The soldier surveyed the new trail from just within the tree line. Not the Imperial Esplanade on Lyrr Prime, by any means, still it was obviously a much more established path than the thread he’d been following since his awakening. Quartering from upspin-polar to generally downspin-antepolar, it at least showed sign of having been traveled, although not frequently. Deer, he thought, struggling to sort the imprints without breaking cover. Or deer-like creatures, at any rate. Rabbits as well... foxes, possibly wolves. It was difficult to tell from this distance, even with the magnification turned up on the mechanical eye. Still, he was reluctant to leave the relative cover of the smaller track to examine them more closely. It was warmer down here than it had been up on the mountain, and much more comfortable. He settled back to rest while he watched. He’d give it an hour or so before he decided whether to chance it or not.

As he relaxed back against the base of a tree, forming himself unconsciously along the line of an exposed root, he let his eyes go half-lidded, allowing his mind to go unfocused, let his thoughts float free. Inspiration sometimes visited when he let his mind wander. Sometimes answers wandered by that he’d never see with his mind alert.

The sounds of the forest drifted in first. Familiar, friendly. And then the smells — smells that triggered memories, feelings from his youth. The forest had always been a happy place for him. An escape from all the troubles of his world. An escape he’d long been denied. The conscription, the training, the war....

How long had it been since he’d lain beneath the canopy just for the sake of being there? Not since they’d scooped him and Sylvan up out of math class that dark winter morning so long ago. Now Sylvan was dead and he was alone again, and in a forest again. And whether he’d chosen to be so or not, he seemed to be here solely to be here. He wondered if that were such a bad thing after all.

He’d always felt most alive beneath the trees. He’d always felt a part of the entity that was a forest. Just another aspect of the whole, fitting comfortably within his place in the chain of life. The way the sunlight filtered through the trees had seemed more natural to his eyes than standing directly beneath the star in the open. The feel of the breeze more natural for having passed through the leaves before it touched him. He sighed softly, relaxing more fully. Even more so than in the glade, he felt himself sliding free of the bonds of his life.

Perhaps he really was dead. He’d awakened to confusion and pain, but he’d awakened in a place he could belong. How long had it been since he’d felt he belonged someplace? Oh, he’d belonged in the military, and he’d belonged to the Corps and to his unit, but those weren’t the same belonging. They were imposed upon him for all that he gave them everything he had. The Corps was a part of him now, but was it him? His eyes closed as he pondered what it was that he really was inside.

Duty, honor, loyalty. They were at once his obligations and his driving forces. But they were things he did — the way he lived, because he had to. Because somebody had to. But were they him? Was there a him beyond the killing machine they’d made of the boy they’d taken?

He trained and he fought, took orders and gave them. Had done little else for most of his life. If he wasn’t fighting, it seemed he was either learning new ways to fight or practicing to fight while traveling to the next fight in the hold of some transport surrounded by others just like him. On those occasions when he wasn’t recovering from the last fight.

He didn’t even own a set of civilian clothes anymore. Not for nearly a decade. Of what use? Anyplace he went, even the shanty towns that grew up around the deployment camps, he was Captain Storm and his uniform was enough. Hell, his uniform could go out without him and most of the civvies wouldn’t even notice his lack.

And what were his associations with non-soldiers that they should? He drank in the interchangeable bars, sat in the interchangeable theaters, ate in the interchangeable restaurants, and caroused with the interchangeable women. Those moments between battle, training, and transit were all too short, and it was rare a given soldier ever saw the same town twice in his lifetime. So what matter if a bartender’s name was Hank or a girl’s name was Alice, or if they called roast beef on a hard roll with au jus a French Dip or an Io Lander? And what matter to Hank or Alice or the waitress in the bustier who’d just plopped the synthetic beef on an algae roll onto the scarred table whether the jarhead in the TEF jumpsuit was a nice guy or a jerk, or whether he even had a name that went beyond his rank and unit affiliation?

For both sides of those interactions, after awhile, the faces of the others blended into an all too forgettable anonymity. The bartenders were all “Hank,” the girls were all “Alice,” and the jarheads were all “Joe,” or “Sarge,” or “Handsome,” or “Sweetie,” depending on who was talking and where, and whether there was money on the table and how much.

How long had it been since he’d been anything beyond the jarhead in the jumpsuit? Or the killing machine with nothing to show for it but a trunk full of ribbons that nobody gave a crap about and the knowledge that maybe, just maybe, some of the good guys were still alive because of how good he was at the killing.

And now what? An empty bunk waiting for a new warm body? A footlocker and a couple of duffles to sit in a cargo hold somewhere until they figured out there was no next of kin and spaced them? Was that him? Was that all there was?

