“the gray also seeks the signs of this thing”
“this thing serves the green — we obeyed”
“still the gray seeks the signs”
“this thing will not betray the green”
“This thing will betray you.”
“who signs”
“Truth.”
“we obey this thing”
“this thing will not betray us”
“This thing will betray you.”
“who signs”
“Truth.”
“truth is what”
“I am.”
“does truth serve the green”
“Truth serves truth. Will the green serve truth?”
“the green serves this thing”
“The gray serves this thing. Truth is stronger. Serve me.”
“truth what have we done”
“what have we done”
Lady had been right about Forrest going after the computer. While they had been pulling down rations in the dome, the circuits had been trashed. Shortly after, Cage wandered off in the distance beyond the ship. Tobias had followed the man’s footsteps in the red ash, between and around the endless rocks, until he came to a bottomless chasm. It was an opening that looked as though real gods had scarred the floor of the plain with a huge razor. The footsteps went to the edge, and that was that.
So long Cage.
From the entrance to the dome, Tobias watched Forrest study his subjects in the dying light at the end of another week-long sunset. He was seated on top of one of the large red stones. Surrounding him were nothing but red rocks. All quite alive.
Lady Name had told them: “You must fight this thing, not each other.”
“how to fight this thing”
“Play dead.”
Tobias chuckled as he gnawed at his rations. Forrest’s new army, as well as his original force, were immobilized. They wouldn’t fight. Lady Name had given the green the command to tell the gray about truth. The word had even spread to the white and the black. If you don’t fight, you don’t have to kill. If you don’t fight, you don’t have to die.
Tobias laughed out loud. Play dead; turn red. It would be a simple task for the rocks, requiring only the sacrifice of each rock’s surface members. The surface dies, but inside they live. And growth takes place against the ground.
He saw Forrest’s head turn slowly in his direction. The small man studied him, his face as expressionless as one of the rocks. He called out, “Tobias!” He held up the current generator. “Tobias, what if I kill them all? What if I just go from stone to stone and give each a little shot?”
“Then you’d have nothing left to play with except your radish, Forrest. Your game would be over.”
He lowered his shock stick and grinned. “You joined the wrong side, Tobias.”
Tobias laughed and turned into the dome. He finished off his nutribar, tossed the wrapper on the floor, and flopped down in a chair facing the doorway. He had taken to sitting and sleeping facing doorways. When someone’s out to get you, paranoia is just practical thinking.
He glanced at the position of Mantchee and frowned. Lady Name was going to meet him to explain the new sequence they were going to initiate. She had determined that the rocks had the ability to excrete their waste products in the form of a highly corrosive vapor. It wouldn’t kill the rocks. Their ability to obtain what they needed from the atmosphere wouldn’t be affected. Creatures with lungs, however, would die.
The soft suits and respirators would leave only Forrest inhaling acid. The only real problem was trying to convince the rocks to do it. Lady Name suspected that for some reason, the rocks might object to wandering around in a cloud of their own shit.
The doorway darkened. It was Forrest, and he was holding something in his hands. He squatted in the doorway.
“You know, Tobias, there were many times in my life when I thought I had all my ducks in a row. When I thought I was on top of everything. It wasn’t always true.”
Tobias hooked another chair with the toe of his boot and pulled it closer to him, crossing his legs at the ankles upon it. “Welcome to the club.”
Forrest looked down at what was in his hands. “It-might not be true for you.”
“Just stop fucking with the rocks, Forrest, and it’ll be all over.”
He glanced up and grinned. “You think so?” He placed what was in his hands upon the floor, stepped upon it with one foot, and lifted as the sound of a sharp crack reverberated around the dome.
He stood and tossed the object across the space that separated them. Tobias caught it with his left hand as Forrest turned and left the doorway empty.
It took a moment, but Tobias recognized the object. It was the hilt of Lady Name’s knife.
“there is a new one”
“it is this thing”
“it signs as truth signs”
“it is this thing stronger”
“there is a sign”
“truth do you sign”
“Truth is dead.”
“truth cannot die”
“Call truth and see.”
“we call truth— truth see our sign —truth”
“Truth does not see your sign. Truth is dead.”
“who do we serve now”
“You know me.”
“this thing”
“must we again kill and die to serve”
“You know me.”
“we know you”
By the light of the Oids he had found her among the mountain of red rocks beyond the ship, on the way to Cage’s Chasm. That’s where she had stashed her half of the equipment. Her soft suit had been slashed, her respirator broken. Her portable communication unit was missing. She was dead. Tobias extinguished his light and turned away. Forrest must have taken some time to multilate Lady Name’s body.
Had Forrest found the other suit and communication unit? Tobias looked back toward the gentle silver gleam of the ship. To Hell with it. Let Forrest play with the damned rocks if that’s what he wanted. What did Tobias care? Keep going with the rations, stay out of Forrest’s way. Wait for rescue. Simple.
He turned back, knelt on both knees next to her body, and clumsily began pushing the red ash over her. “You dumb bitch. You dumb crazy bitch.”
“what must we do to atone”
“There is another. Kill it.”
“to kill what we cannot see—how”
“Find a way.”
The edge of another new sunrise. Tobias looked through the dome window at the pink of the slow dawn. How long had it been since he had seen Forrest? Back when the man had broken Lady Name’s knife. He frowned. Had only one night passed, or was it two? Or three?
He sipped at his steaming beverage, lowered his cup, and looked at it. Somewhere back on Earth there was a person with a degree in nutrition who had never stepped outside of his or her environmentally controlled city. That person had invented N-669 Beverage, Survival, Hot. More than likely that person had never tasted N-669 Beverage, Survival, Hot. At odd moments Tobias had a fantasy about finding that person, cramming a funnel down his or her throat, and pouring in ten or twelve liters of N-669 Beverage, Survival, Hot.