The Burning Dark (32 page)

But the mountain was still and in the morning the air was cold, like the winter so recently passed had returned anew. Tsutomu was sent by his mother to the well, and there he had seen her for the first time. Except she hadn’t been a girl then, not on the first day. She was a … thing, something white, a light and a shape that slid along the ground and then stopped by the edge of the trees.

He had been surprised and wondered if perhaps he should have been afraid. Aokigahara wasn’t cursed, not really, but it was said there were caves lost within the trees, caves in which
things
lived, things that slept but which sometimes woke, and when they did, they fed on those foolish enough to venture beyond the pines, into the forest proper. He wondered if the shape was one of the cave-things, but it didn’t move from the edge of the forest and then it was gone, so perhaps he hadn’t seen anything at all.

On the second day he returned and so did the shape. This time it stood, and it had arms and legs but no face. It stood by the tree and even though it had no eyes, Tsutomu knew it was watching him. He watched it too, and then between the blink of an eye it was gone and he was alone with his task.

On the third day he returned and she was there, dressed in white, by the tree. Now it had become a girl, no older than he, with long black hair like his. But her eyes were different. They were blue, and in the shadow cast by the tree they shone like coals.

Tsutomu returned home with his water and felt afraid. His mother hit him when he didn’t do his chores properly, but he was distracted by his thoughts of the girl in the forest. And then his mother was distracted by the news that quickly spread through the village.

Hideo and Aki had gone. The two brothers had not returned from the woods. Not Aokigahara, never Aokigahara, of course. The other woods, the ones on the other side of the hill where the soil was rich and brown and where birds still sang. Hideo and Aki went to cut wood and never returned. That night a search party set out: seven men, with torches and axes and swords.

They were the next to go. When morning broke, the village was less nine souls.

But his mother still needed water and Tsutomu still made the journey, even though it took him near to the Sea of Trees and its strange black ground. Near to where they said the star had fallen over Fuji.

That night, Tsutomu told his mother about the girl, and she hit him over the head and told him not to talk of such things. But there was something in her voice and in her face that Tsutomu hadn’t seen before. Later, when the village was quiet, he lay awake, unable to get the image of the girl’s burning blue eyes from his mind, and he heard his mother talking to someone. It was Kanbe, one of the elders. He sat in silence as his mother spoke, and he left without a word. In the dark his mother wept and Tsutomu went to bed.

The next day the girl was there. Tsutomu set his empty pails down beside the well, and across the rocky ground the two watched each other.

Then she smiled, and there was suddenly someone with her. A young man, standing behind her in the shadow of the fir tree.

Aki.

Tsutomu recognized him at once, and he called out, but Aki moved back into the trees, into the shadows. The girl with blue eyes was smiling, and Tsutomu knew something was wrong. That day he ran back to the village without his pails of water.

And he returned, and soon, leading the men of the village to the edge of Aokigahara. Kanbe said Tsutomu was a good boy and had done well, and patted him on the shoulder as he drew his own sword and ordered his men to follow him into the Sea of Trees.

Tsutomu waited, and eventually the day drew in and the sun set behind Fuji, making it look in the cold clear sky as though the mountain were alight. And as the stars came out, there was a sound in the air, a roaring, like a waterfall, like the sound of the ocean far away, like the scream of a shisa. More stars fell that night. Tsutomu counted four, and then he screamed and turned as the girl stepped out of the forest, her blue eyes burning in the dark and behind her a group of men, more than two, more than seven, more than twenty. Aki and Hideo and the men of the search party and Kanbe’s warriors. But now they were clad in dark shadows spun from the night itself, and when they stepped from the trees they moved quickly, flashing in time with the blink of Tsutomu’s eyes.

Tsutomu ran back to the village, the demons of Aokigahara and those that had fallen from the heavens close on his heels.

PART FOUR

AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD

37

She was quiet after
that.

Gone were the black coveralls, the tight singlet. Instead she sat in the canteen, clad in a spare pair of blue and green marine overalls. They were the right size and she carried them off like the supermodel she might have been had her father been in a different business. Ida was perhaps surprised the most by the fact that she had covered up her bare arms—the right, which was elegant and beautiful and tanned, and the left, which was covered by the ever-changing tattoo.

