Out Past the Stars

by K. B. Wagers

  I almost asked her which death before I realized she meant the only one that had been broadcast throughout the human sectors of the galaxy. But apparently it had made it all the way out here as well.

  The rush of water filled my ears and I couldn’t stop the shudder.

  “I am sorry, Your Majesty, I probably shouldn’t have brought that up.”

  “No, it’s fine. Probably not a great example of my personality,” I said with a shrug. “I had two choices there—lose my shit, which was exactly what Wilson wanted, or stay composed and beat him at his own game.” I looked back at the falling snow, trying to ignore the echoing of running water in my head. “It wasn’t anything more than stubbornness, really.”

  Zin’s snort was loud in the stillness and I saw Dirah smile out of the corner of my eye. “I suspect your people would object to that characterization of yourself.”

  “Maybe,” I admitted. “That’s what being a leader really is, though, Captain. Doing what needs to be done, be it messy or unpleasant or difficult. I won’t lie and say my parents didn’t instill some of that in me from the beginning, but the bulk of it I learned from a gunrunner. You do the work. Apologize when you’re wrong. Fix your own fuckups. And if you have to go down, do it swinging.”

  “Captain Hao is far more than just a gunrunner.”

  “I know, but he likes to pretend otherwise so I play along.”

  Captain Zov chuckled and we fell back into an easy silence for several minutes before she spoke again. “I understand you have contacted Tsia Brov and asked them to come here. May I ask why?”

  “I have some questions about a puzzle we’re trying to unravel. You should be there. I suspect it is going to be enlightening.”

  “That’s all the context I’m going to get, isn’t it?” Dirah asked when I didn’t continue.

  I patted her arm in sympathy. “I’m being honest with you when I say I only have a suspicion, not any actual proof. If I’m right it’s better you hear it from your own people than from an outsider.”

  This time Dirah’s laugh was sharp. “Your Majesty, we are outsiders among our own people. We are Istrevitel—the forgotten ones.”

  “Still, it’s better to wait.” I frowned as the flicker that had been plaguing the edge of my vision returned. “Do you miss your family?”

  “My father left when we were children. My mother passed from the grief of my sister’s death. There was no one left. It was an easy choice for me to do this. Others were not so lucky.” She shook her head. “No, I do not regret my choices. Well, most of them anyway. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had taken my Traveling the way Dailun did.”

  “Is there still time for you to do it?”

  Dirah pursed her lips. “An interesting question. No?” She exhaled. “It is a missed opportunity. I am here now and here I will stay until my dreaming.”

  “I know one thing,” I said. “We wouldn’t have met this way, but maybe another. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that the universe is strange like that.”

  “True.” She laughed. “You know, the Farians said that to our people the first time they met also. They were so young then, not technologically advanced at all, so we thought it best to leave them alone. Though they had an ability even then to manipulate the energy of the universe in such fantastic ways. Perhaps we should have paid closer attention.” Dirah paused and then sighed. “It is past, though. Thank you, Your Majesty. I will leave you to your contemplation of the snow.”

  I nodded and let her go, dragging in a deep breath of cold air and blowing it out, watching it curl through the space in front of me.

  The flicker I saw out of the corner of my eye again was almost lost to the shifting snow. I froze, my heart kicking into my throat. Had that been a Hiervet? It was so hard to pick out the gray-skinned alien against the snow and when I turned fully toward it there was nothing there.

  “Majesty?” Zin stepped to my side. “What is it?”

  I squinted into the snow. Shook my head. Sighed. “Nothing. Sorry, I thought I saw—nothing.”

  “We should go inside.” Zin put his hand on my back, the other still on his Hessian 45, his gray-green eyes scanning the terrain in front of us.

  I let him lead me back into the building, but I threw one last look over my shoulder as we went through the door. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, or what I wanted to see, but there was nothing but falling snow.

