Zachariah always dismissed the rumors about the room.

  “What, you expect them to tell us everything they research? I for one prefer having free time occasionally,” he’d quipped, when he first heard of it. “You’ve seen how hard the medic works to save us.”

  “… Hard enough that it probably makes a lot of sense, sacrificing a few of us to learn whatever he can from us,” one of his fellows had muttered.

  “That’s a serious accusation, not something for rumor mongering. Unless you have something a little firmer to prop it up than “I don’t like it” I’d suggest you should shut up,” he’d said. A few weeks later, they made planetfall, and he’d lost Margrave, the Line Elder who had taken him under his wings.

  He hadn’t gotten angry when he overheard the rumors about the room after that. But neither had he joined in.

  The rumors he didn’t hear were more direct. That he was being punished, that too many of the latest batch had listened to him in the heat of battle. That the Ideal hadn’t favored him, in spite of his growing skill and influence, because he was a threat to his authority.

  Zachariah died without hearing the words even once. He’d have considered them ridiculous-- he was young, what did the Ideal have to fear from him?

  The ship did not take it likewise. And that was how it’s fall became unavoidable.

  The Starless Void, Chapter Three

  ***

  He had such promise.

  The Ideal had seen endless permutations of the Line of Tristan, as he had with each Line in his ship. The Line of Falx had not coped well with his interference, and now, it had few members. He wondered about that. Falx had not been a particularly aggressive or violent man, not for their circumstances and conditioning. That had been more or less, his call-- they coped so badly that it made little sense to make more than a few of them. He could not bear to make none, though he wondered if Raphael judged his foolishness as harshly as it deserved.

  Reynard’s Line thrived, as did Kenton and Daniel and Jonathan’s. The Line of Jonathan often took in solitary members of Falx’s line, actually. It seemed to help, a little, so he steered them together as he could, though it made him smile. Falx and Jonathan had hated each other. Kenton’s Line seemed to appreciate landfall, and putting them as scouts seemed to yield somewhat better survival rates for the scouts, so he encouraged that, where he could. But putting them in roles dependent solely on their Lines was madness, and never worked. Standouts still occurred. Raphael, Line of Keon, would never have been a medic, let alone his Chief Medic, were the Linefather’s influence absolute.

  That had helped, when they had begun the lines. It had felt like necromancy to him, then, and he had hated himself… but the Extinction Marines were needful, and he would have killed anyone who tried to make more the original way himself.

  Every now and then, he did hear rumors. But he had heard nothing credible for centuries.

  So he tended to the flock that had the faces of his fallen or untried brothers, and tried, over and over again, to help them. But they were not his brothers. Merely their kin. That… comforted him.

  He tended to them, trying to instill the traits they needed. With… mixed success.

  The problem with Zachariah, Line of Tristan, was that he was too… comfortable. The Line of Tristan had taken to the alterations he had made with zeal. It was his own fault, of course. It was his to fix.

  If he could.

  He watched much of the training and drills, at least the sufficiently advanced ones. A new and fresh clone came out of the vat knowing how to load a gun, but he was more concerned with the live action drills. So often, with the programming they had, they hesitated too long if the simulacra of a mutant still looked too human.

  “Dead. Dead. Dead,” he muttered, watching the latest clips on his Datalink. This was what killed marines most-- the hesitation. He tried to ease them into it-- tried to start the simulations at their most inhuman, and step it down into the areas they had trouble with. It seemed like the new generations had more trouble, not less.

  He watched as Zachariah hesitated two seconds too long staring at the shambling image of one of the prion mutants, and he had the sudden image in his mind of how his Linefather died, all those dusty years ago.

  “Dead.”

  He rose and walked, then paced. He did not allow himself this when he was in the public areas of the ship. Then, frowning, he trained his Sight on the marine in this moment.

  He was a natural leader, was the real issue. Not fully yet-- he was still so very young. But he would be. The Ideal could see it in the way others moved around him, in the way the older marines heard him out when he had a thought. Even now, the fact that he paid heed to the little human was rousing curiosity. Others might start interacting with her soon. That would doubtless be its own headache, if she was afraid…

  She was in his company and she was swimming. One of the many faux outdoor environments on the ship, largely used for training, had something of a pond within-- just deep enough that a marine could learn not to panic when the water closed over his head. He was pacing the small shoreline, unhappy and confused by her sorcery in swimming, and laughing, she splashed him.

  The marine blinked like a cat, and after a moment’s hesitation, carefully, gently, tried to splash her back. It was a piss poor attempt falling almost a full foot short of her… but it was an attempt to aim force in the direction of a human.

  “Promising.”

  ***,

  Of course, Zachariah had duties, and she did not. He did spend time with her-- a lot of his spare time, she gathered. But she had more time to burn, and less to do with it.

