Chương 74: 2.15 Trust

Sisters," Frederick hissed through their comms connection. Hector snorted, amused at hearing a Royal invoke the mythological AI "sisters" who'd supposedly saved humanity in a distant past.

"Not Empire?" Frederick was too engrossed by the sight that had brought forth the exclamation to respond; the bloom patch was just ahead, and the colorful blossoms were visible through a break in the trees. Hector moved closer to the kid, tracking his sightline. A huge, bell-shaped, iridescent blue flower arched up toward the dark sky.

Motes of aura spiraled away from the flower, drifting into the blackness—shimmering silver and gold dust that painted a magical starscape in lieu of the one hidden by the thick atmosphere.

"Still think they're a fungus?"

"Okay, maybe fungus is the wrong word," Frederick agreed, his voice a reverential whisper. Hector clapped him on the shoulder and he would have given it a squeeze if not for the hard armor there.

"Let's scout it out. I'll go left, you swing right. Meet you on the other side of the clearing." He took a step to the left, but Freddy's hand shot out and caught his arm.

"Is that smart?" Hector knew what he meant, of course. If another pack of reapers came upon them, they'd be in trouble if they were apart. Hector didn't think that was going to happen. A pack of reapers was right up there near the top of the food chain on the rift world, and if they'd been hunting together in those woods, there wouldn't be anything else around. He didn't know that to be true, but his gut told him he was right. To mollify the kid, he said, "Just keep your comms open, but I think we'll be fine."

"Roger." Freddy's reply was still a cautious whisper, but he hefted his rifle and moved off to the right, circling the patch. Hector walked the other way, angling toward the edge of the clearing so he could scan the perimeter of the bloom patch. He'd already given it a good enough look to know there were five blooms—an incredible harvest for a team of civilians.

They couldn't sell the blooms; the Empire would see them hanged if it knew they'd harmed the patch, especially since it was already mapped and actively monitored by the IG. That didn't matter, though; the potentia made the effort worthwhile. Everyone would get a sizeable share, and there was no doubt Mathews would keep some set aside to sell; how else would rich kids like Frederick get their infusions without risking their necks? Hector didn't care about all that.

Sure, bits were good, but he was mostly in the rift to gain levels, and he was already well on his way. He wouldn't be surprised if he exited the rift with enough potentia to advance his new archetype—after he adopted it—ten levels or more. It would take some time to apply that much potentia, but gaining it was the hard part. He saw a few fat, slug-like Howell worms, named after some Imperial scout who'd first run afoul of them.

They were almost harmless—unless you let one sit on you long enough, which is what Howell did. The scout made camp, set up a watch turret, and then fell asleep. The worms—about a half meter long, covered with short red and black spines, and upon cursory inspection, eyeless and mouthless—moved so slowly that they didn't set off the turret's auto-sentry functions. One of the worms crept onto Howell's helmet, got nice and comfortable, and then secreted a mild acid that also contained a powerful paralytic.

It took the acid about ten minutes to eat through Howell's face shield, and then it was too late; the paralytic kept the poor bastard pinned there while the worm dissolved his skull and then inserted its hidden proboscis and slurped up the resultant soup. Hector left the things alone; even if they wanted to eat him, they'd take an hour to get to him, and that would require him to stand still.

Other than the worms—likely snack food for reapers—he didn't see anything of concern before he and Freddy came face to face again.

"You were right—nothing." Hector nodded, gesturing to the blooms.

"Let's get this done." He approached the first bloom and then added, "You just patrol the clearing."

"Got it." Hector could feel the bloom. It was a kind of tugging sensation at the center of his gut and a rush of warm air across his skin, even though he was fully armored. Standing that close to the flower—nearly as tall as he was—was a lot like being close to one of the little dust devils that liked to kick up out in the desert when the temperature and breeze got just right. Only, despite how it felt, it wasn't wind; it was the aura.

Far gentler than the rifts or another powerful aura user, the blooms had an almost nourishing feel whereas the former were more threatening. The harvester ticked rapidly as he held it close, and though the stream of aura particles drifting out of the bloom didn't slow, Hector knew he was siphoning off months of gathered potentia. When the device stopped ticking and he looked at the display, Hector smiled. 302 aura potentia gathered.

For the first time, he wondered if the device had the capacity to hold the entire patch. Moving toward the next bloom, a pink one with bright yellow spots near the edges of the petals, he said, "Anything?"

"Just more of those worms we saw earlier."

"If we had time, we could scrape them, too."

"For a handful of potentia," Freddy replied, apparently having learned about the creatures from one of his many tutors. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Hector started the scraper and scanned the trees while it worked. Nothing threatened them, and in the end, he gathered more than twelve hundred potentia from the bloom patch.

It was a hell of a haul, almost enough to bring dark contemplations to mind: what would happen if another "reaper" attacked and Freddy and the scraper were lost? It was a very brief thought, quickly dismissed. Still, the fact that it had crossed his mind was enough to stir some shame in Hector's chest. He tried to rationalize: he'd had the thought because wasn't he alive for vengeance—to fulfill his blood oath? Shouldn't everything else be secondary?

For all he knew, Freddy was a direct descendant of the people who'd ordered the Contis' slaughter. His very mother or her brother might have been responsible. The rationalizing came to a grinding halt when images of certain faces flashed through his mind—his own, for instance. Paul Chevelier had paid the ultimate price so that he had a skin to walk through life in. Didn't he owe something to him and the memory of his sister, Britt?

Could his legacy be one of indiscriminate slaughter, heaping betrayal after betrayal on the one that had started this whole affair? No, Hector told himself; he couldn't do that. Aside from the dead people he owed, there were the living. Lemon and her kid brother, for instance. The idea of her looking at him with shame in her eyes was more bothersome than Hector wanted to admit. Why he cared, he couldn't be sure, but he damn well did. Then there was Sass; hadn't he taken her under his wing?

