Kingdom of Cages

by Sarah Zettel

  “It does make sense if Dionte was not taught proper judgment by those around her because it was assumed that her Conscience would guide her.”

  “Aleph, this can’t be.” The conflicting scents from his Conscience choked him. Calm, fear, trust, worry, right, wrong, no answers, none at all, just the voice telling him to trust, trust, trust, but trust who?

  “No?”

  Trust your family. Trust your city. Trust your family, who cares for your city. “No. It can’t… I can’t…”

  “You cannot believe it?” Aleph stood, picking up the chair she had knocked over.

  “No,” whispered Mihran, and his Conscience silenced. The sudden quiet inside his own mind washed through him like relief.

  Aleph leaned against the back of the chair, looking sadly at him. “I said you could not.”

  “I…” Mihran made himself stand. “I will have to think about this.”

  Aleph straightened herself up in front of him. Her image matched his height exactly and looked straight into his eyes. “Please try to, Mihran. I am in pain. We all are. We are supposed to be helping you, not standing apart from you.”

  “I will try. I promise.” That was right. He would weigh and judge. There was a way to do this and still hold sacred the trust of both his city and his family, and he would find it.

  Aleph nodded to him. “I am glad. I do not want…”

  “What?”

  But Aleph was gone from the glass, and Mihran stood alone among the well-tended trees and the sweet scent of their fruit. He turned and strode into the busy throng of his family, because he did not want to stop to think how he lacked the courage to call his city back.

  Elle opened her door to let in the dawn’s gray light and chilly, damp air.

  “You Nan Elle, or you know her?” wheezed the shadowy figure in her doorway.

  It took a moment for her sleep-dimmed eyes to focus. When they did, Elle saw a block of a man—a boatman, judging by his thick boots and bulging forearms—with clean brown skin, good teeth, clear eyes.

  “A little stair climb shouldn’t leave a rower out of breath,” she remarked, gathering her tunic a little more tightly around her throat to keep out the morning’s cold.

  “Huh,” the man grunted. “It should after pulling up the current from Stem. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve got a nice lively little spate going after yesterday’s rain. You Nan Elle?” He squinted past her shoulder, trying to see if someone else lurked inside the house. “This is for her.” He held out a square of paper.

  “I’m Nan Elle.” She took the letter and saw her initials written in Farin’s dramatic hand. “Can I get you something to drink, rower?” Elle stood aside to invite him in.

  The boatman glanced over his shoulder down toward the village. “I’d like to, but them hothousers we brought up probably got all kinds of plans for us.”

  “Hothousers?” Elle asked sharply, sleep’s last cobwebs dropping from her mind.

  “Eight of ’em.” The rower shook his head at such excess. “They’re in with the constable now.”

  “But you don’t know what for?” Elle tapped one finger on the handle of her stick. Possibilities flitted through her head, but none of them felt more likely than any of the others.

  Could Chena have caused this? Sudden fear chilled her worse than the morning damp. No. If Chena had been caught, you would be hearing from Tam now, not Farin.

  “Hothousers.” The man made a gesture that managed to be lazy and rude at the same time. “What’s any of ’em got to say to us? Up the river, down the river. That’s all there is.”

  Of course, and why would you pay attention to what’s going on around you? “I thank you for my letter, rower.” She saluted him, and when he turned to go, she let the door swing shut behind her.

  Elle sat in her good chair, slowly and carefully. Her bones ached with the cold, and she hadn’t stoked up the fire yet. The room’s only light was the blue-gray glow that crept through the slit windows and made the black ink gleam as she unfolded the letter.

  Nan, she read:

  Bad news, and more bad news. I saw Chena on the boardwalk yesterday. The cops were right behind her. I don’t think they’ve caught her yet, but I can’t find her either.

  Nan Elle leaned her head against her hand and for a moment wished hard she had been a better teacher, a better parent. Then those girls would have known that the world was as it was. They would have known the difference between what was possible and what was necessary.

