Zodiac

by Romina Russell

  The instant he attacks me, my Psy shield will switch on and keep me safe . . . I hope. And while Ochus is distracted, the fleet will move close enough to destroy his headquarters. Then, as Rubidum says, “We’ll incinerate the butcher.” But I also know I could be incinerated in the process.

  I sent Nishi and Deke encrypted messages before leaving the embassy. In Nishi’s, after thanking her a million times for everything—above all, for being the best friend imaginable—I included a letter for Stanton. I asked her to track him down and deliver it if I don’t return.

  Mathias finds me in the forward observatory. “The enemy knows we’re coming,” he says, storming over in a bad mood. “This armada’s too big to hide.”

  I recite the facts Admiral Ignus used to ease my own worries. “We’re invisible, and we change our heading every few hours. He can’t possibly know our exact location.”

  Mathias adjusts the telescope lens and looks through it. He stays glued to the eyepiece, and I can’t read his expression. His stretches of silence are more maddening than his outbursts.

  “Our Zodai are already watching for ambushes,” I insist. “We’ll do lots of reconnaissance before we strike.”

  Sirna’s still worried about the secret army on Phobos, but that’s not what troubles me most. I’m worried we’ve been at peace for so long that our Houses have forgotten the art of war.

  Except for the five Ariean destroyers, none of our vessels were designed to carry weapons, and other than the Arieans, our crews have no experience in battle. Combat is just a word from the history files for most of us here. The older men like Ignus are almost giddy. They don’t seem to understand there’s a chance we won’t come back from this.

  I plop onto a stool while Mathias recalibrates the lens array, and numbers fly across his control screen as the telescope refocuses. He’s working harder than anyone, training new skiff pilots en route and instructing the ship’s crew in martial arts. We all have to be ready for anything—no one knows what’s behind Ochus’s wall of Dark Matter.

  I run fingers through my curls, wondering what critical factor I’ve missed. I can’t fight the bad feeling that keeps creeping up my neck, no matter how many times I try to shake it off. “Ophiuchus is just one House, and we’re twelve. We’ve got the numbers. Everyone believes we can do this.”

  “Well then, if everyone believes, we’ll definitely win,” he says flatly.

  I stare at him. “What is it?”

  He finally faces me, and his eyes shine with more passion than his voice betrays. “They’re asking too much of you, Rho. They’re using you like bait.”

  Now I’m the one to look away. “Mathias, I launched this voyage. These people trust me. You want to turn back?”

  “Of course not. We’re committed now.” He rises from his scope and moves toward me. “I’m having your Wasp armor-plated.”

  “Thank you,” I say, even though we both know physical armor won’t hold off a Psy attack.

  “I’ll be with you every step,” he murmurs, looking like he wants to say more.

  He thinks he’s going to pilot my Wasp, but I’ve already decided there’s no way. I’m not going to let him die with me. He already came aboard Equinox without knowing the full risk, and he could have died too many times. I have to return him to Amanta and Egon. Mathias has to get home.

  I nod and try to smile. “The plan will work. It has to.”

  He studies my forehead, my mouth, my chin. I can’t read his expression. “When was the last time you had a decent meal?”

  “I ate some breakfast.” Actually, I had a tube of fortified energy paste, but it counts. “I’m going to get ready for my meeting with the Psy experts.”

  Mathias and I agreed that I would consult the foremost Psy scholars in our fleet while we’re on our way to see whether they can help me defend myself in the Psy, if I’m forced to fight Ochus.

  One of the three notables is Chronicler Yuu, a Capricorn. The second is a Piscene mystic, Disciple Psamathe, and the third is a Virgo I met during our visit. Moira’s gray-haired courtier, Talein.

  “Eat a little more,” Mathias calls on my way out.

  37

  VERY SOON NOW, WE’LL BE entering the Kyros Belt. Our scans show the ice field glittering in the distance like a fine mist.

  Blinking signal lamps are not the speediest way to communicate, especially when the signals have to be relayed through the fleet from ship to ship, so it will take more than one galactic hour to shuttle Yuu, Psamathe, and Talein aboard Firebird for our meeting.

