Sun-Side Regrets, Town of Cofan

Krandermore, Survivor’s Refuge

4453.1.25 Interstellar

Janus stormed through the wooden arch and tiki torches that marked the entrance to the Sun-Side Regrets with more energy than he should have had, given the epi shots and the long hike through the jungle, some of it carrying or supporting their coldsider captives. He couldn’t help it, though. He’d been triggered by seeing Ryler, and the Invarian temper—the same temper his uncle, Ivan, displayed on occasion—had been sparked like gasoline vapors.

Ryler followed, ignoring his mood. “Janus! Come on, man, don’t be like—”

“What?” Janus snapped, rounding on Ryler and jabbing his fingers into the cultist’s chest. “What are you going to say to me, Ryler? Be nice to you? Don’t be a jerk? Don’t act like a man who was taken from his home and had his wrist implant torn out?”

Ryler raised his un-modified eyebrow. “Is that what’s happening?”

Janus’s anger faltered. “What?”

Ryler looked down at Janus’s hand. “You’re blaming me for what you did. Didn’t realize a year on Krandermore would make you a complete ass. Remember the ‘time is money’ guy from the airlock last year?”

Janus blinked, remembering exactly who Ryler was talking about, and that guy had been an ass. He shook his head. “I can’t do this with you. You took me away from my family.”

“Let’s talk about that,” Ryler said.

“You sending me back?”

“Can’t.”

“Then there’s nothing to talk about,” Janus said, disgusted. He turned and headed for the bar. He was tired, worried, angry, and coming off a dose of adrenaline. It was the worst time for this to happen.

He clamped down on his resolve. Mick and Lira were already on their way. He only had to fend the cultist off until they got here.

He caught the bartender’s attention. “Chicha, no ice.”

The mayeque nodded and turned to grab a large bottle made out of a gourd.

“I’ll have one, too,” Ryler said, putting his elbows on the bar next to Janus.

Janus glared at him.

Ryler Abbraxis—the same Ryler who’d been his friend since they were both twelve years old—looked back, shrugging off the aggro like he always did. “What’d you give to be back on Irkalla, talking to the old crowd, just worried about maintenance quotas and recycling yields?”

Janus didn’t have to think about it because he thought about it all the time. “I’d give anything.”

“I’m here, man,” Ryler said. “I’m your old crowd. So let’s talk.”

The mayeque put two clay cups of the spiced grain beer on the counter.

Ryler touched his wrist. “I’ve got it.”

“Like the Void you do,” Janus said, paying for both drinks and taking his to his regular table, away from Ryler.

“Guess the first round’s on you, then,” Ryler said, grabbing his and following.

Janus sat down at the team’s usual table.

Ryler sat to his left.

“That’s Lira’s seat,” Janus said.

“I’m not moving,” Ryler said. “Look, can we just.. talk? I spend all my time around observers and compilers, and that’s when I’m with people. When I’m not with them, I’m with Nikandros.”

“Kind of your choice,” Janus pointed out.

“Yeah. How are you feeling about the outcome of your choices? Is that working out? Got you exactly where you wanted? Must be nice to be so Void-blessed perfect that your every move comes up chrome.”

Janus clenched his jaw. He wanted to say his choices had been instigated by Ryler’s cult, but he could see how that would give Ryler and him common ground, maybe open the door to conversation and commiseration. He didn’t want that, so he drank some of his chicha instead. It was made of fermented and spiced maize and tasted sour, a bit like his mood.

Lira walked up to the table, looked at Ryler, and said, “Move.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ryler said with a grin.

Janus looked at Ryler. “What the hell, man? What happened to ‘I’m not moving?’”

“That’s Lira Allencourt,” Ryler said, grinning wider and shifting seats. “I don’t mess with that level of crazy.”

“Screw you, Abraxxis. I’m taking your drink.” She swiped Ryler’s chicha off the table and drained half of it.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Ryler sighed. “I’ll order more. Same?”

Janus nodded. “Mick drinks mezqual.”

“Of course he does,” Ryler said, getting up and walking to the bar.

Janus and Lira looked at each other, both tired for reasons beyond the stims and the run through the jungle. “How did it go?” he asked.

“We’re screwed,” Lira said, putting her head down on the table.

“Is it that bad?” Mick said, taking his usual seat facing the entrance. “That seems bad.”

“It’s bad,” Lira said.

Ryler came back with three chichas clutched in his hands. “Drinks!”

“I don’t drink that fruity stuff, man,” Mick said, completely unfazed by Ryler’s presence.

“I’ve got you, man, or rather my man Pasqual does.”

The bartender, who never provided table service, walked up with a clay jug and a small cup, putting them in front of Mick.

“Thanks!” Ryler said cheerfully.

“It is my honor,” the mayeque said with a small bow.

Lira watched him go. “He never brings drinks to tables.”

Ryler gave her and Janus their drinks before sitting down with his. “I’m just a friendly guy. Besides, he’s devout.”

“Survivor save us,” Lira said.

***

For the next three drinks, the four of them managed to pretend they were just four Irkallans meeting in a bar. It wasn’t easy. Janus wasn’t sure how they pulled it off without coordination, but it was like Mick and Lira were under a spell.

As for Janus, he wanted to lash out at Ryler, to push him away, but the cultist was a connection to home. They weren’t as close as they’d been, or as close as Janus was to Mick and Lira, but there was at least some level of trash-littered common ground.

