Bridgers 3_The Voice of Reason Read online

  Infinity nodded in appreciation to the refugee who’d volunteered, tossed aside the harmless stick she’d used for the demonstration, and picked up her venomcrook. “If they have one of these, and they look like they intend to use it, that’s when you use this move. If they don’t have a weapon, there’s no need—you and your partners just grab them. Tackle them if you have to, but get your hands on them and push your vision of our plan straight into their goddamn heads.” She scanned the refugees’ faces and saw that most of them looked determined. Good. “Practice now. We’re going back to the bridge-in site in a few minutes, and you need to be ready.”

  It had taken more than an hour for Desmond to send his vision to the refugees and for Abel to dose them with the mind-projection venom, mainly because his venomcrook needed to ‘recuperate,’ as he put it, after every fifty or so doses. After completing this task, Abel had disappeared again. The forty smaller musk monkeys were now wandering around the area, watching and sometimes even mimicking the refugees’ behavior.

  Infinity was the only one who had refused to be dosed. Her encounters with rapture and pain made her uncomfortable with the idea of being stung by a venomcrook, regardless of what effect it was supposed to have.

  If this colony survived, it would undoubtedly be the first population of telepathic humans.

  Infinity didn’t really care whether they talked with their minds, with their mouths, or through their butts, as long as they survived. She was tired of losing refugees. She was also tired of not knowing the fates of the colonies she’d worked to establish. Once she and Desmond bridged back from this world, she’d never know whether the colonists lived long enough to make it all worthwhile. Just as she would never know about the previous colony she and Desmond had assisted in a world occupied by diminutive, human-like thirdlings. She was more than ready to bridge out with a colony permanently and see it through to the end, whatever that end might be.

  Desmond approached and stood beside her, watching the refugees practice the only offensive move she’d had time to teach them. He then took her hand in his.

  “We can’t wait much longer, Infinity. We need to be at the bridge-in site when group thirty-four arrives.”

  She turned and glared at him. He had spoken these words silently, delivering them directly to her mind, along with a mental image of twenty refugees appearing within the bridge-in site.

  “Don’t do that!” she said. “It creeps me out.”

  “Sorry. I just thought I could use the practice. Did you understand what I was trying to say?”

  “Loud and clear. But it wasn’t really your voice. It was more like… my own thoughts, but appearing without my effort or consent.” Still holding his hand, Infinity shut her mouth and concentrated on forming words in her own mind. Do you understand what I’m thinking?

  “I wonder whether this ability will last,” Desmond said aloud. “Do you think it’ll disappear when we bridge back?”

  I said, do you understand what I’m thinking! Infinity watched his face. He was still waiting for her to reply to his question and showed no indication he’d received her thoughts. Good. The last thing she needed was the one guy she’d ever allowed herself to love reading her private thoughts. If Desmond could see the weird shit created in her mind on a regular basis, he’d probably decide she was too broken to be loved—damaged beyond repair. Maybe she was beyond repair, but she had no intention of broadcasting it.

  “Infinity?” Desmond was eyeing her, frowning.

  She tried one more time, mentally forming the words, Do you think I’m a broken person?

  He raised his eyebrows, still waiting for a response.

  She exhaled. “I was just making sure you couldn’t hear my thoughts.”

  “I’m sure Abel would still be willing to dose you.”

  She shook her head. “Not interested. And you’re right, we need to be there when group thirty-four arrives. Let’s get this done.”

  8:50 AM

  Four hundred eighty refugees stood more-or-less ready to act. This number included nine who had found their way back to the main group over the last hour, as well as twenty recent arrivals from group thirty-three, whom Infinity and sixty armed refugees had narrowly rescued from the natives nearly an hour ago.

  The group had gathered a total of seventy venomcrooks, and each weapon had been assigned to a pair of refugees. The remaining refugees, without venomcrooks, were in groups of three. They had no rocks or other weapons because the intent was persuasion, not annihilation.

  Infinity glanced at Desmond, who was standing beside her. She knew he had to be exhausted, but his face showed only determination. She wondered whether this would be the day her luck would finally run out, and her mind drifted to thoughts of bridging out one-way with colony ST6 to establish a permanent home with Desmond. In their current circumstances, this seemed like a pipe dream.

  Dammit, she never used to allow her mind to wander like this at such critical moments.

  “You ready?” Desmond asked.

  She nodded. Then she addressed the nearly five hundred refugees. “Remember, subdue them, get the vision of our plan into their heads, and then take them to the mongrel bubble. Hopefully they’ll be cooperative by that time. We need the mongrels to see that they agree with us. Repeat those steps until we have them all on our side.”

  Without waiting for questions or acknowledgement, she started marching toward the bridge-in site and the mongrel bubble.

  She led the refugees several hundred yards through the dense forest until she spotted the shimmering bubble. Fortunately, most of the painted natives were already gathered there, perhaps even all of them. They were standing in a defensive formation, their heads already turned toward the approaching refugees, clearly aware of the group’s presence. Infinity turned to face the refugees and waved a hand to the right and then the left, signaling them to spread out and surround the site. The natives could probably see that the refugees were surrounding them, but they didn’t run away, which meant they intended to defend their source of food.

