Unconquerable Sun

by Elliott, Kate

  Fe Smith’s lower left hand twitched but he did not gesture an obscenity, although Apama could tell he wanted to. Gail gave Apama a brisk nod before heading back the way he’d come. He knew the pilots would obey. The consequences if they did not weren’t worth risking.

  Ru Nemeth shot a whisper toward his friend. “Are you a complete jenkins? I thought you were yanking her chain because she turned you down for a bang. You got us in trouble, you dumb shit.”

  “But you are a shell, and more importantly you are a bastard, aren’t you, At Sabao?” Fe Smith growled as a parting shot. “Your mama cut off your caul when no sire wanted to claim you, and now you just ooze. Or else your grifter mama stole seed that wasn’t rightfully hers and covered her ass and didn’t file the proper lineage report. What I’m asking is, why is Command covering your ass? Why did the whole fleet wait three days for you to get dumped on us?”

  Renay and Ana crossed their uppers and set their lowers akimbo, a stance of such mockery that Fe Smith flushed with anger and humiliation.

  Delfina said, “Let it go, lobster face.”

  Apama kept her words in her mouth, just as she’d been taught, and an icy gaze fixed on the bulkhead, although she kept Fe Smith in her peripheral vision. But the trio slunk away, headed for their temporary assignments. The toadies had already started in on their companion, insulting his character and his ancestors as their voices faded down the passage.

  She could see the question in her rack-mates’ eyes and braced herself. Every Phene child was born with a record of ancestry. This legal requirement had nothing to do with family or marriage and everything to do with tracking genetic lines across populations. So it had always been from the earliest foundation of the triple capital systems, Anchor, Auger, and Axiom, when the Phene consortium of scientists and laborers had broken away from the stifling customs of the motherland of Mishirru and set off in ninety-four fleets to found their own homeland.

  Ana asked, “Has he hassled you before?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “Tell us next time.”

  Renay chimed in, “We’ve got your back.”

  Delfina added, “Is everything okay, Ap?”

  “Sure,” she said, grateful she wouldn’t have to tear open her mother’s past to gratify people’s curiosity. Not that her mother ever discussed her early life or how she’d come to get pregnant with Apama. “Everything is fine. We’re about to launch the most audacious attack of the war, and our unit will take heavy casualties. I’m going to get a sorbet. You coming?”

  25

  In Which the Wily Persephone Twists and Turns

  Three hours after dawn we hop a high-speed cross-continent Mamba freight liner that will stop at the industrial park near CeDCA. While there, the final eight cars will break off for a spur run to the academy. Although cadets grow all of our own food as partial tuition, the academy houses fifteen thousand cadets as well as support staff and families, which means the academy isn’t fully self-sufficient.

  Today one of the freight cars is half-filled with jute bags of spices destined for CeDCA’s kitchens. James disables the car’s security bot, replacing its live feed with a loop he cobbles together from previous footage. As we settle, Zizou takes in an appreciative breath and smiles with unexpected sweetness, as at a fond memory. When I realize I’m staring at his tempting mouth I look for a place to sit where he’s out of my line of sight. After the rush of our escape and standing awake all night over the pyre, I’m exhausted. Stretched across two of the bags I sleep hard, drenched in the scents of cumin and nutmeg.

  When I wake, my body can instantly tell we’ve slowed down. A strange vibration buzzes within the ring Sun gave me. A sixteen-rayed sunburst flowers in my vision, nine points gleaming and seven in stasis. James crouches beside me, cap pulled jauntily to one side.

  “Got it. I’ve finally connected your ring past that universal block on your network. Now you’re fully in Sun’s private ring. No matter how far away you are she can track you and communicate with you. That means outside Chaonia’s net and outside the security web.”

  “No one is outside the security web,” I retort.

  “That’s what they think.” He doffs his cap with a flourish.

  I rub my eyes, not sure I believe him even though I want to believe I am shed of tracking discs and parents who suborn my best friend into spying on me.

  The boxcar door has been cracked open to let in air. Sun is seated there beside Zizou, her head cocked to one side, sucking in his words as if she is a black hole’s gravitational field.

