To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

by Christopher Paolini

  “Oh is it?” said Klein. “The millions, if not billions, of people the nightmares killed say otherwise.”

  [[Lphet here: You do not—]]

  Kira rustled the leaves along the walls, and the soft susurration stopped the conversation, made everyone freeze and then look back at her. “I can give you no guarantees, Admiral Klein, but you have seen how I have helped and healed the members of your fleet that I’ve found.”

  He cocked his head. “That’s true.”

  “Sometimes you just have to trust on faith, Admiral. Sometimes you have to take a chance.”

  “It’s a hell of a chance, Navárez.”

  Tschetter looked over at him. “Not having a relationship with the Jellies would be worse.”

  A sour expression formed on Klein’s face. “That doesn’t mean that here is the right place to set up diplomatic relations, and there’s no way in hell civilians should be allowed anywhere near Cordova. Not until Intelligence has a chance to go over it with a fine-toothed comb. Besides, I don’t have the authority to negotiate this sort of an agreement. You’re going to have to deal with the League, Kira, not me, and that’s going to take time. My guess is they’ll want to send someone out here to talk with you face to face. That means at least another month and a half before any of this can be settled.”

  She didn’t argue but looked at the Wranaui. [[Kira here: What say you, great and mighty Lphet?]]

  A blossom of red and orange passed across the nearby Wranaui. [[Lphet here: The Arms would be honored to accept your offer, Idealis. The opportunity to study a making such as this is one we have not had in this or any other ripple. Tell us how many Wranaui may stay upon this station, and I shall send for them at once.]]

  As Tschetter translated, Klein set his jaw. “Is that so?… Fine. The League can sort out the details later, but I’ll be damned if I’m letting the Jellies get the jump on us. However many personnel they post here, I want clearance to bring over just as many of my own people.”

  This time, Kira knew better than to smile. “Of course, Admiral. I do have a condition, though.”

  His stance stiffened. “And what’s that, Navárez?”

  “This goes for everyone who wants to live on or visit Unity: no weapons allowed. If you bring them on board, I will destroy them and expel you.”

  [[Lphet here: Of course, Idealis. We will obey your wishes.]]

  Klein cocked his head. “What about, say, repair bots? Or service lasers? In the right hands, even a fork could be a deadly weapon.”

  Humans. “Use common sense, Admiral. I’ll allow power armor, as long as it is disarmed. But make no mistake, if anyone starts a fight on this station, human or Jelly, I will put an end to it.” And her voice deepened until it echoed from the walls, as if all of Unity were her throat. In a way, it was.

  Even under his spacer’s tan, Klein’s cheeks grew pale. “Point taken. You won’t have any trouble from my crews, Navárez. You have my word.”

  [[Lphet here: Nor from the forms loyal to the Arms.]]

  Kira allowed them to feel her pleasure then, in the color and brightness of the glowlights, in the happy trill of the water, and in the comforting rustle of the leaves. “Then it is settled.” Satisfied, she shifted her attention to Falconi and the crew of the Wallfish, and she looked at each of them in turn.

  Sparrow scratched at her side through her skinsuit. “Shit, Kira, you sure don’t do anything halfway, do you?”

  “Sparrow.”

  Then Vishal spoke up. “How did you survive, Ms. Kira? We thought for sure the Casaba-Howitzer had killed you.”

  At that, Admiral Klein appeared even more uncomfortable. It was he who had authorized the detonation, Kira felt sure. But she didn’t care. Assigning blame wouldn’t do any good at this point, and besides, setting off the Casaba-Howitzer had been the logical choice. The Maw had to be stopped.

  Bemused, she said, “I think perhaps it did. For a time, at least.”

  A grunt came from Hwa-jung, and with a quick motion of her hand, the machine boss made the sign of the cross. “Are you, you?”

  A disjointed memory flashed through Kira’s reconstituted brain: a grey holding cell; a mirrored window; cold grating beneath her knees; a holo flickering to life in front of her, and Major Tschetter standing before her in a grey uniform. And the major saying, “Do you still feel like yourself?”

  A small chuckle escaped Kira. “Yes … and no. I’m something more than I was.”

