Janus and the rest of the team watched as the Gracian ran toward the service entrance they’d come in from, the three swarms closing on him and more rising and arrowing toward him from the central well. The Gracian managed to get the door shut, and the first swarms seemed to splash against it like the stream from a hose, but they scattered and melted above, bellow, and to the sides of the doors, flowing past the flimsy obstacle.

“Martial…” Terra said.

“Let’s go while they’re distracted,” Janus said.

Terra looked his way, still frozen, and for a moment Janus thought both Gracians were going to break on him, but then she nodded and took the spool of cable off her shoulder.

Janus put a wall between himself and what had just happened. Was he surprised? Maybe not. Martial was just another spoiled rich kid, born and bred to be an aspirant, who’d cracked under the pressure. Another Craig. Now, it was up to Janus to pick up the pieces.

“Let me hook you in,” Terra said.

She fed the cable through her auto-descender, then Janus’s, and finally Syn’s. “Give me a ten count before going over, and jump out, understood?”

“Understood,” Janus said, and Syn nodded.

“Ten count!” Terra repeated, then she threw the coil over the side.

A moment later, she mounted the rail and jumped outward with no hesitation.

Janus felt the cable pull him toward the rail, but it was only part of Terra’s weight. He braced himself as the pull increased, pushing his leg against the low wall, and then the weight slackened after four or five seconds. He looked at Syn, who hadn’t said a word, and asked, “Are you okay?” on their suit-to-suit.

“No. Hell no,” she said, shaking her head.

“He might make it,” Janus offered.

The cable tugged twice at his chest. Terra was waiting.

“I’ll see you down there,” Janus said, climbing the rail

Syn didn’t answer.

There was an awkward moment when he was straddling the guardrail, wondering if he should say more and unsure how to push off, when a much harder tug from below made him lose his balance and instead of jumping, he fell, twisting around the cable until the auto-descender activated. The cable went taught, swinging him toward the passing levels, and he had to awkwardly kick while spinning to avoid slamming into the wall between floors. That outward push gave him just the right trajectory that, when the auto-descender briefly locked, he swung in at the right height for Terra to pull him onto the concourse on the eighteenth sublevel. “You didn’t jump out, did you?”

“I got distracted,” Janus said, more concerned that they were going to lose Syn. The programmer had been quiet when Martial ran, curse him. There was a chance she would try to slip away. If she kept her cool and used the puppeteer display to keep her motions random, she might even make it.

A few seconds later, Syn slid down the cable and swung onto the concourse next to them.

“Wasn’t sure you were going to make it,” Janus said, helping to pull her in.

Syn grunted. “This is my home, Janus, or at least it was. Let’s go save the parts we can and stick it to the people who left.”

Janus nodded. He understood wanting to balance the ledger with people who had profited from Beta Station and abandoned it in their time of need. He also understood what it was to have gotten out, to have survived when others didn’t and the guilt that came with it—even if it hadn’t been his or Callie’s faults, or Uncle Ivan’s. In spite of Ivan’s tough exterior, he’d been damaged by their escape from Prometheus Base, and in a way, Syn was the same.

“We need to move,” Terra said.

The swarms in the central well were agitated, and no less than five were on the same floor as them, headed their way.

“Four more floors of horrors to go,” Janus said, starting their syncopated walk toward the exit.

***

They left the mall at the twenty-second sublevel, crossing through a residential block to reach the storage facility where the vault was hidden.

The hab was both intensely familiar and eerily quiet, the bare concrete hallways clean and empty, the doors to the small units locked.

“You don’t suppose they were able to seal themselves in, do you?” Janus asked.

“It’s been months,” Syn said. “You saw how those swarms acted back there. Either the people here left, got hunted down, or they used so little air and power they died in their units within days.”

It was a hard set of options. Janus didn’t try the doors to see which one might be correct.

“I’m sorry about Martial, Invarian,” Terra said.

“Not your fault,” Syn answered before Janus could.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Terra said coldly.

