Warp World

by Kristene Perron

  She heard voices. Fismar’s, then Seg’s, echoing through the warehouse. There was a loud gasp, followed by Kenda voices talking over one another. A quick scan confirmed Shan was gone.

  Leave it alone. Try to sleep, she told herself, but by then she was already padding silently, on bare feet, toward to the voices. Ducking behind stacks of crates or pillars, she made her way forward, out of sight, until she spied the men. Seg and Fismar faced the Kenda troops; a large hologram flickered between them.

  “One hundred and fourteen years ago, House Etiphar abandoned contracted raider troops during an extrans on raid Yivvis 014,” Seg told the crowd. The display showed troops in raider gear performing a fighting withdrawal under air attack while trying to reach a warp gate that closed moments before they could pass through. The scene shifted, as Seg continued; now it showed a walled fortress surrounded by sand, buildings made of stone. “What you see is House Etiphar’s compound. A luxury of space on this World.”

  To the Kenda, the fortress would be unimpressive—not much larger or more well-appointed than a Damiar prison camp—but Ama understood that this complex represented enormous wealth to Seg’s people.

  “Under prolonged questioning, Etiphar’s House Financiary admitted that abandoning raiders in the field was done not due to operational pressures, but rather to recover cost on a raid. House Etiphar was declared Black House by convocation of the Greater Houses.”

  The image shifted—parts of the fortress wall were now missing, smoke rose from destroyed buildings, craters pitted the roads. Ama snuck closer, captivated by the scene.

  “Multiple units under the Mercenary Raider and Review Commission moved, either under contract or of their own volition, to destroy House Etiphar.”

  Now the complex disappeared, replaced by moving images that elicited more murmurs of awe from the men. A rider streaked across the sky, the tail end exploded moments before it tumbled gracelessly downward. Armed troops jogged beside a giant, floating metal box. Another rider passed over a collection of buildings, fire spewing from its cannons, shattering the targets below.

  Seg’s words didn’t mean much to Ama, and she suspected they would mean even less to the others but the battle scenes held their attention.

  “Retreating and in disarray, House Etiphar forces moved to secure an old bastion of the wastelands: Julewa Keep,” he continued.

  Footage of the Keep appeared on the aerial display. The structure was built into the side of a mountain, protected from ground attack by a long, curved stone face that offered no means of entry. A prominent landing pad was built into the upper works—obviously the only main entrance and exit. Weapons studded the top side of the Keep and surrounding peaks, perhaps the source of the missile that had been fired at Shan’s rider on the night of their reconnaissance.

  “A heavily fortified position, built to resist both aerial and ground-based strikes. As best determined later, Julewa had been occupied by wasteland flotsam, bandits, and escaped—” he paused, glanced up, and Ama realized he had spotted her.

  He turned back to the display. “And escaped caj.”

  Several Kenda whistled at the sight of the stone fortress. A few muttered between themselves. Julewa was not as pretty as a Shasir Sky Temple but looked every bit as impenetrable.

  “Once there, House Etiphar established themselves and repelled an independent raider force that attempted to complete their punishment. They’ve languished in the Keep ever since. Cowards and traitors to their own People.”

  Those words were as vile as any curse among the Kenda.

  “The People build their systems to last, and Julewa housed independent production facilities of a type that aren’t built anymore in our current state of materials scarcity. It is an insult to the World that this site remains in the hands of traitors and murderers, that this Black House has escaped punishment for its crimes. An insult that cowards live in luxury while you men, warriors all, should be crammed into this small space and never know the freedom of open air.”

  The men shouted their agreement. Seg waited for the noise to die down.

  “We are going to seize Julewa Keep, take it for our own, and make it our home. It won’t be easy, but Lieutenant Korth has the plan, and now you have the weapons. You are the weapons.”

