Tides of Maritinia

by Warren Hammond

I closed and deleted the message.

 

  I turned off the interplanetary link, and Maritinia returned to hushed silence. I logged out and stretched my arms over my head, muscles groaning like ropes pulled taut.

  Pol was right. I’d easily conned them into letting me use the communications-­room computer by telling them I would try to locate the source of the security breach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  The words slipped out too fast to pull back. So fast I didn’t even know such a revelation existed in my mind. But the staggering truth was incontrovertible. The Empire was spread so thin, it couldn’t withstand a concentrated attack without consolidating forces and ceding immense swaths of territory.

  The Empire was on the verge of a massive contraction. I was sure of it. I’d seen how these ­people regarded the Empire with suspicion and defiance. How many other worlds felt the same way? How many others were ready to rise against their perceived oppressors? The Empire’s total collapse might even be possible. Kell understood that, or he wouldn’t have dared to rebel.

  That was why Maritinia was so critical. It had to be tamed or remain a symbol to all who believed revolution was possible.

  Pol stayed silent. Eerily silent. Unease slithered around my spine. Had I actually put voice to such a dangerous thought? How could I be so stupid? I knew better, dammit.

  The E3 didn’t tolerate seditious attitudes. Careers and lives had been ruined for much less. Say too much, and even my father wouldn’t be able to protect me. The silence dragged on, my nerves tingling, my face flushing.

  Finally, he spoke, his words slipping into my mind with the incisive precision of a scalpel.

  My heart drummed wild beats. I told myself to stay cool. He couldn’t read my mind. Couldn’t see the panic gripping my psyche. If I spun this right, I could salvage the situation.

  I spoke firmly into the rabbit hole. No hint of fear.

 

  I said, amping up the indignation.

  I held my breath waiting on the response.

  he said. I listened close as he continued.

  I couldn’t detect any lingering suspicion in his voice. I let out my breath as quietly as I could. He was always listening.

  he said.

  Which I understood to mean the generals were already moving forces to the inner rings.

 

  I said.

 

  The fear quickly washed away, and I sank into the sands of exhaustion. With Pol, I always had to be the proper spy. The perfect loyalist. I had to play the part.

  But I was so damn tired. I already had to dress in the false identity of Colonel Kell. I shouldn’t have to wear another mask under that mask.

  I put my elbows on my knees and dropped my chin on closed fists. Four more weeks. Four more weeks, and I would be delivered from this tortuous existence.

  The admiral appeared with Sali on the far side of the dome. The technicians leaned in close to their screens as if the key to avoiding a death sentence was avoiding eye contact.

  Sali hadn’t noticed me. Neither had the admiral. They’d spent the entire afternoon together. He put an arm over his daughter’s shoulder. I watched to see if she was happy to receive the overdue attention, but I couldn’t read her face from this distance. If I could, I’d expect to see dread chewing on her delight. She knew the Empire was coming. She knew she’d lose her father.

  She’d lose me, too.

  And I’d lose her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  I knew I should continue to deny it, but I couldn’t bear another pretense. Just this once, I decided to admit the truth.

  Pol didn’t speak, but I heard disapproval in his silence.

  Sali rose on tiptoes to peck her father’s cheek before he stepped away. Left alone, she turned her contented face to the wall of video screens, most of them displaying camera feeds of the topside cleanup. One screen focused on Jebyl workers sweeping debris into the water with brooms made of dried sea fronds. Other screens tracked soldiers who patrolled the ringed island in groups of three and four.

  Another screen showed the line of bodies laid out like butchered fish.

  Her spine stiffened, as did her arms and shoulders, her carefree bearing hardening into rigid lines.

  I was the cause of her anguish. I was the one who murdered those ­people. I was the one who murdered Colonel Kell. I was the one who had doomed her father to die at the hands of the Empire—­no, to be fair, Mnai had done that to himself the moment he decided to lead this rebellion. Still . . .

  The compulsion to unburden my soul burned inside. I didn’t know how much longer I could stand to hold it all inside. I needed a release. Looking at the box of comm units again, an idea blossomed in my mind.

  I gazed up at the ceiling, so Pol couldn’t see my hands. I let out a loud sigh to cover any noise as I reached down into the box and nabbed a comm unit. Standing up, I slipped it into my back pocket.

