Before the Shattered Gates of Heaven

by Bryan S. Glosemeyer

  Rain approached Sabira next, briefly touched her shoulder in greeting. “It’s good to see you joining us.”

  As Staff, Rain must have lived and worked in the domed palaces, personally serving the Divine Masters and the highest-ranking overseers. He would never have known a life of warrens and tunnels, caves and mines. And still, even he broke with Will. Even he fled.

  Coraz stood, apparently satisfied with the diagnostic rituals, as Cal and Edlashuul, the young vleez, crashed into the room from the opposite hallway. Laughing and panting, they chased a small beast. As soon as he saw her, Cal froze. He glared, instantly alert and threatening.

  Edlashuul continued the chase, running zigzag through cushions and legs. He scooped the beast into his four arms just short of her wheelchair, sense tendrils upright in surprise. Brushing past Rain, he droned something in his language, muffled by a respirator mask, and placed the animal in her lap. The animal turned around, poking softly at her legs with tiny claws. When it seemed satisfied, it curled all six legs up into its folds of skin and lay across her lap, head resting on her knee.

  Sabira couldn’t decide if the little creature was repellant or adorable. It had six stumpy legs and tiny clawed feet, joints hidden beneath puffy folds of skin. Six short, thick tendrils stood atop a round head, and more puffy folds enveloped squat little mandibles. Its hide was dark, blue-black, but with hints of pink in its folds. From mandibles to hind legs, the beast was no more than half a meter. A small cylindrical device was strapped around its neck. A thin tube ran from it to a vent just below its mouth.

  “What is this?” asked Sabira. “What am I supposed to . . . ? What is it doing?”

  The girl who had hung back the farthest was suddenly the closest, standing beside the young vleez. She reached down and scratched the animal between its tendrils. “This is an eeshl. She is our pet. Edlashuul brought her here. He found her as a baby, abandoned in the streets.

  “Just let her be. She just wants to sit there. It’s deep nice when you get used to it. Really. That’s what I have to say about that.” The girl still wouldn’t look directly at Sabira but stole darting glances through the corner of her eye. The Mechs glyph marked her cheek.

  “Sabira, this is Torque,” said Maia. “You met Rain and Coraz and Edlashuul already.” Rain nodded his head and took a step back but remained within arm’s reach.

  The two pillows, a male and female, approached her side by side, one arm each coiled together. The female introduced herself as Playa, the male as Zonte.

  The pregnant hen introduced herself as Dawn. She looked maybe a handful of years older than Sabira. She remained seated on the couch, rubbing her belly the same way her brood-sister used to do, and smiled nervously.

  Gabriel introduced Derev, the male Aggie in his mid-thirties standing behind Dawn. Derev was thick, sturdy-looking, and stood a head shorter than Rain. He squinted and nodded his head, but didn’t utter a word.

  “With the exception of Adept Hanada, the third founder of our Embassy, you’ve met everyone,” said Gabriel.

  “This is cugshit, total cugshit.” Derev punched the couch. “Why aren’t you listening to us? She needs to be locked up. Gabriel, Maia, you don’t understand. She’s a true believer. You’re putting us all in danger.”

  “So scared of a woman tied to a chair?” asked Sabira. “That little mine rat over there has more balls than you, Aggie.”

  “I was a true believer too,” said Zonte. “Many of us were.”

  “It’s not the same,” answered Derev.

  “Precautions are being taken for everyone’s safety.” Gabriel’s deep voice filled the room, commanded attention. “Sabira is not our prisoner, and she is not our property. Within this Embassy, all are to be treated with respect and dignity, no matter what they believe or what marks they bear.”

  “Now that Sabira is finally awake, we are going to show her the sunset,” added Maia, “for what I believe will be her very first time. If anyone wishes to join us, I’m sure we can fit a few more on the balcony.”

  Maia bent over to quietly speak in Sabira’s ear as she wheeled her over to the window. “They are studying the Constellation. Our culture, our history, is very different than the Theocracy. They study to prepare for a new life. See those screens. With a touch, any part of the wall can be made into a display. You will be able to learn anything you wish from them. Coraz is learning more about medicine. Torque is learning how our technology works. All of them are learning Connish, our language.”

