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“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Garin muttered under his breath, then hauled ass out of the compound and after the disappearing figure of Sazahk striding out toward the horizon with a pep in his step and not a glance back.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
In the past day, Garin had thought, muttered, and growled those four words to himself more times than he ever had in his life. But he’d never thought them with such bone-deep horror.
Chaos.
Pure, unordered, entropy-death-of-the-universe, chaos.
The back of Garin’s neck broke out into a cold sweat at the sight of it.
Sazahk plucked some shiny scientific tool from the orderless mass and caught Garin staring at him. “What? Do you have an opinion you’d like to share about my instruments?”
“Nope.” Garin yanked his eyes back to picking out the rocks in the patch of dirt he’d decided would serve as his sleeping mat. It had been a long day. A very long day. Garin just wanted to set up camp and avoid an altercation.
“Are you sure? Because you’re perspiring, your jaw is ticking, and your face is pale.”
“Of course I’m perspiring. It’s a thousand degrees out here.” And Garin’s face certainly wasn’t pale anymore. It blushed under Sazahk’s study.
“No, it’s not.” Sazahk set up a stand of glass test tubes and a microscope. “The Dead Zone is a desert climate. The sun will be down in an hour and the temperature will drop. It’s already started.”
Garin didn’t argue. It was indeed getting chilly. He tossed the last rock over his shoulder and laid out his sleeping bag, then built up a pile of kindling between his sleeping space and Sazahk’s…anarchy.
As soon as they’d chosen a spot for camp—one of the few things Sazahk hadn’t argued with him about—Sazahk had spilled his disorder all over the ground. Garin had noticed as they traveled that Sazahk’s bag was strangely misshapen: a little too large on the left, a little lumpier on the bottom, but Garin had written it off as not everyone having his level of training in mission preparation and packing.
But then Sazahk had dumped his pack, and the unbridled mess had poured out. That was not a lack of packing experience. That was a lack of any packing whatsoever. That was a knapsack of stuff without rhyme or reason. That was two microscopes that looked exactly the same, a high-quality Klah’Eel multi-tool and a shitty penknife, a single ration bar, and too many pairs of pants with too few pairs of underwear.
And none of Garin’s business.
Garin fixed his attention on starting a fire before the sun dropped below the horizon and the real cold set in.
Aside from spats with Sazahk about basic safety precautions, the day had gone well. They’d covered a lot of ground, no one had been injured, Sazahk had collected a dozen samples that he laid out now beside his microscope, and Garin’s legs had that pleasant, slight ache after a long day’s trek that he hadn’t realized he’d missed.
Garin flicked his lighter, and the kindling caught so quickly it could have been doused in gasoline.
The Dead Zone was a harsh, barren landscape. Nothing but yellow rocks, yellow dirt, and the scrubby remnants of long dead plants. It was mostly flat, with a few dried riverbeds and occasional outcrops. Garin had seen what looked like a ruined city skyline in the distance, but it had shimmered away in the heat radiation as he watched. It was desolate and silent, but…not wholly unpleasant. Its harshness had a beauty, and the quiet soothed Garin’s soul. It had been a long time since he’d heard quiet.
“Give me a piece of your kindling.” Sazahk held out an open palm, pulling Garin from his thoughts.
“What?” Garin frowned down at Sazahk’s hand, and instinctively tugged his twigs closer. “Why?”
Sazahk tsked and beckoned with his fingers. “Because if you’re going to burn it and send its entire chemical composition up into the air for us to inhale, I’d like to take a closer look.”
That was an excellent point, even if Garin couldn’t bring himself to admit it, so he passed Sazahk the piece of wood he’d been about to add. Sazahk broke it into little pieces and dropped each piece into its own test tube.
The scientist had kept up with their pace far better than Garin would have guessed, looking at his slender frame. In fact, he had set the pace. He’d pushed onward as though powered by an engine, never slowing, never panting, flitting from rock to rock, patch of dirt to patch of dirt, light green blooming across his cheeks.
When he saw something that interested him—which was every five steps—he became the only green thing in the barren wasteland. The most alive thing for miles around.
Sazahk dipped the tip of a sensor pen into each test tube and flicked his eyes over the readout that scrolled across his tablet. He shook his head and murmured with rueful admiration, “My ancestors really did know their chemical engineering.”
Despite Sazahk’s comment having been obviously more to himself than to Garin, Garin shifted closer. “What did you find?”
“The remnants of the chemical defoliant used in this area a millennium ago,” Sazahk sighed, and pink curled up his temples. It was a pretty color, but it looked all wrong on him. Green suited him better. “It still lingers in organic matter. I think it’s probably bioaccumulated. I’m finding it in the soil as well, but it’s much more highly concentrated even in this dead stick.”
Garin shot a look at the beginnings of his cheery little fire. “Should I not be doing this, then?”
“No, the fire’s fine.” Sazahk emptied his test tubes of the bits of wood. “The problematic compounds should stay in the ash, so as long as you’re not planning on eating them, they shouldn’t pose a threat. The dirt we’re sleeping in is a much more significant vector of exposure.”
