Revenant Gun

by Yoon Ha Lee

  Brezan stared at him.

  “I’m being entirely sincere,” Mikodez said. “The presence of atrocity doesn’t mean you have to put your life on hold. You’ll arguably be better at dealing with the horrible things you have to witness, or even to perpetrate, if you allow yourself time to do the small, simple things that make you happy. Instead of looking for ways to destroy yourself.”

  “Maybe that works if the only thing you have for a heart is a hard ice shell,” Brezan retorted.

  Mikodez took no offense, as Brezan had known would be the case. “And yet I’ve been here doing this job for decades,” he said mildly, “and I haven’t shot myself in despair at the impossibility of the task. Are you going to give up now, or will you find some way to persevere?”

  “I’ll keep going,” Brezan said. “I have to. If it means becoming more like you, then so be it.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  IT HADN’T TAKEN long for Dhanneth to pack Jedao’s belongings. Jedao refrained from doing it himself, on the grounds that it would offend Dhanneth’s sense of propriety. At least there was little to pack since the beautiful furnishings weren’t, to his relief, coming with him.

  Who am I kidding? Jedao thought, eyeing the duffel bag. He owned a modest allotment of clothing, nothing more. At some point there had even materialized a small selection of civilian clothes. He’d checked the grid and learned that they conformed to current fashion in polite society, always reassuring.

  A group of six servitors arrived and whistled at Jedao. He ignored them despite feeling rude about it because he’d learned that everyone else did so.

  Still, Dhanneth must have read his discomfort. “Sir,” he said, “they’re just station servitors. They’re here to transfer your belongings.”

  The servitor in the lead made an affirmative buzzing. The rest of them worked efficiently to transfer the duffel bag. The task didn’t require that many of them, but maybe the servitors doubled as defense. One more thing he should ask the grid about when he got a chance.

  Kujen showed up shortly afterward. Four Kel and two Nirai accompanied him. The Kel, regular soldiers, were resplendent in full formal, gold braid and epaulets gleaming: two men and two women, matched in height, with similar sculpted faces. The kind of irrelevant detail Kujen would select for.

  The two Nirai, on the other hand, didn’t resemble each other, and their clothes didn’t match, either. The taller one had rolled-up sleeves, as though they’d been diving into the guts of some unlucky machine. Kujen would have picked them for ability, not looks.

  “Hexarch,” Jedao said, and nodded at the Kel. “Your names?” The Kel recited them.

  Kujen tolerated this. “I’m glad everyone’s ready,” he said. “Let’s go. I will miss the opportunity to eat decent food in public without incurring disapproving stares from everyone, but it can’t be helped.”

  Dhanneth had briefed Jedao on what to do. Jedao fell in behind the two Nirai, wondering peripherally what would become of the extravagant suite he’d vacated.

  “For love of stars above,” Kujen said, stopping dead in his tracks, “what are you doing all the way back there?” His gaze swept to Dhanneth. “I might have guessed.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jedao said, “was there some other way you wanted to do this?”

  “Kel Command can’t censure you over protocol,” Kujen said, “and I can’t talk to you if you’re hanging back there.”

  I should be grateful, Jedao thought. Why aren’t I grateful?

  This time variable layout came as less of a shock, especially since he’d had a chance to speculate about all the ways you could use it to set traps. (The grid had been disarmingly uninformative about the topic.) His othersense continued to operate, but Jedao had learned how to shove it into the background so it became less of a distraction.

  They arrived at their destination quickly enough, the bay where their shuttle awaited them. Jedao forced himself not to slow down, despite his distrust of the unfamiliar space and its vastness. If Kujen had inadequate security, they were doomed anyway.

  Jedao admired the shuttle’s sleek form. It was black, painted over with silver filigree in abstract swirling patterns. More importantly, he noted the apertures for its defensive armaments, worked cunningly into the patterns like blossoms.

  An announcement blared over hidden speakers. Kujen led them straight onto the shuttle, whose ramp was already lowered. Inside, there were one-way windows everywhere, shaped like moths’ wings and engraved at the edges with yet more swirling patterns. Jedao was increasingly of the opinion that the Andan should have hired Kujen for his love of beauty and kept him happy with a few engineering projects on the side.

