I nod.
There’s an edge, a hint of something—a fear?—in his voice. “One of the memory crypts was gone. It could only have been a human who took it. If it had been one of the Resistance—one of our own—we all would have known.” He leans in. “Do you understand now? I sent you because I know you are like me. I knew it as soon as I saw you—you will sense things. Your thoughts will go farther. Your heart will go farther. Rashiya told me about your problems with drugs, Araskar, told me about how you’ve been trying to kill what’s inside you. Stop.”
I force myself to meet his eyes. “Sir, I’m no different than any other cross.”
John Starfire lapses into that grin, but it just seems fake now. “You’re a hero.” And then the grin falls. “Crosses are mostly blind to the power of their ancestors—made simply to breed tough. You are not. You are like me, and, as I’ve told you before, that means you have to act like a hero whether or not you know you are one.”
I think of the girl. The girl in that gunner ship, with the music. I’m no new kind of Jorian. I’m no different than any other cross. But if there was one of the ancient Jorians reborn, I’d bet on her.
When I leave, I go straight to the bridge. I look at the star map for the systems around the Dark Zone, in the wildest of the wild worlds, and after a long time, after a long time asking myself whether I can truly do this, I point toward a system where I know that girl is.
I give the coordinates to our navigator.
-16-
Jaqi
WHEN I OPEN MY eyes again, the viewscreen has the most blessed view I’ve ever seen. A sun, white and bright in the distance. Visible planet and moon in the distance of the viewscreen. A veil of comets falls through space, so slowly you can’t tell it’s moving, shedding clouds of ice that obscure the view of the planet. A world hangs in the darkness, night-side facing us. Even from here I can see flickers of artificial light in that world’s atmos. Glimmering patterns of life. Its moon shines, big and close, beyond the horizon of planet.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper.
“Indeed,” Z says. For once he doesn’t sound like a burning lunatic.
“Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.” Kalia is huddled up in the corner. I crawl across the floor, scraping my knees on the grate—everything still hurts—and reach out for her.
“Come here, honey.”
“Don’t touch me!” She pushes me away. “You were going to let those things—those Shir—eat us!”
“They were convincing.”
“I can’t do this anymore!” Kalia screams. “I want to go home!” She stands up, runs to the common area. “Quinn’s dead! My brother’s dead, because of you! You should have saved him! You’re going to get us all killed! I just keep praying and praying and you—we all need to repent!” She storms out.
Now that is some top-quality crazing. I want to run after her, but I’m also so exhausted I just want to die.
Maybe she en’t crazing. It’s true. I should have saved her brother. I should have saved Bill.
Toq grabs my leg. “You can hold me.”
“Okay.” I let him crawl up into my arms, cradle him like a baby. He nestles his head into my collarbone and drools a little bit, the warm spit collecting in the hollow of my shoulder.
“I was really scared,” he says.
“Me too,” I say.
“But I didn’t pee this time.”
I start to laugh. I can’t help it. There’s just something funny about peeing your pants. Toq laughs with me. That makes it worse. We keep laughing, nervous, for a good three or four minutes. We keep laughing until Toq coughs and hocks a large ball of spit right into my shoulder. I still don’t move him.
Z is staring after Kalia, toward the back of the ship. I lean my head back into the captain’s chair. “You okay?”
He coughs. “I will live,” he mutters. He’s shaking, moving one hand across the welt the NecroWasp’s stinger left on his chest. “It only grazed me. Just—water. I need water.” He takes a few halting steps to the locker, opens it to reveal the tank of good clear comet water Bill stored here. He presses the button and the water tank hisses open, and he tilts it and sucks down water for a good minute.
“You sure you’ll live,” I say.
“My people know poison,” he says, his voice sounding a little better. “The Empire has been trying to poison us for centuries.” He sinks down next to us. “Our blood fights.”
Yeah, I think his blood is losing that battle. “We need to get you help.”
“Just let me drink the water,” he says. “Enough water, and I will be fine.” He points at the comet, a haze in the viewscreen. “I will bring us alongside that comet over the next few hours, and we will have enough water.”
After a while, Toq coughs, a dry one this time. “My throat hurts,” he says.
“More water?”
Z hands us the tank. It’s mighty awkward, but I get it tilted up and Toq sucks down some of the sweet, sweet water. None of this reclaimed piss.
“I’m scared,” Toq says, and coughs on the water. “I’m scared all the time.”
I think about saying Me too, but I don’t want to jitter the little guy. “We’ll be safe here. I got us to . . . wherever we are. We’re evil safe.”
“I don’t want to leave the ship,” he says. “Let’s stay here.” And then, easy as you please, he looks up at me and says, “Is God real?”
Oh, hell. “Nobody talks to crosses about these things, kid. Crosses have to believe in surviving. We en’t got the luxury of believing in other things.”
“If we die, I want to be with Quinn, like they say in church.” He nuzzles against my shoulder. I keep expecting him to say something else, but I guess that’s all.
“I want you to be, too.”
