Part 34 (1/2)
The RIP transports on Fandor IV were huge oblate spheroids, flattened and wider in the middle than at the ends. Trelayne and almost one hundred other Rippers occupied the jump seats that lined the perimeter of the main bay, facing in, officers near the c.o.c.kpit. Before them, maybe a hundred Fandor natives huddled on the metal floor, eyes downcast but constantly darting around the hold and over their captors. The adults were about five feet tall and humanoid, but their soft red facial hair, pointed snouts and ears gave them a feral look. The children reminded Trelayne of a stuffed toy he had as a child.
Fresh from RIP boot camp, this was to be his first action. These Fandorae came from a village located over rich mineral deposits soon to be an Ent.i.ty mining operation. They were to be ”relocated” to an island off the west coast. He added the quotes in response to a growing suspicion, fed by overheard jokes shared by RIP veterans. He also recalled arriving on Fandor, scanning the ocean on the approach to the RIP base on the west sh.o.r.e.
There were no islands off the coast.
The other Rippers s.h.i.+fted and fidgeted, waiting for their first hit of the day. The life support system of their field suits released Scream directly into their blood, once each suit's computer received the transmitted command from the RIP Force unit leader. If you wanted your Scream, you suited up and followed orders. And G.o.d, you wanted your Scream.
His unit had been on Scream since the end of boot camp. Trelayne knew he was addicted. He knew that RIP wanted him and all his unit addicted. He just didn't know why. He had also noticed that no one in his unit had family. No one would miss any of them. Another reason to follow orders.
Twenty minutes out from the coast, a major unbuckled his boost harness and nodded to a captain to his right. Every Ripper watched as the captain hit a b.u.t.ton on his wrist pad.
The Scream came like the remembered sting of an old wound, a friend that you hadn't seen in years and once reunited, you wondered why you had missed them.
The captain's voice barked in their headsets, ordering them out of their harnesses. Trelayne rose as one with the other Rippers, StAB rod charged and ready, the Scream in him twisting his growing horror into the antic.i.p.ation of ecstasy. The Fandorae huddled closer together in the middle of the bay.
The captain punched another b.u.t.ton. Trelayne felt the deck thrumming through his boots as the center bay doors split open. The Fandorae leapt up, grabbing their young and skittering back from the widening hole, only to face an advancing wall of Rippers with lowered StAB rods.
Some of the Fandorae chose to leap. Some were pushed by their own people in the panic. Others fell on the StAB rods or died huddled over their young.
Trelayne pulled a kit, no more than a year, from under a dead female. He held the child in his arms, waiting his turn as the Rippers in front of him lifted or pushed the remaining bodies through the bay doors. When he reached the edge, Trelayne lifted the kit from his shoulder and held it over the opening. It did not squirm, or cry, only stared a mute accusation. Trelayne let go, then knelt to peer over the edge.
A salt wind stung sharp and cold where it crept under his helmet. He watched the kit fall to hit the rough gray sea a hundred feet below. Most of the bodies had already slipped beneath the waves. The kit disappeared to join them.
A nausea that even Scream could not deflect seized Trelayne. Pus.h.i.+ng back from the edge, he wrenched his visor up to gasp in air. A Ripper beside him turned to him, and for a brief moment Trelayne caught his own reflection in the man's mirrored visor. The image burned into his memory as be fought to reconcile the horror engulfing him with the grinning mask of his own face...
Dreaming still... falling still... falling in love...
Trelayne made captain in a year, as high as Screamers could rise in RIP. He took no pride in it. When the Scream ran low in him, his guilt rose black and bottomless. But his addiction was now complete. Withdrawal for a Screamer meant weeks of agony, without the filter of Scream, then death. The Ent.i.ty was his only source. He did what he was told.
Rippers burnt out fast on project worlds, so the Ent.i.ty rotated them off relo work every six months for a four-week tour on a ”processed” world. Trelayne's first tour after making captain was on Lania, the Angel home planet, arranging transport of Angel breeding pairs from Lamia to project worlds with RIP Force units. The Ent.i.ty had found that, with Angels on-planet, concerns over Scream delivery could be put aside for that world.
s.e.x with an Angel, said RIP veterans, was the ultimate high. But upon arrival, Trelayne had found them too alien, too thin and wraith-like. He decided that their reputation was due more to ingesting uncut Scream during s.e.x than to their ethereal beauty.
Then he saw her.
She was one of a hundred Angels being herded into a cargo shuttle that would dock with an orbiting jump s.h.i.+p. Angels staggered by Trelayne, their eyes downcast. He had started to turn away when he saw her: striding with head held high, glaring at the guards. She turned as she pa.s.sed him. Their eyes locked.
He ordered her removed from the s.h.i.+pment. That is how he met her. As her captor. Then her liberator. Then her lover.
The Earth name she had taken was Philomela. Her Angel name could not be produced by a human throat. She brought him joy and pain. He was never sure what he brought her. She gave herself willingly, and her pleasure in their lovemaking seemed so sincere that he sometimes let himself believe-believe that she clung to him in those moments, not to a desperate hope for freedom. That she did not hate him for what RIP had done to her people.
That she loved him.
But Scream strangled such moments. Though not on combat doses, he still needed it for physical dependency. On low doses, depression clouded life in a gray mist. Could she love him when he doubted his own love for her? Why was he drawn to her? s.e.x? His private source of Scream? To wash his hands clean by saving one of his victims? And always between them loomed an impa.s.sable chasm: they were separate species who could never be truly mated.
The news reached him one rare afternoon as they lay together in his quarters. His PerComm unit, hanging on the wall above them, began to buzz like an angry insect He pulled it down and read the message from the Cutter, the medic in his unit.
She watched him as he read. ”Jase, is something wrong?”
He had come to expect her empathy. Whether she could now read his human expressions or sense his mood, he didn't know. He threw the unit away as if it had stung him and covered his face with a hand. ”Mojo. One of my men, a friend. He's Fallen.”
”Is he-”
”He's alive. No serious injuries.” As if that mattered.
”Do you think he tried to take his life?”
”No,” he said, though the drug in him screamed yes.
”Many do-”
”No! Not Mojo.” But he knew she was right. Suicide was common with Screamers, and ”Joining the Fallen” was a favored method-a dive that you never came out of. The Ent.i.ty punished any survivors brutally. Screamers were easily replaced, but one LASh jet could cut the return on a project world by a full point.
”Now comes the judging your people do?” she asked.
”Court martial. Two weeks.” If they found Mojo guilty they would discharge him. No source of Scream. Better to have died in the crash, he thought. He got out of bed and began dressing. ”I have to leave Lania, return to my base. Try to help him.”
”They will judge against him. You will not change that.”
”I know. But I have to try. He has no one else.”
She turned away. ”We have few moments together.”
She was shaking, and he realized that she was crying. He misunderstood. ”I'll be back soon. It'll be better then.”
She shook her head and looked up at him. ”I mean that we have few moments left. It is my time.”
He stood there staring down at her. ”What do you mean?”
”I must produce a brood.” She turned away again.
”You mean you will take a mate. One of your own kind.”
”His name is Procne,” she said, still not looking at him.
He didn't know what to do or say, so he kept dressing.
She turned to him. ”I love you,” she said quietly.
He stopped. She waited. He said nothing. She lay down, sobbing. He swallowed and formed the thought in his mind, opened his mouth to tell her that he loved her too, when she spoke again.
”What will become of me?” she asked.