After Earth

i

The alarm jolted Kitai awake.

He sat up, gasping for breath. He had been dreaming, but he didn’t remember the dream. He had a vague notion that it had something to do with his sister, but he couldn’t be sure.

It probably had to do with her. Most of his nightmares did.

Kitai flopped back down onto his bed and lay there despite the howling of his alarm. Long moments passed as it continued to shout at him. Finally he reached over and slapped it, hard. The alarm’s cry finally ceased, allowing him a few more moments in bed. Another person might have been tempted to roll over and return to sleep, but that wasn’t Kitai Raige. All he had needed was the jolt to wakefulness; after that, he was good to go.

Kitai finally sat up, rubbing at his face. He managed to bring himself to glance outside and begin to get a feel for what the day was going to be like. This was his day, after all, and he needed to have some idea of what the weather was going to be like. Of course, bright skies or pouring rain, it made no difference. Today was the day, and if he was going to have to do his stuff in soggy ground, well, that was the way it was going to be.

It didn’t mean he was looking forward to it, though, and when he looked outside and saw that the day promised to be decent, he gave a silent “thank you” to the powers that be. He couldn’t be absolutely sure since it was still dark outside, but from what he could see, it looked promising enough.

For just a moment he allowed himself to drift back to his dream. His recollections were vague at best, but he was reasonably sure that he’d been dreaming that awful day from five years ago when he had hidden from danger while his beloved sister was torn to shreds.

The notion that he had done so—that he had relived the deep guilt that still festered within him—was one of the hardest things for him to handle. Yet he dreamed of it with a frequency that was almost sickening. He did his best to brush away all recollection of it, yet that never seemed to work for very long.

Part of him occasionally toyed with the notion of going to see a psychiatrist, but every time he thought seriously about it, he ultimately rejected the idea. It would not go over well with his father. Members of the Raige family simply had no truck with people whose job it was to muck around with the human mind.

“You are who you are,” his father had said when Kitai had very subtly (he thought) brought up the topic of psychiatrists in the first place, “and you live with the hand that you were dealt.” That had been pretty much that.

The thirteen-year-old Kitai rolled out of bed and stretched. Waking was not something he did the way other people did. There was a procedure. First came a series of isometric stretching exercises. Then he dropped to the ground and did a hundred push-ups, which were followed by a hundred jumping jacks counted off in brisk fashion. He then crossed his room to the chinning bar he had installed back when he was eleven and did as many pull-ups as he could manage: twenty this morning.

Not bad. Not great, but not bad. Perhaps he was simply saving himself for his time out on the field this morning.

Yes, that made a vast amount of sense. He knew what he was facing this morning and how important it was going to be. His father was going to be home this evening, eagerly expecting the news they all wanted to hear. It was Kitai’s job to make sure the news would be good news.

“Kitai!” It was the voice of his mother, Faia, calling to him from downstairs. “You up yet?”

“Yeah. Why are you?”

“Made you breakfast. Thought you could use some this morning.”

He was surprised that she was taking the time. Her hours at the turbine factory were long, and mornings were the only time she ever had to catch up on her sleep. She usually wasn’t even awake before Kitai was out the door; that she had rousted herself this morning was sweet of her.

“Okay, be down in a few minutes.” It was only after that that he realized he might want to say something along the lines of “Thank you.” But he decided that it would come out as weak and indecisive, and so he simply nodded to remind himself to offer thanks after he went downstairs.

He took an actual shower this morning. Water had been in short supply recently, and although they weren’t at drought levels yet, people were being conscientious about water usage these days. If nothing else, there was a bit more of a general aroma from people. It wasn’t that big a deal. Once you decided to ignore the smells of other people’s bodies, you more or less made yourself used to it. However, with all the running around he was going to be doing, getting off to a fresh start wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

As he showered, he took the opportunity to check out his body. Tall and slender he was, catching up to his father in height. His skin was dark, his head was triangular, and his hair was cut down to standard Ranger length, which was one step above a buzz cut. He flexed his biceps as the shower water poured over him. The muscles were solid, compact. He did a few aerobic movements in the shower, then ran through a self-defense sequence before he was satisfied.

