Heart of a Traitor

by Aaron Lee Yeager

  Keiko opened a panel on the wall and pulled out a large wooden case. A tray extended from the wall beneath the mirror and she placed the case on it. She then tapped a rune on the side of the case and it opened up. Inside there were what seemed to Nariko to be hundreds of bottles of crèmes, paints, brushes, powders, and tubes. Some had labels Nariko could read, but many she could not and a few had labels with alien writing on them.

  The bed’s mattress had been replaced with a grid of large water pouches. Even under the comforter, Nariko could see the water sway and vibrate slightly under the movements of the ship. The walls had been modified with dozens of small shelves, each of which displayed items of alien origin.

  As Keiko set the case down on her waterbed, Nariko noticed that something was wrong with Keiko’s skin. She was covered head to toe with a red rash.

  “What happened to you?” Nariko wondered aloud.

  Keiko turned around and let out an exasperated sigh. “Someone snuck into the room and reconfigured all the lights to emit purple light.”

  “I bet it was Taka,” Nariko guessed.

  “And on a festival day, too. I’ll have to get her back for this one.”

  Keiko took out a tube and began happily placing drops of a skin-colored crème from it onto her hands and face, then spreading it around. Nariko found herself oddly curious about this strange ritual.

  “What’s that for?” Nariko inquired.

  Keiko turned around and let out an exasperated sigh.

  “It’s concealer,” Keiko explained, as if it was the most obvious thing in the universe.

  Irritated, Nariko turned her attention away from Keiko and began looking around the room. The entire room was very unusual for a Senshi. It was much more decorated than any of the other quarters Nariko had seen. The walls had been repainted in a creamy taupe and delicate silk had been hung around the viewports. Several types of thick, heavy flowers grew in pots of soil underneath a sun lamp. Fukimi flowers were extremely difficult to cultivate and Nariko remembered that the Akiyama family had been famous for its Fukimi-bo, a strain whose scent was powerfully intoxicating during its blooming season. Obviously Keiko carried on that tradition.

  Nariko breathed deeply and moved to tell Keiko that she would be her replacement as Gunsho, but she hesitated.

  Instead, Nariko looked again at the large wooden case from which Keiko was now applying some kind of power to her body. The outside of the case had been carved with vine and flower patterns and Nariko now recognized it as a relic from Correll.

  “Is that ironwood from the Uji Mountains?” Nariko asked curiously.

  “Yeah, I pulled it out of the wreckage of our ancestral home, along with some other baubles. My mother had placed it in the family safehold, so it survived the fires.”

  Nariko nodded. She would have given anything to not have to begin this conversation. The first question everyone would ask, of course, is why she would step down as Gunsho.

  “I heard that Momoiro squad made off with a hundred suits of purity armor from the Temple of Sanctity,” Nariko mentioned, delaying the inevitable. “So, do you think that was our true objective on Kall? Just to steal a bunch of shrine-maiden armor?”

  “I’m sure there were at least five reasons why we were there. Inami never does anything for just one reason,” Keiko explained.

  “Or she might not have any reasons at all,” Nariko grumbled, thwarted in her attempt to get a straight answer.

  “My mother used to say that there is nothing quite so difficult as trying to understand the way another person thinks,” Keiko said as she pulled out a small crystal bottle from the case and sprayed her neck with it, leaving a sweet scent on her.

  “My mother always wanted a second daughter, someone she could send to beauty school,” Keiko mentioned as she applied a gel into her wet hair.

  “Well, now she has one,” Nariko murmured under her breath.

  “What was that?” Keiko asked, pulling out a pistol-shaped hot air machine.

  “Nothing.”

  Keiko began brushing her hair and forcing hot air through it with the dryer.

  “What are you doing now? You’re going to be late,” Nariko complained.

  “It’s better to use a hot air machine to dry your hair. It would take too long if I waited for it to dry by itself. Besides, you have more control over your hair when you blow dry. You can style it with a brush as you go.”

