Fenn and Reyer had nothing better to do then stand at the door and watch Vas, Tennama, and Tate leave.
“Will you worry about them?” Fenn asked.
“Tate’s with them,” she said. “He’s sensible.”
The three men wove their way along the empty streets until they reached the warehouses. The buildings’ silhouettes rose up, cutting away blocks of starlight. The buildings were only three stories tall, but they were crowded together in perfect rows, leaving thin alleys where dust would gather and shift as the varied Ionu winds broke against the masonry.
Tate had tucked Vas and Tennama among the buildings, then went to walk the grounds. His face was familiar and, more importantly, allowed. If someone saw him, they couldn’t complain about him being there.
At least, not until he’d broken into one of the buildings.
Vas and Tennama didn’t speak to each other as they waited in the alley for Joseph to return. Whatever tension had been between them lessened during the long silence. Both of them preferred to deal with their issues by never talking about them, and each was secretly relieved when it became obvious the other felt the same.
Ionu had long hours. A full half of one had passed before Tate returned.
He squatted down in front of them. “No one outside. Most of the buildings are empty—are supposed to be empty—”
“What does that mean?” Tennama asked.
“There are no lights on and no sign of any guards. Theoretically, Ashtell only sets guards when there’s something worth stealing.”
Vas said, “You’re dropping a lot of words like ‘supposed to’ and ‘theoretically,’ Tate.”
“Ashtell knows Fenn and I are watching them, and they know we have access to their quarterly and monthly reports. If they’re hiding something, they won’t leave the light on in case Fenn starts asking awkward questions.”
“Is he the kind of man who’d do that?”
“There’s a reason I told you they wouldn’t be surprised to find me here.” Tate smiled. “Ready to start, Captain?”
“You look excited.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been allowed to do something illegal.”
“It’s a regular boys’ night out, isn’t it?”
“If it’s boys’ night out, shouldn’t we have brought Ciro?” Anthony asked.
“Here’s a hint, Tennama,” Vas said, “never bring anyone to boys’ night out that can tell embarrassing stories about your childhood. Besides, he’s busy.”
Vas looked at the pool of light at the end of the alley. It was created by the single bulb hanging over the entry. There was one for every warehouse.
“Let’s pick a random building and get started,” he said.
“Our plan called for something a little more systematic than that, Captain,” Tate reminded him.
“You sound like Alix.”
Tate shrugged.
“So much for boy’s night out,” Adan grumbled.
“There might be a better way,” Tennama said.
As the xeno explained his idea, he never raised his eyes, but he could feel the two men watching him.
“A quick canvas?” Tate muttered.
“I can’t say for sure I’ll find anything,” Tennama reiterated.
“But you might,” Vas said. “It’s still a better use of our time that breaking into a bunch of buildings that aren’t what we’re looking for. It’s a good idea, Tennama. Thank you.”
Anthony nodded.
The captain motioned for him to lead out. Vas followed close behind, while Tate kept his eyes on the rear.
The xeno led them through the buildings until he reached the first row. With one last encouraging nod from Tate, he walked into the light and stood in front of the door, feeling very exposed.
“Anything?” Vas whispered from the edge of the building.
Tennama’s eyes were closed. His hand wandered over the door handle and the door itself.
“Nothing,” he said at last.
Vas nodded to the large bay door beside them. “Do those ever open for people?”
“Not for people,” Tate said. “It lets in too much dust and lets out all the cold. They’ll only open it for vehicles, and only if they have to.”
“Next building then.”
They were in the last row before they found what they were looking for.
“Someone was here,” Tennama said.
Vas and Tate both noted the suppressed excitement in the xeno’s voice.
“The queen?” Adan asked.
Anthony shook his head. “I would know her. This isn’t her. It’s faint. Very faint.” He rubbed his hand on the metal of the door, then raised his fingers to his nose. “Yes. There was at least one xeno here. I don’t know how long ago.”
His hollow laugh died while it was still on his lips.
“Tennama.” Vas used his name like a cudgel. When the xeno looked at him, he said, “Are you okay?”