  She started trying to look up rooms after they visited them. The gardens had been a surprise-- faux sunlight and actual dirt and grass and water features. He said they were training chambers, and shrugged, as if it was of no great import.

  “Training halls don’t need grow lamps,” she told him, staring up at the light in something close to hunger. She had needed… needed… “Oh. It’s meant to supplement sunlight, and if it does so while everyone is relaxing… so much the better.”

  He cocked his head. Really, he had to be at least her age, so how in the world did he seem so young?

  “Humans aren’t meant to survive without sunlight,” she told him. “We crave it. Maybe that’s why they have you train in here-- there are vitamins that we get just from being out in light.”

  The word vitamin made her stomach twist-- the sludge in the mess had not grown easier to endure, and she sometimes found herself daydreaming about food.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Sometimes the fight to get the sludge down just wasn’t worth it. She skipped meals now and again.

  He was frowning, unhappy. “You need it but you haven’t been getting it?”

  “You are such a mother hen. Relax. I’m not a plant, I can do without for a few days.”

  This led to having to explain hens.

  “They’re dirty, and dangerous,” he said with a grimace when she managed.

  “Dangerous? Listen, a hen might peck you bloody but you can avoid that if—”

  And, not looking where she was going, she had tripped over a rock concealed in the fake terrain, meant to add visual interest she guessed, before they’d grown over it-- and landed in the pool.

  Getting back to her apartment in the chilly air was going to be a nightmare, but when she came up for air, she couldn’t help laughing-- and that froze the marine, who was staring at her as if he’d seen her fall into a pit of tigers instead of water.

  “What? Just because you can’t swim doesn’t mean I can’t. My parents had me taught very young.”

  “Why would they subject a child to such danger?”

  Honestly, he needed to chill out, and enjoying the feel of almost-sunlight on her skin and the feel of water bearing her up, she had caved to her own impulse to swat water at him, and laughed in delight when he finally thought to swat it back.

  Her good mood was immediately put to the gulliotine, naturally. He’d watched her climb out of the pond, weaker limbed than she wanted to admit, and half frowned. But he shrugged when she insisted she was fine. “While we’re at it, do you want to see medical? It’s not far-- you should know where to find it if you need—”

  She jolted away from him, bile in her throat.

  “No. Not today,” she said, and forced a smile. “I’m soaking wet, and wet clothes aren’t super comfortable. I’m going to go change.”

  But she’d had to walk back to her apartment alone, as his time to attend his duties came up, and found herself hugging herself and trying not to cringe each time she came across a group in the hallways, soaking wet and with every inch of her clothing clinging to her. They didn’t look at her any differently-- mostly they didn’t look at her at all.

  At least she had found some other rooms with him that merited research before she’d gotten soaked. Most had been cleaned so carefully she was hard pressed to say what their purpose was-- a relatively small room with open faced boxes and mounted dowels across the wall and a small opening in the wall that looked almost like a doggy door, next to an actual door. She’d found overgrown grass and false sunlight there too, and had resolved to sneak back there and enjoy it when he was away-- the grass on the ship at least likely didn’t have mosquitoes in it, and the sunlit area was relatively small, so it probably wasn’t used for training. A room with vast tanks in it, and tubes that lead to and from the tanks, hundreds of them. She had noticed that most rooms had clear tubes running above head height along the walls, and would have assumed they were for ventilation, except that they almost all lead back to the tanks.

  She’d liked the metalworks-- apparently the ship had salvage rights to any vessel or human structure left behind while keeping an outbreak of the corruption under control, and the knowledge of how to wield that at least, they kept-- their own forge and mill, deep in the heart of the ship, with several vats of molten metal that were never fully permitted to cool, and a vast device that stirred molten metal in it as it spun.

  One of the older marines, though at this point she didn’t dare guess how old, had smiled at her. “We have our own alloys, we use them to make our arms and armor.”

  “But why does it… spin?” she asked, feeling the play of heat and shadow across her face as it rotated.

  “That… I don’t know.”

  “… Huh.”

  He had snorted, as a few of his fellows, younger than he, cocked their heads or otherwise looked confused. “Huh indeed.”

  She snorted, remembering, and rounded the last corner, and found Raphael standing at her door.

  He turned to look at her while she was still staring, and sighed. “What did you do now?”

  “Went swimming,” she said, all vestiges of her earlier good mood gone. Her self preservation was stronger than her anger, at least. She didn’t add ‘not that it’s your business’.

  “Where? Are you trying to give the men anxiety?”

  “No. I was trying to swim. Given that I tripped and landed in the pond, this is in fact a good thing. I’d like to go change now.”

  He did step to one side, eyes skating over her form critically, and she gritted her teeth, eyes going narrow. But he had stepped to one side, so she stepped forward to get away from… whatever the hell this was.

  “You’re losing weight.”

  She took a very deep breath. Zachariah was… very… direct. She could hear him saying something like that, if he was feeling very perceptive that day. He was very sweet but he didn’t really know how to… look at people.

