Spear of Light

by Brenda Cooper

  Nayli had turned Stupid into a cartoonish co-pilot, which was one of its more capable looks. Vadim made the call to the dispatch center. “Lady of the Stars, ready to leave.”

  Only after they had pulled away with no problems whatsoever did Nayli breathe in a long sigh of relief. It would be days before they could be sure Lilith’s Station was safe. But without them there, it was safer. And if the Next did attack Lilith’s, the Shining Revolution wouldn’t lose Maureen.

  It was a horrible setback. She felt absurdly grateful they’d have a few days to wait before Brea and Darnal would think it safe to re-initiate communication.

  She slid next to Vadim and whispered, “Are you on duty?”

  He slid his hand down her back, a caress of comfort. “I can be.”

  “Good.” She poured herself a single glass of wine and lifted it three times. Once for each of the two captains that she knew had been lost and once for Maureen’s uncle. Then she did what she had to do, which was head to their quarters and prepare to sleep so she could take command again in the morning and keep right on going.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  SATYANA

  Satyana picked at the buttons and lace on the suit she’d had made for the meeting. The lace was stiffer than she’d wanted; it tickled her neck.

  Gunnar bulked next to her in the small shuttle. Hiram sat directly opposite, his long legs sticking liberally into her space. The Futurist, of course, had dressed all in black, with the exception of gold earrings and a gold hair tie that caught his glossy black hair in a ponytail. She had never seen him in another color, except for the occasional white shirt under a black coat. She let her stray thoughts slip free of her mouth. “I don’t know why we don’t just meet them naked. They never wear clothes.”

  “I’m game,” Gunnar replied. “But you would hate it.” He had dressed for show in a bright blue silky robe that contrasted with his dark skin and slimmed his vast bulk down. He wore soft green boots and a green sash. Her own outfit has been designed to complement his; her blue lace matched his blue exactly, although she layered her lace and buttons over a pale mauve. Neil, of course, was dressed in a simple tan suit that looked as unassuming as possible.

  The shuttle door opened and two gleaming silver robots with no pretense at all to human form ushered them through the door and led them across a spotless landing bay, down a long and brightly colored corridor with exposed pipes painted with primary colors, and into a meeting room where four empty chairs waited for them. Beside each chair, she noted a small table with a glass of water on it. A fifth chair wasn’t; the Colorima Kelm had folded part of her gleaming body into a chair shape and left the rest looking like a beautiful human woman who might have been sculpted of silvery water. “Thank you for coming,” the Colorima said, in the distinctly feminine voice that the Colorimas always used.

  As the senior member of their party, Hiram said, “Thank you for inviting us.”

  “We wish to be clear with you on a few items, and then we plan to grant your wish.” The Colorima nodded at Gunnar, who smiled back. He looked pleased and not nearly as penitent as he probably should. Sometimes she wasn’t certain whether or not he understood how much had changed.

  The Colorima continued. “First, please recall what we said before we asked for your support. We will remind the larger group as well. It is very important to us that you understand it.”

  She looked from one to the other. When Satyana returned her gaze directly, she felt . . . touched. The Colorima’s gaze held the ineffable, the infinity of all the ways the brilliant being could compute anything, but also a depth of feeling that surprised her. Something deeper than she had seen in Chrystal, deeper perhaps than she had ever seen in any human. It left her blinking rather stupidly as the Colorima looked away and spoke. “We are pleased that you chose to assist us. We told Nona Hall that we will not hesitate to remove any threats to our operations on Lym. It is up to humans to police other humans.”

  If that was so, then Satyana wondered why the Shining Revolution hadn’t been blown out of every corner of the Glittering yet.

  As if she heard Satyana’s thoughts, Colorima said, “We just destroyed Lilith’s Station for harboring people who had carried out an attack on us. We will do the same to anyone caught in the act of attacking us or who we can verify are about to attack us. If we begin down the path of slaughtering everyone who thinks of harming us, we will have to ruin every station in the Glittering.”

