Blue Guardian

by S. J. Madill

  "And you want guns for them."

  Miller made a face; the idea was clearly distasteful to her. "General, we've been discussing whether to arm the militia or not. I personally don't like people with weapons parading around the colony, no matter how much we trust them. Carrying the tools of violence isn't the sort of society we want to build. We don't—"

  "Yes," interrupted Lang. "We want some guns."

  "Maybe a dozen or so," said Roche. "To keep in storage. Just in case."

  Miller held up a hand. "At the same time, General, we don't want you or your people to feel threatened. We only—"

  "We aren't threatened," shrugged Zura. "I'll have ten handguns sent down in a secure locker."

  She smiled at the absurdity of it. The humans wanted weapons to threaten each other, so they could feel less threatened, but without making anyone else feel threatened. Human logic. "You'll have them today, Major."

  Miller's smile was back. "You understand, General, this isn't about being a challenge to your administration?"

  "You aren't."

  Lang was chewing at his lip again. "Because guns or not, you could crush anything—"

  "I'm choosing to trust in humanity's good sense," lied Zura. Failing that, she thought, she could trust in their sense of self-preservation. "Was there anything else?"

  "No, General," said Miller. "Thank you for your time."

  "Very well," said Zura. "Good day."

  Zura started down the hill toward the colony buildings in the distance. Behind her, she thought she heard one of the councillors say something as she left earshot. When she was farther down the hill, she gestured for Irasa to follow more closely. "Did you hear what they said as we left?" she asked.

  "Yes, Mahasa," came Irasa's disembodied voice from above and behind her. "Councillor Lang said, 'that was easier than I expected'."

  "Good," said Zura, straightening her coat as she walked. She was content to let the humans become more assertive, even if some of it wound up being directed at her. At least they might be ready to stand for something.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Zura leaned back, grunting as she arched her back and stretched. The sunlight coming in her office window had shifted across the floor, but otherwise nothing had changed.

  Placing her elbow on the desk, she leaned forward, propping herself up.

  She was reading the summary again. The amount of information in the ten-day intelligence report was astonishing, and unimaginably boring. She'd been convinced that Four-Thirteen had been trying to bring something to her attention by mentioning the ten-day report for the first time in centuries. She'd searched for new data, for recently-changed data, for data based on proximity to New Fraser. She'd tried a hundred different ways to organise the data, trying to find some way to make something stand out. Hoping that whatever Four-Thirteen wanted her to see would somehow leap off the datasheet and grab her attention.

  The recent flood of office visitors had ebbed yesterday and today, which was welcome. The new colonists were keeping the councillors — and the other colonists — busy. They'd decided to share some of the colony's 'real' food with the newcomers, and in return the 'old' colonists had agreed to try the recycled replicator 'food' every now and then. Shared suffering, she supposed, brought humans together. Even the pilot, Liam, had stopped complaining about being a 'prisoner'.

  Zura heard soft footsteps in the waiting room outside her office, and didn't look up as Yaella entered.

  Without saying a word, the girl placed a fresh cup of Darjeeling down on her desk, and picked up the previous cup. She started to leave just as quickly and quietly as she'd come.

  Zura figured she should say something. "Thank you, child."

  "You're welcome," mumbled Yaella, who sniffed.

  Something wasn't right. "Child?"

  Yaella paused in the doorway, not turning around. "Yes, Mahasa?" Her voice sounded tiny and brittle.

  Zura raised her head. "Look at me."

  With a hesitant shuffling of her feet, Yaella turned to face her. Her shoulders were drooped, and she was looking down at the empty cup in her hands. Her face was puffy, her eyes bloodshot.

  Zura let go of the datasheet. "Sit," she commanded, pointing at one of the chairs across from her.

  Yaella sniffed again, and nodded as she sat on the edge of the chair.

  Zura clasped her gloved hands on the desktop. "Have you been crying, child?"

  "A little."

  "Why?"

  Yaella wouldn't make eye contact with her; she kept her face turned away. "It's nothing, Mahasa."