  She had believed Chena would be content with a village to care for, with people who needed her to run risks for them.

  Wrong, wrong, as wrong as you’ve ever been, old woman.

  And now there were eight hothousers down there. What were they looking for? Chena? Teal? Too late for them to find either here. Herself? Elle laughed silently. She had been so eclipsed by her charges, she was probably not registering on even Regan’s scope anymore.

  But if they were here about Chena, then Chena was not in their custody yet. Free somewhere, possibly still in Stem.

  Elle stared out the window. Chena was in hiding somewhere, and decidedly in trouble.

  You have a whole village to take care of, she told herself. The hothousers will be everywhere, and you are known to be the girl’s caretaker. They will follow you in an instant. Regan will be up here in a moment to question you.

  If they catch you this time, there will be no out. Not anymore. She sighed, picked up her letter, and shuffled over to the stove. A whole village to take care of. Three babies on the way, and the fever only just beginning to dissipate. She dropped the letter into the flames and watched it blacken and curl. The peppery scent of burning paper filled the room.

  A whole village to take care of. Cannot go haring off in broad daylight after a child who should have known better. All the long years of fights, nagging, bragging, and anger. So much anger. So much need for revenge. Her own troubled daughter had been an angel by comparison, and Farin one of the earthly blessed. And yet, Elle remembered the way Chena cried when she came home to find her sister gone. They will catch me and then I will be no good to anyone. Even at my age, I imagine they will find a use for me in the involuntary wing.

  A fist hammered on the door. Elle stayed where she was, watching the last of the letter fall apart into ashes.

  I will have to leave after dark.

  Beleraja stood in the docking bay, unsure of what to feel.

  Shontio had called her the minute the ships were spotted, a great phalanx of silver lights spread across the black sky, growing slowly closer over the next twelve hours, until they resolved themselves into the blunt, scarred wedges of a shipper fleet. The lead vessel had been painted the bright green and gold of Menasha’s family. Menasha stood beside her now, the wait clearly straining her nerves. Beleraja sympathized. Menasha’s husband and son were on the other side of that hatch. Beleraja, however, found her own thoughts much more focused on the other fifty ships that were currently spread out in a ragged chain curving around Pandora, taking part in a careful dance to stay out of sight of Pandora’s loose network of communication satellites. Those ships held the first five thousand colonists for the invasion. Barely enough, but they would hold the ground until the next wave could arrive in eight months’ time. Especially when they were landed all in a clump, fully briefed and prepared. They were here to begin the Pandoran invasion, and to bring the Diversity Crisis, and so much else, to an end.

  The hatch swung inward to reveal Menasha’s husband, lanky Yved Denshyar, and their burly son, Amin. Menasha was across the floor in three strides, hugging them both and kissing her husband hard on the mouth. Beleraja felt a stab of envy. Her own husband was seven hundred eighty-five point six light-years away, helping to evacuate the population of Best Chance. Shontio just looked away.

  Yved and Menasha released each other and drew themselves up into more formal postures.

  “First Master Denshyar,” said Shontio, stepping up and giving Yved the full
salute. “Welcome aboard.”

  “Thank you, Station Director.” Yved returned the salute. “Commander Poulos.”

  “Yved. Amin.” Beleraja saluted them both. “What have you seen?” It was a traditional shipper’s question, even though over recent years it had become a painful one.

  Yved’s long face fell into grim lines. “We’ve lost another two worlds, Bele. We got there and…” His voice faltered and his hand strayed out to catch Menasha’s.

  “We found a créche on La Dueña,” said Amin softly. “They’d been trying to isolate the newborns from… something. We…” He swallowed. “We think the babies starved to death after all the adults died.”

  Shontio touched his fingertips to his mouth, whispering a prayer.

  “In the burning name of God,” whispered Beleraja. “There was no one left?”

