Warp World

by Kristene Perron

  Progress was slow but Shan’s constant complaining and cursing showed signs of ebbing, and Ama was beginning to understand the guts of the rider almost as well as she had known the parts of her boat.

  She spotted Shan climbing out from the belly of the rider and hurried into a ready position.

  “Okay, next ques—” Shan jumped and let out a cry of surprise as she spun and found herself inches from Ama. “Damn it, stop doing that! I don’t need you at my elbow all the time. Remember what we talked about? Lay off the caj stuff when we’re alone here.”

  Ama resisted the urge to drop into the retyel and backed away to give Shan some space.

  “Better.” Shan pulled the rag from Ama’s hand and wiped her own. “As I was asking, what are the three flight dynamic parameters?”

  “Roll, pitch, and yaw,” Ama said.

  “Torque gauge?”

  Ama found the tool and slapped it into her hand. Shan crawled back into the rider.

  “Did you always want to be a pilot?” Ama asked as she returned to arranging wire trusses.

  “Always.” Shan’s voice echoed from inside the rider, accompanied by the clanks of the tool against the hull.

  “And your family didn’t try to stop you?”

  “Because?”

  “Because you’re a woman.”

  “You say some dumb things but that might be the dumbest. How many times do I have to tell you? Our World’s not like your world.”

  “So there’s nothing you can’t be or do on this world, even though you’re a woman?” Ama said.

  “Why would there be?” Shan tossed out a thick hose with a frayed end. “Fix that up and tell me the name of the object detection system.”

  Ama snatched a fresh blade from the jumble of tools on their work table, fitted the blade over the line cutter, and began to saw through the damaged end of the hose. She opened her mouth to reply to Shan’s question just as the stiff material gave way with a snap.

  She was back in the training room. Flurianne’s blood coated her hands. She dropped the knife, waiting for Gressam, waiting for the pain from her collar. Sweat ran down her back.

  “Hello out there, I asked you the name of the object detection system?”

  Shan appeared from the interior of the craft, once more, hair jutting like the chop on water on a windy day, grease streaked across her face. Ama wiped her hands on her overalls and passed her the severed part without looking at it.

  There had only been a few of these incidents since she and Shan had started their work, but they were difficult to hide in such close quarters.

  “D-Scan,” Ama answered.

  “Gonna have to do better than that. Middle of a firefight, you have to know the answers before you even get the questions,” Shan said. “How’re the trusses coming?”

  Ama held one up for inspection.

  Shan let out long whistle. “Not bad for a water-worshipping savage. I might make a proper skyrider out of you yet.”

  A chime from Shan’s comm stopped her as she prepared to climb back into the rider. A string of curses accompanied a frantic search among the piles of parts and tools.

  “Here.” Ama pulled the comm out from under a spare hydraulic line and tossed it to Shan.

  “New parts are here. ’Bout time.” She smiled and threw the comm back to Ama. “You go get ’em, I’ll keep working. Service caj is waiting out front. You’ll just have to show the comm and give a thumb impression. Easy.”

  Ama nodded and turned on her heel.

  “Straight there and straight back. No wandering off, I mean it. And stick on the blue line. Too easy to get hurt in here.” Shan called after her.

  Ama headed off to receive the parts from the caj waiting at the hangar doors. Dutifully following the blue stripe on the ground that marked her path, she stretched her arms over her head then rolled her shoulders as she walked—movement felt good after being hunched in one position for so long.

  “KARG!” A loud curse echoed through the hangar.

  Ama turned to see a chunk of machinery swing free from a mechanic’s grasp. The heavy weight rotated along its axis. He looked around the hangar, his eyes falling on her.

  “You! Caj! Come over here and hold this so I can bolt it in.”

  Ama stopped mid-stride. Her muscles locked, her breathing slowed, and combatting emotions flooded in. Shan had been specific—get the parts and return, no sidetracking. But her training, the processing, Gressam’s words and punishments demanded she obey. Unable either to respond or keep moving, she froze in place.

  “Get over here!” He rubbed his knuckles. “Now, or it’s the pain for you!”

  Ama’s breathing slowed further at the mention of pain. Her chest tightened and sweat rose on her palms. Even so, she couldn’t move.

  He released the part, strode over to her, and thrust out his hand. “Controller. Now.”

  Ama’s mouth opened and closed but only air escaped. It was getting harder to breathe, she felt dizzy. The man in front of her had gone out of focus, an angry blur. All she saw was a hand torch on the blur’s hip. A tool. A weapon.

  “Please don’t—”

  He raised his hand toward her. Ama’s eyes narrowed to shaved points, focused on the torch.

  “HOLD!” Shan barreled toward the mechanic, brandishing a line cutter. “Don’t you put one kargin’ finger on her or I’ll lay you out.”

  The mechanic turned and glowered. “I needed a lift for my work. It was just walking by.”

  “She was getting my parts and she’s the property of a karging Theorist, you moron.” Shan waved the line cutter for punctuation. “You touch her and first I’ll put you down, then I’ll have you grafted, hear me?”

  The mechanic backed away. “It didn’t respond to orders.”

