Infinite Day (84 page)

Delastro threw open his hands as if to say,
See?
“It would be very easy. He'd just open the hatch and let the vacuum take you. Accidents happen in space. Don't they, Zak?”

“Yes, sir,” came the automatic answer.

The faintest remains of a smile appeared on the pale lips. “D'Avanos, if I felt it was worth it, I'd have you and Enand killed. But I am a man of economy. I only really deal in death when it's absolutely necessary.”

Merral held his tongue, and the prebendant continued.

“But I was struck by your report of how you marooned the
Sacrifice
's crew members on that target practice world. So I've had a similar idea. We are going to take a slightly longer route home and drop you and your friend off on a world in the final stages of seeding, just awaiting its first human colony; you two are going to be it. I'll leave you with a lifepod and emergency supplies and drop you somewhere near the equator. You'll be all right. At least for a while.”

Delastro brandished a tight, almost leering smile that Merral felt made him look like death incarnate. “But of course, not for long. The Dominion—and the Krallen—will not be far behind. Maybe under the control of Lezaroth. I think he's going to be looking very hard for you, and a man like that will find you in the end.” He gave another smile that had all the warmth of a winter's day. “I like being merciful; I feel it is appropriate. So what do you say? Do you object to being a castaway? Or would you choose death instead?”

“I'd choose to be a castaway with Vero.”

The prebendant glared at him. “Then so be it. I don't wish to see you again. Colonel, have the guards return him to his cell.”

Back in his cell and aware of the growing vibration of the ship's hull as they started to move, Merral reflected on his encounter with Delastro. Something in it had challenged him. He rose to his feet and began pacing the floor.

That man is evil; of that I have no doubt
. Yet there was a logical implication in that idea.
If there is evil, surely there has to be good as well? The world cannot be the moral equivalent of Below-Space, all an interminable gray. There is evil, and that surely requires the presence of good
.

Merral felt he had established something. Almost as if in the bottomless pit he was sinking into his foot had found a solid rock.

Over the next few hours he built upon that logic.
Not only are there evil and good, but I do not want the evil to triumph. I cannot be neutral, and I do not wish to be neutral; I choose good
.

A strange period no longer than an hour elapsed, where the ship seemed to do strange, stomach-churning things, and Merral surmised that they were passing through a Gate.

After this, he sat down on the floor and began to argue things out further. Not only were there a good and an evil to choose between, but there was a seductiveness to evil. Somehow this man—with a fine brain, much learning, and considerable talent—had allowed himself to be corrupted.

Merral felt oddly scared.
I have seen the lord-emperor, but his is an unknown and inexplicable evil to me because I do not know his history. Delastro is different; I know more or less how he became what he is.
He shivered.
I could have gone down that road. Maybe I still could.

“God, help me not to become like that,” he said under his breath and was suddenly aware that in that little phrase he had uttered his first prayer in days.

There were two more Gate transits and untold hours between them before they took Merral from his cell and threw him into a two-seat, egg-shaped lifepod vessel with Vero.

“Are you okay, my friend?” Concern showed on the dark face.

“Yes,” Merral said as he strapped himself in. “I'm better. On the road to recovery.”

“No thanks to Delastro.”

“On the contrary, he's helped me see things clearly.”

27

T
he last person Merral and Vero saw on the ship was Zak, who sealed the door, gave a shrug of his shoulders that seemed to emphasize his powerlessness, and then stepped away. A succession of events followed: a series of small bangs, some jolts, a number of sharp turns, and then the sensation of falling.

“Vero,” Merral said quietly, “I have just realized something.”

“Which is?” His voice sounded strange.

“I have a burning ambition to see Delastro get justice.”

More sharp turns followed.

“That's . . .
great
,” said Vero without enthusiasm. In a moment, a retching sound told Merral that his friend was being sick.

As the tiny craft continued its headlong descent, Merral strained his head, trying to peer out the window in the hope that he might get some clues to their destination's geography. The visibility out of the very small portholes was limited, but the dominance of greens and blues suggested it was going to be a lot more hospitable than the target practice world of Nithloss, to which he had consigned Slabodal and his crewmates.
I'm sure if he knew this was my fate too, he'd laugh.

Then, all too abruptly, they were spiraling in through dense cloud. The loud, vibrating boom of rockets was followed by a sharp, stomach-punching deceleration that pushed him back against the seat. Merral held his breath, and then, finally, after two manic jolts the journey was over.

Slowly, he found the switch that opened the hatches, and warm, fresh air drifted in. He tumbled out, avoiding contact with the still-warm hull, and blinked.

