Tuesday's Short - Jacob's Vision
This week’s short story takes us from an undersea adventure on a distant world to one woman's search for a war hero in a war-torn land. Welcome to
Jacob's Vision.
Erin writes of her earthbound memories of an interplanetary war, of the fate of a war hero, and of the start of re-building.Jacob's Vision
The hill, with its footing of green-studded black, was the same as I remembered it. I stood at the top of the ridge looking out, seeing the city ruins, imagining the glow from its center at night.
I’d seen the ruins, and watched that glow before—with Jacob. It had always been his dream that we would return, that the beacon he had set would bring rescue, or aid in the rebuilding he had envisioned.
Sighing, I settled myself at the foot of one of the scarred and blackened statues, and set my notecase beside me. I took the hardbound notebook from the case, opened it and continued writing.
I had been telling of my fifth week with the Wanderers. It had been two days before I’d begun to seek Jacob’s vision in earnest, and it had been near dusk.
With another sigh, I lifted my pen to continue my recollections where I’d left them the night before.
* * *
It was close to dusk when we met and I looked from one face to the other. “We need to find out what’s in them?”
Kurt nodded.
I scanned their faces again. Ilya with one arm in dirt-encrusted bandages; Padraig, leg splinted from thigh to heel; and Allie whose bloused shirt hid the strapping across her ribs. They all watched me in return.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll go.”
Kurt smiled, and rested his hand on my shoulder. “We’ll meet you at Cone Hill.”
I couldn’t help but let my startlement show. “Cone Hill?”
It was their term for a ‘secret place’, an unscheduled reunion. We used it in case one of us was captured. When that one was questioned, as they invariably were, the others were safe. It hadn’t failed yet.
I sighed. Understanding, but disappointed all the same.
Kurt’s hand squeezed my shoulder. “You’d better get started,” he said. “It’s getting dark.”
I don’t remember how I made it into the sheds. I went under the fence through a dust-filled hollow, I think, then across the open space surrounding the buildings before the searchlights became effective against the dusk. What I saw inside made me feel sick to the stomach.
I could only bring myself to glance into the high-fenced stalls, noting the gutters and runways beneath them. There were enclosures of steel that I didn’t take the time to peer into, and there were pits, pristine and concrete, that were unused and empty.
I remembered visiting a similar structure after it had been used. Death had ruled there. People, survivors like myself, had been slaughtered like cattle, trapped inside the killing sheds except for the lucky few transported to be slaves for some distant despot. Jacob had led a strike team against the captors who had held the rest.
Our suspicions confirmed, I left the sheds. There was another enclosure to investigate, but I was sure the team had made the right decision in leaving the area. I would make one swift pass through the sheds belonging to the second site and circle back to our camp. If I made it back tonight, Kurt and the others would still be waiting. Come dawn and they’d be gone.
Together, we had watched the people manning both enclosures. Military types, but we had come to the conclusion they didn’t belong to the same side. The two camps seemed to be in a state of constant hostility. It had intrigued us, and given us hope.
If those in one camp were cannibals and traffickers in human flesh, would it be foolish to hope that those in the other were not? I had voiced the question, and I had been chosen to see if I was a fool.
I slipped through the dust pool under the first compound’s fence, and crept swiftly between the rolling hummocks of grass and salt bush that separated it from the second compound. Several times I was forced to submerge myself in a convenient hollow, or freeze, as still as a hunted rabbit, until a searchlight’s beam had swept across me.
The second compound was more alert. There were no dust pools beneath the parts of its fence that I could reach, and the reinforced mesh was full of sensors. I noted cameras on the fence-top and was careful to avoid their arc. There was also the tell-tale shape of transformers indicating the fence was electrified. No entry here and no way to discover what was inside. I widened my circle of search, hoping to find some other sign of what the compound might contain.
Thirty yards clear of the fence I heard voices grumbling in a thicket of sand thorn, and crept closer to listen.
“D’you believe this camp director’s gall? Not lettin’ us in till sun-up. I mean, I ask you.”
Another voice sighed tiredly in the dark. “Leave it alone, ’Cormak. He’s got slavers on his mind.”
“All the more reason to let us in tonight.”
“Nah, it’s too dark. Anyway, we’re safe here.”
The voice that was ’Cormak’s grumbled something further but then quietened. I wormed my way into the edge of the thorn bush, trying for a visual.
My night-vision goggles showed two figures by a camp stove and, more importantly, a truck in cam-netted obscurity, parked in a gap in the shrubs behind them. I withdrew swiftly and circled ’round to the truck.
This was my entry. I crawled beneath the hulking vehicle, and wormed my way into the cleft above its front axle. Now I could rest.
I woke to the first thunderous rumble of the truck’s engine and a grinding of gears. Bracing myself as I was jolted in the perch I had found, I held back a surge of excitement and fear. I was on my way.
The guards on the gate gave me pause to worry when they joked with ’Cormak about stopping to pick up hitchhikers. ’Cormak grumbled a reply so obviously without humor that I nearly joined in the laughter at his expense as the truck rolled through.
I waited for the truck to stop on the other side. I’d thought perhaps it would come to a halt behind the towers on the gate, but it didn’t. It kept going until it felt as though it was running the full length of the enclosure. The ground grew rougher as it progressed, the unforgiving axle passing on every bump and jolt until I felt my grip shaking loose.
After it had run what I guessed to be the length of the perimeter, the truck slowed and took a corner. I tried to visualize where we were in relation to the shadowy domes I had seen the night before. The truck ran what I thought was half the perimeter’s depth and took another corner. It was definitely heading for the domes. This might turn out better than I’d hoped.
My fingers slipped, and I began to slide from my perch. Lunging for purchase, I failed to find a hold and felt a fingernail tear. I bounced off the shelf and over the axel, scrabbling for purchase. The ground grazed my legs, stomach and arms as I fell beneath the chassis, coiling reflexively into a ball to avoid the oncoming wheels.
The wheels rumbled by on either side, too close for comfort, and then the sun shone down and I was in the open. Cautiously unrolling, I lifted my head and looked around. There were two guards, in camouflaged uniforms, standing in front of a dome not ten feet away. I froze, scanning for cover.
