After Earth

  “I just don’t get it,” Bo said in frustration.

  Kitai was just about to respond when a female voice interrupted them: “I heard they captured an Ursa.”

  Both Kitai’s and Bo’s heads snapped around in response to that. The speaker had been Rayna. On the face of it, Rayna seemed an even less likely Ranger than Kitai considering that she was half a head shorter than he. But Rayna was extremely intelligent and a formidable hand-to-hand combatant. Bo had great respect for her, and so did Kitai. When she suddenly announced that an Ursa had been captured, naturally that was going to get immediate attention.

  Killing Ursa was not an uncommon situation on Nova Prime. It wasn’t an easy undertaking by any means, but it had happened enough times. Capturing one alive, however, was definitely unusual. A number of other cadets had overheard Rayna’s pronouncement, and they approached her to hear what she had to say.

  There were numerous cries of “No way!” and “You’re kidding!” and “Are you sure?”

  Rayna simply nodded her head, her arms folded. “Absolutely,” she said. “Heard it reported over the naviband.” She tapped the communications device strapped to her wrist. “You guys should pay attention to these things.”

  “Who?” Kitai asked. “Who captured it?”

  “Who do you think? The Ghosts,” she said.

  Kitai nodded, feeling slightly foolish. Any cadet worth his salt knew that when an Ursa was sighted, at least one Ghost was always called upon to dispatch it.

  Rayna continued: “And they’re going to move it to someplace they can study it.”

  “Ghosts. You mean like Kit’s dad?” said Bo.

  “Maybe him. Or somebody like him. It was out in the jungle somewhere. Your dad out in the jungle somewhere, Kitai?” Rayna asked.

  Abruptly a silence descended over them. They collectively waited for Kitai to respond.

  It was as if the utterly confident, overly aggressive Kitai Raige had vanished altogether. Instead, for a few moments, he just looked flat-out uncertain about anything and everything. Then he cleared his throat and in a manner that seemed far too faked to be anything legitimate said with an air of forced offhandedness, “Not sure. I know he’s coming home tomorrow. I’ll ask him then.”

  “What’s that like?” asked one of the Rangers.

  Kitai stared at him in confusion. “What’s what like?”

  “You know! Having the Original Ghost as your father!”

  “It’s great,” Kitai replied. “He’s a great guy. It’s all great.”

  The cadets glanced at one another, and several snickered. Before the question could be pushed any further, one of the RIs emerged from the nearby makeshift headquarters that had been thrown together. “Tomorrow, eleven hundred hours at Ranger headquarters. You will be given the results then.” That was his entire pronouncement on the subject. He turned on his heel and walked away.

  Kitai took the opportunity to get the hell out of there. Rayna even called after him, but he ignored her. The Ranger cadet who previously couldn’t get enough of talking about such subjects as himself now seemed extremely dedicated to the notion of putting as much distance between himself and his fellow cadets as possible.

  Bo didn’t know whether to find that amusing or just sad.

  iv

  Kitai stretched out on the hammock in his bedroom that evening, slowly turning the pages of his book.

  His. Book.

  It was something of a rarity, this novel of his. Printed in the twenty-first century, long before the Earth was abandoned, it was an ancient story about a man obsessed with a whale named Moby Dick. Not very many of the books had been made, and this rare copy had floated from hand to hand over the centuries, working its way into the Raige family via Senshi, where it had remained ever since. Kitai had been fortunate enough to get his hands on it.

  He had been reading it over the last few nights. It hadn’t been an easy endeavor. Someone had said to him that by the time he was finished with the novel, he would know far more about hunting whales than he would ever need to know. About a third of the way through the book, he’d come to the conclusion that that assessment was an accurate one.

  He heard his mother’s feet approaching his room. She sounded like she was trudging, which didn’t surprise Kitai in the least. At least he’d been done with his day before the afternoon was over. His mother’s getting home fairly early was something of a rarity.