Minutes later he had toweled himself off and dressed in his two-tone gray and white Ranger cadet uniform. It lacked the decorations that were common to the full Ranger uniform, which of course made sense. How could one work toward being a full Ranger if one already had the accoutrements?

He trotted downstairs to find that Faia had made him two eggs, scrambled, plus a scattering of local fruits. His mother smiled when she saw him come downstairs. She was still wearing her nightgown with a robe draped over it. For all Kitai knew, she was going to go back to bed after he was off and grab another hour’s sleep.

“Thought you might like this for a change,” she said with a smile. “It’s a step up from protein bars, I figure.” That was true enough. Typically he grabbed a single bar for breakfast and launched himself into his day’s activities. This was unusual.

“Thanks,” he said. “For getting up and making it, I mean. Uh… thanks.”

“You can stop thanking me, Kitai. It’s all fine.”

He nodded and started plowing into the eggs. They were pretty damned good. He could taste the flavor of cheese intermixed with the eggs; she’d obviously put some in. “Good,” he said as he chowed down. “Really good.”

“Excellent.” His mother sat across from him, her fingers interlaced. She was smiling at him, but there was something about that smile that seemed to be… missing. That was it. It was missing… something.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“Hmmm?”

“Wrong. Something’s wrong.” He hadn’t slowed his eating. Bits of egg were falling out the edges of his mouth.

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Something is,” he insisted. He lay down the utensil and looked at her with concern. “What’s going on?”

She hesitated and then shrugged. “I just want you to do your best today. I know it’s important and all that. So just… you know… your best. That’s all you should be worried about.”

“I’m not worried,” Kitai said.

“Honey, I’m your mom.” She reached out and placed a hand atop his. “You can admit—”

“There’s nothing to admit. I’m going to do this. I’m going to go out there today on the course and finish on top on every subject, and by the time I see you this evening, I’m going to be a Ranger. That’s all.” He hesitated and looked at her warily. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

“What? No! No, of course not.” She laughed slightly. “Why would you think that?”

Because you’re afraid I’ll become just like Dad.

“No reason,” he said. “No reason at all.”

“Well, that’s good. I wouldn’t want you to do anything other than your best.”

“That’s no problem,” Kitai said confidently. “And I’ll make you proud.”

Her hand was still on his. She squeezed it tightly and said with a smile, “You already make me proud.”

They were meant to be comforting words. Instead, for no reason that he could come up with, they made him nervous.

ii

The suns beat down on the thirty-two Ranger cadets—twenty males, twelve females—as they pounded across the course that would determine their futures. The terrain was red and rocky, with peaks that seemed to stretch so high that they scraped the sky.

Kitai was somewhere in the middle of the crowd, and his positioning was helping to drive home some of the disadvantages he had to face simply because of his physical condition. For starters, despite the solidity of his body, he was still at least a head shorter than most of the other candidates.

Consequently, as the group moved across the rugged terrain, he had to take two steps to keep up with every single step of the others. He worked on maintaining a steady inhaling and exhaling rhythm, but it was definitely not easy. He was supposed to keep a consistent pace, but instead he was practically sprinting to keep up.

A huge river cut through the stunning red mountain range. Both suns were high in the sky, beating down on the planet’s surface. Kitai remembered reading some old science texts from Earth—back when there was an Earth—that swore that life-providing planets could not possibly exist in a two-star system, that any planets would be crushed between the gravity wells of the competing suns. He wondered what those scientists, dead for a thousand years, would have said about Nova Prime.

Don’t let your mind drift. Pay attention to what’s going on around you.

Kitai splashed through the river, sending water spraying, as did the others. However, the river also aided him in his positioning in the crowd. Others slowed down for whatever reason, and Kitai was able to take that opportunity to speed if not into the lead, then at least considerably closer than he had been before. When he hit the land on the other side, he was actually able to advance so that only a couple of the others were now ahead of him.

But he knew that a couple was not enough. When they reached the end of the trail, he had to be first. It was the tradition of the Raige family. Not second, not third—nothing but first would do.

The course of the race took them past a growing station. It was a huge open-fabric structure that shielded the crops from the weather. It allowed moisture to reach the plants but protected them from some of the more threatening weather. The station seemed to spread forever, although he knew that it was actually only a few hundred hectares.

