by K. Eason
Jaed regarded Rupert with new respect. “You hacked a console in the office? With witnesses?”
Rupert’s mouth curved up at one corner. “I told them I needed to send a message to my companion, and please, could I borrow the terminal.”
“Making me an accomplice. Thanks for that.” Grytt did not seem at all perturbed. She scraped her gaze over Jaed and Thorsdottir. “Tell us what happened again. Start at the beginning. Be concise, but leave nothing out this time.”
So Jaed did. Zhang acted the part of assistant, producing both Rose’s cutting, still confined to the empty ’slinger bolt canister, and the shipping documents, when Jaed reached that part of the story. She delivered both of them to Rupert, who held them in his lap with a look of mingled fascination and horror. He walked his fingers over the canister’s seal gingerly, as if the rose clipping might tear its way loose, and his gaze slid out of focus.
Arithmancy. Jaed swallowed. He knew what Rupert would find. Or rather, what he would not find, which was confirmed when Rupert said, “Whatever nanomecha may have been in here, they’re gone now.”
Jaed let his breath out, intercepted a look from Grytt, and coughed himself into restarting the narrative. But when he got to the part about Thorsdottir’s injury, he hesitated again, and looked at Thorsdottir, who looked a little frightened.
Jaed’s chest clenched. “She’s fine,” he said. “It wasn’t that bad.”
Grytt raised her single brow at him. “I had a long chat with a tenju on the ride out here. He told me a little bit about Protectorate armaments. They use something called whitefire. It’s like liquid plasma. So I don’t think you’re fine, are you, Thorsdottir?”
“She is,” Jaed insisted.
Grytt ignored him. “Show me your arm.”
Thorsdottir unwrapped her bandage, face like bleached bone.
Jaed held his breath. When he had dressed the wound, Thorsdottir had been unconscious. She had last seen her own arm when it had been black and charred. Jaed had last seen it just after Rose’s migration, when it had been repaired into raw redness. And now—huh. Now it was an angry pink, and tangibly warm, but the skin was intact. Rose’s repair effects were ongoing, clearly.
Thorsdottir made a tiny noise. Her stare clawed at Jaed.
He smiled with what he hoped was convincing serenity. “See? She’s fine.”
Grytt’s eye narrowed. “That wound looks like it’s a week old.”
Jaed shrugged, remembered he was wearing a hardsuit, and waved his hand dismissively instead. “It wasn’t a, a whitefire rifle, it was just a baton of some kind. Not as much, ah, whitefire.”
Grytt stared at him. Jaed retreated to his favorite tactic, defiant silence, which had worked to limited effect on his father and brother. But he was surrounded by people accustomed to cooperation, and who did not distrust authority. Zhang said nothing, but she went to a storage locker and popped the lid and pulled out the remnants of Thorsdottir’s hardsuit.
Grytt whistled. Then she swore, softly and inventively. And then, having refastened her glare onto Jaed, she said, “The whitefire burned through the hardsuit. I refuse to believe that”—Grytt jerked her chin at Thorsdottir’s arm—“is all the damage you got from this.” She shook the sleeve.
Jaed clung to his silent defense.
“You thought it would be worse, didn’t you? You’re surprised. She’s surprised.” Grytt glared at Zhang. “Are you?”
“She never saw the wound,” Jaed said. “She was flying the ship with Crow and making sure we didn’t die.”
“You’re not telling me everything. Start telling me everything.”
Jaed paused, despite the certitude that Grytt’s patience was about to snap, and flashed a guilty look at Thorsdottir. “I thought she’d lose the arm. It was . . . black. I thought we’d lose her.”
Thorsdottir offered a small, conciliatory smile. “That’s because I was dying.”
“I’m no chirurgeon,” said Grytt, “but I don’t think you’re dying now.”
Jaed let out his breath. Sweat was collecting where the seal between suit body and helmet touched the bare skin at the nape of his neck. It both itched and chilled him. “She’s not, because Rose repaired her.”
“Rose?” Grytt looked at Thorsdottir, startled.