  "Child, look at me."

  After a moment's pause, Yaella turned her face toward her. Young eyes, filled with sadness and fear. "Tell me," said Zura. She corrected herself. "Please tell me."

  Yaella sniffed again, looking away. "What's going to happen to me, Mahasa?"

  "Ah," said Zura. Pushing down on her desk, she stood up, trailing her fingers on the desktop as she walked around from behind the desk. She pulled the other visitor's chair around to face Yaella and sat down, leaning forward. "Child, please look at me."

  When Yaella's eyes locked with hers, she continued. "You are not going back to an orphanage. You are not going to a refugee camp. I swear it. Do you understand?"

  Yaella nodded, not taking her eyes from Zura's.

  "We are going to find you a foster family. Good people. People who will care for you and look after you, and who will make sure you have a chance at a good life."

  The girl's voice was tiny and cracked with emotion. "Don't you want me? Why can't I stay with you?"

  Zura sighed, feeling her own shoulders slump. "Because I'm not a good person, child. I'm not the sort of person who should be looking after someone else."

  "But why not? I think you're a good person, Mahasa."

  Zura took a breath to speak, but no words came out. She paused a moment before trying again. "I fight, child. That's my life. I fight, and I destroy, and I kill. People call me a monster, and they're right."

  "But why?" Yaella looked like she was going to cry again. "Why do you have to do that?"

  Zura managed to force a grin to one side of her face. "I was once a girl like you, child. I had parents and a little brother. I was happy." She took a deep breath, feeling a catch in her throat she hadn't felt in a long time. "But then some bad people came, and they killed everyone. Everyone but me." She shrugged. "Now, that little girl is gone. I'm what's left. Do you understand? I fight, so that other people can live in peace. So that little girls like you don't have to become people like me."

  Yaella was watching her face. Tears were welling in the young blue eyes. "I don't think you're a monster, Mahasa."

  "That's a kind thing for you to say, child."

  The girl looked down at her hands. She was still holding the empty teacup, turning it over in her fingers. "Mahasa, once I'm living with a new family, can I still talk to you sometimes?"

  Zura was taken aback "You would wish that?"

  Yaella just nodded.

  "Then yes, you may. After you find a home, we will still talk from time to time."

  That seemed to cheer the girl up. She sniffed again and nodded, still looking down. "Would you please call me Yaella?"

  Zura smiled, clearing her throat. It had been centuries since someone had offered their given name. She reached out and tapped Yaella's knee. "Thank you, Yaella. And you must call me Zura. Agreed?"

  Yaella looked up at her. The young eyes were more tear-filled and bloodshot than before, but the fear had ebbed. A small smile was creeping across the girl's face. "Thank you, Zura."

  Zura tapped Yaella on the knee again. "Now go. Read a book. Play outside. Go, before I accidentally do something nice."

  Getting up from the chair, Yaella leaned forward and threw her arms around Zura, giving a brief, awkward hug. "You're cold, Zura," she said, before letting go.

  "I've heard that from people," said Zura, as Yaella left the room.

  * * *


  Outside her office window was total darkness. Clouds obscured the moon and the stars, letting no light reach the sleeping colony. All she saw were the curved forms of the hills behind the colony, like frozen waves of a heather-covered sea.

  Looking over her shoulder, she glanced at the time display on her desk. Three-thirty in the morning, colony time. Someone — she thought it was Roche — had said that 'nothing good ever happens at three-thirty in the morning'. There were always things that moved in the night. Every culture had myths and legends about things that struck from the darkness. Things that should be feared. For most of her life, she'd been one of them.

  Another full day of reading through the ten-day intelligence report, and still nothing. She was two-thirds of the way through, and was beginning to wonder if she'd missed whatever she was supposed to see. Whatever it was, it couldn't be something obvious, something she would've found during a normal skimming of the report. Otherwise, Four-Thirteen wouldn't have mentioned it. He wouldn't have encouraged her to look more closely. No, she reassured herself, the answer was yet to be found.

