Golgota (a science-fiction novel)

Chapter 4

"Do you think Paradise is real?" asked Kovacs to Nakamura.
Nakamura frowned behind his helmet visor and looked toward the tower. "The tower is extremely impressive. For much of my service, I couldn't believe it existed. But if the Tower of Golgotha exists, then it will be true about the other one. And what do you believe?"
"That place is hell," Kovacs said. "Then there must be a paradise somewhere, too."
They trudged on, in the same tired but dynamic march as everyone else here - they were all exhausted, but they also wanted to get out of this ghastly landscape as quickly as possible, to get back to the shelter of a station.
"I like that belief. As I said; for many years - or whatever they call years here - I just couldn't believe it. I thought the great Hezekiah Croft was giving us a bunch of shit. Lies. Empty phrases. You can't imagine my relief to finally see that beacon."
As if on cue, the beacon slid back across the plain, grazing their visors, then spun on. The powerful beam of light once again faded into darkness.
"That's got to be nuts. It would drive me crazy, at least."
"What?"
"Well, this constant doubting. How can you doubt paradise. How have you managed to get by all these years?"
"I just put one foot in front of the other. You question things too much, Kovacs."
Both men were silent, and it was a heavy silence, full of meaning. People didn't often talk about paradise. No one did.
In the distance - marked by a pole and a red lamp; puny against the backdrop of the Tower of Golgotha - Kovacs saw a station. It was a round metal enclosure on stilts. The Nubii dripped over the black steel; shone on every surface.
"What I'm just now realizing is that you could have left two days ago," Kovacs said. "You were born two days before me. The sixteen years were up faster for you than they were for me."
"And yet I stayed. What's so amazing about that?"
"I mean...you knew which way the tower was. And I've been so sick this past week. I was just holding you up."
"I did it because I wanted to. Sixteen years is a long time. We've been at it from the beginning. We'll finish it together, too."
They stopped short, letting the others pass them by: A column of spacesuits and round, lowered helmets. The tower of Golgotha was again just a dark line in the middle of a stormy landscape that was in constant motion. The beacon slid across their helmets.
"Isn't this a fabulous sight, Kovacs?" asked Nakamura. "An absolutely fabulous sight?"
Then they walked on.
Arriving at the station an hour later, they had to pass through an airlock, through which they entered a room where they had to remove their spacesuits and breathe artificial, filtered oxygen again. White gas flowed from nozzles on all sides, disinfecting their bodies. A flap opened in a side wall, and they put in their suits, gloves, boots, helmets and weapons. Everything was covered with heavy, sticky slime. Here and there it was the blood of a Ngoy, but mostly it was the nubii. Their bodies shone with humidity. It dripped from the ceiling.
Suit, gloves, helmet, boots and weapons were sucked in - half an hour later they would be back, cleaned and disinfected like the rest of them.
Kovacs ran a hand through his hair. They were soaking wet. No sooner had one flap closed than the next one opened: inside lay plain white clothes. They dressed, passed through another airlock, and stepped into the station.
The circular corridors were densely crowded. Countless scurrying bodies in white clothing. It was like being in a termite lair.
"Hey!" shouted a voice, somewhere from the left. "If it isn't Kovacs and Nakamura."
A man with thin red hair bounded his way toward them.
"Macey!" shouted Nakamura, clearly delighted, and the two men fell into each other's arms. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm waiting, what else. We have to leave in two hours, but until then..."
"We?"
"Me and Gleeson. Good afternoon, Kovacs."
Kovacs and Macey hugged and patted each other on the back.
"You two sure look beat."
"Been a rough day, too. Got attacked by Ngoys shortly after we crossed the Theseus Range. It was at dawn. We were all still asleep when they came."
"How awful." Macey's face grew serious. "And how many?"

"Many." Nakamura smiled sadly. "I had been talking to a man named Henry Kyle lately. Was a young fellow. His delivery was only a month ago earth time. I don't think we'll be seeing Kyle again."
"What a mess," Macey said.
"Where's Gleeson?" asked Kovacs.
"In the dining hall. Where most of them are. Do you want to see him?"
"I'd love to."
"Follow me." They follow Macey through the station.
"So how did it go for you, Macey?"
"Oh, Ngoy attacks? Went. We had one a week ago, but otherwise we've had good luck.
When we were out, the Nubii hadn't dropped yet. There aren't that many out there. The humidity attracts them out."
"Lucky. Very lucky."
"Yes, Nakamura, you can say that again. Have you seen the tower yet?"
"We have. It's hard not to see it, isn't it?"
"Well, I mean about the Nubii. I thought...never mind what I thought. Weather conditions or not; you don't miss that beacon. Was a dumb question." He shook his head and grinned. "It's crazy how close we are now. Only three more days and we'll be there. At least that's what they say here. Paradise, my friends. Can you believe it? Paradise...!"
They stepped into the dining hall, and it was even more crowded than the rest of the station.
"It's quite a focal point here, as you may have noticed," Macey said. "That's because of the proximity to the tower. Most of them come from all directions from Golgotha. Every day anew, they go out to the battlefield, and when they come back, it's so crowded there aren't any beds left. But that's the way they want it. They want to be at the tower. It reminds them of Croft's words. They look to the tower, and they have hope. That's more than you can expect from life here, am I right, folks? Well, whatever. There he is, sitting up ahead. Hey! Gleeson! Gleeson! Look who I brought with me!"
Gleeson looked up. Kovacs noticed that Gleeson looked older - as did everyone here. But in Gleeson's case, the change had been more blatant, though Kovacs couldn't put his finger on why. Perhaps because there was a contrast: Gleeson's youthful appearance, and the gloom and anger in his eyes: sixteen pent-up years of Golgotha reflected in two light brown lenses that now eyed Kovacs, Nakamura, and Macey as if perceiving the three men for the first time.
Kovacs smiled, or tried to. He could feel for himself how uncertain that smile was.
It had been weeks since they had last seen Gleeson. And in those few weeks, Gleeson had continued to age rapidly again.
The eyes of an old man, Kovacs thought. Experienced, tired, but still clear. Very clear.
Gleeson stood up and shook hands with first Nakamura, then Kovacs.
"Nakamura, Kovacs. Sit down."
"But there are no more empty chairs," Nakamura said.
"It's not a problem," Kovacs added. "We can stand, too."
"No, no, absolutely not. You guys just got back. I can see that. Besides, I heard about the battle. Some of your squad were already here and told something. My condolences for the losses."
"Thank you," Nakamura said.
"And now..." Gleeson turned to the two men sitting next to her. "Hey, Castro, Jensen, stand up. The men here are just coming back from a battle."
The two men - Castro and Jensen - eyed the newcomers briefly, then stood up and left. Kovacs and Nakamura settled into the vacant chairs.
"You guys want anything?" asked Gleeson, indicating the food counter in the rear of the hall.
Nakamura followed his finger with his eyes. "No, thanks, we already filled up our tubes at the last station. Actually, we were going to eat them for breakfast today, but it didn't come to that."
"Well, it didn't come to that."
"I'm hungry, though," Kovacs said, opening his tube and squeezing a thick curl of guu into his palm.
On the far wall of the great hall were several screens set up, showing images of the outer reaches of the station's perimeter within 200 glb. The images were more or less all the same.
The green plain, in penumbra. In some of the images, the jagged lines of mountains could be seen on the horizon; black cliffs jutting out of the ground, sharp-edged and glassy. Kovacs knew that the mountains on Golgotha were made of crystal, not rocks. He had seen often enough how the storm had blown someone from his company off a narrow path and into the depths. How twitching bodies had been impaled by sparkling crystals, bathed in their own blood.