  The hatch clanged closed behind me, and heavy with thought, I took my usual seat on the steel floor. I had so much news to share, I didn’t know where to start.

  The Falali Mother paced across her cell. Stopping a half step from one wall, she about-­faced and marched three paces to the opposite wall before spinning around to march back again. Pace, pace, pace, turn. Pace, pace, pace, turn.

  “You know,” I said, “I’ve seen caged animals at the zoo who do the same thing.”

  “Zoo.” Turn. “Tell me what a zoo is like.” Turn.

  “The Sire’s Zoo on Korda is gig
antic.” My voice was flat from fatigue. “It’s very close to the palace. It takes at least a week to see the whole thing. They have many thousands of species from all over the Empire.”

  “And they pace like I do?”

  “Just the feisty ones.”

  She stopped for a moment to give me a wry stare. “Tell me more.”

  “It’s beautiful. So many animals, you wouldn’t believe. Birds as colorful as the brightest silks. Bugs that build massive castles out of sand.”

  “How massive? As big as one of the Ministry domes?”

  “Bigger,” I said. “As big as a Maritinian city.”

  “Fascinating,” she said, and sat in her chair, eyes twinkling with wonder. “What about large animals? Do they have wild cats?”

  “Of course they do.” Infected by her enthusiasm, my voice lost its monotone listlessness. “Cats almost as long as mammoths. They have your mammoths and squids, too. There’s an entire exhibit dedicated to the creatures created for the technology-­restricted worlds.”

  “Create-­ed?”

  “Children come to the exhibit to learn about genetics and biology.”

  “Create-­ed?” she repeated.

  I gave her a puzzled frown. I didn’t understand what she was asking.

  Leaving her sandals on the floor, she pulled her knees up to her chest, her robe hanging off the chair like the sheet of an unmade bed. “The natural world and everything in it springs from Falal. The Sire’s claim for credit is a lie.”

  I opened my mouth to refute her claim, but her claim was so far from reality, so far out in the clouds, I had no place to set my foot.

  “The Sire is just a man,” she said, “one of a long line of extremely powerful men whose technology can do things I can hardly imagine. But creating life itself? I think not. That is the realm of the divine.”

  said Pol.

  I took a deep breath before giving a history lesson. “The squids and mammoths were engineered to perform specific tasks, and they were brought here by the Empire two thousand years ago. The Empire brought your ancestors, too. They took the poor and starving and gave them this world, like hundreds of other worlds. The Empire assigned some ­people to the worker class and others to the aristocracy, the Jebyl and Kwuba as you call them now.”

  She waited for me to finish, an amused expression on her face. “The Empire is most adept at indoctrination.”

  This was an argument I couldn’t win. I didn’t know if there was a point to winning anyway. “Tell me,” I said, “how do you think ­people arrived on this planet?”

  “Really, Colonel, we’ve been through this before. Maritinia is the living manifestation of Falal. She drinks the sea. She breathes the sky. And she populates both the aquatic and terrestrial planes with spirits. We Kwuba and Jebyl are the terrestrial manifestations of these spirits, while the sea creatures like the squids and cuda are the aquatic.”

 

 

 

  I rubbed my chin, hand scraping across whisker stubble. “Have you ever told me how you became the Falali Mother?”

  “Souls move from life to life.” She lifted her hands and aimed her fingertips at herself. “Currently, the Falali Mother’s soul occupies my life.”

  “But you weren’t always the Falali Mother, right? What did you do before you took that title?”

  “I was a young girl when I went to live with the sisters. Until then, I did as most young Jebyl do. I dove for crab and urchins. I learn-­ed how to manage the squids. I learn-­ed how to sew and how to patch a boat.”

  “How old were you?”

  “My father fell ill and die-­ed shortly after my ninth year. My mother die-­ed giving birth to me. Like many orphan-­ed girls, my village sent me to Selaita to become a Falali sister. It had been nineteen years since the previous Falali Mother pass-­ed. The Council of Interpreters had been seeking the reappearance of her spirit, and they recognize-­ed her spirit in me.”

  “How did they know?”

  “They test-­ed me.”

  “How?”

  “They ask-­ed me questions. For months and months, they ask-­ed me questions of life and meaning. Priestesses came from all over Maritinia to tell me stories and ask me to interpret them. They found the same wisdom in me that they remember-­ed in the previous Falali Mother.”

  “What was your original name?”