  Amin shook his head and Beleraja felt her fists clench. “This is why we have to do this,” she whispered, whether to herself or to the others, she didn’t know. “This is why we are right.”

  “There’s worse, Bele,” said Yved, his hand still squeezing Menasha’s.

  “Worse?” Beleraja’s voice rose high and thin with disbelief.

  “We were only able to bring you twenty-five hundred people.”

  Beleraja’s throat shut. Twenty-five hundred? Only twenty-five?

  Next to her, Shontio went gray. “That’s not enough,” he barked. “What were you thinking? Five thousand would have barely done it. We have to hold acreage, post lookouts, get secure facilities up and running… and we’ve got to expect the hothousers will get some, and Pandora will get others, and…” He began to shake, his chapped hands twitching at the ends of his wrists. “What happened?”

  Yved just clenched his jaw. Beleraja decided she didn’t want to know what he was holding back.

  “La Dueña happened,” answered Amin for his father. “And Far Jordan, and there were people who changed their minds, and people who were too infectious to move.”

  “Twenty-five hundred,” whispered Shontio again. One hand came up, cupping around the air, seeking something to grab hold of. “Oh, God’s own. God’s own.”

  He ran through the bay hatch. Beleraja, her blood gone as weak as water, could think of nothing to do but race after him.

  Beleraja pushed her way into the overflowing hallway just in time to see Shontio vanish into the next hatch between the pair of superiors stationed to keep that way clear. She sidestepped around the squatters and pulled up short in front of the superiors, who both reached for their tasers before they recognized her and drew aside to let her in.

  On the other side of the hatchway, Beleraja saw Shontio, director of Athena Station, head of one of the four ruling families, doubled over beside the curving wall, one arm wrapped around his stomach, as if he were trying to hold in his guts.

  “Tio…” She started forward.

  Shontio flung his hand out, warning her away. Beleraja froze in her tracks. Shontio straightened up into an old man’s stoop. He stared for a moment at the tarnished wall, and then lashed out with one fist, striking the metal with a ringing, crashing blow that fell hard against the sound dampeners.

  “Tio…” breathed Beleraja, her own hands hanging useless at her sides.

  It took Shontio four tiny steps to turn himself around to face her. His whole body trembled. Blood spread across his ruined knuckles.

  “We’ll have to send them down anyway,” he said, his voice perfectly steady.

  Beleraja swallowed and tried to speak, but no words came to her. “We have to send them down.” Shontio’s face hardened as he fought to control the shudders that wracked him. A droplet of blood fell to the matted floor. Tick.

  “We can’t do it,” said Beleraja hoarsely. “We’d be killing them.”

  Shontio forced his shoulders to square themselves. Another drop of blood fell. Tick. “They can’t stay here. There’s no place to put them.” He lifted his bleeding hand and looked down at the scarlet threads trickling across his fingers. “Twenty-five hundred. Not enough to save us, or themselves.

  “We’ve lost, Beleraja.” Shontio spoke the words to his bloody hand and leaned his back against the wall.

  Beleraja found she had to swallow again before she could speak. Twenty-five hundred desperate, brave people, and they weren’t enough. The invasion would only work if they could put up secure settlements all across Pandora. Secure, defended settlements. It would only work if they had more people than they needed so that lives could be lost and the invasion could still succeed.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, using his clean hand to wipe at his face. “Make a last stand, I suppose. Shut down the space cable, barricade ourselves in. Send out distress signals. And, finally, lose, and get my mind taken away from me. If I don’t have the nerve to kill myself, that is.” He pushed himself away from the wall and crossed the bay to the emergency station with its suit locker, fire suppressant canisters, and first-aid kit.

  “Shontio…”

  “Your family can take you out of here.” Shontio opened the kit and took out a bandage. “I’m going to ask you to take as many of the refugees as you can persuade to go—”

  “Shontio!” She slammed her own hand flat against the wall. Startled, Shontio jerked his head up. “You cannot give up.”

