by K. Eason
“Hold still,” Thorsdottir said with quiet force on the comms, and Rory supposed Jaed had made some unwise move. That suspicion was borne out in the next moment, when the armed xenos, in tandem, raised their weapons. A ’slinger was made to throw bolts, and so staring at the wrong end of it was like staring at the empty eye socket of the hollow barrel. The xeno plasma weapon had a tip like a spear or an arrowhead, if someone had made either of those implements out of wire and filament, and left the bulk of them hollow. The plasma would collect there, and focus, and then it would burn through whatever it touched. Jaed, presumably, if he did not heed Thorsdottir’s warning.
The foremost xeno raised their left hand again, and repeated the put the weapons down gesture more sharply this time. They closed their mouth, concealing the beautiful, terrible teeth. A ripple of color passed over their cheeks—subdued violet, watery green—in a spangling pattern, before settling back to the dull charcoal.
“My name is Sub-Commander Koto-rek ia’vakat’ia Tarsik. You may address me as Sub-Commander.” The odd echo persisted, as the xeno spoke, so Rory supposed it was a feature of physiology, and not an effect of the helmet. “You are now in Protectorate custody.”
Thorsdottir spoke for the first time. “You say that like we should know what that is, Sub-Commander. Or, forgive me, even what species you are.”
The sub-commander’s head tilted, an odd, sharp movement that made Rory want to flinch out of range, and which drew attention to the xeno’s pair of large, darkly undifferentiated eyes, like pools of pitch with a faint spangling in their depths that might’ve been reflected tesla-light or scattered pigmentation. The jaw-plates flared out a centimeter or two, in what Rory interpreted as an indication of forbearance. “We are vakari. I am a vakar.”
“Huh,” said Thorsdottir.
“Thank you,” Rory interjected, before that huh produced anymore insubordinate friends. She repeated vakar, vakari, in her head, impressing upon herself the sharpness of the consonants, not unlike the silhouettes of their hardsuits. A sharp people, the vakari. Very pointy.
“Sub-Commander, thank you for the explanations. But I must ask, why have you intercepted us?”
The sub-commander gestured broadly at the aetherlock, the cockpit, the seal cabin hatch. “This vessel is not designed for cargo or storage. It is a Tadeshi military transport. But you are not Tadeshi soldiers.”
“We told you we were salvagers.” Jaed’s voice crackled from the back of the aetherlock. Rory thought he must have opened his helmet; his anger was unmitigated by ex-comms, and echoed off the metal. “Not that you left us much, assuming you were the ones who shot up G. Stein. What are you even doing here? Samtalet is an unaffiliated system.”
Rory wished Jaed a little less volume, a little more prudence, less success at achieving the courage to stand up for himself. Perhaps a better definition of what it meant to be brave at all.
The sub-commander’s jaw-plates flared with a faint hissing. Annoyance, Rory guessed, or amusement. “This system proved unwilling or unable to defend its borders from Tadeshi traffic. Now it has been annexed by the Protectorate.”
Jaed sputtered, but thankfully said nothing else.
Rory asked, in her best polite tone. “But Sub-Commander, I must reiterate, we are not Tadeshi.”
“If we become convinced of that, you may be permitted to depart. Now come with us, please, Rory Thorne. We have questions.”
CHAPTER TEN
The k’bal, perhaps more than any other species, are obsessed with knowledge. The ancient human adage, knowledge is power, is widely held to be the first thing the human ambassador said to impress the k’bal as civilized. The great k’bal philosopher P’Tet posits that a species’ relationship to the acquisition and disposition of knowledge, and the value placed upon it, determines its place in the hierarchy of civilization. In that hierarchy, humanity (collectively, the scores of all subset cultures averaged together) falls somewhere in the lower third, because although knowledge is power, so too is ignorance considered to be bliss.