  While I wait, I run through the pilot training course Ignus gave me on my Wave. I decided to bring it with me, since the Psy shield will protect us from Ophiuchus accessing the tutorial Ephemeris.

  After a bit, I start to space out and watch the Leonine mechanics armor my Wasp gunship. They’re covering the side and rear windows with thick plates of tungsten carbide, while a guy named Peero tells an awful joke about a Capricorn who was reading an instruction manual for how to lose his virginity. Leos have always had little love for Capricorns.

  This training course makes steering a Wasp look easy, though the sight of the ship makes me claustrophobic.

  “Would you like to help?” a girl named Cendia asks. I instantly like her wide, friendly face. She keeps her thick mane of brown hair tied in a topknot, and her arms are covered in artistic tattoos. “You can hold this panel while I weld the seam.”

  “Sure,” I say, glad for a chance to do something.

  Hanging out with the mechanics helps me relax. They’re only a couple of years older than me, and their rowdy good humor reminds me of the dining hall at the Academy. When Cendia and I lift the panel into place over the window, I lean against it to keep it from slipping.

  “You’re all right, lady,” she says. “All the other Guardians are, like, senior citizens.”

  “You’re screwing up the seam,” says a short guy with a button nose and a space between his front teeth. He’s Foth, the chief mechanic. When he jerks the welder out of Cendia’s hands and starts re-welding her seam, she rolls her eyes. “There’s only one correct way to weld a reliable seam in tungsten carbide,” he says, lengthening his neck and trying his best to look down his stubby nose at us.

  Cendia goes at her seam again, and when Foth steps away to revamp someone else’s work, she whispers, “He’s bossy, but he knows how to weld.”

  “Your seam looks fine to me.”

  “Yeah, not your usual shabby mess,” says Peero, joining us.

  “Shut up, you.” She elbows him. “You’ll make us look bad in front of Holy Mother Rho.”

  Peero grins at me. His chin whiskers are dyed in stripes of red, yellow, and blue. “You won’t fire us, will you, Mother? We’re making you bulletproof against Ocú.”

  “Sack man,” Cendia explains, even though I already know. “That’s what we call him in our House. He comes at Winter Solstice with a sack over his shoulder to kidnap bad children.”

  “Yeah, and he eats ’em.” Peero chomps his teeth and pretends to bite Cendia. She laughs and swats him away. Then she and I set the next panel into place.

  Someone comes up behind me and lifts the weight from my hands. “Hysan,” I say, my smile burning through my cheeks.

  He’s clipped his blond hair in a new military style and traded in his court suits for the simple gray coveralls he’s most comfortable in. “Your watchdog paid me a compliment this morning,” he says, offering me his arm after he’s helped Cendia in my stead. “He said I aced my pilot’s test.”

  “I hope you didn’t cheat,” I say, linking my hand through.

  “Me, use trickery?” He fakes a wounded look that makes me laugh out loud. Then he turns and kisses Cendia’s hand and bows elaborately to the other mechanics. “Excellencies.”

  Cendia looks up at him adoringly. “Your Psy shield is genius. I can’t wa
it to study it when we get back.”

  Hysan tries not to look too pleased. “Can’t take all the credit, of course. My android helped.”

  Looking away from a befuddled Cendia, he pulls me along the corridor and says, “Ignus wants you on the bridge. Your first guest arrived.”

  “I’m not sure about this meeting,” I say as we walk to the forward section. “Come with me?”

  He bows his head. “I live to serve, my queen.”

  I start to laugh again, and Hysan pulls me into a lavatory stall. “What are you doing?” I whisper as he locks the door behind us. The space is so small we’re squeezed together.

  “Serving you,” he whispers, pressing me into the wall. “We won’t keep your Psy scholars waiting . . . too long.” When his lips meet mine, thoughts of everything else disappear.

  Even with a perfect memory, my fantasies couldn’t recreate the real feeling of kissing Hysan. His mouth is so sure of itself that I let him lead, and when his lips grow more insistent, my every limb starts to go limp.

