Black converges on gray. “Sir, have we—”
“No.” The interruption more forceful than need be. The doctor immediately shifted back into formal posture, dropped eyes back underneath the veil of black.
“Sir, I’m—”
“Let’s get started. We break orbit in three days. Mustn’t waste time.”
“Sir.”
They were magnificent creatures, the inhabitants of Planet Four: intelligent flora that sailed through the mist canyons on waves of chlorostatic, sometimes miles in length. Berlin could only watch in awe from the observation platform as a pod of carnivores swarmed and eradicated a rival and weaker group.
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”
Berlin frowned at the amicable tone of her rhetorical inquiry. She’d been off-one for far too long. The informality of the outer planets had begun to replace her training. He couldn’t really blame her; the striking sunlight, the fresh air, the distance from the tentacles of bureaucracy and hypocrisy…He would forgive her for now.
“They’re…impressive.”
She smiled, a total breach of decorum. Tanned hands grasped the railing, leaned farther over than she probably should have.
“We’re fortunate to have this place. They’re fortunate to have a world that hasn’t been used up.”
“We’ll see.”
The smile dropped almost immediately from the doctor’s face. “Is that why you’re here?”
Berlin cleared his throat. “Doctor—?”
“Kath. Botanist.”
“Kath. Botanist. They have the ability, correct?”
“A very limited form of the ability.”
“But you’ve been researching them for years now. Can it be recreated?”
A particularly large specimen of the lumbers flew fast enough underneath the platform to rock it gently. It left behind the disconcerting scent of pine pitch.
“We’d have to capture some of them.”
“We have the means.”
She frowned, shook her head. “Sir, this is a sanctuary planet. Even posting observers here breaks all of the preservation protocols.”
“We need this technology.”
“Understood, sir.”
“They’re just plants, Kath.”
She looked as if she’d been slapped. “They have a civilization.”
Berlin had been waiting. “Show me.”
The humble botanist withdrew once again, focused on the handrail.
“That’s an order.”
“And this heart, for you.”
Berlin opened his eyes at the whisper, spinning around to find only a near bowed in submission. His chest pounded. An inhalation not unlike a sob escaped before he could gain his bearings. The near ignored it.
“What is it?”
The almost-living warrior snapped to attention. “Hover position above Seven, sir.”
Berlin motioned and the wall became a window into the world below. Audio was inactive, but he imagined the scouring metal dust would make a sound not unlike a hailstorm…Or sand. Or the brush of evergreen limbs on the underside of an observation skiff.
“Ready a landing party. Dismissed.”
The near bowed and walked out. Berlin turned back to the viewer.
What are you doing here?
He had to be sure, had to see for himself. Had to see the extent of this act, had to know in his hearts that this fury was appropriate. He had to prove to himself that what he would do to Maire would be a just punishment.
“Kath. Botanist.”
He didn’t turn this time, didn’t flinch at the whisper.
The rough hand of a soldier grasped in the tiny hand of a doctor, guided to the wool scarf around her neck. Unwrapped slowly, breathing ragged, loop after loop of material exposing the white of her neck. Lips explored, clasps unclasped. Moonlight pupils displaced the gray of iris, lashes tickled his cheek. So cold. So cold in that night.
She drew his hand to her chest, bare skin goose-fleshed under moonlight, palm dragged over nipples erect to that place and that moment. She drew his hand to her chest and placed it over her left breast.
“This heart for my spirit.”
He let her guide him. Up, collarbone, supra-sternal notch, collarbone, down. She held his hand above her right heart.
“And this heart, for you.”
Collision of storm fronts. They had planned it then, the escape from the suffocation of bureaucracy, the flight from One that would eventually draw the likes of the terrorist Maire. Under that moons-lit sky, breathing the air of the ancient lumbers…It had been a perfect world.
Berlin walked away from the viewer. Time to go home.
“Are you watching this?”
Task turned from his targeting monitor. “Nothing else to watch down there.”
“If he becomes contaminated—”
“Nothing. If he becomes contaminated, they’ll leave him on the surface. The shit works too fast to save them from it, anyways. He’d never make it back to the command vessel.”
“Aren’t they concerned about the nears, though? They could catch a hybrid of the silver and spread it to the next planet they pacify.”
“Something tells me these nears are on a one-way mission. They’ll never make it off this planet again. Cheaper to burn them on the spot.”
Elle almost-frowned. It was as much of a look of concern as the Co-Pilot could create on a plastic face.
“No worries, Elly baby. We’re not going downstairs on this trip.”
“Do you think it’ll matter? We’ve been in this atmosphere for—”
“I’ll take care of us. Don’t worry about it.”
They flew.
Echoes of the music of their bond ceremony. Laughter from family and friends. The softness of the small of her back, muscles under softest flesh as he pulled her closer.
The skyline was intact. Mostly.
Berlin’s lander slammed to the ground. He swayed from within his jar. The nears remained upright, remained still. They sparkled to life as hangar doors opened and the interior of the bay was flooded with the maybe-contaminated atmosphere of City Seven.
“Readings are negative on silver, Commandant.”
Berlin walked down the platform, nears fanning out before him, weapons drawn, scanning the dead landscape for movement, heat sources, anything. Stillness, cold, nothing.
Berlin’s jar slurped as he walked forward, dragging the phased glass filter that enveloped his form lazily around him. Particles of metal dust from the breeze stippled the surface, sending wave patterns outward, bouncing from one another, fronts on the weather map of his protective suit. The same metal breeze began to scour the flesh from the nears outside of the lander. They were expendable. Berlin was not.
“Are you receiving, sir?”
“Yes.” The glass distorted his voice into tin and refraction. It echoed back from a universe of liquid prisms.
“Readings are negative, but we’ll pull you out at the first sign of any—”
Berlin cut the link. Enough talking. The nears would not bother him with conversation.
The wind whispered. The wind whispered. Constant hiss, the lamentations of a dead populace just beyond the edge of the senses. He made out a word every now and then, the most unlikely messages from the dead: phallus and gringo and burlap and synecdoche and shingles. God crochets a warship and I don’t ever want to see you again. And. You pretend to be intense. And. Philtrum. Nancy. Berlin closed his eyes and it was gone. It was never there. It was
The days had been longer when this had been his home.
There had been seasons; winter had only been one of them. A little park where the lander now towered over leaf-less forest. The legs and ramp had splintered the old souls in resting. There had been a park; now there was a slab of black metallish and a detachment of non-humans and a man drowning in protective glass.