“Repairs going alright?”

“The new parts are acceptable,” Farsus said. The spare parts Morrakesh had provided for the Hermit were of good quality, at least. “That said, these replaceable mechanisms are bandages on a very broken body. The Hermit’s frame is suffering from stress damage, given our recent escapades. Cracks are forming that I cannot repair without proper tools and a suitable workshop.”

“Is it safe to fly?”

“For the time being,” Farsus said. “I worry about our long-term integrity.”

“We’ll make do,” Kamak said. “Keep at it.”

“And where are you going?”

While Farsus had been working, Kamak had been putting together a pack of supplies and mapping out a route across the barren terrain of Tannis. While still habitable, the atmosphere was dry, the terrain was rocky, and the sun burned down blazing hot. Thanks to Gentanian’s long lives and quick reproduction, their planet had been aggressively affected by global warming brought on by ever-expanding industrialization to meet the massive population’s needs. Traversing the wastes left behind by their evacuation was a difficult task for the unequipped, but Kamak was now well prepared.

“I’m going out,” Kamak said. “Don’t worry about it.”

Farsus pressed no further. Kamak had gone on enough inexplicable pilgrimages through Tannis that Farsus could assume it was something of great importance. Everyone needed to have a ritual of some sort, just to keep them sane, and Kamak needed sanity more than most, in times like this.

After a few hours wandering across Tannis, Kamak didn’t feel particularly sane. The terrible weather was bad enough, and it was all made worse by an aeroformer drone floating overhead. The droning noise it made as it harvested excess greenhouse gases from the atmosphere was enough to drive a man mad. Kamak took comfort in the fact that he was already mad and kept moving towards his destination.

Dead trees still provided shade, and a rusted bench still provided some rest, as Kamak sat down in what had once been a riverside park. He looked down at the crumbling valley that had once housed a flowing river and tried to relax while he waited for his guest. The journey was much less arduous for them, as they arrived in a beat-down but still functioning van. Kamak tried to act casual as the door opened and slammed shut. A young Gentanian woman took a seat next to Kamak.

“Hi, Vatan. Thanks for coming.”

This was not the first time he had met Vatan in person, but it had been several solar years. She was taller now, older, and her skin had been darkened by the overbearing sun of Tannis. The most telling change was that she no longer had a smile on her face when she saw Kamak.

“What’s going on, Kamak?”

“The usual. Shit happens. Can’t schedule things as well as I’d like.”

“Kamak. This isn’t ‘the usual’. There were people at the house. They asked about you.”

“What? When? What did they do?”

“A while ago,” Vatan said. “They didn’t do anything. They just showed up, asked about you. Made conversation. Mom told them to leave, and they did.”

Kamak clenched his fist, and said nothing.

“They really didn’t do anything,” Vatan assured him. “And they haven’t been back. I think they just...wanted you to know they were here.”

It pained Kamak that it made perfect sense. Morrakesh didn’t care. He just wanted to make sure Kamak knew there was nowhere he could run, nowhere he could hide, no one he could fully trust.

“Kamak? Are you going to be okay?”

“I don’t know,” Kamak admitted. “Things are worse than they’ve been before.”

He reached into his pack and withdrew the small care package he’d prepared. It didn’t amount to much beyond a few snacks he knew Vatan liked, some useful things for around the house, and a short, sealed note.

“Some of the usual. And a message,” Kamak said. “For your mom. If I end up not making it out of this...well, you read it first and decide if it’s worth giving to her. And, uh, if I’ve got anything left when—if, you know, it goes to you. Do whatever you want. Don’t tell your mom.”

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Vatan took the small package and placed it in her lap, staring at the plain packaging in silence for just a moment.

“You’re really worried you might die?”

Kamak had told Vatan tales of his bounty hunting on many occasions, and always described his battles with a cocksure smile and sense of immortality. Time had weathered off the fanciful edges of those childhood stories, but Vatan still couldn’t help but see Kamak as immortal. A universal constant, always there, even if he was unseen.

“Yeah,” Kamak said. “It’s bad. And I want you out of it. If people come asking about me again, tell them everything. When you saw me, where you saw me, how to contact me, everything. Don’t give them any reason to hurt you.”

“But-”

“No buts,” Kamak said. “There are plenty of other people who’d sell me out in a minute, so trying to be stubborn won’t accomplish a fucking thing. Don’t die on a hill alone for my sake.”

Vatan never said yes or no to the request, but drifted back into a contemplative silence. The decrepit branches of long dead trees rustled in a dry wind.

