Warp World

by Kristene Perron

  “Yeah, yeah, kargin’ Outers all look the same to me.” Shan scratched at the mop of black hair that jutted out from her head in every direction.

  Fismar waved the medicals over at last.

  “Enjoy med-leave, sand slogger,” Shan said.

  “Stop by the RQ and we’ll drown the dead,” Fismar said with a look back over his shoulder.

  “Long as you’re paying,” Shan said.

  He gave Shan a wink, then shifted his eyes to the Kenda and gave them one last thoughtful look.

  Shan unzipped her flight suit, sighed, and muttered, “Kargin’ decon.”

  Ama looked left and right. The white-suits were already at work, hosing and spraying and brushing.

  “Shan …” Ama shifted her weight from right to left.

  “Are you still here? Go get scrubbed with the other caj. Go on.” Shan made a shooing motion with her hand.

  Ama backed up a few steps, turned her head toward the mass of naked men, then turned back to Shan. “I’m not caj and I don’t wan—”

  “Listen up.” Shan’s eyes burned; the upper half of her flight suit hung around her waist. “Because the next time you talk to me, or even look at me, like you’re a Person, I’m gonna put you on the ground. I’ve played nice because you belong to the Theorist but the raid’s over. Get it?” She scowled as she eyed Ama from toe to head, then her eyes cooled faintly. “Besides, you ain’t got any equipment those worms over there haven’t seen before. Well, except for the …” She gestured to the dathe on Ama’s neck. “Quicker you get it done the quic—”

  “Less talking, more unveiling!” Viren said. He stood about fifteen feet away, fully undressed, hands on his hips. Some of the Kenda laughed, some turned away, some turned to watch, more than a few exchanged whistles.

  Shan’s eyes fired up again but, Ama noticed, the pilot’s cheeks flushed pink.

  “Shut your kargin’ hole, Outer!” Shan shouted, then turned to Ama. “That one has a big mouth.”

  Ama considered a reply but Viren beat her to it.

  “Goddess of the Sky! I beg your forgiveness.” Viren spread his arms wide. “Come let me shower you with repentance!”

  “That’s it,” Shan growled under her breath.

  She stomped away. Ama thought she might leave the decon chamber but Shan stopped at a rack and pulled a large chack off a shelf. As she marched toward Viren, all the other Kenda, and a few of the white-suits, backed away. Viren’s smile never faltered, even when Shan jammed the muzzle of the gun into his naked chest.

  “One more word, Outer.” Shan fired each word at him as if it were its own weapon. “One more and I fill you full of spines.”

  Viren offered Shan the kind of look a boy might give the Lesson House instructor after being caught truant. The moment her shoulders relaxed, his eyes roamed to her chest, which was only covered by a thin undershirt. He caught her gaze again and directed it downward, between his legs.

  “You filthy—”

  “Return to the decon area!” The booming command, from one of the white-suits, halted Shan’s rant.

  “You’re kargin’ lucky,” she said, as Viren strolled back to the rest of the men. He was quickly led away by the white-suits and Shan tossed the chack onto the shelf under security’s watchful eyes.

  As she walked to the far end of the chamber, her eyes flicked to Ama just once. Though she still wore a look of disgust, Ama thought she saw embarrassment in that derision, too.

  Alone now, Ama swallowed down her discomfort and started the long process of removing her clothes. Her injuries made the task almost impossible; her left arm hung useless thanks to the knife wound Dagga had inflicted.

  She lowered herself onto the cold metal floor and struggled to unlace her boots. “I forgot how much I hate this place.”

  “Kiera Nen?”

  Her head jerked upward at the name. Two merry eyes shone down. Kiera Nen, prophesied savior of the Kenda. Some of the men had taken to addressing her that way since she had revealed her dathe. Ama had borne it at the temple, when their lives were at stake, but the thought of carrying on with the name was too close to Shasir trickery for her liking. She had fought with her Kenda brothers to rid their world of false gods and prophets; she had no intention of becoming one herself.

