The Seek (11 page)

Or maybe two more minutes
.

Her hands slipped between them to feel the hardness pressed at her belly. He was long and hard and ready. It would be so easy to lie him down, here in the rounds, and feel him push into her again. She remembered how good it had felt last time. And she remembered his vulnerability, asking her if she could feel. He may not get the Apocalypse, but he got some things. He knew battle, and what it did to you. Maybe they could both use a little more of that absolution.

Before she could decide properly, he was on his knees, tugging at the clasp on her pants. And she was letting him. Seconds later, he was yanking down her underwear and his face was at her centre, licking and tasting and driving his tongue into her. She grasped his hair to pull him away, but the sensations were clawing at her tummy and she didn’t want it to stop.

He pulled back, lifted his head to look up at her, flicking his dirty-blond hair out of the way like the rock star he would have been. ‘You taste so fuckin’ good, Kyn,’ he said, licking his lips slowly before returning his attention to her.

And right now, Kyn could believe it. She felt like a goddess, standing there, while he held her legs firmly to keep her upright and buried his face in her. She tried to step back. She was long past trying to stop it now, but she wondered if they should go elsewhere, perhaps lie down. But he held her firmly.

‘No way Captain,’ he said, his voice dark and deadly. ‘Not until you’re done. I want to feel your legs shake so hard you can’t stand.’

Well he wouldn’t be waiting long. Kyn’s insides began to quiver and her eyes closed against the harsh light of the rounds, wanting to obliterate it all except the sensation.

But he pulled back. ‘Say my name,’ he commanded.

Huh?

‘Say: More, Krysto.’

She grinned. ‘More, Lieutenant.’

He stopped and pulled away. ‘Krysto,’ he ordered.

What would it hurt? She wanted him there, wanted him back there, obliterating it all. ‘More, Krysto,’ she said, and her voice broke as she said it.

‘Aye aye, Captain.’ He grinned at her, grasping her legs again.

‘How is it?’ Kyn could see the girl’s eye was open now, but still puffy and sore.

‘I can see,’ the girl said, staring straight ahead. She was dressed in training black — the stretchy spando pants and top that Avengers wore in the rounds. Her vest was on, her feet were bare, and face was set hard. ‘Where do you want to start?’

Kyn hadn’t expected abject apologies — the girl just didn’t seem like the type. Hysterical grovelling gratitude might have also been too much to ask. But this? What was this?

Kyn stood right in front of her, obligating the girl to meet her eyes. ‘Got anything to say?’

Kyn watched Mirren’s jaw clench slightly, but nothing else betrayed what she was thinking or feeling. Even her body was loose, held in the relaxed but ready posture of a dancer or yogi. ‘I’m sorry you got dragged into that shit last night,’ she said finally, her unusually deep voice even and deliberate. ‘But you needn’t have. I had it.’

Kyn almost choked on her own saliva. ‘You had it?’

She stalked around the girl, checking for signs of worse injury than what she’d already seen.

‘You had it? You had what?’

She didn’t wait for the girl to answer. ‘I’ll tell you what you had, Avenger. You had a whole shitload of trouble, that’s what you had. They may not have killed you — ’

She paused.

‘Although there’s a good chance they would have.’ The sight of the girl’s impassive face was messing with Kyn’s legendary calm. ‘But whatever they had in mind for you was not going to be much fun.’

Finally, the girl swallowed and lowered her eyes. ‘I know that.’

Kyn couldn’t let it go. She felt, infuriatingly, like some teenager’s mother, grilling them about where they’d been the night before and what the hell hour did you call this? Well, some teenager’s mother from back in the old days, anyway, when teenagers were still unruly, selfish kids and not warriors, scientists, miners or repopulators in training.

‘Well then, I want to know, Mirren.’ Kyn’s voice grew very quiet. ‘How, precisely, did you have it?’

‘I would have survived.’ The girl’s eyes swept up to meet Kyn’s again, and they flashed blue fire at her.

Kyn wanted to reach over and shake the girl’s shoulders. ‘What in the hell makes you think that? You Supergirl?’

Mirren looked confused for a moment, and then Kyn remembered there was no Supergirl. Not anymore. ‘You got some invincibility shield I don’t know about?’

The girl shrugged.