Kitai felt his second wind kicking in and worked to shove his progress into high gear. He saw that Bo was leading the pack and started working to move his legs even faster despite the fact that Bo was built like a large tree. Bo was sixteen years old, farther along than Kitai in every regard: bigger, smarter, faster. But he was also breathing a bit more raggedly than Kitai was. Obviously, the stress of the run was starting to wear him down, and that was spectacular as far as Kitai was concerned.

There was a sudden drop in the terrain directly in front of them. Bo cut to the left to avoid it, and that gave Kitai the opportunity he needed. Rather than cut around the drop, he picked up speed and leaped directly over it. The trick was going to be sticking the landing, and that Kitai was able to do with style. He hit the downsloping ground ahead of him, stumbled only slightly, and then kept going. One leap and just like that, he was finally in the lead.

Bo, now behind him, called out to him, “This isn’t a race, cadet!”

Kitai didn’t care what Bo had to say on the subject. It hadn’t been a race until Bo was behind him. And now that Kitai had grabbed the lead, he had absolutely no intention of allowing it to slip from his grasp.

Instead of heeding Bo’s advice, Kitai stepped it up. His arms pumped, and his legs scissored with greater speed than he had displayed before. Slowly but steadily, he left the rest of the pack behind, separating himself from the leader and those in close proximity to the leader by a good ten or twenty meters.

The finish line was a kilometer ahead, but it might as well have been directly in front of him. He never slowed down for a moment, his feet flying across the terrain. One moment it was in front of him, and then it was behind. Kitai clapped his hands joyously in self-congratulation and then turned and faced the rest of the Ranger cadets, prepared to receive their congratulations as well.

Instead, one by one and then a few at a time, they jogged past him. The triumph he felt in crossing the finish line first was somewhat defeated by the fact that no one seemed the least bit willing to acknowledge it. Sure, granted, no one had actually been timing how long it took the Ranger cadets to cover the distance, but still, would it kill them to acknowledge his personal triumph?

Apparently so. Bo barely afforded him a glance, and then it was just a rolling of his eyes and a slow shake of his head, as if Kitai’s accomplishment meant nothing.

Fine. Be that way. Kitai tried not to let his irritation get the better of him. Sure, the other cadets might not have been at all interested in offering him kudos for his achievement. But certainly the Ranger officers who were watching from a remote distance would have made note of it. They, at least, would understand: It wasn’t enough that Kitai simply passed the course and was designated a Ranger. He had to be the best, and they undoubtedly knew why.

So what if the other cadets were unwilling to care about that? He cared. The Rangers who were judging him would care, too. In the end, that was all he really needed to worry about.

Once the Ranger cadets had a few minutes to gather themselves and recuperate from the run, the Ranger Instructors—RIs, as they were called—gathered them and marched them to a canyon about a mile away. Kitai noticed that a number of the Ranger cadets were chatting with one another intermittently. No one, however, seemed the least bit interested in chatting with him.

Okay, fine. That’s how they want to play it? That’s how we’ll play it.

As they approached the canyon, Kitai could spot RIs at the top. They had small, multiple layered devices in front of them that were giving individual readouts on each of the Rangers. Kitai knew exactly what they were for. They tracked fear levels, because the Rangers were about to be attacked there, down in the twists and turns of the canyon below. The readouts would provide exact details of their reactions, an overall score that would be called the fear prospectus.

Fear was the thing over which Rangers were supposed to triumph. Fear was the weakness that could wind up getting a Ranger killed. And they all knew why.

It was because the Ursa were sensitive to fear in their prey. They could smell it.

Over the last few hundred years the Skrel had put a half dozen or so different generations of Ursa up against humanity, and the most recent incarnations of the creatures had been the most formidable that humans had ever faced. Six-legged monsters they were, with huge maws full of teeth, not to mention the ability to blend in so perfectly with their backgrounds that they were practically invisible.

But it was their ability to smell the pheromones that denote fear, to lock on with unswerving concentration, that made them the deadliest of creatures.

So there was no ability more valuable to a Ranger than the mastery of one’s fear. More important than skill with the cutlass, more important than just about anything. That was why Kitai was determined to nail this part of the testing. This, more than anything, was going to determine his relative viability as a Ranger, and there was no way in hell he was going to screw it up.