  “Why a brush? Why not just use a comb?”

  Keiko laughed, her hair changing to a light orange.

  “You don’t want to use a comb except to make a part or to separate it out to make a braid. Using a comb on long hair breaks the hairs and gives you split ends.”

  Nariko unconsciously brought her hand up to the simple ponytail that she put her hair into.

  “What are split ends? Is it bad?”

  Keiko turned off the hot air machine and seemed quite satisfied with the effect. She had styled her hair from the left, which came up in a big swoop before cascading down her shoulders and back. The style was quite flattering and fit well with the shape of her face. She then took out a small can and sprayed it into her hair so that it would keep its shape throughout the night.

  “I remember the women of the household always arrived late to festival days,” Nariko reminisced. “Now I know why.”

  “You cannot rush the art of kesshouhin,” Keiko commented as she used a brush to apply something Nariko did not recognize with to her face, creating an even skin-tone color across her skin and completely hiding the rash beneath.

  Nariko watched Keiko oddly as she lightly applied a reddish colored powder to her cheeks.

  “What is that for?” Nariko asked, puzzled.

  “You use houbeni to give the cheeks color and contour. You can use several different shades to create more depth or alter the appearance of the contours of your face.”

  Keiko glanced at Nariko through her mirror for a moment before returning to her art.

  “You have really nice cheekbones, so you wouldn’t need this as much. My cheekbones aren’t as high, but I can use this to make them stand out more,” Keiko explained.

  Nariko hadn’t ever really thought about her cheekbones, but she was oddly pleased to be told that hers were high, whatever that meant.

  “There is no way you’d ever get me to wear that stuff,” Nariko commented. “I don’t see how you can stand to paint your face.”

  “Shogatsu is a formal celebration. I want to look my best,” Keiko said as she began to paint a darker shade of eye shadow above her eyes.

  “But you’re a Senshi,” Nariko argued. “It doesn’t matter what you look like.”

  “Of course it matters,” Keiko flippantly replied. “Within a tenth of a second anyone who looks at you has already made all kinds of assumptions about you, who you are, your abilities, everything. The human brain is just wired that way, it’s instinctive, we can’t help it. So, since it is going to happen anyway, you might as well use it to your advantage. Think of it as another resource to accomplish your objectives.”

  “Resources?” Nariko asked, skeptically.

  “Okay, let’s say you are approached by a beautiful person who smiles at you. What do you automatically assume about them?” Keiko quizzed.

  “That they are nice,” Nariko answered.

  “Now let’s say that you are approached by someone who’s disheveled, unkempt, and stinky and they smile at you. What would you assume about them?”

  “Probably that they’re a pervert,” Nariko answered honestly, considering the point.

  “Man or woman, if you present yourself well people will want to trust you. All you have to do is give them a reason to. As a woman, you can take that to another level entirely. A gorgeous woman who knows how to carry herself need never worry about food, clothes, or a place to stay. It’s like having a never-ending supply of Taries to spend. A woman like that, she can approach the most powerful people in the Confederacy. She can enter the most heavily guarded
places in the galaxy. She can be privy to the most sensitive information imaginable.”

  Keiko paused for a moment and let the lesson sink in.

  “Even the Marshals are not immune,” she said, half to herself. She finished painting a thin line around the edge of her lips using kuchi-biri-no-raina and began filling the line in with kuchi-beni.

  “Still think there’s nothing to be gained?” she asked, her hair a shining yellow.

  Nariko thought on this for a moment. Wealthy aristocrats, priests, planetary governors, military tyrants and even cyber-priests. Man or woman, it seems like none of them could resist the urge to have a beautiful mate at their side. It was the most ancient status symbol. Nariko wondered if it was an instinctive part of human nature. An evolutionary throwback to animal values where the strongest individual selects the best mate for his or her self.

  Keiko finished painting her face and began dressing herself in her dress uniform when the door suddenly whooshed partway open. Michi stuck her face in, looking concerned.

