Whir, whir, buzz. “Sensors indicate a small population of pre-industrial humans.”
“They have enough to survive?”
More whirring. And then my new friend projects a mighty shaky holo; showing a fairly cozy little city mapped out. Houses and small lanes, dotted lines that indicate fences for critters; a central pyramid left over from the Jorian days. “Sensors indicate the presence of agriculture and rudimentary arts. Remaining structures are often used for poetry, drama, and religious purposes.”
“Huh.” Look at that. “Fate’s teasing me.” Even them people, cavemen survivors of a virus killed everything, get to see shows and relax with fancy folk; it’s only me that don’t. “So there must be another node in-system, opens up to Joria.” My other original home.
“Joria?” The automaton makes a lot of that clicking and whirring, and for a minute I reckon he’s stuck and I’d best kick him. But then he says, “This name does not exist in my records.”
I laugh. “You’re fooling. Or you was tampered with. Jorians? Folk that built the nodes? Your memory can’t be that corrupted.”
“Jorians.” It pauses, and whirrs for so burning long I reckon John Starfire is going to show up, shiv me, and be halfway back home by the time this robot figures out it’s missing data. But then it says, “Jorians. Characters in a children’s novel published in Imperial Year Zero Minus 268, in the Christian reckoning 2099 Anno Domini, in the Muslim reckoning—”
“Hang on,” I say. “Jorians is characters in a novel?”
“It was later a successful interactive comic book franchise.”
“Hang on,” I say again. “Jorians en’t made up! They built the Empire! And the nodes!”
More whirring. More loading. And finally the automaton says, “I’m afraid I don’t understand the question. Aiya.”
“You’re saying Jorians didn’t ever exist.”
“They existed as characters in a comic book.”
I can’t help it—Scurv’s words pop into my head. “Them comic books lie.”
Whirr actually comes back quickly for this one. Just a second of whirring and then, “Humanity makes a distinction between storytelling and lying. Would you be interested to know some of the distinctions that have been offered by notable poets?”
“What’s the difference on them Jorians?”
“They were the subject of stories. Many poets and philosophers argue that stories represent a kind of truth that never happened.”
I wish I could buy this fella a drink. “That sounds about like the truth I hear.” I take a deep breath of Earth’s own air, and say, “So the Jorians was . . .”
“A story.”
-8-
Kalia
MY FATHER HAD MANY sayings, but I always thought this one was especially apt: you cannot live anyone else’s life. Even for crosses, who take others’ memories with their swords, he used to say, someone else’s life isn’t lived, just seen through a filter of violence.
That’s why Jaqi underestimated me, and still hasn’t guessed that I stowed away on her ship to the Dark Zone. That’s why I am now stuck in a very cramped closet, trying not to move around too much.
Jaqi took one look at me and decided that I was some kind of fancy girl who only cared about fashions. I know that’s the spaceways stereotype of people like me: bluebloods who spend all their considerable money on their clothes and their hair. Gullible and stupid and easily killed if only we could be separated from our money.
It’s not true.
Well, it was. It’s not anymore. I’ve learned a few things from the Red Peace.
The door opens. I smell the cigar.
“We are ready, girl.”
“You shouldn’t smoke those in here,” I say. “They tax the air filters.”
Scurv Silvershot laughs at me. I get the feeling that vi has been laughing at me a lot, but I don’t really care. I stretch out my legs. Ow.
“Where’s Jaqi?” I say. “Did you, uh—did you tell her?”
“The Girl of Stars is inside the temple,” Scurv says.
“Inside the temple? But you said there’s no way to get in there. You were sure we would need the Pet.”
“We were wrong.” Vi shrugs, a weird catlike movement that looks more like vi’s shaking off water from fur.
“You spent a year trying to get in there! And Jaqi just walks in?”
“We suppose what John Starfire says is true. There’s some crosses more pure than others. It scanned Jaqi’s hand and let her in.” Again, that twisting shrug. “We thought we would let her try the entrance, then we could explain why we brought you. But now it will not let either of us in, without your pet.”