The Rangers gathered at the entrance to the valley. Some were glancing up toward the RIs who were going to be monitoring them. Kitai was not. He’d already seen them and had buried that knowledge deep in the back of his mind. The presence of the RIs was no longer of any consequence to him. Only the challenges they would be facing in the valley mattered.

“All right, cadets,” called an RI who was down in the valley with them. “Take your equipment.”

The equipment dispensary had been set up. The dispensary had only two things in it, with enough for every one of the cadets: a protective helmet and a practice cutlass. These cutlasses would not change shape. There were no blades on the cutlass; it was to be used strictly for practice combat. It didn’t necessarily mean that someone couldn’t be hurt by it, but it was a lot more difficult.

Kitai slid the helmet over his head. He held up his hand briefly, looking at it front and back to make sure that his vision wasn’t impaired. Looks okay.

As soon as all the cadets were properly outfitted, the RI who had spoken before addressed them again. “Cadets… enter the field of combat!” He pointed straight toward the entrance to the narrow field that ran between the cliff’s sides.

“Sir, yes, sir!” called out the cadets, and marched straight into the unknown.

If there had been any means by which the Rangers could have dropped one or more Ursa into the canyons without worrying about dead cadets, they would have done so. But even Rangers had their limits, and no one in any command capacity was going to put three dozen or so cadets into one-on-one combat situations with the most vicious killing machines on Nova Prime. There would be challenges awaiting Kitai and the others, but of a more human kind.

Kitai once again found himself in the middle of the pack as they made their way slowly through the valley. This, however, was more by his choice than anything else. His positioning meant that other cadets would be the first to be attacked, giving him more time to react. He looked around as if his head were on a swivel, trying to see potential hot spots all around him, certain that the testers had come up with something special for the cadets this time.

There!

He reacted before he even saw it clearly. From the corner of his eye, he had spotted a quick flash of light. Could be nothing, but much more likely, it was everything.

“Left, left!” he shouted, and charged straight toward where he had seen the flash of light. “I got it!”

“Cadet!” Bo shouted, clearly getting tired of what he considered to be Kitai’s attitude. “Fall back into formation!”

Kitai paid him no mind whatever. Instead he charged, and other cadets got the hell out of his way.

As it turned out, he was right in doing so.

An RI hiding behind an invisibility field shifted it so that he could be perceived. He had his staff out as Kitai leaped through the air, bringing his own cutlass whipping around.

The two practice staves cracked together in midair. The RI staggered from the impact as Kitai charged forward and slammed a foot into his gut. The instructor let out a startled gasp and bent over, which Kitai took as an opportunity to slam the side of his staff down into the back of his neck. The RI went down to one knee, which was something of an accomplishment. Another man might well have been sent sprawling.

Kitai leaped past him, spun around, and was ready to bring his practice cutlass slamming down as hard as he could.

Then he lost the visual.

For no reason that he could discern, Kitai suddenly couldn’t see a damned thing. A screen slid horizontally across his field of vision, blocking his ability to perceive the area around him.

“I’m dark, I’m dark!” Kitai shouted, and started to reach up to the helmet restraints so that he could pull the helmet clear of his head.

Before he could do so, the screen across his face retracted. Just like that, he could see, and what he saw in specific was the extremely irritated RI whipping his body toward him. Before Kitai could move or react, the RI flipped him over his back, Kitai landing hard on the ground.

Yet he was up just as quickly as he’d gone down. His vision restored, Kitai came in as fast as he ever had. He delivered a series of quick blows to the RI’s helmet and torso. But as rapid as his attack was, it paled in comparison to what a fully trained Ranger could do. The RI absorbed the blows, allowing Kitai to take his best shot. Then at one point he ducked backward, and Kitai missed clean. Before he could recover, the RI went low to the ground, sweeping Kitai’s legs from under him. Down went Kitai again.

“You’re out,” the RI informed him. “You’re out.”

Like hell I am.

Once again he started to stagger to his feet. He did it with less certainty than he had earlier, but there was still strength and determination in his deportment.

Unfortunately for Kitai, the patience of the RI had been exhausted.

