Home.
Letho remembered gazing through portholes at the multitude of stars, like grains of salt scattered across black velvet, wondering if one of the coruscating crystals that hovered in the black might be Eursus. And now he was about to see it for the first time. What would the air taste like? He thought of plunging his hand into black soil and crumbling it between his fingers, breathing in the sweetness of the loam.
“We should start with the underneath,” Bayorn was saying. “Perhaps our brothers left something behind for us.”
“That sounds like fun,” Thresha said, appearing as if she had manifested from the very shadows. Can I come?”
Letho marveled at her cockiness and the fearless way she goaded the Tarsi. It was brash, and the cumulative effect of this behavior would no doubt make his life more difficult, but he still found it strangely attractive.
“Surely you don’t intend to bring the Mendraga to our home,” Maka said.
“I have a name, you know,” Thresha said, glaring. She was truly unafraid, Letho noticed. There was no way she could survive an attack by both Maka and Bayorn, but she did not back down. Letho wondered for a moment if he was underestimating her abilities. An image of Crimson Jim’s demise flashed through his mind; he saw her straddling him, rending the flesh from his shoulders, plucking his head like an overripe grape from a vine.
“No,” Bayorn answered. “She will stay here,with me. You and Letho will go to the underneath and retrieve what we need.”
“I will not leave my Elder with a Mendraga. What if she deceives you with her trickery and takes our ship?” Maka asked.
Trickery? Letho thought. What does Maka think she is, a witch?
“I am flattered that you think I am capable of either of those feats,” Thresha said coldly, “but I don’t even know how to fly the damn ship. I need Flyboy there just as much as you do. And it just so happens that I left my bag of magic deception dust in my other suit, so sorry, no Mendraga trickery, as you put it.
“Look, I know none of you trust me, but frankly I don’t think it really matters at this point. Hero Boy over there,” she said, nodding theatrically in Letho’s direction, “put us all in this unfortunate situation, and I don’t like it any more than you do. I think we can all agree that our goals are aligned until we get on the ground, at which point we can go our separate ways. So let’s just drop all the glaring and second-guessing and trying to stay one step ahead of each other, shall we?”
Silence, thick enough that Letho could taste it, filled the room. Letho realized he had been staring again. Thresha was glaring at him, unflinching. His gaze flicked away and focused on a filing cabinet that had suddenly become very interesting.
“The Mendraga, Thresha, makes a very good point,” Bayorn said
“Very well, I will trust your word, Mendraga,” Maka said through a grin. His eyes, however, were distant, cold, like mercenary’s eyes.
“Hey, are you guys finished?” Deacon interrupted. “If I don’t get some food in my stomach soon, I am going to murder and eat you all myself.”
****
Maka led Letho down access tunnels that he had been completely unaware of during his time as a Fulcrum citizen. They were hidden in plain sight, and so painfully obvious when Maka accessed them. Touch pads opened doors that had appeared to be ordinary wall panels. Service tunnels that ran under and over walkways Letho had used on a daily basis. How had he not seen them? How blind had he been? Self-absorbed and completely unaware of his surroundings, drunk on the narcotics that the machine had been feeding him. Falling in line, rolling in lockstep, teeth meshing with the other cogs that kept the machine running. Get up, go to work, do your job. Do not seek meaning. Collect paycheck. Go home. Do it again.
The familiar smells of the underneath filled Letho’s nose, memories drifting to him on vapor trails that sparked deep nostalgia. He had both loved and hated his time in this dark place. A place of labor and struggle. But also of life and Kinsha. He thought of Fintran, and wondered if the old one was somewhere in the sky, watching him from afar—but then he remembered that he was inside a space station, above what land dwellers would call the sky, well beyond the encapsulation of that atmosphere, surrounded only by a black vacuum sea and scattered stars.
Still, even though the old one had been gone for quite some time, Letho could feel his presence.
Letho had known that he wouldn’t find any Tarsi down here. Abraxas and Alastor would have needed the Tarsi’s strong backs and servile nature to achieve whatever plans they had concocted down there on the planet’s surface. There was no familiar Tarsi musk, the smell that usually permeated any place they made their home. It had been Letho’s first glimmer of hope when he had found himself at the bottom of a maintenance shaft so long ago, and now it was gone. Replaced by something else. Something earthy but corrupt. The smell of death.
“Long time, eh, Letho?” Maka said, nudging Letho with an elbow and almost knocking from him from his feet.
“Yep, just like old times, right?”
But they both knew it wasn’t like old times. Something was very, very wrong.
They came across the first Tarsi carcass just outside the entrance to the dormitories. Merely a poor collection of bone and hide scraps, the body was contorted as though its former passenger had died in anguish. Tarsi blood—once gold, but now reduced to a dim rust color—spattered the wall above the fallen body. There were telltale bullet holes in the wall there, and in other places too, Letho noticed, as he looked around.
“This is Alastor’s work,” Maka said in a low, conspiratorial voice, though Letho wasn’t sure exactly why they needed to conspire, or whisper for that matter.
“How do you know? Anyone could have fired these shots.”
Maka wrinkled his nose. “Can’t you smell it? Even among the smell of my fallen brethren rotting in this tomb? Mendraga!” He ran a hand across the scars on his face and then slammed his fist into the wall. His mouth quavered as he fought to hold back his tears.
Letho looked away, giving him a moment; he made a point of scanning his surroundings so as to allow Maka some dignity. There were at least two more Tarsi in the hallway just outside the dormitories, though the collected pile of remains was relatively small. As were the bones themselves. Young ones…
“Do you think there are still any more here?” Letho asked.
“There are no living Tarsi here, save for the ones that we brought with us.”
“No, not Tarsi. I mean Mendraga.”
“If there were, I think they would have tried to kill us by now. Don’t you? Let’s go.”
They made their way into the domiciles, past the room where Letho had once bunked, and found themselves in the mess hall. The place had seen better days. Tables and chairs were overturned or smashed, and traces of rusty dried blood indicated that the fighting had spread here. They found a few slain Mendraga, some of them missing their heads and limbs. One was splayed across a table, his mummified face forever frozen in a gape of surprise. His throat had been torn out and now hung in parchment-like tatters.
“They don’t claim their dead and offer them a proper burial. Savages,” Maka muttered.
“At least our brothers took a few down with them,” Letho offered.
Maka did not reply. He still seemed on the verge of tears, but would not allow himself to cry. Letho did not understand why the Tarsi was holding in his emotions. Letho had certainly shed his share of tears over the past few days, and Maka surely knew that Letho wouldn’t pass judgment in that regard.