Howling Dark

by Christopher Ruocchio

  “Tanaran?”

  Switch seemed to take ages before he answered. “I think Had’s making a mistake. Sticking his neck out for this demon, betraying the Empire. It ain’t right.”

  “I didn’t think you the patriotic type.” Otavia’s voice was almost wry.

  “I’m not,” Switch said, “but human is human. Sometimes Had forgets that. Doesn’t feel right, turning on the others like that. Lin and Jinan.”

  “I don’t like it either,” she said, “but I owe Hadrian for Bordelon, and he thinks this plan of his to parley could open peace talks, so . . . if Hadrian wants to go to Vorgossos, we’ll go to Vorgossos.”

  “Sure.” Almost I could see Switch nodding in that slow way he had. “Then what?”

  I was listening to something I shouldn’t have been, and I knew it, but of all my sins this was perhaps the least. Otavia spoke, and you could hear the shrug in her words. “More of the same. Murder and violence, I expect. If you and Marlowe and his lot don’t stay on, you don’t stay on, but a girl’s got to make a living, doubly so if she’s got a crew. And this ship ain’t small. I’ve got a lot of people to watch out for.”

  “If the Extras don’t grind them up for fodder, sure.”

  “You don’t know them like I do,” she said. “Granted, I never saw an Exalted ship like this. What did they call it? A Sojourner? But I know the types like on March Station. They may look different, break rules you have they don’t, but they’re still people like the rest of us.”

  Switch was quiet a long while. “That’s what scares me.”

  “Well, it’s like your Hadrian always says,” the captain said with a sigh. “We’re off the map.”

  Switch snorted. “Here there be monsters.”

  They both laughed, and even I could not help but smile. Seeing my opportunity, I climbed the rest of the stairs and entered the top chamber. The observatory was small, little more than twenty feet across, with an arc of window that overlooked the gray-white, pitted hull of the old Uhran cruiser and opened on the sky above. It still looked like night. The gold and violet veins of the far side of the ship made an orderly impersonation of stars, sunk as they were deep in the grid of city blocks. Otavia herself and Switch sat on a low couch looking out at the gnarled and knuckled structures of the docks and the city beyond.

  Switch raised his glass when he saw me, careful not to spill a dram of the clear spirit he was drinking. “Evening to you!” There was nothing of the disquiet I’d heard in his voice on his face. He was a good actor.

  “It’s morning,” I said wryly, taking a seat opposite the red-haired man.

  “Not on the Enigma!” Switch said. “It’s evening.”

  “Valka and Pallino went to get the Cielcin,” I said. Nodding at the bottle and the glasses on the table, I added, “Are we drinking before work now?”

  “We drank before work in Colosso all the time!” Switch grumbled. “And I’m going to need it to look that Pale bastard in the face. Gives me the chills.”

  I glanced at Otavia, who shrugged. “We’re not exactly in Colosso now, are we?”

  Before I could carry this line of conversation forward or really settle myself into my chair, Otavia said, “We were just looking at the other ships docked here, see?” She pointed. Through the arc of alumglass I could see the crouching forms of other ships, lain down like the statues of antique kings atop their sepulchers. Their white hulls and gray contrasted with the blank sable of the Exalted craft, marching around the gradual turn of the Enigma’s circumference. “Those two are Durantine galleons, there and there. You can see the sail housings there around the forecastle.”

  “Those spires?”

  “Yeah!”

  Switch drained his glass. “They’re far from home.”

  “More than thirty thousand light-years,” I agreed. The Republic was on the far side of the Imperium, in the Outer Perseus near galaxy’s edge. “Those Jaddians came even farther.” The Jaddian ship was even easier to identify: whale-like, all organic curves, its black ceramic hull accented with a heat-treated titanium brass; its photovoltaics gleaming like graceful fins. There were even Imperial ships in among the passengers, their heraldic crests bright-painted on their gunmetal hulls, displaying all manner of devices strange to me. I had never had a head for heraldry. Crispin had memorized nobile crests with an avidness I couldn’t share. He could have told you the symbols and mottos of every house major in Auriga Province. I could only wonder who they were, what strange circumstance had brought them out so far and on so strange a road, and whether they—like myself—would have chosen to be somewhere else.