  32

  We doing divide and conquer here?” Hao murmured to me as we watched the people moving through the room. Tsia Brov and their entourage had arrived a few moments ago. I’d spotted Timur and the way he melted into the opposite corner from us almost immediately. No one approached him; it was almost like they didn’t notice him at all.

  I stiffened at the movement in the corner of my vision before I realized it was just Iza. I relaxed, but it was too late.

  “You’re jumpy. What’s up?”

  I am seeing things again, gege.

  I couldn’t make the words leave my mouth and I knew Hao wouldn’t buy my nonchalant shrug, so I went for the next best thing—a lie wrapped in the truth. “There’s a lot riding on this. I don’t know how to explain it but my gut is telling me that whatever Timur knows, we need to know, too.”

  “That all your gut is telling you?”

  I should have known he wouldn’t let it go. “Later.”

  “Tell me now, Hail.”

  Oh, I hadn’t heard that tone of voice in what felt like a very long time. Hao and I had settled into our new roles so firmly that the sound of what I used to teasingly call his “captain voice” was enough to make it impossible for me to deny him.

  I straightened my spine and kept my eyes on the people in the room rather than looking at my brother. “I keep seeing something out of the corner of my eye. A shadow or a form. Just a flicker. If I look right at it, it’s gone.”

  “Thank you.” Hao nodded once. “Any voices?”

  “No.” I was surprised by the burst of relief that admission carried with it. “All quiet in my brain.” I sighed. “It’s only happened a few times. I am probably just jumpy.”

  “Maybe, not like you don’t have a reason for it. But let me know if things change.”

  “What are you? The new keeper of my mental health?”

  He snorted and shook his head. “Sort of. What I am is your brother and that covers a whole range of things, sha zhu. Up to and including making sure you’re okay.” He patted me on the arm. “We’ll talk about it later in a more private setting.”

  “Okay. To answer your earlier question it’s about two parts divide and conquer and three parts introduce as much chaos as possible so that Tsia Brov can’t intervene. If they will at all. All I know is I’m really not supposed to be talking with the Memory Keepers.” I gestured at Captain Zov and the other Istrevitel in the room. “I want them here because I want some firsthand witnesses to whatever it is Timur tells me.”

  “You think it’s going to be that kind of bomb?”

  “Yes. This has been building for a few days now.” I tapped my stomach and Hao whistled.

  “All right. Just give me the signal, then, and we’ll go.”

  “I was waiting for Dailun.” I spotted the pink-haired pilot as he slipped into the room and wove his way through the crowd to where Timur watched from the corner. “And there he is.”

  “Good luck.”

  I pushed away from the wall. It is far more challenging to blend into a crowd when you are taller than most of the people in the room, never mind when you are a somewhat notorious green-haired empress. But I’d learned how to blend in from Gy, a man who could walk on stage during an opera and steal the jewels off the neck of the soprano in the middle of their aria.

  Aiz and Mia were talking to Tsia Brov, expertly maneuvering the Svatir politician so their back was to the corner where Dailun spoke with Timur. I slipped through the crowd, exchanging smiles with Istrevitel and my own people as I passed.

  “Dailun,
” I said, and my little brother turned to smile at me. “Will you introduce me to your friend?”

  “Empress Hailimi Bristol, this is Memory Keeper Timur.”

  Now that I was close enough I realized his hair wasn’t black as I’d first assumed, but a very dark blue. “Memory Keeper. It’s a great pleasure.”

  “Your Majesty.” His eyes flicked to where Tsia Brov stood and then back at me. “You realize this is not entirely appropriate.”

  “You probably have heard enough about me to know that I don’t care about appropriate. I have a question for you, Timur, if you’ll indulge me. Would you like to tell me why it bothered you so for Captain Zov to speak of the Hiervet’s brutality?”

  He could not hide his automatic flinch. “I am not sure what you mean, Your Majesty.”