  Moments later his mother appeared, and she looked utterly worn out. She had dust on her coat. Her exhaustion was reflected in her eyes, but she visibly pushed it aside so that she could speak to her son. “Hey there, honey. Sorry I’m late. Do you need—”

  “Something to eat?” He shook his head. “Nah. Ate already. You okay?”

  “A lot of spikes today,” she said by way of explanation. “We had a lot of orographic uplifts.” She paused and then said with mild challenge, “What are orographic uplifts?”

  Kitai was ready simply because not being ready wasn’t an option. “The vertical forcing of air by terrain features like mountains.”

  She nodded approvingly. “Good. One day when you’re done running around and hitting things, you’ll take over the turbine research division for me.”

  He smiled humorlessly at that. “Sure, Mom.”

  She returned the smile because they both knew she wasn’t serious. For Kitai, his career as a Ranger was a given. Only the specifics of how long were still up in the air. “How’d the test go?”

  “I’ll find out tomorrow.” He kept up a deadpan expression for as long as he could, but then a smile crawled across his face that he was unable to hold back.

  His mother couldn’t help seeing it. “Looks to me like you’re confident about how you did.”

  “It’s just … it’ll be great when I tell the general I got into the Ranger program on Senshi’s birthday. That’ll be great, right?”

  “Not everyone gets into the Ranger program on their first try.”

  “Yeah, but those guys are bums,” Kitai said dismissively.

  She smiled at that. “Yes,” she said with soft assurance. “He’ll be happy.” Then she noticed the book in his hand. “When did you start reading that?”

  “I’m trying to get done before the general gets home.”

  Kitai nodded, sure that if he were a newly named Ranger, that alone would be enough to prompt his father to hang around, at least for a while. He tapped the book. “There are lines underlined. Does that mean the general and Senshi liked these parts?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe I should memorize one. Do you think he’d like that?”

  “I think he’ll like the fact that you’re reading the book.”

  “Are we doing a cake?” he suddenly said, shifting subjects.

  “We’re not doing a cake. We’ll just be together.” After a moment’s silence, she slapped her legs, causing a bit of dirt to rise up. “I’m going to wash off all this dust. I’ve been on the ridge all day.”

  “Mom …?”

  She’d been about to stand, but something in his voice caught her. She focused her attention on him. It took him a few moments to find the words, and even then she didn’t fully understand at first.

  “What was it like when Dad became the first? How did he do it?”

  “The first?” Initially she stared at him without comprehension. But then she understood. “Oh. You mean the—”

  “The first Ghost, yeah. How did he do it? I’ve tried looking it up, and I haven’t found anything. It’s all just … vague.”

  “How vague?”

  He licked his lips, collecting his thoughts. “Well … it’s just that everyone knows that the Ursa don’t have any eyes. That they find us through sense of smell. And what they smell is our fear. It’s how they work. They track us through fear. They hunt us through fear. Everything is fear with them. And the Rangers go out there and do everything they can to control their fear, but it’s almost impossible.

  “Ursa ar
e monsters, and they come at you with everything they’ve got. And they’ve got a lot. Six legs, teeth, paralytic venom … everything. It’s almost impossible to go up against one of them and be totally unafraid. But Dad did it. I mean … he just, you know, he did it. He did it when no one else in the history of humanity had done it. And they called him a Ghost. The first one ever. So I’d just kind of like to know how it was that first time. How he did it.”

  “Honey …”

  He realized she wasn’t looking at him. Instead she seemed to be staring off into space, as if her mind had partly checked out. Kitai expected that she was putting together her recollections of that moment.

  For a surprisingly long time, she said nothing at all. Then, finally: “Have you ever tried asking him yourself?”

  “Yeah. He, uh …” Kitai shrugged. “He would just shrug. And he’d just say that fear was something that could be controlled, and he just, you know … managed it. But he’s never gone into any detail beyond that, and I …”

  “Stopped asking.”

  “Yeah.”