“Well, I was talking to you,” Syn said. “I, uh, found your candidacy packages on Agent Murkinson’s server. You were the better aspirant in every category except for how you tested with the focus groups. He was—”

“Prettier than me?” Terra said. “More heroic?”

Syn shrugged. “A man? It should have been you leading the team, not him. Out of all the candidates, you were the only one who was qualified to be a real aspirant.”

Terra was quiet.

“Mick said you put up a good fight, for what it’s worth,” Janus said.

“Hah,” Terra said with genuine warmth. “Ask him how his ribs are when you get out of here.”

“I’ll do that,” Janus said, and he held onto that thought. He’d see Mick again. He’d see his family again. They were going to win this, even though it felt like they’d walked into the underworld of the dead without an exit strategy.

They reached the other side of the hab and used a public passageway to access the storage facility.

Everything was quiet.

They used the digital credentials the technocrat had given them to get in, and from there, they went to the security station, a small armored booth that fit four people and contained one security guard, long dead by his own hand. It was almost strange seeing the body, half its skull missing, bloated and rotten because the nanites hadn’t gotten to it. Terra grabbed the wheeled chair and pushed the mess aside so Syn could use the terminal.

Janus was just glad he was suited up so he couldn’t smell the room.

“The login worked,” Syn said. “Opening access to the vault.”

“Let’s go, then,” Janus said.

They’d made it. They were going to reach the vault, and then the Betans could—

Janus stopped mid-stride and mid-thought. He could hear a crackling sound.

It was the security guard’s corpse, desiccating under their eyes.

“Nanite density rising!” Syn said as her scanner went off and streams of black particles started to form in the air like a sudden fog.

They were everywhere. The nanites had been with them all along. The security guard cracked and bent as the nanites aggressively broke him down. They were going for the nearest organic matter to Syn’s breach of security, and they were doing it with a will.

Stolen novel; please report.

Stay calm, Janus told himself. They were just machines. They didn’t know he was there. They were just converging on the opening of the door and Syn using the console. He took a halting, random step toward the door, and then another, arms moving out of tempo to non-rhythm of the puppeteer display, and he made it out into the storage facility. Syn and Terra followed him, each to their own random no-pattern, like dancers in a strobe light, or children playing sly trilith. Step, swing, step, shuffle, forward and back, a stuttered progress and route through the tall stacks of containers toward their destination, and then a shadow formed in the air in front of them.

It coalesced into the silhouette of a man.

As Janus took his next step, the shadow stepped as well, mirroring his movement and blocking the way forward. It could see him.

“We won’t make it,” Terra said calmly, and the shadow thing cocked its head toward the transmission. The Gracian aspirant pointed her arm at the man-shaped swarm of nanites.

She was holding the dead security guard’s weapon.

“Terra, what are you doing?” Janus asked, drawing the shadow’s attention.

“Giving you an opening,” she said. “The gun is biometrically locked. When I pull the trigger, I’ll become the biggest threat in this room.”

“Wait!”

An alarm sounded as Terra pulled the trigger and the shadow man exploded, scattering in every direction. For a second, he thought Terra had stumbled across some sort of secret anti-nanite weapon, and then the nanites reformed in the air to her right and slammed into her as a solid stream that knocked her sideways into a wall. “Run!” she said.

Janus ran. He and Syn sprinted for their lives as Terra was engulfed in an unliving swarm of black. The Gracian aspirant started to say something, but instead she screamed over the open comm channel, drawing even more of the nanites to her.

Janus and Syn were halfway to the vault when his suit’s breach alarm started to sound. He could really hear scraping and grinding this time, like a million creatures with diamond teeth gnawing on bones, and it was getting harder to move. He flashed back to that first sprint with Lira, back in Prime Dome, the crowd cheering them on as they headed for their buggies to start their journey. He thought of Callie and him arriving in Prime Dome as children, and what he would have given for a chance to bring a piece of Prometheus Base with him, to bury their dead and say goodbye before walking away.