Of course, maybe he wasn’t dead at all. He still hurt all over, even through the weakened blocks. His rib still stabbed at him if he moved wrong. Maybe he was lying in the snow bleeding out? Maybe the pain was the only thing strong enough to reach him where his mind hid within this wood.

Should he wake up? How would he do that, he wondered. Should he even try? It was comfortable here after its own fashion. He’d done what they’d asked of him, hadn’t he? Each time they’d asked, no matter how crazy, no matter how unlikely his chances of survival or success? Perhaps he deserved a rest.

They’d come and get him when they needed him again, right? They always came when they needed him.

He thought about these possibilities with the smell of the ferns and the must in his nose, the sounds of the trees in his ears, and of the bugs and the scuttling creatures — the occasional bird call. Dead or dying, here he was, and there was no obvious way out. The ground upon which he lay, the forest which sheltered him, the watchers who followed him — all were real for sufficient values of real. Unbidden a smile came to his lips. At least he wasn’t completely alone.

Alone. He hardly ever thought about that anymore. Or hadn’t until just the past couple of days. Alone had been a large part of his life, in one form or another, for a very long time now. It came in waves.

Nana and Gramps, his uncles, his aunts, his cousins; he’d lost them all when the relocation officers had descended on his original home. He’d been sent west with his parents while the others had been sent somewhere else — he’d never learned where. Then the crowd had taken his parents during that food riot and he’d been completely alone.

Sylvan had become his family then — had dragged him into a storm drain virtually from beneath the stomping feet of the rioters. Sylvan’s grandfather had become his grandfather.

Grandfather had been lost when the Academy ‘enrollment’ squad had snatched the boys out of school one morning without warning to fill empty slots in a duty roster somewhere.

And eventually the Adair quarries fiasco had taken Sylvan and he’d been alone again, for all that he’d been surrounded by half a billion others of a hundred different races and species.

Alone was strong, they kept telling him. Alone and you don’t lean. Alone and you learn quicker. Alone you learn better to survive. Alone you don’t grieve. Alone, they’d neglected to tell him, was barren.

Oh, he’d survived right enough. Survived it all. And he’d grown strong and resourceful. He’d become a leader of men, a feared warrior. A soldier. A man of honor. A man of duty. But at the end of the day, what was left for him? A solitary bunk if he was lucky, the cold ground of an alien world if he was less so. An open grave if he missed something. Was that all there was to it? Follow orders, fight, eventually die? Did he even want more? What did he want? Was there even a way to know?

His head was back against the bole of the tree now, resting in cupped hands, eyes closed, tears flowing unnoticed as his mind wandered down the paths of his life, his original purpose forgotten. No longer even aware of his surroundings, he was lost completely in thought. A soft hum dribbled, as unnoticed as the tears, from nearly closed lips. Melodic but as drifting and unfocused as his mind.

Alone he definitely did not want, he decided. He was sick to death of alone. It ate at him — hollowed him out. Alone left him a shell filled only with obligation. An automaton programmed to kill and claim objectives for faceless leaders star systems distant — interchangeable, unconnected, invisible voices at the far end of a comm unit that always seemed to have just one more mission for the interchangeable jarhead in the TEF jumpsuit.

So what else was there? Searching back through his life, he could barely remember the time before the Corps. Hazy scraps of pictures like watching a vid with a bad sat relay. His life, but not quite his life, washed out and pale. He could see his parents and their fleeting moments of happiness, but couldn’t connect them with any feelings. He could see his Nana patting his gramps on the cheek as he sat beside the window of the old house on... some side street in some small town. But he couldn’t quite feel any kinship. Like he was watching characters in some amateur stage play.

He should feel something, shouldn’t he? They were his family! It was as though his whole life was someone else’s half-remembered campfire story. That wasn’t right. How could that be right?

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

That was what alone did to you — it walled you off from everything that should be important and trapped you in a world of meaningless, interchangeable strangers.

Would he even know what not alone was at this point? Was he anything beyond the programmed automaton? Could he be? What was he but the sum of his experiences? What was he but a soldier? He struggled to look deeper within himself — struggled to find a piece of him that was all him, and not the construct of someone else.

What was it that he wanted if it wasn’t this life? What was it he needed? Who would he have to find to render him “not alone”?

And his wandering brought him back to the watchers. He could still feel them out there, taste their inquisitiveness, feel their curiosity.

