Icarus Descending w-3

by Elizabeth Hand

  “Yes, yes, the Oracle.” I frowned, recalling my dream, our father’s face swallowed by the Oracle’s brooding one. “Well, perhaps we should gather in the media chamber to await this marvelous thing.”

  Polyonyx nodded, her face glowing. “Oh, yes, sister! Many of us are there already—we were waiting for you. ”

  I gave her an apologetic smile and turned away. The truth was, I wondered if our father would really speak. I alone among my sisters did not hear the silken voice of our brother Kalaman. Nor did I trust the Oracle Metatron, an unease I could not shake for all that I tried. He spoke of this Elemental war as a holy war, and of our kind as being of greater mind and heart than the humans we had slain; but to me it seems no better thing to die at the hands of an energumen than at a man’s. I would ask my father about this; and also how it was that of all his children only Kalamat doubted, only Kalamat questioned and had bad dreams.

  But for now I would join my sisters to await his coming. I kissed Polyonyx. When we embraced, I felt her trembling, and touched that quivering place in her mind that would brook no fear or caution of whatever would happen that evening.

  “It is wonderful that this Oracle has come to us.” She drew away from me, shaking back the hundred beaded plaits of her hair. “And that he will bring us to the Element to meet our brothers and sisters.”

  “Yes.” I stared past her to the small round window that looked out upon the Ether, the cold darkness where the bodies of our Masters and my own dead sisters floated, waiting for a clarion that would never sound to wake them. “Yes, Polyonyx. Perhaps this will be a wonderful thing.”

  In the media chamber I found my sisters assembled. Those who had not offered their hair to the Mother had plaited it into long braids or drawn it back through loops of metal or plastic. All of them had painted afresh the tattooed images and robbed dry ink into the cicatrices where their breasts had been. I was the only one who had not seen to such ministrations. I had forgotten. I had actually not thought of this as a holy gathering, but rather a matter of business: as when our Masters would have us join them to welcome a new diplomat in the docking area, or watch a parade of new prisoners taken from another colony—a ceremony meant to be a warning to us, as much as a celebration of some new triumph.

  But to my sisters, this garnering was a great occasion.

  “O Kalamat, think of it! We will see our father again—” Cumingia cried. She kissed me and the scent of violets lingered upon my brow.

  “Our father,” I repeated, and sighed. Why couldn’t I believe this would really be him, Luther Burdock? “It will be a ’file transmission, sister, not our father in flesh.”

  “Oh, pff! Soon enough it will be him. When the Element welcomes us once more.”

  Cumingia whirled to face the great window that covered one side of the hall. In the void outside hung the shining sphere of the Element, a blue-green tear that our Mother Herself might have wept. “Do you think he will remember me?” she asked softly.

  My father’s face danced across my mind. I felt a pain in my breast, as keen as the memory of when I made my offering to the Mother. “Of course he will,” I said. “If it is truly he, he will remember all of us. He said he would never forget and never stop loving us.”

  Cumingia pressed her face closer to the window. She nodded absently, her question already forgotten. “It is very far away, the Element. Does it have air?”

  I laughed. “It has nothing but air, sister! Come with me, I’m tired of standing.”

  We knelt with the others, facing the recess in the floor that hid the ’file transmitter. All of us were naked save for the linen skirts that had been our uniforms and which we were still reluctant to cast aside. While it was made of fine and durable stuff, none of our Masters’ clothing would fit an energumen. We had too much else to occupy us, to learn to fashion clothes when none were truly needed.

  I frowned, smoothing my skirt upon my knees, and thought how that would surely change upon the Element. I knew the weather was variable there, and often threatening. I wondered what our other brothers and sisters had done for clothes. Some of my sisters on Quirinus had looted the personal stores of our dead Masters. They flaunted jewels upon their breasts, silver rings and bracelets looped around those necklaces long enough to fit over their heads, jeweled brooches and pillboxes strung together in gaudy jingling bunches. But I would not wear stolen finery. I thought it gave my sisters a heathenish look, like the savages the Masters think we are. In my memory I held the image of a ring that my father had given me, a simple silver ring with a knot of silver in its center. I would have worn that ring, if I had it with me now; but I did not. And at any rate, perhaps my memory was wrong. Perhaps it had been Cybele’s ring and not mine.