The discovery of that proverb, according to accounts by the historian Kwel Qing Zanat, caused the k’bal ambassador to vent all of their cranial vents simultaneously, and to subsequently flee the room in a combination of embarrassment and horror. The intervention of the mirri was enlisted to repair relations, which succeeded only after the human delegation made clear that ignorance was sometimes conflated with innocence, particularly in children, where knowledge was meant to include both academic subjects and experience, which in turn led to a series of misunderstandings about the legal status of the human delegation and several demands by the k’bal to speak to a human adult.
Rory had never found the latter maxim, that ignorance is bliss, to be true. Messer Rupert had always presented ignorance as a handicap, at least in academic areas; the other variant, her innocence, had been an early casualty of her father’s assassination, and later of Grytt’s relentless pragmatism. One of the worst effects of her confinement on Urse had been Regent Moss’s control of information into her apartments. She had not known about the Lanscottar rebellion until she had unwittingly helped to start it, and was left with the consequences of having done so. Whether one regarded ignorance as bliss or as deeply frustrating, one was not exempt from the results of that ignorance. Knowledge was power, and power could be uncomfortable, but it was far better than being surprised.
And now, once again ignorant—and her own fault this time, for attempting to withdraw from political knowledge—she found herself quite helpless and not a bit happy about it. In the two years since she’d renounced her title and gone into, if not hiding, then at least obscurity, Rory had discovered that the news came late and thinly to her. She was not surprised that she had never heard of the Protectorate before today, but she was both annoyed and alarmed at that lack of knowledge. It was evident that the first contact between human and vakari had taken place some time ago; the sub-commander spoke GalSpek, or at least had sufficient hexes to perform translation, and the vakari were aware not only of the name Tadeshi, but also able to identify a warship as of that manufacture, which in turn suggested a familiarity that was not congenial. Someone, somewhere, must have information about them more in depth than what she had.
But lacking that information, Rory had her own observations from which to make conclusions. So what did she know? The vakari were bipeds. Rory was not a biologist, but she supposed some significance there, when the other two xeno species with which humanity had made contact, k’bal and mirri, were distinctly not. (Another exception was the fairies, she amended, but she had never found them in xenobiological treatises, either). Their physiology was not especially mammalian, but they breathed normalish aether, and she hypothesized endothermic metabolism, as the ship’s temperature was not especially warm. With those teeth, they either were, or had evolved from, some kind of predator. She could not determine a clear sex, as the vakari were lacking mammalian secondary sexual characteristics, and she had insufficient experience of vakari features to notice patterns of differentiation that might be sex-linked. She was also entirely at a loss as to how to assign gender, or how to even inquire about the subject. K’bal had four genders that changed according to ambient temperature, age, and mood; the mirri, being parthenogenic clones, were all she. Vakari might be two, or three, or offended by the very concept. She settled in her head on a temporary they, with revisions to be made as she acquired more information.
The vakari ship maintained something close to, but less than, a standard G. A cursory scan of the first layer of aether showed Rory extensive hexwork in the bulkheads and deck, more so than was standard on human ships. She had read about, but never observed, similar features on k’bal vessels. K’bal were arithmantically gifted, and arithmantically dependent (more than was wise, Messer Rupert had said; and Grytt had added something about eggs and baskets and diversifying one’s arsenal when possible). That said, Grytt would approve of those plasma rifles
, in that she would want to acquire one, and that she would want all of them currently not in her possession deactivated or melted to slag. Rory favored the latter alternative, but seeing no way to accomplish it, resolved to remain un-shot, which would involve not antagonizing her captors. She tried to imagine them as hosts, but the presence of the aforementioned weapons made that difficult.
She was aware that Jaed and Thorsdottir had followed her onto Sissten’s deck, and that the two vakari soldiers had followed them, which meant the xenos had left no one on Vagabond and that Zhang might remain undetected. She was also aware when, just past a crossroads of corridors, that escort tried to divert left with Jaed and Thorsdottir. Tried, because Jaed lodged an immediate and vocal protest.
“Where are you taking her? No.”
Rory turned around. Jaed was too busy glaring at the vakari soldiers, who were in turn looking at the sub-commander, to notice her. So Rory held up a hand, hoping the gesture was universally understood and that no one shot anyone.