  Somewhere else.

  “Drink?” Switch asked, proffering the bottle. It was from the same case of vodka Crim had sent up from Rustam before our meeting with The Painted Man, the same vodka Siran had drowned herself in after Ghen’s death. The label had a spaceman in an antique-style suit with a gold star on his black visor. He had one foot planted on a red planet, and his arms were thrown wide.

  “A small one.” I took the bottle grudgingly and took one of the drinking tumblers Switch had brought with him. There was no reason to be hard on Switch for drinking.

  Following on from their conversation—their real conversation—from before I’d climbed up the stairs, the captain said, “Say, Hadrian, have you given much thought to what you’ll do after Vorgossos?” I didn’t reply at first, was focused on pouring just enough of the vodka to seem social—I did not care for the stuff. When I didn’t answer fast enough, Corvo added, “William and I were just talking.”

  Still I didn’t answer a moment, held the vodka on my tongue. It tasted medical. Metallic. Far out the open front of the Enigma the violet weft and ripple of spacetime whorled and rioted. So far off it was—dozens of miles away—that the open end of the great cylinder was no larger than a gold hurasam. At last I sucked in a deep breath. “No. I can’t see past Vorgossos, not yet. This place . . . the past few days . . . it’s been a lot to take in.” Nazzareno’s metal hand twitched across controls behind my eyes. Bassander’s hand fell lifeless from his wrist.

  “You’re not having second thoughts.”

  “What? No. Of course not.” I cradled the vodka in my hands, looked from the blond Norman to the red-haired lictor. Both still wore their Red Company uniforms. That made me smile. “But I did commit treason.” I did not mention my conversation with Raine Smythe. I was not sure it would save me. “I left three of our own people dead on the Balmung. I assaulted an Imperial officer. Those charges alone . . .” I slammed the vodka back, but would not pour another. “I’ll be crucified for sure.”

  “Blown out an airlock, more like.” Corvo smiled thinly. “Your Legion’s efficient, won’t waste time on theater.” I did not have the heart to tell her how wrong she was. There was no doubt in my mind that Bassander Lin would have me on a cross given the opportunity, and the gods only knew what Strategos Hauptmann might do if he got his hands on me.

  But I knew Otavia’s intentions, knew where she would drive next, and I saw no reason to stop her. “You could always stay with us. Best place for a fugitive is on the move and we’re always moving.”

  “May come a time I take you up on that,” I said, perhaps too dryly, looking back out the window. There had been a time, when I’d been a myrmidon in the Borosevo fighting pits, when I’d thought about turning mercenary. Switch and I and the others had talked of buying our own ship. If I stayed with Otavia, with what was left of the Red Company, I could have my own ship, in a sense, but only in a sense. “If I did, it wouldn’t be as Commandant or anything like that. I’m no real commander . . . I’d never really been in space until I left Emesh. Besides . . .” I turned back and smiled, looking down at the table between us. “I’m going to be in your debt after all this, anyway.”

  “I’ve got decks that need scrubbing.” She grinned.

  “Maybe tomorrow.” I smiled weakly.<
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  Switch cleared his throat. “They on their way up?”

  “Valka, do you mean?”

  Even in the dim light, I could see the way the color drained from Switch’s face. “And the alien.”

  My fingers gripped my knee, knuckles white against black fabric. Presently I nodded, licking my lips. “Yes.” I don’t know why I was nervous. I had spoken with Tanaran dozens of times. I did not fear it. Valka certainly did not. But having it walk about the ship—even under guard—seemed like tempting fate. I couldn’t blame Switch for being scared, if scared was what one called it.

  “We should have put that demon back on ice and no mistake,” Switch said, glowering.

  I released my knee, sucked in a rattling breath to calm my nerves. “Even if we had the hardware, we have to put our best face forward. Diplomacy, Switch.”

  “Diplomacy? You seen the fangs on that thing?”

  “Quite close up, thank you,” I said in a cold rush, not wishing to continue the line of conversation. I had enough concerns in that moment without borrowing my friend’s.