As a result, before Kitai could fully bring himself upright again, the RI slammed his foot forward and caught him on the chin. Kitai let out a startled grunt as he hit the ground a third time, and this time he didn’t stand up. Not because he wasn’t trying; he most definitely was. But the RI, having tired of the battle with him, put his foot on Kitai’s neck. Even then, Kitai didn’t immediately give up, instead bringing his hands around to start prying at the foot.

“You! Are! Out!” The sound of the RI’s voice made it very clear that if Kitai continued to battle him, he would increase the pressure of the foot on his throat. The best-case scenario would impede Kitai’s breathing. The worst-case scenario, depending on the RI’s mood—which didn’t seem especially generous at that moment—was that Kitai wouldn’t be able to breathe at all, ever again.

Worst of all, the rest of the team had gathered around, breaking formation as they were intrigued by the entertaining vision of Kitai struggling for air. For the first time Kitai was actually feeling self-conscious. He stopped struggling and put up both hands in a submissive fashion.

Even then, the RI was still obviously pissed off over Kitai’s aggressiveness. He glanced around at the rest of the cadets and said sharply, “All of you! Out!”

Just like that, the exercise was over. The rest of the cadets headed out toward the next one, removing their helmets as they did so. All of them relaxed, chatting with one another. No one bothered to speak to Kitai or even help him up. Bo gave him a single annoyed glance and then shook his head.

Kitai sat up, rubbed his throat, and coughed a few times. It restored his breath as he got to his feet, and then he set out after the others. They continued to ignore him. He continued to be convinced that they were jealous of his aggressiveness and determination. Well, that was fine. The bottom line was that the people in charge would know who and what they were dealing with. They would see his abilities for what they were and praise him accordingly.

In the end, that was all that mattered.

iii

The rock face was a pleasant diversion for Bo.

He’d climbed this particular obstacle a number of times in the past and was utterly confident in his ability to handle it without a problem. The thing towered nearly two hundred meters in the air, but Bo knew the best way up and was certain that no one in the troop could cover it as quickly or with as much assurance as he did.

And “no one” most definitely included Kitai Raige.

Bo didn’t have any strong feelings against Raige. In point of fact, deep down he actually kind of admired the kid. Not that he would admit it, of course. That simply wasn’t how it was done. But there was a great deal to admire about Kitai Raige in terms of how he handled himself and his determination to be first at everything.

With any luck, Kitai would outgrow that mind-set. Surviving as a member of the Rangers was about so much more than who finished first and second. Surviving meant getting through to the end of the day and still being in one piece. Over time, Kitai would learn that and potentially be a valuable member of the Corps.

Assuming they let him into the Corps, of course. That was by no means certain. Not if Kitai kept having the mini-breakdowns that he was experiencing during these tests.

Well, that was Kitai’s problem, not Bo’s. Bo, for his part, had to focus on the rock wall.

The harness around his chest provided the additional support and certainty required for climbing something such as this. It was secured into ropes that had been set into the wall ages ago. It wasn’t as if Bo really felt he needed them. But they were there and they offered security, so why the hell shouldn’t he take advantage of them?

Suddenly he heard something coming up below him, moving much more quickly than he would have thought. Given the speed at which he was moving, it was hard for him to think who could possibly be catching up with him.

He looked down and could actually feel his heart tightening in his chest.

It was Kitai. Of course it was Kitai. Even more alarming, he was free climbing. Ignoring the drop that awaited him if he lost his grip, Kitai was practically sprinting up the rock face.

“Cadet!” Bo shouted down to him. “Click into harness!”

Kitai was gaining on him. “Slows me down!” he shot back.

Bo tried to redouble his efforts, but it was no use. Kitai shot right past him. It was nothing short of astounding to Bo. Moments earlier he had been in the lead; now he was behind Kitai and fading fast. Even the part of him that warned against worrying about such things as finishing first was losing its dominance. His inner frustration and sense of pride drove him to try to pick up the pace so he could overtake Kitai once more.

It didn’t happen, didn’t even come close.

Instead he watched.

Kitai had reached a point near the very top of the peak. He was on a six-centimeter ledge just below with a face that tilted out by more than ninety degrees into space. That should have caused some hesitation on Kitai’s part. He was, after all, facing every climber’s greatest fear: commitment to the void. Usually such a move required one to take long moments to prepare oneself.