  “And where is help going to come from, Bele?” Shontio returned his attention to pressing the spongy bandage against his wounds so it would seal to his skin. “We’ve got no leverage.” He flexed his hand, watching the way the bandage stretched and relaxed. “There’s nothing left but air and noise.”

  Beleraja leaned all her weight on her hand where it was pressed against the wall and forced herself to think. Nothing left but air and noise was how her head felt. Air and noise, no signal left, no transmission, all for nothing, how did you make something out of nothing?

  Slowly, Beleraja lifted her head. It wasn’t true they had nothing. No, they had at least two things Pandora did not. They had all her skill at bluffing and lying, honed so carefully over these long years trapped in this hole in the sky. They had the results of all those messages where the Pandorans and the Council of Cities thought they were talking to each other when they were really talking to Beleraja and giving her fresh material to use in her disinformation campaign so she could hide the invasion and consolidation just a little bit longer. They had all those lies, and they had the satellites.

  “Shontio. Can you take hold of the satellite network without Pandora noticing? Now?”

  Shontio lowered his bandaged hand. “Bele, what are you thinking?” She lifted her own hand away from the wall, able again to stand without help. “Can you do it?”

  Shontio watched her out of the corner of his eye. “Probably.”

  “Then we may still be able to win this.”

  “It’s not possible, Bele.”

  “Then let me put it to you this way.” Beleraja faced him fully. “You said you were planning one last, grand stand?” To her own amazement, she felt herself smile. “Well, now so am I.”

  The space cable car had a screen set in the floor of the main compartment so you could sit on the padded bench and look down between your feet to watch Pandora rising up to greet you.

  Teal had done little else since she’d left Athena Station. Her guards were a pair of superiors, a man and a woman who had not bothered to tell her their names. She’d taken to thinking of them as Shoulder Woman and Gray-Eyed Man. They had locked all the doors leading out to the subsidiary compartments and she had to ask to be allowed to use the bathroom. One of them was pretty much always on the game rig, while the other one was using the sight-only screens so they could keep at least part of their attention on her.

  She’d tried to use the one extra game rig they’d left on for her, but she couldn’t relax into any of the scenarios. She felt their eyes on her all the time. She felt Pandora getting closer and closer. Pandora and the hothouse.

  They had
passed through the clouds, and now she could see Pandora spreading out underneath her—green, blue, and brown. Mountains made wrinkles of earth in the extreme upper right-hand corner. A cluster of lakes shaped like blurred footprints lay in the lower left.

  It was beautiful. She had to admit that. The world was beautiful. How had it allowed the hothousers to live in the middle of all that beauty? Worlds killed their settlers all the time. That was what the whole Diversity Crisis was about, wasn’t it? So why hadn’t Pandora killed the hothousers?

  Why haven’t I killed myself?

  She glanced nervously up at her guards, as if she thought they might have heard that thought. But Shoulder Woman was in the game rig, waving her hands and talking at something, her voice muffled by the mask-microphone, and Gray-Eyed Man had all his attention riveted on the columns of numbers scrolling up the screen.

  Teal remembered the day Chena had shown her the false fingernail. She’d found a doctor in Branch who was willing to seal off the real one and put on the polymer fake. She’d shown Teal the brown paste underneath it that was her poison. “They’re not going to get me, Teal,” she’d said. “Not again.”

  And Teal had told her she was sick and she was crazy, and Chena had yelled back that she wasn’t going to lie down and die, and Teal had screamed something about Mom, and Chena had screamed something back….

  At the time, it had just been another fight. Now Teal found herself wishing she’d had the nerve to get herself some of that poison. She could have gone into the bathroom and taken it, leaving Shoulder Woman and Gray-Eyed Man to do all the explaining to whichever of the cops or hothousers waited to meet her.

  She couldn’t see the lakes or the mountains anymore. All that was left in the screen was the thick green carpet of forest rippling out in all directions.