  Hiram, who was always rather fearless, asked, “Why don’t you do that? Wouldn’t it be easier to murder us all? Have us out of the way? Then you wouldn’t need to keep a single promise.”

  The Colorima went still for just a moment, and although it didn’t exactly show on her face, Satyana sensed a deep and banked anger. “In the long ago when your kind banished my kind, you killed some of us, but you let the rest of us go. The people who made those choices are your ancestors, and they gifted you with your lives today. It would be dishonorable.”

  “How important is honor to you?” Neil asked. “And how do you know what it is?”

  His question made the Colorima smile. “You would not always recognize our honor. It is not the same as yours in all ways. But in the large ways? We have our own pride. There will be no guilt if we defend ourselves, but a preemptive cleansing would change who we are, and we might become . . . less good. Less trustworthy. At our core, we remain moral beings.”

  Neil smiled thinly. “I do have what might be a moral question.”

  “You may ask it.”

  “Why are you encouraging so many humans to join you?”

  “They are choosing to do so. We learned that lesson after the High Sweet Home.”

  “I know you aren’t compelling the change. But you are already many, and obviously you can multiply. You are not the only Colorima alive today, but there was only one original Colorima, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why turn more? Why not just make an infinite number of Colorimas?”

  “Do you understand the concept of genetic diversity?”

  “You’re not flesh.”

  “There is also a diversity of ideas. You cannot create a complex society with a hundred seeds. More seeds—more souls if you will—create richer possibilities. We wish to grow as a people.”

  Neil looked thoughtful and scribbled a few notes on his slate.

  “Why?” Satyana asked. “Why do you need more of you? Growing is understandable, but you’re bringing in hundreds, maybe thousands of possible new Next. Even if half die, you will gain many. You seem to be in a rush.”

  “We will answer that question in time. But let’s move on. I mentioned that it was up to humans to police other humans. We will go into a far larger meeting soon, and when we are there we will give you something that will help you.”

  Gunnar straightened. “The navigation?”

  “You already know how to get to Lym, and that is what matters to us. We know that you dispatched a few ships to our skies. We approve.”

  Satyana didn’t know why. Gunnar would likely muck it up. He might be the best trader in the system, but he was no diplomat. As if to prove it, he asked a straight up question again. “So what will you give us?” he asked.

  “Everyone who is here today will learn it at once.”

  If Satyana had wanted to know, she would have asked more subtle questions or offered some piece of information in trade. She leaned forward. “How many accepted your invitation?”

  “Two hundred and seventy-seven.”

  So few. “That includes the hundred and seven who had already formally joined us?”

  “It does.”

  She had hoped for so many more. “How many refused?”

  “Six hundred and ninety-three. The others had all already gone rogue or joined the fight against us.”

  Her number had been different. Higher on the undecided side. But the Next were more likely to be right than she was; they had ships near most of the major stations. “Very we
ll. We’re ready to go meet them.”

  “But we are not. Not yet. Another thing you need to know is that we have no patience for duplicity. I want the agreement of everyone in this circle that you will harbor no hidden agendas.”

  Neil and Satyana shared a look. She spoke for them. “I’m sure there is no intent to hide anything.”

  The Colorima regarded Gunnar, who looked down at his hands. After a while, he spread his hands apart, and met her gaze. “My agendas are never hidden. Just ask.”

  “You must not offer anything to anyone in the Shining Revolution,” the Colorima said.

  To her surprise, it was Hiram instead of Gunnar who said, “I will offer sanctuary to whomever I deem worthy.”

  The Colorima made a great show of raising an eyebrow. “If you offer sanctuary to members of the Shining Revolution, you must destroy their ships.”

  Hiram glanced up at her, his dark eyes full of a quiet anger under his dark eyelashes. The line of his jaw was hard and tight. “We agreed to help you, but we did not agree to be your slaves, or your enforcers.”

  The Colorima had no comment.