  She stroked his short hair as she sighed. “Okay, well … so did I. Maybe he’ll tell you someday.”

  Kitai nodded but said nothing more. There didn’t seem to be much point. If there was one thing Kitai had learned after all this time, it was that everything having to do with his father fell into the realm of “maybe” and “someday.” The problem was that Kitai couldn’t decide if he wanted to be there when the maybe or the someday actually happened.

  1000 AE

  Nova Prime

  Kitai’s father stared at him. Just stared.

  Kitai took the opportunity to practice his attitudes. At first he indulged himself with a huge smile, but then he decided that it made him look too smug, and so he changed it for something extremely modest. After that, he tried an expression in between. All during the smile time, he practiced different oral sentiments ranging from “I knew I had it the entire time” to “I think they were being generous” and countless other statements as well. The whole time, Kitai’s father maintained his hard, unmoving expression.

  “Raige! Move it!”

  He nodded to no one in particular and turned in the direction of Bo, who was shouting over to him from the elevators. His father remained right where he was, which was hardly unusual: He wasn’t really there. Instead it was his image, a frieze carved into the wall of him along with six other people. They were collectively the seven Ghosts in the history of the Rangers. His father, Cypher Raige, had been the first, and over time six others had developed the ghosting technique as well. Kitai wondered if he likewise would develop the ability. One thing at a time. First you become a Ranger. Let everything else work out after that.

  He left his father carved in stone and joined the other cadets in the elevator. Moments later they were heading down into the bowels of Ranger headquarters. There was little discussion or banter among the cadets. All of them were understandably wrapped up in their individual thoughts, which were, as it happened, all exactly the same: Did I make it?

  Kitai glanced around at those standing near him. Every one of them looked nervous. Kitai tried to hide his confidence from them. All it would do was irritate them.

  Minutes later the elevator delivered them to their destination: a series of offices in the tallest section of the HQ. The higher up you were, the more vital the offices. The view of the city from these levels was said to be spectacular and one of the perks of command.

  There were no stools or benches of any kind in the hallway outside Commander Velan’s office. It was Velan’s job to oversee the development of cadets into Rangers, and his was the final word on whether one qualified to make that jump. Kitai was utterly confident in Velan’s decision-making abilities. Velan had a keen eye for talent, and Kitai was certain that he would have had no trouble seeing Kitai’s capabilities despite the attempts by others to try to deter or impede them.

  Three other cadets were called in before Kitai. He stood in place, leaning slightly against the wall for support. No one spoke save whenever a cadet emerged from Velan’s office. In this instance, each of the three who emerged one by one did so with a C-10 model of a cutlass in his hand. That meant, of course, that they had passed, and each was greeted with quiet congratulations from the others. Hands were shaken, backs were patted. Kitai did the same thing as the others, welcoming them into the fold of Nova Prime’s planetary protectors. It was odd, of course, because the people who were welcoming them were hoping that they would have the same bounty handed to them.

  “Raige!” came Velan’s sharp voice from within his office. Kitai promptly snapped to attention, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. There was no doubt in his mind that he was going to be coming out with his own C-10, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be humble about it.

  He entered as the door closed behind him. Kitai stood at full attention, chin snapped forward, eyes leveled on Velan, who was seated behind his desk. Velan was glancing at some holographic material Kitai took to be written reports on his performance from the previous day.

  “Your test scores were very impressive,” Velan said. “You’ve got a Ranger’s mind. No doubt about that.”

  It was a huge strain for Kitai not to smile broadly. He had expected nothing less, and it was good that the Rangers who had been doing the scoring had seen that in him. It was indeed the only thing that had concerned him: that they’d be so annoyed by his determination and skills that they might try to sink him just out of hostility. He realized he should have known better. That was simply not how Rangers operated, and he would be sure to remember that—

  “But I’m not advancing you this year.”

  Kitai felt as if the world had suddenly slipped out from underneath him, leaving him in an endless headlong free fall. The words hit him again one at a time like stones, the two heaviest and most painful of which were not and advancing.