I had just decided the dome was it when one of them went from staring relaxedly past his partner at the truck to alertly studying me. Crap. I got up and ran, the movement alerting his partner. They shouted as I set my sights on some sort of suspended bubble-shaped container. It was the closest cover I could reach and I was hoping it would provide me with some kind of cover from their weapons. Where I’d go to next, I had no idea.
The bubble looked like some kind of torture chamber… or a pump-house for a well or something. If it was a torture chamber, I didn’t want to be anywhere near it. Same for if it was a pump house. Unfortunately, the situation didn’t give me much of a choice. Shelter, any kind of shelter, was better than a bullet any day. I heard the crack of a rifle, took a sliding dive under the bubble’s edges, hit concrete and lost more skin as another shot rang out.
I came up cursing. Shower bay. Sprayer on the wall, taps underneath it. Open door, facing another small building opposite. I bolted across the bare two meters separating them, slid under the side of the second shower bay and came up on the other side, took a bead on one of the domes with the idea of getting inside and lying low before anyone could work out where I’d gone.
It was a thin hope, a pipe dream in reality, but desperation to escape capture made me try. I’d gone half the distance before guards shouted again. Uh-uh, no way. Not stopping. Sorry guys. Too shit-scared. You missed the first time; you’ll probably miss again.
Please miss again.
Another voice joined the first two. Deep and full of authority it almost halted me in my tracks. Almost, except underlying the unmistakable aura of command, there was an element of unvoiced menace that only made me run harder.
I heard footsteps behind me, gaining, another guard coming from the perimeter to my left, or maybe the gate towers themselves. A long way to run; he’d be tired, but again, that voice rang out. Commanded to halt, I turned my gaze from the dome I was heading towards and glanced towards the guard. He was ahead of me, coming in at an angle, definitely from one of the guard towers, and coming in faster than I’d known a man could run. He was on a perfect line to reach me before I could reach the dome.
A glance behind me confirmed that the two guards behind me had cleared the shower sheds and had a clear line of fire. Both had stopped just clear of the last shed and raised their rifles to their shoulders.
Nobody’s fool, I threw myself into a slid and stopped. When no shots were fired, I lifted my head and very slowly got to my feet. The two guards tracked me with their rifles, but didn’t move, so I slowly turned to face the third guard, the guard with the voice of command.
I held my hands away from my body, watching him slow his pace to a walk. When he shouted again, I found I didn’t understand his order. He repeated the command, gesturing downwards with his hand. I still didn’t understand what was wanted so I stayed where I was, not moving, trying to get my breathing back under control.
The command was repeated a third time, but this time he stopped, and I became truly afraid. His hand went to the gun at his belt as his other hand repeated the chopping downwards motion. Any second now, I was going to die.
My feet were frozen to the soil, but my mind was racing. I had to do what they wanted or they were going to shoot me. I had to work out what they wanted or I was dead. I didn’t understand a word they were saying. I thought I was going to die until Jacob’s voice echoed, unbidden in my memory.
‘When we find somebody we always make them lie down before we go anywhere near them.’
‘And what if they don’t?’ I had asked.
‘We shoot them,’ he’d replied. His calm factuality had been the source of our first argument.
The guard raised his gun and barked the command again, bringing me abruptly back to reality. I let my knees buckle, and dropped to the ground, wishing Jacob were with me. My hands I kept well out in front of my body—no sense of threat there; Jacob would have been proud.
There were footsteps in the sand me, then I felt the cold muzzle of the someone’s side-arm against the back of my neck, the weight of someone’s knee in the middle of my back. Hands searched my clothes for weapons and found none and words were exchanged over my head. Again, I didn’t understand a word that was said.
The gun left my back, and the guard stepped away. Again, the voice spoke an order I did not understand. Slowly, I raised my face to look. The order was repeated. I tried to gain a clue to its meaning from the guard’s gesture. I could not, so I continued to stare up at him.
With a sigh of impatience, he slapped his pistol into its holster and took two strides towards me. I ducked my head as his hand descended and found myself lifted, by my shirt collar, to my feet.
A curt bark at the watching guards seemed dismissive and I watched them shoulder their rifles and march away. The guard with the voice moved his hand from my collar to my arm, and led me towards one of the shower bays.
Not certain of what to expect, but terrified by the possibilities, I shrank from it. The action resulted in my being pushed forward into the bay. While I recovered my balance, he turned on the water. I skipped back from under the spray and he reached up and redirected the nozzle until I was soaked.
Unable to escape it without taking a dive under the partition, or pushing past him, neither a good option, I stood still. The water, though it smelt of chemicals, wasn’t doing more than sting the grazes and cuts I’d suffered in my attempt to reach the dome. Did he have some sort of wet-clothes fetish, or did I need decontaminating? I couldn’t tell, but the water was luxury after months of going without.
Cautiously, I began to rinse some of the dirt from my skin, and rub at the grime on what remained of my clothes. The guard relinquished his grip on the nozzle, seeming content to wait until I’d finished.
When I felt as clean as I was going to get, without stripping off and changing into another set of clothes, I stood under the water and waited. The water was turned off and the guard’s hand was on my arm as soon as I was clear.
Again, he said something to me. I sighed.
“Français, English, Basic, Deutsch,” I said, my voice trembling with the effects of the morning’s breeze on my wet clothes, and the uncertainty I was feeling.
He smiled then.
“English will do. You will walk with me.”
“Very well,” I said, looking up at the guardian towers. “I will walk with you.”
He was, it seemed, in charge of security. I had stumbled on an inspection tour. I had shown the one flaw in security he’d failed to find. Whoopee for me.
I accompanied him to a ground-car parked beside the tower from which he’d come. Leaning through the passenger’s door, he used the radio inside it to speak with the base commander. Again I understood nothing of what he said, but I did notice that there was no one standing outside the towers and that the gate was invitingly close.
As he spoke, I began to sidle around the car. I heard ‘Excuse me,’ then the crack of a pistol. The dust exploded at my feet, and I stopped.
“Back here,” he ordered, waving the pistol in my direction.
I shuffled back to his side. He bade me sit, and pointed to the dirt at his feet. I obeyed, the pistol coming to rest at the base of my neck as I settled. I tried to ignore the dust that stuck to my still-wet trousers.
The conversation did not last long after that. I heard him agree with someone on the phone and hang up.
“That was stupid,” he said to me.
I shrugged.
He opened the back door.
“Get in.”
