on the Ursa to know it. Just this side of the monster, lying on the floor next to the lifeless hand of the Ranger who had dropped it, lay a cutlass.

  It was long, thin, gleaming in the harsh glare of the overhead lights. And it could kill an Ursa—Cade had seen it happen once, when he was little. He had seen a squad of Rangers fighting one of the creatures; one Ranger leaped onto the Ursa’s back and drove her cutlass into the thing’s soft spot. He had convinced himself that that is what real power was: forcing your opponent—be it life, some monster, or a client thirsty for stolen goods—into submission. Believe you cannot be touched, and you won’t.

  Of course, he’d never used such a weapon in his life. But he knew the Rangers used finger pressure to change the thing’s shape. How hard could it be?

  I just have to reach it before the Ursa sees me. He licked his lips, which suddenly felt very dry. Just … get to it.

  Cade hadn’t lived his life making safe choices. He was a gambler. And to that point, he had always won. I’ll win this time, too, he assured himself. Watch me.

  And he went for the cutlass.

  Funny thing … even after Ursa imprinted on their intended victims, they were known to turn on would-be attackers. And in this case, Cade was a would-be attacker. But the thing didn’t seem to notice him.

  Not when he grabbed the cutlass, not when he rolled, and not even when he popped to his feet within striking distance of the creature. As it turned out, he’d been wrong about the weapon’s controls; now that he saw them, he had no idea what to do with them. He let the cutlass remain in its spear form as he targeted the Ursa’s soft spot and stabbed at it from behind.

  But what Cade hit wasn’t soft. It was hard enough to deflect his attack.

  Bellowing with rage, the thing spun to strike back at him. Uh oh, he thought. Its maw dripped blood and gore as it opened to take a chunk out of him.

  Except it didn’t. The Ursa just stood there, looking confused somehow.

  Cade took a couple of steps back, but the Rangers behind the Ursa didn’t. They went after it from behind. And they, fortunately, seemed to know where it was vulnerable.

  They didn’t all hit their target, but at least one of them did. A cutlass sticking out of its back, the monster reared and screamed.

  Cade didn’t think; he just reacted, hauling back and throwing his cutlass with all his might. It skewered the Ursa through its throat or, rather, what looked like its throat. He wasn’t a scientist; he couldn’t say.

  The thing staggered around, crashing into containers and ripping them open so that their contents went flying everywhere. Cade knew that if it hit him with one of its flailing limbs, he would be dead—no question. But he pressed his back as far into the wall as he could and stayed out of harm’s way.

  Finally, the Ursa collapsed onto the warehouse floor, the silver shaft of Cade’s cutlass still protruding from its
throat and the other end protruding from its back. But even then it wasn’t dead. It still thrashed a little every few seconds for what seemed like a long time. Finally, it seemed to lie still.

  You’ve got to go, Cade told himself, even though he wanted to stay and revel in his victory.

  There would be more Rangers descending on the place. He had to get out before they got there.

  But even as he urged himself to run, he was wondering what had kept the Ursa from killing him, what had kept it—it seemed at the time—from even knowing he was there.

  Stop wondering and go! he thought, his instinct of self-preservation overriding his curiosity.

  He went.

  But he hadn’t taken two steps before he found a Ranger barring his way.

  She pointed the business end of her cutlass at him and said, “Freeze. You’re not going anywhere.”

  Cade had never been in a jail cell before. He couldn’t say he especially liked the accommodations.

  But then, he had always prized his freedom; that was one reason he’d avoided the constraints of a traditional job, traditional hours, even traditional people. But his cell, a small gray windowless space with a bed built into the wall, a ceramic sink, and a ceramic bowl, was about as constraining as it could get.

  Of course, he wouldn’t be consigned to the place for any length of time until he’d had the benefit of a trial. Even black marketers got that. Not that it would matter in the long run.

  After all, they caught me with stolen components. That shipment alone would be worth a few years. And they probably had evidence of other transactions he had made, or they wouldn’t have gone after him in the first place.

  I’m screwed, he thought, plunking himself down on his bed just as the door to his cell whispered aside, revealing a tall, broad-shouldered figure standing in the corridor outside. The guy, whose face was half in shadow, was wearing a Ranger uniform.

  But he wasn’t armed, and so he wasn’t Cade’s escort to the courtroom. Then who …?

  The guy entered the cell, and the prisoner got a better look at him. A good enough look to get him wondering what the hell was going on.