  “She— It had orders, not yours!” Shan said, half-shouting. “Caj, go get the parts I sent you for. Move it!”

  The order snapped Ama out of the daze. She lowered her eyes and jogged away, the sour smell of her own fear thick in her nose.

  Her hands shook as she pressed her thumb to the digipad offered by the service caj with the goods. Once the transfer was complete she grasped the handle of the tow-cart, hands slippery with sweat, and tugged the crate back toward the rider.

  She didn’t look up as she passed Shan, who was still chewing out the mechanic. She didn’t raise her eyes once, until she arrived at the rider. She focused on her work—unloading the crate—though her hands continued to shake.

  In the pocket of her flight suit, she felt the weight of the collar’s controller she was required to carry. The urge to pull it out and smash it was almost overwhelming.

  “He won’t do that again,” Shan said, finished with the mechanic and back to sorting out the parts. “Word’ll get around that you’re for the Theorist, and they’ll stay clear. If he wanted to, it’s a good chance that the boss could get him grafted just for trying to hijack you.”

  Ama moved mechanically, lifting and organizing the equipment. Shan was talking to her from a thousand miles away; her heart beat painfully inside her chest. She swore she could smell Gressam hovering nearby—the sharp, chemical odor of his shoes, the sound of Flurianne’s screams.

  Mid-turn, the box she was lifting slipped from her grip. She dropped to her knees, clutching her stomach as if she might be sick. “What am I going to do?”

  “Ah, crap. Look, I shouldn’t have sent you out there. Take a break,” Shan said. “Get something to eat or get a nap if you need one. Storm knows, we’re both tired. Don’t let that idiot get to you.”

  Ama shook her head. When she raised her face to Shan’s, the tears she thought she’d finished with were flowing again. Fear and anger battled for control.

  “Nen’s blood!” She slapped her palms on the ground. “He’s co
ming to get me in three days. Fismar told me. Seg says I have to—” She took a moment to catch her breath. She had worked so hard to keep herself together but now she was unraveling. “I have to go to the Haffset victory party. I have to be his caj. It’s going to be full of your People. Shan, what if that happens to me there? I can’t go back to that place. What if—” She threw a hand over her mouth, as if just speaking the possibilities would make them real.

  “Hey, you’re properly marked now.” She gestured to the collar around Ama’s neck. “Kinda off from normal, but you’re under a control and he won’t let anyone else have the controller. Just do what you were trained to do in processing and let Eraranat handle it, okay?”

  Ama stared at Shan, the closest thing she had to a friend on this world. The gulf between them stretched out to infinity. How could she know? How could any of them know? Ama wiped her eyes, sat up, then rocked back onto her haunches. Alone. She was alone.

  “You know how you think there’s some things you would never do? No matter what?” Ama asked, her voice flat as she stared through the floor.

  Shan nodded and put the rag aside. “Yeah.”

  Ama shook her head. “You do them. In processing, you do all those things and then you thank the processor. They kill you in there. They kill you and leave just a body.”

  Shan looked around the hangar.

  “Karg it.” She crouched down and placed her hands on Ama’s knees. “I know it was bad in there. I’m sorry for what they did to you.”

  “Not just me.” Ama raised her face and let her eyes roam to the other caj scattered throughout the hangar.

  Shan was quiet for a long moment.

  “Ama, you got to understand, we have to do it like that. I mean, you? You’re okay. Came through of your own free will and all, right? Sending you to that place was a mistake. But you should see the karging animals that come through. I mean, if we let them run loose they’d tear up everything. This is how it’s got to be, y’know? One World, one People, and we got to survive.”

  Do you? Ama wondered.

  “Hey, another few days and you’ll be up there, where no one can touch you.” Shan pointed skyward. She rose to her feet, and offered Ama a hand up, despite the fact that all the eyes in the hangar were now on them. “Copie?”

  Ama looked at Shan’s hand for a second, then placed hers in it, and let the woman help her stand. In this world, she would have to take friendship for what it was and where she could find it.

  What she didn’t tell Shan, what she could barely admit to herself, was that she had been seconds away from losing control of herself with the mechanic. What if Shan had not intervened?

  I would have killed him. I might have killed her, too.

  Even now, the feeling had not passed completely. Every Person was an enemy. Survival? Shan had no idea.

  Jarin rushed through the doors to his office with a round of hasty apologies to his fellow bloc members for his tardiness.

  “You are not the only latecomer.” Ansin nodded to Shyl’s empty seat. “She also did not extend the courtesy of sending a comm.”

  Jarin repressed the urge to roll his eyes at Ansin’s impatience. The man had many gifts; tolerance was not among them. “I am certain she—”

  “My apologies, everyone.” Shyl burst into the room, hair and uniform even more askew than usual. “There was something of a riot near my home.”

  “More displacement troubles?” Maryel asked.

  “The Wardens had to be called this time. The Building Authority expected my previous neighbors to gracefully accept that their dwellings had been bid up, and they were to move to the undercity prior to the arrival of the newcomers. They disagreed rather vehemently. I felt compelled to step in.”

