Prologue
She ran barefoot through the first snowfall, slipping on the crusty boreal earth, kicking through snow drifts, following the urgent rise of the old mining road for reasons that she did not understand.
She ran, fists balled, lips trembling, wet pink eyes darting over the alien landscape. Sweat boiled off the wick of her short hair, clumped wet against her scalp, colorless, delicate; like the veins of a bee’s wing. Beneath the grace of her winsome body, beneath the tender skin as translucent as the snow, lithe muscles, knitted strong but never tested, smoldered like embers.
Long, ever-weakening strides propelled her up the overgrown path, through the fog until she pierced the freezing shroud into the moon-filled twilight. A hundred meters further, the road broadened into a plateau where thick silent pines, sketched blue-green in the glorious moonlight, beckoned.
Deep within that thicket, she collapsed, sprawling on the rusty needle carpet, gulping frigid air. She crawled over sharp pinecones to hide under a tent of branches bowed heavy with ice, cracked and oozing fragrant sap. Beneath that covering she curled, trembling, sucking wounded fingers, the fire in her bones quenched with terror and exhaustion.
Two hundred meters east, Dubois followed her trail.
It had been a dreadful evening—too much homemade ale, too little sleep. However, an occasional shot of peppermint schnapps, a brilliant full moon, and an unexpected snow made the tempest behind his swollen eyes bearable.
“Fuck, she’s a fast piece!” he complained, sucking air through the iced-over material of his soiled hunting mask. “Runs like a damned animal!”
Dubois squatted and raised the lens of his H/T monocular to get a better look at the tracks. The impressive athletic strides were beginning to reveal her fatigue. He noticed the return of the gentle spotting of blood from her left foot, which she sliced during her escape.
The fresh blood surprised him. “She should be running on frozen stumps by now,” he said.
Without reply, his companion approached from behind, dry snow squeaking beneath her smoky brown soles. She took a few steps ahead of him and stopped, aloof, lost in thought, and played in the snow with the toe of her boot.
Dumb bitch, Dubois thought. She hadn’t spoken two words in the three hours since they had met. While he seldom—if ever—had occasion to enjoy the company of a beautiful woman, he found that, from his perspective at least, abundant strong drink and good conversation were the preferred accouterments in the wild.
And there was something else about her that set him on edge.
Callous, arrogant, yet strangely desirable, she strutted about like royalty in her fancy matching boots and waistcoat. And that Minus-50 snowjumper—another piece of work. Clinging like hoarfrost to every perfect slope and curve, the white satin material cost more than every article of clothing he owned.
Criticisms aside, she was lovely, evocative, eclipsing the primitive beauty of this unique night. More importantly, within her breast he sensed the beat of a primal, passionate heart as strong as his own. If there was anything in which he excelled, it was his knack for gauging the ferocity of his prey.
That observation alone made him doubly cautious.
“Egypt was engineered to be the best,” she said abruptly, her exhaling breath refracting crisp reds and greens in the moonlight.
“Huh? What kind of name is that? Egypt?”
“Egypt is not her name. It is her project designation.”
“Imagine that,” Dubois mused, straining to his feet. “Just let me know when you think of anything else important.” He pulled the winter-camo parka down over his sagging belly. “By the way, what about your name, Qual? Is that your name? Or your designation?”
She ignored his question, inhaling a breath of invigorating, clean air. Oh, how she had come to loathe this man in the few hours since this hunt forged their alliance. He was crude and stupid. He smelled. The rasp of his beard against his mask as he talked irritated her. His very existence irritated her.
“What did you call this night, Dubois?”
Dubois glanced at the highest peak, Bates’ Mountain, shimmering in the distance. “Long Night Moon,” he answered. “Full moon during the Winter Solstice.”
“Yes. Long Night Moon,” she repeated, as if weighing the significance of the words. “This is a night of cosmic coincidences, Dubois.”
From the corner of his eye, shielded by the upraised H/T monocular, he stole a glance at her shapely form and noticed for the first time how the right pocket of her waistcoat hung more heavily at her side than the other.
She carried more than the HK stunner slung over her shoulder! A pitiful five-point-five, he guessed. His ragged hunting mask concealed a knowing grin as he thought of the ten-millimeter tucked securely in his right pocket.
“The air’s thin,” he said. “It’s well below freezing. She’s naked and injured and—”
“She isn’t naked, Dubois,” Qual countered, referring to the light capillary suit worn for deep-space hibernation. “She will recover quickly.”
“Sooner or later, Qual, I’m going to say something that you’ll agree with.”
She turned to face him squarely, white mask concealing the beauty beneath. “I doubt it, Dubois.”
“Well, she won’t go much further,” he said, pointing along the trail in the pristine snow. “She’ll hole up in that grove of Douglas firs up there.” He motioned to the dense growth a hundred and sixty meters before them. “Where the old logging road ends.”
“Don’t underestimate her, Dubois. This is a strange world. She’s frightened. Although she’s only six months old, she is very clever.”
What? “She’s a six-month-old piece, eh? A full-grown genie?” He spat the derogatory term like bitter phlegm.
“Dubois, you are a misanthropic bastard.”
“I guess we finally agree on something.” He grinned and turned towards his snowspeeder. “You talk like you know her pretty well, too.”
“I do,” she said. “As well as I know myself...”