  Footsteps on the stairs. The clack of hard soles and the slap of naked feet. A clicking of talons. Turning, I saw the crouching figure of Casantora Tanaran Iakato emerging from the stairs. The Cielcin seemed to unfold into the room, so tall was it and so compressed by the narrow stairwell. Its horned crown nearly scraped the ceiling and it looked round with eyes wide and hollow as the pits of a skull. Pallino entered right behind, dressed this time in simple shirt and trousers—though he wore a shield-belt inactive about his waist. Then came Valka, bare arms crossed, eyes lit with anticipation.

  I stood, steadying the swing of my sword against my hip. Like Valka, I watched the Cielcin in numb anticipation, wondering what it would do. Tanaran didn’t speak, but shuffled toward the window, ducking its head to keep it from banging into the low ceiling. Switch made a warding gesture, clambering to his feet to put distance between himself and the xenobite. Otavia didn’t move.

  The Cielcin’s hands were unbound, and it pressed its fingers to the glass, tilting its head to look out and up at the tableau, its overlong shadow dancing across the floor in the light cast by the Enigma’s warp. At last it spoke, using the halting Galstani it had learned from Valka. “This . . . reminds me of home.” Its words were hushed, as if it spoke in temple. “Almost . . . as large.”

  Valka moved to stand beside the xenobite, passing Pallino where he stood attentive, watching the creature for any sign. “You grew up on a ship like this?”

  “Like this?” Tanaran repeated, taking its hand from the glass. A filmy print remained there, six long fingers standing out against that blackness. “Not exactly like this. We . . . the People I mean, we . . .” It broke off, unsure of the words. Switching to its native language, it asked, “Nietolo dazen ne: ‘Eatabareto o-velegamaya.’”

  “We hollowed out asteroids,” I supplied, insinuating myself between Valka and the tall creature. Tanaran had given no indication of violence, nor any sign that it was capable of violence, but those were still claws on its fingers and toes, still horns on its head.

  The Cielcin cocked its head, making the twitching gesture that signaled that it understood. “Hollowed . . .” it repeated, mulling over the word. Presently it turned, looking up through the observatory’s skylights toward the lights of farside. “We do not have such spaces. We build deep, in layers. Not open, not . . .” It made a circular gesture with one hand. “Around.” It fell silent for a moment, hands slack at its sides. “How . . . large is this place?”

  Valka glanced at me, and from the look in her eyes I knew we were having the same problem. Neither of us knew a thing about Cielcin measurements. How could we answer a question like that? The xenologist found an answer before I did, saying, “’Tis only an estimate, but some forty thousand times as tall as you.”

  “Estimate?”

  “Guess.”

  Tanaran tucked its chin, lips pressed together in what I realized was contemplation.

  It looked like anger.

  Slowly I became aware of the way Otavia Corvo’s dark eyes were studying the creature, as though it were a leopard in our midst, one that might suddenly strike. However diplomatic she had been at her first meeting with the creature, she was not asleep.

  “Raka yumna velatate, ne?” Tanaran asked.

  “This is a ship,” I said, conveying by my tone that I was translating for the benefit of my human audience.

  Valka chimed in, “It won’t be but about twenty of our sleeping cycles, and we’ll be at Vorgossos.”

  “If these Exalted are to be believed,” said Otavia Corvo to no one in particular.

  Tanaran flexed its fingers, looking round at the lot of us through slitted eyes. It was dark in the observatory, with only running lights on about the edge of the floor and the lights of the Enigma beyond, but I gathered it was still too bright for that creature of the night. “These others . . .” it said, raising a hand to the ships around us, “they sail for Vorgossos, too?”

  “Vorgossos, yes,” Valka said, moving back into the xenobite’s line of sight, “and other places. That one there . . .” She pointed at a knobby, silvered vessel with green markings and a squat, wedge-shaped hold. “That’s from my own people. From Tavros.”

  Never having seen a Demarchist ship before, I craned my neck to look. It had a polished, clean look to it, unlike the pitted, industrial blackness of the Enigma around us, looking like a new fixture in old armor. I wondered if it was piloted by a daimon, a true artificial intelligence. The Tavrosi were said to use such, free as they were of the Chantry and of the memory of the Foundation War, living as they did so far from those worlds the Mericanii had deformed—so far from Earth and old holocausts of ancient days.