  “Then they wheeled me into a much larger chamber with a catwalk,” he is saying. He has a quiet voice at odds with the way he transforms into a killing machine.

  The landscape beyond is grass and scrub. A herd of styracosaurus graze in the distance, mixed in with a herd of dwarf diplodocus and several handsome nodosaur of the kind ridden by bold knights in the days of the Celestial Empire. The scene is peaceful, a tiny piece of the long-lost homeland re-created here.

  Alika tunes his ukulele. Aunt Naomi sits beside him like a starstruck fangirl. I think she’s blushing. Tiana is asleep, curled up against her duffel with an arm thrown across it like it’s a stand-in for a lover she misses. Candace and Isis are pacing through a warm-up exercise on a bit of open floor they’ve created by pushing aside sacks marked with the characters for black and red pepper.

  Hetty offers me a tasteless, high-calorie ration bar and a wedge of salty cheese whose sourness makes my eyes water. I gulp down cider, burp because I drink too fast, and, after peeing in a waste bucket someone was smart enough to grab, lie down again. I’ve lost track of how long it’s been since that terrible meeting with my father in Lee House, before he threw me to the wolves. Of course he has every right to do so; he’s my father. That I am an undutiful daughter just makes it worse.

  Everyone goes back to sleep in the manner of soldiers who rest when they can. Zizou remains seated cross-legged at the half-open cargo door, brown hands resting on his thighs. His posture is easy but alert as he scans fields of maize, beans, and squash. I know exactly where we are. The train will take forty-three minutes to traverse this populated farming district before it speeds back up. Lips parting in soft wonderment, he leans forward to look at the sky. A flock of archaeopteryx flies past. My gaze drifts from their colorful feathers to where his black hair is trimmed short in a neat line along his neck. I remember the perfect sculpted musculature of his back and wonder what it would be like to run my hands over his skin.

  He glances over his shoulder as if he’s heard the shift in my breathing. I close my eyes even though he can’t see my face; I don’t know why I pretend I haven’t been staring at him.

  You have bad taste in crushes, Solomon would say.

  Solomon.

  A sick feeling of dread kicks up into my heart. It can’t be true. I won’t let it be true. I twist and turn my thoughts down every possible path that can exonerate him until at last the soothing rhythm of the train’s motion overtakes my agitation. With the musty smell of jute in my nostrils, I slide back into a sleep as dead as my family wanted to make me because they know I’m not a dutiful daughter and thus I am expendable.

  When I wake I’ve slept through the long night. We’ve reached the barracks district built north of the industrial park. Sun lies on her stomach at the half-open cargo door as we slowly pass blocky buildings in a cool predawn light. Ti is seated next to the princess, in the elegant posture of one of the demigoddesses worshipped in the realm of Mishirru: right arm outstretched and propped up on a raised knee, with her other leg crossed under her. The rising light pours its homage across her glorious face.

  “Why do those residential blocks have barbed-wire fence around them?” Sun asks.

  Ti replies in a melodious voice, although her words aren’t as kind as her pleasing expression. “I’d guess those are barracks for workers hired in from Troia System refugee camps.”

  “I suppose the fence is necessary to
control the inevitable troublemakers.”

  “The trouble doesn’t usually come from the workers, Your Diligence. Floaters are required to sign three-year contracts and aren’t allowed to leave the work site until their contracts are up. They’re charged exorbitant prices for rent, food, and maintenance. So in the end they are as likely to end up in debt as to be able to return home with money.”

  Sun gives her an incredulous look. “That can’t be. Citizens have rights to prevent such exploitation.”

  “Floaters aren’t citizens, Your Sanguinity. The laws don’t apply to them.”

  “It shouldn’t be like that, not if they’re serving the republic.”

  “Of all the people in this train car, surely you are the one with the most power to do something about it.”

  Sun measures her for a long time. I’m not sure whether the princess is annoyed at Ti’s plain speaking or if she’s wondering how even in common workday garb Ti can look so glamorous and beautiful and, if I’m being honest, sexually attractive.