That was just as well. He didn’t like the tattoo, the way it damn well knew what was going on around it, and the way it moved to suit the mood of its wearer and, perhaps, those around her.

But gone too were the big square mining goggles, and without them, Zia Hollywood’s face looked small. Here was her real face, naked, unhidden. And she looked unhappy. People tended to avoid her, though that wasn’t difficult, considering Ida had counted less than a hundred remaining crew members. On a U-Star the size of the
Coast City,
that figure gave a very low population density per square kilometer.

The station’s shuttle, the U-Star
Magenta,
had picked her up. Ida had wanted to travel on board the small patrol boat himself, but when he finally got the comms Flyeye on the bridge to tune in on the
Bloom County
’s distress call, echoing weakly over the lightspeed link, interference crawling over the signal only just strong enough to be picked up by the station, the
Magenta
was already out on its regular, routine patrol. Ida was happy at the response speed, but he knew that if he hadn’t been scanning the illegal subspace frequencies, Zia’s signal would never have been picked up.

King didn’t seem to care anymore. He dragged himself from the ready room, but he seemed tired, worn out, just the shell of the blustering bureaucrat he had been. It was understandable; everyone left on the
Coast City
was on edge, going through their routines, carrying out their duties on autopilot as the undercurrent of tension and fear steadily grew. They were stuck, isolated. There was nothing left to do but just survive until the final transport arrived.

As for Zia’s signal, King blamed it on Shadow, and perhaps he was right. The
Bloom County
sure as hell wasn’t equipped to transmit over subspace, so what Ida had picked up was a freak occurrence, a random reflection of Zia’s call. The light of Shadow, said King. Does strange things. Bounces a signal around to God knows where.

That Ida wasn’t going to argue with. He thought back to Ludmila and wondered if she had had any reality outside of his own head.

And now Zia Hollywood sat in the canteen. She sat still and in silence, although she ate standard protein rations. They were a far cry from the real food stowed on the
Bloom County,
but after the marines dragged her screaming from her ship—which had been towed back to the station and now sat in the spare shuttle bay—she had refused to return to it.

Ida had stayed by her side since she returned to the station. She was unhurt, according to the automated scan in the infirmary. She and King had a debriefing that lasted no time at all, Ida waiting in the bridge, watching the closed door of the ready room. He wondered what they had talked about, or if Zia had said anything at all. As she exited the ready room, King stood in the doorway and glanced at Ida. Ida frowned, and the marshal, pale, looking ill, turned around and closed the door behind him.

Ida watched Zia in the canteen. There were four others eating: a pair at a nearby table and two others spread out across the large communal space.

He needed to talk to her. She
knew;
he was sure of it. There was something out there, hiding in the purple space between the station and the star. She’d seen it. As Ida had. As Carter had. And maybe like Serra and Sen and the others, before they’d vanished.

Ida grimaced. Now Zia was also alone. Her message had been no exaggeration. Her remaining crew members were gone, just like the others. Just like
that
.

When the
Magenta
docked, according to Private Chan—Ida had eventually cornered the Ops on the bridge as he waited—the
Bloom County
’s distress call had stopped. Zia, the only person aboard, was busy at the control deck erasing things—erasing everything, as it turned out: navigation files, computer drives, and the ship’s log, all of it. All illegal acts: treason, conspiracy with the enemy, an automatic death penalty. But so intent had Zia been on her task that she had actually asked the marines to wait a moment before they realized what she, celebrity or not, was doing.

She hadn’t finished erasing the log, so when the marines picked her up by her arms and carried her off the bridge, the screaming had begun.

Aboard the
Coast City,
the screaming stopped and the silence began. As she sat in the canteen, her eyes moved, left to right, up and down, like she was sitting in the dark, waiting for the bogeyman to appear. She’d moved her chosen table closer to the far wall, with just enough of a gap to allow her to squeeze in, her back hard against the wall. Even so, she’d occasionally look over her shoulder at the featureless gray green expanse behind her, like there might have been someone—some
thing
—there.