  Fismar gestured at the schematics of the Keep that flashed on the display, as gathered by Shan and Ama’s more recent recon. “I know you’re all looking at that wall and thinking there’s no way we’re getting through that. We don’t go through walls here. We go over them, and Julewa’s air defense system isn’t anywhere near what it was. Once we’re down and past the wall, it’s going to be close and nasty and we’re going to go through them hard.”

  Fismar looked at the Kenda, a long steady gaze. “Just like you’ve been trained to do. We’ve got tricks coming in that they haven’t even dreamed of. When we’re done with them, they’ll be blind and in the dark. That’s when we’ll take them.”

  The men barked shouts of agreement.

  Ama looked to Shan, who had not joined in the shouting. The Keep looked different in the light, but it was a sight she would never forget.

  Fismar looked back at Seg. “Theorist, your troops are ready for some action.”

  “Yes, soon enough,” he said. “Excuse me, all of you.”

  The men moved aside to let him pass. Ama saw that he was walking directly to where she stood and, without thinking, dropped into the retyl.

  “No, don’t.” He rushed to where she waited. “Stand up.”

  Ama did as ordered. Over his shoulder, she could see some of the Kenda watching, making her painfully aware of the pose that had become second nature in processing.

  “Please, I just want to talk.” Seg urged her back toward her bunk. The babble of voices picked up again and the men gathered to study the projected images.

  When they were out of earshot of the others, Seg turned back toward Ama. “I’m glad you saw that. I wanted you to see it. Once we take Julewa, I’ll have my own land. My word there will be law. No one will ever be able to do what was done to you. You’ll be free.”

  The corners of her mouth flicked up for a moment but quickly fell. They stood close enough for him to reach out and touch her. He wanted to do that, to break through the invisible wall, but something in her eyes warned him off. Her arguments and stubbornness had always frustrated him; now, looking at that dead, docile expression, he wanted nothing more than that.

  Yell at me, hit me, anything but this.

  “Talk to me.”

  “Seg …” He could see her struggle to break with training. “Do your people know what they do in that place? In processing?”

  “My father is an overseer at a Recycler,” he said. “When I was a child, I went to work with him occasionally. He sat in a room above the work floor. Recyclers are the largest facilities we have, scale-wise, beyond the huchack ponds. Raw materials are broken down and reprocessed. Harsh work. The life expectancy of caj in a recycler facility is less than five years. I watched men and women kill each other on the Recycler floor—fighting for choice positions among the machines, territorial squabbles and tribal feuds, a greater share of food rations. All grafted, of course. My father would only intervene if productivity was threatened. Past that, he felt it was an evolutionary process. Much as he felt that our dominance over those from other worlds was an evolutionary process. We won because of our innate superiority, as reflected in our freedom from superstition and our adherence to the 47 Virtues of a Citizen, as inculcated in the People from the time we begin to walk and speak.”

  He looked down at his hand. This was worse than the Question; he could not lie to Ama.

  “By and large, yes, they know. We know. Perhaps not all the intricacies and details, but we have no illusions. The Storm tries to kill us daily, and the People take caj as living fuel to win that war.”
>
  Ama covered her mouth with her hand. When she took her hand away, the corners of her mouth twitched downward. Seconds passed before she could speak.

  “They aren’t fuel. They’re people.”

  “Ama, understand, when your exposure is confined to grafted subjects and the view from on high, it’s easy to ignore that. Easy to stop seeing caj as people. Whatever you are raised in seems normal. My time on your world changed things. I’m—” He raised his hands, palms upward in a gesture of confusion. “I’m determining where I relate to my People now.”

  He stepped back from her.

  “I understand you don’t trust me. I accept that. We will take Julewa and when we are there, the collar will be removed and destroyed and you will be free to live your life as you choose. I suppose that’s all there is to say.”

  “I suppose,” Ama said. “Can I go now?” At his nod, she turned and headed back to her small sanctuary.

  After she was gone, Seg stared into the darkness which had claimed her. No more failures. He was going to make a new world for her, for all of them.