Jaed ignored, or did not see, her hand. Thorsdottir, however, did. Her eyebrows plunged down and gathered in a knot over her nose.
“It’s all right,” said Rory. “Go with them.”
There was a time, Rory thought, hardly daring to breathe, that Thorsdottir would not have looked at her like that (Zhang still would not), and she wished fleetingly that Thorsdottir had proved less adaptive than her partner in attempting to interact with Rory as an equal. Now was not the time for argument.
But Thorsdottir was also ultimately sensible. She grabbed Jaed’s arm and pulled, and when that did not immediately produce results, inserted herself between him and the vakari soldiers.
“Come on,” she said, and added something else, low-voiced, that Rory could not quite hear. Jaed’s very pale skin flushed red, then washed white again. He threw a look at Rory, who regretted, not for the first time, that the fairy gift confined itself to revealing spoken untruths, and was little use for nonverbal communication.
Then Jaed and Thorsdottir went where the Protectorate soldiers indicated they ought: down a corridor that rapidly bent them out of sight. Rory listened as their footfalls on the deckplate receded to echoes.
The sub-commander had paused, was waiting, seemed to be observing this drama with amusement.
Rory cleared her throat and waited until the vakar’s ink-black attention came back to her (hard to say where those eyes looked, but the rest of the face came in line, so). “Where are you taking them, Sub-Commander?”
The sub-commander’s head tilted, another one of those sharp, short gestures, like a bird noting the sudden movement of insects. “They won’t be harmed.”
Truth, though Rory sensed a lurking and unuttered unless. She considered asking the logical follow-up question, where are you taking me, and did not. She would find out soon enough. As for whether or not she might be harmed in the near future, well, she supposed that, too, hinged on an unspoken unless.
So she nodded, and in case that gesture did not translate, said, “All right.”
The vakar gestured the direction they had been going, and turned and began walking.
Rory, after a moment, followed. She did not see as she had very much choice.
* * *
—
The vakari soldiers marched Thorsdottir and Jaed briskly down the corridor. With her visor retracted, Thorsdottir’s HUD was limited to a small array of teslas on the inner edge of the helmet. The hardsuit was monitoring atmosphere, pressure, the presence of everyone else on its network. Jaed and Rory were there. Zhang was not, which Thorsdottir hoped was because Zhang was cleverly keeping herself off the network, and not because the Protectorate had, after removing what they thought was the crew, destroyed Vagabond.
The soldiers paused at the end of the corridor, where there was a large door that retracted into the wall, rather than irising like a normal hatch. The chamber on the other side was large, open in the center, lined along the edges with smaller rooms, the doors to which were open, except one, and the interiors of which were unoccupied (except for, presumably, the one behind the closed door).
It was not quite a jail, but it was pretty clearly some sort of holding area into which one deposited individuals one did not want wandering loose. A third vakar soldier stood up as they came in. That vakar had been sitting in front of what looked like a screen on a console, at which Thorsdottir now got a look: it was divided into as many sections as there were small rooms, all but one of which was blank. The single image appeared to be of a person sitting in the center of one of the cells: legs folded, hands resting on knees, back to the camera. The figure turned their head briefly, as if hearing them in the main room.
Thorsdottir stopped dead. She had been unsure of gender at first. Now she was also unsure of species.
“Sss,” said the taller of their two escorts, and Thorsdottir twitched. The vakar sounded like a cross between a large, angry cat and a large, angry snake. She twitched again when she looked and found their visor retracted. So far all the vakari she’d seen looked very much alike in the shape and proportion of features, which is to say a bit like pictures of dragons Thorsdottir had seen in a bestiary, only upright and without the wings or tail. It made her curious what physiological features lay concealed under those fins on their hardsuits. Probably, given the rest of them, something sharp, spikes or bone ridges. She hoped the vakari did not harbor a similar curiosity about what lay under her hardsuit. She flicked a glance at the console screen. The occupant of the other room (oh, call it what it was: the cell) appeared to be wearing some kind of bulky outer layer, as well, so it seemed unlikely she and Jaed would be forced to strip.
