by Jim Grimsley
Further explosions rocked the town; there was no apparent source, no bombs or missiles falling from the sky, only the clouds of black birds that looked so odd and angular as they flashed in twists and dived in arcs, many of them puncturing the sides of buildings. The center of Dembut started crumbling and collapsing. A group of syms stood at the edge of a patio on the town side of the consulate, built within the shadows of the edge of the forest; they were watching calmly as their allies took the town apart.
“Can’t you stop this?” Kitra asked quietly, voice aimed toward Dekkar.
He gave her a cold look and shook his head. “Not without revealing where I am, no.”
“But all these people are dying.”
He simply blinked at her, impassive. “Yes, they are. By the hands of their own allies in a war they helped to start.”
She ground her teeth and glared at the grassy riverbank, the deep shade and gloom of Greenwood closing around them.
After a moment, he spoke quietly in her ear. “If I’m to do any good here, including for you and your brother, I must be circumspect about how much I display of myself. I could stop this attack now and very quickly find myself and us attacked in turn all the way to our final destination. That would greatly lessen the possibility of finding Binam. Is that what you want?”
Flushed, jaw locked, she shook her head fiercely.
“Then leave me to decide what my business is, if you please.” His even tone infuriated her all the more because he was correct, as far as she could see. He found a reason to go to Figg, the bodyguard spider skittering to the side as Dekkar leaned down to look at the wounds on Figg’s face; she stood at the plates of glass staring at the deep dark of the river.
Boat traffic had been halted just up-current; a group of patrol boats crewed by armed syms sliced up and down the center of the river. Pel quietly pulled to the riverbank, cut the boat’s impeller, and they waited beside a tourist boat where a young woman with a short skirt and a young man in shorts were serving beer to a few frightened guests. “I want to a put on a bit of clothes,” the young man was saying, “if there’s to be shooting and such.”
The patrol boats were directing the rest of the traffic to moor along the riverbank in order to keep the center of the channel clear, the traffic a mix of tourist barges, cargo scows, couriers, and private dinghies and dories; a couple of the symbiont patrol boats started searching the craft one at a time as they tied up along the bank on either side. The searches set off confusion among the crews and the passengers, who could see the plume of dark smoke rising from the direction of Dembut. On the Erra Bel, Pel’s boat, everyone was watching and whispering to one another, even though Dekkar had never asked them to keep quiet. Once a patrol boat drifted close to the Erra Bel and passed farther downstream; the syms looked past the boat and the passengers without appearing to notice them at all, an eerie sensation. Kitra kept an eye on Dekkar as well; never a sign from him, never a sound or a movement.
“You think they’re looking for Keely?” Figg asked at one point, when the boy, still unnaturally quiet, appeared to be sleeping. Penelope curled up beside him, keeping watch.
“Yes, I expect so.” Dekkar was looking at the back of the riverboat, the motionless bundle that was Nerva. “At any rate, we can’t sit here forever.”
“You think they’ll find us?”
“Not for a while.”
He headed to the front of the boat and stood with Pel. They conferred in voices too low to hear; the boat began to ease along the bank, a speed just above drifting. Kitra moved to the other side of the boat, near Keely, who was lying on one of the low bunks with his eyes closed, hands tucked under his chin. He was small for his age but appeared far older than when she first met him, maybe in the set of his mouth, the furrow of his brows in sleep, or maybe the careless way his feet hung off the bunk. In the confusion of leaving Figg’s farm, she’d heard someone mention that Keely had been under psycho-regression, but apparently no longer.
She sat carefully, and Figg sat near her, close enough to keep his eye on Keely. The Hilda squatted on the floor unpacking the smart cart, movements neat and measured. The Erra Bel was drifting farther from the center of the current, barely making headway, gliding just beyond the moored boats near the shore.
Tense moments passed, the acrid smell of smoke drifting with the wind, mingling with the dank smell of the river. The Hilda was making food in the galley, same neat motions, perfect economy. Figg watched her and then watched Dekkar at the prow of the boat. “Unfathomable. No one sees us, no matter how close they come.”
“Prin mind tricks,” Kitra said. “They’re always impressive the first time you see them.”
“It’s a bit eerie, really.” He watched Dekkar soberly. “All these years I thought he was out of the priesthood.”
“What?”
“Dekkar. I’ve known him for a long time. I thought he was a fallen Drune. I thought they lost their abilities with the chant when they fell.” He looked as if he wanted to say more, then closed his mouth.
If Dekkar’s senses were as acute as most people with his kind of training, he was listening to every word. Kitra studied the erect posture of his back, the easy way he compensated for the bobbling of the boat on the chop thrown up in mid river by all the traffic, knees bent, adjusting his weight in small, precise ways. The Erra Bel was heading to the center of the river now, getting clear of the crowded riverbanks. “As long as he keeps the patrol boats from stopping us, whatever he’s doing is fine with me.”
Figg gestured to one of the patrols. “What are those things on the boats? They don’t quite look like people.”
“The tree syms? Symbionts. You’ve heard of them, I’m sure.”
“They talk to the trees,” Keely said, eyes open, sitting up to look out the windows. “Where are they?”