Not Kitai. Without the slightest hesitation, he swung himself out, dangling almost two hundred meters above the canyon below. Having insufficient speed for his first arc, he swung back and forth again and then a third time. The third one did the job, providing enough momentum for him to throw himself up and over and land atop the ridge upside down.

Quickly he scrambled up and around so that he was standing properly on the top of the ridge. He stood there with his arms spread wide, and Bo could distantly hear something. It took him a few moments to realize what it was. Kitai was making aaaahhhhh sounds as if a vast audience were watching him and cheering his achievements.

Oh, that little punk, Bo thought as he clambered the rest of the way.

Kitai was still making the noises of a thrilled crowd when Bo finally joined him atop the ledge. “That was stupid,” Bo informed him, although he was certain that Kitai wouldn’t give a damn what he had to say.

He turned out to be quite correct. “They don’t give statues for being scared.”

“Yeah, but they do give plenty of headstones for being dead!”

Kitai simply grinned as he clipped himself into a futuristic zip line. Bo morbidly wondered whether Kitai might, upon reconsideration, simply toss aside the zip line and just throw himself off the top of the ridge on the assumption that somehow he would float down on waves of his own greatness.

He was destined to be disappointed, because Kitai finished clipping himself in before leaping off the ridge. The zip line drew taut, and Kitai was off on his buzz toward the ground far below. Bo clipped onto the line and leaped off as well.

As they descended toward the ground, Bo couldn’t help noticing all the sights of Nova Prime spread out before him: undulating structures in the canyon, windmill towers and waterwheels making use of the environmentally sound energies that Nova Prime provided them. In the distance there were ships ready to take off, heading toward any number of destinations within the solar system and beyond.

Not bad. Considering we arrived here centuries ago with the contents of the arks and that was all, this is definitely not bad. An appreciable testimony to the cleverness of humanity.

From below him, he heard Kitai giving out a loud war whoop that celebrated nothing else but the speed with which he was heading toward the ground.

Kid never pays attention to anything around him, and he doesn’t even realize it. That’s going to cost him. Cost him a lot.

Over the remaining twenty minutes, the rest of the Ranger cadets, one by one, came sliding down the zip line. It was the last endeavor of the day, and Bo knew that the next day, the results would be delivered. He was feeling fairly confident that he would score high enough to move on. And he had faith in 80 percent of the other cadets.

He just couldn’t make his mind up about Kitai.

As the remaining Rangers gathered, Kitai made no effort to approach any of them. He stayed off to the side, stretching and then doing push-ups. Bo simply shook his head. He couldn’t recall seeing anyone quite like Kitai Raige before. It made him wonder if Kitai’s father had been anything like this when he was Kitai’s age. He almost asked but then remembered that Kitai wasn’t much for talking about his father except in the most reverent terms, and so an honest discussion about what his father was like seemed to be out of the question.

Kitai finished his push-ups and then, without sitting up, flopped back against a small rocky projection. His breathing was completely under control. Then, with a wry smile, he tossed off a salute toward Bo. “Sorry about buzzing past you back there,” he said, and pointed in the direction of the ridge. “Sometimes I get a little…” He shrugged, apparently unable to come up with the appropriate word to describe his behavior.

Obsessive? Competitive? Nuts?

Since none of the words Bo was coming up with seemed any better, he just shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”

Kitai leaned forward, ready to talk business again. “You think everyone passed the VR?”

The VR was the Ventax Reactor test developed by Doctor Abigail Ventax decades earlier. It sensed degrees of fear that human beings experienced under conditions such as the tests the cadets had undergone. The would-be Rangers had been monitored scrupulously the entire time.

“Everyone?” Bo snorted derisively at the notion. “Try ‘anyone’ and I’m pretty sure the answer is no.”

Kitai stared at Bo in shock. “Wait. You didn’t?”

Shaking his head, Bo said with a clear air of disgust and discomfort, “Spiders.”

It had been during one of their high-speed chases through a cave. Everything had been going fine right up until Bo had charged through what turned out to be an entire mass of spiderwebs. He’d let out a startled gasp, which had only succeeded in making him inhale one of the webs. Then he had spent thirty seconds coughing violently to expel it from his lungs.