Again, I obeyed. He shut the door behind me and locked it. A driver materialized from one of the towers, and opened the passenger door in front for him. He climbed in and sat, buckling his safety harness before turning to cover me with the pistol. I sat quietly, while the driver took his place behind the wheel, then sat, just as quietly, through the long drive across the abandoned desert-savannah to the security officer’s main base.
When we arrived, I waited until he opened my door and took my arm once more, then allowed him to guide me into a building made of brick and glass. We walked up a flight of stairs, and through a room containing small desks and chairs.
“We educate our children here,” he told me, “but I have nowhere else so you will behave.”
I sensed the current of warning in his matter-of-fact statement. He reminded me of Jacob, so I nodded. He led me through to an office where a lady in her mid-thirties waited.
“Estelle will show you pictures. You will tell her what they are.”
I nodded, allowing him to seat me behind a desk. The woman, Estelle, showed the first picture. I looked at it and felt myself go pale. I knew this picture!
“What is it?” the man demanded.
I swallowed, and let the words spill out. “That is the cloud that follows a nuclear explosion. It is the cloud that was seen after Keraklea was destroyed. The picture was taken from the Hill of Remembrance, also known as the Hill of Peace. The statues at the foreground edge of the picture are those built in memory of those who died in the cross-galactic war that occurred earlier this century.”
I paused, looking uncertainly from the guard to the woman. They seemed to be waiting for something more. Raking through memories I’d tried hard to forget, I stumbled on.
“The radiation from this blast did not reach the Hill. The Hill was overrun and partially desecrated by Yagreshians three days later. The forest below the hill was burnt...” I stopped as a hand descended onto my shoulder and looked up.
The guard bent his face to mine. “You are not a native of Keraklea. How do you know these things?”
I looked at the desk. It was true I wasn’t a native; I had been travelling when the war began, and my own home was no more. The grip on my shoulder tightened. The question was repeated.
“How do you know?” he growled.
“I had a friend. He had the same photo in his pocket. He told me.”
To my surprise, the pressure on my shoulder did not decrease. The guard’s eyes seemed to gain an intensity they had not held before, and I trembled, feeling truly afraid.
“What was his name?”
I could see no harm in answering. “Jacob,” I said.
Now the guard crouched before me, both hands resting on my shoulders. “Jacob Konigsley? Captain Jacob Konigsley?”
I nodded.
“Where is he?”
There was an eagerness in the man’s eyes now, an eagerness and a hope that I did not feel was my place to destroy. I turned my head away.
He shook me. “Where did you see him last?”
“I saw him last on the Greermach Ridge overlooking Rinagen.”
“How was he?”
My voice, when I answered, was as emotionless as I could manage. “He was dead.”
Before the guard could ask me any more questions, there was the sound of children’s voices outside the door. The woman went to meet them. The man took me by the shoulder.
“This way,” he ordered.
I did not take my eyes from the door, or the children who were filing through it as he led me, from the office, past the desks and chairs and through another door on the other side of the room.
That door led to another corridor, and he pushed me ahead of him. I turned, walking where he directed. Behind us, the door opened once more, and the heavy-booted steps of soldiers followed. The man who led me turned his head to acknowledge them as we followed the corridor past two doors to a T-junction at its end. My guard steered me left and the soldiers followed.
The arms of the ‘t’ were short. I opened a door at the end of the left arm and walked through. It was an office, judging by the desk with one chair behind and two chairs in front of it.
I did as directed and sat in front of the desk. One of the soldiers waited outside the room but the other followed us in and closed the door behind us. My escort took his place in the seat opposite mine, the desk-top lying between us.
“What were you doing in the compound?” he asked.
“I was seeing what was there,” I replied.
It was not the best answer. Even as I finished speaking the words, I realized how impertinent they seemed. I cringed as he rose out of his seat, his face red with temper. I tried to apologize.
“I did not mean it to sound so...”
He subsided, hand slowly lowering from the drawn back position of a slap.
I tried to explain what I meant. “I was sent to see what you were doing, to see if you were the same as the... others. Your people did not seem friendly with the others. We, I was hoping to find shelter amongst you.”
Too late did I correct my mistake. His head came up from contemplating the desk, and I could sense the sudden interest of the soldier at the door.
“You said, ‘we’,” he told me.
I looked down, avoiding his gaze.
He reached a hand across the table and trapped one of mine beneath it. His grip tightened. “Tell me,” he ordered.
“There are a group of us,” I said. “We are seeking shelter.”
I stopped, and felt my face go pale as cold fear rose with realization inside my chest. I wrenched my hand free and ran for the door.
“I have to warn them,” I cried, forgetting Cone Hill and the secrecy of my friends’ location. “The Slavers will begin hunting today. I have to go.”
The soldier moved to stop me, and I dived under his hand and grabbed the door handle. It had been a long night and my thoughts were of Kurt, Ilya, Padraig and Allie. I ran into the soldier waiting outside.
My original escort looked up as I was brought back inside.
“I don’t know how you survived this long.”
I didn’t answer, but stood, waiting, for his judgment. The soldier who had returned me spoke. “General?”
“Go back outside, Private.”
My glance flicked around the room, as I started to think again, but I saw nothing that would be useful as a weapon against the general and the soldier who remained.
“Where were you supposed to meet your friends?”
I lifted my head. “I cannot tell you,” I said.
“You can tell me and I will drop you within a mile of it, or you can be silent and they can die without your help.”
“Cone Hill,” I said, and heard a snort of laughter from behind me.
Even the general seemed amused. “You were going to warn them and you didn’t even know where to find them?”
I didn’t answer that. Bastard.
He sighed. “The hunt won’t start until tomorrow if the slavers follow their usual pattern. Today they’ll be moving their people in and bolstering their defenses.”
I started to tremble, and gritted my teeth against the disappointment I felt. I wondered if Kurt had taken the others far enough away, or if they’d been stupid and waited for my report. I turned my face towards the general.
The sudden growing thunder of copter blades made his head come up and his face pale. The phone on his desk rang as a siren outside began to wail. For a long moment, I thought I’d been forgotten, then the copter sound faded into distance and a second siren sounded. The general spoke a moment longer before replacing the telephone’s receiver and turning to me.
“I have more questions to ask.”