“The Pet,” I correct vim automatically, and then cringe. I’m trying not to do that. Jaqi hates it when I correct her.
“Come on now.” Vi seems unbothered by corrections.
We go down the gangplank into a night without stars.
The sky is completely dark, a solid wall of black above us. I guess I knew it would be that way, but it makes me shiver. Even on cloudy nights at home, you didn’t get the sense of such a dark sky.
The ocean crashes against the rocks, and the floodlights from our ship light up a long causeway across the water, the churning tide around us, and the outline of what must be the gate to the temple, illuminated by the flickering sense-field.
“What keeps the—them away from the planet?”
“Don’t rightly know that. If we did, we would export it,” vi says. “Best we can say it, there’s something on this planet causes them pain.”
“Pain? To the . . . to them.” Dad always said there wasn’t going to be any consequences for just saying Shir, but I can’t bring myself to say it. They’re as close as the nearest star system. The nightmares that used to keep me from sleep for weeks at a time. “They can move faster than light, but it’s not the same system of nodes we have.” Everyone knows that. “The Navy tried to kill them at their expansion points, where their network might expand.”
“That’s right, girl. Devils could be here in seconds, if they wished, but they do not ahh—” Vi lets out a grunt, hunches over in front of me.
“What is it?”
“Uh, speaking of pain, we’ve got a bit of a headache ourselves.” Scurv grimaces, speaking through clenched teeth.
“Uh, I’m sorry . . .”
“En’t a thing. It passes.” In the darkness, I can only see faint movements, but it looks like Scurv is holding vir head.
I keep the Pet in its box. I know it’s a Suit, if not one of the sentient ones, because it perks up whenever there’s machinery around. It skitters inside its case, bouncing off the walls of the box. It reminds me of when Quinn tried to hide a puppy in his room, when we were a lot younger and Toq was a baby. The puppy went nuts every time she smelled food.
And Father was still alive, though I won’t think on that. And I knew where Mother was, and didn’t wonder if she might be freezing to death in some black mining operation in the wild worlds.
I can’t afford to think about that.
I haven’t even told Jaqi that I think my mother might be alive. At first I thought she might be with the people we rescued from Shadow Sun Seven, but it was only my uncle Staran, who lived most of the time on Irithessa; no one from Keil must have been taken in that group. My mother and father were separated, on different sides of the planet when the Resistance attacked. I have no idea what happened to her.
“So there’s the sense-field. Came down long enough to let Jaqi in, then popped up fast enough to keep us from getting in.” Scurv chews the cigar, seeming unbothered that it’s gone out. “You want to try your pet?”
I walk along the causeway, the wind whipping ocean spray onto me as I go. I’m wet and cold by the time I get to the sense-field, but it doesn’t matter. We don’t know what’s in there, and Jaqi went in alone.
“Right there,” vi says, pointing to the flickering light of a scan-box.
“She just stuck her hand i
n there. And it opened.”
“She the Chosen One, en’t she, aiya?”
I let the Pet out of its box and put it into the scan-box for the gate, and it skitters around, like a spider, throwing out a dozen different spindly black appendages into the ancient machinery. After a very long time, and several strange buzzes and whines, the sense-field vanishes.
And the Pet lets out a long, keening whine, and curls up.
“Are you okay?” I say, and cradle it.
Scurv steps through where the sense-field was. “What happened to your pet, girl?”
“I don’t know. This old tech hurts it.” The Pet smells burned, and it is curling up against me like an injured puppy.
I follow vim into the courtyard of the temple, where it’s impossible to see anything save the vague outline of the temple overhead, illuminated by our ship’s floodlights.
“Is it badly damaged?” vi asks.
“Can’t really say.”
“We have dealt with Suits before. Let us give it a look,” Scurv says, lighting an emergency bulb that briefly blinds me. While I’m blinking away the light, vi takes the Pet—and extinguishes the bulb.