“I hate spiders,” he admitted, and by coincidence, Kitai said the exact same thing at the exact same time. They looked at each other in mild surprise. Then they bumped elbows in a sign of camaraderie. It was an odd feeling for Bo, and he suspected that it felt the same for Kitai.

But hey… spiders. What could you do about spiders? “What was the point of spiders? What function?” Bo asked.

The arks that had carried humanity to Nova Prime had transported genetic samples of every species on Earth. Couldn’t they have left out the arachnid family?

“I just don’t get it,” Bo said in frustration.

Kitai was just about to respond when a female voice interrupted them: “I heard they captured an Ursa.”

Both Kitai’s and Bo’s heads snapped around in response to that. The speaker had been Rayna. On the face of it, Rayna seemed an even less likely Ranger than Kitai considering that she was half a head shorter than he. But Rayna was extremely intelligent and a formidable hand-to-hand combatant. Bo had great respect for her, and so did Kitai. When she suddenly announced that an Ursa had been captured, naturally that was going to get immediate attention.

Killing Ursa was not an uncommon situation on Nova Prime. It wasn’t an easy undertaking by any means, but it had happened enough times. Capturing one alive, however, was definitely unusual. A number of other cadets had overheard Rayna’s pronouncement, and they approached her to hear what she had to say.

There were numerous cries of “No way!” and “You’re kidding!” and “Are you sure?”

Rayna simply nodded her head, her arms folded. “Absolutely,” she said. “Heard it reported over the naviband.” She tapped the communications device strapped to her wrist. “You guys should pay attention to these things.”

“Who?” Kitai asked. “Who captured it?”

“Who do you think? The Ghosts,” she said.

Kitai nodded, feeling slightly foolish. Any cadet worth his salt knew that when an Ursa was sighted, at least one Ghost was always called upon to dispatch it.

Rayna continued: “And they’re going to move it to someplace they can study it.”

“Ghosts. You mean like Kit’s dad?” said Bo.

“Maybe him. Or somebody like him. It was out in the jungle somewhere. Your dad out in the jungle somewhere, Kitai?” Rayna asked.

Abruptly a silence descended over them. They collectively waited for Kitai to respond.

It was as if the utterly confident, overly aggressive Kitai Raige had vanished altogether. Instead, for a few moments, he just looked flat-out uncertain about anything and everything. Then he cleared his throat and in a manner that seemed far too faked to be anything legitimate said with an air of forced offhandedness, “Not sure. I know he’s coming home tomorrow. I’ll ask him then.”

“What’s that like?” asked one of the Rangers.

Kitai stared at him in confusion. “What’s what like?”

“You know! Having the Original Ghost as your father!”

“It’s great,” Kitai replied. “He’s a great guy. It’s all great.”

The cadets glanced at one another, and several snickered. Before the question could be pushed any further, one of the RIs emerged from the nearby makeshift headquarters that had been thrown together. “Tomorrow, eleven hundred hours at Ranger headquarters. You will be given the results then.” That was his entire pronouncement on the subject. He turned on his heel and walked away.

Kitai took the opportunity to get the hell out of there. Rayna even called after him, but he ignored her. The Ranger cadet who previously couldn’t get enough of talking about such subjects as himself now seemed extremely dedicated to the notion of putting as much distance between himself and his fellow cadets as possible.

Bo didn’t know whether to find that amusing or just sad.

iv

Kitai stretched out on the hammock in his bedroom that evening, slowly turning the pages of his book.

His. Book.

It was something of a rarity, this novel of his. Printed in the twenty-first century, long before the Earth was abandoned, it was an ancient story about a man obsessed with a whale named Moby Dick. Not very many of the books had been made, and this rare copy had floated from hand to hand over the centuries, working its way into the Raige family via Senshi, where it had remained ever since. Kitai had been fortunate enough to get his hands on it.

He had been reading it over the last few nights. It hadn’t been an easy endeavor. Someone had said to him that by the time he was finished with the novel, he would know far more about hunting whales than he would ever need to know. About a third of the way through the book, he’d come to the conclusion that that assessment was an accurate one.

He heard his mother’s feet approaching his room. She sounded like she was trudging, which didn’t surprise Kitai in the least. At least he’d been done with his day before the afternoon was over. His mother’s getting home fairly early was something of a rarity.