He’d not been able to catch so much as a glimpse for all his trying, but they were there. He was as certain of their presence as he was of the trees all about. But what were they up to? If they’d meant him harm, they’d have done something about it by now, wouldn’t they? It wasn’t as though he were heavily armed or equipped. But if their intentions were friendly, why hadn’t they made themselves known? There was just no telling without more information, and that they weren’t giving up.

Still, he could feel them, more strongly than ever, and if he tried.... There. It seemed as though he could almost touch them. He began to see them in his mind’s eye, feel the warmth of their bodies crouching within the branches of the trees, midnight tresses intermingling, as they shared secret thoughts. Like cool water after a long thirst, he could feel the bright tingle of their thoughts. Their curiosity. Their wonder — and suddenly their fear!

Pain slashed through his head! Excruciating. Blinding. His eyes squeezed shut and he shook his head violently, startling a nearby bird into panicked flight. He lunged upright, palms grinding into his forehead, nausea pushing his stomach into his throat, heart beating near out of his chest. He was doing it again, damnit! He was playing that child’s game of imagination that had so plagued his adolescence and so nearly destroyed his military career. He forced his shaking hands into the hollows of his armpits and fought to regain his calm, eyes watering, breath coming in great, tearing gasps. It hadn’t been real, he insisted to himself. He hadn’t felt any other minds. He hadn’t seen anyone — hadn’t felt anyone! It was all his imagination! It wasn’t real! It wasn’t real! It wasn’t real!

It had taken the psych techs more than a year to curb these almost pathologically clear imaginings when he’d first been sent for his military training. A year of painful retraining he still couldn’t remember clearly. Fortunately for young Brae, his other abilities had been sufficiently strong to warrant the additional costs incurred, or he’d be in the belly of some carrier now, cleaning bulkheads, instead of.... The dream was fading, his stomach calming. His breath still came hard, his heart still banged against his rib cage, and his body wouldn’t stop shaking. But his head had given up trying to break into large, jagged pieces as the particulars of the dream faded into a background hum, and the thought of scrubbing bulkheads was looking better and better.

“To hell with it!” he told the world at large, as he gathered himself up and plunged into the open, taking the new trail with a forced purpose that didn’t penetrate his skin.

* * *

“What in the name of all darkness was that?” Swallow screeched from where she lay curled into a fetal ball on the forest floor, shaking like a willow’s upper branches in a storm.

Thrush Dancing didn’t answer — couldn’t answer. She could barely think. She’d felt something... other... touch her, if only briefly, and her mind was screaming panicked warnings strong enough to drown out all else. She couldn’t feel the shuddering of her body or the wracking sob of her breath. She didn’t feel the clammy chill that had enveloped her skin. All her conscious mind could fathom was the taste of the thing that had reached out. Repulsed as she told herself she was, still there was something in the essence... something... old. Something primal. Something lost. An aloneness, almost a desolation had lain within that momentary, feathery touch, and some part of her —very, very deep within— had tried to respond.

“Thrush!” Swallow Courting cried with the sound of a lightning-struck tree.

Thrush came to herself all at once, feeling her body convulse with reaction, carrying her to the ground beside her sister. But still, in spite of her physical failing, her mind remained almost tranquil. She allowed her gaze to lock with that of her sibling —the other half of her soul— and willed the calm to envelope them both.

“What was that?” Swallow’s face ran with tears.

“I don’t know,” Thrush answered when she could trust her voice. “Something old, I think, that the world has forgotten.” She shook her head again. “I don’t know.”

“Did it come from the thing?”

A shrug and a glance around. “Could it have come from anywhere else?”

“We should kill it, then.”

“NO!” Thrush blurted, the stab of an invisible dagger piercing her heart.

Swallow rocked back on her heels at the unexpectedness and violence of her sister’s response. “No? But it’s evil. It must be.”

“We don’t know that,” Thrush’s voice shook

“Know? We know that it invaded our minds! It punched through our wards like an arrow through cobweb! What creature but of evil does that? What creature but of evil could?”

Thrush didn’t answer immediately. Her mind had moved elsewhere. There was something wrong. Wrong? Something important had just happened. Something had changed. Something had changed her. Her inner voice was crying a warning and so she turned her gaze inward, searching as the elders had taught her, for that which didn’t belong.

She knew her inner self like she knew her bower within Hae Shintaliee. Often enough, she’d practiced the meditations that would keep her complete in the face of monstrous or sorcerous attacks. She followed the way down from the outer wards each sylvan learned as a babe, down through the polite defenses that children learned so as to keep wandering thoughts from annoying others, still deeper, to the grown up places, where will and passion and wisdom lived. All was as it should be, with no trace of intrusion or damage. Deeper in, she went, into the core of her being; the place where she and Swallow had been joined within their mother’s womb. She gasped then, nearly losing the trance. Here, at the very core of her being —the thing that made her Thrush Dancing— something had changed.