Above was a pure blue sky in which a dazzling sun shone. Below was an almost bare ridge of gray, rough rock. And in between, all around, and stretching to infinity, was a limitless expanse of green forest.

“Lovely,” Merral said.

Vero staggered out and gazed around. “Trees!” he muttered without enthusiasm, then was promptly sick again.

Letting Vero recover from his travel sickness, Merral paced around, taking in impressions of the world.

The air was fresh and clear and the scent of the pines was strong. There were sounds of birds, a buzzard calling, and that indefinable, faint murmur of trees basking and swaying gently in the sun. The ridge they were on rose unevenly to a massif of snowcapped teeth, their unweathered, razor-edged outlines reminders that this was a world that had only just acquired wind and rain and oxygen. Above the mountains, clouds were gathering.

Merral checked the limited instrumentation on the lifepod and then found a shaky-looking Vero.

“Ready to talk?”

His friend stood up cautiously and nodded. “What do we know?”

“We are in the southern hemisphere. The compass says the sun's to the north.”

Vero squinted around. “Nice temperature now, but feels like it will be cold at night.”

“Yes. From the trees, I'd say we are in early autumn. The leaves are turning.”

Vero eyed the snowcapped stone daggers. “Winter's on its way. So where are we?”

“In the middle of a continent somewhere.”

There was a forced grin. “I don't suppose you might know something more fundamental, such as what planet we're on?”

“I have no idea within a hundred light-years. The stars may give us some clue. In my office I had a file of late-stage seeding worlds.”

“Not much use.”

“Yes. And we need to decide what to do. But first, let's see what they have left us in the lifepod.”

As they unpacked the tiny vessel, Merral saw the clouds build up over the mountains into great, towering ramparts of snowy whiteness. Soon they spread out so that they moved across the sun. While they were still sorting out the supplies, a wind began to play about them. In a few more minutes, a gale began flailing the branches, sheets of lightning flashed about, and deafening drumrolls of thunder echoed around. As the rain began to hiss down, they huddled under the blackened hull and discussed what to do. They were reluctant to stay with the lifepod, which had been designed to be found. Merral expressed his fear that Lezaroth—if he had been spared by Nezhuala—would be hunting for him. Vero agreed. Reluctantly, they decided to switch off the emergency transmitting equipment and then walk well away.

Within an hour, the storm had ended, and as the sun came out Merral made the decision. They would head down the slope westward in the hope that they would eventually meet the sea. The mountains were no place to stay with winter approaching, and the coast would be milder and more likely to have food. And if Lezaroth was pursuing them, the farther away from the lifepod, the better. Uncertain quite when night would fall, they decided to wait until the morning before moving and spent the next few hours salvaging anything of use from the lifepod. In the end they gathered two backpacks, a lightweight tent, sleeping bags, and some survival tools, including a tiny fieldscope, bush knives, and small coils of diamond-edged wire saws. To Vero's delight, he even found some dark glasses.

Merral examined the food supplies and estimated that, with rationing, they could carry enough to last two weeks, although he felt sure it could be augmented from the woods and streams. The lifepod was too heavy to slide under trees and so, in the end, they simply cut down some branches and partially disguised it.

As night fell, Merral and Vero ate a frugal supper and watched the sky. They saw just two satellites pass overhead and found high to the north a single Gate with its six status lights green.

They decided to take turns sleeping. Merral took the first watch and sat on a rock, huddled in a jacket, listening to the murmurs and calls in the woods and feeling the chill night wind whistle over the ridge. He watched the unfamiliar stars and around midnight looked up to see that the Gate lights were now red; it had been switched off.

Just the two of us on an entire planet. But the problem isn't the solitude; it's the fact that we will soon have company
.

As he sat there, he tried to pray. There was no answer. Yet despite that, Merral felt encouraged; to make even the attempt seemed progress.
The wound is healing, but there are still issues I need to resolve, and that may take time.

The next morning, Vero suggested, given that Krallen had an excellent sense of smell, that it would be wise to try to mislead them. To that end they donned their heavy backpacks and headed north up the ridge to a westward-draining gully where a spring gushed out water. There they left their loads and walked on farther up the stony ridge until they struck an east-facing ravine in which a stream began. Here, with deliberate clumsiness, they hacked their way down to the stream, leaving an obvious trail behind them. They then retraced their steps exactly and returned down the ridge to the first gully, where they picked up their bags.

Merral turned to Vero. “Well, somewhere over there is the sea. Let's see if we can find it. Are you ready?”

Vero adjusted his glasses and nodded. “My friend, we've been here before. Nine months ago. On the Lannar River at Herrandown.”

“That seems like another age of the world.”