  “Look!” Over the soft laughter and chatter of my sisters rang out the thin childish voice of Hylas. “It is here, it comes!”

  From the recess in the floor before us came a whirring sound. A thin radiant line shot up from the ’file transmitter, cooled from adamant to silver to blue. Beside me Cumingia squirmed and babbled to herself. My other sisters cried out, or whispered to themselves the hymn to the Mother. I alone was silent. The brilliant line burst. Rays of gold and blue light showered over us, and there was the man-sized image of the Oracle, standing within a shimmering dome of purple and gold. At sight of him my sisters fell silent, and Cumingia’s hand grabbed mine.

  “Greetings to Asterine colony Quirinus,” said the Oracle in his clear strong voice, and smiled.

  All around me my sisters nodded, their ebony eyes wide. Some of them shyly called out to him; but I remained still and silent and watchful. “As I promised, I have arranged for a live ’file transmission from your father Luther Burdock to be broadcast to this station, on the occasion of your imminent departure for Earth.”

  Cumingia gasped joyfully and rocked back on her heels. Even I felt my heart leap within me; but I bowed my head and listened as the Oracle continued.

  “Within one solar hour the elÿon Izanagi will be docking at Quirinus. This is an Ascendant freighter that has been commandeered by Alliance troops for your journey to Earth. Shortly after the Izanagi arrives, three secondary transport vehicles will also dock at Quirinus, bearing energumens from HORUS colony Helena Aulis. They will also be traveling on the Izanagi.

  “You are to gather whatever possessions you have and assemble in the docking area, and from there proceed to the Izanagi. I have arranged for a separate ’file transmission to inform you of your assignments. After debriefing at Cassandra, most of you will be sent to Tripoli and the Balkhash Mountains, where there is presently a skirmish attended by energumen troops from your sister colonies Totma 3 and Hotei.”

  A small stir went around the circle at this announcement. Cumingia’s hand in mine went limp and cold. I tightened my grip on it and shook my head.

  “But that sounds like we will be fighting!” cried my sister Hylas. “We have never been in battle before—and what of our father? I thought we were to see our father?”

  Other anxious voices chimed in.

  “Yes, our father, where is our father?” Cumingia shifted and glanced at me uneasily.

  “As I told you, sister,” I murmured; but the Oracle went on speaking, as calmly as though no one had interrupted him.

  “The Ascendant and Commonwealth troops know they are fighting a war they cannot win. But even if they could, a greater danger awaits them—awaits all of us—and only the chosen of Luther Burdock will survive this cataclysm.”

  At these words small cries echoed through the vaulted ceiling of the media gallery. Fear and frustration knotted inside me. Danger? Cataclysm? Why have us leave the safety of HORUS if some disaster awaited us upon the Element?

  This must be some trick of the Oracle’s, I thought, some madness that had infected his memory. I pried my fingers gently from Cumingia’s hand and leaned forward, the better to hear what other threats this Metatron might give voice to.

  “…so little time before the world will cha
nge—indeed, until the world the Tyrants knew will be no more! We have only to see if they will succumb to their own weapons, or if they will surrender and acknowledge their new Master.”

  Their new Master? Raw fury burned my throat and I nearly cried aloud. This was as the Tyrant humans would have it, a world parsed out among snapping dogs. In all my memories of him, I had never heard our father speak in this manner, of Masters and slaves. Had he changed so much? Or was there someone else in this extraordinary Alliance, someone more like our former Masters, and like them eager to build a new world upon our backs?

  “Metatron!” I cried, but before I could say more, the Oracle raised a gleaming metal hand.

  “No questions yet! It is mere hours now before your new lives begin, and I have here someone most anxious to speak with you.”