I nodded, forcing myself back to the present, letting my body fall into the stance soldiers adopt when they know they’ll be waiting for a while. There was little I could do about the sudden wave of light-headedness I felt except to grit my teeth, although even that did not stop them from chattering with the growing chill I felt. The general studied me for a moment, then came to a decision.
“First we’ll find you some dry clothes. Sergeant.”
The soldier behind me opened the door. I waited until the general had come around the desk and taken my arm, before letting him move me towards the corridor. The two soldiers fell in behind us as we walked the left arm of the ‘t’.
I waited until we had reached the corner before jerking free of my escort and making a final bid for freedom. Surely they wouldn’t shoot me down in front of a classroom of children. Surely…
My feet slipped on the tiled floor as I made the turn, and the general’s shout of anger was punctuated by the scrape of fingertips across my back. The door to the children’s class stood not too far ahead. Through the glass window in its upper half I could see children attending their lessons. With any luck they would be enough to stop me getting shot. I drew a deep breath and barged through, past the children and the astounded woman who was their teacher.
The door to the stairs outside, I reached in a few desperate strides. The soldiers behind me had just barreled into the classroom as I slammed it closed. I leapt the rail to the landing halfway down the stairway, then raced the rest of the way into the open. Behind me, the clatter on the stairs told me my pursuers were more cautious.
I thanked the heavens for it.
The grounds below had begun to stir and heads turned towards me, as I came running out of the shelter of the building. I barely paused to acknowledge them, scanning the area for some sort of cover.
There was a square of low benches sheltered by a roof of metal sheeting. I ran to the left of this, aiming for a group of buildings where I might find shelter from the eyes of the soldiers, and cover from their guns. Already I could hear their boots behind me, scattering the gravel underfoot.
The general was shouting something in the tongue he had used when we’d first met, and already others had joined the chase.
There was a fence beyond the building I was heading for, so I swerved between the building and the benches. The general leapt the far set of benches and kept coming. I made for a gap between the buildings and skidded to a halt as a figure stumbled through it.
I was close enough to see the newcomer’s face, and stared in shock.
“Jacob?” I cried.
He stumbled again, then looked at me. I ran to support him.
“Jacob?”
The general was closing. I didn’t care. He was the only hope I had for Jacob.
All thoughts of the others were forgotten—Ilya, Kurt, Padraig and Allie. They still lived; I had thought Jacob dead. I had grieved him long ago.
Jacob stumbled again and this time I caught him and wrapped an arm of his over my shoulder. At the time, I didn’t notice the unusual texture of the skin on his back. I turned towards the general and the benches, letting Jacob rest against me.
“It’s Jacob,” I said, pleading.
Jacob stumbled against me, trying weakly to push me away. I gripped both his shoulders with my hands as he batted and shoved at me.
There was pain in his eyes, pain like I’d never seen before. I looked over his shoulder at the general and the soldiers who had halted behind him. The general had drawn his pistol and was aiming it at Jacob’s back.
“Stand clear,” he said, and his voice was husky with grief. “Stand clear,” he repeated, trying to bring an edge of hardness to his command, when I stared at him in disbelief.
“I’ll not say it again.”
Jacob turned his head and saw him. “Arras,” he croaked. His voice was a thin whisper.
Arras? His next in command? I glanced again at the general.
Jacob used my distraction to gather his strength for one final shove. I lost my grip, stumbled backwards and tripped.
“Arras, look after her. Be quick now.”
I heard the gun speak twice and Jacob sigh. He fell without speaking again.
I picked myself up from the dirt, shock sending chills along my limbs, and robbing me of the ability to speak. Jacob lay still. I made to go to him.
A shot in the ground at my feet stopped me. I looked in disbelief at the general. Again he was shouting orders in that foreign tongue but this time, the soldiers were dispersing.
He was running as he yelled, towards me, gun leveled. “Get back,” he cried, switching to English. “Get back!”
Confused, I stumbled back as the general launched himself into a long dive. It ended in a roll that swept me from my feet and flung me back against the side of a building. There he pinned me with his body and sheltered me from the blast that took Jacob irrevocably from us.
* * *
“Leave it now.”
I jumped as a hand descended on her shoulder, looking at the page I had been reading, then up at Arras. There were tears in my eyes; I could feel them gathering, preparing to fall.
Very carefully, I laid the pen I’d been using in the centre of the diary, then reached up and placed my hand over his.
“We have to remember, Arras,” I said.
“You’ve been remembering for over two hours,” he replied. “It’s time you rested. Tomorrow we start rebuilding. Tomorrow we remember Jacob again, and we’ll keep remembering him even after the building is done.”
I looked down at the unfinished page before me and patted his hand.
“You go on ahead, Arras. I’ll follow in a moment.”
“Ten minutes, Erin, or I’ll carry you back,” he threatened, but I heard the tone of laughter in his voice and knew he meant no harm.
“Promise. I’ll be there,” I said as I heard him walk away.
I waited until he was out of hearing then turned back to the book.
* * *
We have been waiting for ten years, I wrote, two years since Jacob died and ten since he set his beacon. During that time we watched the beacon and gathered all we could find to share the dream.
Two months ago, our patience was rewarded and aid arrived. The Yagreshians are being made to pay for their war and we are rebuilding Keraklea.
As for Jacob, his capture and the sabotage of his body are being avenged; the Yagreshians will pay also for his statue to join those of other heroes on the Hill of Remembrance, and I have written the apology they will sign at its foot.
* * *
My ten minutes were up. I could hear Arras coming up the hill, and was reminded again that good can still grow out of pain. I snapped the book shut, and shoved both it and the pen into the notecase.
When I had tucked everything away, I walked back through the statued heroes to meet Arras at the head of the path. Together we turned our backs on the sight of devastated Keraklea and looked down on the site where New Keraklea nestled on the other side of the Hill. It was Jacob’s vision becoming reality, and we were making it so.
Our hands entwined as we began the descent. Allie was cooking tonight, and Kurt would be ready with his reports. By dusk we’d be planning tomorrow’s orders. When night fell, we’d climb the Hill and stand, silent watching to see if Keraklea’s glow had diminished.
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Jacob's Vision is available as a stand-alone short story at the following links: https://www.amazon.com/Jacobs-Vision-CM-Simpson-ebook/dp/B0084RVXA2/.