“As much as I can be, Captain.” He stood back from the door. “It’s this building. Get me in. Please.”
Tate said, “Front door, sir?”
“Not unless there’s no other alternative,” Vas said.
“The side door is this way.”
Tate led them around to the side of the building and up a metal staircase. The small sign by the door was bleached to near illegibility by the sun. Tennama felt for the raised letters.
“Emergency exit?”
Tate knelt before the door and pulled out a small tool kit filled with thin metal rods. “It’s locked from the outside at all times.”
Vas was amazed by how low tech the security was. As Tate picked the lock, he explained that the fine dust inevitably ruined any kind of sophisticated machines that were exposed to the elements.
“Scanners, ID slots—they all get gummed up in under a year. A few of the higher priority buildings have them under a cover, but the warehouse guards are usually considered enough of a deterrent for these buildings.” Tate froze with both hands still on his lockpicks. He nodded to the handle. “Captain.”
Vas reached forward and turned the knob. Together he and Tate pushed the door open. The captain and Tennama slipped inside while Tate extracted his tools.
The room was a small office of some kind—or, it had been at one point. Two desks and matching chairs were slid up against opposite walls. A few boxes were crowded into a corner. The only other thing of interest in the room was the door leading to the main warehouse.
Vas saw the way Anthony was lifting his face to sample the air. “Tennama?”
“It’s stale,” the xeno said. “There were at least three in this room, fairly recently, but not for…days? A week? For some time, anyway.”
“You can’t do better than that?”
“Dr. Bonumomnes might know how long it would take for me to lose my sense of the proteins in these conditions, but I’m a historian and a pilot. Neither set of skills seems relevant here.”
“But they were in this room?”
“Yes.”
Tate came up behind them. “What level were they?”
“They’re memory-keepers.”
“As high as you?” Vas asked.
“One of them. The other two were almost as high.”
“That makes sense,” Tate said. “She’d want powerful allies around her.”
“They’re only as powerful as the bodies they take,” the captain said.
Out of the corner of his eye, Vas saw Tennama turn his head as he laughed silently.
“What?” Vas said.
“You invariably think like a human, Captain. It’s somehow reassuring.”
“I can’t really see my way to feeling insulted by that comment.”
“You’re right. In a physical fight, those xenos are only going to be as powerful as the bodies they took, but no matter how weak they are, they’ll have power over the other xenos. And Harlan—oh, yes, Harlan—who’s been human for a long time, would make sure those bodies were as useful as possible. If they aren’t skilled, they’ll be strong.”
“Ideally, they’d be both,” Tate said.
“The queen would have chosen very carefully.”
“Come on,” Vas said. “Keep your weapons hidden for now; we don’t know if there are humans in the building. If the xenos are here, we’ll try to count them.”
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Is that before or after we kill them?” Tate asked. When Vas looked at him, he said, “They’re easier to count if they’re holding still.”
“There are only three of us, with two e-weapons between us—”
Tate, shocked, turned to Tennama, “You’re not armed?”
“Not traditionally, no.”
Adan finished with, “I’d like to avoid trouble until we’re better prepared for it.”
Tate pulled his eyes away from the xeno. “Got it.”
Vas walked over and put his ear to the door. There were no sounds from the other side. The handle turned easily when he tried it. When Joseph saw his nod, he went to the opening and peered out while Vas covered him.
“Nothing,” Tate said. “Empty walkway, but the dim lights are on.”
“Is that normal?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you been in one of these places before?”
“Kind of. I’ve been inside, but they didn’t let me walk around.” He pointed to the metal rail. “That should overlook the main floor of the warehouse.”
Vas finished opening the door.
Since he and Tate were scouring the walkway for any sign of danger, they didn’t immediately realize Tennama wasn’t beside them.
When they looked back, they saw him walking, as if in a trance, toward the railing.
“Tennama!” Vas called in a constrained whisper.
The xeno didn’t seem to hear him.
“Get down!” Tate whispered.
Anthony didn’t move. He stood at the edge of the walkway, in clear view of anyone below.
Tate moved over to him and grabbed the sleeve of his shirt, but before he could yank Tennama down, he glanced at the open floor below.