“Rose,” Thorsdottir said firmly. “The weapon we found on G. Stein. That’s what they call themself.”
“They call themself.” Rupert did not expound on the impossibility of sentience. He merely held out his hand, palm up, as if he were inviting Thorsdottir to dance.
“May I?”
Thorsdottir put her hand in Rupert’s, whose eyelids creased with concentration.
“What,” Grytt breathed, impatient. “Never mind. Arithmancy. Numbers.”
“Arithmancy, numbers, and confirmation that, although there is no longer anything at all in that canister except a dead stick of rosebush, the nanomecha appear to have migrated.” Rupert tapped his fingers gently against Thorsdottir’s wrist. “Into you.”
Grytt stared. “So the weapon we promised the alwar in exchange for aid in retrieving Rory . . .”
Thorsdottir closed her eyes for a moment, and opened them again clear, hard, and focused on Grytt. “It’s okay. Hand me over to the alwar alchemists, if that’s what it takes.”
“No,” said Zhang. She was looking at Grytt, clearly expecting some help.
Grytt, however, was looking at Rupert. Jaed wanted very much to believe Rupert was thinking of something brilliant, something no one else had yet, but Jaed also knew Rupert loved Rory best (which made sense; everyone loved Rory best) and very much feared Thorsdottir’s life and bodily integrity might matter a great deal less to Rupert than they did to Zhang and . . . to him.
So his no, when Jaed blurted it out, was more forceful than he intended, thrust forth as it was by surprise at the depth of his own feeling, and followed by a fierce, “You can’t give Thorsdottir up,” and a perhaps improbable, unenforceable, “I won’t let you.”
Grytt and Rupert both looked at him, surprised. Thorsdottir stared at him.
He glared at her. “We left Rory on that vakari ship because we couldn’t let them have this weapon. We’re not going to hand it off now. Not even for Rory.”
Thorsdottir continued to stare at him. They all did, with varying degrees of disbelief and hostility and, in Rupert’s case, a grim sympathy.
“Jaed’s right, though,” said Zhang. She shot Thorsdottir an apologetic look. “The whole reason we left Rory behind was Rose, and making sure the wrong people didn’t get them. That hasn’t changed.”
Thorsdottir looked unhappy. “Messer Rupert, Grytt: How much do we trust these people? These, these alwar?”
Rupert pursed his lips. “They have acted honorably and in good faith thus far.”
“My impression,” said Grytt, “is that they’re cooperating with us because they’re afraid of the Protectorate. I talked to Hworgesh on the voyage out here.”
“Crow said something like that, too,” Zhang interjected. “The alwar and tenju don’t like each other, or at least, Crow’s tribe doesn’t like the Empire, and vice versa, but they’re allied now because of the Protectorate and the Expansion.”
“So the vakari are the problem.”
“There are three problems.” Rupert ticked them off on his fingers. “The Protectorate, who is putting pressure on the k’bal and evidently Expanding, capital E, their borders in a violent fashion; the Tadeshi royalists, who wish to re-annex the Confederation and who are doing business with whomever they can to accomplish that; and whoever made the weapon in the first place and sold it to the Tadeshi, because they are capable of making genocide in very small packages.”
“Are we sure that number three isn’t the alwar? Hworgesh seemed to think making nanomecha is within their alchemical capabilities.”
“W
e’re sure it isn’t these alwar. They have a distinct political organization which is aware of Rose’s existence, and which would like to acquire it, presumably so it isn’t used on them first.”
Thorsdottir yanked her hand out of Rupert’s and flexed defiant fingers at Jaed. “We left Rory because the vakari can’t have Rose as a weapon, and neither can the Tadeshi. But Rose isn’t a weapon anymore.” She held her pinkly healed hand up as evidence. “Rose can repair organic material. They’re . . . like a med-mecha. So there’s no reason we can’t use them to bargain for help getting Rory back anyway. Medical tech is just as valuable as weaponry.”
Her eyes flicked across Jaed’s face, trying for eyelock and sliding off because he wouldn’t quite look at her. She was neither an arithmancer nor possessed of Rory’s perception, but she could still see through him, and under her gaze, he might crack. As it was, he drilled his stare into the space just past Rupert’s shoulder.