  The machine boss’s eyes bored into her, hot as thermal lances. “No. Are you, you, Kira? Here,” she tapped her sternum, “where it matters. Is your soul still the same?”

  Kira thought. “My soul? I don’t know how to answer that question, Hwa-jung. But what I want now is the same thing I wanted before: that is, peace, and for life to flourish. Does that mean I’m the same person?… Maybe. Maybe not. Change is not always a bad thing.”

  Still, Hwa-jung seemed troubled. “No, it is not. And what you say is good, Kira, but do not forget what it means to be human.”

  “Forgetting is very much what I don’t want to do,” said Kira. At that, the machine boss seemed, if not happy, at least satisfied.

  Then Kira shifted her gaze to Veera. The Entropist stood with her forearms clasped across her chest, hands tucked into the voluminous sleeves of her gradient robes. The woman had bruised circles under her eyes, and her cheeks were gaunt, as if from a great sickness.

  “My condolences, Questant Veera, for the loss of your partner. We … understand.”

  The Entropist pressed her lips together, nodded, and bowed low. “Thank you, Prisoner Kira. Your concern is comforting.”

  Kira inclined her head in return. “Prisoner no more, Questant.”

  Surprise widened the Entropist’s features. “What? That isn’t … How do you mean?”

  But Kira did not answer. Instead, she looked again at Falconi. “Salvo.”

  “Kira,” he replied, somber.

  “You brought Trig.”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you trust us, Salvo?”

  He hesitated and then nodded. “I wouldn’t have brought the kid if I didn’t.”

  That warmed the center of Kira’s being. Again she smiled. It was fast becoming her favorite expression. “Then trust me once more.”

  From the fractal floor, she sent a thicket of tendrils—green this time, not black—sprouting up around Trig’s cryo tube. Sparrow and Hwa-jung cursed and jumped away from the tube, while at the back of the chamber, the ranks of armored Marines stiffened and lifted their weapons.

  “Put those down!” Klein barked. “At ease!”

  Kira’s smile never wavered as the tendrils twined around Trig’s tube, encasing it in a twisting, squirming embrace—burying it beneath the mass of greenery.

  “Kira,” said Nielsen, in a soft tone. Not warning, not angry, but concerned.

  “Trust me,” she said. By means of the vines that were her limbs, she reached into the cryo tube and ran a thousand different threads into Trig’s damaged flesh, seeking the source of his injuries. There. A collection of burned cells, torn muscles, bruised and damaged tendons, ruptured blood vessels, and severed nerves—the insults to his body were as easy for her to feel as the internal structure of the station.

  How could she have ever found this hard? The thought seemed inconceivable.

  Then she poured the needed energy into Trig’s frozen form, guided the Seed as it worked to repair his wounds. When all seemed right, she removed the respirator from his mouth and disconnected the tubes from his arms, separating him from the machine that had kept him in suspended animation for over half a year.

  Slowly, carefully, she warmed his body, treating it as gently as a mother hen would a newly laid egg. She felt the heat of his metabolism increase like a kindling fire rising to full flame until, at last, he took his first, unsupported breath.

  She released him then. The vines retracted into the floor to reveal Trig’s pale form curled in a fetal shape, bare e
xcept for a pair of grey thermal shorts of the sort worn under skinsuits. He gasped, like a drowning man coming to the surface, and hacked up a gob of spit. It melted away, as if it had never existed.

  “Trig!” exclaimed Nielsen, and she and Vishal bent over the kid. Sparrow, Hwa-jung, and Falconi crowded in close, watching.

  “Wh—Where am I?” Trig said. His voice was weak, hoarse.

  “That is somewhat hard to explain,” said Vishal.

  Falconi shrugged off his vest and draped it over the kid’s shoulders. “Here, this’ll help keep you warm.”

  “Huh? Why are you all wearing skinsuits? Where am I?” Then Sparrow moved out of the way, and Trig saw Kira, suspended as she was in the wall. His mouth dropped open. “That … you, Kira?”

  “Welcome back,” she said, and her voice blossomed with warmth. “We weren’t sure you were going to make it.”

  Trig looked around the pillared chamber. His eyes showed white. “Is all this yours?”

  “It is.”

  The kid tried to get to his feet, but his knees buckled and he would have fallen if Hwa-jung hadn’t caught him by the arm. “Careful,” she rumbled.

