Desperate Treatment, CH 19 (Patreon)

“So much for going up will ensure we don’t come across any slavers,” Alex said, studying the camp at on the plateau before the cavern. Then he muttered, “It’s almost like there’s something out there taking choices away from us.” This wasn’t like the previous slaver outposts. The give away was how the habitations were made. Metal sheets bent into shapes. They might be welded or use a binder to hold them together. He doubted Tristan would be able to tell.

There were also the rails going inside, and the sleds waiting next to them, already nearly loaded with all sorts of metals and technological pieces.

“Didn’t that book tell you about this?”

“I don’t believe so.” Tristan was studying it with the binoculars. “The waypoint it marked were all visible for someone walking in the valleys. Even without the trail the slavers made, once we found the first one, I would have been able to orient us so the second one would come into view. It’s why moving up would let us avoid the next outpost. There were no markers this close to one another.”

“Meaning whoever wrote it either didn’t see it, or didn’t think it was important.”

“Or, as you said, something is making sure we come across these slavers.”

Alex studied Tristan, trying to determine if the lack of annoyance was an act, or caused by something more.

Ever since that abandoned village. Those tapestries. Tristan realization, belief, that they were heading for Sovereign tech. Something had shifted in his Samalian. For one thing, he hadn’t meditated onces as far as Alex knew. He hadn’t gone inside himself looking for reasons or justifications. There was also a lack of general annoyance that he’d noticed after discovering that first crash site. As if that had been an indication someone else, something else, was in charge of their decisions.

Alex had gotten the sense many of the meditations that had followed had revolved are Tristan needing to know why things were happening the way they were. It had been disconcerting, seeing his Samalian not entirely in charge, but Tristan hadn’t broken down. He also hadn’t gone fully aggressive. There had been a sense of him setting about to prove whatever—why was he skirting this? To prove that the Source couldn’t entirely control him.

Now, it was as if what he’d found in that house had answered all his questions, and Alex wasn’t certain he liked that. This was too much like with Tristan followed Alex’s instructions without questions; without the drugs and mental damage that had allowed it.

Again, he wanted to ask what about discovering the ship had been from a Sovereign family provided such comfort. His reasoning about what their tech could do was sound, but ignored the crash itself and the time that had passed. He couldn’t be certain it would still work.

But there was now a peace within Tristan Alex was reluctant to shake. It wasn’t that of resignation, or giving up he’d seen in others when they realized there was no escaping Tristan. And it didn’t come with a reluctance to commit violence. That would have had Alex screaming.

Their avoidances of the slavers were tactical. There were only so many times they could attack a convoy or an outpost before words made it up the line about the outworlders causing destruction. But when a battle couldn’t be avoided, Tristan was his usual merciless killer.

Once they reach the teach that would cure Alex, or wouldn’t work anymore, he figured they’d have the time to talk about it. Curing him wouldn’t get them off planet, and as good as Tristan was, even if the pole was safe from the magnetic field’s effect, it would take time for him to build a ship.

He’d keep an eye out for his Samalian’s behavior to become worse and deal with that when it happened. Until then, they had the situation before them to decide about.

“I make out twenty sled,” he said. “Only two if which aren’t filled. That’s going to be a lot of locals.”

“And implies a significant outpost than I expected.” Tristan turned and slid to the ground. 

“We’ve come across active outposts before. I don’t think there were more than a handful of the waypoints that had deserted villages.”

“And the most sled any one of the outpost we saw had was five.”

“That we saw. They could have been in storage, or already moving up the trail. Empty ones could be on their way back.”

“If they are in storage, it implies they aren’t needed, so the output of mining the ships’ remains is low. Shipping them out in low numbers implies the same, or a lack of available sleds across the network, which isn’t supported by the convoy of empty sled a saw. There were enough among that they could leave as many as needed to move everything out of the wreckage that was needed.”

“And here we have four or five times that, and an outpost just down the mountain.”

“Which will have to handle not only what comes from this mine but also every other one.”

“You’re thinking it’s where they process it?”

“Maybe, although it makes more sense to do that closer to where they’ll be used. While many components can be broken down by hand or with simple tools, a lot of them benefit from having the correct functioning technology to be dismantled.”

“So they’re shipping everything to the pole?”

“Or close enough the protection doesn’t have to be this extensive.”

Alex looked up. “Then we need to go higher to pass them?” He couldn’t see how they’d do it, but he trusted Tristan to find them a path. When his Samalian didn’t respond, Alex looked at him. He was looking up the way he often did when pissed at the universe, but his expression was that same peaceful one Alex kept seeing in his face.

“This is the one,” Tristan said.

Alex glanced at the mining camp and back to his Samalian. “This is where we find my cure?” He knew that couldn’t be it. Tristan had said this hadn’t been in the book, but he was at a loss as to what else he could be referring to.

“This is where I pay the price.”

“First, you aren’t paying anything on your own. Second, what the fuck are you talking about?”

Tristan chuckled. “It’s been clear for a while now why the Source brought us here.”

“Stop right there. We’re here because we decided to come. The crash was unexpected, but we were coming here, not brought here by some mystical force your people believe in.”

“Weren’t we?”

“We decided to come here after nothing else worked.”

“Base on a book I found by accident in a library.”

“In a sanctuary I decided we’re go to.”

“After you had a conversation with William, who said what, exactly?”

“That sometime it isn’t because someone wants to teach you that they can.”

“That isn’t how you explained it to me.”

Alex glared. He wanted to scream. They were probably far enough the slavers wouldn’t hear, but he couldn’t risk it. “I’m not an aggressor.” He shouldn’t have used terms built into Tristan’s faith, but it had been the only way he’d been able to think about explaining why it couldn’t be him who helped.

“That someone else should help you find the answers within you.”

“Are you seriously using that to imply it’s the source that was in there?”

“The decision also resulted in me learning how to make contact.”

“Without resorting to nearly dying, you mean.”

“It wouldn’t have worked. That was made clear.”

“Do you have any idea how you’re sounding right now? I’m not claiming your faith is invalid, but I have to point out you used to believe the universe was actively trying to kill you.”

“The fact I was wrong about that doesn’t mean I am wrong about this.”

Alex bit back the exasperation, settling for, “You and me are so going to have a talk once this is over. But right now, we need to deal with this situation.” He motioned toward the mine. “How exactly did you come to owe the Source payment?”

“I told the Source that if it guaranteed you’d be cured, I’d do what it wanted me to.”

“And it told you to…what, stop the slavers?” Did Tristan not see that even knowing this was Sovereign tech didn’t guarantee it was the cure?

“The Source doesn’t tell us anything. It sets the paths, we decide how we want them. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t want things. That it might not set paths before us that lead to specific results, if we chose to take them. We went to the sanctuary, so we were there to protect the acolytes, keep Carter Hart from destroying them in his need to get one piece of art they held. You even said it. Unless we told Teklile we were the ones who stopped Carter Hart, his faith that the universe was just would be maintained.”

“You’re the one who said we shouldn’t tell him.”

“He’d have found a way to justify what happened.”

Exactly as you are doing, Alex didn’t say.

“We followed a path the Source set before us and became their protectors.”

“Only you’re an aggressor.”

Tristan looked at him and smiled.

“I’m not Samalian!” How many times did he have to tell them that? He didn’t believe in the Source or the aspects or any of that. “You know what? That’s for later. So you’ve decided that we need to protect them. Save the locals. So what? We charge in there, kill the slavers, and set the locals free. Are they ever going to have what’s needed to survive out here?”

“We follow them to the outpost,” Tristan said. “There are going to be more of them to rescue there.”