  Near the panoramic window, a small table supported a rack of clear respirator masks. Maia took one from the rack, held it for Sabira to see. “This will feel unusual for a moment. Feels like a . . . What is the word, Cal?”

  “Tingle,” Cal said, joining them by the window.

  “Right. This will tingle a moment, when I first put it on. The mask creates a seal. See?” Maia placed the respirator over Sabira’s mouth and nostrils.

  Sabira didn’t flinch or pull away. Knew better than to show any sign of fear. Her face did indeed tingle beneath the mask, like when circulation has been cut off to a hand for too long. Maia tapped the mask, and it flashed a green light.

  “It converts the air, makes it right for us to breathe. No need for an air tank, like your armor.” Maia placed a mask on her own face. “We have other machines like the masks, all through the Embassy. The heavy curtain—see?—this helps keep our air in and the native atmosphere out.”

  Perfect, now I know how Daggeira and I will breathe once we get free.

  Zonte, Playa, and Torque also came over to the window and put respirators on. Gabriel pulled at a hidden seam in the curtain to let them pass through. Before he slid the window open, Torque mumbled, “I think not,” took off her mask, left back through the curtain, and sealed it behind her.

  “She’s like that, sometimes,” said Playa.

  The balcony stretched the entire width of the building. Long, dark vine ropes hung from the rooftop, coiled themselves in twists through balcony’s railings, and dropped down to the street. Broad, multicolored flowers dotted the length of the vines. Zonte and Playa held hands and walked over to the far western side. Gabriel and Maia stood at the railing to Sabira’s left.

  From her wheelchair, she gazed across the same wide landscape she had seen from the roof. The cones, flowers, and painted walls she had seen the night of her mission had been only muted echoes of the vibrant city now before her.

  The wide, slow river glistened with hues of gold and rose quartz where it caught the sunlight. The rings hung over the southern horizon, a great saber cutting through the amethyst sky. Its blade burned brightly in the west, its grip and pommel a band of shadows and glimmering sparks to the east.

  In the far southern distance, she could just make out another hive city. Its tallest structures glinted in the low, red-gold light even as dark towers of smoke twisted up into the sky. She understood that the Unity forces must have attacked the larger hive-city while passing over this one, perhaps to avoid interfering with her crew’s mission.

  Echoing up from below and all around came an alien, undulating sound. Dense, shifting harmonies filled the air. The drone rolled over her from every direction.

  Edlashuul removed his mask, spread his arms and mandibles wide, and breathed in deep. The eeshl stood on Sabira’s lap and also seemed to look out over the city with thick, little tendrils splayed forward.

  “What a lovely synchronicity.” Maia scratched the eeshl’s round head just behind her tendrils. “I do not think you have this word in Khvaziz. This is an important word to me. Synchronicity is when different events and people and places come together at the right time and have a powerful effect. It is synchronicity, you joining us when you did. During late summer in this part of Dlamakuuz, Av sets far enough on the south to see from our balcony. Not a bad view for a first sunset.”

  The eeshl jumped off Sabira’s lap and into Edlashuul’s hands. Behind him stood Cal, quietly watching.
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  “Back on Tierra, where I was born, we give our pets names,” said Maia. “That does not seem to be the culture on Dlamakuuz, though. So we just call her the eeshl. Another good coincidence, since your people said they feel uncomfortable naming animals. Still growing accustomed to having names themselves.”

  The strange drone emanating from the hive city grew louder, the harmonies denser. She looked out over the buildings and saw every balcony and rooftop filling with vleez. They were making the sound. It was their music. So totally foreign from the rumble of Servants’ drums but no less deserving of the name. All across the city, the vleez shared in the music together, singing down their sun.

  Sabira heard a scratching sound and looked behind her reflexively. Edlashuul climbed the vines to the rooftop. The eeshl scampered up beside him. He sat down on the edge of the roof, legs dangling over the side, and sang. His young voice weaved into the chorus. Beside him, the eeshl turned her round head to the sky and joined in.

  Av slipped behind the horizon as the song rose to a droning crescendo.

