The Crystal Variation

by Sharon Lee

  “Do you remember,” Jela persisted, “the name of the trader or company who sold them to you?”

  Well, she did, as it happened, the directors having done them all the favor of breeding for extra-efficient memories—and she was damned if she was going to share the news.

  “I’m gonna tell you so you can report trading with the enemy and send somebody out to pick ‘em up?” she snapped. “No point to it. A lot of weird drifts in from the Deeps and catches up against the Rim. Depend on it, somebody bought a box-lot or a broken pallet somewhere and the toys were in it. There’s a lot of sheriekas tech on the Rim; people trade ‘em as oddities, or collect ‘em.”

  “Like the Uncle?” Jela asked, and Cantra laughed.

  “The Uncle ain’t collecting; he’s using. Figures he can beat the enemy by mastering their machines and turning them against their makers.”

  “Then he’s a fool,” Jela said, with a return of the stern grimness he’d given the Uncle, “and an active danger to the population of the Spiral Arm.”

  Cantra frowned. “Could might be. In point of fact, though, what the Uncle exactly ain’t is a fool, nor any of his folk. The Batchers who make it out to the Uncle, they’re tough and they’re smart. Seems like if anybody was going to be able to figure how to use the enemy’s equipment against them, it’s the Uncle’s people.” She considered Jela’s face, which was no more grim or less, and added—

  “Understand me, I ain’t the Uncle’s best friend, by any count.”

  That got a real, though brief, smile, and a roll of the wide shoulders.

  “I don’t doubt that they’re smart,” he said slowly. “But they’re not the only ones who’ve thought of using the sheriekas weapons against them—and come to grief for it. I’ve seen battle robots based on captured sheriekas plans which have gone mad, laying waste to the worlds they were built to defend—a flaw in the design, or are they performing exactly as the sheriekas intended them to?”

  He leaned forward, elbows on knees, warming to his topic.

  “Another case—out there in the Tearin Sector, they’ve been building battle tech based on plans captured from the last war—fleets of robot ships, under self-aware robot commanders who’ve been fed all the great battles fought by all the great generals. They’ve turned them loose, I hear, to roam out into the Beyond and engage the sheriekas.”

  Cantra tipped her head. “So—what? They join the enemy when they make contact?”

  “They might,” Jela said, sitting back. “The reports I’ve seen have them turning pirate and holding worlds hostage for their resources.”

  “And you’re thinking this is also in the plan?” she persisted. “To seed us with tech and proto-machines that’ll attack us from inside while the world-eaters take bites outta the Rim?”

  “Like that,” he said, and gave her one of his less-sincere half-smiles. “Old soldiers have their crochets. No doubt the Uncle’s harmless.”

  Cantra laughed. “Nobody said so. And that thing that fried out my ‘skins sure wasn’t harmless.” She hesitated, wondering if she wanted to know—but of course she did.

  “How bad?”

  He glanced aside. “Bad,” he said, and sighed. “You needed nothing less than a sheriekas-made heal-box—and I wasn’t sure it was enough.”

  Well. She closed her eyes; opened them.

  “My ‘skins?”

  “Sealed inside a sterile pack,” he said. “What’s left of them.”

  She shivered, took a breath—

  “I owe you,” she said, and her voice was a little lighter than she liked. She cleared her throat. “Owe you twice.”

  His eyebrows went up, but he didn’t say anything, only made the hand sign for go on.

  “Right. You were clear—I saw you on the ramp. No reason for you to come back—you could’ve got away clean.”

  He snorted. “Fine co-pilot I’d be, too, leaving my pilot in such a mess.”

  She glanced aside. “Well, about that . . .” She took a hard breath and made herself meet his eyes.

  “The thing is, I went in thinking that the Uncle might enjoy having himself a soldier, and that selling you might net a goodly profit.”

  Something moved down far in those Deeps-dark eyes, but his face didn’t change out of the expression of calm listening.

  “Say something!” Cantra snapped.

  He raised his hands slightly, let them drop onto his lap.