The vakar guard who had hissed did not look angry, though it was difficult to assign emotions to their features. Their dark eyes were wide, the jaw-plates neither clamped nor flared out. They pointed at the ’slinger on her chest.
Thorsdottir considered, for a reflexive moment, resisting, even though she had seen the devastation on G. Stein. She supposed it was a sympathetic reaction to Jaed, who was scowling renewed rebellion at their captors.
“Give it to them,” said Thorsdottir, and yielded her weapon to that open-palmed expectation. The soldier’s fingers—four of them, taloned, extra joint—closed over the weapon. Their jaw-plates flared, and a spangling of cyan bloomed on the planes of their face. (Not cheeks, Thorsdottir thought. Cheeks were fleshy. Cheeks wrinkled.) They turned the ’slinger in their hand, careful to keep the business end pointed at the deck. They said something to their partner, who had Jaed’s weapon, which elicited a hiss and a similar ripple of facial pigmentation.
The resident guard seemed to defer to the other two: head turned a little out of line, failing eye contact, not participating in the conversation. They were not wearing a hardsuit, though the shape of their uniform was the same as the soldiers’ suits, with similar patterns on chest and shoulder that must be insignia or rank. The soldiers, having thus disarmed Thorsdottir and Jaed, left the room, taking the ’slingers with them. They appeared to Thorsdottir to be swaggering.
The remaining vakar pointed at the empty cell adjacent to the occupied one and laid their other hand on what Thorsdottir supposed was a weapon, although it did not look like the plasma rifles: it was small, cylindrical, smooth. It probably shot lightning, or high-velocity spikes, or acid. Or maybe it was just what it looked like: a club.
Thorsdottir wondered how strong this particular vakar might be, and how hard they could hit.
Jaed, who was evidently wondering the same thing, said from the side of his mouth: “There’s one of them and two of us.”
There were a dozen reasons why that was a bad idea. Thorsdottir picked the one most likely to work on Jaed. “No. They’ve still got Rory.”
He made a strangled noise. Then he swore and followed her into the cell. He did not turn to look when the vakar sealed them inside. He began an immediate examination of the s
eams of the room and the tesla fixtures. His eyes had that not-quite-there stare to them, as if he could see through the bulkhead—which, come to consider it, maybe he could, with the right hexes.
Thorsdottir had grown up in a large family with a dearth of bathrooms, and had gone from there to royal service. She was not accustomed to privacy, exactly, but—“You can’t see through the polysteel, can you?”
“What? No.” He scowled. “Not how you mean. I can see into it. The structure of it. But by the time I can see through, I can’t see this plane. At the moment I can’t even do that. There’s some kind of hexwork in here. I don’t recognize the equations, though. I mean, it’s math, but it’s different.”
She shrugged. Of course there was xeno arithmancy. “Can you get past it?”
“No.”
“Then stop pacing and listen to me.”
Jaed shot her a glare from the corner of his eye. Then he leaned against the bulkhead and folded his arms as well as the hardsuit would permit. “All right. What?”
“The person in the cell beside us? I don’t think they’re human. I saw two arms, two legs, one head, all in the usual places—”
“So, not a mirri or k’bal.”
“—No. But I thought I saw tusks.”
Jaed said nothing for a moment, clearly digesting the word and its implications. “The sub-commander knew the name Tadeshi, and that Vagabond’s a military model. That suggests familiarity. Did my father know about these people? Did I just—not notice?”
“If you’re asking, is it your fault somehow that you didn’t know about this, if your father was involved with this Protectorate, then no. But I don’t think he was. I think if the Free Worlds of Tadesh had been in contact or conflict with a new xeno species, that secret would’ve gotten out. I think this is new.”
“The contact, or the conflict?”
“Both. The sub-commander said they’d annexed Samtalet. That suggests they’re the aggressors. Although why, or what they want—I have no idea.”