  Maybe that was part of how young he seemed.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “That is concerning.”

  Respond to the statement, not any implications that may or may not be there. Reply to the statement, not any implications-- “Not really.”

  “I—”

  She was discussing her weight with an eight foot tall man in her fucking doorway on a spaceship she still didn’t know how she’d gotten to, debating her weight. With a man whose ‘patients’ sometimes just fucking vanished and were never seen alive again.

  “I am a lazy person. Walking everywhere is new. I am not in the practice of discussing my physique with men who are more or less strangers,” she snarled.

  Stupid, stupid-- if she’d wanted to piss him off there were more direct ways. She could jump high enough to aim a slap at the center of his face, if she was this desperate to provoke someone who might be a monster. Stupid temper. Stupid fear making her overthink stupid temper, she had to commit to one bit or another and she’d rather hate herself for being mean than for being a coward--

  He shied in place like a horse that had seen something, braid swinging jaggedly with the suddenness of the motion, and it shocked her so much that she froze, still breathing hard, and realized her fists were clenched. Stupid, stupid, stupid-- Everything she currently had was on his and his Ideal’s sufferance. She shouldn’t provoke them. She had no hope in hell of stopping them with force if they were… if they were evil, and if they weren’t, she was beating someone for no reason.

  The concept of sitting down with him in some sterile room and discussing her diet and exercise made her… no. No, no matter what they were doing for her, they had no right to demand anything of the kind. No one got to make her do anything medical. Not even talk. Especially not the man whose patients kept disappearing to wind up dead.

  But, a little voice asked in her mind, did that also mean they had no right to ask?

  He took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and rolled his shoulders. He spoke with his eyes shut, in a levelness of tone that was both painfully forced and incredibly artificial. “If your bruises are causing enough pain to disrupt sleeping or eating or otherwise causing the weight loss, it would be wise to attend to them.”

  “That’s… not it,” she said, almost too baffled to be angry now. His face was weirdly, horribly blank. She didn’t trust it. She shouldn’t trust it. So why did she feel like she just kicked a dog?

  “If your assessment of pain or your injury changes, I can get pain medications made up that will not poison a civilian. Do not take anything on board that was meant for a Marine. It will at the least, damage you chemically.” His voice was… flat.

  “N...Noted. I’m… I’m fine.”

  “Very well.” He opened his eyes, not looking at her, and turned to go. She opened her mouth to apologize, then stopped herself. Feeling bad did not mean she didn’t need him to keep himself to himself.

  She slipped into her rooms before she could cave and apologize, and remembered Apollo, the marine who vanished in the second act. He’d liked his work-- he’d liked landing planetside, liked evacuating civilians, liked seeing the sun.

  She thought of Victor, whose ferocity on the battlefield had been known well, who had also been Line of Keon. It hadn’t saved him.

  She thought of Margrave, who had been like a grandfather to Zachariah. Whose loss Zachariah had grieved, but not distrusted.

  She thought of Zachariah.

  And she thought of herself, curled up and hugging her knees and leaning back against the door of her room, though with the way the door opened, she wasn’t precisely stopping it from opening.

  She had not found any clue of how to leave this place. Nor how she had come to this place. She had no power here, no authority and less understanding-- future knowledge, yes, but she could no more work alongside these men in their core mission than she could fly by flapping her arms.

  All she had was herself, and that wouldn’t save anyone.

  ***

  Raphael knew that he was in retreat. And that it was stupid.

  He was off duty. It had been something of a tradition, in his batch of clones, to find a place in the ship, in the miles and miles of unused rooms, to be alone when one was off duty. It had been only a few centuries-- he did not know if the tradition persisted. He had found the small room with the grass by chance long ago, only reachable through another room whose purpose he had never discerned. Other places were grander. Others, harder to access. Difficulty had been something of a desirable trait for most of his fellows, he recalled.

  But then, beyond training, between deployments, most young marines still had more energy than sense.

  He flopped down in the grass, twisting his face into the false sunlight. He had never known a planet where he had felt safe doing this. They did not go to the few colony worlds without need, and need was generally the prions, and one did not rest on soil the corruption tainted, even if the mutants weren’t about. Which they always were, planetside, it was a rule. All guns were to be treated as loaded, one was not to catch falling knives, and the Soil Beneath was not trustworthy.

  He didn’t know if the Ideal knew this was his place, or if he simply knew how to find him. By scent maybe. The thought made him take a deep breath-- this place had been visited recently, which was strange. By Zachariah, and the female.

  “That went well,” he said dryly, and refused to cough and clear his lungs of her smell. Now he was just being petty. He knew it.

  “… I have never known human females to appreciate a discussion of weight,” the Ideal said, apologetic.

  That hadn’t been it. He was sure.

  But he broke down laughing anyway.