  Silence sudden and patient as death filled the room. Where the Oracle had been, another image shifted into view, a blurred white object that snapped into focus and became a face, a figure, a man sitting in a bent metal chair with his hands tapping restlessly upon his knees.

  “Anyone there?” a soft voice called out. The man’s eyes flickered back and forth, as though trying to locate the ’file camera. “Are you there? Hello?”

  I gasped, all my fears forgotten.

  Because it was him. Our father, the man who created us, Dr. Luther Burdock. He looked no different than he ever had—no white hair, no lines upon his face—only a small red spot on the bridge of his nose, as though the skin had been pinched away through much worry.

  “Are they there?” he asked, turning to someone out of range. He looked back at us, or rather, back at the ’filing equipment—he still didn’t appear to have seen us. He bent his head slightly and gripped his knees, as though he were about to plunge off the chair and into a great pit. He frowned, cleared his throat, and spoke again in a solemn tone.

  “Well then. Yes. I am Luther Burdock, Dr. Luther Burdock, and I—I understand this is Coriolanus—I’m sorry, Quirinus—the Quirinus space station.”

  He grimaced, rubbed the bridge of his nose before continuing.

  “I would like to—to welcome you! That is, I would like to extend to you a very big welcome from the members of the Asterine Alliance. We all hope you will be with us very soon. Thank you, and good night,” he ended, smiling brightly, and glanced away again.

  That smile tore something from me. Fear, I think, but also hope. Because there was no doubt but that this was my father: his face, his hands twitching in his lap; his voice, distracted but kind, and above all his gentle eyes, though they could not see me.

  But I also knew that Luther Burdock had no real idea as to what was going on within the Asterine Alliance. Just as he had never answered the summonses sent to him at our home in the mountains; just as he had paid no attention to the news on the telefiles, the reports of the growing power of the New Ethical Front and the United Party for Humanity. He was speaking to us only as a sop to some other person. Whatever enchantments of science had awakened him and brought him back to life, they had not changed him. As always, he wanted only to return to his work, whatever that work might now be.

  The Asterine Alliance did not belong to Luther Burdock or his children at all. It belonged to Metatron. What plans he had for us, I feared to guess.

  But our father had turned back to the ’filing screen. “I have to go now,” he said. “But I understand you will be here within a few days. I look forward to meeting with you and discussing our future together. Until then—”

  He bunched his fingers together and made an odd little salute. “Ad astra et cetera.”

  The image blinked into dead air. A moment of utter silence, and then chaos.

  “It was Father!”

  “Did you see—”

  “He remembered! I could tell he remembered—”

  My sisters ran to embrace each other, laughing and crying out across the room, pointing at the Element’s watchful blue eye outside or running to the window to see if they could glimpse the elÿon that was to join us.

  “O Kalamat!” exclaimed Cumingia as she hugged me. “You always loved him the best—you must be so happy now!—but what is it? What’s the matter?”

  She drew away from me, shaking back her beads and frowning. “Kalamat?”

  “Don’t you—how can you—they are sending us to fight, sister. Didn’t you hear? They are sending us to war in the Commonwealth.”

  Cumingia’s brow furrowed, and then she gave a small laugh. “But only for a little while. You heard what the Oracle said—in a few weeks we will be together again. Oh, Hylas!—”

  She turned away to take another sister into her arms. I walked through the little crowd, saying nothing as my sisters reached to stroke my cheek or laughingly called my name. I shook them from me, my heart raging with anger and dismay.

  War! He was sending us to war. How could they not hear that, how could they not care? I had only a handful of days yet to live, but I would not be spendthrift with them, squandering them in battle. It did not matter if it was a war we could not lose. It was not what we were made for, it was not what I was made for.

  And I realized then that my sisters had no idea why they had been made. Their thousand days they accepted greedily, but without question. Our lives serving the Architects on Quirinus had been busy but not difficult. We were not treated cruelly, we had our dormitories and our pleasures, we were even permitted our Rites of Lysis, so long as they did not intrude upon the Ascendants.