  He watched that dark corner for a minute longer, then turned, snatched up the book he had brought as a gift, as an apology—a drop of water to green a desert. He hurled the book against the wall and then drove his fist into a crate. He felt something crunch in his hand, and pain flared up his arm.

  It was a good, focusing pain.

  Seg leaned against the door to his residence after it closed behind him. Fiery darts of pain traveled from his hand up his shoulder to his upper back. He kept the hand elevated as he tried to put the whirlwind of the day behind him.

  First he needed to get the auto-med hooked up, then he needed to sleep. Manatu could have done medical duty, but Seg had left him at the warehouse to help Fismar with marksmanship training.

  “Theorist?” Lissil sat up on her mat in the common room and rubbed her eyes. “I waited up as long as I could.”

  “It’s no matter. I’m just going to bed.” He turned slightly, to shield his hand from her. “Go back to sleep.”

  It was no use. She hurried to his side and gave him a stern look. “You’re injured. Come on, let me get the auto-med on it.”

  “You know how to use an auto-med?”

  “I know all basic home emergency medical procedures.” She led him into the sleeping quarters, pulled down the bed, and motioned for him to sit. “The edu-vids cover everything I need to know for proper service.”

  He sat and offered his hand for treatment. “You’re making productive use of your time. Is there anything else you need? Anything you would like to learn more about?”

  Lissil let out a warm laugh. “I haven’t even made it through a quarter of the training vids, and there’s hardly room here as it is. I require nothing, Theorist, but I thank you. Now hold still.”

  “First and second metacarpal fracture. Carpal fracture.” The auto-med system announced the diagnosis in an androgynous monotone, accompanied by a visual display of the injury, followed by suggested treatments.

  “Broken fingers?” Lissil clucked her tongue in dismay and dug into the med drawer for tape. “Where’s Manatu? He’s supposed to protect you from this sort of thing.”

  “He has other duties tonight. And it was an accident.”

  Lissil peeled off a length of tape, knelt down in front of Seg and took his hand in hers. “An accident.” She wrapped the broken fingers to the finger beside them, then looked up, as if to say whatever he thought he was hiding from her was a poor ruse. “You’re worried about her.”

  “Processing is thorough, intensive. Processors actively destroy the identities of their subjects and remake them into compliant caj.”

  With the tape in place, Lissil slid one hand under Seg’s and examined the swelling. “It looks worse than it is.” Then she placed her other hand on top, very carefully. “You studied my people, didn’t you? The Welf?”

  “As best I could during the recon. Your people were, well, the primary targets.”

  “We are used to hardship, yes. My people have a saying, Rich soil grows crops, rocky soil grows farmers. Do you understand?”

  “The People inculcate similar thoughts in the Virtues of a Citizen.”

  “Only adversity truly tests, the Twenty-fifth Virtue.” She smiled at his surprise and motioned for him to lift his foot so she could remove his boot. “I know you can do this for yourself, but not when your hand is injured.”

  When he acceded, she continued.

  “When I was a child, I worked in the dye lots. Ten hours a day dunking fabric in vats of liquid dye. It stunk. So did I. The fumes burned my eyes and made my throat raw, my skin was always tainted. My father took the pittance I was paid and spent it on drink and gambling. I often went hungry. At the age of eleven, he sold me to a Pleasure House to pay off his debts. I worked as a servant, but I was lucky, the House Mistress liked me. She trained me. I had my first man on the eve of my thirteenth birthday.”

  He nodded, unsure what to say. Among the People, children were not considered able to give consent at that age, but then, consent for the People was only an issue among People.

  “I survived. As Ama will survive. Perhaps even grow stronger from this. Your world is rocky soil, Seg. Those who live here must adapt. Ama has known a life very different from this; her suffering was, in some ways, inevitable. You should not carry that burden. And whatever you feel for her, you are still a man. A man who deserves comfort.” She rose up on her knees so that her face was level with his. “The men who came to me, many had wives, families, who they loved and cared for. They came to me to ease their troubles. For this, I was trained. It means nothing, it is no betrayal to take bodily ease for a night with one who is provided for that purpose.”