Moments later his mother appeared, and she looked utterly worn out. She had dust on her coat. Her exhaustion was reflected in her eyes, but she visibly pushed it aside so that she could speak to her son. “Hey there, honey. Sorry I’m late. Do you need—”

“Something to eat?” He shook his head. “Nah. Ate already. You okay?”

“A lot of spikes today,” she said by way of explanation. “We had a lot of orographic uplifts.” She paused and then said with mild challenge, “What are orographic uplifts?”

Kitai was ready simply because not being ready wasn’t an option. “The vertical forcing of air by terrain features like mountains.”

She nodded approvingly. “Good. One day when you’re done running around and hitting things, you’ll take over the turbine research division for me.”

He smiled humorlessly at that. “Sure, Mom.”

She returned the smile because they both knew she wasn’t serious. For Kitai, his career as a Ranger was a given. Only the specifics of how long were still up in the air. “How’d the test go?”

“I’ll find out tomorrow.” He kept up a deadpan expression for as long as he could, but then a smile crawled across his face that he was unable to hold back.

His mother couldn’t help seeing it. “Looks to me like you’re confident about how you did.”

“It’s just… it’ll be great when I tell the general I got into the Ranger program on Senshi’s birthday. That’ll be great, right?”

“Not everyone gets into the Ranger program on their first try.”

“Yeah, but those guys are bums,” Kitai said dismissively.

She smiled at that. “Yes,” she said with soft assurance. “He’ll be happy.” Then she noticed the book in his hand. “When did you start reading that?”

“I’m trying to get done before the general gets home.”

Kitai nodded, sure that if he were a newly named Ranger, that alone would be enough to prompt his father to hang around, at least for a while. He tapped the book. “There are lines underlined. Does that mean the general and Senshi liked these parts?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe I should memorize one. Do you think he’d like that?”

“I think he’ll like the fact that you’re reading the book.”

“Are we doing a cake?” he suddenly said, shifting subjects.

“We’re not doing a cake. We’ll just be together.” After a moment’s silence, she slapped her legs, causing a bit of dirt to rise up. “I’m going to wash off all this dust. I’ve been on the ridge all day.”

“Mom…?”

She’d been about to stand, but something in his voice caught her. She focused her attention on him. It took him a few moments to find the words, and even then she didn’t fully understand at first.

“What was it like when Dad became the first? How did he do it?”

“The first?” Initially she stared at him without comprehension. But then she understood. “Oh. You mean the—”

“The first Ghost, yeah. How did he do it? I’ve tried looking it up, and I haven’t found anything. It’s all just… vague.”

“How vague?”

He licked his lips, collecting his thoughts. “Well… it’s just that everyone knows that the Ursa don’t have any eyes. That they find us through sense of smell. And what they smell is our fear. It’s how they work. They track us through fear. They hunt us through fear. Everything is fear with them. And the Rangers go out there and do everything they can to control their fear, but it’s almost impossible.

“Ursa are monsters, and they come at you with everything they’ve got. And they’ve got a lot. Six legs, teeth, paralytic venom… everything. It’s almost impossible to go up against one of them and be totally unafraid. But Dad did it. I mean… he just, you know, he did it. He did it when no one else in the history of humanity had done it. And they called him a Ghost. The first one ever. So I’d just kind of like to know how it was that first time. How he did it.”

“Honey…”

He realized she wasn’t looking at him. Instead she seemed to be staring off into space, as if her mind had partly checked out. Kitai expected that she was putting together her recollections of that moment.

For a surprisingly long time, she said nothing at all. Then, finally: “Have you ever tried asking him yourself?”

“Yeah. He, uh…” Kitai shrugged. “He would just shrug. And he’d just say that fear was something that could be controlled, and he just, you know… managed it. But he’s never gone into any detail beyond that, and I…”

“Stopped asking.”

“Yeah.”

She stroked his short hair as she sighed. “Okay, well… so did I. Maybe he’ll tell you someday.”

Kitai nodded but said nothing more. There didn’t seem to be much point. If there was one thing Kitai had learned after all this time, it was that everything having to do with his father fell into the realm of “maybe” and “someday.” The problem was that Kitai couldn’t decide if he wanted to be there when the maybe or the someday actually happened.