Egypt’s sensitive ears warned of their approach. Steaming mouths formed incomprehensible sounds in this bewildering world where she awoke. Their strange clothing rustled, twigs snapped under clumsy steps, the revolting smells of their flesh fouled the air around her.
Tired of running, she sat up, pulled her knees to her chest, and began to sway back and forth gently.
She began to sing.
Barely audible, it was nothing more than a groaning, a vibration in her throat. Not a song as most would consider it, for she knew no language, but an outpouring, an extension of something deep within her being. Untaught, it was what she did when she was frightened, when she was most vulnerable.
Suddenly, a painful white beam parted her dark covering. She stared back at Dubois through tearful, red eyes. He smiled at the creature squatting before him. It was a look that he had seen before—the void, devastated resignation; like that of a child lost in the horrors of war.
She had given up the hunt. She was his.
Dubois fingered the trigger of his stunner and reached in to prod her gently with the short barrel of the HK.
“Dubois! You stupid—”
He responded, half-shouting, through clenched teeth. “Shut the fuck up! You’ll spook her…”
As if his words spoke it into existence, in a shower of ice and dead pine needles Egypt leapt upon Dubois, knocking him to the hard earth, pushing, clawing, ripping defensively at the slick material of his hunting mask.
Dubois jammed the tip of the HK against her ribs and pulled the trigger. She gasped. He felt the wash from the electrical discharge flow through her body as she tensed; yet, she kept her grip around his throat.
He squeezed the trigger tightly again, pushing the wand hard against her body until he felt the battery overheating through his gloves. He smelled ozone. And her searing flesh.
Egypt growled, baring her teeth as her eyes locked onto his. Grabbing at Dubois’ weapon, she grasped him tightly by the right wrist, breaking it with a sharp, unexpected snap.
“Oh, fuck!” Dubois shouted as his fingers seemed to explode inside his glove.
Qual grabbed Egypt around the waist and pulled her away, throwing her tumbling into the fresh snow.
“Idiot! You’ll hurt her!”
“Hurt her?” Dubois rolled onto his rear and cradled his right arm in his lap. “Fuck! The fuckin’ genie broke my arm!”
Egypt coughed, spat a mouthful of blood, and stood to run away, but her torn muscles rebelled. She bared her teeth and screamed—a howling, feral shriek born of hideous pain—and slumped to her knees. A violent tremble rippled throughout her body; pink eyes disappeared behind open lids, and she screamed again, arching backwards, frozen for an eternity after the air was forced from her lungs.
A wet crack, like the snapping of a green branch, threw her body forward. The snow behind her turned blue-black. Dubois shot a glance at Qual, looking for a gun in hand.
Then, through the meager fabric of her capillary suit, Egypt’s belly burst outward, spewing Dubois and Qual two meters away with hot dark liquid.
Egypt slumped back onto her heels, quivering. From the steaming wound of her chest, something jumped. Alive. Black. Serpentine. It flopped angrily into the snow with a hollow thump. In an instant, before either Dubois or Qual could fasten eyes on the beast, it skittered insect-like into the darkness of the pine grove before them.
Dubois forgot his pain. “What the fuck was that?”
“Smith is not going to like this,” Qual muttered.
“Smith? Who gives a shit about what Smith thinks? The genie’s dead. I need a doctor!”
“Stop whining.” Qual licked her lips, almost tasting the flat metallic flavor of Egypt’s blood splattered on her ski mask. She reached into her pocket. The newborn was small, perhaps two-thirds the expected size. She had failed. Yet, her scalp tingled at the thought of the creature free in the wilderness...
A muffled chirping sound, like that of a hungry bird, riveted their attention back to Egypt. From beneath her trembling body, another creature emerged, translucent, albino, and much smaller than the other.
Qual gasped at the unprecedented event. Twins!
“Shit! How many of those things live in there?”
The creature hesitated, turning its long, almond-shaped head, curiously examining Qual and Dubois with a bloody, eyeless face. With agility rivaling its twin, it plowed through the snow towards Dubois so quickly that it was already past him before his shout of horror.
Qual plucked the handgun from her waistcoat. Dubois craned his neck around towards the spray of dry snow in the escaping creature’s wake, anticipating the kill. In a second, it was gone, disappearing below the swelling of the hill towards the valley.
“Shit! Not very keen with that, eh?” He turned around to face Qual, just as the targeting laser of her twelve-millimeter touched his forehead.
His gut feelings about her had been right! But his pain had distracted him, allowed him to let down his guard. His laziness may have cost him his life!
“Damned piece!” He reached awkwardly beneath his useless arm, fumbling for the weapon in his right pocket.
Qual calmly allowed him ample time to grasp the butt and pull it from his pocket before killing him with a single shot.
“Bigot,” she said, turning to the trembling young girl.
Barely conscious, Egypt clung to life as it spilled from her body with each abrupt, shallow breath. Qual looked deeply into the teary, dulling eyes, at the innocent face twisted in grief. There was no common language between them, yet her simple, unspoken question was tragically conveyed: why?
“Shhhh,” Qual whispered, removing her mask, leaning over and tenderly kissing her cold cheek. She covered Egypt’s eyes with a reassuring, gloved hand and, with the salt of Egypt’s tears still upon her lips, she placed the muzzle of her pistol to the girl’s forehead.
Although Egypt was simply a designation, Qual had given her a name, a secret name, generic but no less intimate in the sterile laboratory of their birth.
“Forgive me, sweet sister,” she whispered.