Ida frowned. He had no idea what to do.

“Are you going to talk to her?”

He jumped and his plastic chair banged against the floor of the canteen. Izanami was right behind him, had practically whispered in his ear. Across the canteen Zia started at the sound, but then she returned to her curled posture and closed her eyes.

Ida lowered his voice to a whisper. “I’m not sure she wants to talk. Not to me, or to anyone. She’s traumatized.”

Izanami straightened up, and didn’t make any attempt to lower her voice. “With no medic on board, I doubt she’s getting the proper care. She needs counseling.”

Ida turned and looked up at Izanami. Clad in her medical whites, she had her arms folded and was regarding Zia like a specimen to be observed.

“Jesus Christ,” Ida hissed through his teeth. “You’re a medic. Can’t you do something?”

Izanami smiled, still looking at Zia. “I’m not part of the crew, Ida.”

Ida tapped the table impatiently. Keeping his voice down became an effort. “I’m pretty sure the marshal won’t care if you volunteer your services.”

Izanami turned to Ida. Ida didn’t like her look or her smile. Something at the back of his head began to hurt. Her eyes, they were blue ovals, burning bright, drawing Ida in. As he looked, his vision unfocused and her eyes seemed to spin with stars.

“Who are you talking to?”

Ida blinked and jerked his head around. At the opposite table, Zia still sat, knees drawn to her chest, heels balanced on the lip of her chair. Her arms were wrapped around her shins in a way that didn’t look comfortable.

“Zia Hollywood, welcome back,” said Ida with a nervous smile that didn’t convey the relief he felt inside. “I was just thinking that Izanami here could help out. She’s not part of the crew, but she’s the only medic we have until the last transport arrives.” He laughed lightly but it sounded fake, so he stopped.

Zia smiled, a shadow of her former, knowing grin. “And you think
I
need help?”

Ida’s smile flickered. “I’m sorry?”

Zia lowered her legs to the floor and leaned forward on the table. “Who’s Izanami?”

Ida gestured to the Japanese woman standing at his shoulder. “You weren’t introduced before? Zia Hollywood, Izanami, the best neuro-psycho-physio-therapist this side of Fleetspace.”

Izanami bowed slightly.

Zia’s smile turned to a frown, and she rubbed her forehead with the heel of one hand. “You hum it, I’ll play it.”

“Ah. Pardon?” Ida felt confused.

Zia shrugged an apology. Then just said, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

Zia nodded. “Okay.”

Ida frowned. He had an odd feeling that he was listening in to only half of a conversation he’d thought he was taking part in. He glanced up at Izanami beside him. “Ah … is there anything you can do for Ms. Hollywood at the moment?”

“Ida—”

“Yes, Ms. Hollywood?”

“Who are you talking to?”

“Ah … what?”

Ida watched as Zia’s eyes moved to the space over his right shoulder, and then back to his face. “There’s no one there.”

Ida coughed. His headache was starting to return. He turned and looked up at Izanami. The Japanese woman began to laugh, and this time her eyes really did spin into pools of pale blue light, scattered with diamonds and stardust. As Ida watched, she melted away, becoming nothing more than a black-silhouetted afterimage on the insides of his eyelids.

“You feeling okay, Cap’n?”

Ida stared at where Izanami had stood. When he blinked, he could see her outline, but then even that faded. He closed his eyes and screwed them tight and wished the shadows away.

“Oh, just fine, thanks,” he said. Then he took a breath as the world wobbled around him. “Zia, what happened?”

The miner sighed. Ida’s eyes were still closed, and he never wanted to open them again.

“We were attacked. They—”

“No, no. Before. Here. What made you leave early?”

“Oh, that,” said Zia lightly. “I saw my father. He’s dead, you know. Ain’t that just a fine thing.”

Ida exhaled, long and slow.

“He was with someone.” Zia’s voice got higher, and the words got faster. Ida shook his head, refusing to look. “There was a woman, behind him.”