Syn fell, squirming and shouting.

The vault door was open, only twenty meters away.

Searing pain bit into Janus’s joints as the nanites breached the suit at the ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, and elbows. He felt the suit squeeze him as the breach prevention system locked down, slowing him to a painful walk, tottering like some sort of automaton from a children’s tale, and then he passed through the inhibitor field at the vault door and the pain, the scratching, everything went away.

He’d made it. Terra’s screams had stopped, but Syn was still crying out for help.

Janus staggered over to the vault entrance terminal, interfaced with it, and uploaded the file the way Syn had made them all practice, and the first inhibitor field dropped and every security measure inside the vault came online.

Janus slumped against the wall next to him as an almost endless stream of darkness flowed past him, letting out a static screech, and flew into the vault’s labyrinthine interior.

His perception of time was unreliable from that point on. He knew that they’d succeeded, that he was alive, and that he was in a great deal of pain. Maybe he slept, or fell unconscious, but at some point, a Betan rescue worker got him on his feet and helped him walk to the nearest of the elevators, which were now functional.

“Is Syn okay?” Janus asked. “Did Terra make it?”

“I think Syn made it, sir,” the Betan said. “Not sure about the Gracian woman. We can find out at the aid station.”

Janus nodded. His head felt very heavy but, fortunately, transportation was waiting for them when they reached ground level.

Faces blurred in and out of view. At some point, he thought that the machines were trying to pry his helmet off and he fought them, but they were surprisingly gentle in holding him down.

“You got lucky, boss. All three of you,” Mick said through the haze.

Lira was there, too, or maybe it was Janus’s mother.

Janus struggled to get up, but he couldn’t. “We need to get moving. The Trials…”

“We’ll get there,” Lira said, taking his hand, and he was surprised to find himself dressed in a hospital gown with tubes snaking into him. “You’re getting the best of care, Janus. It’s only been a day.”

When he dreamed, Janus was haunted by ghosts. He was walking against a dark wind on a path of his own choosing, and one by one, his companions fell. First Martial, through Janus’s lack of leadership. Then Terra because Janus hadn’t been smart enough to think of being the decoy himself. Syn fell, not out of sacrifice but because Janus left her behind. Then Janus, one step short of the vault, and all of Beta Station with him. It seemed to him that people had depended on him since he was very young. He’d had to take care of Callie until she could fend for herself, and by then he’d had his first apprenticeships, then multiple work shifts. Was that a form of power, the ability to hurt the ones you loved through your every failing, no matter how insignificant?

Janus woke in a hospital room. The lights had been dimmed, and only he and the Beta Station wayfinder were in the room.

“Priest,” Janus croaked in a sarcastic imitation of his uncle.

“Emissary,” the cultist said, dipping his head. “Let me get you some water.”

Emissary. The title chilled Janus to the bone.

The wayfinder took a medical squeeze bottle full of water and brought the straw to Janus’s lips.

Janus sucked down two swallows, then asked, “Why did you call me that?”

“What?” Mayhew asked.

“Emissary,” Janus said.

Mayhew shrugged. “I won’t get into the origins of the Trials with you, Janus Invarian. Simply know that those who run in the race, even the victors, merely aspire to the virtues of the Survivor. Only those who achieve great things in the name of survival can be called His Emissaries. I can say, confidently, that you have won this year’s Trials, Janus. You need only finish the race to be crowned, so, for now, rest.” The wayfinder set the bottle down and turned to leave.

“Wait!” Janus said, trying to sit up, but the motion made him feel woozy.

He sunk into troubled sleep, tossing and turning but not able to wake up until he felt his shoulder being shaken.

Janus opened his eyes halfway against the brightness. Same hospital room, different people. Lira and Mick were there, none the worse for wear, thank goodness. Syn was there, too, leaning on a pair of crutches and looking pale. Agent Murkinson had left his crawler to come visit, apparently, as had the Betan technocrat and the wayfinder, although this time the priest stayed in the back and remained silent.