  “Kei-dono, everything okay in here? We thought we heard some screaming a while back and it took me a few minutes to disable the door.”

  In spite of the fact that she was still only half dressed, Keiko smiled and told Michi that everything was fine.

  “Hurry up, then, they’ve already started drawing names,” Michi urged as she pulled her head back out, the door closing behind her. Keiko happily continued dressing herself.

  Watching Keiko, Nariko had to admit that the kesshouhin really did make a big difference. Keiko was pretty normally, but fully done-up like this she really was quite stunningly beautiful. The effect was a lot more subtle than Nariko would have guessed. She didn’t look painted, she looked radiant.

  Nariko wondered if people really treated Keiko better when she was all done-up.

  Wait a minute! When I came in here Keiko screamed and sobbed like a banshee, but when Michi came in just now she didn’t even bat an eyelash.

  Nariko replayed her memories from earlier and noticed that when Keiko had been screaming earlier, her hair color had been yellow-orange. That didn’t match up with her screaming and sobbing at all. From what Nariko had observed, it should have been red-purple if Keiko was really angry and embarrassed.

  Did she just put on an act? Did she do that to keep from getting punished? Nariko decided that Keiko was a fine actress. If it weren’t for her unfortunate gift, Nariko would have never guessed that she had not been truly upset.

  She now saw Keiko in a different light. She was a lot shrewder then she led people to believe and Nariko decided that she would have to be more careful around her. Is that what she meant by ‘resources?’

  “Can you teach me how to do that?” Nariko asked.

  “What, the kuchi-beni?” Keiko asked, putting everything back in the case.

  “No! What you did at the door.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Keiko said innocently. “You’re the one who barged in here to peep on me.”

  Nariko felt her anger rising again. She would have to handle Keiko more shrewdly.

  “You still disobeyed a direct order,” Nariko explained. “Which means that I would be well within my rights to bar you from attending the festival today. However, I would be willing to overlook the incident in exchange for some coaching.”

  Keiko feigned ignorance for a moment, but then smiled mischievously.

  “If I do, will you call me sensei?”

  “No.”

  The door to the detentionary whooshed open and Nariko walked in, carrying a tray of food. Somehow Don Kielter had managed to acquire a rubber ball and was busying himself by bouncing it repeatedly off one spot on the wall and catching it again.

  “Where did you get that?” Nariko asked as she stepped through the auger field.

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged as he bounced the ball again. When the scent from the tray hit his nostrils he perked up like some kind of prairie dog and looked around.

  “You brought me real food,” he gushed.

  “I did,” she affirmed, sliding the tray through the bars.

  “What is this?” he asked, looking it over.

  “Don’t tell me you are still going to complain. You said you wanted something not freeze-dried.”

  “I’m not complaining, I’ve just never seen dishes like this before,” he explained, sniffing the bowl of miso soup.

  “No, you are doing it wrong,” Nariko chided, reaching out her hand as if threatening to take the tray back.

  “I am?” he asked, hiding the tray away from her.

  She nodded. “Allow me to teach you the proper way to respond.”

  Steepling her fingers, she bowed formally and said, “Thank you.” Rising back up, she pointed a finger and said, “Now you try.”

  Don Kielter laughed deeply, pointing a finger back at her knowingly. “Aah, I see what you did there. Well done. But seriously, what is this?”

  “These are some basic Correllian dishes, although I should warn you they are not done very well.”

  Don Kielter glanced at her hands from the corner of his eyes and noticed the bandages on her fingers. Barbarically he picked up the chopsticks and, unable to guess at their use, stabbed them through the center of one of the egg rolls and bit down into it.

  “This is wonderful,” he praised, noting the faintest smile appear on her lips. “Did you make this yourself?”

  Nariko subconsciously put her bandaged hands behind her. “O...Of course not. I am a Senshi, not a housewife.”

  Don Kielter stabbed the omelet with his chopsticks and pulled off a piece. “Well, tell whoever did make this that she did a wonderful job,” he said knowingly.

