by K. Eason
That was an odd way of putting it. Odder was that Koto-rek seemed to be Rory’s sole escort. Rory suspected some punishment on Zaraer’s part for ordering it, to inflict some petty horror on Koto-rek by forcing her to deal with aliens. Again, she had no proof, no evidence, only a gut-deep certainty.
She glanced back at Zaraer, at the bridge hatch; the acting-captain was watching her.
How many of you are like him, Koto-rek? How many are like you?
But that was not something she knew how to ask, nor something that Koto-rek was likely (or able) to answer.
Rory was not sorry when the hatch irised shut, cutting her off from Zaraer’s hostility. Even the creeping horror of the vakari engine—that was not a core, don’t call it a core, it was a rift, a tear, a weep—was preferable to Zaraer’s malice, suspicion, and contempt.
“What did you mean, if my friends are willing to make the exchange?” she asked, to give her brain something to do besides imagine the worst possible scenarios.
Koto-rek did not answer immediately. They walked past the engine core, and Engineer Vigat, and several vakari Rory had not seen before, similarly attired, and similarly stuffed into consoles and first-elbow deep in equipment. Vigat said something as Koto-rek passed, which the sub-commander acknowledged.
“Repairs are proceeding
we’ll be able to fire
ahead of schedule,” Koto-rek said, apparently casually.
Rory’s stomach dropped through the deck. She did not want to ask, did not want to know, but a princess didn’t run from discomfort. “Sub-Commander. I need an answer, please. What you said before, about the exchange, and the willingness of my allies to make it. What did you mean?”
Koto-rek stopped there in the middle of a deserted, blood-spattered corridor. The red emergency teslas had been banished in favor of the harsh, cold blue-white the vakari seemed to favor. Except for the ship’s ambient hum, it was quiet.
“Zaraer does not want me to give you up, Princess Rory Thorne, unless I gain some new advantage from our bargain.” Koto-rek’s chromatophores were muted, roiling greens and yellows.
“You mean, you’re going to break your word to the Vizier and to the Empire. You’re changing the deal. That seems unwise, with the dreadnought out there, and your ship’s need of allies.”
Koto-rek made a circular, all-encompassing gesture. “Sissten is one ship in the Protectorate fleet. Our defeat and loss today would be painful, but ultimately insignificant. Likewise, our survival. So Zaraer believes Empire intervention—and this new apparent alliance with tenju, and with what seems to be a weaker partner, your Confederation—must bear some greater significance than we have understood. He believes you are a great deal more important than you have thus far indicated.”
“I am not that important to the Confederation.”
“I know that. But the weapon we failed to acquire is. Zaraer believes it is the price of the Empire’s cooperation, when by all political sense, the alwar should delight in our defeat today rather than offer their aid.”
“I told you—”
“I know what you said, and what they said. The Empire’s adepts are skilled at the simpler forms of arithmancy. It’s a small matter to lie in negotiations, and make the lies seem true.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think . . .” Koto-rek shook her head, another of those apparently universal gestures among species with the requisite physiology. “I think you are a more skilled politician than you seem. I think you have not told all the truth, though I am not sure how you concealed it. And I think you are honorable, which is not the same thing as honest.”
“You know the acting-captain is wrong. Going back on the deal now is a bad idea. You have a Confederation-Empire alliance on your ship, helping you clear your decks of Tadeshi. If they realize you’ve gone back on your word . . .” Rory had no idea what would happen, practically and immediately. Nothing good. Violence, surely, with so many weapons in so many hostile hands. “People will die.”
Koto-rek’s chromatophores soured a deep greenish-gold. “And I should do what, then? Defy him? Sss. Would you encourage your servants to do the same, if they disagreed with your orders?”
“I don’t have servants anymore, but when I did, yes, I expected them to tell me if they thought I was wrong.”
“And I have done so. Zaraer declines my advice, and he is my commanding officer. I am disinclined to mutiny.”
“Is it mutiny to avoid a war? Killing me—threatening me—won’t get him that weapon, if the Empire already has it. Which they don’t.”