  I slide over to wedge myself rudely between them. “Can I help, Princess?”

  “Zizou’s asleep. You can take off that death’s head.”

  “Like I’m taking that chance. I don’t think so.” But I pull the cloth up off my face anyway and take in a breath of the air rushing along our faces as we roll past rows of greenhouses. “We must have decoupled from the main train.”

  “We did. I’m just sitting here wondering about your cee-cee.”

  “What about her?” I pause, then add, “The contract a cee-cee signs specifically prohibits any romantic or sexual exchange between the cee-cee and their employer. Or their employer’s employer, which means you.”

  Sun shoots me a look that would slay a person who hadn’t already burned her bridges, as I have. “I am not now nor have I ever been a person who exploits my power for that kind of self-satisfaction. Maybe you are. I wouldn’t know.”

  “Ouch,” says Ti. “You walked into that one, Perse. And I know my rights, with you, with Her Fastidiousness, with the rest of the Companions, and with the palace.”

  “So proclaims the simple country girl from Abundant Wine Province,” I say with a laugh.

  “A simple country girl,” Sun points out, “who has felt free to address me about the economic and legal situation of provisional workers and impoverished citizens in the Republic of Chaonia. I don’t think that’s part of the curriculum at Vogue Academy. I’m surprised you confront me, knowing I can have you terminated.”

  “But you won’t,” Ti retorts. “What honor would you have, if you ignored the tradition that allows any and every citizen to petition the palace when they have a righteous grievance? That’s not you, is it, Your Honorableness?”

  Sun examines Ti a little too long, then regally inclines her head. “There’s more to you than meets the eye. And you and I both know there’s a lot of you that meets the eye. I’ll leave you to my Companion.”

  “We’ll be to the academy in twenty-six minutes,” I say to Sun before she moves away. “There’s a curve a half a klick before the depot where we can jump off unseen. Our best bet is to cut through the back paths to the gymnasium behind the fifth-year brigade field. After muster I can grab Solomon.”

  Sun nods. “I’ll wake everyone up.”

  She goes to where Hetty is curled up against a bag of salt. The look that softens her face as she studies the Honorable Hestia makes me sorry I said anything about Ti.

  An elbow digs into my ribs. “Ow,” I protest. “What was that for?”

  Ti crosses her arms in a way that makes me wish she would hit me instead.

  In a low voice the others can’t hear she says, “Listen. Let’s clear the air so there aren’t any lingering questions. I felt a connection the instant we met. I think you felt it too. We can be friends, and I hope trusted companions, but we can’t be lovers.”

  I raise both hands, palms out. Heat warms my cheeks, but I’m not going to ruin this by letting embarrassment choose my words. “I won’t lie and say I don’t find you attractive. But I value our friendship and our professional relationship more than the random circumstance that I find you sexy. Is that good enough?”

  She grins, preening with a chuckle like she’s laughing at herself. “Trust me, I’m always a little disappointed when any individual doesn’t find me attractive. I’ve worked hard to hone skills I can use.”

  She sticks out a hand and we grasp hands to elbows, the unshakeable grip. Her skin is soft and her clasp is firm.

  I release her elbow, feeling we’ve crossed an important bridge. “Why did you believe me about the disc?”

  “I can’t live being suspicious of people who I feel a connection to. I’d rather get burned. Anyway, nothing you’ve said or done since I met you fits the profile of a liar and a sneak and an assassin. I could be wrong.”

  “Have you been wrong before?”

  She considers the question seriously, rubbing at her chin. “Not really. Like your father. At first glance he is cursedly good-looking. Surely a seer of Iros who can see heat and lies would know exactly where and if you are getting hot and bothered.”

  I wince, and she cracks a wicked grin.

  “He dresses exceedingly well, a consideration I particularly admire. But people like me have to be a good judge of nuance.”

  “What kind of ‘people like me’ are you? I’ve been slow to realize the simple kalo farmer act isn’t your real story. Heaven knows I haven’t had time to look over your record, not that I have access to it, since my family hired you.”