  A spattering of raindrops began to tap against the window. She watched for a while, letting herself be mesmerised by the drops. One by one, they began to work their way down the glass.

  Shaking her head, Zura pinched at the bridge of her nose. She was falling asleep just standing here. Another cup of tea would give her a few minutes' wakefulness, but if she went upstairs she'd wake Yaella. The girl still insisted on sleeping in the storage closet next to the kitchen. It was roomy enough — larger than the bunk spaces on most spaceships, though shorter — but the girl deserved better than a closet.

  Yaella had been in better spirits since they talked yesterday. The girl seemed to have been buoyed by the idea of keeping in touch after she'd gone to a foster home. It was a long time ago, but Zura could remember the desire, the need, for something permanent in her life. Something, or someone, that would remain and not be taken away from her. Her own foster parents — Aiun and Orthan — had been patient and kind, putting up with her through all her rage and fear. She'd never had a chance to thank them. The Horlan had cut off many lives, leaving much left unsaid.

  Now, Yaella wanted to go to school. Even though she wouldn't be staying on New Fraser, she wanted to attend the small school run by one of the parents. Perhaps the hope of some permanence in her life had given her the confidence to seek out new things. The girl had a thirst for knowledge, poring over the human and Palani knowledge networks for hours on end.

  Rubbing her eyes with her fists, Zura returned to her desk and sat down. The endless reams of data stretched out before her on the datasheet. She'd made the text larger, so her tired eyes could see more clearly, but that only made the remaining volume of data appear to go on further.

  Sighing, Zura turned her attention back to the data. She'd been looking at the list of unusual astronomical events. Eclipses. Planetary transits and alignments. Small changes in pulsar frequency. Blue shifts. Red shifts. Gamma ray bursts.

  Seventeen gamma-ray bursts had been recorded during the ten-day period. The data included the detection locations and calculated points of origin. Almost all of them came from far-distant events like supernovas, or stellar collisions, or black holes hungrily consuming matter.

  Except one, she noticed.

  A gamma-ray burst, trivial in size but detectable nonetheless, originating on a planet in Uta space. It was in the Eldoor sector, not far from the Uta/Palani frontier. A routine event: a reactor powering up. Some new fusion reactors gave off a 'puff' of gamma rays when brought online. Tiny, but detectable by a sensor in the right place. Two similar events had been recorded in the previous ten-day period, both in human space.

  But the Uta clans didn't use fusion reactors. Their power came from burning hydrocarbons; it gave Uta planets their characteristic environmental degradation.

  Zura raised an eyebrow. A new reactor startup in Uta space. She tapped on the data point and additional data appeared, showing the frequency signature of the gamma-ray burst. She ran the signature through a pattern-recognition routine.

  Match.

  The gamma-ray burst from the Uta planet matched the pattern for the initial startup of a specific type of reactor. Human-built, by Lexington Power Works. 'Colonial' series fusion reactor, model XVI.

  Zura tapped at the screen again, bringing up the manifest for shipments to New Fraser. She wanted to see the records from six months ago, for the colony's reactor that had never arrived. The reactor that had been replaced by the museum piece currently wheezing away at the edge of the colony.

  Match. LPW Colonial XVI.

  So, thought Zura. The reactor had been redirected to the Uta, who were now starting it up, unaware of the Palani surveillance probe in their outer asteroid belt.

  A smile grew across Zura's face as she tapped on the planetary system's details. Kinnihik system, Eldoor sector. Consistent with Uta clan planets, there was one large population centre. Five thousand Uta and thirty thousand slaves, as of last known intelligence. The current clan leader was — she tapped once more…

  Qiviq.

  Eight hundred years she'd been in the Palani military. Through two vast wars and dozens of lesser skirmishes and conflicts. Not once, not once, had she seen anything that she considered a pure coincidence. Not when people were involved. The same Uta clan that had launched pillaging raids into the grave worlds was now in possession of New Fraser's missing reactor.