  “Here are your infidel vermin, Sabira,” said Maia. “This is who you are fighting.”

  Sabira looked at her. She knew she should say something, anything, about Gods and Masters and Divine Will. But again, the words didn’t come, only a wet blurring in her eyes and a clenching in her throat.

  The Gods don’t see us.

  Gabriel turned from the balcony and positioned himself on the other side of the chair from Maia. He didn’t wear a respirator. “We know all this must be quite overwhelming for you. But take a moment, Sabira, look around. Does this look like a world of vermin to you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what this is at all. What is happening to me?” Tears rolled down Sabira’s cheeks, streamed around the seal of her mask. “You’re always asking me questions. Don’t you have any answers?”

  “We have something more important than answers to share with you, lost sister.” Maia gently touched Sabira’s shoulder, silver earrings catching the last light of dusk. “We have mysteries.”

  24.

  TWO DAYS LATER, Maia walked down a nearby street winding through the hive city. Sunlight glinted off thousands of colored cones, transforming the walls into rippling glares of blues and yellows. White, bulging clouds towered into the amethyst sky.

  Sabira remained strapped to her forma wheelchair, sitting and watching in the Embassy common room. Torque sat on the floor nearby and tinkered with a disassembled node. She had turned one of the five walls entirely into a monitor for Sabira. It displayed Maia and the others as they walked freely through the streets. On the couch behind her, Derev held a small tablet in his lap, while he and Dawn quietly repeated Connish vocabulary.

  The common room’s temperature was supposed to be controlled, kept pleasant by the atmospheric regulators. Yet, the day’s increasing humidity still managed to seep into the Embassy. Beneath the bright, clear light of Av, it must have been sweltering. Sabira could see beads of sweat trickling down Maia’s temples.

  Cal, Rain, and Edlashuul joined Maia on her walk. The eeshl scampered around their legs. The view Sabira watched was the sensor feed of the lem accompanying them. They were off to a local market to buy fresh produce. Maia had warned that their starkly pale skin, perfectly designed for a lifetime underground, would be cooked red and boiling in no time under the fierce sunlight. She gave them both medicines to protect their skin before they left the Embassy.

  In the background, Sabira heard the echoing vvvrrllluuumm of the stealth field jammer. The sound brought chills to her spine. Her palms grew clammy.

  “It is much quieter than usual today,” said Maia, slightly muffled by a respirator mask. What few vleez they had come across didn’t confront them in any way, even kept somewhat distant. “All this way is usually alive with locals—talking, singing, working on something or other. I do not doubt it will take a long while for life to return to normal, not only in Glish but all of Dlamakuuz. The cost the Monarchy paid to drive off the Theocrats was terrible.”

  Sabira craned her neck to look out the window. On the southern horizon, a long, dark plume still drifted into the sky. A more modern, larger hive city had stood there, where the river met the ocean, before packs of biomech granks were dropped on it.

  Vvvrrllluuumm.

  The air was hot, humid. Sabira’s breathing felt sluggish and thick.

  Maia turned to the lem as she walked, creating the illusion she was looking right at Sabira. “Glish really is quite the beautiful city. One of the oldest still standing on this planet, as I understand. I would like for you to see it, be in it, as a free woman one day. Might be surprised by what you see. This must do for now. When the time is right, you might be able to join us on these walks. Gabriel will have to negotiate, of course. Officially, you are under our sovereignty, a residential guest of the Embassy. But the wounds caused by the invasion, those will heal slowly.”

  “Why bother going out there at all? You said your semblers could make anything you wanted,” said Sabira.

  Rain also turned toward the lem as he spoke. “The fruits they have here are really quite splendid, once you get a taste for them. The sembler-made food is suitable, yes, but just isn’t as golden.”

  “Logically I know it is the same, grown or assembled. Molecules are molecules,” said Maia. “And yet, Rain is correct. I think there is more to it than taste though. Some quality that comes from the living planet that the sembler-made food does not have.”

  Before their infiltration mission, the Warseers had told Sabira this target planet was a major agricultural supplier to the Monarchy. Its resources would be put to their true purpose, unified under Divine Will. Those fruits they loved so much would be delicacies served in the domed palaces of the Nahgak-Ri.