“Captain,” Joseph said, “you’d better come see this.”
Vas came up to Tate’s side and looked down. He’d heard the choked sound of Tate’s voice, so he was already braced for what he might see.
After a few seconds, he whispered, “How many are xenos?”
Tennama answered, “All of them.”
The whole floor below was crowded with people. A few random patches were gathered together to sleep. They were lying on the floor, still in their clothes, with no kind of cushion or comfort unless they were lying on another person. The rest of them where standing together in groups. They weren’t speaking to each other. They weren’t even facing each other, but they were still in concentrated clumps. No one stood alone.
There were hundreds of them.
“It’s too many,” Tate whispered.
Vas’s brain hummed with frigid numbness, but he tried to answer. “We didn’t know how many there’d be.”
“Adan, I don’t think there are that many bodies on the heaps!”
“Then she must have found another way to dispose of the bodies,” Tennama said.
The eerie silence of the crowd was beginning wear on Vas’s nerves. “What’s wrong with them?”
“Nothing.”
“Those aren’t normal people, Tennama.”
“It’s normal for xenos,” Tate said, “but only if it’s their first or second human transformation.”
Vas grit his teeth. He knew that. He should have realized. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and forced his brain to start working.
“At this stage they can learn from simple training,” he recited. “They can mostly take care of themselves. They show no active desire to find a different body, but they will actively defend themselves. They have no language.”
When the captain opened his eyes, he saw Tennama, looking as if he was holding back a sob with nothing but his painful grip on the railing.
“Tennama?…Tennama!” Vas swallowed. “Anthony.”
The xeno finally looked up from the crowd below.
“Do you need to leave?” Vas asked.
With a shaking hand, Tennama brutally wiped at the tear on his face. “I’m sorry, Captain. I won’t—I won’t leave you alone with them.”
“If you can’t handle it—”
“I can handle it! Please try to understand, I wasn’t expecting to ever feel this again. But it’s too dangerous to leave you and Tate. They’re your enemies, and you’re badly outnumbered.”
Tate glanced over the rail. “With how badly outnumbered we are, I don’t know that you being here will make much of a difference.”
“It will.”
“Why do you sound so certain?” Vas asked.
“Because none of them are memory-keepers.”
“What?”
Vas and Tate both stepped closer to the edge to look down. It was useless, considering neither of them would be able to tell by sight if what Tennama said was true.
“But you said there were at least three memory-keepers!” Tate said.
“There are. They aren’t among them.”
Vas walked back until he could lean on the wall. Tate and Tennama both followed.
Joseph stood next to the captain. “What do we do?”
“We search the building,” Adan said. “We’ll try to stay away from the hoard as much as possible. Let’s learn everything we can.”
Tate grinned with a shaky humor born from dread. “Shall we count them from up here?”
Vas grunted. “Alix wouldn’t expect me to be able to count that high.”
It wasn’t much of a joke, but Tate and Tennama both let out a frail laugh.
The rooms on the third floor were empty. Most of the rooms on the second floor were filled with food and barrels of water. They were in the last room on the second level when Tate found a pile of papers sitting on top of an unopened crate.
He picked it up.
“What are they?” Vas asked.
“Manifests. But there’s no company or receiving information. It’s black market. I’d bet anything this is Turay’s work.”
“Who’s Turay?”
“Captain Gloria Turay owns and directs the fleet of ships licensed to bring supplies to Ionu. We’ve suspected she’s been smuggling food and water onto the planet to support the refugees. All the queen would have had to do is take over the already established operation. However many refugees she uses to make human-xenos, that much food gets rerouted to here.”
“Could anyone make that change? Anyone involved in the smuggling ring?”
“I don’t think so. They’d still be receiving payment from the refugees that arrived on the planet, but far fewer would be leaving. That kind of change in the plan would be noticed. The only way it wouldn’t cause comment is if the order came from someone very high up or someone sneaky as hell.”
“To hide from the left hand what the right hand is doing,” Tennama said.
Tate nodded and dropped the manifests back on the crate.