  “Ama. Just call me Ama.”

  “Tirnich Kundara,” the boy said. “I was at the Secat.”

  “I remember. You helped with Seg’s auto-med.”

  “Is that what it’s called?” He gestured to the unit on Ama’s arm. Tirnich was down to his waterwear but if he was embarrassed it didn’t show. “Thought you could use some help, too.”

  His look was so earnest and innocent that Ama found herself agreeing without hesitation.

  “Drexla?” Ama asked, nodding to the sharp white tooth that dangled from a string around the boy’s neck.

  “Yep. My good luck charm. Brin gave it to me after I started running messages for the resistance and escaped a few close calls with the authorities. He didn’t want me to come here, said I was too young,” Tirnich chattered as he helped unlace Ama’s boots. “Then everything happened at the temple and such, and I guess he saw I could fight, so he let me join. It’s pretty exciting. I bet I’ll have some stories for Pica—that’s my baby sister—if we ever get to go back home. Do you think we will?”

  No, Ama thought. This is home now.

  “Maybe someday,” she said.

  “I hope so. I bet we do. Not that it really matters, though I’d like to see Pica again.”

  Ama smiled. However naïve Tirnich was, his optimism and joy was like wind filling the skins of her boat.

  Efectuary Jul Akbas clicked her fingernails on the smooth surface of her desk. The desk was void of all objects, as she ensured it was every evening before she returned to her residence in the CWA city of Orhalze. Clear desk, clear mind, she always reminded her staff. Lazy and careless, that was how she thought of most of her underlings. People in general, for that matter. How some made it up the ranks with their deplorable work ethic and sloppy personal habits was both a mystery and a source of annoyance to Efectuary Akbas.

  The man on the monitor before her was a prime example. Theorist Eraranat. As the name entered her mind she felt the muscles of her face constrict.

  Eraranat had dismissed her, not once but twice. He had made a fool of her in front of her peers. This boy, this smug, sloppy boy, had dared to set himself above a CWA Efectuary? And, in the process, this arrogant young Theorist had undone the years of effort it had taken to win a place among Director Fi Costk’s inner circle. Thanks to him, she had been reassigned to oversee ent analysis—a position of little importance and even less chance of promotion. Eraranat would learn that the woman with whom he had trifled knew and lived the Fourth Virtue of a Citizen: Supremacy comes to those who earn it.

  The intrans vis feed from the Eraranat 001 Raid came through on her monitor in jerky, staccato chunks. There was no audio. She suspected Eraranat’s mentor’s hand in the poor quality of the feed. Nevertheless, she watched, closely.

  She watched the gunship come through the gate. Eraranat had commissioned his own rider but this was not it. Noteworthy.

  She watched the wounded raider and the rider pilot pass through, capturing a still frame of each in order to research them later.

  She watched a stream of Outers armed with prim weapons pass through the gate. Unrestrained.

  She watched Eraranat lead a female Outer through the gate. One of his two trophy caj. He had taken the Outer back to her world and then returned with her. Why?

  Tomorrow she would dissect the feed. Tonight she wanted raw impressions. A method that had proved effective in her years of surveillance.

  Eraranat stands in front of the Outers. Then he limps to the medicals. (Injured. How?) The medicals load him
onto the stretcher. Then the …

  Wait.

  She halted her nail tapping and pressed a button to reverse the feed at half speed. The figures moved backwards, almost comically.

  She stabbed a button to freeze the feed, then another to play it again, still at half speed.

  The trophy caj walks at Eraranat’s side. Their lips move to indicate they are speaking. The Theorist stops, turns slightly, and takes her hand.

  He takes her hand.

  Akbas stopped the feed. As impossible as it was to believe, she could not deny what was in front of her. The gesture was not one of master to slave, or owner to property. Affection, this was what Efectuary Akbas saw.

  “Degenerate,” she said aloud, with an urge to spit. Though she would never.

  The act was disgusting. It was also, she mused with a thin, hard smile, damning. She trailed her fingernail over the onscreen body of the Outer in a distinct X.