Kyn slugged on, careless now of where she was headed with this, just wanting the girl to face up to what had happened, own it, feel afraid. Anything. Just not this hostile…nothingness. ‘I said,’ she repeated, slow and deadly, ‘how in hell do you know you would have survived?’

The girl smiled thinly as she raised her eyebrows. Even the weak, tiny smile lit up her dimples and Kyn thought again what a sweet repopulating prospect she would make if she’d made a different choice. ‘Because I always do,’ she said.

Incredulity coursed through Kyn. ‘So far,’ she snapped, deciding she was tired of playing Mama to this rebellious recruit. ‘Time to get a few things straight, girlfriend,’ she spat. ‘One. I don’t care what happens to you next time. I don’t care how bad you feel. I don’t care how shit your life is. You never, ever go near that club again.’

Mirren nodded, the echo of the dimples still in place. Kyn finally understood how people sometimes kill their children. But she pushed on. ‘Two. You wanna get laid, you don’t do it with any Avengers, ex-Avengers or anywhere near anywhere Avengers hang out.’

Mirren dimpled a little more and raised an eyebrow at her. ‘I’d never have pegged you for a Puritan.’

Kyn smiled thinly back. ‘I made a promise to someone that I’d keep you alive to fight. That’s what you’re here for. That’s why they picked you.’

Kyn thought about Asha — all he’d been through. He must have really seen something in the girl to send her here. With all his history.

‘Let me down, let them down, and you’ve really got no-one. You’re not here to fuck, you’re not here for comfort. You’re sure as shit not here to get yourself killed by some nut jobs out for a cheap thrill. There are way better ways to waste your life. For a start, New Earth could really use it, if you’re not interested in it.’

The girl swallowed in a way that made Kyn feel a little sick in the stomach but she was sure she could still see a trace of those dimples.

‘Three. Do not ever, ever talk back to me again. I’ve tolerated your shit today, because I figure maybe you’re working through some stuff from last night. But believe me, I’ve sent virgins to the hole for less, so do not — ever — call me anything again. Not a Puritan. Not a slavedriver. Not a bitch. You’ll want to; I swear to you that you’ll want to before our time together is done. But do it, and I’ll burn you. Do you understand?’

The girl nodded.

‘So, survivor, let’s see how you go today. I want 50 ascents.’ Kyn motioned at the steep silver climber behind her. It was wickedly smooth, and only a few tiny footholds pocked its surface. ‘Go. Now.’

‘Yes, Magister,’ Mirren said, the dimples disappearing satisfyingly as she turned and sprinted for the wall.

Kyn cracked her knuckles as she watched the injured girl scuttle up the wall like a clever spider. Her head ached and her mind swam. What was that thing her mother used to say: something about no good deed going unpunished…?

***

‘Tomorrow night we leave for Sector Five.’

The sixty-eighters stared back at her, and she studied their faces. They could be divided into roughly three groups. The ones she called the shutdowns. Nothing. It wasn’ t that they were dead inside, they just didn’t show on the outside whatever it was they were feeling. Some had come to her that way; others had adopted it as a sensible way of living after they’d started Avenger training.

The second group were curious. She could see the questions bubbling at the back of their eyes. They wanted detail. They still believed they could control whatever might happen to them. She wanted them to ask questions; that was good. But not the ones she saw scuttling back and forth across their faces. Not ones about why, and what’s there, and why are they sending us, and I thought we had two more weeks before battle missions began.

She knew it would all change. She knew in a year or two someone would come in to brief these boys, whoever was left of them, about a mission, and those who were still asking questions would start. But the questions would be entirely different.
Who are we up against? Which planet, which star? What’s the objective? Tell us about the terrain
. Goddamnit, she needed them there now, at that place of clever questioning. But they were still here, and nothing could bridge the gap between the two places but experience. Hard, bitter experience.

The third group just looked angry. She knew it didn’t mean they would buck. These Avengers got it. There was no choice in being an Avenger. Not in what you did, when you did it, or how you accomplished it. If you were chosen, you went. Until you couldn’t go anymore. She remembered a boy from her class; a spirited boy, telling her Magister it was slavery. And she remembered her Magister’s face as he’d raised an eyebrow at him. And your problem is…?

Kendis, with the pretty face and old eyes, was in the second group. He wanted to know more.