“Kamak. Can I ask you something? And please, tell me the truth.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you my-”

“No,” Kamak said instantly. He’d seen this question hiding behind her eyes for a long time. “That privilege belongs to a better man than me.”

“So you knew him,” Vatan said. “My dad.”

“Yeah. And I won’t say anything else about it. What I’m caught up in might kill me, but if your mom finds out I’ve been talking behind her back, she’ll definitely kill me.”

Vatan tried to force herself to laugh, but she couldn’t. The chuckle died in her throat and emerged as a harsh whimper, drifting into the rest of the dead air around them.

“If you’re worried,” Vatan said. “Do you want to see her?”

“Not as badly as I know she doesn’t want to see me,” Kamak said. “Best thing I can do for her is leave her alone. Everything I need to say is in the note.”

“Okay. Okay,”

It had been a long time since the crash, and while Vatan hoped that her mom would’ve forgiven Kamak by now, she knew her own mother better than that. Catay X-F-N could hold a grudge a long damn time, especially over the accident that had left her almost completely paralyzed. An accident that had been, according to all the stories, entirely Kamak’s fault.

“Time to go home, Vatan,” Kamak said.

“Do I have to?”

“Yes,” Kamak insisted. Only now did Vatan realize he wasn’t looking at her, but eyeing the shifting shadows of the trees instead. “Go home. Now.”

“Kamak-”

“Now.”

Vatan stood and returned to her van, cautiously checking every angle as she walked, and occasionally glancing back at Kamak. He remained firmly on the rusted park bench, unmoving, eyes locked on the shadows. He kept staring, seemingly fixated by the outlines of dead trees, until Vatan was away and out of sight.

“Seriously? Already?”

The shadows shifted around Kamak for a moment.

“I taught you well,” Khem said. Kamak snapped towards the sound of the voice -and was then immediately struck to the ground from the opposite angle. “But I didn’t teach you everything.”

Kamak let out a low groan into the dirt. Khem knew how to throw his voice. He was going to die because of a cheap stage trick. It almost felt like an appropriate end, and he braced himself for said end as the point of a spear dug into his back. But the sharp thrust never came, and the bladed edge rested between his shoulderblades for a while.

“Who was that?”

“Old coworkers kid,” Kamak grunted. “You remember Catay, right? Her daughter. Sweet kid. If you hurt her I’ll find a way to come back from the dead and kill you.”

“Why are you here? Why do you care?”

“Because I put her god damn mom in a wheelchair for the rest of her life and got her dad killed,” Kamak said. “Shockingly, I’m not a fucking saint. I make mistakes. I own up to them. I try to make up for them with shitbrained gifts and cheap stories that can never replace the lives that got ruined.”

Khem snarled, and Kamak could feel the hot, rancid breath on the back of his neck.

“What did you do?”

“It was a mistake,” Kamak said. “I was young, a few missions in to my bounty hunting career, I thought I was hot shit. We chased a fugitive planetside and hit an atmospheric storm the wrong way. The ship went down. I broke my legs, Catay broke her spine, everyone else died. By the time rescue got there, it was too late to fix Catay. She hates me, she retires to raise her kid here, I visit now and then to drop off cheap knickknacks and try not to kill myself every time I see the little girl whose family got burned to the ground. Does that satisfy you, asshole?”

Khem roared at the top of his lungs and dug the spear a little further into Kamak’s back, just enough to break skin.

“Why do you come back,” Khem growled. “Why is this the oath you hold, the promise you keep?”

“Always with the fucking oaths,” Kamak grumbled. “Yeah, some promises I break, some promises I keep. I’m a fucking person, Khem, not a collection of strictures and bylaws in a shit-colored leather skin like you. I’m allowed to be contradictory.”

To Kamak’s surprise, this statement did not get him stabbed. A heavy foot pulled itself from his back, giving Kamak some breathing room, though the spear stayed lodged firmly in his skin.

“The fact that you can understand loyalty make it all the more damning that you choose not to,” Khem said. “But an oath kept is an oath kept.”

The spear dislodged itself from Kamak’s back, and he saw the shadow of Khem shift around him.

“Return to your ship. Arm yourself, and any who would battle alongside you. You’ve earned a fair fight.”

By the time Kamak got himself off the ground, Khem was already gone. Kamak looked around in a panic, but saw no trace of his hunter—nor did he notice the small shape of a van parked on a nearby hill, overlooking the scene.