  Kujen arranged himself gracefully in the middle seat on one side. Webbing emerged to secure him. Jedao startled, then remembered that Dhanneth wouldn’t sit until he did, and the shuttle wouldn’t set off until everyone was webbed. He took the seat across from Kujen’s and tried not to show discomfort at the restraints.

  Behind Kujen’s head, the stars moved. Jedao said in astonishment, “I can’t feel the acceleration.” The station’s bulk, with its bewilderment of lights and angles and protrusions, dwindled behind them.

  “Physics is for the weak,” Kujen said.

  The corner of Dhanneth’s mouth twitched.

  Jedao didn’t feel the shuttle docking, either, although he enjoyed the view of the Revenant as they approached. He strained to discern the black-and-silver shape against the scatter of stars. Then he couldn’t stop the quickening of his pulse at its feral beauty.

  Curious, he reached with his othersense, wondering what the Revenant would look like. He received a bewildering impression of a great mass containing many smaller, moving masses, an architectural maze of mazes. Still beautiful, but vastly more complex than it appeared from the outside.

  He’s trained you well, but thank you.

  Jedao froze. The voice had spoken in his head, sardonic, in a timbre like tarnished bells. Who are you?

  Who do you think? It sounded impatient this time.

  The moth?

  Yes.

  Wait a second. Moths talk? he demanded. He’d known vaguely that they had biological components. But he’d never followed through with that thought to the idea that moths might be sentient.

  And if that was true, did he have any right to be on the moth, giving it orders through its crew?

  Pay attention to the hexarch, the Revenant said. We’ll speak later.

  I’m going mad already, Jedao thought, chilled. One more thing to conceal.

  In the meantime, they’d finished docking. Kujen was watching him, his eyes musing. “I remember the first time I saw a voidmoth properly harnessed,” he said. “So much experimentation, just to get to that point. Some deaths, too. But it worked.”

  “‘Harnessed’?” Jedao said.

  “Remind me to show you around Engineering sometime,” Kujen said. “You can get a glimpse of the control interface for the harnessing system.”

  He understood what Kujen referred to in fragments. Like the station, the voidmoth’s essential heart consisted of living tissue to which manufactured components had been affixed. He’d never before considered that the voidmoth’s living core might need... persuasion to fly. Or how the voidmoth itself might feel about that.

  Asking Kujen about the latter was too dangerous. On the other hand, he could try asking the Revenant itself, at a safer time.

  Kujen unwebbed and rose. Jedao fumbled for the catch, found it, followed suit. They exited the shuttle into one of the Revenant’s bays. Jedao was dismayed when the Kel present halted what they were doing to salute him. He returned their salutes and waved for them to resume their work.

  “Command center next,” Kujen said.

  Jedao couldn’t tell whether the hallways reflected Kujen’s decadent tastes or, possibly, Kel tradition. Ashhawks soared everywhere upon silk scrolls, black ink with highlights in gold. If he ever ran short of operating funds, he could sell the decor.

>   The size of the command center confounded Jedao’s expectations, even having seen the moth’s blueprints. Charts and status displays cast colored light across the faces of the crew. Logistics—Kel Luon—had not yet noticed their entrance. She was comparing two screens as she muttered about pickles.

  Commander Talaw bowed to Kujen on behalf of the crew. “Hexarch,” they said. And to Jedao: “Sir.” Their hostility had not dwindled, but at least they were observing the correct forms.

  Jedao saluted Talaw, who saluted back. “Time to set out, Commander,” Jedao said, and sat down. Dhanneth had taught him how to pipe others’ displays to his own, which was less intrusive than hovering over their stations. For practice, he checked on Logistics. Sure enough, Luon was double-checking the command moth’s supply of cabbage pickles.

  “Move orders, sir?” Talaw said crisply.

  Jedao set up the not-formation he desired on his terminal, then passed the diagram to Talaw and the Navigation officer, a narrow-faced lieutenant. “There you go,” he said, carefully pleasant, and waited for the moth commanders’ acknowledgments to come in.

