Steal Across the Sky Read Online Free PDF Page A

strong for that easy escape.
    These people were cowards.
    And deluded as well. The “second road”—a belief in an afterlife, probably the single largest aberration of the human mind. The Kularians threw life away here, from the illusion of something better later. “Pie in the sky,” the Americans said. They were right. Squander this life now, in everything from joylessness to suicide bombing, and collect your rewards in Heaven, in Asgard, in Paradise, in Hades, in the Fields of Yalu. Untold light-years away from Earth, separated from the rest of human culture by ten thousand years, and Kular still came up with the same pathetic illusions.
    “Yes,” Lucca said, and hoped his forced smile didn’t hold too muchof either contempt or pity. He was not here to judge. He was here to witness.
     
    ONE MORE NIGHT OF TRAVEL , and the land became more irregular, rising to become foothills of a low mountain range. The sky didn’t clear and the air grew colder still. Trees appeared, strange wide plants with many trunks, intertwined branches, and purplish-green leaves falling off even as he watched. Each tree stood separate, no more than three meters high but covering up to a half acre, a miniature forest. Small strange creatures darted in and out.
    Finally they reached a village of miniscule stone huts surrounding a much larger stone building, all set beside a clear, swift river flowing down from the mountains. Women, children, and old men rushed out, and there was much foot stamping, arm waving, and laughing. Temporarily forgotten, Lucca climbed carefully off the travois, pleased and astonished to find that he could stand as long as he didn’t put too much weight on his splinted leg. Whatever the Atoners had put inside him, it was wonderful.
    “Welcome, fellow-traveler-on-the-first-road,” a woman said to him. Like the men, she wore pants, boots, and tunic. Her hair, cut very short, curled wildly around her broad face as if electrified. She had one red tooth. Her dark eyes were kind. “Come inside.”
    He limped after her, Hytrowembireliaz, and three children into one of the stone huts.
     
    “I THINK I’M A GUEST for the winter,” Lucca told Cam. It was such a relief to finally get away from the amiable Kularians. He sat on the ground beside one of the miniforests, just out of sight of the village. Snow fell, one desultory flake at a time. He’d already reported in to Soledad and uploaded the contents of his translator with whatever it had learned of the Kularian language.
    “Well, you’re doing better than I am,” Cam said. “I still haven’t made contact. Unless you count the spear-and-fire attacks, and they’ve even stopped doing that. I go outside the shuttle every damn day, stand in the middle of this entire army camp they’ve built around me, and nothing happens.
Nothing
. Christ, why did the Atoners tell us that we can’t go to the natives until they approach us first?”
    “Why did the Atoners tell us anything they said? Your personal shield works?”
    “Like I’m encased in Lucite. The spears just slide off me and I don’t feel a thing. Haven’t you had a chance to test yours yet?”
    She didn’t listen. Just to him, or to anyone? For the hundredth time, Lucca wondered why the Atoners had chosen Cam as a Witness, and why he allowed himself to get so irritated by her. Yes, they’d had that brief stupid affair on the ship, but even as he’d entered her beautiful body Lucca had known he wasn’t going to love Cam. He wasn’t going to love anyone except Gianna, not ever again, and when he’d come inside Cam it had been with a bitter wrenching shudder that was barely pleasure at all.
    He said, “No, I haven’t had a chance to test my shield. I told you, these are cheerful people, hospitable, not easily agitated. Except when they’re cutting each other’s throats in assisted suicide, they’re
nice
.”
    “And that’s bad?”
    “No, of course not.” But Lucca knew that all that niceness