  Nariko turned away, her face flush.

  “Ooh, you even gave me a little cup of guacamole,” he gushed, pouring the green contents onto his omelet.

  “No, wait!”

  It was too late. He had already put the sopping bite into his mouth.

  “That’s...”

  Don Kielter leaned forward and spit out as much as he could. He looked as if he was being strangled. His eyes watered and his tongue darted about, as if threatening to jump out of his mouth and into any water it could find. He made a sound somewhere in between a squeak and a burp.

  “That’s wasabi,” Nariko laughed in spite of herself. “You are only supposed to use a tiny amount on the fish.”

  “You people are cruel,” he coughed, wiping his tongue with his napkin. “Why feed me all this time if you only planned on poisoning me in the end?”

  “I tried to warn you,” she chuckled, covering her mouth.

  “Ugh! Stuff tastes like cat pee.”

  The humor drained away from Nariko’s face. “It’s not that bad.”

  Don Kielter grabbed his water pouch and drained the contents. “Aah, water doesn’t help; it only makes it burn worse!”

  “Oh, don’t be such a baby.”

  “You poison me then you insult me?”

  “I’m not insulting you, I am describing you.”

  It took a few minutes for Don Kielter to calm down enough for Nariko to explain to him that breathing with his mouth closed helped minimize the burn. Once he did that things started to settle and they fell into what had become the usual routine of swapping old war stories.

  “...so then he lifts me up with one claw like this,” Nariko recounted, holding up her arms. “Hundreds of his little spawn things slithering up around us. With his other claw he grabs me by the throat and he’s giving me this little speech about what he is going to do to me before he lets me die.”

  “So what did you do?” Don Kielter asked, popping the last dumpling into his mouth.

  Nariko leaned forward toward the bars. “I pulled all the pins out of my grenades.”

  His eyes went wide. “You didn’t.”

  “I did,” she chuckled. “Blew us both to pieces. You should have seen the look on his face.”

  Don Kielter laughed heartily, banging his fist against the bars
of the cage. “I bet he never saw that one coming.”

  “No,” Nariko smiled, “the last thing I remember was he just had this expression like, ‘why would you do that?’ then we both got shredded.”

  “So, after that you got your eyes?”

  She nodded. “That’s how I got my gift at Rictan. Without his divinations to guide them their whole campaign just fell apart.”

  “Didn’t it hurt?” he asked without thinking.

  Her expression fell.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have...”

  “No, it’s okay,” she granted, waving her hand.

  Already the mood in the room had darkened.

  “To be honest it happened so fast I didn’t even feel it that time. That’s not the part that hurt. What hurt was afterward when I realized how much I lost from that death.”

  Nariko looked decidedly uncomfortable. “I really should be going,” she excused herself as she moved to sit up.

  “Why not stay a bit longer? I enjoy your company so much.”

  Nariko looked at him oddly.

  “Why would you want to spend time with me? My life is broken. Why would you want to be a part of that?”

  He smiled. “Maybe I like broken things.”

  “What are you talking about? Broken things are...well, broken.”

  “Broken things can be wonderful, too. Look, I’ll show you what I mean.”

  In one long gulp he emptied the last of his soup into his gullet and then held up the dish. “Now, if you look at this bowl, it’s exactly the way it was when it was manufactured. It’s identical to trillions of others. Indistinguishable, stagnate, boring.”

  With a crash he let it drop to the floor, shattering it into various pieces. “Well, just look at it now,” he commented, gathering up the pieces. “See how unique it has suddenly become. Look at all these shapes, each edge different and each fragment exclusive. See how I can arrange them on the floor here to form all sorts of different patterns and styles. Before it had only a single design, whereas now it can take on dozens of forms. This has become one-of-a-kind. In the entire universe there is nothing exactly like it, I think there is beauty in that. Do you see what I mean?”

  Nariko nodded. “Except one thing.”