by A. B. Keuser
With stiff shoulders, Archie leaned on the table and stared at the same square of his star map that he’d been focused on for weeks.
What he saw, she couldn’t guess. It was a blank void in the nothingness, a patch of what she’d dubbed a slow burn dark. Coordinates where the right ship could settle itself into obscurity and wait like a demon hunting willful sinners.
And she was tired of watching him glare at it. “I’m leaving with Trey’s transport.”
His eyes darted from the map. “Leaving?”
The word was a lit fuse for him now. After all, Flynn’s choice to leave was what had put them there. Fractured, failing.
The word was sharp. An argument would have flowed. She would have relished it.
But the fear and fire in his eyes fizzled.
“For how long?”
She wasn’t sure if it was her, or the information—the resources—she had he was worried about losing anymore. “As long as the Great Mother wishes.”
“You’re going to look for him.”
The accusation stung. Not because it was a lie—opinions didn’t hurt the way lies did—but because his hate was too intense.
“Flynn can take care of himself.” No matter how much she’d like to find him, sweep him out of danger and keep him far from Archie’s reach, she couldn’t.
She wouldn’t.
“And so can you.”
She’d shirked her responsibilities for him for too long. Afraid of what would happen if she left him alone—truly alone—now that Colm was gone. Now that there was no one to temper his moods.
“You’re too calm about this.” Archie’s accusation was lifeless, his gaze on the algae covered glass above him, instead of on her.
“We all made our choices. There’s no way to undo them.”
Archie’s hands twisted, fingers like claws, on the tabletop. “Flynn made our choices for us.”
“It was a cascade starting with him. Then you.”
His jaw twitched, “And then you.”
“Yes, all four of us had the opportunity to choose differently.” She looked past him to where Colm's ashes sat on a high shelf, swirled in crystal and fire. “You and I are complicit in that. Colm was too. But Flynn wasn’t. And he’s the only one you choose to truly blame.”
“He was going to tear us apart.”
Kathrynn saw the familiar wetness in his eyes, knew how close he was to breaking.
She lowered her voice though she knew it wouldn’t soften the blow. “And instead, you did.”
He looked away. He might have been angry, or he might just have been ashamed. Four months of opportunities to apologize, and he hadn’t asked for forgiveness. Not for trying to kill Flynn, not for accidentally killing Colm instead, and certainly not for betraying her. Again.
Maybe he knew she wasn’t ready to forgive him. Maybe he didn’t know how to sort the truth from the lies he told himself.
He’d always been careful to say nothing at all if his only other option was to stab her with untruths.
And that was the tragedy of Archimedes Holzen. He was a man who cared too deeply, who held on to what was his too tightly… and who lashed out like a cornered, starving madris when he thought he was about to lose the things he loved.
Her best friend was a prime example of what poorly wielded good intentions could do to a man.
She sheathed her sickle and left him in his empty chamber, slipping through the dark halls of the Lazarai compound without being seen. Amazing how quickly a home could turn into cold stone walls.
The jungle was even colder. Her breath hung in clouds and her fingers ached at the chill as she stepped into the frost-stiff foliage. Spring would come soon enough and then, it was a slow creep to the hot wet season some called summer, others called the devil’s sauna.
The trail through the dense leaves wasn’t marked.
But today, as she emerged from the undergrowth, she didn’t bother to wait for those in the courtyard at the front of the temple to clear. She didn’t acknowledge their startled glances either.
The entrance was piled with crates and canisters, a new flock of sisters headed for their postings.
A familiar face looked up at her from the crowd of young women.
Sister Pasmin always giggled when she passed. No doubt sharing the memories that flitted through Kathrynn’s mind of tangled sheets and fluttering kisses.
But Pasmin had been given her assignment; she would leave Ludo a few hours after Kathrynn did, and the likelihood they would see each other again was almost as non-existent as the chance they’d find another opportunity and share each other’s bodies before either left.
Kathrynn would mourn the loss when there was time.
No one stopped her as she made her way from the inner sanctum of one leader to the other, to the pagoan female who had formed their religion over a thousand years before. Her followers spread throughout the Colarium systems as well as those planets still held by the Lazarai. Serbal acknowledged her with a nod of her scaled head.
The hot springs within the temple walls were extensive, and the pool that bubbled up in the floor of Serbal’s chambers filled the room with a warmth that began to thaw Kathrynn’s frozen fingers.
“You cut your visit close.” Serbal waved her attendant away, claws glittering in the prismatic light from a dozen mirrored window squares.
“Our conversations do not flow as easily as they once did.” Nothing moved as easily as it once had.
“Does he know?”
Serbal didn’t clarify. Kathrynn didn’t need more to understand the woman questioned Archie’s involvement in her latest scheme.
“I’m sure he has his theories.” Kathrynn leaned back against the wall and dropped her head to the warm stone.
“Good, your true purpose will only make him tighten the leash he thinks he holds on you.”
Serbal didn’t know her true purpose for the very same reason.