  “Tavros . . .” Tanaran repeated. “This is your tribe? Your itani?”

  The word itani meant something more like gens or clan or constellation than nation, but Valka nodded, smiling. “They are.”

  “These people,” the xenobite began, waving its hand at the other ships, fingers spread. “They are here . . . detu? Why?”

  “Rajithiri. To trade. The Exalted, the people who own this ship, they’re merchants.”

  The Cielcin swiveled its head, looking from Valka to myself. “Merchants?”

  “Mnunatari,” I said.

  Tanaran shook its head, ducking its horns in what seemed to me some sort of threat display. Valka retreated, and even I took half a step back, half-sliding into a guard to defend myself. “Mnunatari,” it said, making the word a curse. “Hasimnka.”

  I knew the word, though I did not then fully understand it. There were human groups who shared a status comparable to that borne by the Cielcin Hasimnka: the Dalits among the Museum Hindus, the Nipponese Burakumin farmers, the Eudoran out-castes in their migrant fleets—even the homunculi. To the Cielcin, nothing was so unclean. They were without station in the scianda, the fleet, belonging to no one, owning no one. But why should merchants figure among their number?

  Valka, who perhaps had missed the significance of the gesture or the xenobite’s strange tone, said, “Once we’re there we’ll go about contacting your fleet.”

  “Tutai,” said Tanaran, and again, “Good.”

  CHAPTER 26

  THE ORACLE

  ON THE SIXTH DAY, they let us off our ships. They did not speak to us, nor send any message, only extended docking umbilicals to ours and the other ships, allowing us out into the concourse and what Nazzareno had called the visitor’s port. Otavia had insisted that everyone remain aboard. I had insisted that I be allowed off. I won.

  It was always night on the Exalted’s ship, always the black day of space. Pale white sconces flickered high on fluted, black metal walls and from recesses in the ceiling. I had donned a full combat suit for the occasion: sculpted breastplate and segmented arm and shoulder guards, tunic, gauntlets, and greaves abov
e the nanocarbon underlayment. The armor had been Imperial issue, and gleamed bone white beneath the heavy lacerna I wore fastened at the right shoulder in place of my customary coat. Despite all this, despite even my shield-belt, I felt naked without my sword—without any weapon at all. But such was the law as Nazzareno had explained it, and one had to allow for differences in culture.

  “What exactly are you looking for?” Switch asked for the dozenth time.

  “I just want to get a sense of the place,” I said, twitching the heavy cloak over my shoulder. A piece of me wished then that I’d worn simple clothes on the occasion—valuing secrecy over protection. But I saw a creature, a beast with spider body and the head of a man, move past the opening at the end of the hall, and I changed my mind. “The . . . people.”

  My friend and lictor swore, moving back. “What in the hell was that?” Other shapes moved up ahead, most of them human, thronging along some path ahead. When I didn’t answer, he breathed, “Black Earth, Hadrian. Did you see that thing?”

  “You can go back if you want,” I said, not unkindly. “It should be perfectly safe. I can handle myself.”

  “Unarmed?” Switch said, brows contracting.

  “I can handle myself,” I repeated, shrugging ineloquently. “I used to put Ghen out on his ear when we sparred.” Mentioning the dead myrmidon sent a spasm through me, and I saw an echo of it twist the other man’s face. There was a piece of Ghen in each of us, lodged there like shrapnel.

  A brief, forced smile cracked the ice in Switch’s face. “Ghen wasn’t an eight-foot metal spider, though.”

  “No, he was not . . .” I half-turned back toward the street, made a gesture. “Are you coming?”

  For a fleeting instant I saw the boy he had been recoil beneath the man he was. The gawky, large-eared boy who had frozen up in his first Colosso melee. It was that child who hesitated, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, plagued with indecision. The man shut his eyes, set his jaw, and nodded. We believe our fear destroyed by new bravery. It is not. Fear is never destroyed. It is only made smaller by the courage we find after. It is always there.