  “And one more thing,” says Hysan, after he’s pulled away. He takes some freeze-dried fruit from his pocket. “You can’t defeat Ochus on an empty stomach.”

  While I eat, we walk to the ship’s forward section, and Hysan bends my ear about the skiff he’s been learning to pilot. I love seeing him so animated.

  “It handles like an extension of my mind. Whatever I want it to do, it knows. I just wish I’d invented it myself,” he says ruefully, a faint wrinkle forming on his forehead. “I’m building my own when we get home.”

  “Home.” I repeat the word, unsure what it means.

  “The galaxy is your home now, Rho.” He squeezes my hand. “Every House will welcome your return—Libra first and foremost.”

  Even though no place will ever replace Cancer, his optimism is as contagious as Mathias’s doubt. Only optimism does more to lift my spirits.

  When Hysan and I enter the chartroom, we find a Piscene woman in a floor-length silver veil gazing up at what looks like an Ephemeris. I almost shriek, until I realize it’s a simple 3-D atlas of our galaxy projected from the ceiling. It reflects only telescope views and physical data, not Psynergy.

  The woman turns at our approach and gives a deep bow, dropping to one knee. The veil shrouds her completely, falling in fluid silver folds that outline her willowy form.

  “Disciple Psamathe?” I ask, copying her bow. “Thank you for coming.”

  She has trouble getting back to her feet, so Hysan assists her. Her voice sounds elderly and weak, as if her lungs have to labor to push the air out. “The chains of fate bind us all.” She extends a palm through a hidden slit in her veil, and we touch. “I’ve long foreseen this meeting—and its outcome.”

  Hysan also touches her palm. “A good outcome, I trust.”

  She doesn’t answer that. She simply turns her attention back to the galactic atlas.

  I circle the chart table to face her. “If you already know how this ends, madame, you can save us a lot of time.”

  “Events will unfold as they must,” she says mysteriously.

  Hysan and I trade round-eyed looks, and he silently mouths, “Spooky.”

  Admiral Ignus sticks his head in and says, “Two more guests for your séance.”

  Moira’s chief courtier shuffles through the hatch, looking much older than I remember him. His hair is the same gray and his skin dull olive, but his face has a bashed-in look, and his body is bent. Behind Talein, a small, ruddy man enters with his hands in his pockets. Chronicler Yuu of Capricorn wears a basic black robe, and around his neck hangs a heavy chain bearing a large medallion. His close-set eyes are as black as obsidian.

  “Minister Talein, Chronicler Yuu, welcome.” We exchange formal hand touches all around, and Hysan offers tea, which everyone refuses. When we gather at the chart table and face each other through the twinkling atlas, I feel an ominous air settling over us.

  Psamathe parts her veil to reveal a face as gray and gnarled as driftwood. She peers up into the atlas, so I follow her gaze to the tiny smudge of light beyond Pisces, just a puff of glowing dust veiled in Dark Matter. The Sufianic Clouds.

  They’re so distant, they often twinkle out of sight for minutes at a time, and on Cancer our telescopes can’t see them. House Pisces, in the constellation of the Fish, orbits closer to the cloud mass. Maybe Psamathe has seen more. “Has anyone been to the Sufianic Clouds?” I ask.

  Psamathe clears her throat. “Our House has sent three manned missions. None returned.”

  Just what I needed to hear.

  “Capricorn has sent unmanned drones,” says Yuu. “We were more practical.”

  While Psamathe coughs, I ask, “What did you find?”

  “Nothing of value.”

  “What we really need,” I say, growing annoyed, “is a good physical sketch of the constellation. You know, the size? How many planets and moons? Do you have anything like that?”

  The mystic rears up as if I’ve offended her. “Such minutiae I leave to astronomers.”

  Yuu’s smile is brief and mocking. “Seems they’ve drawn a blank as well.”

  Talein reaches up into the atlas and slides his finger across the Sufianic Clouds, enlarging the zone until it fills the entire area above our heads. Even at highest magnification, it’s no more distinct than before.

  “Ophiuchus hides behind Dark Matter,” I say. “That’s why no other Guardians see him. Do any of you know how Dark Matter is related to Psynergy?”