  The panel lit with the array of gold lights representing the swarm moths. They were headed to the gas giant in Isteia System by a snaking route, based on Strategy’s assessments of where scan coverage was weak. According to Kujen, a “fascinating” percentage of the original Kel listening posts had blown up in a shoot-out between the Protectorate and the Compact shortly after the hexarchs’ assassinations.

  Talaw and Navigation consulted on some matter relating to mothdrive resonances and a region of space known for its calendrical fluctuations. They came to a consensus and relayed the move orders to the rest of the swarm by way of Communications. “Anything further, sir?” Talaw said.

  “That should do it for now,” Jedao said.

  Jedao and Kujen stayed on for the entire first shift. “Let’s go,” Kujen murmured to Jedao, who had been acclimating himself to every readout he could get his terminal to produce.

  Jedao couldn’t say no, so he said to Talaw, “Call me if we run into anything.” Dhanneth, who had kept silent the whole time, fell in to Jedao’s left.

  Jedao caught a fleeting expression on Commander Talaw’s face as they watched Dhanneth: anguish. It vanished just as soon as he noticed it. Did I accidentally steal Talaw’s aide? Jedao wondered.

  More ashhawks on the walls. Sometimes Jedao thought he glimpsed a fluttering, as of banners, out of the corner of his eye. He followed Kujen in a loop four times. Upon each repetition, the lights grew more and more amber.

  “Your quarters,” Kujen said, pointing at the doors they had stopped in front of. He needn’t have said anything. The doors were marked unambiguously with the Deuce of Gears.

  “Good,” Jedao said. He thought about asking Kujen for a private word so he could ask about whatever was going on between Talaw and Dhanneth, then reconsidered. He’d have to figure it out himself. “I shan’t take up any more of your time.”

  Kujen bowed mockingly to him, too deeply, and left him to it.

  THE FIRST THING Jedao did was survey his quarters. They were well-furnished but, thankfully, less extravagant than the ones on the station they’d departed. He’d tested all the furniture to make sure it was bolted in place. While he hadn’t found any obvious bolts, he also hadn’t been able to shift any of the larger items. Good enough.

  Jedao spent most of the hour before his first high table pacing in his quarters and reviewing his staffers’ qualifications. Few surprises, except in the sense that everyone was a surprise. He was sure that even if he keeled over dead, they’d carry on and wallop the hostiles.

  Then he got to the real mystery: Major Dhanneth. Dhanneth’s profile contained little information. He’d been born Eurikhos Dhanneth, one of four children. In his youth he’d wanted to be an artist, but his parents had Kel ties and had pushed him in that direction. He was divorced; had a single adult child, with whom he had not communicated for a decade.

  More vexingly, Dhanneth was old for his rank, at sixty-five years. His profile showed no particular commendations, no particular demerits. Kujen wouldn’t have selected an incompetent, and indeed, Jedao so far had no cause to complain of Dhanneth’s performance. (As if he knew what the hell a good aide was supposed to be like.)

  The conclusion Jedao couldn’t help coming to was that Kujen was hiding information from him. Maybe not with bad intent, true. Maybe Dhanneth was secretly an elite assassin-bodyguard. Certainly he had the physique of someone who could wrestle dragons into submission. But why would Kujen need to hide Dhanneth’s credentials from Jedao?

  Maybe Dhanneth is supposed to kill me if I become inconvenient, Jedao thought. That sounded more likely. Either way, a puzzle.

  One more thing. Jedao nerved himself by taking a deep breath, then asked the grid for any information it had on one Vestenya Ruo.

  “No person of that name is on record,” the grid replied.

  He was sure he had the name right. “Shuos Academy cadet around 826, high calendar?” He tried to recall other useful details that might help with the search, like Ruo’s family. Nothing.

  “No person of that name is on record,” the grid said again.

  Well, it had been worth a try. Besides, he supposed that Shuos Academy wasn’t in the habit of handing over cadet records to the Nirai or to Kel warmoths.

  “Major Dhanneth is at the door,” the grid said.

  Jedao consulted his augment: almost time for high table. “Let him in.”

  The doors opened. Dhanneth saluted him. “Ready, sir?”