You can also find Kristine Kathryn Rusch's latest free short story over on her blog: kriswrites.com. Why don't you go and check it out?
Erin writes of her earthbound memories of an interplanetary war, of the fate of a war hero, and of the start of re-building.Jacob's Vision
The hill, with its footing of green-studded black, was the same as I remembered it. I stood at the top of the ridge looking out, seeing the city ruins, imagining the glow from its center at night.I’d seen the ruins, and watched that glow before—with Jacob. It had always been his dream that we would return, that the beacon he had set would bring rescue, or aid in the rebuilding he had envisioned.
Sighing, I settled myself at the foot of one of the scarred and blackened statues, and set my notecase beside me. I took the hardbound notebook from the case, opened it and continued writing.
I had been telling of my fifth week with the Wanderers. It had been two days before I’d begun to seek Jacob’s vision in earnest, and it had been near dusk.
With another sigh, I lifted my pen to continue my recollections where I’d left them the night before.
* * *
It was close to dusk when we met and I looked from one face to the other. “We need to find out what’s in them?”
Kurt nodded.
I scanned their faces again. Ilya with one arm in dirt-encrusted bandages; Padraig, leg splinted from thigh to heel; and Allie whose bloused shirt hid the strapping across her ribs. They all watched me in return.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll go.”
Kurt smiled, and rested his hand on my shoulder. “We’ll meet you at Cone Hill.”
I couldn’t help but let my startlement show. “Cone Hill?”
It was their term for a ‘secret place’, an unscheduled reunion. We used it in case one of us was captured. When that one was questioned, as they invariably were, the others were safe. It hadn’t failed yet.
I sighed. Understanding, but disappointed all the same.
Kurt’s hand squeezed my shoulder. “You’d better get started,” he said. “It’s getting dark.”
I don’t remember how I made it into the sheds. I went under the fence through a dust-filled hollow, I think, then across the open space surrounding the buildings before the searchlights became effective against the dusk. What I saw inside made me feel sick to the stomach.
I could only bring myself to glance into the high-fenced stalls, noting the gutters and runways beneath them. There were enclosures of steel that I didn’t take the time to peer into, and there were pits, pristine and concrete, that were unused and empty.
I remembered visiting a similar structure after it had been used. Death had ruled there. People, survivors like myself, had been slaughtered like cattle, trapped inside the killing sheds except for the lucky few transported to be slaves for some distant despot. Jacob had led a strike team against the captors who had held the rest.
Our suspicions confirmed, I left the sheds. There was another enclosure to investigate, but I was sure the team had made the right decision in leaving the area. I would make one swift pass through the sheds belonging to the second site and circle back to our camp. If I made it back tonight, Kurt and the others would still be waiting. Come dawn and they’d be gone.
Together, we had watched the people manning both enclosures. Military types, but we had come to the conclusion they didn’t belong to the same side. The two camps seemed to be in a state of constant hostility. It had intrigued us, and given us hope.
If those in one camp were cannibals and traffickers in human flesh, would it be foolish to hope that those in the other were not? I had voiced the question, and I had been chosen to see if I was a fool.
I slipped through the dust pool under the first compound’s fence, and crept swiftly between the rolling hummocks of grass and salt bush that separated it from the second compound. Several times I was forced to submerge myself in a convenient hollow, or freeze, as still as a hunted rabbit, until a searchlight’s beam had swept across me.
The second compound was more alert. There were no dust pools beneath the parts of its fence that I could reach, and the reinforced mesh was full of sensors. I noted cameras on the fence-top and was careful to avoid their arc. There was also the tell-tale shape of transformers indicating the fence was electrified. No entry here and no way to discover what was inside. I widened my circle of search, hoping to find some other sign of what the compound might contain.
Thirty yards clear of the fence I heard voices grumbling in a thicket of sand thorn, and crept closer to listen.
“D’you believe this camp director’s gall? Not lettin’ us in till sun-up. I mean, I ask you.”
Another voice sighed tiredly in the dark. “Leave it alone, ’Cormak. He’s got slavers on his mind.”
“All the more reason to let us in tonight.”
“Nah, it’s too dark. Anyway, we’re safe here.”
The voice that was ’Cormak’s grumbled something further but then quietened. I wormed my way into the edge of the thorn bush, trying for a visual.
My night-vision goggles showed two figures by a camp stove and, more importantly, a truck in cam-netted obscurity, parked in a gap in the shrubs behind them. I withdrew swiftly and circled ’round to the truck.
This was my entry. I crawled beneath the hulking vehicle, and wormed my way into the cleft above its front axle. Now I could rest.
I woke to the first thunderous rumble of the truck’s engine and a grinding of gears. Bracing myself as I was jolted in the perch I had found, I held back a surge of excitement and fear. I was on my way.
The guards on the gate gave me pause to worry when they joked with ’Cormak about stopping to pick up hitchhikers. ’Cormak grumbled a reply so obviously without humor that I nearly joined in the laughter at his expense as the truck rolled through.
I waited for the truck to stop on the other side. I’d thought perhaps it would come to a halt behind the towers on the gate, but it didn’t. It kept going until it felt as though it was running the full length of the enclosure. The ground grew rougher as it progressed, the unforgiving axle passing on every bump and jolt until I felt my grip shaking loose.
After it had run what I guessed to be the length of the perimeter, the truck slowed and took a corner. I tried to visualize where we were in relation to the shadowy domes I had seen the night before. The truck ran what I thought was half the perimeter’s depth and took another corner. It was definitely heading for the domes. This might turn out better than I’d hoped.
My fingers slipped, and I began to slide from my perch. Lunging for purchase, I failed to find a hold and felt a fingernail tear. I bounced off the shelf and over the axel, scrabbling for purchase. The ground grazed my legs, stomach and arms as I fell beneath the chassis, coiling reflexively into a ball to avoid the oncoming wheels.
The wheels rumbled by on either side, too close for comfort, and then the sun shone down and I was in the open. Cautiously unrolling, I lifted my head and looked around. There were two guards, in camouflaged uniforms, standing in front of a dome not ten feet away. I froze, scanning for cover.
I had just decided the dome was it when one of them went from staring relaxedly past his partner at the truck to alertly studying me. Crap. I got up and ran, the movement alerting his partner. They shouted as I set my sights on some sort of suspended bubble-shaped container. It was the closest cover I could reach and I was hoping it would provide me with some kind of cover from their weapons. Where I’d go to next, I had no idea.