  “I’ll say that I don’t blame you for wanting me off your ship,” he said. “And I’ll point out that, intentions aside, you didn’t sell me to the Uncle.” He moved his shoulders against the back of the chair.

  “No bad feelings here, Pilot.”

  Which was generous, she allowed, and precisely Jela-like. She wondered if it came of being a soldier, his giving the greater weight to the action done, and the lesser to the reasons behind it.

  For herself, she was unsettled by her intentions and her actions, both. She knew—none better—that Jela wasn’t anything like a partner, nor did she owe him anything as a co-pilot, being as he had forced his way into the chair and the ship.

  Yet, when decision came to action—

  Mush for brains, she growled at herself.

  “Meant to ask you,” Jela said. “Why did your directors decide to retire your Series? If it can be told.”

  She blinked, it being on the edge of her tongue to tell him it couldn’t be told. But, dammit—she owed him . . .

  “Pliny,” she said, and cleared her throat, “ . . . he’d’ve been a half-brother. So—Pliny come home from an assignment, reports to Instructor Malis for debriefing—and slapped her.” She paused, feeling Garen’s hand hard ‘round her arm, yanking her into a run—

  “So,” Jela said softly. “He slapped a superior. In the military, that might be good for getting him shot, but not his whole unit.”

  She looked up and met his eyes.

  “He’d been delayed,” she said, just telling it, “and by the time he come in, he really needed that debriefing. Add that Instructor Malis . . . liked to hear us beg for the drug. The sum of it all being that he killed her—and the directors aren’t about to tolerate a line that bites the hand that’s fed it, housed it, clothed it, and taught it.” She paused, considered, then shrugged. Wouldn’t do him no harm to have the whole tale of it.

  “The Uncle come into it because some level of Batchers’re are kept in line by binding—happy-chems, mostly—to certain receptors. Close enough to how the directors keep aelantaza in line, except the directors didn’t figure to waste any happy-chems. Uncle’s lab techs gimmicked an unbind process, which Garen knew, and figured it was worth the trip to find out would it work.”

  “I see.” Silence, while Jela glanced over his shoulder at his damn’ tree, sitting still and green in its pot.

  “So the line was ended because it showed independence and self-reliance,” he said. “And you’re the sole survivor.”

  “By luck . . .” she muttered. And by Garen.

  He smiled at her—a wholly real smile.

  “That’s all any of us can claim,” he said, and stood, gathering his empties into a broad hand, and reaching for hers.

  “What I propose,” he said, looking down at her, his face serious. “If you agree, Pilot. Is that we do make for Gimlins. I’ve got a good chance at a contact there, which will get me off your ship and out of your life.”

  For one of the few times in her free life, her mind went blank, and she stared at him, speechless.

  “And I’ll apologize,” Jela continued, “for putting you in harm’s way. I am a soldier; the risks I find acceptable aren’t what a civilian ought ever to face.”

  Almost, she laughed, wondering what he thought her life had been—but he was gone by then, the door sliding closed behind him while she sat in the pilot’s chair and for the first time since Garen died blinked away tears.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Spiral Dance

  Shift Change

  JELA HAD GOTTEN his
log-book out, meaning to bring the entries current. An hour later, there he sat, the book open on his knee, pen ready—and he’d done no more than note down the date.

  It happened that the date was of some interest to him, it being something over forty-four Common Years since the quartermaster had assigned M Strain Jela to Granthor’s Guard creche, despite the fact that the proto-soldier was smaller than spec. That he’d been the single survivor of an enemy action focused on the lab which had killed every other fetus in the nursery wing—that had weighed with the quartermaster, who’d noted in the file that a soldier could never have too much luck.

  He’d been lucky, too—or as lucky as a soldier could be. Despite a certain reckless disregard for his own personal welfare, and what some might call an argumentative and willful nature, he’d outlived creche-mates and comrades; commanders and whole planets.

  And now he was old.