  “Psynergy will not be imprisoned by mere language,” says Psamathe.

  Yuu’s laughter is dry. “People who speak in riddles are usually hiding ignorance.”

  I want to scream, but I swallow the urge. To my surprise, something Admiral Ignus keeps saying calms me down. “Look, we have two battles ahead. One’s in the physical world, and the admirals will handle that. The other’s in the metaphysical realm, the realm of Psy. That’s where I need your help.”

  I go through the story again, covering every detail about the ice man, hoping one of these experts will pick up on something new. “I need advice on manipulating Psynergy so that I can fight him back in the Psy.”

  I wait to hear their ideas. Seconds pass. Mechanical vibrations hum through the deck, and muffled voices waft in from the bridge. Someone’s tapping their foot very fast under the table. It’s me.

  “Anything?” I search their faces. “Even a hunch?”

  Hysan gives me a comical look. “Maybe we should hold hands and pray to the spirits?”

  Talein keeps his head down and fusses with his beaded cuffs. “You can use Morphinan,” he mumbles.

  Psamathe speaks in a pitying tone. “Do Virgos still resort to that sorcerer’s brew? House Pisces prefers the elixir of the stars, Kappa-Opioid.”

  Yuu says, “We smoke herbs.”

  Hysan rises. “Okay, well, thanks a lot.”

  “No, wait,” I say, the image of a frothing black tonic forming in my mind. “You mean like Abyssthe?”

  I think back to when I faced Ochus on Virgo. It was the first time I managed to touch him. I replay the memory in my mind, trying to pinpoint what changed to give me newfound strength, enough to match Ochus for a moment.

  Cancer.

  The thought of home helped me become more Centered. What I need to fight Ochus in the Psy is to Center myself as deeply as possible and to stay there long enough to fully project myself in the astral plane and match his strength.

  Abyssthe is the key.

  • • •

  Hysan manages to get some Abyssthe from a passenger on one of the other ships in our fleet. It’s strongest when first taken, so I’m going to drink it as soon as I sense Ochus.

  While Hysan transfers ships to get the tonic, I’m in the forward observatory, looking through the telescope. Beside me, Mathias fine-tunes t
he optics so I can see more clearly. We’re now approaching our fuel stop at the Piscene space station. It looks like a lacy hexagonal snowflake drifting above planet Ichthys. Through a misty shroud of fumes, the planet shines like polished glass.

  Ichthys is an ice world, sheathed in glaciers of frozen ammonia and methane. It’s seventeen times more massive than Cancer, so its surface gravity would flatten a human to a crusty smear of frost. The Piscene people use drones to harvest the planet’s meager resources, while they live on their five minor planetoids, practicing spiritual devotion and seeking tranquility.

  When I straighten up from the eyepiece and arch my aching spine, Mathias massages my shoulders. “You’re in knots, Rho. Want to take a break and do some Yarrot?”

  He’s been coaching me to toughen up my core. The abdominals hold the body in place, he says, so the spirit can wander. He could be part Aquarian—I didn’t realize what a philosopher he was until I started taking his martial arts class.

  “Sure, let’s go through some poses,” I say.

  We lie on our backs, side by side on the observatory deck. Stretching our arms overhead, we grasp the telescope’s framework to brace ourselves. Then we twist through the motions of all twelve poses, fluidly blending them into a single choreography that Mathias has been teaching as a warm-up for the martial arts lessons. After going through the whole thing three times, as slowly and painfully as possible, we drop to the floor and lie on our backs, breathing rapidly.

  “Mathias,” I say after a while, “when the time comes for me to fly that Wasp, you won’t fight me, will you?”

  His lips tighten. “I’ll be right beside you.”

  I feel my chin trembling. “I may not seem like it later, but right now, I know I can do it.”

  He rolls onto his side and leans over me. I look up into his smooth, pale face, and I remember our last lesson on Oceon 6, when he taught me how to use the Ring. I blacked out, and he caught my fall.

  I close my eyes, and I’m startled to feel his touch. His hand massages the furrow in my brow, smoothening the crease that’s been there a few days. Then his finger glides down my nose and over my mouth.