Plaguelands (Slayers Book 1) (30 page)

“I was really surprised to see you leading this,” the Reverend sneered at me. “But I guess with all the robots dead, they needed someone to do their dirty work.”

I walked over to him and decided to wipe the smile off his face. My first punch landed across his nose, swinging his head violently to the left. My next one landed on his chin and whipped his head back to the right. His eyes went wide with fear as I pulled back for another, but then he started smirking again.

“Where’s Persephone?” I asked.

“How should I know?” he said nonchalantly.

“Because you do,” I replied. “I know you do.”

“And why should I tell you anything?” he snarled.

“Because if you do, you’ll be blessed with a life in prison or a quick return to your space-god. If you don’t, this is going to take a very long time.”

“You don’t frighten me,
child,
” he snapped. “You seem to forget that only a few months ago I had
you
in a cage.”

“And how quickly the tables have turned,” I retorted.

“How quickly they could change again,” he said slyly.

I held up a pen and a pad of paper that I’d gotten from the Californians, then slid those across the table toward him.

“You’re a man who likes to talk,” I said coldly. “So tell me everything, in as much detail as possible. As long as you’re writing, you’ll stay alive.”

He looked at me, then at the two giant metal robots staring at him from either side of the room.

“I guess all our sins catch up to us someday,” he laughed. “Don’t forget yours.”

Disgusted to be in his presence, I left the room, as he started scribbling.

The damaged Cascadian enhanced forms from Highway Bridge and Green River were evacuated by dropship to the Yellowstone Preserve, where the research center had been temporarily converted into a makeshift repair facility. Each robot body had been individually built to mimic the original dimensions and movements of the organic user who had been transplanted into the body, so the repairs weren’t as simple as attaching a new arm where one had been torn off. The nerve cells had to be replicated, a new custom arm built, and then surgical attachment of the nerves and fluid tubes. It was much more complex than healing a human, especially considering the way the Kergueleni healed with their “goo.”

Rebekah rejoined me and we went with Captain Holland and a few other Cascadian officers to Yellowstone to visit the wounded. I use the words “wounded” and “damaged” interchangeably, because while they are technically damaged robots, they’re still also wounded humans. While we were in one of the warehouses that served as a makeshift hospital ward, I heard a commotion behind me. I turned around to see Marshal Burnham standing there, shaking the hand of a damaged man whose synthetic skin had been chewed away from his face.

“Marshal!”

I walked briskly over to him and saluted, which he returned.

“Commander Faustus,” he said, “you’ve done very well. President Cohen sends his regards…and this.”

He withdrew a shiny, platinum seven-pointed star, suspended from a ribbon of the light blue, white, and forest green colors of the flag.

“This is the Cascadian Order of Valor,” he said proudly, “our nation’s highest award. For your defense of the Republic, for your forging of new alliances, and for your bravery in combat, you have been given an award that’s been received by only four other souls since the founding of the Cascadian Republic.”

I touched the silky ribbon, and then he pinned it on the left breast of my blue Fleet uniform. I noticed now how strange it looked to have the uniform and insignia of a Republic Commander with no other service ribbons than the highest honor the country could bestow. I was about to thank him, but he continued speaking.

“I also bring you an accepted treaty, drafted and ratified by nearly a full count of the Senate of the Cascadia Republic, to make a lasting peace with the California Republic on the terms they proposed. I further bring instruction from that same lawmaking body, with the insistence of the President of the Republic, that you are to enter into negotiations for a lasting alliance with the Dominion of Kerguelen and the people of the…ahem…Free Lands. So be it resolved.”

I was speechless. I stared at the medal on my chest. I stared at the marshal. At Rebekah.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“And finally,” he said, “I have a message recorded here from President Cohen in Tharsis City.”

The marshal withdrew his digibook and played the video for me.

“Pax Faustus, son of the great Herodotus Faustus and the admirable Juno Faustus, I thank you for your great service to the Republic in its most desperate hour since our nation was born under fire over four hundred years ago. I wish to relay that the government of the Cascadia Republic grants you a clemency from the crimes under which you were previously under investigation, and you have completely fulfilled your obligations under your agreement with the late President Sandstrom. You are once again eligible to undergo your transformation, once you are free of your current duties as commander.