So they talked about old times, about people they knew and places they’d all seen. Mick had less in common with Ryler than the rest of them, but they’d all grown up on an airless rock that never stopped trying to kill them.

That counted for something.

But the team was also exhausted at this point. They were all getting testy, and it couldn’t last.

“So what are you doing here, Ryler?” Lira asked. “What’s the ask?”

Ryler grimaced. He finished his drink and sat back.

Janus blew out a sigh. “It’s a big ask.”

“Bet he wants us to run in the Trials,” Mick said.

Ryler’s eyebrow—the natural one—shot up in surprise.

“Yep,” Lira said, looking at Janus. “Damn it.”

“What?” Janus asked her.

She shrugged. “You don’t think it’s suspicious? He wants something from us and, on the same day, the deal I’ve been working on for months—” she made an exploding gesture with her hands.

“Whoa! I had nothing to do with that,” Ryler protested, but Janus stopped him with an outstretched palm.

“We’re not running in the Trials, so forget it.” Janus turned to Lira. “How bad is it?”

Lira put her hands on her head. “Remember the ghost? The Verazlan woman?”

“Yeah,” Janus said.

Lira told them the story. The Verazlan woman had gotten wind of the deal between Cofan and the Carver Institute—a trading conglomerate that represented eight coldside settlements—and she’d come down from her clan’s territories to put a stop to it. “She’s got something against all coldsiders,” Lira said. “Completely irrational, but she’s from the main branch of Clan Verazlan, so the Cofan elders had to listen, and then those idiots from the Carver Institute proved her right.”

“Why was she with them?” Mick asked.

“Oh, she baited them into stealing the samples, which weren’t the samples, which everyone knows and no one can prove, so she’s going to get away with it.” She put her hand over her mouth, then slapped it on the table. “I need another drink.”

“I’ll get it,” Ryler said.

“Get one for me, too,” Mick said. “I’m fine, emotionally. I just like drinking.”

Ryler half chuckled and went to pat Mick’s shoulder in passing, but Mick snatched him by the wrist and turned deadly serious. “We’re not that friendly.”

“Got it,” Ryler said, squirming a bit as Mick ground the bones in his wrist before letting him go.

“Sorry,” Mick said, looking at Janus sheepishly. “I know he’s your friend, but…” Mick shrugged.

Janus wasn’t sorry. It was what he’d wanted to do. There was something not quite right about Ryler, and he wasn’t sure what it was. The words and the banter were fine, but there was a stiffness to his old friend like his face was just a mask. Maybe it was the implant where Ryler’s eyebrow used to be. Maybe it was nothing, and Janus just felt betrayed. “Why did she give them the wrong samples?”

Lira stared blankly at the table. “Honestly? I think she’s crazy. It was part of a plan so convoluted it’s just nuts enough that no one is sure she did it. I can’t tell if she wanted the rangers to track them down and kill them so she could start a war or if she wanted them to get back to their settlements. If the coldsiders had been dumb enough to use those crop samples at scale, and they failed, hundreds or even thousands might have died from starvation, and if that wasn’t enough, she infected them with a local strain of…” Her eyes glowed blue as she accessed her implant. “SARS-CoV-3. It’s an Old Earth disease. It doesn’t matter because she’s denying all of this, and the craziness only makes me sound less credible for accusing her. I don’t know where she even got a sample of it.”

“The Cofan labs,” Janus said. “What? It makes it hard for people to breathe. Sun-siders keep it behind glass in case a war with the suit-wearing weaklings kicks off. You’re both vaccinated against it. I made sure.”

“So there would have been no doubt the Motragi were to blame if they got back,” Mick said.

“Exactly,” Lira said. “She would have gotten her war no matter what if we hadn’t intervened, and because the story about the theft is out and her being part of a different clan, the elders might have to side with her instead of marching her to the border.”

“Here you go,” Ryler said, carrying new drinks for everyone. “Brought a tray this time.”

“Thanks,” Mick said, taking his.

Lira nodded and cupped her hands around her glass.

“Where does that leave us?” Janus asked.

“Nowhere good,” Lira said. “The Verazlan claims we’re coldsiders, and we were helping the Carverites escape. The council knows that’s crap, but they can’t contradict her openly without proof, and the burden of that proof is on us.”

“At least you knocked her flat,” Mick said. “Or did that make things worse?”

“No, that helped,” Lira said. “Sun-siders respect strength, even if that’s also working against us right now because our ghost is backed by the most aggressive clan in the region.”

Janus watched Ryler sit out of the corner of his eye. His childhood friend was relaxed, not part of their team but not a stranger either. There were some rough edges, to be sure, but better him than his boss or some other cultist. “What are you doing here, Ryler? I mean, aside from getting a hard pass from us on the whole Trials thing.”

Ryler started to answer, but suddenly, all the other patrons in the bar got up and walked out, almost in unison, leaving their drinks behind.

“What’s going on?” Janus said, twisting in his seat.

Two armed wayfinders—the itinerant priests of the Cult of the Survivor—had posted themselves at each of the two entrances, and a man in pleated white robes and a matte black full-face mask walked into the bar.

“That was dramatic,” Mick said.

Janus glanced at Ryler. His friend looked tense and uncomfortable.

Janus doubted they were going to like whatever was about to happen.