The bubble looked like some kind of torture chamber… or a pump-house for a well or something. If it was a torture chamber, I didn’t want to be anywhere near it. Same for if it was a pump house. Unfortunately, the situation didn’t give me much of a choice. Shelter, any kind of shelter, was better than a bullet any day. I heard the crack of a rifle, took a sliding dive under the bubble’s edges, hit concrete and lost more skin as another shot rang out.
I came up cursing. Shower bay. Sprayer on the wall, taps underneath it. Open door, facing another small building opposite. I bolted across the bare two meters separating them, slid under the side of the second shower bay and came up on the other side, took a bead on one of the domes with the idea of getting inside and lying low before anyone could work out where I’d gone.
It was a thin hope, a pipe dream in reality, but desperation to escape capture made me try. I’d gone half the distance before guards shouted again. Uh-uh, no way. Not stopping. Sorry guys. Too shit-scared. You missed the first time; you’ll probably miss again.
Please miss again.
Another voice joined the first two. Deep and full of authority it almost halted me in my tracks. Almost, except underlying the unmistakable aura of command, there was an element of unvoiced menace that only made me run harder.
I heard footsteps behind me, gaining, another guard coming from the perimeter to my left, or maybe the gate towers themselves. A long way to run; he’d be tired, but again, that voice rang out. Commanded to halt, I turned my gaze from the dome I was heading towards and glanced towards the guard. He was ahead of me, coming in at an angle, definitely from one of the guard towers, and coming in faster than I’d known a man could run. He was on a perfect line to reach me before I could reach the dome.
A glance behind me confirmed that the two guards behind me had cleared the shower sheds and had a clear line of fire. Both had stopped just clear of the last shed and raised their rifles to their shoulders.
Nobody’s fool, I threw myself into a slid and stopped. When no shots were fired, I lifted my head and very slowly got to my feet. The two guards tracked me with their rifles, but didn’t move, so I slowly turned to face the third guard, the guard with the voice of command.
I held my hands away from my body, watching him slow his pace to a walk. When he shouted again, I found I didn’t understand his order. He repeated the command, gesturing downwards with his hand. I still didn’t understand what was wanted so I stayed where I was, not moving, trying to get my breathing back under control.
The command was repeated a third time, but this time he stopped, and I became truly afraid. His hand went to the gun at his belt as his other hand repeated the chopping downwards motion. Any second now, I was going to die.
My feet were frozen to the soil, but my mind was racing. I had to do what they wanted or they were going to shoot me. I had to work out what they wanted or I was dead. I didn’t understand a word they were saying. I thought I was going to die until Jacob’s voice echoed, unbidden in my memory.
‘When we find somebody we always make them lie down before we go anywhere near them.’
‘And what if they don’t?’ I had asked.
‘We shoot them,’ he’d replied. His calm factuality had been the source of our first argument.
The guard raised his gun and barked the command again, bringing me abruptly back to reality. I let my knees buckle, and dropped to the ground, wishing Jacob were with me. My hands I kept well out in front of my body—no sense of threat there; Jacob would have been proud.
There were footsteps in the sand me, then I felt the cold muzzle of the someone’s side-arm against the back of my neck, the weight of someone’s knee in the middle of my back. Hands searched my clothes for weapons and found none and words were exchanged over my head. Again, I didn’t understand a word that was said.
The gun left my back, and the guard stepped away. Again, the voice spoke an order I did not understand. Slowly, I raised my face to look. The order was repeated. I tried to gain a clue to its meaning from the guard’s gesture. I could not, so I continued to stare up at him.
With a sigh of impatience, he slapped his pistol into its holster and took two strides towards me. I ducked my head as his hand descended and found myself lifted, by my shirt collar, to my feet.
A curt bark at the watching guards seemed dismissive and I watched them shoulder their rifles and march away. The guard with the voice moved his hand from my collar to my arm, and led me towards one of the shower bays.
Not certain of what to expect, but terrified by the possibilities, I shrank from it. The action resulted in my being pushed forward into the bay. While I recovered my balance, he turned on the water. I skipped back from under the spray and he reached up and redirected the nozzle until I was soaked.
Unable to escape it without taking a dive under the partition, or pushing past him, neither a good option, I stood still. The water, though it smelt of chemicals, wasn’t doing more than sting the grazes and cuts I’d suffered in my attempt to reach the dome. Did he have some sort of wet-clothes fetish, or did I need decontaminating? I couldn’t tell, but the water was luxury after months of going without.
Cautiously, I began to rinse some of the dirt from my skin, and rub at the grime on what remained of my clothes. The guard relinquished his grip on the nozzle, seeming content to wait until I’d finished.
When I felt as clean as I was going to get, without stripping off and changing into another set of clothes, I stood under the water and waited. The water was turned off and the guard’s hand was on my arm as soon as I was clear.
Again, he said something to me. I sighed.
“Français, English, Basic, Deutsch,” I said, my voice trembling with the effects of the morning’s breeze on my wet clothes, and the uncertainty I was feeling.
He smiled then.
“English will do. You will walk with me.”
“Very well,” I said, looking up at the guardian towers. “I will walk with you.”
He was, it seemed, in charge of security. I had stumbled on an inspection tour. I had shown the one flaw in security he’d failed to find. Whoopee for me.
I accompanied him to a ground-car parked beside the tower from which he’d come. Leaning through the passenger’s door, he used the radio inside it to speak with the base commander. Again I understood nothing of what he said, but I did notice that there was no one standing outside the towers and that the gate was invitingly close.
As he spoke, I began to sidle around the car. I heard ‘Excuse me,’ then the crack of a pistol. The dust exploded at my feet, and I stopped.
“Back here,” he ordered, waving the pistol in my direction.
I shuffled back to his side. He bade me sit, and pointed to the dirt at his feet. I obeyed, the pistol coming to rest at the base of my neck as I settled. I tried to ignore the dust that stuck to my still-wet trousers.
The conversation did not last long after that. I heard him agree with someone on the phone and hang up.
“That was stupid,” he said to me.
I shrugged.
He opened the back door.
“Get in.”