  And, again, something made her pause.

  She captured a still of the moment, used her finger onscreen to center the image on the Outer and magnified it. As the face of Eraranat’s caj expanded, the image quality lessened. Even so, through the fuzzy details, there was something familiar about the features. Aside from the digifilm of data she had collected on Eraranat, Akbas knew she had seen this face before.

  From her desk drawer, Akbas withdrew the Eraranat data film, slid it into the base of the monitor, and tapped the screen to split it in half. On one side, the grainy face of the caj remained; on the other, data and images of the Theorist scrolled by.

  Akbas’s eyes zipped left to right, left to right, absorbing, comparing. Where, where, where?

  There was a vis still of Eraranat in Haffset’s raid planning chamber. Her teeth ground as it appeared and, perhaps to remind herself of the importance of this work, she froze the image.

  All the players in the room were known to her. She had memorized names, faces, titles, and any other information she considered pertinent. Theorist Jarin Svestil sat at the outer ring, though she had never allowed herself to imagine his influence was limited to that realm. His aide, Gelad, sat on his right. Was anyone fool enough to believe the former raider was merely an aide? At Gelad’s knee, was his caj, the one she had questioned him about. In the seat next to Gelad—

  No. Wait.

  She centered the image on Gelad’s caj and expanded it until the face filled its half of the screen. On the left half of the screen, Eraranat’s caj. On the right, Gelad’s. And while Gelad’s caj wore a thick collar, had a face covered in intricate black designs, hair twisted and hidden in coils of red fabric, the features were unmistakable. These two images were of the same Outer.

  And now she had her answer to the question that had kept her awake too many hours since that day: How had Eraranat retrieved the raid planning data?

  Every muscle tensed, not just those in her face. How had this detail eluded her? They had used the caj. Somehow, they had used Eraranat’s caj to smuggle out the data.

  “Storm-rotting bastard!” She smacked both palms against the desk hard enough to sting. Her hands rolled up into fists as she fought the urge to rip the monitor from the desk.

  Now she had proof, not that anyone of significance would listen, or care, given the success of the degenerate Theorist’s raid. But somehow knowing, proving her suspicions ignited the simmering rage she had endured since her day of humiliation.

  She had been careless; she had underestimated Eraranat’s ambition. Never again. Whatever it took, she was going to bring him down and see him cast out. Wherever he went, whatever he did, she would make it her business to know. The moment she saw an opportunity to make him suffer, she would take it. Knowing the hotheaded young show-off, opportunities would be plentiful.

  She pressed a button and Eraranat’s face filled the screen. Palms flat on the desk, she leaned forward until she was almost nose to nose with him. “I see you now.” Her eyes narrowed. “I see right through you.”

  With an exasperated sigh, Seg scrolled through the list of post-mission reports he was required to file. The slight expansion and contraction of his lungs triggered an ache in his ribs, which set off a tremor of pain that rippled across the landscape of his injuries. Better than the sharp, breath-stopping pain he had experienced when his ribs had first broken, but pain nonetheless. He was recovering but not healed—as the medicals reminded him whenever he petitioned for release from the medfac.

  The gleaming metal and spotless white of his recovery room should have been a comfort after the fire, blood, and muck of the raid but he was anxious beyond his usual impatience.

  It was his desire for Ama that put him in such a restless condition, but bureaucracy had definitely contributed its own sour effect to his mood. On his digifilm, more evidence of the People’s slavish dedication to rules and protocol: forms for notations of major events, culture and caste contacts and encounters, labor expenditures, medical accounting, transit for his own extrans and intrans and for all materials he had brought with him. His new Kenda army counted as material, of course.

  He counted softly under his breath and only glanced up briefly as the door cycled open and Jarin entered. “Twenty-three … twenty-four … twenty-five … how do we accomplish anything?” He waved the digifilm at his mentor. “Twenty-five routine forms upon return. Before we begin any real analysis on the mission.”