“So this Rose is not a weapon now?” Grytt asked, in the tones of someone trying to head off a long, technical explanation in favor of a simple yes or no.
“No,” said Jaed, but Grytt didn’t relax until Rupert also said the word. But the way he said it—a little drawn out, his no, for two little letters—signaled to Jaed, at least, that there was a but coming. Or an and.
Grytt heard the same thing. She gave Rupert a warning look. “Then what is it? They. Whatever.”
Rupert smiled faintly. “Rose is dispersed through Thorsdottir’s body.”
“That’s where, Rupert, not what.”
“Patience.” Rupert availed himself of the nearest terminal and accessed the documents Zhang had delivered. His eyes flickered rapidly across a screenful of text. “Ah. All right. The original specifications indicate Rose was meant to alter the alchemy of biological organisms on a cellular level: essentially, rapid mutation leading to eventual death, passed from entity to entity. Rose appears to have altered that mandate somewhat when they infiltrated Thorsdottir. For her, they are repairing and maintaining the original tissue, rather than inducing catastrophic mutative failure. Rose is part of Thorsdottir now. I would hazard inextricably so.”
Grytt sat back with a gust of breath and profanity. “Still telling me where, not what. Is Rose still a weapon? And yes, I heard you.” She pointed at Thorsdottir with her mecha hand. “But healing can just as easily become damage. Just because this Rose decided to be nice to you doesn’t mean it, they, whatever, can’t tear someone else apart.”
“True,” Rupert said. He peeled his gaze off the terminal screen and transferred its squinting seriousness to Grytt. “Except I no longer believe that Rose can revert to that earlier programming, or in fact, decide anything. The entity with whom you communicated on the Tadeshi ship appears to be gone, or at least, it is not answering me. When I looked over Thorsdottir just now, I could find no evidence of any code on the aetheric planes that would suggest a capability to send or receive communication. Rose’s programming appears to be fixed in a permanent maintenance and repair mode, and the nanomecha appear to be functioning, but they cannot be told to change programming again. Sentience, however limited, is required to accept the command codes which initiate the program, and without it, Rose is essentially, yes, nanoscopic med-mecha.”
“Wait. Rose is . . . gone? You mean, like dead?” Thorsdottir looked queasy.
Rupert’s voice was gentle. “It appears so, yes. I’m sorry.”
Jaed was watching Thorsdottir from the corner of his eye; he knew when she turned to him and braced himself. He had never experienced a storm planetside, but if he had, he would have recognized the force of Thorsdottir’s fury. Her anger buffeted him like a wind-driven deluge, with hailstones and sleet and a lightning bolt for good measure.
“Did you do that? Did you kill Rose?” She leaned toward him, coming halfway to her feet on the force of her anger, and for a moment Jaed thought she intended to grab his hardsuit, haul him to his feet, and shake him. He resolved to let her.
But then Thorsdottir’s body reminded her that it was not, despite Rose’s efforts, well enough to assault her companions, and deposited her back in her seat.
Across the cabin, visible only as movement on Jaed’s periphery, Zhang arrested her own motion to intercept, though she did not retreat to her former position against the bulkhead. Evidently she did not trust her partner’s temper or incapacity.
Thorsdottir was still speaking—and note that we do not say shouting, for although the force and intent were present, the volume was not. “You did something with Rose. You said you’d fixed them, but you killed them.”
Jaed had rehearsed this moment in his head under the theory that practice would render the experience easier. So far, he was not finding that to be true. The look on Thorsdottir’s face hurt. Jaed met it anyway, chin up, eyes flat, an expression his father would have known well.
“Rose asked me to alter some of their base code. I did so, to their specifications.”
“But did you know what would happen?”
It would have been easy to say no, and to fall back on claims of incompetence. Something in Thorsdottir’s face and voice said that was what she wanted him to say: that he’d made a mistake, dammit Jaed, not the first, not the last, but forgivable. But he hadn’t, this time.
“Yes. Rose told me.”