  “I want a watch,” Jedao said.

  “Sir?”

  “It’s odd having a built-in clock, that’s all.”

  “No one makes them anymore,” Dhanneth said.

  “Of course,” Jedao said, a little sadly. He should have realized that just looking at people’s wrists. “Let’s go.”

  They weren’t the first to reach the high hall, but rank meant everyone else was captive to his schedule. Five minutes early: well within what the Kel considered acceptable. Jedao had a brief impression of ashes and hellsparks and unsmiling eyes as the Kel rose. Jedao saluted them, waited while they returned the gesture, then proceeded to his seat. He could tell because of the dreadful golden Deuce of Gears cup. Maybe it was meant as a backup projectile if anyone boarded the command moth.

  Dhanneth slid into place down at the end of the table, his face composed. If this was what formation instinct did for you, Jedao wanted some for himself. The officers at the head table inclined their heads to him as they took their seats. Notably, they avoided looking at Dhanneth. Dhanneth was not doing a very good job of concealing his distress at the snub. Everyone else was watching the head table intently.

  Jedao sat, determined not to be seen to hurry, and poured water from the provided pitcher into the cup. At least, it had better be water. He didn’t want to get through this with the “help” of some intoxicant. Then he smiled before remembering what a bad idea it was. His officers stiffened. He made himself take the requisite sip as if he hadn’t noticed. (The cup was every bit as heavy as it looked. Definitely a projectile.) They couldn’t spend the entire voyage flinching from each other. Not that he expected the Kel to warm to him, but they needed to achieve a working relationship sooner rather than later. Kel hierarchy meant that he had to make the overtures.

  The water’s cold left his mouth numb and made his teeth ache. He passed the cup to his right. Commander Talaw received it with a steady hand. Around the table the cup went, refilled once halfway. Dhanneth took the last sip, a very small one. Again, no one looked at him except Jedao. Were elite assassin-bodyguards reviled that much? Jedao was starting to feel bad for Dhanneth.

  The rest of the Kel soldiers in the hall eased little by little as the ritual continued. Still, the silence had the potential to become smothering. Jedao didn’t want to reveal the extent of his amnesia, although odds were that he’d slip and it’d come out anyway, so he said, “This is a stupid thing
to be dying of curiosity about, but what is in these rolls?” Some of the Kel had been peering at the wrappers. He could play on mutual suspicion of unfamiliar rations.

  Talaw’s executive officer, Lieutenant Colonel Meraun, calmly took one of the rolls to her plate and dissected it with her chopsticks. This revealed either a purple vegetable or mushrooms, hard to tell. The other officers’ reactions ranged from bemusement to resignation. “The servitors are getting creative again, sir,” Meraun said. “The hexarch’s bases don’t carry the same staples that Kel logisticians are used to. So the servitors must have made compromises.”

  So the servitors did all the cooking? Did they do all the cleaning, too, and the nasty chores that you’d ordinarily use to punish people with too many demerits? Why did the servitors put up with this? Were they sentient at all, or if they were sentient, did they have formation instinct, too?

  His list of questions that he couldn’t ask anyone around him was only getting longer. Instead, he asked, “What were you expecting in that roll instead?”

  Meraun rattled off a list of vegetables. She smiled suddenly and added, “If you’re waiting for a poison-taster—”

  The officer next to Meraun had gone expressionless in her direction. Jedao smiled just as hard back at Meraun and obtained his own roll from the platter. “I’m sorry,” he said, “are you starting a food fight with a Shuos? I hear our aim isn’t as good as yours.”

  He’d said something wrong. People had recoiled as though he’d been sarcastic, and not just one or two of them, but the entire room, although he’d meant the words literally. Am I secretly a crack shot? Because I’m so likely to get into a firefight on my command moth. To distract them, he took a bite of the roll and made a face at its bitterness. It wouldn’t hurt for them to see that he had ordinary human reactions to food.

  Dhanneth said reluctantly, “Sir, you may find the fishcakes more to your liking.”

  A fleeting hint of frustration passed over Talaw’s face when Dhanneth spoke. They deliberately looked away from him.