  Zura took in a deep breath, holding it before letting it out in a long sigh. "So, Qiviq," she asked the silent room around her. "How did you get our reactor?"

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Somewhere, in the murk of Zura's dreams, she heard a series of gentle chimes.

  They were subtle at first, barely noticed among the voices and images all around her. Once-familiar faces, now caricatures of themselves. Others, their faces indistinct, that she nevertheless knew as people she'd been close to. Countless voices competing to be heard, their faces jostling with each other, trying to be seen.

  The chimes sounded again. Less subtle this time. More insistent, more intrusive. Intrusive enough to drown out the voices and push the faces back into the murk. The faces contorted as they withdrew, morphing into expressions of fear and rage: mouths open, teeth bared. Their voices jolted off-key, into harsh, discordant screams.

  The chimes sounded again, and they would not be denied. Zura felt herself being dragged away, further from the voices and the faces, until—

  Zura woke up, blinking her eyes open. Clumsy and uncoordinated, she struggled to push herself up, to sit on the side of the bed. The datasheet chimed again as she grabbed it from the night stand, and it unrolled itself in her unsteady hand. "La," she croaked. "This is Varta."

  A window leapt to the front of the datasheet display. Upara stood facing her, the Kahala Hila's control room visible beyond. She bowed to the camera. "Mahasa, this is Upara. My apologies for the intrusion—"

  "Go ahead, Captain," mumbled Zura. She wiped at her eyes with her free hand, still squinting against the datasheet's harsh glare in the darkened bedroom.

  "Mahasa, there has been an intrusion in this system. A vessel came out of light speed in the asteroid belt, then left again."

  "Time?"

  Upara's eyes glanced away for a moment, then back. "Fifteen minutes ago, Mahasa. The point of intrusion was fourteen light-minutes away, so we just saw it now."

  Zura checked the time display. Five-thirty in the morning. She'd been asleep for less than two hours. "What was the vessel's total time in the system?"

  "Eleven seconds, Mahasa."

  Upara must have seen Zura make a face, because she quickly continued. "Mahasa, it's too short a time for a vessel to build power to go back to light speed. It must have been a scout vessel. Something with capacitor banks sufficient for double-bursting."

  Zura nodded. "Agreed."

  "Your orders, Mahasa?"

  Zura looked around the room, as if the darkness would
offer an idea. She noticed that she was still sitting on the side of the bed, still in her undersuit. "Nothing for now, Captain. Go to your cabin. I'll call you there in ten minutes."

  * * *

  Years in the military had taught her a great many habits. Like having a shower in under three minutes. She wasn't sure how humans — and adolescent hybrid girls — managed to spend half an hour in the shower. All things being equal, she figured, a smaller person should have less body to wash.

  Cleaned and dried and dressed in a fresh uniform, Zura was finishing an energy-food bar in her bedroom when the ten minutes were up. Exactly on time, she opened a channel to Kahala Hila's captain.

  Upara was waiting, and her image appeared in the screen right away. She bowed again. "Mahasa."

  "Captain," said Zura. "No further developments?"

  "No, Mahasa."

  "Good. The intruding vessel, was it attempting to remain undetected?"

  "Yes, Mahasa. It was running emissions-free, with exhaust diffusers and signature maskers. We wouldn't have seen it with our old sensors."

  Zura crossed her arms over her chest. "Definitely a scout vessel. With such a short time in system, I expect they were launching a surveillance probe. It's probably sitting in the asteroid belt right now, watching us."

  "Yes, Mahasa," said Upara. "Shall we scan for the probe?"

  "No. Let them think we didn't see anything. Now that we know they're watching, we can control what we show them."

  Upara's head cocked to one side, in a hint of confusion. "'They', Mahasa?"

  Zura looked at the woman in the display. She'd known Upara for six centuries. There wasn't an officer in the Palani fleet that she trusted more. Right now, she needed that. "Upara, the reactor intended for this colony — the one that went missing in transit — I believe it is now in the hands of an Uta clan leader. The clan is right across the frontier from us. Clan leader's name is Qiviq."