  Satyana was again surprised when they found themselves on stage next to the Colorima, with the delegations from all two hundred and seventy-seven of their allies arrayed in theater-style seats. It wasn’t what she had pictured. But then, the Next would hardly host a banquet, right? The room looked as if it had been newly created just for this event; not a mar or scratch visible anywhere. Maybe they had created it, and would uncreate it with a word or a press of a button as soon as it served its purpose.

  It smelled new.

  A reminder—again—of the differences in power.

  The Colorima did provide the expected speech—partly what she had told them in the pre-meeting and partly an exhortation to be the stewards of their fellow men and women.

  Gunnar fidgeted next to her, almost like an excited—or maybe apprehensive—student rather than like the richest businessman in the solar system. He didn’t seem to notice, but from time to time he rubbed his chin or twisted his hands together in his lap like living things. At one point she even put a hand on his entwined hands, stilling them.

  Eventually the Colorima moved on, and Gunnar fell silent, completely attentive.

  “We have decided to begin to . . . slowly . . . release some of the things that we know to you. We thought long and hard about what might be of most use. We have been asked for the obvious things. For equally obvious reasons we cannot provide you with weapons or better ships. These will need to be earned.”

  To his credit, Gunnar didn’t flinch.

  “Way out beyond the Ring of Distance, where the sun Adiamo appears like another star in the sky, and where power of any kind must be created or must be sieved carefully for, way out where there are almost no minerals or materials that are not stolen from an unwary ship or captured from a wandering comet, way out there in our place of banishment, we learned to make things.”

  She was laying it on thick, and serving a sprinkling of guilt on top.

  “Eventually, we learned to make the things you hunger for. We learned to make metals, and to program almost any material to become any other material, to take flesh and blood and bone and metal and turn it to atoms and then rebuild it. We created porous fields that can harden in an instant like the shield over Nexity.

  “For there were two things we had: time and compute cycles.”

  The Colorima paused.

  The audience moved restlessly. Some whispered to one another. Gunnar remained silent and still.

  “The first thing we will give you is power over the materials you work the hardest for. We will give you the programming to create the minerals and gems that you mine from Mammot, so that you are no longer dependent on any particular supplier or supply for your raw materials. This will free you to use your distribution resources in our service, and at our request, while benefitting you far more than it harms you.”

  Gunnar had gone completely still.

  They had completely destroyed his most lucrative income streams.

  She didn’t dare touch him for fear that he might explode. Even Gunnar would not be foolish enough to talk back to a Colorima, would he? At least, not in this setting.

  The Colorima continued. “We will put this in the hands of Gunnar Ellensson for the Diamond Deep, of Lou Highnor for the Breaking Sun, and of Rachel Night from Rising Storm.”

  They weren’t even leaving it all to him. They were treating two middling-sized rivals as equals.

  “We will provide the programming, the teachers, and the initial equipment.”

  A small smattering of claps rose from the audience, but if Gunnar weren’t on stage, she suspected she would be hearing cheers.

  She sat in stunned silence, careful not to show any emotion. The Next surely knew what they were doing, and she believed they wanted peace. Perhaps not as viscerally as she did, but she and they shared some level of common cause.

  Getting through the next few months might be an interesting dance. As she left the stage, she touched the Colorima Kelm’s hand. It was silvered and smooth, almost like a lotion. Not a thing she could grip. It made her shiver. “Thank you,” she said. “I look forward to working with you.”

  The robot’s unreadable gaze promised her nothing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  YI

  Yi hesitated as he led Jason Two and Chrystal toward the gate out of the Mixing Zone. The tallest guard, a man with the hallmark height and multiple tattoos of a spacer, swung the door open for them. After they were through, Yi said, The Jhailing must have set that up.

  Neither of the other two answered. They had never been outside of the Mixing Zone, and they looked around uneasily.

  It’s okay, he told them. It’s safe enough here. We’ll have to be very careful after we clear the spaceport, though.

