A stone, then another. Nothing else but the stones. Not for the first time he felt like kicking them. Like screaming and destroying it, the House, and everyone who was here. With an effort he reigned in the flash of anger. He had to stay in control; he growled at himself. He had to prove he wasn’t sick anymore.
His father snickered at him.
What he’d really need were tools, a cutter to level the stones, an adhesive to keep them in place. All he had were his wits. There weren’t any tools like these in the hover when he inspected it. And he didn’t expect the town to have anything this advanced. So he had to judge each stone, place it so it would be as stable as it could be. He had them up at two feet and there was already some instability. His father’s running commentary on had been annoying, but now it was background noises.
And there was no Alex. The human walked by every so often, but he didn’t speak, he kept his distance. He left Tristan alone. Some of the locals had glanced his way in the morning, but they too had left him alone.
He stepped back, this last stone wobbled, but then settled in place. The distance from the wall to the alcove was four hundred and eighteen feet. That meant fifty stones, plus the twenty or so needed to make the alcove. He had nine uneven layers making the two feet in height. Four more layers, maybe five, and he’d be done. Three hundred stones. And he had to go further and further to find them. He’d expected to find them all close by, but when the House had been destroyed, most of the stones had shattered in pieces too large for him to use.
He headed to the table someone, probably Alex, had set up by where his wall started, on it was a bucket of water and dried meats.
“As I have said,” the priestess said. She was in the doorway, walking with Alex. “This was not the first time humans hunters have attacked our herd and herders.”
Attacked? When had there been an attack? Why hadn’t anyone gotten him?
Alex was holding a datapad. “The thing is, these guys weren’t just random humans here for some fun.” He tapped the datapad. “I’ve been going through the information in there, there’s fifteen payments on here, large ones. You said there were three raids like this before, right?” He handed her the datapad. “Tell me if the last four match the last attacks.”
She looked at it. “They seem to match, yes.”
“That means these people were paid to come here and kill those animals, have they killed any of your people?” She shook her head. “Okay, so how about you tell me who wants to hurt you like this?”
“Do you not know?” she handed him the datapad back. “Did that not contain the information?”
“I want to hear you say it.”
She studied him. “Three years ago, a corporation agent come to see us. They offered money to turn us into an attraction for the humans who visit Samalia. They wanted us to perform for them. To act out how we herd, how we worship. I came here to escape the way the corporation is making a travesty of who we are. I advocated against taking their offer, and the leader agreed with me. She has no interest in exposing who were are for their amusement. The attacks started not long after that.”
“Who do realize what they’re doing, right?”
She waved the question aside. “It does not matter. You have killed them and sent their ship elsewhere. They will not return.”
“Not very bright, is she?” his father commented.
Tristan nodded, his hand groping the table for another piece of meat, but he’d eaten all of them. This wasn’t over, it would take a few days for the corporation to notice the mercs hadn’t done what they’d paid them for. A few more to find the bodies, and only a few hours to find more mercs willing to come harass these people.
The plan was simple enough, these people depended on the animals they raised for food. So by killing some of them each time they attacked, eventually there wouldn’t be enough left for the people here to live off them. Then they would either die off, or have to turn to the corporation for help, and play whatever game they wanted in return.
“Aren’t you happy I taught you how to survive off what you find in the forest instead?”
Tristan glared at his father, catching sight of the hover in the process. He looked where Alex and the Priestess had been, but they weren’t there anymore. He could just make out his voice coming from inside the House.
He looked toward the hover again.
“Why are you even thinking about that?” his father asked. “Didn’t I teach you better?”
“It isn’t about them.” He headed for the hover.
“Right, you’re telling me that your plan to destroy this corporation isn’t about impressing that human of yours?”
“No. It’s about destroying something, instead of this wall.”
“That wall the human told you to build.”
“So I’ll get better!”
“Seems to me you’re fine enough, if you’re going to take down an entire corporation. Just do that and don’t bother coming back.”
Tristan waved his father away as he climbed into the hover. He started going through the ignition sequences.
Curses came from outside the hover and Tristan look at the door, but his father was seated in the back, so he continued with the sequence. When lights started blinking on the control board, and the hover still didn’t start, Tristan got on his knees to pull out the panels.