  “I … I…” Trig shook his head. Then he looked at Falconi with a plaintive expression. “Are we still at Bughunt?”

  “No,” said Falconi. “That we aren’t. Let’s get you back to the Wallfish and have the doc check you out, and then you can rest up and we’ll fill you in on everything you’ve missed.”

  “It’s been exciting,” Sparrow said in a dry tone.

  “Yessir. Rest sounds pretty darn nice right now. Feels like I got worked over by a couple of guys with hammers. I—” The kid’s words cut off as he saw Lphet and, by the back of the chamber, the rest of the Wranaui. He yelped and attempted to scramble backwards, but Hwa-jung grabbed him by the arm again, held him in place. “J-j-jellies! Comeon, we gotta—”

  “We know,” said Nielsen in a soothing voice. “It’s okay. Trig, stop, look at me. It’s okay. Take a breath, calm down. We’re all friends here.”

  The kid hesitated, glancing between them as if uncertain what to believe. Then Sparrow gave him a light punch on the shoulder. “As I said, it’s been exciting.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” muttered Falconi. “Nielsen’s right, though. We’re all friends here.” His gaze darted toward Kira for an instant before returning to the kid.

  Trig relaxed then and stopped pulling against Hwa-jung. “Yessir. Sorry sir.”

  “Perfectly understandable,” said Falconi, and patted him on the back.

  Then Kira shifted her attention back to her other guests. “Admiral Klein, great and mighty Lphet, you have seen what I can do. If you have any other crew members who are wounded—wounded beyond your ability to heal—bring them here, and I will do for them what I did for Trig.”

  [[Lphet here: Your generosity is without equal, Idealis, but those of the Wranaui who are hurt beyond repair will transfer to new forms rather than suffer with an injury.]]

  “As you wish.”

  A deep furrow appeared between Klein’s eyebrows. “That’s a damn kind offer, Navárez, but biocontainment protocol doesn’t allow for—”

  “Biocontainment protocol,” said Kira in a gentle voice, “has already been well and truly broken. Wouldn’t you agree, Admiral?”

  His scowl deepened. “You may have a point, but the League would court-martial me if I violated quarantine like that.”

  “You must have run tests on the men and women I already healed.”

  “Of course.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing,” growled Klein. “The techs can’t find a damned thing wrong with them.”

  “So there you go.”

  He shook his head. “No, we don’t. The Extenuating Circumstances couldn’t find anything wrong with you either before the xeno came out of you. So forgive me if I’m somewhat less than blasé about the situation, Navárez.”

  She smiled, but this time less out of pleasure than a desire to appear unthreatening. “The League holds no sway here, Admiral, nor shall it. I am claiming this system for myself, for Unity, and neither the League nor the Jellies shall dictate laws here. While you are under my protection, you are a free man, Admiral—free to make whatever choices your conscience dictates.”

  “A free man.” He snorted and shook his head. “You have some gall, Navárez.”

  “Maybe. I made my offer not out of consideration for you, Admiral, but for your crews. If you have men or women who are suffering, whom you can’t heal, I can help. That is all. The decision is yours.”

  Then she looked past him, at the Wranaui near the back of the chamber. “Itari, it is good to see you unharmed. I am grateful for the help you provided on the Battered Hierophant.”

  A ripple of bright colors passed across the Wranaui’s tentacles. [[Itari here: It pleases this one to have been of use.]]

  Kira returned her gaze to the forefront. “Great and mighty Lphet, without Itari’s service during recent events, we might never have defeated Ctein. As a favor to me, I ask that you grant Itari hatching rights, as well as a choice of whatever form it wishes to have.”

  Nearscent of agreement reached her. [[Lphet here: Your request is reasonable, Idealis. It will be done.]]

  And Itari turned blue and purple. [[Itari here: Thank you, Idealis.]]

  Kira responded with pleasant nearscent of her own. Then she shifted her attention to the rest of her guests. “I have said what needed saying. Now, I must return to my work. Leave me, and I shall send for you when I am ready to talk again.”