“Search for any more paperwork they might have left lying around,” Vas said.
After a few minutes of searching, Tennama called out, “Tate, I think you should see this.”
“What is it?” Tate asked from the other side of the room.
“A list of names.”
Vas was nearby. He stopped what he was doing and came up to the xeno’s side.
Joseph maneuvered around the barrels surrounding him. “Does it look important?”
“It has Fenn’s name written at the top,” Tennama said.
The deputy almost stumbled over the crates in his hurry to get to the xeno. He took the paper out of Anthony’s hand and stared at it.
“Do you know any of the other names?” Vas asked.
Tate had to peel his eyes away from the top of the page where Jun Fenn’s name was scrawled in pen. The rest of the names had been printed from a computer. “Some of them. I know the ones that are big names in town.”
Vas pointed to a scratched-out name in the middle of the list. It had been scored with ink, but you could still make out ‘Jun Fenn’ underneath. “It looks like your boss has been moved up the list.”
Tate scrunched the paper into his fist. “Tennama, can you tell us anything about this?”
“I don’t know for certain, but if I was to guess, I’d say it’s a list of who she wants taken over next.”
Joseph shoved the paper in his pocket. Without another word, he went back to searching.
When they were done, the three of them gathered by the door that would let them out onto the metal walkway. Vas turned his back to the unseen crowd of xenos waiting beyond it.
“We’ll search the bottom level,” he said.
Tennama looked at Tate. The man mirrored the captain’s look of determination.
No one will say that it might be dangerous, the xeno thought. When your courage is a thread, you’ll do nothing to break it.
Vas continued, “Tennama will lead us. We’ll go room by room, like we did up here. Stay to the edges. We’ll be fine.”
Tate still didn’t argue.
Tennama almost smiled but stopped himself. He’d thought of Lynx—of all things!—who would’ve been bound to point out that Vas had no reason for such optimistic certainty.
When Vas turned to him, Tennama nodded. The captain stepped aside, and Tennama opened the door.
As Tennama stepped out onto the walk way, the faint sense of his fellow xenos wafted around him like mist. The sensation became more and more pronounced as he descended the stairs at the front of the warehouse. By the time he was standing on the ground floor, he was enveloped by it. The other xenos, especially those closest to him, seemed to feel his presence as well. There was the subtle turning of bodies and lifting of heads.
He did his best to ignore the silent crowd as he walked along the wall. Vas was behind him. Tate trailed them.
One of the xenos stepped between Vas and Tate.
Everyone froze. While the three intruders all held their breath, the strange xeno’s chest moved in unhurried rhythm.
Inhale. Exhale.
Inhale. Exhale.
Tennama noticed that each breath was becoming incrementally faster, incrementally more shallow, and he knew it was about to go wrong. He tried to lunge past Vas to get to Tate, but he was too late.
The other xeno raked his claws across Joseph’s face and chest. Tate cried out as he fell back against the wall. The blood on the xeno’s hands looked black under the dim light. Vas pulled his gun and Tate drew his knife before Tennama could yell for them to stop. Their attacker stepped back, but he was the only one. The fifty xenos behind him charged forward.
Anthony’s hands weren’t hands anymore. He barely noticed.
The riot surged toward them. There were a thousand flashes of pale claws, grabbing and slashing. Tennama threw himself into the fight, shouting as he lashed out. He struggled to keep his eyes on the two humans, but they disappeared into the mass of bodies. The xenos that fell under Tennama’s attacks withered in front of him and made no attempt to fight back. He peeled them away, screaming orders, ignoring them as they stumbled back. Those that he removed from the fight stopped to watch, leaning forward, edging toward the action.
Tennama reached the captain first.
Vas almost shot him, but the same darting eyes that took in his bloody claws also caught a glimpse of his face.
“Give me the gun,” Anthony said.
Adan jerked his head, trying to shake off a trail of blood that was streaming too close to his eye.
Tennama turned and yelled at the crowd to back off. If the mob had a soul, it was torn in two. All their energy was balanced on the balls of their feet. Their stained claws twitched restlessly. They wanted more than anything to attack. Tennama was all that held them back.