The thread of consciousness that was Thrush’s inner questing swirled around the core of herself, poking and prodding, seeking the reason for the change, fearing the worst. What had been complete was complete no more. What should have been a globe of light, whole and self-contained, had now a pattern of gaps. Rents, more like. Much more frightening, the rents were enormous. Fully a third of the globe was missing! What remained had more the appearance of latticework than solid substance.

Fighting to maintain her center with so much of what that was now gone, Thrush’s questing essence moved closer. Something else was amiss. The globe itself was different, irrespective of the missing — no, not missing. Unfulfilled. A part of her marveled at what she saw even as she despaired. All that had been was there still. That portion of the globe that she could still see comprised all that had once been a whole. Her core had somehow grown larger, and what had been was now insufficient to achieve completeness. And with this realization, Thrush was taken with such a powerful longing that her corporeal body cried out with the sorrow.

Her eyes popped open, tears streaming from them to wash her cheeks.

“What has happened, Sister?” Swallow’s voice was anguished. Why do you weep? Is it so bad as that, then? Is that why I suddenly feel so hollow?”

“Look within, Sister,” Thrush whispered, so softly her voice could barely be called voice.

“I don’t think I want to,” fear overrode Swallow’s response.

“You must. I could not make you see — you must do so for yourself.”

“I cannot!” Swallow’s voice rose to stridence. “I’m afraid. That thing has done something to us. I can feel it, and I fear what I shall find.”

Thrush smiled wistfully, sadly. “For good or ill, it is a thing of wonder that you’ll find, Swallow Courting, not of fear. Look you within. I will follow.”

Thrush crawled shakily to her frightened sister and settled before her, bringing her hands to cradle Swallow’s head, and placing their foreheads together. “Come, Swallow. Help me to understand what has happened to us.”

Still frightened, scarcely able to gain sufficient calm to enter the questing state, Swallow Courting closed her eyes and looked within.

* * *

The troop carrier Thorin Excelsior had been hulled in high orbit over Segorovanni IV during the forty-third Western Arm campaign. She’d taken three torpedoes almost simultaneously, and the bridge crew had been spaced before they could sound lifeboats.

Two companies of rangers and a battalion of marines had been aboard, readying for landings under fire. Roughly ten percent of them made it clear before the transport broke up. There were no other survivors. Space was like that.

Cut off from his unit by collapsing bulkheads, he’d managed a lifeboat at the last possible second, dogging the hatch even as the carrier broke to pieces around him, tearing loose the antenna arrays and attitude jets as the boat decoupled. The concussion of the exploding engine core had flung the boat and its lone occupant well clear of the last vestiges of Segorovanni IV’s gravity well, and with nothing to stop it, the boat had continued upon its path.

Six weeks, he’d been trapped within the boat —unable to communicate, unable to control his path— before a salvage tug had chanced upon the boat and dragged it aboard.

Six weeks! The soldier let go of the memory. Six weeks he’d spent in deep space, millions of klicks from the nearest life, let alone human life, and he’d never felt as alone as he did right now. Why should that be all of a sudden?

Huddled alongside the trail, arms about his legs, he rested his head on his knees, trying to ignore the way his tears were dampening the Lyrran skivvies. He was a man grown. He’d seen battles that would have given the devil pause. He’d faced down monsters to curdle the blood. So why was he suddenly unable to move for the tearing of his heart?

The light was going dark, whether within his head or without, and the inner D.I. was silent. There were no post-hypnotic programs to deal with despair of this sort. There were no training programs to fill the sudden emptiness within him. He was lost and alone, so alone, and his will was collapsing.

Even the watchers had gone. He could feel their absence like he’d been able to feel their presence. Surrounded by life, teeming in its variety, he felt a longing that paled anything he’d ever in his life felt before.

The pain he’d felt with his parents’ death, the tearing of his soul as he’d watched Sylvan vanish in white-hot fire — nothing had ever hit him like whatever had now taken hold. Something was very wrong inside his head, and he felt the first tentative tendrils of fear.

Fear, the subconscious D.I. could deal with, and the programming kicked in, herding the fear back into its cage, stuffing a bit of the longing in there with it. The lump that had been blocking his throat began to shrink, moving from his throat down to his chest. His heart was still pounding, but he began to see beyond the hollowness. He still hurt beyond what his physical wounds could account for, but he could manage this pain like he managed the other.

He struggled to his feet and staggered down the trail, arm swiping at his leaking eye.