Again, I obeyed. He shut the door behind me and locked it. A driver materialized from one of the towers, and opened the passenger door in front for him. He climbed in and sat, buckling his safety harness before turning to cover me with the pistol. I sat quietly, while the driver took his place behind the wheel, then sat, just as quietly, through the long drive across the abandoned desert-savannah to the security officer’s main base.
When we arrived, I waited until he opened my door and took my arm once more, then allowed him to guide me into a building made of brick and glass. We walked up a flight of stairs, and through a room containing small desks and chairs.
“We educate our children here,” he told me, “but I have nowhere else so you will behave.”
I sensed the current of warning in his matter-of-fact statement. He reminded me of Jacob, so I nodded. He led me through to an office where a lady in her mid-thirties waited.
“Estelle will show you pictures. You will tell her what they are.”
I nodded, allowing him to seat me behind a desk. The woman, Estelle, showed the first picture. I looked at it and felt myself go pale. I knew this picture!
“What is it?” the man demanded.
I swallowed, and let the words spill out. “That is the cloud that follows a nuclear explosion. It is the cloud that was seen after Keraklea was destroyed. The picture was taken from the Hill of Remembrance, also known as the Hill of Peace. The statues at the foreground edge of the picture are those built in memory of those who died in the cross-galactic war that occurred earlier this century.”
I paused, looking uncertainly from the guard to the woman. They seemed to be waiting for something more. Raking through memories I’d tried hard to forget, I stumbled on.
“The radiation from this blast did not reach the Hill. The Hill was overrun and partially desecrated by Yagreshians three days later. The forest below the hill was burnt...” I stopped as a hand descended onto my shoulder and looked up.
The guard bent his face to mine. “You are not a native of Keraklea. How do you know these things?”
I looked at the desk. It was true I wasn’t a native; I had been travelling when the war began, and my own home was no more. The grip on my shoulder tightened. The question was repeated.
“How do you know?” he growled.
“I had a friend. He had the same photo in his pocket. He told me.”
To my surprise, the pressure on my shoulder did not decrease. The guard’s eyes seemed to gain an intensity they had not held before, and I trembled, feeling truly afraid.
“What was his name?”
I could see no harm in answering. “Jacob,” I said.
Now the guard crouched before me, both hands resting on my shoulders. “Jacob Konigsley? Captain Jacob Konigsley?”
I nodded.
“Where is he?”
There was an eagerness in the man’s eyes now, an eagerness and a hope that I did not feel was my place to destroy. I turned my head away.
He shook me. “Where did you see him last?”
“I saw him last on the Greermach Ridge overlooking Rinagen.”
“How was he?”
My voice, when I answered, was as emotionless as I could manage. “He was dead.”
Before the guard could ask me any more questions, there was the sound of children’s voices outside the door. The woman went to meet them. The man took me by the shoulder.
“This way,” he ordered.
I did not take my eyes from the door, or the children who were filing through it as he led me, from the office, past the desks and chairs and through another door on the other side of the room.
That door led to another corridor, and he pushed me ahead of him. I turned, walking where he directed. Behind us, the door opened once more, and the heavy-booted steps of soldiers followed. The man who led me turned his head to acknowledge them as we followed the corridor past two doors to a T-junction at its end. My guard steered me left and the soldiers followed.
The arms of the ‘t’ were short. I opened a door at the end of the left arm and walked through. It was an office, judging by the desk with one chair behind and two chairs in front of it.
I did as directed and sat in front of the desk. One of the soldiers waited outside the room but the other followed us in and closed the door behind us. My escort took his place in the seat opposite mine, the desk-top lying between us.
“What were you doing in the compound?” he asked.
“I was seeing what was there,” I replied.
It was not the best answer. Even as I finished speaking the words, I realized how impertinent they seemed. I cringed as he rose out of his seat, his face red with temper. I tried to apologize.
“I did not mean it to sound so...”
He subsided, hand slowly lowering from the drawn back position of a slap.
I tried to explain what I meant. “I was sent to see what you were doing, to see if you were the same as the... others. Your people did not seem friendly with the others. We, I was hoping to find shelter amongst you.”
Too late did I correct my mistake. His head came up from contemplating the desk, and I could sense the sudden interest of the soldier at the door.
“You said, ‘we’,” he told me.
I looked down, avoiding his gaze.
He reached a hand across the table and trapped one of mine beneath it. His grip tightened. “Tell me,” he ordered.
“There are a group of us,” I said. “We are seeking shelter.”
I stopped, and felt my face go pale as cold fear rose with realization inside my chest. I wrenched my hand free and ran for the door.
“I have to warn them,” I cried, forgetting Cone Hill and the secrecy of my friends’ location. “The Slavers will begin hunting today. I have to go.”
The soldier moved to stop me, and I dived under his hand and grabbed the door handle. It had been a long night and my thoughts were of Kurt, Ilya, Padraig and Allie. I ran into the soldier waiting outside.
My original escort looked up as I was brought back inside.
“I don’t know how you survived this long.”
I didn’t answer, but stood, waiting, for his judgment. The soldier who had returned me spoke. “General?”
“Go back outside, Private.”
My glance flicked around the room, as I started to think again, but I saw nothing that would be useful as a weapon against the general and the soldier who remained.
“Where were you supposed to meet your friends?”
I lifted my head. “I cannot tell you,” I said.
“You can tell me and I will drop you within a mile of it, or you can be silent and they can die without your help.”
“Cone Hill,” I said, and heard a snort of laughter from behind me.
Even the general seemed amused. “You were going to warn them and you didn’t even know where to find them?”
I didn’t answer that. Bastard.
He sighed. “The hunt won’t start until tomorrow if the slavers follow their usual pattern. Today they’ll be moving their people in and bolstering their defenses.”
I started to tremble, and gritted my teeth against the disappointment I felt. I wondered if Kurt had taken the others far enough away, or if they’d been stupid and waited for my report. I turned my face towards the general.
The sudden growing thunder of copter blades made his head come up and his face pale. The phone on his desk rang as a siren outside began to wail. For a long moment, I thought I’d been forgotten, then the copter sound faded into distance and a second siren sounded. The general spoke a moment longer before replacing the telephone’s receiver and turning to me.
“I have more questions to ask.”