  “You don’t have much of a poker face.” I smiled slowly. “I, however, have played some deadly hands in my day. There is a lot riding on this. I’d advise you not to test me.”

  “Your Majesty, you are asking me a question I cannot answer. You are not Svatir. You don’t understand—”

  “Here’s what I understand,” I said, cutting him off. I don’t often use my height to intimidate people. It feels too much like a bully move and one that unnecessarily relies upon my size rather than the strength of my words and reputation to give weight to whatever it is that I want done. But this time I got right up in Timur’s face, even though the poor Svatir was a full sixteen centimeters shorter than me. “The safety of the galaxy is at stake and for whatever reason the gods decided I was its best hope. I was practically nose to nose with a Hiervet ship but they didn’t shoot at me. In fact, they wanted to talk to me. But before we could make that happen, Captain Zov blew them out of the sky, because she believes they are dangerous.”

  The grief in Timur’s dark eyes was a surprise, but I didn’t let up.

  “I keep hearing conflicting reports about the Hiervet and now I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I want you to tell me the truth because we need to know everything before we start a war.”

  Timur flinched again and swallowed. “The war with the Hiervet was complicated. Far more so than our people realize.”

  “Define complicated for me.”

  “Jiejie.” Dailun’s murmured warning arrived just before Tsia Brov’s voice.

  “Your Majesty.” That practiced politician smile was the same no matter who was wearing it. “We do not typically speak directly with Memory Keepers while they are working. What was it you called me here for?”

  I shot Dailun an apologetic look that he answered with a half smile and a roll of his eyes before I replied. “To be perfectly honest, Tsia, I wanted to speak with Timur. Not with you.”

  “With Timur? Your Majesty, it’s not something that I can—”

  “We’re here,” I said cheerfully, cutting their protest short. “May as well get it over with. Timur was just telling me that the war with the Hiervet was more complicated than people realize.”

  The conversation in the room fell away. I watched the emotions ripple across Tsia Brov’s face—confusion, frustration, and a healthy dose of annoyance. While Timur looked flat-out terrified.

  Interesting. I was now willing to put money down on Timur knowing something that Tsia Brov did not.

  “What is this?” Captain Zov asked.

  “This is a reckoning,” I said. “There are truths we all need to hear.”

  “This is inappropriate.” Tsia Brov tried once again to gain some control of the situation. “I must formally protest, Your Majesty. We cannot—”

  “Santi.” Timur raised a hand and the Tsia fell silent.

  I realized that the Memory Keepers had more power than I’d initially assumed.

  Timur shook his head. “This would be better to speak of in private, Your Majesty.”

  “Maybe,” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest. “But I’m awful sick of secrets and something tells me that the Istrevitel deserve to hear this even more than me.”

  “You cannot force me to tell you.” He looked around the room, but there wasn’t a single friendly face.

  “Oh, Timur, you’d be surprised at what I can do. But I’ll let you have your privacy, to a point. I’m bringing Captain Zov and my Ekam with me.”

  “I will come also,” Tsia Brov said, and the concerned expression that flashed across Timur’s face pushed me to nod my agreement.

  “Emmory?”

  “Room across the hall, Majesty.” My Ekam gestured, his face expressionless as he fell into step next to me. “Nicely done,” he subvocalized over our private com link.

  I allowed the tiniest smile to show. We’d known going into this that just asking Tsia Brov or Timur for a smaller meeting would have resulted in a definitive no. But people had a way of adjusting their expectations when faced with spilling secrets to a whole roomful of ears. Presented with the choice between the room and just a few of us, they were more than happy to pick the latter.

  The room across the hall was half the size of the one we’d just left, but with only the five of us it felt spacious. I boosted myself up onto the desk at the front of the room, Emmory falling into parade rest at my side.

  Captain Zov hesitated for a heartbeat before she surprised me and came to stand on my other side with her arms crossed. The gesture did not go unnoticed by Timur or Tsia Brov, though of the two, the Svatir governmental representative was the one who looked annoyed.