  Infinity waited until she was sure the refugees had encircled the sixty-foot-wide bubble and had taken their positions. She then nodded to Desmond.

  “Friends!” he shouted. “We do not wish to harm you. We only want an audience with you. To talk. We have something we’d like to show you. We’re coming closer.”

  This last sentence signaled the others to move in. Infinity, Desmond, and over four hundred refugees began closing in on the mongrel bubble.

  “That’s close enough!” Infinity shouted to the refugees when they were ten yards from the painted natives.

  The natives with venomcrooks—thirty or so—stood in a semicircle, the rest of their herd behind them, huddled beside the bubble. A few dozen bodies, both refugees’ and natives’, lay scattered about the area, some with crushed skulls. Infinity guessed these people had been suffering from rapture madness. The painted natives must have assumed they’d become dangerous, which was a damn well-founded assumption.

  Infinity spotted Nehemiah behind the perimeter of armed natives,. He was sitting on the ground with a hand held to his side, evidence that Infinity had indeed cracked his ribs when she’d kicked him.

  A man painted with alternating blue and black vertical stripes stepped forward. “Why do you persist? This bailiwick don’t support but two-fifty. There ain’t enough sustenance here for your herd.”

  “But there could be,” Desmond said. “There could be enough for all of us.”

  Abruptly, group thirty-four materialized to the side of the natives’ formation. The new arrivals cried out and began retching, most of them dropping to their knees.

  “You keep coming and coming!” the blue and black man cried. “There ain’t no end to your herd. This bailiwick won’t sustain you, and we aim to defend it until death. So seize it if you must, but know that many of you will not live to see another dawn.”

  Infinity realized the arrival of group thirty-four had caused confusion in
the natives that might give the refugees a strategic advantage. But it wouldn’t last. “Move in, now!” she shouted. “Take down those who have venomcrooks first!”

  She sprinted at the blue and black man, skidded on her side as she’d taught the refugees, and struck the man’s ankle. She slashed the calf of a second man before she was even on her feet again.

  The other armed refugees followed her example, charging forward. Some of them carried out the move she’d taught them, but most simply came in swinging wildly. As bodies dropped to the ground screaming and moaning, the refugees who’d been positioned on the far side of the bubble came running around from the left and right.

  The fighting quickly became so thick the refugees couldn’t possibly carry out Infinity’s sliding move whether they remembered it or not. Desmond appeared at Infinity’s side, and they positioned themselves back to back, ready to deflect attackers. The refugees were packed into such a tight space, and their thrashing was so wild, that Infinity feared she or Desmond might get hit with one of their own venomcrooks.

  She hadn’t anticipated such a dense fight.

  The unarmed group of natives, pinned between the shimmering bubble and the chaotic brawl, seemed to reach a breaking point. They began shouting, and the entire mass surged forward, knocking Infinity, Desmond, and dozens of armed natives and refugees to the ground.

  “Don’t let them get away!” Infinity screamed. Several bodies were sprawled on top of her, but she managed to push her head up out of the tangled mess in time to see the hundreds of refugees without venomcrooks swarming forward and throwing themselves at anyone emerging from the melee. Within seconds, the natives were overwhelmed and flattened against the ground by the sheer number and weight of the refugees.

  “Stop. Stop fighting!”

  The voice had come from someone only a few feet from Infinity, but it had almost been drowned out by the screaming. Infinity crawled out from under a body and got to her knees. She realized she had lost her venomcrook.

  “Stop this dad-blamed conflict!”

  This was a different voice, a painted woman. The woman had been pinned to the ground by two refugees.

  “Halt! No more fighting. We must listen to them!”

  This one was a painted man, also pinned to the ground.

  “They speak the truth!” cried another painted woman.

  The plan was actually working. Painted natives were starting to see the mental images of Desmond’s plan. But their voices were still relative whispers in a storm of chaos.

  Infinity got to her feet barely dodging a venomcrook swung by a painted man. She lunged at the native’s arm before he could swing again, grabbed it, and bit down on the flesh above his elbow. The guy howled and dropped the weapon. Infinity turned sharply, taking him to the ground.

  “Desmond, here!” she shouted, holding the man down so Desmond could work his magic on him. But Desmond was no longer with her. She spotted him a few feet away, stuck beneath several writhing refugees. He was groaning through gritted teeth, pummeling his own left shoulder with his right fist, obviously in unbearable pain.

  “Desmond!” Infinity started to get up but couldn’t without releasing the painted man beneath her.

  “Here, Infinity, I got this one.” It was the refugee Gretchen, and she grabbed the man’s neck and closed her eyes.

  Seconds later the man stopped struggling. “What in damnation?” he said, his eyes wide with puzzlement.

  “You see it now, don’t you?” Gretchen said to the man.

  “I do see,” the man said.

  Infinity released the native and got to her knees again. The fighting was gradually slowing down. Bodies still twisted and convulsed with pain or rapture, but soon only a few painted natives were resisting, and those were quickly being subdued by refugees. Infinity crawled to Desmond’s side, grabbed his ankle, and pulled him free from the tangle of limbs and torsos.