  Yes, chief worrier, Chrystal teased.

  Especially you.

  He checked out a skimmer from the common motor pool, and flew them around, giving them time to become accustomed to the vast long-lined horizon broken by the tops of trees and/or the tops of mountains, or—in one direction—the great flat line of a blue-gray sea meeting a deep-blue afternoon sky.

  After they had flown for an hour and seven minutes, he landed in a meadow and pulled them both out of the skimmer to stand on the grass in a clearing just far enough from town that he wasn’t worried about people coming on them unaware. He took their hands so they were a circle of three and suggested, Please open. I’m looking for any sign that the Next are coming along with us.

  Chrystal cocked her head. Won’t the fact that you just asked that question out loud make them hide if they’re with us?

  Do you sense any inside of you?

  No.

  Jason?

  No.

  All right then, he told them. Please?

  Jason looked resolute and Chrystal the slightest bit upset, so he went in and out again as quickly as he reasonably could. It wasn’t as much a braiding as an examination. When he was done, Jason said, I hate that.

  I know.

  How do you know if you see traces of them?

  I know you all. Anything that doesn’t feel like you is probably a guest.

  You could miss one though, couldn’t you? Jason asked.

  Yes. The Jhailings don’t surprise me anymore, just talking in my head suddenly. Maybe they can’t get in as easily now. There’s still more we don’t know about them—and us—than we do.

  Truth, Chrystal said, nodding sagely.

  Yi shrugged. I don’t even know if we care—we aren’t doing anything wrong. But a piece of me likes to know if I’m seeing everyone who’s along. I have a feeling they may have wanted us to come out here.

  Even me? Chrystal asked.

  Probably not.

  She frowned at him. Even though it’s not as often, they still come into me on their own sometimes, like a surprise.

  He gave her a quick hug. Even though they looke
d like their old selves, they did not smell like that. But he liked the way she smelled now. Clean. Okay with leaving the skimmer someplace near the foot of the mountains and running in?

  Chrystal smiled. I’ll race you.

  We should fly a little closer.

  Jason looked puzzled. Why?

  It will save half a day.

  Chrystal blinked, absorbing the idea that the distances might be that vast. But she climbed back into the skimmer. She stretched her arms way up over her head and stood on tiptoe. Everything about her looked poised, ready to move. Can we run by Nona?

  No.

  All right.

  She had acquiesced to that a little too fast. It was good to have her with them, but it was a worry. He’d have to keep an eye on her.

  They couldn’t leave the skimmer in any old place. Its lines gave away the fact that it belonged to the Next, and Yi really wanted it to be there for them if they needed it. He parked it twice and decided against the places he’d chosen.

  After the second abortive parking incident, Chrystal teased him. “You worry too hard.”

  “Which is why you are alive,” he said.

  No one could disagree with him.

  He finally settled for a copse of trees that butted right up to a rock wall. Hopefully it would provide them some protection from discovery via the air.

  From there, they ran. After half an hour, they stripped and carried their clothes in light packs. It protected the clothes, and, besides, thorns and branches simply slid off of their skin. Another difference. Their new skin felt human to the touch, but it didn’t tear easily.

  They were out in the wild, being entirely themselves, doing a thing they wanted to do.

  Yi led, Chrystal next. Jason followed. They had taken everything important in this order for a decade. The sun drove their shadows long until it merged them with darkness. Yi adjusted his eyes as the light changed, so he ran up a cliff and across a ridge in scant light with no problem.

  It had been a long time since he’d run on uneven surfaces and pulled himself up boulders. The leap and pull—the race and test—the slight risks—he loved it all. In this body, everything could be adjusted for. When a rock broke away under his right hand he had time to find another hold. When an entire rock-face crumbled under Chrystal, Jason took a great leap from behind her and caught her, bounding on the still-falling rock and landing with one foot on a barely safer rock, leaping before it could break and sticking a landing on a flat surface, laughing, twirling Chrystal around and around, her black hair flying in the black night.