“Over there,” Figg pointed. “Keep quiet, now, son. You see where I’m pointing?”
“He looks green.”
“Yes, he does.”
“You think it’s a he?” Kitra asked. “I’d have said she.”
“Does it matter?” Figg wanted to know.
She shrugged. “Only in vestigial ways. You can usually tell what sex a sym used to be, but they’re not sexually functional anymore, one way or the other. I used to help transform people into these things.”
“Symbionts?”
“Yes. I used to help regrow them and blend the plant organics with the human stuff.” On the patrol boat Keely was watching, the pale figure of the symbiont was silhouetted against the dark hull, looking more or less human, though its joints appeared a bit stiff and its movements a touch languid; tree symbionts were in fact legally human, one of several hundred legal variants from the normative range of human DNA.
“You’re a geneticist?”
“No, a technician.”
“But still,” Figg spread his hands. “What are you doing out here?”
“I gave up the tech work. I don’t even know why I chose that field to begin with. Maybe because of my brother.”
He was watching her. His face was no longer swollen; the wounds were still distinct but appeared to be less inflamed. Neither was his expression any longer impassive or patrician, qualities she had found in his manner and attitude when she first became aware of who he was. Because she had been born on Aramen, she had less presupposition about how an Orminy prince might behave or exactly the kind of status he might possess, but she had seen enough movies, read enough novels, to have an idea. Figg appeared not so much humble as humbled, as if he had undergone a cataclysm. His eyes had a gentled look, a peace that had cost him. He lay his hand in Keely’s sandy hair, touched the boy with affection that appeared real.
The boat was moving more swiftly upriver as the boat traffic thinned. Dembut was visible still, a glow at the bottom of a plume of smoke that reached dark and heavy to near the center of the sky. As the Erra Bel drew farther upriver, the forest canopy thickened and the sky was harder to see. The acrid smell
lessened; one caught scent of the perfumed auras of the Dirijhi gardens along the banks.
“We’ll lose what’s left of our links pretty soon,” Kitra said. “No matter what kind you have.”
“The forest?”
“Yes. We’re entering the Dirijhi preserve. From here north, we’re under the jurisdiction of the trees. There’s no Surround in here.”
“There’s not much more than local stuff on my link anyway, since the gate closed. You’ve traveled here a good deal?”
“I grew up near here. I’ve traveled into Greenwood four times now. That doesn’t make me a river pilot, but it’s more trips than most northerners make, unless they work on the river system.”
“Kitra’s brother is a tree symbiont,” Figg said, trying to draw Keely back into the conversation.
The change in the young boy was remarkable; the quality of childishness vanished, and he appeared somber, hardly even boyish, so grave was his manner. “Does that mean he can talk to the trees?”
“Yes.” Talk about Binam made her anxious in the pit of her stomach, especially now that she was so close. “He can talk to one tree. His tree.”
“Does he like it? Does he like living here?”
The question drew her to watch the trees again, the arch of low branches along the shore, for any glimpse she might catch of a tree-servant at work in the gardens. “I haven’t heard from him in a long time. The last time I saw him, he wasn’t very happy here, no.”
“Why not?”
“Symbionts aren’t really free the way you and I are, Keely. Each one of them is biologically tied to its tree. They have to be fed by their own tree or they die.”
The thought made him big-eyed, younger again for a moment. “I still think it would be okay,” he said after a while, but he no longer sounded convinced.
Erra Bel turned her nose toward the north and rode smoothly against the current. The Silas was hardly a gentle river, flowing swiftly at the moment, so broad at points that the canopy from the riverbanks no longer joined over the center. Through the glass roof of the riverboat Kitra saw darkening sky, low clouds, the red moon becoming more and more visible as the day waned. The sudden sky brought a feeling of vastness to the journey; she wished the boat might sail free of the canopy all the way north.
For a while she was lulled by the feeling of the current pressing along the riverboat’s hull, the silken feeling of motion; Pel’s boat, for all its shabby affect, rode the water like a dream. Peaceful to think of herself heading upriver again. But the channel narrowed, the forest closed in, and the river traffic settled into a normal pattern. They had come some dozen or so kilomeasures into the forest; did anyone sailing this far north on the river know that Dembut had been attacked?
She stirred, headed to the smart-cart, saw that it was unloaded and found the biosuits laid out on the galley table. The Hilda caught Kitra’s purpose and moved to help her; she gave the machine suits to carry to everyone. She had even brought a suit for the thing that had once been Nerva, who (or which) lay along the wall on one of the built-in cots. Now she realized what a pointless move it had been.
Zhengzhou, the bodyguard, was keeping an eye on the creature; she acknowledged Kitra’s nearness with a short lift of the chin. Another butch girl, Kitra thought; a type she knew pretty well. Zhengzhou had elaborate face art along one side of her jawbone and sported several piercings, ear and lip. The hardware might be part of her weapon systems; she was Figg’s bodyguard, after all, and could likely afford expensive gear. Like a lot of younger people, she sported a scar on her face as a kind of decoration. She knelt beside the gray-skinned thing on the floor, its mouth expanding as it—she?—breathed.