  Worse, he was old while the enemy continued to advance and wrongheaded decisions came down from the top; his mission was in shambles and—

  The last—that rankled. No, it hurt.

  That this would be his last mission, he had accepted, the facts being what they were. That he would fail—somehow it had never occurred to him that he would fail, though he’d certainly failed enough times in his life for the concept to be anything but new. This mission, though, assigned by this particular commander . . .

  He’d been so sure of success.

  And there was worse.

  He’d promised—personally promised—the tree that he would see it safe, which he should never have done, a soldier’s life and honor being Command’s to spend.

  It weighed on him, that promise, for he had made it with true intent, between soldiers, and the tree was as much his comrade-in-arms as any other he’d fought beside, down the years.

  He told himself that the tree knew the realities of a soldier’s promise; that the tree, comrade and hero, didn’t fault him for putting duty before promises.

  The fact was that he faulted himself, for what increasingly seemed a life misspent and useless. Yes, he had followed orders. More or less. Which was all that was required of a soldier, after all.

  And duty required him, right now, to plan for the best outcome of the mission, since success was not within his grasp.

  Sighing, he shifted against the wall, sealed the pen, closed the book and put both on the hammock by his knee. He closed his eyes.

  Gimlins, now.

  Gimlins was a risk. It might even be an unacceptably high risk. He wouldn’t know that until he did or didn’t have someone on the comm who did or didn’t have the right sequence of passcodes.

  There’d been a corps loyal to the consolidated commanders on Gimlins. Some time back, that would have been, and he was the first to realize the info was old. His big hope, in a narrowing field, was that the corps was still there. His smaller, more realistic hope, was that the corps had moved on to fulfill its duty, leaving behind a contact for those who might have lost their way.

  If there was neither corps nor contact at Gimlins, then he’d—

  He wasn’t precisely sure what he’d do then, in the cause of the consolidated commanders.

  Which unsettling thought spawned another. He’d promised Cantra he’d clear off her ship, and that was a promise he did intend to keep. Duty might have required him to find quiet transport out of the range of fire, but duty hadn’t required that he continue to impose his will—his will—upon her once he’d gotten clear.

  He could have picked up a ship at any of the ports they’d passed through on their way to settle Dulsey with the Uncle. The truth was, he hadn’t chosen to. Like he’d chosen to sign on as Dulsey’s escort to safety, forcing Cantra onto a course she’d never have charted for herself, and for which audacity she’d determined to sell him to a ruthless man who she might have had reason to believe could keep him occupied long enough for her to lift, regaining her life and her liberty.

  He understood her motive, and didn’t blame her for the intention. A fully capable woman, Cantra yos’Phelium, and as good as her word—when she gave it. He’d enjoyed being her partner in trade. And he’d learned something about piloting from her, which he wouldn’t have thought was possible.

  He smiled a little, remembering her yawn for the X Strain’s display of prowess—and the smile faded with the more recent memory—looking down to the dock where she was surrounded, smoke billowing from her ‘skins and the scream—

  He’d never thought to hear Cantra yos’Phelium scream—and hoped never to hear it again. The sound of her laughter—that was a memory for a soldier to take away with him, and treasure.

  Memories . . . Well, a soldier had his memories—which shouldn’t, in the normal way of things, interfere with his duty or his planning.

  Sighing, he shifted again against the wall, settling his shoulders more comfortably, and engaged one of the focusing exercises.

  The sound of the air being cut by wings disturbed his concentration; sunlight flickered in strange patterns across the barely visualized task screen, which melted, morphing into a wide band of blue, arcing from never to forever over the mighty crowns of trees.

  Again came the sound of wings and there, high against the canopy sky, two forms, necks entwined, danced wing-to-wing.

  “Not likely,” Jela muttered and started the exercise from the beginning, banishing the dancing lovers from his mind’s eye.

  The exercise proceeded, task screen came up—and was again subverted by the tree’s will.

  This time he saw the now-familiar green land, gently ridged by the great roots of trees. Against one giant trunk a nest sat a little askew, with bits and pieces of it strewn about, as if it had fallen from a higher branch, unmoored perhaps by the wind.