Koto-rek did not answer at first. Then her jaw-plates fluttered before sealing tight to her face. “Zaraer believes that. But he also thinks that without you, the Confederation will not yield it up at all. I would kill you with regret, Rory Thorne. So let us hope that your friends are more willing to part with information than you are, and let us hope that someone has more than just a shipping manifest to exchange for you.”
Koto-rek resumed walking, long vakari strides that rapidly opened a distance between her and Rory, who considered staying right where she was, mag-locking her boots to the deck and refusing another step until—
Until what? She had talked Koto-rek into mutiny? That seemed unlikely. It seemed more probable that, if she resisted, Koto-rek would either drag her bodily or, worse, summon someone to help drag her bodily to the rendezvous.
Rory shook her head—regret, resignation, and anger—and hurried to catch up. She followed Koto-rek through familiar corridors, past the morgue and intersections now unsealed and vacant, until they came to the row of berths to which Vagabond had been tethered. This location showed particular damage: ugly circular patches in the bulkhead where a breaching pod had locked on and punched through. Two of the berths had aetherlocks unsealed and open to Sissten’s corridors. Rory knew from her observations on the bridge that the majority of Empire personnel who’d debarked here were still dispersed in the upper decks, but that the Tadeshi threat was, in military jargon, neutralized, which really meant dead people on both sides.
There were troops waiting at the far end of the corridor, near the berths. Ten, perhaps, though Rory did not stop to count. She did mark the breadth and shape of the collection, the variation that told her some were xeno. All of the hardsuits bore unfamiliar plating, covered with hexwork visible even though Rory was not peering into the aether; it glittered like snowflakes in moonlight, and had Rory been a fraction less sure that her survival depended on her absolute attention to the next few minutes, she would have risked a closer look.
The corridor stretched perhaps ten meters. Koto-rek slowed, but did not break stride, when a single individual peeled away from the rest of the troops and stopped halfway up the corridor’s length, a clear obstacle, holding a plasma rifle more comfortably than Rory found comforting.
Then his visor retracted, and Rory thought she’d never been so glad to see Jaed Moss in her life.
“That’s far enough,” he said.
Koto-rek took a final, insolent step before halting in the middle of the corridor, equidistant from the bulkheads, perhaps two and a half meters from Jaed. She held her empty hands out wide, both to show that she was unarmed, and to prevent Rory’s easy passage around her.
Jaed leaned slightly to one side. His eyes sought Rory’s. “You all right?”
“Yes. You?”
He nodded. “We’re good.” He laid emphasis on the pronoun.
The intensity of her relief bordered on pain. Rory let a breath out she didn’t know she’d been holding. “Listen, Jaed. We have a small problem. The Protectorate would like to amend their agreement.”
Jaed’s eyes narrowed and shifted to Koto-rek. “No. Don’t think so. Rory, come here.”
The subtle shift in Koto-rek’s stance said any attempt to do so would turn rapidly violent. Rory did not move. “Jaed, listen. Th
ey know about the weapon. The captured Tadeshi soldiers they took from G. Stein told them.”
Jaed stared at her. She could imagine the outraged monologue in his head, the but you confirmed it, why succeeded by a slow drain of color and indignation into something more like horror. What did they do to you?
Jaed said nothing, however, and so Rory’s fairy gift could not aid her with revelations. All she had was her own native intuition, and Jaed’s complete attention, and his miserable skill at keeping his thoughts off his face.
“I’m not authorized to negotiate for the Confederation.” Jaed’s voice climbed the twin peaks of desperation and frustration.
Truth, said the fairy gift. Koto-rek would read truth, too, if she was looking at his aura, which of course she must be.
The small cluster of hardsuits waiting at the berth’s aetherlock stirred. Faceplates retracted, one-two-three. Rory closed her eyes against a sudden, stinging relief. Thorsdottir. Zhang. Grytt. A savage glee surged through her, pushing fear and dread to the margins. Koto-rek did not stand a chance. One lone vakar, and these people, the fight would not last more than a shot—
The fight in this corridor, no. That was an easy victory. The war begun between Confederation and their allies against the Protectorate, however, would last much longer, and to much less certain outcome.