The pagoan woman smiled and handed a sheaf of leaves off to a woman with yellow stained fingers and golden hued lips who flowed into the room and out again as if she were on a rail track.
Her eyes swept over Kathrynn as though she wasn’t there. That was the response she received more often than Pasmin’s sly laughter, or the soldiers’ fear. The Lazarai weren’t the only ones who put faith in rumor and myth.
And Serbal had made sure that few knew the truth of what she could and couldn’t do.
Never confirm.
Never deny.
“When do you leave?” Serbal pushed herself to standing and Kathryn looked up to her iridescent eyes, her conical irises contracting as her scaled lids narrowed.
“The Lazarai transport is scheduled for the seventh hour departure window. I’ll be on it.
“Good, we don’t have time to waste.” Dismissing her with a wave of her claws, Serbal returned her attention to the leaves scattered on her table.
Like Archie, Serbal never lied to her. Unlike her friend, their alien leader never had to hold her tongue. The woman believed everything she said as absolute truth.
That level of belief was as useful as it was terrifying.
She had only one more task before she could go.
The majority of the sisters lived within the hive like dormitory in the upper levels of the temple, but Kathrynn hadn’t been welcome there after her ritual of devout sacrifice—a long name for the painful task required to become a robed sister. She had, instead, taken an unused vestry for her personal chambers.
Her room was empty save for a darkly curtained bed, and a rack of ceremonial clothing in one corner. The bag she’d already packed sat just inside her door. Possessions were meaningless without memory, but the space was filled with those.
She watched a specter of memory flicker through the room, a man in panic, a terrible decision made. And then the vision burst like a bubble, Colm’s face lingering a moment longer than the rest. The only thing that remained was sorrow.
Kathrynn left that behind.
>
Colm's soul was with the Great Mother now. The grief she felt was for the living.
The shuttle waited for her, with Lieutenant Dinair leaning against its boarding ramp strut. She didn’t hurry when she saw his scowl. Didn’t even acknowledge him when she stepped past. She dropped her bag into the cargo netting and surveyed the small ship while she waited for him to join her.
The sisters destined for assignment at their new temple sat in seats bolted to the hold’s wall, already strapped in and tittering nervously. They would get over their jitters as soon as the ship was through the bumpy ascent, but they wouldn’t be comfortable as long as she was within their sight.
“Let me guess,” Dinair stopped beside her and sparing the sisters half a glance. “You’re going to make my people uncomfortable, so yours don’t have to be.”
“It’s always worth it to watch your men squirm.”
Trey was one of the few Lazarai soldiers who—while he still feared her—was willing to treat her as though she was still a human being.
It wasn’t a coincidence she managed to time her departures.
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance of getting you to stow those for the duration of the trip.” He cast a sidelong look at her back, shifting uncomfortably.
She raised her right hand to touch the joined hilts of her sickles. They sat against her left shoulder, heavy with more than just mass. Pretending to consider his request, she finally shook her head. “Not a one.”
With the hatch closed behind them, and the ship’s lights dimmed to a sickly, power-saving green, she led the way to the over-large cockpit, and strapped in at the empty folding console. They had a long way to go without anyone on board who could operate it.
The wary look the pilot cast her—his gaze darting away the moment their eyes met—told her they’d get to their destination as fast as astrophysically possible.
She hadn’t yet put in the hard contacts that would hide her crimson irises.
It was her eyes that always gave her away.
Serbal was quick to remind her that she’d been touched by the Great Mother in her devout sacrifice. Given a gift that few had been bestowed before her.
But that didn’t change the way others shied away from her when they saw.
Kathrynn slipped in her contacts—hard discs that tinted the world a faint green—and shoved those thoughts from her mind.
Whatever she was, she was supposed to be. And whatever anyone else thought about that was between them and the Great Mother.
And the Lazarai ascribed the same superstition to her as they did the process of folding space….
See red, and you’re dead.
Five - Flynn
Another day, another Mother-damned breakdown.
He followed Putty out of the mineshaft on the furthest western reach of town and glared at the dim afternoon.
Hot, but not pretty.
It would only get worse.
And it did, when Putty flung the key chip for the buggy at his head.
“I don’t drive.” At least, he didn’t in heavy air where controls took too long to react and the things that ran into your path usually had legs.
Putty caught Flynn’s return lob and threw the keys right back.
“You’re driving today. I didn’t spend months in a car teaching you and Kat so that I’d be the one chauffeuring you around for the rest of my life.”
Flynn hesitated, looking at the oddly men-shaped cacti, perfect for a pokey collision.
“You drive, or you walk.”
“I thought,” Flynn slid into the driver’s seat and pushed it back two clicks. “That reaching the age of majority meant I never had to lose another argument simply because you’re older.”
But Putty, already in the buggy with his belts fastened and his fingers tapping furiously on his tablet, wasn’t paying attention.
He didn’t even seem to notice when Flynn stalled the damned thing.
And if he took exception to the speed—or lack thereof—he kept it to himself. All of his mutterings focused on the metal box they’d left behind, its parts in a pile beside it, half rusted.
