Chapter 7: The Mark of the Beast – 2

“This is great!” Psycho exclaimed, with his mouth full. Beta gathered around the table in the lounge, having a feast. I hadn’t had a decent meal in days. Music blasted, somebody had a sex show on a screen, and everybody talked at once.

“That’s disgusting! How can you eat that slop?” Ironman chided Psycho.

“It’s all I ever eat.” Psycho seemed genuinely surprised by the question. “It’s all you need. Read the label! Comrats have everything you need for a balanced diet.”

“You’re a barbarian,” Dragon cut in. “Nobody in his right mind would eat that stuff if he didn’t have to.”

Psycho just stared at him. “A barbarian? Me, a barbarian? Hey, I don’t eat animals!” A low blow. Dragon was a flesh-eater, and that bordered on cannibalism on some worlds.

“You’re gonna eat a fist if you don’t shut down!” When the black snakes on Dragon’s arm started to enlarge, it was time to end the conversation. Psycho went back to his comrats, grinning.

Psycho liked to harass Dragon from time to time, but always backed off after he had made his point.

Ironman remained silent, probably sorry he had raised the subject.

“Have some juice.” Coolhand slid a mug of freezing bitter over to me.

A burst of laughter. The music was hypnotic, insistent.

“Death!” I drank. Cold and clear and tart, it was perfect. Bitter, from the past. “This won’t last forever.” Somebody had to say it.

Sure, it wouldn’t last. We’d be back to work tomorrow, maybe today. I closed my eyes.

“The wind is with us, Slayer.” Deadeye crawled beside me through a field of wild saw grass under the stars, a few dark clouds scudding past close overhead, a cool breeze rustling lightly through the grass. What a night, still and clear, as if the Gods held their breaths.

Deadeye was Beta’s Scaler. Actually, he was mine. He had attached himself to me right after our disagreement with the exosegs in the underground. Deadeye had been a witness. He liked what he saw. He was deadly accurate with his slingshot, hence our nickname for him. He had named me Slayer. I’m not sure why, since it had been Psycho who had saved us all. Perhaps I’d seemed more real to him since Psycho had been in armor.

Deadeye crept past me, cautiously, clad in loose legion-issued camfax, long hair splattered with mud, and eyes alight. He spoke in Taka, the language of the People of the Clouds, the Scaler’s own name for one of the largest tribes. I was learning it in spite of myself. Atom whispered in my ear at every spare frac, and even Sweety harassed me in Taka.

Deadeye was a Cloud, as were most of the tribes in our AR. The Cloud People formed the Clan of the Sun, and claimed descent from the Far March of the Golden Sword, the ancient race of Sunrealm, as they called their world.

When that first Scaler…Taka, I corrected myself again…war chief bent his knee to me, it was for forever. Loyalties to the people of Sunrealm were clear-cut, leaving no room for compromise. Deadly enemies one instant, we became allies and protectors the next.

Our power over the exosegs generated the change. In a few moments, we had proven ourselves capable of annihilating the hated Beasts, the great terror that had struck the Sunrealm a generation in the past. Our power was awesome to the Taka, and it became immediately clear to them that we represented the Future, and the Hope, and the Light.

When the dust had cleared from that first skirmish with the exosegs, the Taka had come up from the underground, full of hope. Deadeye took a position right beside us, wide-eyed. We had auxiliaries now—plenty of help, enthusiastic help, from our Taka allies. We dressed them in camfax and set them loose.

They were good—we did not need to explain anything to them—the dead exos had done the trick. That’s all they had to see.

I eased up my E and pressed the sight against my faceplate. A roofless temple rose above the saw grass, a line of columns outlined against the night sky. Taka, moving around, clad in black cloaks, starlight glinting off spear points. The Soldiers of God, fighting for the doomed Cult of the Dead. The priests would be in there somewhere. We’d come for the priests. They’d never talk to us voluntarily. We threatened everything they stood for.

Our sudden appearance in this ancient world had upset the balance of power in the Takas’ uneven struggle to respond to the exoseg threat. We had learned that Taka society had disintegrated unknown ages ago, and the collapse of civilization in this world had nothing to do with the exosegs.

When the creatures suddenly appeared, their only opposition was a fragmented tribal society, completely unequipped to deal with such a formidable foe. The Takas had collapsed against the onslaught of the beasts and finally coalesced into two distinct groups, the Cult of the Dead, dedicated to appeasing the beasts through human sacrifice, and the Golden Sword, sworn to a seemingly hopeless struggle against the exos and the Cult of the Dead. The two groups expended most of their energy fighting each other in a pointless, bloody, protracted, worldwide struggle, tribe against tribe. And while the Takas fought amongst themselves, the exosegs continued reproducing, and soon they swarmed, an invincible horde.