Thorsdottir sputtered, face reddening around what Jaed thought would be recrimination, condemnation, a litany of his every failure, though in reality, Thorsdottir was too shocked to marshal insults. Rupert shifted position, perhaps preparing to say something, and Grytt leaned sideways, clearly intending to keep Thorsdottir from launching herself at Jaed.
Which left Zhang, standing more in the center of things than was typical, to ask, in her quiet voice, the important question: “Why?”
Thorsdottir found voice sufficient to answer her partner. “To protect me.” She made it sound like a criminal act.
“I’m asking Jaed,” Zhang said with unusual sharpness.
So Jaed had the space to say: “Rose asked me to. Rose said they wanted to be fixed. You were right, Thorsdottir. They didn’t want to be a weapon. They needed an arithmancer to alter the base code. There were failsafes. Counter-hexes.” He looked at Messer Rupert. “Rose talked me through it. I couldn’t make sense of most of it.”
“Then you should’ve waited for someone who could,” Thorsdottir said bitterly. “Messer Rupert could’ve done it without killing them.”
“No,” said Rupert, and in that moment, Jaed understood why Rory loved him so much. “I really could not have. I don’t understand the code that I see now. I can only imagine the level of complexity that existed when Rose was—that existed before.”
“Rose didn’t want me to wait,” Jaed said. “Don’t you remember how scared they were of me and Rory at first? Rose knew what they could do. What they were supposed to do. What their command codes could make them do. What arithmancers could make them do.”
“As I said,” murmured Rupert. “Intent was required to execute the program. Whoever made the weapon wrote a requirement for sentience into the base code. I suspect they did not intend to write in a conscience.”
Because people—and Rose had been a person—did things no one expected. Because people were better, sometimes, than you expected them to be. Jaed had thought, once, that he’d been in that made better camp. Now he was not a bit sure. But what he did know was, “Rose did not want to kill anyone, and Rose knew what they were asking.”
Zhang nodded, as if she understood the import of that statement. She probably did. “That must have been very hard, for both of you.”
Thorsdottir recoiled. “So what, it’s just okay, what you did?”
Bile burned the back of Jaed’s throat. “Of course it isn’t okay.”
“But it’s done.” Grytt thrust her metal hand out as both symbolic barrier and a command to desist. “Rose isn’t a weap
on anymore, and therefore, not a danger.”
“Oh,” Rupert said, “I’m not sure about that. I would need to study a sample more closely, but I believe the nanomecha still retain the ability to replicate themselves, and to adapt to different organic hosts.”
“And repair them?”
“Repair. Maintain.” Rupert poked his chin at Thorsdottir’s hand. “Perhaps enhance, if their presence imparts resistance to damage, or rapid healing.”
Thorsdottir stared at her hand and then, slowly, rolled it into a fist. “All right. So we don’t have a weapon, but we do have something of value to bargain with. If the Empire alwar want information, or blood samples, or whatever, then we should make sure the tenju and the Confederation get it, too. Maybe even the Merchants League, the Confederation, whoever. Jaed, what?”
“The Tadeshi are out there right now, boarding a Protectorate ship, presumably to get Rose, an attack that the Empire alwar have to approve of, if they hate the vakari as much as we think. But we don’t know what the Empire opinions are on the various organizations of human beings. Last thing we want is an alwar-Tadeshi alliance in the future over a common enemy, like, oh, us. I don’t think the xenos are going to care if the Confederation of Liberated Worlds becomes the Free Worlds of Tadesh again. Do they even know the difference? Maybe human is human, to them, especially if we’re looking at vakari on the other side. So we need to get them on our side, specifically.”
They stared at him, all of them, until he felt his skin flush. He didn’t think that he’d said something stupid, but he had been wrong about that before. Zhang especially (he wasn’t looking at Thorsdottir, couldn’t compel himself to do so) was staring at him in something like disbelief.
Then Rupert nodded. “Those are good points. It behooves us to be certain that the Empire’s alliance is with us, the Confederation, specifically. You’re right. They may not be cognizant of the difference between the human factions, or at least not enough to play favorites.”