Your courage and your leadership has shown most of us in the government that you don’t need an enhanced body to be a great person or a person of importance, and that in some ways, the enhanced form is a hindrance to the very things that make us human. Such that we are a human race with very little humanity left, we are also the titular Cascadia Republic, but with a strongly diminished presence in that Cascadia region due to the atrocities and horrors committed upon us in the last few weeks. The world has changed, seemingly overnight. Foreign relations must now be had. Borders must be drawn. Treaties must be enforced and trade must prosper once more. The great cities and communities of the Republic must be repopulated by a new migration
to
Earth for the first time in the history of the planet. It’s a time of great change for the Republic, for the Earth, and indeed for the human race.

I ask for your support in one more role to benefit the future of the Cascadia Republic: to serve as our ambassador to a new Terran League, a global body which we would like to see established to further the cause of international relations on Earth. We propose building an international, demilitarized, and cosmopolitan city where the Rogue River meets the Pacific Ocean, on the newly established border between the Cascadian and Californian Republics, and with port access for the Kergueleni ships. I also charge you to strike out across the planet with our new allies, finding societies who would like to join this Terran League and rejoin the collective human race. We’ll be installing a series of ultra-low-frequency emitters to ensure that we push the zombies back across the continent in the other direction, and we can begin reclaiming the planet for humanity and the Cascadia Republic.

I thank you again for your continued service.”

The marshal put down the digibook and spoke again.

“This isn’t a robot planet anymore. It’s a human planet, again. We only have a few thousand humans—Outcasts and rejects, mostly—scattered across Cascadian lands. Only a few dozen enhanced forms. With the zombie threat still out there, and other Earthly nations more powerful than our presence, it’s going to take diplomacy and a…‘human touch’ to create an alliance to safeguard the future.”

“The repopulation of Earth will begin immediately,” he continued. “A new Senator will be elected from among your formal population and a non-voting Observer to the Senate will be elected from the Outlands. Of course, you’ll keep your rank as commander as long as you hold your office as Ambassador to this proposed Terran League.”

I was stunned.

“Sir, there are people who wait their whole lives—long, long lives—for a position like this. I’m just a kid.”

“No, Pax,” Burnham said, smiling that waxy robotic smile. “You’re a man, and you’ve already led an alliance to victory. Anything less would be an insult.”

Rebekah was smiling and quietly clapping her hands.

“I am honored by your offer, sir,” I said proudly, “and I humbly accept.”

“In the interim,” Burnham said, “we’ll be assigning a new chief administrator to help oversee the repopulation efforts. He or she will formally report to the Senate Colonization Committee, but he’ll be subordinate to you on all matters of foreign affairs.”

“I’ll admit, I’m unclear what a chief administrator is,” I said. “We’ve never had one before.”

“Oh, we have them on all colony planets,” Marshal Burnham laughed.

“Earth is just a colony now?” Rebekah asked.

“It seems silly, I know,” he replied. “But we’re instating a quarantine of the planet that may last some time. No biologics may leave until otherwise notified. We can only hope to protect the rest of our society from Persephone’s virus and C-virus by keeping them contained on Earth. It doesn’t make sense to have your capitol on a quarantined world.”

I was insulted at first. Angry, actually. We were becoming prisoners on our own planet, and relegated from being the center of the human universe to being “just a colony.” But then I realized that ever since the bulk of human population had moved beyond the elevator, we had basically been “just a colony” of a galactic people with some nostalgic reason to call Earth home. Now, with the decimation of the enhanced-form population on the planet, there was only pain in calling it the capitol of anything.

“The permanent and perpetual Capitol of the Republic will be moved to the planet of Theron, actually, outside of this solar system. We’ll keep running things from Mars for a while, but Theron has a much larger population and is essentially the industrial and economic hub of the known universe. I hope to see you there someday, Pax Faustus.”

He saluted me one more time.

“You’ll receive further instructions and be given whatever resources you need to maintain the glory of the Republic. The only thing we’re taking from you is the title of capital, and we’re returning to you the name of the city of New Vancouver. I’ll be at FleetCom on Luna if you need anything from me.”

With that, he turned and departed, shaking the hands of a few more wounded soldiers on his way out.

Shaking their hands
, I noted.

I still had mixed feelings about this recent turn of events, but I’ll admit, I’d rather be here with Rebekah and the ghosts of my friends and family, than crated up and unwrapped on some far away alien world like Theron or Alternis. I still had to think about undergoing the surgery and transforming, what that would mean to Rebekah and me. Though I’d been too busy to deal with it, I still had to contend with the painful loss of most of my friends and family.

Suddenly a rush of emotions washed over me and I just felt tired…very, very tired. There was only ever one thing I liked to do when I felt so overwhelmed.

“So what are you going to do first, Mister Ambassador?” Rebekah said, kissing me and then nuzzling my ear.

“I really want to go fishing,” I smiled.