  “Your Majesty, I would like to know what it is you plan to do with the knowledge?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for that until I hear what you have to tell me.”

  He exhaled a long sigh and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning at him.

  Dirah was less amused. “Stop stalling, Memory Keeper, and tell us what is going on.”

  Santi opened their mouth to protest but Timur held up a hand. “It is a difficult story to tell, Captain Zov, not only for the content but because of the way it must be told.”

  “Get on with it, then,” she replied.

  “I will show you.” Timur gestured at the desk. “Your Majesty, if I may use that?”

  “Sure.” I hopped off the polished surface and slipped my hands into the pockets of my pants as Timur pressed his hands flat to the desktop. “That’s a neat trick,” I murmured as the image spread over the surface.

  We watched as the Hiervet landed on Svatir. I couldn’t see through their glamour on the recording, but I could tell it was them by the way they looked like the Svatir, only better. Ten Hiervet.

  Thyra’s squad. This time I recognized her immediately.

  “They landed and we welcomed them,” Timur said. “The Svatir had been at war with each other for so long that when the Hiervet came with promises of peace, we accepted with grateful hearts. They taught us a different way to live; a better way, they said. It was only later that we realized the cost of their lessons. We were nearly enslaved, would have been ground under their boot heels had the braver among us not risen up to fight.”

  “I’ve heard that story before,” I said. “Almost word for word, in fact.”

  Timur lowered his head. “This is true, Your Majesty. It is the memories of our people.”

  The scene on the desktop shifted to war and I watched Dirah’s hands flex on the edge of the picture.

  “There is nothing new here,” she snarled. “We have all seen this! We won the fight and then you all turned your backs on the very thing that had saved us.”

  “We turned our backs on violence and slaughter!” Tsia Brov protested. “I don’t expect such as you to understand, but—”

  “Enough. That is not what happened. We were not winning. We were losing.”

  The shocked noises that came from both Dirah and Santi as the images changed again were indescribable. Timur didn’t look at either of them as he continued talking.

  “The tech they gave us didn’t work on them; we could not fight against the monsters they created. We were dying. Had it not
been for the arrival of the other Hiervet, all would have been lost. But in a sense it was anyway. We were beyond madness, unable to think rationally, and we turned on these new Hiervet in our fury. Even though they had saved us.

  “The Hiervet retreated and vanished. We discovered the truth as we pieced together our stories. The Hiervet who’d saved us had come hunting their own—our visitors who had subjugated us. By the time we realized what we had done, it was too late. Our leaders knew it was the violence that had kept us from seeing the truth. It was the violence that had led us here in the first place.” Timur lifted his hands and the images faded away.

  “So you buried it?”

  “It was decided unanimously by our leaders to lay down our weapons, wipe the memory from our people, and start again.”

  “You lied to us.” Dirah’s eyes were wide with horror, and my heart broke at the tears that she wiped impatiently away. “We thought we were keeping our people safe, but we have given up everything for a lie? There is no reason for the Istrevitel to exist. The Hiervet are not a threat to the Svatir.” She turned to me and my heart broke a second time as I saw the realization hit her full force. “I killed them. Oh, erase me from memory, Your Majesty. I murdered—”

  “You were operating on shitty intelligence, Captain,” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder. “It doesn’t change what you did, but don’t take on that burden in addition to the one you carry.” I knew full well that if we met with the Hiervet, Captain Zov would have to answer for what she’d done, but I’d already decided to do what I could for her.

  The flicker in the corner of my vision appeared. This time I was able to keep my breathing even as I turned my head, but the shadow was gone.

  “How could you?” Tsia Brov’s breathless demand dragged my attention back to the desk. They were staring at Timur, their expression a mixture of outrage and despair. “We have sent millions to this place on a lie. Encouraged violence. Everything we claim to oppose we have seeded into the Istrevitel. For what?”