  She released his hand, and moved hers onto his thighs.

  “She’s hurt; it will be a long time before she comes back to herself, before she comes back to you. She needs to heal. But you also suffer. Let me ease your worries, for this night. One night. I am yours. Let me give myself to you, as I am meant to do.”

  For the first time, and to his dismay, Seg was tempted. He had always been happiest on his own; he hadn’t realized how soothing it was to share his bed with another until Ama. Without her, he felt the ache of loneliness as painfully as he now felt his broken bones. And Lissil was more right than she knew—even if Ama healed, she was never coming back to him.

  “That would not be appropriate. It would be best if we both got some sleep,” he said.

  Lissil closed her eyes and smiled, then raised a hand to his face and brushed his lips with her thumb. “As you wish.” She leaned over to examine the auto-med one last time, her flesh grazing his before she stood and backed away.

  At the door, she paused, curves silhouetted. “I know I am just a Welf, just caj, but I understand you, Segkel Eraranat. And I will always be here, if you need me.”

  “Thank you.”

  Her scent lingered in the room after the door cycled closed and he flopped back onto the bed. He fumbled to collect the auto-med with his good hand and cycled through the screens to find a sleep dose.

  The cuff on his arm pulsed as it injected cold serum. He barely had time to get himself under the cover before sleep overtook him.

  Ama zipped up the worn flight suit. It was coming apart in places, and a bit too small, but it was better than the piece of fabric she had been poured into before leaving processing. She had come to think of that uniform as her caj skin.

  Looking up, Ama could see anemic beams of light filtering into the warehouse, stained copper by the shield outside. This was the first morning she could claim a drop of normal about her. For two days, sequestered in her and Shan’s bunk room, she had passed in and out of restless sleep—plagued by nightmares, waking at every loud noise. Shan had offered drugs to help but she wanted to beat this o
n her own. On this, the third day, she had managed almost four hours without waking. The nightmares had not subsided but at least some of the murkiness was lifting.

  There had been no sign or word of Seg and Ama was unsure how she felt about that. Relieved? Angry? But then, she was unsure how she felt about anything now.

  Shan was off working, and the Kenda were busy training; Ama supposed she would try to appreciate a moment of solitude and peace.

  Or so she thought, until she spotted the dark figure skulking across the floor toward her. She snatched Shan’s knife from her bunk and stuffed it under her blanket. As Elarn drew near, she backed up a few paces and felt her heart beat out a frantic staccato rhythm.

  An older version of herself would have grabbed the knife, shouted at him to halt, demanded to know his business. This Ama could barely summon the strength to meet Elarn’s eyes, and even the thought of touching that concealed weapon made her queasy.

  “Fismar sent me over here to give you a physical. Make sure you’re in shape.” He set his bag on Shan’s bunk. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “I feel fine.” Her free hand moved to her collar, then dropped as if she had been amped, though she now held the solitary controller.

  “That’s not how it works. You want to be part of a …” He paused, as if gathering strength. “If you want to be part of a raider unit, you have to follow orders. Orders were for a medical checkup. If you want to opt out of that, take it up with your boss.”

  Ama watched him start to repack.

  “Okay.” She bit her lip, felt sweat rise on her palms. “But—but if you …” One knee bobbed up and down, beyond her control.

  “Like I said, I’m not going to hurt you. This is a check-up. I wasn’t professional before. That won’t happen again.”

  Ama nodded, though her fingertips rested near the hilt of the hidden knife. “What do you need me to do?”

  “It’s basic, I’ll give you a general look-over and a scan pass from my medsystem. It’s more in-depth than the auto-med, but equally harmless. And—”