  He was clenching his eyes shut and hardly seemed to notice her. “Help me!” he grunted through his teeth. “Make it stop.”

  Infinity grabbed his shoulders. “The pain will end soon. Hang in there.” Actually, she had no idea how long the pain would last.

  “I can’t! Make it stop please!”

  A venomcrook was thrust in front of Infinity’s face.

  She turned. The weapon was held by a child, a girl no more than ten years old, painted mostly yellow but with smeared brown spots.

  “Take it,” the girl said. “I set it to dole out rapture, and rapture’s a whole mighty world better than the pain he’s suffering.”

  Infinity eyed the girl. She then took the venomcrook and pushed the exposed tendon to the side three times. Just in case the kid wasn’t as sincere as she seemed.

  Desmond turned on his side and retched, but nothing came up. When he was finished, he raised his head and saw the venomcrook. He grabbed Infinity’s wrist and pulled the weapon toward his face. “Do it! Make it stop.”

  Infinity snatched the venomcrook with her other hand and held it beyond his reach. She yanked her wrist free and backed away.

  “How long does the pain last?” she asked the painted girl.

  “I ain’t suffered it but once,” the girl said.

  A native man behind the girl said, “He’ll live through it. I don’t recommend dosing him with rapture right now, no matter how much he begs for it. Ain’t many folks got a mind that can handle both at once. He might never be the same after it’s said and done.”

  Infinity knew the man’s words were true. She had survived simultaneous doses of pain and rapture, but it had been one of the hardest things she’d ever experienced. In fact, she felt lucky to have held on to her sanity. What if Desmond wasn’t that lucky?

  “Infinity, please!” Desmond cried.

  She looked around at the refugees and natives. Many of them were incapacitated by their own struggles with pain or rapture. But the fighting was over. The painted natives now understood what their future could look like. Many of the refugees had been smeared with the natives’ body paint during the conflict, making it harder to distinguish between the two groups. The two separate herds were becoming one.

  Infinity tossed the venomcrook onto a bare patch of ground a few yards away, hoping she would never have to touch one of the damn things again.

  She pressed her body against Desmond’s and put her arms around his shoulders. “You have to trust me,” she said. “Rapture will only make things worse. I’m here with you. We’ll get through this together. Show me what you’re experiencing.”

  Seconds later, whether he’d intended to or not, Desmond did show her.

  Infinity stiffened. Searing pain spread through her body, and desperate pleas for help flooded her mind. She almost cried out, but instead she pulled herself even closer, determined to cling to him until his suffering passed.

  21

  Cipher

  September 3 - 10:37 AM

  Desmond continued holding his eyes shut long after the worst of the pain had subsided, fearful that the slightest movement would trigger another wave of nerve-abrading agony.

  “You going to live through this, partner?” Infinity whispered near his ear.

  To avoid having to move, he spoke telepathically. “I think so.”

  Infinity had lain beside him throughout the ordeal. Had it been hours or minutes? Her comforting presence had more than made up for the excruciating waves triggered by her occasional movements against his skin. During the last few minutes, she had filled him in on what he’d missed—most importantly, that his plan had so far worked. The painted natives had agreed to try coexisting with the refugees, as long as the mongrels provided enough sustenance.

  She moved her head slightly. “Can you open your eyes?”

  He pried his eyes open enough to squint at her.

  “You look like shit,” she said.

  He closed his eyes again. “Thanks,” he said, this time speaking aloud. “You actually look pretty good.”

  She released him an
d sat up. “Group thirty-six will arrive soon. So you and I have a little more than an hour before bridge-back. As much as I’d like to lay with you until then, I need to see if there’s any last-minute help I can give these colonists.”

  Desmond groaned and tentatively sat up beside her, triggering only slight pinpricks. He rubbed his eyes, trying to get them to focus on three greenish shapes near his feet. Gradually his vision cleared. The three shapes were miniature musk monkeys, sitting on their coiled tails and staring back at him with black-marble eyes.

  “What’s their deal?” he muttered.

  “What’s their deal?” one of the creatures said in a high, warbling voice.

  Desmond frowned and rubbed his eyes again. All three of the musk monkeys rubbed their eyes, mimicking his movement.

  “They’ve been hanging around,” Infinity said. “All forty of them.”

  “All forty of them,” one of the creatures repeated.

  Desmond blinked and looked around at the rest of the bridge-in site. Refugees and painted natives were everywhere, talking to each other in small groups. Peacefully, without fighting. Desmond heard louder, more aggressive voices to his right, and he turned and squinted. Refugees and natives were working together to hold a dozen or so people against the ground.

  “Rapture madness,” Infinity said, noticing his concern. “With any luck, those poor bastards will recover like I did.”

  “Poor bastards will recover like I did,” one of the musk monkeys parroted.

  More miniature musk monkeys were scattered about the area, most of them sitting and watching humans. What did the mongrels think of these new musk monkeys? Would they suspect Abel had provided assistance to the refugees?