He moved things around on what Flynn gathered—from his brief, and definitely not safe, inspection—was a parts list.
Then they were in the actual city streets and the things with legs that could throw themselves under his wheels had names and faces he recognized.
By the time he’d parked, and reparked—twice--in Putty’s prepaid space, Flynn couldn’t feel his fingers. He imagined Chadrick’s machines would scream at him for his blood pressure too.
Putty waited for him at the edge of the boardwalk with something akin to disapproval on his face. “You really are shit at that.”
Unable to argue, Flynn followed him to city hall. He’d never been so happy to take a walk in his life. Their boots struck an uneven rhythm on the hard plank sidewalk, a drumbeat he’d grown accustomed to in the recent weeks.
Their destination hadn’t yet gained that familiarity.
The Colarium seal over the doors didn’t make him flinch anymore, but the few employed there who wore the relaxed version of the Colarium uniforms did.
But they’d learned to ignore him and his brother. A blessing if Flynn had ever been given one. He followed silently behind Putty as they slipped into Henri’s private sanctum.
Henrietta’s office looked as though a tornado had blown through and they were still clearing out the aftermath.
The woman claimed she didn’t need to clean. She knew where everything was… and she could prove it.
Flynn hadn’t yet pressed the argument that a filing system wasn’t necessarily meant for her.
Skirting an unsteady stack of coring samples, boxed and awaiting inspection, and the sheaf of reports balancing precariously on the top, Flynn found one of the only empty sections of wall and settled in to hold it up with his shoulder.
His brother didn’t seem to notice the debris that shifted around him as his weight depressed the floorboards—however minimally.
“We have a serious budget problem.” Putty collapsed into the chair across from Henri and ran a hand over his face.
Flynn didn’t point out that the gesture had left him with a red streak down one side of his jaw.
Henri--who hadn’t looked up from her work--let out a long sigh. “Who doesn’t in this town?”
Putting down her pen, she leaned back in the chair and clasped her hands over her stomach, studying them both. “If you want a raise, I can’t give it to you.”
Half hidden behind a stack of detritus, Flynn didn’t bother to smother his smirk. He doubted his brother had even considered asking for one.
“Based on these numbers, I should probably demand a pay cut.” He slid the tablet—screen alight with a parts list that seemed to scroll into infinity—to her. “The Corbett shaft is working with original tech from the first settlement. I can patch it, do some workarounds and refurbish, but if I don’t have those parts, you’re looking at a full system shutdown within the next eight months, a year. You might be able to push to two if you slow production from that shaft and ignore all Colarium safety regulations.”
Henri glanced at the list, but there was no way she could have read two words before she asked. “How much?”
“Assuming I can pull what I think I can from Nika’s salvage yard—not everything has to be new—we’re looking at two hundred and forty thousand Colar notes. Give or take, and just for one shaft. That doesn’t touch the connecting tunnels.”
Swearing under her breath, she nodded. “I’ll talk to the captain, see if we can limit Corbett’s use until we know exactly what we’re working with.”
She grimaced again and Flynn knew who supervised the shaft before Putty asked, “Which one is it?”
“North.” She tapped her desk. “He’s a bastard, and he’s not going to like this. He’s been pushing me to take a bid from the RTF outfit.”
“What would terrafarmers want with the mines?” Flyn
n didn’t think the locals’ suspicions were likely, but….
Henri tossed him a stack of paper bound with a plastic spine. “They’ve offered us bond money. But it’ll look like a bribe to the Colarium, and believe me, no one wants the headache that would come from that audit.”
Flynn glanced down at the terms and only just managed to not let out a low whistle. They were offering enough money—if his memory of Putty’s other estimates was right—to retrofit three shafts with completely new equipment.
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask why they weren’t better off. He knew how much UPD-5 cost. Their profit margins had to be decent. But a flash of olive and tan caught his eye out the window.
“Speak of the devils….” Putty’s head followed the man as though his head was attached by a string.
Henri looked out the window with a detached boredom that disappeared as she jerked upright in her chair. “Crap.”
Flynn saw the problem at the same moment. RTF was not the only acronym gracing coveralls in the street.
Henri was on her feet before he had a chance to read ACOOR across the person’s back and she was out the door—a pile of calipers clattering to the floor in her fluttering wake—before he’d pushed away from the wall.
“Somebody at the supply depot is going to get a reaming for this.” She said as he caught up with her. “They know better than to cross the pick-up schedules.”
She stopped just short of the street, her heeled boots scratching against the boards as she caught herself on the pillar. He stopped with her. Putty was somewhere behind them, but he’d bear witness, too.
There was no circle like those reminiscent of a school yard brawl. The groups of similarly clothed terrafarmers kept their distance from the men in the middle. Their eyes were the only thing that touched the pair. Not even their words reached, drown out by the hard gusts of wind whipping through the canyon-like street.
Beside him, Henri’s fists were balled, her skirt fluttering around his legs as well as hers.
She wasn’t going to step in. They hadn’t, technically, done anything wrong yet. An argument in a public thoroughfare was annoying, but not illegal.