  “There’s not much to tell. I grew up in a refugee camp in Troia System.”

  “But you’re a citizen. You said so. Only citizens are admitted to Vogue Academy.”

  “My grandparents are kalo farmers. My father grew up in the lo‘i fields in Abundant Wine Province. A lot of people there join the military in the hope of qualifying for better schooling. After he lost his arm in the Kanesh offensive he didn’t have a high enough rank to qualify for anything except a low-end mechanical prosthetic.”

  “How did he end up in a Troia refugee camp? Every citizen who’s mustered out is guaranteed transport home.”

  “He didn’t want to leave behind the people who depend on him.”

  “You’re saying your mother isn’t a citizen.”

  “My womb parent was a citizen, and a soldier. She died a long time ago. The only mother I know is the mother who raised me. She’s the refugee. There’s nothing hidden in my record. I graduated top of my class, which is why I was allowed to apply for this position. I didn’t realize it also meant my employers were willing to see me killed. Maybe exactly because Lee House looked over my record and realized I am the expendable kind of person whose family can’t make a fuss if I vanish, as long as the death tithe is paid out.”

  “You can leave. I won’t ask this of you.”

  “I know my contract allows me to leave under these circumstances. But I meant it about needing the money. It’s astoundingly good money, and it’s all going to my family.” She yawns, belatedly concealing her mouth behind those perfectly manicured nails, then lowers the hand to offer me a lazy, bright smile. “Sorry. It’s not you, it’s me.”

  I tap my fist on her arm. “Take a nap. I’ll keep watch.”

  She gets up, takes a few steps away, then says over her shoulder, teasingly, “Is it permitted for you to keep watch? I mean, what with you being under suspicion, and us arriving at a government facility.”

  From behind us a soft male voice says, “I’ll sit the last bit of watch with Persephone Wood-Child Lee.”

  I yank the mask down over my face, trembling. Just then, as my adrenaline spikes, a message packet pings into my mailbox. It’s anonymous, sent via some long workaround through my school network that probably just wormed its way through a loophole in the industrial park’s net shield. Sure it must be Kadmos, I unthinkingly open it.

  My father appears in hologram. For an instant I see him through Ti’s eyes: a handso
me, impeccably groomed older man who stands with the effortless posture of a Yele native who has never had his humanity or conduct called into question. A seer of Iros is unimpeachable. Everyone knows that.

  Channeled through the shield’s slowed-down bandwidth, the hologram fizzes, crawling forward until it’s all loaded. Finally the recorded message speaks as I stare in frozen horror. I know how receiving a message from my father will look to the others, not that anyone can see my private feed, but I can’t stop now it’s started. I have to know what he has to say.

  “Yes, how can Perseus be dead?” my father muses, as if continuing a conversation he and I started a moment ago. “A question I’m delighted you have asked, since for you not to have asked would suggest you feel no sense of obligation to your parents. Perseus deflected an assassination attempt on Sun, saving the princess’s life at the cost of his own. But perhaps she hasn’t explained that to you.”

  He knows I’m with Sun. He’s seeding doubt, just as he always does.

  “As long as Perseus lived you were free to do as you wished, as unfilial as your desires may have been. But all that’s changed. You are a smart girl, Persephone. You can comprehend the importance of Manea’s wedding and what it portends for Lee House’s place in Chaonia. Do not dishonor your ancestors. Not this time.”

  His image glances up at a sound approaching from out of my view, although I will always recognize that particular staccato clip of footsteps. He touches a hand to the top button of his jacket, the one nervous tic he has. I can almost taste his disdain across the gap of hours and distance between us.

  “I asked not to be disturbed, Aisa.”

  “I know you’re talking to her.”

  My mother steps into view, wringing her hands. Her heavy mascara has streaked as if she’s been crying, but it’s more likely she splashed water on her face so it would appear she’s been crying.

  “Heaven correct you, Persephone. How can you continue to shame me with these rebellious actions? I can’t believe you go on making me endure this pain. Even after I lost your darling brother.”