  “Emmina.”

  “When was the last time somebody called you Emmina?”

  “Since before I was ordain-­ed.”

  “Would you mind if I called you Emmina?”

  She grinned self-­consciously. “Friend that you are, you can call me whatever you like.”

  “So, Emmina, you were nine years old, and suddenly you had to become a different person. What was that like?”

  “I’m not a different person. I’m the same soul I always was. The same soul through countless lives.”

  “But you were living a vastly different life until you became the Falali Mother.” I scooted up a few inches. “You said yourself, you were crabbing and sewing, then your entire life changed when you went to the city and became the Falali Mother.”

  “It was what it was.”

  “But you were a child? Wasn’t it hard to become a totally different person?”

  She put her feet down on the floor and straightened the robes on her lap. “Why do you ask? Do you want to become a different person?”

  I thought before responding. “I already have.”

  “No you haven’t.” She shook her head like a disappointed schoolteacher. “You just keep trying on new skins. One of these days, you’re going to realize who you are and stop dressing for everybody else.”

  Her truth flooded over me and soaked into every pore.

  “Falal knows who you are,” she said. “She bless-­ed you, your true self.”

 

  I wanted to tell him to shut up. I needed to think. Needed to process.

  But I had to keep dressing as the good spy. Time enough to reflect later. I could feel the press of the comm unit in my back pocket and knew I could write it all down. Every pent-­up thought and emotion. Tonight. I’d start journaling tonight.

 

  “I met with the Council of Interpreters,” I said.

  “And?”

  “And it was like you said. They agreed to spread the truth of your incarceration, but they won’t act beyond that.”

  “Don’t be disappointed, Colonel. Truth is a powerful thing. It just might bring enough pressure on the admiral to set me free and start negotiating with the Jebyl majority.”

  I shook my head. “Negotiations won’t happen.”

  “Don’t give up hope.”

  “No, you don’t understand.” I wrung my hands before breaking the news. “The Empire is coming back.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Their advance spies destroyed the missile-­defense system. They’ll attack soon.”

  She put her hand over her heart. “Can they be stopped?”

  “No. The admiral will fall. He will be executed along with the other officers. Including me. But the good news is you shouldn’t have trouble making peace with the new governor. You’ll be free.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said. “None of us will be free.”

  CHAPTER 22

  “I can’t see what Im typing. I don’t even knoow if it’s working, but I hpe it is. I have som much
to say.”

  –JAKOB BRYCE

  Without opening my eyes, I rested my hand on Sali’s stomach, felt the rise and fall of her breathing. She was asleep.

  The day was finally over. It seemed an eternity ago that I’d finished carving the bamboo cuda. But that had only been this morning.

  I rolled over and, keeping my eyes sealed, I felt for my pants and dug the comm unit out from its pocket. Pol wouldn’t approve. Too risky, he’d say. Somebody could find the comm and read my secrets, the Empire’s secrets.

  He couldn’t ever know. To keep him from seeing, I’d have to write my story without looking at the comm screen. I’d probably make a mess of errors, but I didn’t care. I doubted anybody would ever read it anyway.

  Feeling a mischievous thrill, I pulled the tiny manual keypad from its slot and typed orders: screen off . . . sound off . . . autosave every second.

  Unsure if I’d typed correctly, I typed the orders again to make sure they were received.

  A smile broke on my face, and I had to suppress a giggle. For the first time since I’d arrived on this world, I could be Jakob.

  Blind, I started typing, and deliciously uncensored words spilled from my frenzied fingertips.

  “What happen-­ed to your feet?”

  The voice oozed through the murk of sleep to nibble at the base of my brain.

  “Your feet, Drake. Why are they all cut up?”

 

  Nerves fired to life. I opened my eyes. It was daylight, golden sunlight beaming through the windows. Sali was standing above me, dressed in sky blue silks. She’d just come from a shower, her face framed by wet ringlets.

  I’d overslept. Like Kell, I was supposed to rise at the sky’s first whispers of color. But I’d stayed up so late. And now she could see my barnacle-­sliced feet in the light of day.

  Looking down on me, she put her hands on her hips. “What happen-­ed, Drake?”

  “The missile system,” I said, lies clicking into place. “I was in the shower when it blew. I should’ve put on my boots before I went outside, but I was in such a rush that I wound up cutting my feet on rubble and shards of metal.”