It’s not totally dark, though. I can see vir angular face, though—illuminated by the green gleam coming from vir gun. “Scurv, what are you doing? Are you charging up a shard to see by?”
Scurv sighs. “Please understand, girl,” vi says. “We do not like this part of the job.”
“What?” That’s when I realize the gun is pointed at me.
“Scurv, no—”
“Don’t argue, girl. Make peace with your god, aiya?” Vi gestures with the gun. “Go on. We’ll count to three.”
“No, I can’t—” I need to run, but where can I run from someone who never misses a shot? “Why are you doing this? For the Pet? What about Jaqi? Are you going to—”
“We don’t like when it’s children. Tell that to your god for us, aiya?” The green shard in vir gun is blazing now, lighting up the pale, angled contours of vir face. “In our next life, no children and guns. One. Two.”
No, I can’t—I came all this way because Jaqi is the Son of Stars, I—
“Ah!” Scurv’s face twists in pain.
I run.
And Scurv misses me. God be praised. Vi misses me, the best shot in the galaxy, so that headache must be something—
I run through the gate, along the causeway, and realize my only chance is the water. The water, crashing against the rocks, which will probably slice me apart—but that’s better than a shard! I jump in.
Instant cold, and the water is bitter and acidic and why—ow—that’s a rock I just hit my head on, I think I might be bleeding, I need some air—I need to—no, I need to swim, even if I’m bleeding. I swim. I swim into the tide. When the waves lift me up I try to dive down, under them. Just dive under the waves, just like bodysurfing on a nice day on Keil, even bleeding, even—
Green flashes erupt around me. Scurv’s shards. I keep swimming. My chest hurts so much it feels like something is going to tear out of it, and another wave slams me into a rock that rips my side open—
And suddenly I’m being sucked down.
Oh no—no—I’m going to drown, going to die here—
The water crushes me against smooth tunnel walls, pushes the air out of my lungs as I go down, and tumble, and smack my head again and I almost open my mouth but some part of my brain yells No, don’t do that—
I open my eyes against the stinging salt and see a light. I push myself through the water toward the light even though it hurts. Everything hurts. It all hurts so much, and I’ll never find Mom, I’ll never see Toq, and Quinn will have died for nothing—no, keep swimming, keep swimming, God hears you, swim!
I surface at the bottom of a narrow, dark well.
I gag and puke seawater. There’s a few faint lights far above that have the look of emergency bulbs someone’s strung around.
“Ow.” I lift my hand up, and though I can’t see it, I can tell my arm is bleeding. Probably every part of me is bleeding.
I’m under the temple, I think. The open area above me is inside. I was swept in here through the tunnels that let in seawater.
Ladders rise up the side, out of the water. I grab one and my hand immediately slips—it’s slick with native algae. I try again, keeping my grip despite the slippery algae.
The pain is pretty bad, as soon as I get out of the water and take a breath. I’m bleeding a lot.
Dad would say that counting your blessings will always make things better, even if it’s a short count. So, I’m bleeding and hurt, but the saltwater cleaned the wounds. Scurv wants to kill me, and vi is one person you can trust to kill, but at least vi has a headache. I have a ladder out of here. There might be medical supplies . . . somewhere.
Weirdly, I do feel better. Thanks, Dad.
Up I go.
The ladder rungs get more reliable as I go, less algae-eaten. There’s strong plastisteel underneath the algae, it just hasn’t been cleaned in a long time. After a while climbing, I realize I’m pretty far above the water, and falling from this height might be as bad as falling onto a hard surface. Plus, my hands are shaking and I’m pretty sure I’m more soaked with blood than with salt water . . . but I keep going.
I have to keep going.
I’ll find Jaqi, and tell her Scurv betrayed us, and then we’ll get out of here, and we’ll find where Mom is.
It gives me strength. I keep climbing.
I finally reach another beveled edge, and clamber up another set of ladders, much shorter, and find myself in the main hallway of what I think is this temple.
It’s been a while since anyone was in here. Other than a few distinct scuffs, there’s dust thick on everything.