That will be the end of us.
It was on her lips to say, Then I will negotiate. She let them hover there, caught on her held breath.
She had come out here to avoid politics, having renounced her title. And anyway, she had been a princess of Thorne, not the Confederation. She was—nothing to the Confederation at all. A citizen. A, a reminder that they’d needed her help once, however unwitting, to launch their war of independence. Dame Maggie wouldn’t thank her for usurping political authority to which she was not entitled.
Nor did Rory want to do so. She wanted to wait for someone who did have Maggie’s endorsement. Maybe on that incoming ship. Or call for Messer Rupert to do it. He could negotiate. Rory had no inkling, then, of what official powers Rupert had (or did not); these were the thoughts of a young woman who very badly did not want to do a thing that she was uniquely positioned to do. Because she knew she was in a good position: the vakari knew her—well, perhaps that was an exaggeration. She had some traction with Koto-rek, anyway, and that might help. Dame Maggie was nothing if not practical. She would forgive. Or understand. Or arrest and incarcerate, but damn sure she’d stick to any agreement Rory made, too, if it gained her more allies against the Tadeshi.
Then Rory thought about the engine core, that weeping rip into a deep layer of void, and the arithmancy it would take to do such a thing. She thought about how such arithmancy was so commonplace among the vakari that they powered ships with it. And she recalled her own certainty that a war with the Protectorate would be the end of everyone. Her own comfort seemed petty, next to that. Her own wants, selfish.
She could do something. So she would.
Rory raised her voice for Thorsdottir, Zhang, and Grytt’s benefit. “I’ll negotiate the new terms for the Confederation. I am, after all, a princess. Is that acceptable?”
“It is.” Koto-rek sounded entirely self-possessed, as if she were not outnumbered, as if firearms accidents might not happen in this corridor so far from other vakari.
Rory did not think Zaraer expected the Empire to start something overtly, but if they did, fine, they’d kill Koto-rek, whom Zaraer did not love overmuch. Or maybe he wanted to observe how the Princess Rory Thorne acted when she was not held under compulsion, and from her actions, judge the entire Confederation. It was both unfair and exactly the sort of judgment people made all the time.
Rory took a deep breath and eyelocked Jaed.
“The Protectorate is concerned about the weapon that the Tadeshi were smuggling on G. Stein, which was made by their clients,” she said. “They believe that the Empire has possession of it now.”
“Huh.” Jaed’s glance tore free and speared Koto-rek with contempt. “The way I understand it, when the Protectorate says client, they mean slave.”
“That allegation is false. Client-species have rights. Slaves do not.” Irritation thinned the Koto-rek’s voice. “Your subordinate has been speaking with the battlechief, I think.”
I don’t even know who this battlechief is, Rory thought. Jaed did, clearly, from his tight, unfriendly smile.
“Jaed. This is important. Is the sub-commander correct? Has the Empire been promised this weapon in exchange for coming here to retrieve me?”
Jaed closed his eyes for a little too long. He was trying some kind of arithmancy, a hex on his aura. Rory winced inwardly. Of course he was. She would have. “I don’t know anything about those negotiations. We’re just here for Rory.”
Koto-rek did not move. She did not even blink. But Jaed flinched, startled, and a line of blood threaded from his nose.
“The sub-commander is an arithmancer,” Rory said rapidly, softly, urgently. “Please, just tell me why the Empire agreed to assist the Confederation. I can’t negotiate if I don’t know.”
Jaed worked the words around in his mouth for a long moment. “They wanted the documentation we found on R—on the weapon, yes. And, ah.” Another trickle of blood emerged from his nostril. “Shit. Fine. They also wanted the remnants of the original biological organism.”
“You told me the weapon had been physically destroyed.” Koto-rek did not turn her head. Did not sound angry. And yet Rory’s skin tingled as if she stood naked in a thunderstorm.