  Sabira watched as they turned a corner, and the road opened on a wide, sunny plaza. In all six corners, multicolored banners shifted in the light breeze. Directly in the center stood a life-sized statuary of four vleez holding aloft a gleaming, black helix in their upstretched arms. All around the plaza, hexagonal barrels were stacked horizontally three and four rows high. A few barrels had open fronts, displaying many sizes and colors of fruits, nuts, and other unrecognizable produce. Many more lay closed or empty. Near each of the barrels displaying foodstuffs sat tired-looking old vleez. Their sense tendrils drooped, the skin on their arms patched with spots of faded green and brown. Aside from the handful of merchants, there was no one else in the market.

  Vvvrrllluuumm.

  Sabira shifted in her chair, tugged absently at the restraints.

  “That’s quite odd,” said Rain. “Just a few days ago, this market was filled with produce, with vleez too.”

  “Cal, please pick up the eeshl,” said Maia. “You and Ed stay close, where we can see you.”

  “Do you think there’s something wrong?” whispered Rain.

  “Let us hope not. But for such a lovely day, where is everyone? Something has happened.”

  “Should we turn back?”

  “No, I think not. We are already here, and this is just a produce market after all. We will get what we can and return. In the meantime, lem, send a message to Emissary Mbala. Ask him to contact the local officials, find out what is going on.”

  A quick burst of streaming code ran down the side of the wall monitor, superimposed over the view of the plaza, and was gone as fast as it appeared.

  “Ah, look, there’s the plushberry vendor,” said Rain. “He’s usually quite talkative, maybe he can tell us something.”

  Maia called for Cal and Edlashuul to come closer again, and they headed for the vendor. As they approached, the thickset old vleez perked up his tendrils and slowly stood. Pale splotches covered his dark green skin.

  Maia spoke in Khvaziz, and the lem translated into the warbling drone of Vleezian. “Merchant Bashuda, greetings. We are pleased to see you still have plushberries for sale. The last bunch we bought were really—” Maia cut o
ff as Bashuda slammed the barrel lid down over the berries, nearly crushing Cal’s reaching hand.

  The old vleez exclaimed, his voice strained, harsh. The lem translated into Khvaziz. “—Get back! Don’t touch!”

  “What are you doing? You almost broke my fingers!” shouted Cal.

  Rain put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, pulled him back from the vendor.

  Vvvrrllluuumm.

  Sabira’s hands clenched into fists. Beads of sweat rolled down her temple.

  “We meant no harm,” Maia continued with the lem translating. “We have currency. We will pay like we always—”

  “—No. Go, get away from me. Get out of here. The Unity humans brought the plague. We all know. Get away and take your poison with you. This is all I have left. I’ll summon the city guard. Get away.”

  Vvvrrllluuumm.

  Emerald green light splashed over the city.

  Derev suddenly stood between Sabira and the wall display. “This was you, wasn’t it? This is what you were doing in the city, poisoning all these people.”

  “Derev, stop it,” pleaded Dawn. “Calm down, you don’t know that.”

  “Say it, godsdammit, say it!” demanded Derev. “Say why you were here.”

  “You’re so brave while I’m tied to this chair. Untie me first, and let’s see how brave you are, Aggie,” taunted Sabira.

  “Say it.”

  “Unseen coward.”

  “Sabira, it’s not true, is it?” asked Dawn. “You weren’t really here to poison a whole city?”

  “No, I wasn’t here to poison anyone.” Sabira stared straight into Derev’s eyes until he flinched away. “We came for you. All of you. I’m here to bring you back to your Masters where you belong.”

  25.

  AFTER SPENDING THE rest of the day in her room and away from their nervous, haunted stares, Sabira had the lem wheel her into Daggeira’s room as Av slowly dropped to the horizon. Gabriel allowed Sabira to visit Daggeira twice a day. They were left alone, almost. A lem stood motionless in the doorway to Daggeira’s little, blue room. It was cooler than the common room, the air less thick with the rich perfume of flowers.