  “You know that you would have only half those forms if you had remained on-world for the raid, or confined your extrans activities to the field headquarters.” Jarin said. “Unortho behavior has its costs.” He took a seat next to Seg’s bedside.

  “So the reward for accomplishment is administrative drudgery.” Seg shoved the film away.

  “You were expecting adulation? An end to all tedium? One raid, even one as successful as yours, does not change the World. Outside these walls, life continues as it has for centuries. Houses and Corporations bicker and make ready for further raids, raiders train for battle, the Well demands more vita, and the CWA plots to destroy all who oppose their will. Specifically Adirante Fi Costk, who will never forgive the loss of House Haffset or the humiliation he suffered at your hands.”

  “I know that. And he’s only one of many enemies that I’ll make.” Seg raised his hand. The dismissive wave, the one that said your words are wasted on me, was a gesture he used often but never more so than in discussions with Jarin.

  “Undoubtedly, but there are few worse enemies you can make than one of the five most powerful individuals on the World.”

  Despite his complete lack of interest in the task, Seg scooped up the digifilm once more and turned his attention to the list of forms.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jarin—dark gray hair sprinkled with an equal amount of white, wrinkles that presented a perfect mask of harmlessness—regarding him with his ever-present critical stare.

  “Your success will not shield you, Segkel. You won one battle and you won it brilliantly, but be honest about what you have accomplished here. A great deal of vita and a great many caj have been collected. The vita will feed the Well, the shields, and power the gates. The caj will be expended, except for those kept as trinkets by the degenerate wealthy. But the raid is over. Done.” Jarin offered his own wave, to demonstrate the ephemeral nature of a Theorist’s work. “And now you must prepare for the next fight.”

  Seg tapped his fingers on the side of the digifilm as he considered the words. “So, this is meaningless? The blood, the death, all of it means nothing because the World continues on as before, wallowing and stagnating, drowning accomplishment in bureaucracy?”

  “Precisely.” Jarin’s mouth twitched. “Try not to be so childish. The World feeds upon suffering to survive. If you mean to be a part of the process, you must not assume a great victory liberates you from your duties. Theorist Lannit assumed he could afford to pass up the m
ost basic and simple protocols. It cost him success. And his life.”

  Seg leaned forward, wincing slightly. “I know the story of Lannit and his arrogance, Jarin. I know it by heart.”

  “You know the story as presented to cadets. The comparisons between his raid and yours are inevitable now, I am afraid. The …” Jarin’s eyes moved upward as he searched for a fitting description. “The myth process defies control. But Theorists do not deal in myth; we seek truth no matter how mundane, no matter how lacking in romance or intrigue. Always. And the truth is this: the difference between your success and Lannit’s failure is only that you were luckier.”

  “I made valid judgments.” Seg sat up; his body went rigid in protest against the sudden movement.

  Jarin rose and took a deep, composing breath. “Segkel, listen to me. You must return to orthodoxy long enough to deal with the aftermath of this raid. Your popularity will give you some shield against Fi Costk, but it will not protect you forever, and, believe me he will wait as long as it takes to bring you down. You need to return to the fold and allow the Guild to help you with this process.”

  “I’ll consider it,” Seg said, though his tone suggested otherwise. “If that’s all you—”

  “There is one other matter.”

  Of course there is. Seg twirled his finger in the air, a signal for Jarin to continue.

  “Amadahy.” Jarin raised a hand to forestall Seg’s reply. “Your choice is made, my opinion on that choice is irrelevant.”

  Seg’s hand, which had clamped onto the digifilm, released its vice-like grip.

  “I ask only that you consider your actions from this point forward. Whatever Amadahy is to you, to the People she is caj. If you wish to keep her, you would do well to treat her as caj outside of the walls of your residence. Ensure she behaves accordingly in your absence.”

  “She’s not caj. I gave my word—”

  “What will your word mean when she offends a Person? When some good Citizen demands blood because she has the audacity to look them in the eye? When Fi Costk steps in to accommodate their wish?”