“Aspirant Invarian,” the technocrat began. “I just wanted to express the gratitude of—”

“Where’s Terra?” Janus asked, cutting him off.

Mick, Lira, and Syn’s faces were sad. Arogarth looked to Agent Murkinson, who said, “Terra died in the vault, Janus. It’s a shame she failed so close to your objective, but with so many Betan lives at stake, her sacrifice was a necessary part of our great victory over the swarm.”

Murkinson continued to talk, but Janus tuned him out. He was confused. He thought he remembered Mick saying the three of them had gotten lucky, and Syn was here, which meant… “No,” Janus said, interrupting whatever Murkinson had been saying.

“‘No,’ what?” Murkinson said, irritation surfacing from under his congratulatory tone.

“Where is Martial?” Janus asked.

Lira and Mick looked confused, and Syn looked like she was somewhere between disgust and embarrassment.

“Martial is coordinating rescue and recovery efforts as we speak,” Murkinson said. “We thought it best to have a member of the team that went to the vault front and center to coordinate our joint efforts.”

Janus stared at Murkinson until the silence got uncomfortable.

The Gracian looked at his Betan counterpart for support. “We need to see the bigger picture, here, Invarian. Martial was part of the team. He’s a figure who can rally the Betans to risk entering the dome while the swarm is otherwise occupied. We can’t afford confusion right now.”

“There is no confusion,” Janus said, surprised by the authority in his voice.

Murkinson’s expression became angry as he started to argue, but by now Janus knew that anger was only the mask of fear.

“This is what you’re going to do,” Janus said to both the agent and the technocrat. “You’re going to remove Martial from any position of responsibility and confine him to the Gracian crawlers, and when you return to Survivor’s Grace, you are going to be clear about what happened here, and what happened is this: Terra is solely responsible for saving thousands of Betan lives, as well as my life and Syn’s.”

“That’s absurd,” Murkinson said. “Why have a martyr when we can give them a living hero? You’re overthinking this, Janus. Let us handle this. This is how things are done.”

Janus felt his vision go red. He knew he was being difficult, maybe unreasonable, but he’d spent his whole life watching people like Martial get away with everything while people like Janus couldn’t catch a break. Was Martial evil? No. Had his cowardice cost Terra her life? He would never know. But he wasn’t a powerless outsider anymore. “I don’t care what you tell them about Martial—that he lost his nerve, or that he didn’t make it all the way—but if you make him out to be some kind of hero, I promise you I will make it my life’s mission to discredit you, to shame Survivor’s Grace for the abject cowardice of its aspirants, and expose the lies you’ve told to anyone who will listen.”

“You wouldn’t,” Murkinson said.

“I’ll help him do it,” Syn said, holding her head high in spite of her injuries.

“So will I,” Lira said, her expression less certain, but her support still appreciated.

Arogarth cleared his throat. “I understand your moral outrage, Aspirant Invarian. Believe me, I do,” he said, giving Murkinson a disgusted look. “But having an aspirant, even a failed one, is helping focus people on what’s necessary rather than looting or fighting over who gets how much of what supply store.”

Janus threw the hospital sheets aside and said, “Then you’d better get me a void suit and whatever drugs it’s going to take to let me stand.”

***

Wayfinder Caravan, Arctic Circle, En Route to Gemini Point

Planet Irkalla, Survivor’s Refuge

4452.2.19 Interstellar

Ryler sat back in his chair, his nerves frayed from watching his friend go into danger, his lifesigns start to go criticial as the nanites tore into him, and then, against all odds, victory. “They survived, and they’re ahead of all the other teams by a significant margin.”

Nikandros looked at the terminal and patted Ryler’s shoulder. “That’s good. I’m glad your friend pulled through, but remember we’re here for more than just the Trials. We aren’t the only ones watching him, and you know where his route leads.”

Ryler bit his lower lip and nodded.

Soon, they would find out exactly what Janus was made of, and the decision he made would affect not just Prime Dome but all of Irkalla.

The real trial was about to begin.