  Admiral Klein gave a sharp nod, turned on his heel, and marched toward the back of the chamber. Lphet paused to make a sign of courtesy with its tentacles—a wriggle and a flash of color that Kira recognized from Qwon’s memories—and followed suit. Last of all, the crew of the Wallfish departed also, but not before Falconi gave her one more look and said, “Are you going to be okay, Kira?”

  She gazed down at him with fondness, and the whole chamber seemed to bend toward him. “I’m going to be fine, Salvo. Absolutely fine. All is well.” And she meant it with her entire being.

  “Alright then,” he said. But he did not appear convinced.

  2.

  With her visitors departed, Kira returned to the work of building out the station. Lphet’s promised Wranaui soon arrived, and she guided them to their watery quarters. Directly afterward, Klein sent over a contingent of UMC researchers. Those too she provided housing within the frame of her expanding body, and she offered them fruit grown of Mar Íneth. But while the researchers accepted the fruit, they did not taste of it, and they kept their skinsuits on at all times, which she knew was no small discomfort. No matter. It was not her place to force them to trust. The Wranaui were less concerned for their safety and gladly partook of her hospitality, either because of their history with the Seed and its kin or because of their disregard for individual bodies. Kira wasn’t sure which.

  Along with the Wranaui came Tschetter. When Kira asked the woman why she had not rejoined the UMC, she said, “After all the time I spent with the Jellies, UMCI would never allow me to have my old job back. As far as they’re concerned, I’ve been irrevocably compromised.”

  “So what will you do?” Kira asked.

  The once-major gestured at the station around her. “Work as a liaison between humans and Jellies, try to avoid another war. Lphet has chosen me to serve as a translator and facilitator with the UMC and the League, and Admiral Klein has agreed to the same.” She shrugged. “I think I might be able to do some good here. Ambassador Tschetter; it has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

  Kira did. And it heartened her to see the hope Tschetter had in her new work, as well as the woman’s optimism for their shared future.

  Outside the station, ships continued to gather: human, Wranaui, and those Kira had built to bring her supplies from throughout Cordova. They clustered around her like bees around a flower full of nectar, and she felt a sense of pride
when she looked at them.

  A signal beam flashed toward her from the Wallfish. Out of curiosity, she answered, and the familiar sound of Gregorovich’s voice filled her hidden ears:

  *Greetings, O Meatsack. Now you are as I am. How do you like being bounded in this particular nutshell?*

  “I have transcended the nutshell, ship mind.”

  *Oh-ho! A bold claim, that.*

  “It is true,” she said. Then: “How do you manage to keep track of everything that is yourself? There’s so … much.”

  His answer was surprisingly sober: *It takes time, O Queen of Thorns. Time and work. Do not make any hasty judgments until you are sure of yourself. After I transitioned, it took a year and a half before I knew who the new me was.* He giggled, ruining his serious air. *Not that I ever really know who I am. Who does, hmm? We change as circumstances change, like wisps blown on the wind.*

  She thought on that for a time. “Thank you, Gregorovich.”

  *Of course, station mind. Whenever you need to talk, call, and I will listen.*

  Kira took his advice seriously. Even as she labored on Unity, she redoubled her efforts to sort through the mess of memories strewn throughout her reconstituted brain, struggling to pin down and identify which ones belonged to which parts of herself. Struggling to figure out who exactly she was. She paid particular attention to the memories of the Maw, and it was while studying them that she made a discovery that filled her with cold dread.

  Oh no.

  For she remembered. Before coming to Cordova-1420, the Maw had taken precautions against its possible defeat (unlikely as that seemed). It had, in the darkest depths of interstellar space, formed seven avatars from its flesh and the flesh of the Seed—seven living, thinking, self-directed copies of itself. And the Maw had sent off its virulent, wrath-filled clones with no knowledge of where they might ultimately go.

  Kira thought of the killing command she had broadcast before. Surely that would … But then, from the Seed, she felt an unshakable conviction that the command would not stop the Maw’s avatars, for they were the Seed—twisted and broken as the Maw had been, but still of the same underlying substance. Unlike the Corrupted, she could not unmake the Maw’s poisonous spawn with a single line, just as she could not have unmade the Maw. The Seed did not possess such power over itself. The Old Ones had not seen fit to give their creations that ability, preferring to keep it for themselves in the shape of the Staff of Blue.