Peter David - After Earth

Raige says, “Good to see you again, Ranger.” He salutes.

Jon knows why.

“Let’s sit down,” Raige says. “No need to stand on ceremony.” He pulls a chair over from the next workstation, then points to Jon’s chair.

“It’s a courageous thing you’re doing for us, Blackburn. Extremely courageous. We wouldn’t have selected you if we thought you were going into this precipitously. But you heard all the risks, and you volunteered anyway.

“As you know, I am one of this procedure’s biggest supporters. It’s not just a matter of getting one more Ghost out there in the field, as valuable as that will be. If this works, there will be a lot more like you. An army of Ghosts. These Ursa are tougher than any we’ve faced before. Deadlier. We have to try anything and everything to keep more people from dying.”

Just then, Jon catches a glimpse over Raige’s shoulder of someone out in the hallway, on the other side of the transparent wall. It’s Doctor Gold, he realizes. And she’s crying .

Jon is familiar with the behavior. After all, it’s the first one he studied. But why is Doctor Gold engaging in it? Most of the time crying reflects sadness. Is Doctor Gold sad? For what reason?

If she comes inside , he thinks, I’ll ask her . But she remains in the hallway. Jon continues to watch her and to wonder.

“Is something wrong?” Raige asks. He looks back over his shoulder, perhaps trying to see what Jon sees. “What’s out there?”

“Doctor Gold,” Jon says.

Raige’s eyebrows come together in a knot of flesh, reflecting a measure of consternation. “Gold?” he says.

“Yes. She’s one of my doctors.”

Raige shakes his head. “I haven’t heard of a Doctor Gold. Maybe she’s new.”

“She’s out there.” Jon points to the hallway, where she’s still crying.

Raige looks over his shoulder, then back at Jon. “Hang on a second,” he says. He takes out his personal comm device and punches in a sequence. “I need you,” he says into the device. “Now.”

A minute later, Doctor Nizamani enters the library.

“Why is Doctor Gold crying?” Jon asks him.

Doctor Nizamani looks at him for a moment, then turns to Raige. “Gold?”

“I was hoping you would know,” Raige says.

Nizamani looks at Jon again. “Why is Doctor Gold crying?” Jon asks a second time.

Doctor Nizamani shakes his head. “There is no Doctor Gold.”

Hallucinating? Jon thinks.

“Don’t worry. It’s not entirely unexpected,” Doctor Nizamani says.

“I’m not worried,” Jon says.

Raige pats him on the shoulder. “He means me , Ranger. But I’m not worried, either. And neither is Doctor Nizamani… right, Doctor?”

Doctor Nizamani’s mouth pulls up at the corners. A smile, Jon thinks. But one that was tighter than normal.

“That’s right,” Doctor Nizamani says. “There’s no cause for any of us to be worried.” He sits down on the edge of Jon’s bed. “It’s perfectly natural. You’ve been cut off from your emotions. You’re finding other means of support.”

Jon doesn’t understand.

“Doctor Gold,” says Raige, “isn’t real.”

“More than likely,” Doctor Nizamani says, “you’ve cobbled her together from other women you’ve known in your life.”

“Not real?” Jon asks.

He looks for Doctor Gold out in the hallway. If he can persuade her to come in, it’ll be obvious that she’s as real as Jon is.

But he can’t find her. She’s gone .

“He’s fine,” Doctor Nizamani tells Raige. “It’s nothing to be concerned about.”

“Our expectations are the same?” the Prime Commander asks.

“Exactly the same,” Doctor Nizamani assures him.

“Expectations?” Jon asks.

“That you’ll be able to ghost,” Raige explains.

But ghosting isn’t on Jon’s mind at this moment. He can’t take his eyes off the empty hallway.

Jon is confused by the question of Doctor Gold’s existence.

On the one hand, no one seems to know a doctor named Gold. Doctor Nizamani in particular is adamant that she’s an artifact of Jon’s imagination.

On the other hand, Jon has spoken to her. He has shared his thoughts with her. On those occasions, she seemed as real as Doctor Nizamani or anyone else.

In the end, the result is the same: Doctor Gold doesn’t come to see Jon anymore. A week goes by, and there’s no sign of her.

It’s just as well. Jon will be sent out into the field in a couple of days. He has to spend all his time preparing for that moment.

He studies video records of Ursa encounters. He trains with his cutlass, a new one, apparently, rather than the one he used previously. And, sitting around a table with the team that’s been assigned to him, he runs through one strategic scenario after another.

Thanks to his limited familiarity with human expressions, Jon has some understanding of how his squad mates look at him. They see him as distinct from the rest of them. A valuable asset, to be sure, but different .

Doctor Nizamani says their opinion of Jon will change once they’re out in the field with him. At that point they’ll establish a bond. Jon takes Doctor Nizamani’s word for it.

Finally, he and his squad receive a mission. Jon is curious to find out if he’ll meet Prime Commander Raige’s expectations. Of course, no one will know until Jon encounters an Ursa.

Blackburn’s orders take him and his squad to a school building on the South Side of Nova City. The day before, one of the creatures got into the school and killed two of the students there.

Raige and his command staff have noticed that Ursa sometimes revisit the scene of a recent kill. It’s their hope that Blackburn and his squad will encounter the creature as it returns in search of more victims.

As squad leader, Jon leads the way through the front doors of the school and down the main hallway. Despite everyone’s efforts to be quiet, they make scraping sounds with their boots that echo from wall to wall.

The others seem to be bothered by the sounds. Jon knows that the scraping may give their presence away, but he’s not bothered by it.

A classroom comes up on Jon’s left. He indicates with a hand gesture that he’s going to take a look inside. The others assume positions in the hallway in case an Ursa comes charging out.

Jon opens the door, but there’s no Ursa beyond it. The room is quiet, empty. However, it’s clear that an Ursa was there at one time.

There’s blood on the floor. A good deal of it, in dark, dry blotches where it dripped and collected and in streaks where the children’s bodies were dragged by the Ursa across the room.

A couple of chairs have been overturned. There’s blood on them as well.

Saturria, a squarish, muscular man, curses between clenched teeth: “Bastards.” Jakande, lean and quick, draws a deep, ragged breath. Though Tseng does neither of these things, a single tear traces a path down her cheek. No sooner has it fallen than she wipes it away.

They’re reacting to the evidence of the children’s deaths , Jon notes. Even though they’re trained to confront such a sight, even though they have probably seen death before .

Jon himself has no such reaction.

Perhaps because he’s not distracted, he hears something. A ripping noise . He recognizes it as one of the sounds an Ursa makes in its throat.

With a hand signal, Jon gets the attention of the other Rangers. Then he points to the direction from which the sound came.

They take their places around the room. Noiselessly, their cutlasses assume the shapes the Rangers want from them: pikes, blades, hooks.