  How was it possible? He almost asked Velan to repeat himself—almost. But somehow he stopped short of that.

  He was so stunned that he did not even see the compassion in Velan’s face. There was no room in Kitai’s world for compassion. All he cared about was accomplishing his goals, and here Velan was calmly smashing them to pieces.

  Everything else that he wanted to do in his life, up to and most important making his father happy, hinged on his becoming a Ranger. And here Velan was sitting there calm as you please after telling him what a fine Ranger he would make and informing him that he wasn’t putting him through? It was insane. It made no sense at all!

  “You take unnecessary risks,” Velan continued. Whether he was aware of the pounding shock and rage going through Kitai’s head was unknown to Kitai. In fact, it wouldn’t have mattered even if he had known. Velan had a point of view, and he was going to make it clear. “You are emotionally unpredictable. You have improper threat assessment, and you confuse courage with recklessness, which at the end of the day is just a far more dangerous way of being scared. You may, of course, try again next year.”

  Try again next year?! Spend another year’s worth of his time taking the same courses, the same preliminary tests, so he could wind up failing again? This makes no sense! It’s ridiculous! How can—?

  Kitai’s inner turmoil was, of course, of no relevance to Velan. Having delivered the news that had just destroyed Kitai’s day and possibly his entire life, the commander simply said, “Dismissed.” With a casual sweep of his hand, he pushed the holographic file with Kitai’s information out of his view and swung the next one out so that he could inspect it. He wasn’t even bothering to look at Kitai anymore. He had pushed Kitai’s information and achievements and life casually aside and moved on to the next cadet.

  Velan looked up and blinked in mild surprise when he saw that Kitai was still standing right where he’d been, not having moved a muscle. There was no anger in Velan’s face. He simply appeared mildly confused that Kitai was still standing there.

  Fighting the urge to hyperventilat
e and only partly succeeding, Kitai nearly shouted as he said, “Sir! Permission to address the commander, sir!”

  “Denied.” There was nothing condemning or judgmental in his response. He was simply a man with a lot to do, and he saw no reason to waste time in a pointless discussion with a wannabe Ranger.

  It was as if Kitai didn’t even hear him. As if Velan hadn’t denied him the chance to speak because who in his right mind would do so? He proceeded to continue talking in the exact same volume as he had before.

  “Sir, I am dedicated, have studied and consistently displayed conduct becoming of a Ranger, sir! I request that the commander reconsider his assessment, sir!”

  Velan stared at him with utter incredulity. Disobeying a direct order, which Kitai had just done by speaking to him, was grounds for pretty much anything Velan wanted to do in response, up to and including banishing him from the Ranger program forever. In one shot, Kitai was risking throwing away the entire future that he thought he was fighting for.

  Then Velan’s face softened just a bit. “I understand what it’s like to see someone die. I know what that does to you.”

  Kitai stiffened. It was the equivalent of Velan smacking him across the face with a two-by-four. It stopped him cold, and Velan was able to continue uninterrupted.

  “I’ve been your father’s friend for a long time, Raige. Your friend as well, although you may not know it. I know what the loss of your sister was like for him and you and your mother. And I know that you expressed no interest in being a Ranger until after her death. You’re trying to … no. Forget it.” He paused. “I’m not going to tell you what you think because you already know that. What I am telling you is this: You’re rushing your way into a situation that you are not, in my opinion, emotionally ready for. If I endorsed your moving ahead, it would be catastrophic, and your parents would have to face the rest of their lives with no children at all. I will not do that to them, and I certainly won’t do it to you. Do you understand?”

  Kitai did everything he could to hold back the tears. He steadied himself, fighting to bring himself under control. When he spoke again, he had to fight to get out every single sentence. His words were of no relevance to the decision made as to whether he should be a Ranger. He knew that for certain. Yet they were the only words he had left and, in addition, the only ones that really mattered to him.