Wasn't he treating her as a student? What kind of legacy would he leave the world if his only student learned to stab people in the back, betraying her honor to grab power as quickly as possible? No, there were other principles he had to abide by besides vengeance.

"So quiet this time," Freddy remarked, and for a moment, Hector thought he was talking about him, but then he realized he meant the acid woods. He was right, of course; the lack of reapers trying to kill them made for an almost peaceful run through the forest. It didn't hurt that the acid slid off the thick layer of reaper blood they'd caked themselves with, hardly sizzling at all as it fell to the forest floor. Hector grunted in agreement.

"You wanna know something?" the kid asked. Hector humored him: "What?"

"This is the first time I've been anywhere without my mom in my head—well, I mean, she wasn't always paying attention, but she had an AI watching me." Hector frowned. It wasn't something that really surprised him; the Conti kids had watchdog daemons in their heads, after all, but they'd been there for guidance—personal tutors that were always present and alert. Still, if anything ever went wrong or if the kids put themselves at risk, the watchdogs would reach out to an adult.

"Watchdog's still there, though, right?"

"Nope," Freddy replied.

"Uncle Loyal insisted; he said I had to know what it was like to be on my own, to taste real freedom. He said the only place outside the Empire's reach was here, and that I wouldn't really feel it if the voices in my head were still there." He chuckled, leaping over a deadfall.

"Now I've got your voice in my head, Hector." Hector grunted.

"Anyway, I bring it up for a reason. Do you remember when I said I could use a man like you on my side?" Hector glanced at the kid, sensing a turn in the conversation.

"Yeah?"

"I've had more than one attempt on my life. My mother isn't well-loved in the family, and there are many cousins who view my closeness to Loyal—my uncle—as more than a little problematic." Hector knew that much; Evie's digging had found rumors to that effect. Still, he remained quiet, ready to see if the kid was about to spill more.

"Yeah, well, I don't know what I want out of life, not sure I want to inherit anything at all, but my uncle has big plans. I guess I can't say more than that, not really knowing you, but the point I'm getting to, Hector, is that I'm going to need good men and women by my side."

"I've got goals of my own, kid." Frederick didn't respond for a long time, but, as Hector's mini-map flashed, indicating they were down to one kilometer left to run back to base, he spoke again: "I'm not looking for any kind of contract or anything right now, but…" He hesitated, and Hector could tell he was at war with himself, wanting to say more, but knowing he shouldn't. He could probably hear his uncle's admonitions to keep his secrets echoing in his head.

After another minute of silence, though, his youth and passion won out over caution, and he asked, "Can I trust you, Hector?" Hector slowed to a stop, turning to face the kid. His cunning side, the one that knew how politics worked and that wanted vengeance at the expense of just about anything else, wanted him to say yes. Another part of him won out, though—the part that cared about how Lemon and Sass thought of him. The part that enjoyed having men like Demon and Orin look at him with respect in their eyes.

When Frederick stopped and his helmet's visor was staring into his, Hector said, "I don't know, Freddy. What kind of trust are we talking about?"

"Will you keep my confidence?" Hector tilted his head, considering. After a moment, he replied, "Better to protect yourself. If you have enemies, they could use me—mine my skull for secrets. If you need my advice, then speak vaguely." Frederick's helmet moved up and down as he listened to Hector's reply.

"Okay then. Let's just say my uncle's plans are far-reaching. I understand you've got goals of your own, but there are players involved on every level. It's big." He shook his head, clearly searching for the right words.

"It's going to drag a lot of people into—" He groaned, shaking his head.

"I can't think of a way to say anything that won't give too much away, dammit. If I hadn't promised my uncle—I swore a blood oath. You know what that is?" The coincidence of the kid bringing up blood oaths when Hector had been dwelling on his own sent a shiver up and down his spine. Fate's toying with me again. //Perhaps 'toying' is the wrong word—// Hector cut Evie off: "Yeah, I know what it is."

"Then you know I can't break it. It would dishonor my family and earn me nothing but excommunication."

"Well, I don't need to hear it anyway. You've got bodyguards, kid. You've got that ape, Tenebrix." Freddy chuckled.

"Flint? I'll have to remember that; he is a bit like a gorilla, isn't he? Anyway, I can't explain why —not without running afoul of my oath or telling you something that might be used against me—but I'm going to need more than just Flint. Much more. Things are—" Mathews's sharp voice cut through comms.

"Hector? Freddy? Are you two all right? Why'd you stop moving?" Hector sighed, glancing at the mini-map—916 meters to go.

"Guess we can't say the comms are bad, huh?" Freddy chuckled.

"A little too close for that." He put a hand on Hector's shoulder.

"Just remember what I said, Hector. I'm going to do my best to stay in touch after this, but first I need to win a battle with my family—I don't want their damn watchdogs put back in." Hector nodded, then spoke into the comms.

"Just taking a breather, Commander. Be there in five."

"Good, because there's a spine-bag floating our way, and I want to harvest it." Freddy dropped his arm and started to turn, but Hector grabbed his elbow, stopping him.

"Just a minute, kid. I know I'm not making it easy to trust me. Just—give it some time. I'm thinking things through. Maybe I can help with the watchdog situation. When we're out of here, I mean." The kid's once-shiny helmet, dull with a thick coating of reaper blood, nodded as he put his hand on Hector's shoulder again.

"That's where you're wrong, man—you telling me not to trust you only made me trust you more. You better believe I'll take your help." They stared at each other for several long moments, and then Hector turned the kid and propelled him toward the camp with a none-too-gentle shove.

"Let's get moving."