I am, suddenly, sleepier than I’ve ever been in my life. No matter how tough they make crosses, I’m not tough enough for this. So Toq and I crawl into Palthaz’s tiny bunks, where my head brushes the bunk ahead of me, and we wrap arms around each other, and we go dark.
Z wakes me up a few hours later. He looks worse. That white skin is turning green under the tattoos.
“Z, you look like shit! You shouldn’t have let me sleep!”
“We’re being hailed.”
“By who?”
“The planet.”
I stumble out of bed. “The Suit mainframe? This that Engineer Bill talked about?”
“Those were the coordinates Bill punched in.” Z sounds worried about something. “I don’t believe he told us everything.”
“Who’s hailing us? Suits?”
“Kurguls.”
“Kurguls?” I stop in my process of stumbling through the hallway. “You didn’t let them see the kids, did you?”
“I’m not an idiot, Jaqi,” he snaps.
“Excuse me, Mister Takes - On - NecroWasp - for - Fun, but you en’t exactly making a reputation.” I sit in Palthaz’s chair. Z collapses into the co-captain’s chair.
A Kurgul comes on-screen. He’s got a wide-brimmed hat, shading his eyes. Leaves enough room to see the scar bisecting his lips, and the way one of his tentacles has been truncated about a foot down. Taken a few hits, this guy has. Maybe we’ll get lucky? Maybe this is the galaxy’s only decent nest . . .
“You the Engineer?” I ask, when he hesitates.
“I’m Swez. I represent the Mataka nest’s interests on the planet of Trace.”
I mute us. “Burning Dark and shit in space!”
“Matakas,” Z groans. “Wish us blood and honor, ancestors.”
“That too,” I say. “Also, burning Dark and shit in space.” Matakas have the same space-black soul as other Kurguls, but they en’t got the light touch—a Mataka’s “gentle persuasion” is another sentient’s nuking from orbit. (That en’t a phrase. The Matakas truly nuked the Tsukani nest from orbit. Tsukanis were evil good customers, too.)
I switch the link on. “This is . . . Jaqi. Come out on behalf of Bill; you know, dark-spot Bil
l.”
“I know him,” Swez says, in that Kurgul rasp that I hate so much. “Where is he?”
“He en’t here,” I say. Have to fight the old block in the throat there. Bill’s gone. Just like Quinn, sold his life to protect something he don’t even know. I’ll have a good cry over him, soon enough, soon as I can stand it. “Sent me with something for the mainframe.”
Swez shows a bit of his sharp teeth. “You best turn around, ’less you got some serious matter to offer,” Swez says. “Nothing goes to the Suits without going through the Mataka.”
Z cuts in. “There are children here. From Keil. Perhaps you have heard of them?”
“Z, what the hell are you doing?”
I finally see Swez’s eyes, because the little red dots go wide under that hat. “You’re the ones who have the whole galaxy alight, are you?”
“They are being pursued,” Z says, his voice rasping, “because they have a certain item. A small black box, from the First Empire. We have attempted to hack it, but we cannot. A Suit mainframe could do so.”
What is he thinking? Didn’t he just tell me he wouldn’t say anything about the kids? I whack him on the back. He sways a bit, but stays in place.
“We don’t want no trouble with Vanguard,” Swez says. “We keep the moon, and the Suits keep the planet.”
“You will not have any trouble,” Z says. “Rather, the reverse. This information is too valuable just to let the Vanguard take, my friend. This information will be worth the entire fortune of your family. Imagine, the Matakas, in the favor of the new rulers of the galaxy.”
“Or on the ends of their soulswords.”
“Do you never take risks?” Z asks.
“Only with folks they’re going to kill anyway,” I mutter.
But Swez surprises me. Suppose it’s because he’s a Mataka after all. “We will allow you to approach. You will not be able to leave, though, without passing on the information.”
“Thank you,” Z says, and cuts the transmission. “Time to go.”
“What the Dark were you thinking?” I ask him. “You just did exactly what you said you wouldn’t do!”
“I made a calculated risk,” Z says. “I could have tried to hide our nature from this Swez, and he would have shot us from the sky. Or I could tell him the truth, and trust his greed. I believe in Kurgul greed.”
“And if the Vanguard offer more? Or stick Swez with a soulsword? You could have made up a lie they would like as much as the truth, a lie that didn’t put the kids in danger!”
“Imagine that I tell them the children are not here, but the box is,” Z says. “They would simply kill us and take the box.”
“Nothing’s stopping them now. They could come aboard and kill you and me and take the kids.”
“They could try. I think the Kurguls fear me.” He coughs. “They could blast a hole in our ship, let our atmos escape, and then come after the box in the wreckage. But they cannot do that if we have the children, since they must know the Vanguard want the children’s memories. They could try and board us, but they know I will kill many of them.”
“In your state?”
“I am fine,” he half snarls, but I notice his knees are pressing against each other, locked up. “They could come after the children once we reach the surface, but we will be surrounded by Suits there.”
“And you couldn’t have thought of some lie that wasn’t as good? Like—like we had the sword of John Starfire, uh, sewn into our skin or some matter like that?”