I nodded, forcing myself back to the present, letting my body fall into the stance soldiers adopt when they know they’ll be waiting for a while. There was little I could do about the sudden wave of light-headedness I felt except to grit my teeth, although even that did not stop them from chattering with the growing chill I felt. The general studied me for a moment, then came to a decision.
“First we’ll find you some dry clothes. Sergeant.”
The soldier behind me opened the door. I waited until the general had come around the desk and taken my arm, before letting him move me towards the corridor. The two soldiers fell in behind us as we walked the left arm of the ‘t’.
I waited until we had reached the corner before jerking free of my escort and making a final bid for freedom. Surely they wouldn’t shoot me down in front of a classroom of children. Surely…
My feet slipped on the tiled floor as I made the turn, and the general’s shout of anger was punctuated by the scrape of fingertips across my back. The door to the children’s class stood not too far ahead. Through the glass window in its upper half I could see children attending their lessons. With any luck they would be enough to stop me getting shot. I drew a deep breath and barged through, past the children and the astounded woman who was their teacher.
The door to the stairs outside, I reached in a few desperate strides. The soldiers behind me had just barreled into the classroom as I slammed it closed. I leapt the rail to the landing halfway down the stairway, then raced the rest of the way into the open. Behind me, the clatter on the stairs told me my pursuers were more cautious.
I thanked the heavens for it.
The grounds below had begun to stir and heads turned towards me, as I came running out of the shelter of the building. I barely paused to acknowledge them, scanning the area for some sort of cover.
There was a square of low benches sheltered by a roof of metal sheeting. I ran to the left of this, aiming for a group of buildings where I might find shelter from the eyes of the soldiers, and cover from their guns. Already I could hear their boots behind me, scattering the gravel underfoot.
The general was shouting something in the tongue he had used when we’d first met, and already others had joined the chase.
There was a fence beyond the building I was heading for, so I swerved between the building and the benches. The general leapt the far set of benches and kept coming. I made for a gap between the buildings and skidded to a halt as a figure stumbled through it.
I was close enough to see the newcomer’s face, and stared in shock.
“Jacob?” I cried.
He stumbled again, then looked at me. I ran to support him.
“Jacob?”
The general was closing. I didn’t care. He was the only hope I had for Jacob.
All thoughts of the others were forgotten—Ilya, Kurt, Padraig and Allie. They still lived; I had thought Jacob dead. I had grieved him long ago.
Jacob stumbled again and this time I caught him and wrapped an arm of his over my shoulder. At the time, I didn’t notice the unusual texture of the skin on his back. I turned towards the general and the benches, letting Jacob rest against me.
“It’s Jacob,” I said, pleading.
Jacob stumbled against me, trying weakly to push me away. I gripped both his shoulders with my hands as he batted and shoved at me.
There was pain in his eyes, pain like I’d never seen before. I looked over his shoulder at the general and the soldiers who had halted behind him. The general had drawn his pistol and was aiming it at Jacob’s back.
“Stand clear,” he said, and his voice was husky with grief. “Stand clear,” he repeated, trying to bring an edge of hardness to his command, when I stared at him in disbelief.
“I’ll not say it again.”
Jacob turned his head and saw him. “Arras,” he croaked. His voice was a thin whisper.
Arras? His next in command? I glanced again at the general.
Jacob used my distraction to gather his strength for one final shove. I lost my grip, stumbled backwards and tripped.
“Arras, look after her. Be quick now.”
I heard the gun speak twice and Jacob sigh. He fell without speaking again.
I picked myself up from the dirt, shock sending chills along my limbs, and robbing me of the ability to speak. Jacob lay still. I made to go to him.
A shot in the ground at my feet stopped me. I looked in disbelief at the general. Again he was shouting orders in that foreign tongue but this time, the soldiers were dispersing.
He was running as he yelled, towards me, gun leveled. “Get back,” he cried, switching to English. “Get back!”
Confused, I stumbled back as the general launched himself into a long dive. It ended in a roll that swept me from my feet and flung me back against the side of a building. There he pinned me with his body and sheltered me from the blast that took Jacob irrevocably from us.
* * *
“Leave it now.”
I jumped as a hand descended on her shoulder, looking at the page I had been reading, then up at Arras. There were tears in my eyes; I could feel them gathering, preparing to fall.
Very carefully, I laid the pen I’d been using in the centre of the diary, then reached up and placed my hand over his.
“We have to remember, Arras,” I said.
“You’ve been remembering for over two hours,” he replied. “It’s time you rested. Tomorrow we start rebuilding. Tomorrow we remember Jacob again, and we’ll keep remembering him even after the building is done.”
I looked down at the unfinished page before me and patted his hand.
“You go on ahead, Arras. I’ll follow in a moment.”
“Ten minutes, Erin, or I’ll carry you back,” he threatened, but I heard the tone of laughter in his voice and knew he meant no harm.
“Promise. I’ll be there,” I said as I heard him walk away.
I waited until he was out of hearing then turned back to the book.
* * *
We have been waiting for ten years, I wrote, two years since Jacob died and ten since he set his beacon. During that time we watched the beacon and gathered all we could find to share the dream.
Two months ago, our patience was rewarded and aid arrived. The Yagreshians are being made to pay for their war and we are rebuilding Keraklea.
As for Jacob, his capture and the sabotage of his body are being avenged; the Yagreshians will pay also for his statue to join those of other heroes on the Hill of Remembrance, and I have written the apology they will sign at its foot.
* * *
My ten minutes were up. I could hear Arras coming up the hill, and was reminded again that good can still grow out of pain. I snapped the book shut, and shoved both it and the pen into the notecase.
When I had tucked everything away, I walked back through the statued heroes to meet Arras at the head of the path. Together we turned our backs on the sight of devastated Keraklea and looked down on the site where New Keraklea nestled on the other side of the Hill. It was Jacob’s vision becoming reality, and we were making it so.
Our hands entwined as we began the descent. Allie was cooking tonight, and Kurt would be ready with his reports. By dusk we’d be planning tomorrow’s orders. When night fell, we’d climb the Hill and stand, silent watching to see if Keraklea’s glow had diminished.
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Jacob's Vision is available as a stand-alone short story at the following links: https://www.amazon.com/Jacobs-Vision-CM-Simpson-ebook/dp/B0084RVXA2/.
You can also find Kristine Kathryn Rusch's latest free short story over on her blog: kriswrites.com. Why don't you go and check it out?
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