Kitra handed Zhengzhou a suit, showed her how to wear it, and helped adjust the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The woman stripped down to her underwear with no ceremony; she had a nice, firm body, but for some reason Kitra founded herself disinterested, regarding Zhengzhou with clinical detachment. “You can keep on your underwear,” Kitra said. “Just don’t layer too much under there or you’ll be hot this time of year.”
“This thing have face protection?”
“Yes, pass-through netting, tucked behind the head in the pouch.”
“You know what it’s rated?”
“There’s a smart tag on it somewhere, read out the specs for yourself.”
Zhengzhou frowned, holding the flimsy fabric in her hand; she was looking at it skeptically. “You ever wear one of these into the forest here before? I saw what some of those bioweapons did in Jharvan—”
“These suits aren’t military grade but they’re close, if that’s what you’re asking. If you don’t want to take your chance with one, you can swim back to Dembut, I guess.”
The chill that settled over Zhengzhou’s features pretty much ended the question of any attraction between them. “Just asking.”
“They’re rated for filtration down to some ridiculous level that nothing can get through. But this is Dirijhi country. I have no idea what the trees have come up with lately.”
Zhengzhou’s scowl relaxed a bit. “It’s better than my civvies. Thanks. You did a lot of shopping fast, back in that market.”
“I’ve been to Dembut before. It’s familiar ground.”
At the front of the boat, Pel was sliding into his suit, wide shoulders freckled across, firm and thick. Dekkar helped him adjust the joint fittings.
Figg had no trouble with his own suit; he sat distracted, as if paying attention to his internals. Kitra found herself watching him.
Outside an early twilight was falling, the smoky sky filling with clouds, the pale bright patch where the sun was setting tinged with red, barely visible through the trees. The Erra Bel showed her outboard running lights for evening, but inside dark settled over her passengers.
Keely had struggled into his suit but the fittings were baggy. He flapped his arms a couple of times and the suit made a swooping noise. Kitra carried one of the fitting kits to him; she was showing him how to use the straps when Figg leapt up in alarm and stood in the center of the boat. He gave Kitra a long look, full of terror. “Good lord.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked, heart pounding, and Pel turned from the bridge at the sudden movement.
“I was reviewing some newsbursts that were in my queue. Those cities we were in when we landed, the names—” He was agitated, running hands through his hair as if he was feeling for that spider-thing of his, which was tucked into a ball at Keely’s feet.
“Feidreh and Avatrayn.”
“They’re gone.” He looked at her. “They’re destroyed.”
“What do you mean?”
“The cities are gone. Satellites showed a series of small nuclear explosions.” He had that momentary nearsighted quality familiar as the look of someone reading from internals. “Your satellites—I mean, the ones from Ajhevan.”
She thought he was going to say rebel satellites; she bit her tongue. The thought was too big. There were nearly fifty million people along the coast and around the twin cities, including her parents; most of them would be refugees in the city by now. Her heart was pounding. “You’re sure?”
“The burst is from a few minutes before the attack on Dembut; I queued them up to review them when I had time.”
“What’s wrong?” Keely asked, struggling with his one-pass hood.
Zhengzhou was standing over the Nerva-thing, looking at it.
Pel turned to the river, then back to Kitra for a moment.
Dekkar kept his back to the boat, said nothing. She had the strong feeling that he had already known.
“The Prin choir is dead or captured.” Figg was stunned, still relaying information from the newsburst. “The Citadel is destroyed. There’s not much standing in the city.”
Vekant, she thought. The poor silly man.
Dekkar spoke very calmly, without turning. “The tower is still standing,” he said. “There’s a high place there. It’ll be harder to take down than these creatures imagi
ne.”
“Is that supposed to make us hopeful?” Zhengzhou asked, and everyone turned to look at her.
Figg had moved to Keely to help him with the suit. He checked Keely’s handwork carefully.
“No,” Dekkar said. “Not hopeful. I don’t know what, really.”
“You people call this a war for freedom,” Zhengzhou said, the bitterness on her face so tentative, so against her reserve, that it was all the more evident and painful. She was speaking to everyone on the boat as if they were all part of the rebellion, as if they were all northerners.
“I’m the only one here who’s ever had anything to do with the PFA,” Kitra said, watching Zhengzhou evenly. “The rest of these people don’t have anything more to do with this war than you do.”
“But you do,” she said, scowling, lip trembling.
“Not really. I quit the group ten years ago. I work for the Prin. Or I did.”
Her face was falling to pieces.
“My parents live in Feidreh,” Kitra continued. “I expect they’re dead.”
Zhengzhou nodded, trying to get herself under control. She knelt beside the cot on which the inert Nerva-creature was lying. She kept her back to them all for a while, maybe in embarrassment at her inability to restrain herself.
“The thing that destroyed the Prin in the south is on the way here now,” Dekkar said, his tone still maddeningly calm. “We’re not going to get very far without a fight.”
“Is it Rao?” Keely asked. He was sitting very erect and still, looking solemn, averting his eyes from the vicinity of the Nerva-thing. He kept Penelope in his arms, scratching her fur; the spider appeared happy there.