But she didn’t have that much to tell them.

‘There’s a group there we need to relieve. Casualties have been heavy.’ The boys blinked back at her.

‘Stop with the hard sell,’ a small but very wiry redhead she knew to be the class joker said.

She allowed a smile. ‘Okay Rexas,’ she said. ‘Let me give it to you straight then.’

Rexas swallowed hard and she could almost see him biting back the ‘that was a joke’ that danced on his tongue.

‘We’re dealing with a new threat. This is not a star we’ve been to at all in the last twelve years. But we need it.’

No-one asked but it was there in the eyes of all them — the shutdowns, the curious, the angry. Why?

She tried to keep her voice flat. ‘Because it could be The One.’

Suddenly they were all interested; their bodies on high alert, straining forward in their seats, eyes glued to hers.

Kendis was the first to break. ‘How do they know?’ The boy’s eyes were rimmed with red, and Kyn wondered if it was from tears or lack of sleep. He’d lost his friend; he’d come face-to-face with his mortality; he’d met some monsters. It could be either.

She shook her head. ‘They don’t. And none of us should get too excited. The mission is to protect the Explorers while they’re trying to work it all out.’

‘Something must have made them think — ’

Kyn cut Kendis off. ‘This is just what we do: we seek. And we keep seeking. There have been a score of The Ones. And none of them have been The One yet.’ She felt a bitter smirk creep onto her face and hated herself for her jadedness.

‘But it’s empty, right? That’s one of the features of The One? And oxygenated?’ Kendis’ face was respectful; he was different after the Hydrentians, but he was still pushing the issue; still taking it up to her. And Kyn was glad.

You could be a good fighter and not care. But the best rarely were.

Kyn shook her head. ‘Don’t believe all the things you heard in fairy tales when we still hiding out in the asteroid belts. The Seek is a good plan.’ She paused, and cleared her throat. ‘Well, it’s a plan, at least. The only one we’ve got. People want to believe it’s all going to be okay, so I dunno about the stuff you got told. But I can guess. Like it’s some galactic Garden of Eden, right?’

Eleven sets of eyes stared blankly at her, and she had to mentally kick herself. Of course, we’re all atheists now. The whole thing was kind of strange to Kyn; she was pretty much an atheist before. But after your world gets blown to bits and no omnipotent God steps in to save the day, flipping God the bird seemed like patriotic duty. To Kyn’s mind, they went a little overboard with the whole outlawing-all-the-religions thing. Nothing’s more determined to make people cling to some crazy idea than giving them the sense it might be taken from them. But hey, who was she to judge? The Council did a shitty job pretty well from what she could tell.

She started over. ‘I get it. You all got nursed on your mama’s knees, and told that somewhere out there, there’s a little blue planet just like the one we came from, just waiting for us to slide on in and settle on down. It’s full of trees and rivers, the air is pure, and the sky is blue.’

She felt her voice rising, and tried to tamp it down. ‘Well, let me tell you, I’ve been a lotsa places the last ten years and I don’t see it happening that way.’

She watched eleven sets of eyes flick away from her.

Great. Kyntura — the smasher of young men’s hope. Young men she was going to ask to die for an idea that she was telling them was a crock of shit. She steeled herself and tried again. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there’s some place for us. Bound to be — it’s a big universe. I’m just not so sure it’s going to be milk and honey and settle in guys, take a load off.’

She closed her eyes briefly, imaging it like she had a thousand times. ‘If it’s there, it’s only going to be ours by wrenching it from whoever owns it now. By fighting for it, piece by piece. And maybe it’s not oxygenated. And maybe the environment isn’t totally perfect.’

She tried to smile hopefully. ‘But hey, we’re clever people. We worked a whole lotta shit out in the last seventeen years, I’m sure we can deal with that too. Piece a cake.’

Kendis cleared his throat. He was sitting upright in his chair, his body wired like a tuning fork. ‘What do we know, Magister?’

This was more like it. Kyn touched the crystalair and let the pictures materialise in the space between her and her eleven charges. ‘We know some stuff,’ she said. ‘And I’m going to take you through it, sure I am. Soon enough. But first I’ve got some other news for you.’

Kyn could almost smell the room brace. Kind of sad that in their eighteen years, and then in the last few months, these boys had learned that news was seldom good.