“It was. Most of it, anyway.” Rory ignored the raw indignation on Jaed’s face, the naked betrayal. “Except for one small salvaged remnant. Not enough to do anything.”
Koto-rek’s voice sharpened until the air itself bled. “Does the Empire now possess this remnant?”
The red on Jaed’s cheekbones was spreading, and his eyes held a dangerous glint. “Yeah, they do.”
Koto-rek’s jaw-plates flared wide, exposing the teeth in her jaw. “The Protectorate claims ownership of the sample. It is proprietary information illegally obtained from our clients. We want everything returned to us.”
Rory felt a pang for Rose. But there wasn’t a choice, was there? War, or one sentient weapon. It was an easy decision. “All right. We’ll get the sample back from the alwar.”
Jaed’s jaw squared and knotted. That wasn’t good. “No,” he said. “That won’t be possible.”
“Sss. Let me be clear. This is not negotiable. Our stolen property and all data, returned to us, in exchange for your princess.”
“You’re pretty outnumbered to be making threats.” Jaed gestured broadly. “You know. Out there.”
“And you are outnumbered in here.”
“I think what my associate means,” Rory interrupted smoothly, “is that the Empire will insist on retaining copies of all data and documentation, as part of their prior negotiation and agreement with the Confederation. Sub-Commander, the more people that have this information, the less of a threat the weapon becomes. You know this. Of course we will return the physical sample, but even you must acknowledge the impossibility of what you’re asking.”
“No. What I mean,” Jaed snapped, “is that Rose is dead. The sample’s inert. You can’t use it. No one can.”
truth, said the fairy gift.
Rory dropped a sliver of attention into the aether, barely an eyeblink; it was thick with equations, knots of vakari hexwork, through which Jaed’s aura glowed like a sun. Rage-red, agitated orange, a growing filament of green she didn’t like, green as any rosebush. “Whatever remains, we’ll return to the Protectorate,” she said aloud. “Again, minus any samples already extracted, or copies already made of data. Agreed?”
“Ss. Acceptable.”
“Jaed?”
Two spots of color appeared on Jaed’s cheekbones, a sure sign of defiance. To Rory’s
surprise, and Koto-rek’s frustration, he said nothing that an arithmancer’s hex (or a fairy’s gift) might reveal as untruth. But Rory knew, as did Koto-rek, what that silence meant.
“Don’t lie,” Rory wished him. “Just tell me—why won’t you agree? There’s nothing left to protect, especially if Rose is dead. This is a matter of war, do you get that?”
“Of course I get that. But we can’t give up all the physical remains. Some, maybe.” Jaed cut a glance at Koto-rek.
“All physical remains, or there is no deal.” Koto-rek’s hand closed on Rory’s shoulder.
“Jaed.” Rory didn’t like the pitch of her voice, rising into panic. She didn’t like the way Grytt had raised her rifle, down the corridor, or the way Thorsdottir had taken a step in their direction.
Or the way Koto-rek’s talons were biting into her hardsuit, physically biting.
Jaed looked like he wanted to throw up. “Listen. When we escaped, Thorsdottir got hurt. They”—he jabbed at Koto-rek with the tip of his rifle—“burned her bad. She was dying. Rose saved her, but they—they’re gone.”
“Saved how?” Rory asked, before Koto-rek could.
“I
nanomecha
don’t know. Repaired her, somehow.”
Of course. Rose’s nanomecha, made to transmute and transform. Alchemy verging on magic.
“What do you mean, the weapon repaired this Thorsdottir?” Koto-rek tripped over the syllables. “How?”
Jaed shook his head and set his lips in a stubborn line.
And because Koto-rek could read untruth in any denial Jaed made, and because she did not want to see him bleed anymore, Rory said, “The weapon we found on G. Stein was a decorative flora that had been infused with nanomecha. They were the weapon. Upon triggering of the command codes, those nanomecha were intended to infiltrate, and then destroy, a biosphere. Evidently the nanomecha could, in the right environment, choose to act. And now, having done so, those nanomecha are . . . dead?”
“Right,” Jaed said, in the flattest tone Rory had ever heard from him.