“What the fuck is going on in there?” Jacoby yelled. “I’m working on this—” he stopped as entered the hover. Tristan looked up at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be building a wall?”
“I need to take care of something.”
“Well, I hope whatever that is can be done here, because this hover isn’t going anywhere.”
“What are you talking about?” Tristan growled getting to his feet. “What have you done to my hover?”
Jacoby took a step back, raising his hands. “Tech, calm down. I’m just giving it a tune-up.”
“Who’s Tech?” his father asked, from the back of the hover as Tristan stepped out of it.
“This was working perfectly fine. You had no business opening it up. Fix whatever you did so I can deal with what I need to do.”
“Look, you know how this goes, It isn’t just a—”
Tristan went to the front of the hover. Half the components that should be inside, were spread on a tarp on the ground. They were all in need of a thorough cleaning, but what annoyed him was that they weren’t in the hover.
He glared at the human. “Put them back.”
“Tech—”
“I said, Put them back! Who told you that you could do work on my hover? Where do you get off working on my things!” He took a step, ready to tear Jacoby apart for playing with his things, and recoiled as Alex stepped between the two of them.
“What’s going on here?” his breathing was fast. He’d run here from the House.
“Ask your boyfriend,” Jacoby said tersely. “He’s angry that I’m working on the hover.”
“I’m angry because it’s mine! You have no business taking it apart.”
“I’m not taking it apart, I’m giving it a tune-up.”
“Why are you here, Tristan?” Alex asked, annoyed. “The wall isn’t finished.”
“Why is everyone so obsessed with the damned wall? The corporation is hiring mercs to come a destroy this place! Isn’t that more important? Wouldn't me going and stopping them be more useful than working on a stone wall?”
“Tristan, you can’t—”
“Yes, I can! You know me, nothing will stop me. I’ll go through them and there will be nothing left!”
Alex ran a hand over his face. “Think things through, please. If you take the hover where are you going to go?”
“The city.” Where else did he think he’d go?
“And what's there?”
“The corporation, that’s what I’m going to destroy.”
Alex took a breath. “It’s just a building. It’s just offices.”
“So? I can destroy that.”
“And what’s the point? What’s that going to do?”
“It’s going to be fun. It’s going to keep the corporation from sending more of those mercs.”
Alex couldn’t seem to figure out what to say. Good. Then he had to know this was the right course of action.
Alex’s face hardened. “Who’s paying you?”
“What?”
“If you’re going to do that big of a job, you get paid, so who is paying you Tristan?”
“I—but—”
“I have a job for us, a paying one.”
“You—you do?”
“Yes. We’re getting paid to handle the marauders when they come back.”
“But I want to—” he indicated the hover.
“We have a job, Tristan, and I need you to do your part of it, do you understand?”
“But I—”
“Tristan, I need you to do your part. Can you do that? We’re a team right?”
It was a ploy, he could see through it. Alex just wanted to keep him close by so he could keep an eye on him. All he had to do was kill him, and he’d be free to do whatever he wanted.
“Fine.” He didn’t care if he sounded like he was sulking. “What do you need me to do?”
“Your job is to finish the wall so you can be better.”
“The wall? That’s my part of the job?”
“Can you do that?”
Wring his neck. All he had to do was put his hands around his neck and snap it. His hand didn’t move.
His ears drooped. “Yes I can.”
Alex smiled, and against his will Tristan felt better. “I knew I could count on you.” He motioned to the wall.
He’d been dismissed. Tristan had been dismissed. The anger started burning inside as he walked away from the two humans.
“You’re letting him do that to you?” his father said, sounding far too pleased with himself.
“Shut up.”
“You know, I thought I’d raised you better than that. I thought I’d raised someone who was able to remove anyone who stood in his way.”
“I said, shut up.”
“The boy I raised would have broken that human in two instead of letting him speak to him like a child.”
“If you don’t stop talking right now, I am going to hurt you.”
“Oh, you mean like you hurt that human?”
With a scream Tristan kicked at his father and send the stones in his wall flying. Watching the stones land he screamed again and kicked at the wall over and over, taking it all down. Panting he looked over the wreckage. Nothing but the bottom layer of stones were left in place.
“Well,” his father said, “I guess you’re going to be at this for a lot longer.”