Z says, in all seriousness, “I am not a good liar.”
“Well, I . . .” I was about to say that I am, but I reckon that right now, having just faced down the Vanguard and the devil himself, I wouldn’t have come up with a thing. My brain’s been all wrung out. “I . . . I guess I’m sorry. Maybe.” That en’t much. I add, “I gotta confess, Z, you’re smarter than I thought when I first saw you standing there in a fighting pit, all ready to die.”
“I’m glad I didn’t die there,” Z rasps. “I did not realize that NecroWasp was already dead. There is no honor for me in being killed by something already dead.”
“You mentioned that,” I say.
He sinks into the seat, lets out a long, wheezing breath. “Jaqi.”
“Ai?”
“Don’t let me fall asleep.” He grips the lever.
“I’m with you, Z.”
We’ve nearly come alongside the comet. The planet is much closer now, filling half the screen.
“What’d he call this place?”
“Trace.”
“As in not a.” Good name for a place we’ve gone to disappear.
He’s going pale.
“I’m getting you water.”
“No,” he gasps. “No, stay here. Keep me talking.”
“What’s your story, scab? How’d you end up out here?”
“What do you know about the Zarra?” he asks.
“Some of you got tattoos and some of you don’t,” I say.
“There is that. Some members of my race joined the Empire. Others did not. Those of us who didn’t had land—sparse, difficult land, but land. Until the Empire wanted it for their mines.”
“Sitting on a cache of shards, were you?”
“Sitting on the land where my grandfather died,” Z says, and I can’t tell if he’s still sounding like death, or sounding a bit like a regular old sad fellow. “On the water we drank for a thousand generations, and the deer we hunted, and the trees we cut and the desert where we learned to survive from our fathers and their fathers. Now, you are right, it’s all unthunium mines. We are crowded into our little parcel of allotted land, and paid in increments. My father sits alone and angry in his little hut, and drinks. My mother left him and left our land parcel. She had her tattoos removed.”
“Those tattoos mean something?”
“They are the names of my grandfathers, and grandmothers. They make up my entire name. Zaragathora is but a piece of that. It’s . . . also not really how it’s pronounced.” He lets out a long, rattling breath. “Zaragathora was . . . a dramatic choice.” He closes his eyes.
“Hey, wait! Can I still call you Z?”
“Yes.” He opens his eyes again.
We’re closing with the trail of the comet. I can see beautiful crystals of ice, streaming over us.
“Activate the comet still,” I say. “That red thing up there. You pull out, then down.”
He raises his arm, groaning. We slow, enter the trail of ice, enough to collect water. It cuts out precious time, but you can never get enough good water out in the wild worlds.
It takes a steady hand to fly in the comet’s trail, and Z has to monitor the still, and then we have to break off properly and close the last of the route in with the planet. Tricky business, takes time, but it keeps him busy, and moving. I can’t help noticing that welt looks awful. It’s leaking a little bit of black liquid, oozing slowly down over his ribs and his thick slabs of stomach muscle.
“By the Dark,” I say, as we close with the planet. I reckon there’s a few storm clouds to deal with, but that still don’t stop me from seeing that a good continent of that planet below is solid light. Lights stretch over most of the night-side of the planet. “So that’s a Suit mainframe.”
As we get closer, the metal appears, thick in orbit. Suits are everywhere. Every shape—snaky ones a mile long, ships the size of Imperial dreadnoughts that move a million little crane arms—and spidery ones that give me a new shiver, given some of them resemble the devil. Every combination of organic and mechanical you could imagine, all jumbled up, moving among scrap, gathering their things together.
Z speaks up. “I left home,” he says, “because there was no chance to earn honor there. Many of my people have done the same, gone to the wild worlds. I wanted, originally, to return and restore our honor. Now, I . . .” He looks out on the screen. “I just want to live a life worth living.”
“Well, Z, if we live through this, I reckon it’ll be ri
ght worth it.” I clutch his clammy hand. “So live through this.”
* * *
Araskar
The shrine sits alone in the middle of the meditation room. Not much of a shrine. The bodies we could recover have been cremated, and their ashes have been placed in an open urn, so wide it takes ten paces to walk around.
What was my slugs is now powdery ash, heaped in high dunes and sickly white under the running lights of the ship. It has a subtle stink, like old bones boiled for soup. There’s Helthizor, and Salleka, and every face I screamed at in training. There are the backs I shoved up the Bastard, running that hill over and over, the skins I saved on Keil—all in that ash.
Cremation is supposed to be a way to honor them, since recoverable cross bodies, under the Empire, went back into the vats for spares. No cell was wasted when there was meat to be recycled and remade, the raw material for synthskin and synth-flesh and whole new crosses with the same faces. Now we honor them, let the crosses be burned like real sentient beings. But damn it, I wanted to see my slugs’ bodies. Even torn apart, even meat going into a vat, I would rather look in their faces.
I kneel down and I draw the short sword at my belt. The great soulsword takes another’s memories; the small soulsword exists only to take your own soul.
Starfire, A Red Peace Page 12