  “Displacements are a fact of life; we have larger concerns to deal with,” Ansin said. “Not to mention, if you would take advantage of Guild housing you would not have to deal with such unpleasantness.”

  “I see Theorists all day at work,” Shyl said. “Why would I want to spend my evenings around them as well?”

  Jarin waved an impatient hand. “Shyl’s choice of residence is her business—let us move on to ours.”

  “Yes, let’s,” Ansin said. “Beginning with your protégé. It seems that dramatic events will follow your former pupil throughout his life.”

  “So it seems,” Jarin agreed. “Nevertheless, matters have been handled, he has been steered onto the proper course with the Question, and we have a grip on events.”

  Ansin shook his head and leaned past Shyl to look Jarin in the eye. “Let’s not leave matters behind so quickly. This business with the caj, why did it occur in the first place?”

  Jarin’s expression darkened. “She was ill-informed as to the protocols required of her on the World and in Cathind.”

  “Because she had not been processed. Nor has the other one. Both remain ungrafted. And he is still training an armed body of Outers in Old Town. Very curious, such actions from the son of a man whose entire career revolves around keeping caj properly industrious and non-rebellious. Did some element of corruption enter Eraranat’s training?”

  Jarin’s face paled and his ears rang with the buzz of tension. “Ansin Sael,” he said, softly, “you will retract that statement.”

  He felt Maryel and Shyl tense on either side of him, but his vision had narrowed down to a black tunnel focused on the man he faced.

  “This is counter-productive,” Maryel said.

  “He will retract the statement.” Jarin forced the words out from a tightened throat.

  Ansin looked back at him, unflinching. At length, he nodded. “I retract the comment, Theorist Svestil.”

  Jarin’s muscles loosened slightly, but he waited for Ansin to look away before he allowed himself to relax. Maryel wore a look of disdain, while Shyl was obviously disturbed.

  Maryel tapped her digifilm. “Returning to pertinent matters, Eraranat has indeed shown vast improvement in taking the protocol of the Question seriously, and while he is of course lying to us about the events of his time extrans and evading the truth, he is at least covering it well enough to pass muster.”

  “So, we pride ourselves in teaching young Theorists how to better deceive us now?” Ansin asked.

  “Deception has always been central to our craft. Don’t romanticize the past, Ansin,” Shyl said. “Lying to the Council is a time-honored tradition going back to the founding of the Guild.”

  Ansin’s face soured. “The rest of you may find shadowy affairs and deceptive politics acceptable, but if we readily sacrifice our integrity, what will we have left to defend?”

  “Please do not presume to lecture me on the value of integrity,” Maryel said. “I find it as distasteful as you, but if we are to effect a transition to new values that will allow the People to survive, deception is the tool we must use. If we follow your path, we will die comfortably in our virtue and carry our entire species into death with us.”

  “For some, deception is the virtue.” Ansin’s gaze returned to Jarin.

  “Thank you.” Jarin sat up once more. “Now, onto matters of greater import than philosophy. Yes, Segkel has learned his lessons and in the way that he typically must be forced to learn them: via harsh experience. There is a matter of concern approaching, however.”

  “The Haffset Victory Commemoration,” Shyl said.

  “Indeed,” Jarin said.

  “When will we be able to rely upon this young man to appear in public without having to fear some sort of World-wide disruption?” she asked. The quartet looked at each other, then Shyl snickered. Ansin followed with his own small laugh, and even Jarin smiled. Maryel remained stern and unamused.

  “It’s a party,” Ansin said, after a lengthy pause. “I would hope that he can avoid engaging in any large-scale theatrics.”

 
“I will also attend,” Jarin said. “To advise and guide him.”

  “I wish I could find relief in that,” Maryel said.

  Ama was determined not to cry out, no matter how ruthlessly Lissil tugged the brush through her hair, ripping through knots with no consideration for the scalp below.

  She hadn’t been back in Seg’s quarters since the night she had run away and she hated it even more now than she had before. Not least because of Lissil, who seemed so at home.

  The Welf had already been dressed and groomed when Ama arrived—an extravagant costume that used some kind of invisible electronic device to make it look as if she was a walking forest. Green and gold leaves, dappled with fake sunlight, spread across the surface of the gown. The leaves and shadows moved as Lissil did. Highlighting the effect was the face paint, which made her look like some woodland nymph peeking through the trees. This was all topped off by her hair, with swirls upon swirls intertwined with gold leaves. It was nothing Ama would even consider wearing, but the creation was mesmerizing.

  In contrast, Ama had been draped with a plain blue dress and simple shoes. “Just what you asked for,” Lissil had said. She had been waiting with the dress and armed with an array of primping and painting tools when Manatu brought Ama inside.

  Manatu. Manatu had come to the hangar to collect her. Not Seg.

  Now they were in the middle of the common room, in front of the wallscreen, which had been set to reflective. Ama sat on one of the chairs as Lissil flitted around her. She had insisted on face paint, “just to highlight.” And while the finished product was considerably less elaborate than Lissil’s, Ama felt more than ever like a piece of property to be molded and shaped and decorated. Not that she had a choice; instructions had been specific: Lissil was in charge of organizing this evening; Ama was to obey without question.