Anthony faced the captain. “Give me the gun,” he repeated.
“No.”
Tennama grabbed Vas and pulled him so their faces were only an inch apart. The captain could see the gouges on the xeno’s cheek and neck. “You’re as stupid as they are.”
Anthony propelled Vas through the horde, hauling and shoving him until they broke free. The sudden lack of bodies sent Adan crashing into the wall, driving the air from his lungs. Tennama was beside him a moment later.
“Defend yourself here. But know, the more you fight, the worse it’ll be.”
“Where’s Tate?”
“I’ll get Tate.”
Tennama disappeared into the crowd again. The captain watched, trembling with adrenaline.
Tennama’s ruthless fighting ensured he was the most dire threat, so the xenos focused their attention on him. They attacked, then fell back, vacillating between their instinct for violence and their instinct to obey the memory-keeper’s orders.
At last, the crowd of xenos parted. The last of them trickled to the sides to reveal Tennama and Tate. Joseph’s arm was slung over Anthony’s shoulder, and the xeno was bent under the effort of holding up his weight.
Vas almost stepped forward, but he stopped when Tennama shouted, “Don’t move! They’ve forgotten you’re there. It won’t be as hard now that Tate can’t fight.”
The strained truce was tested with every step the xeno took. He had to stop several times to yell at the xenos behind him. At last, he reached Vas. Tate was transferred between them. A shallow grunt from the bloody mess was all the assurance Adan had that the man he was holding was still alive.
Tennama reached out to the door beside them. His malformed hands struggled with the knob, but then he jerked it open. “Get in the room. Lock the door. Shove something in front of it if you have to. Then find a way out of here. Don’t come back.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll join you as soon as I can.” He turned to leave.
“Tennama!”
When the xeno turned back, the captain held out his gun.
Anthony smirked. “I won’t need it, Vas. After all, I’m finally among my kind!”
Vas dragged Tate inside the room. As the door slammed behind them, he heard the scrabbling of claws running down the metal. The captain threw the lock before laying Tate down on the cement floor. Joseph groaned.
Vas felt a sour grief settle in his stomach, but he did his best to ignore the sounds coming from the other side of the door. “We need light.”
Joseph’s lips moved. Vas bent down so he could hear him.
“That’ll be dangerous,” Tate breathed.
“It’ll be a damn sight less dangerous than facing Alix if you die!”
“Check the room.”
“Tate—”
“No more surprises.”
Vas forced himself to his feet. He watched Joseph for a second, but the man actually managed to unfasten the first-aid kit fixed to his hip. If Tate meant to patch himself up, he would need to be able to see.
The captain returned to the wall, found the switch, and flipped it. The sudden blaze of artificial light made him wince. When he could see again, he saw Tate scooting himself toward some kind of heavy machine behind him. Vas’s eyes took in the bulky shape of the equipment, then followed its electric tail up to where it was tethered to the ceiling.
It wasn’t alone. Five other heavy machines stood on that side of the room. Their wires were suspended above them in a series of skates that allowed them to move across the entire oversized area.
Whatever the room was, it was no office. Huge metal pallets sat on the floor, empty, waiting to fulfill a job that Vas couldn’t begin to guess at. The whole place felt like it was waiting to be useful. In the center of it all, there was a large vat, ten feet high and six feet wide. It was open at the top.
Beside the vat were five empty water barrels.
While Vas canvased the room, he tried to ignore the fear that played across the back of his neck, but his mind kept straying back to those empty barrels. When he found nothing in the rest of the room, he returned to the vat. He tucked his gun in its holster and pulled himself up the thin metal ladder attached to the side of the open tank.
A pool of silver-white liquid shimmered under the overhead lights.
Vas stared at it for a moment, then jumped down and walked over to Tate. He took the ends of the bandage from Joseph and tied them into a tight knot over the wound.
“You found her pool, didn’t you?” Tate mumbled.
Vas could feel Joseph watching him, but he couldn’t bring himself to look up.
“It’s full,” Vas said.
There was silence. Then Tate began to laugh.