Footprints show sign of a struggle. A bridge spans the pit I climbed up from, and the dust there is freshly disturbed. Somebody dragged something. There’s stains on the floor too. Looks like blood. Not mine.
I follow the path into what used to be some kind of control room for this place. And—by some miracle—
“Oh God. Oh my God, thank you, thank you God.” I’m not sure if I’m praying or babbling. Someone’s left an open first-aid kit here, with gel-packs for restoring flesh—the kind of thing you use on crosses. Right in the middle of the room!
They’re meant for crosses, but they’ll work for humans.
I tear open the gel-packs and rub them into every scrape I can find on my body. It’s not easy to cover all the scrapes. I have gashes all along my arms and my butt and my back and my neck is raw and red and I’m lucky I have no open arteries from all those sharp rocks.
There’s something weird about the seawater here. Most of the wetness on me is blood, which means the planet’s atmosphere is drier than it seems, maybe too nitrogen-rich. It’s the kind of thing that terraforming engineers would have to keep coming back to and correcting. But for me, it means that I didn’t leave a big wet trail on the ground, just some blood. Hopefully it dries quickly too, blending in with the blood already there.
“Thank you, God,” I whisper.
Scurv won’t know I was in here, if I’m careful and hide my footprints.
One of my shoes has also been slashed to ribbons, so I take the shoe off, and pack gel around the top of the foot, the synthskin slowly grafting onto the real skin. I don’t like the idea of going barefoot—vi’ll be able to pick out my small feet. I tear my shirt and wrap my bare foot in the raggedy pieces and look around for some place to hide. The gel-packs are quite warm. They’ll make me sleepy.
There’s several heavy boxes and cases piled in a corner, all of them against each other. I manage to get around one, and slink into a spot small enough that maybe Scurv won’t be able to fit there either.
Father’s voice comes to me, and Quinn’s too. Telling me why I couldn’t be involved with their meetings. Kalia, you’ll understand the Resistance, soon enough. As soon as you turn fourteen.
Ha. My birthday is still a few Imperial
months off. Fourteen, my cut-up shoeless foot.
And then the gel-packs take effect and I fall dead asleep.
It’s really good that I’ve been running around robbing prisons and fighting the Vanguard, because I just barely wake up when Scurv comes in.
“Damn thing,” Scurv says to the Pet. “Patch me in.”
I recognize the skittering noise.
Vi might have been here for a while. Why hasn’t vi seen me? Surely Scurv would scope out a room before vi did anything there. In all the holos and comic books about vim, nobody’s dead until the body’s cold in the center of the screen.
“Ah—ow. Ah.”
Scurv’s headache still going, I see. Is vi really getting this careless over a headache? I mean, I’m impressed with how far I’ve managed to come today, but vi should have hit me the first time vi tried it. I’m just a kid.
And then—the unmistakable whir and hum of a node-relay opening.
“I’m in a firefight here,” a voice says, weirdly calm for what it’s saying.
“We can’t find any trace of either of them,” Scurv says, and vir voice sounds shaky. That must be a serious hangover. Or something worse. Vi didn’t seem like vi was in pain before. Is it something about this planet? Something about the Shir?
“Did they kill each other?”
Scurv actually laughs. “So cold, to be talking about your love.”
“Yes, well, my love ordered someone in the fleet to take preemptive action, against my orders, and I’m facing the wrath of the entire Thuzerian Order. Don’t leave until you have two corpses.” That’s cold. “Two Sons of Stars, both dead.”
“Dead now? You said incapacitated. After he got what he wanted from her, aiya.”
“I changed my mind. Find them both. Bring me the corpses.”
“Your own husband.”
“I was told that you asked no questions, just took the money.”
Who is Scurv talking to? Who wants to kill her husband? There’s only one other Son of Stars I’ve heard of besides Jaqi, and that’s John Starfire. Is he talking to John Starfire’s wife, Aranella? She is supposed to be the Resistance’s right hand.
Scurv says in that pained voice, “No trouble. We’ve killed lots of Chosen Ones.”
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