  But for the first time I knew that, for my sisters, this had always been enough. They wept when one of us died, wept as they recited the orison and bore the bodies to the chutes that would cast them into the Ether; but afterward they forgot. They remembered our father, but he was as a father in a dream, a father glimpsed in a cinemafile. Not someone to spend an entire lifetime mourning, even if that life lasted only a handful of days.

  And there was the truth of it. I was not like them, no more than I was like our Masters. Something had gone wrong when they made me, some phantom turning of the road of cells and nerves that led to Kalamat. Instead of a creature as like to those others as one grain of wheat is to its kin, they had somehow created me.

  And I remembered my father. I loved him. I could never forget.

  At the window I stopped and leaned my head against the glass. I wept, remembering Luther Burdock. I remembered how he had held me when I was a child and awakened screaming in my bed, how he stroked my curls and whispered to me.

  “ Do not fear the dark, daughter, ” he had said. “ The night can never harm you, and anyhow, soon it will be time for us to wake. ”

  I stared out at the Element, the world that in my memory had always belonged to my father, but now belonged to Metatron. And if like our great Mother I could have wept worlds, new worlds, my tears would have seeded the Ether with stars.

  As the aviette auxiliary capsule approached the golden torus that was the colony of Quirinus, the energumens Ratnayaka and Kalaman sat apart from their brothers and stared outside. Travel in the aviette made Kalaman uneasy, a holdover from earlier terrorist forays when he had still feared discovery by the Ascendants and subsequent punishment or attack. He sat with his hands clenched in his lap, the flattened blade of his kris straddling his knees, and hoped they would arrive at Quirinus soon.

  Beside him, Ratnayaka sensed his brother’s fear. Any one of them might have known it; but the rest were clustered at another window, pointing to where the other two aviettes seemed to float like smooth flattened teardrops in the Ether. Kalaman’s fear made his brother tremble. To think that Kalaman’s mind was so open to his own! He brought his face close to Kalaman’s and stroked his cheek, then let his hand rest upon Kalaman’s thigh. Murmuring, Ratnayaka caressed the feathery impression of scars that Kalaman had drawn there with his kris. His brother was so beautiful. Even in these rare hours of calm, Ratnayaka could see the rage within him, filling Kalaman as blood or wine might fill a crystal krater, until at last it spills out and stains t
he hands of the libation bearer.

  Ratnayaka knew this rage as another might know the kisses or sweet mouth of a lover; as Kalaman himself knew the much-fingered blade of his kris. It was a gorgeous thing, that rage, hot and quick as a culverin’s flame; but it had been fired and tempered in the rarefied furnace of a HORUS colony. Upon the Element, Kalaman’s ardor, his solitary and sanguine nature, would not fare so well. Metatron wanted generals and janissaries; the cool, sturdy grip of a revolver or blade that yields to a command, and not the lethal holocaust of a Shining.

  Kalaman was such a thing: a shining creature, an uncontrollable flame. But Ratnayaka was a general—had he not been his brother’s lieutenant?—a general and, if necessary, a sword that might be wielded by another’s hand; say, Metatron’s.

  Ratnayaka smiled, looking upon his brother, and lovingly ran his fingers across a small raised scar upon his knee. No, there would be no place for Kalaman upon the Element. As for Ratnayaka himself: he knew patience as he knew the sound of his brother’s voice. And some swords have been known to betray their masters.

  “O Kalaman,” he whispered.

  Still his brother did not move, not even when Ratnayaka leaned forward to nuzzle his throat.

  “We will finally see them,” was all Kalaman said after several minutes. With wide, calm eyes he stared out the window, at the radiant torus and its beveled lines of lights, red and blue and violet. “All those sisters we have never met…”

  Ratnayaka drew back from his brother and nodded, his eye a sullen gleam in his ruddy face. “We can teach them what we know. We can bring our secrets with us to the Element—”

  He thought hungrily upon the brothers they had harrowed in the cool green-lit chambers of Helena Aulis. How lovely they had all been, how greedily he had fallen upon Djistra, the last to be consumed before they left the only home they had ever known; and how Kalaman had given all that final pleasure to Ratnayaka, taking nothing for himself.