  In the nest was a dragonling, its tiny wings still wet, and it was crying, as any baby will, for food, and for comfort.

  As he watched, a seed-pod fell into the nest, and the baby set to with a will; another pod was given and devoured; and a third, as well, after which the baby curled ‘round in its battered nest, eyes slitting drowsily . . .

  Leaves sifted gently downward, filling the nest softly. The dragonling sighed and tucked its head under its wing, slipping off into sleep.

  A flash of the task-screen, then, and a shift of scene to doleful, dusty wasteland, the sun pitiless overhead, and below, nested in the sand, a creature soft and dun colored, its snout short; its eyes reflective . . .

  In the hammock, leaning against the wall of his quarters, Jela snorted a laugh.

  “And a pretty sight I was,” he said aloud.

  The tree continued as if he had not interrupted, displaying now an unfamiliar green land touched by soft shadows—and there, curled against a trunk he somehow knew for the tree’s own, despite its greater girth, a small and soft dun-colored creature was peacefully asleep.

  In the now of Cantra’s ship, Jela frowned.

  “Is that real?” he asked the tree, but his only answer was a flicker of shadows and the sound of the wind.

  * * *

  SHE CHECKED THEIR location, and gave Jela full points for finding his way out of the Deeps and into the relative safety of the Shallows.

  For old time’s sake, she called up reports from weapons and from the ship-brain, opened the comm logs, read the Uncle’s note, laughed, and scanned the long list of sends which had raised no answers.

  She went down the list again, frowning after call-codes familiar from her previous audits of Jela’s comm activity, through a complicated skein of unfamiliar—and increasingly untraditional codes.

  The man’s worried, she thought, and caught herself on the edge of starting a third time from the top.

  Mush for brains, she growled, and banished the log with a flick of a finger.

  She should, she thought, get dressed, pull up the charts and do some calculations, checking Jela’s filed route to Gimlins.

  The sooner you raise it, she told herself, when she just sat there—The sooner you raise this Gi
mlins, the sooner you’ve got your ship back.

  True enough and a condition she’d yearned for since shortly after shaking the mud of Faldaiza off of Dancer’s skin.

  Despite which, she stayed in the pilot’s seat, pulling her feet up onto the chair and wrapping her arms around her knees, the silk robe sliding coolly against her skin.

  The Little Empty was in the forward screen, the few points of light showing hard against the endless night. She leaned back into the chair . . .

  Don’t stare at the Deeps, baby, Garen muttered from memory. The empty’ll fill up your head and make you’s crazy as your mam, here.

  No use explaining that Cantra knew her pedigree down to multiple-great-grandmothers and that Garen yos’Phelium was nowhere in the donor list. Garen believed Cantra to be her daughter—the same daughter who had been annihilated, along with the rest of Garen’s family, acquaintances, and planet, by a world-eater, some many years before the directors of the Tanjalyre Institute commissioned Cantra’s birth.

  Garen’d told her the story—how her ship had come home from a run, excepting there wasn’t any home there. Told how they’d checked the coords, gone out and tried to come back in. How they’d done it a dozen times, from a dozen different transition points until finally the captain put them in at Borgen, cut the crew loose and sold the ship.

  She told that story, did Garen, and as far as Cantra’d ever determined, she’d seen no inconsistency in admitting her daughter dead and destroyed while at the same time believing Cantra to be that same daughter. Not the least of Garen’s crazies, and the one that Cantra ought by rights to have no argument with, it having saved her life.

  The question now being, Cantra thought, tucked into the pilot’s chair of a ship she could never fully trust, staring out over the Deeps—saved it for what?

  Life wants to live, baby. That’s just natural.

  True as far as it went. But life—life wanted to accomplish, too; to make connections; to trust; to be at ease and off-guard for some small moments of time . . .

  That’s a powerful gift you’ve been given, baby. A weapon and a boon. You can have anything you want, just for a smile and a pretty-please.