No, she wouldn’t allow it to take her.
“Nkiruka.” Hands on her. Soft, soft—she wanted to see whose they were. The voice, too. Was this all she would have now? Darkness and sound and touch? She wanted to cry, but her eyes were burned and white and useless, and she knew no tears would come.
“Nkiru, please.”
All at once she burst through the wall, falling back into the world, jerking and gasping as those hands held her down. “Nkiru—God, it’s okay, you’re all right …” Satya was leaning over her with her smooth hands cupping the sides of Nkiruka’s face. “You scared me so much. I could hit you.” But she sounded as though she were close to laughing, tears shining in her dark eyes.
“I’m all right,” Nkiruka echoed softly. It was there. It was all there inside her, behind the broken wall. Everything that she had brought back from the dark, pressing, insisting, demanding that she move. She pushed herself up and no dizziness came. Her head was level. Every part of her was level. She felt almost as if she hadn’t been unconscious at all, scanning the curtained clinic space, clear-eyed. Seeing everything.
How long had she been out?
She had to hurry now.
“Whoa. Hold on.” Satya placed a hand in the center of her chest, trying to push her down. “Ying said you shouldn’t rush things. She doesn’t even know what happened to you. Kae told us what he could, but even he didn’t—”
“I have to talk to Adisa.” Nkiruka turned, gaze moving over Satya’s face, so well loved. Memorizing every line, every angle; the elegant slope of her nose, her full cheeks, her equally full mouth and her skin like sun-warmed olives. “Satya, I’m sorry. But I have to.”
Satya stared at her. It was one apology for one thing, of course, but it was also for something else. It was the first of many good-byes.
Satya blinked, hard, and the tears rolled down her cheeks as she straightened and stepped away. “I’ll get him,” she said dully.
Nkiruka shook her head, already sliding her legs out from under the sheet that covered her. Beneath it she was dressed in a clean, white clinic shift—not the best garment, but it was decent enough. It would do.
“I need to go to him myself. There isn’t time.”
Satya paused, misery evident in every part of her face, her body, the way her hands hung at her sides. Suddenly Nkiruka remembered seeing her for the first time in a lower corridor, arms full of a stack of small pots, glazed and painted with delicate lines of winding flowers. She’d almost dropped them, and Nkiruka had noted the grace with which she moved, though she was stumbling. Somehow even her mistakes were beautiful.
This isn’t fair.
Ixchel’s touch on her mind, light as the tip of a finger. Since when was life ever fair, child? Life is cruel. Life is a mad bitch who spits you into the world, bloody and screaming and drowning in air, and then never forgives you for it. Life is a ravening demon that eats you, cell by cell, and grinds your bones between its teeth. Life drinks your hot blood until your veins crack like dry riverbeds. The greatest lie you have been told is that life and death are different things.
And life is also your dear mother, who loves you and wants to see you grow. Growth is painful. But we all must grow.
You are strong enough for this. You are stronger than you know.
“We never got enough time,” Satya said. She stared down at her hands, where all her unhappiness seemed to be flowing like blood, and raised them. For a moment she looked as if she might simply turn and run. Or as if she might strike out at Nkiruka, rage overtaking her misery. But instead she reached out and took Nkiruka’s hands in hers. “Come with me, habibti.” Her voice was soft and sad. “Just promise me you’ll tell me what happened to you.”
Nkiruka squeezed her hands and it was like squeezing love into her core, waves of it, along with gratitude. “If I can. If you can stay when I speak to Adisa. I think I can only tell it once. It’s that big, Satya. I thought maybe it was too big for me.”
“And now?”
“I think it’s big enough,” Nkiruka said. “I think … I think I can carry it. Because I have to.”
And every one of her children on her back, through the night that went on forever.
She met Adisa in the dusty hallway at the top of the ship, the windows opening out to their side and the stars looking in on them. She hadn’t told him to meet her there. She had somehow known where to go, just as it seemed that he had; she was sure that she wasn’t the only one the ghost of Ixchel was speaking to these days.
Satya had helped her along, though Nkiruka hadn’t needed it. She hadn’t attempted to resist. Satya had to help her, needed to feel needed herself, for a little while longer. In truth, it had been good to lean against her side, feel that familiar arm around her shoulders.
Will I be allowed even this much? When it’s all over? Except that was a foolish question. It was never over. And an Aalim could lean on no one, for an Aalim was always the support for everyone else.
Adisa turned as she approached, his eyes hooded. He studied her and didn’t smile.
“Nkiruka. We had heard you were ill. It’s good to see you up.”
“I wasn’t ill.” She gently pushed Satya away, standing on her own, and Satya went without a word, withdrawing into the shadow of one of the wide metal window frames. “I’m not ill. I was given a message. I have to give it to you now.”
Adisa nodded slowly. She had known that he wouldn’t doubt her. He had perhaps been waiting for this to happen, something that would push her irrevocably in a particular direction. She didn’t resent him for it. She was too tired.
And her work was only beginning.
“Some time ago I read the pads. Consulted the stars. I wasn’t looking for guidance for us all, but it came. I read war in the stars; war connected to the name of Adam Yuga.” She paused, watching him carefully, but his face remained impassive. “I should have come to you then. I’m sorry I didn’t. Some part of me knew what it would mean for me. And I was afraid.”
Adisa didn’t speak for a moment, his expression still unreadable.
“Sooner or later fear pushes us into doing things we later regret,” he said quietly. “That you’ve come to me … I regard that as the most important thing.”
“Thank you.” Nkiruka bowed her head. “But my coming to speak with you isn’t about regret. As I said, I’ve received a message in my fighter. I don’t know why it came to me when it did, why there and not elsewhere, and I still don’t fully understand what it means. It— It means many things at once.
“One of them is that war is indeed coming. We won’t be able to escape it. No one will.” She paused again, drawing in breath and trying to slow her heartbeat. Everything would come. All of it that she could tell, anyway.
“Another part is that Adam is at the center of what’s happening, what will happen, and I felt the center shifting. He’s begun to heal others. Or at least … No, that’s not quite right.” She frowned. “He healed one. What he did is sending out … ripples. Ripples that might grow into waves and sweep everything before them.
“There’s one in particular. A Protectorate woman. She’s the beginning of something bigger. Unless …”
She met Adisa’s gaze, hard and direct and very sure. “Unless the danger I sense kills them all. Which it might.”
She fell silent, suddenly weary. Adisa stayed silent as well, turning a little away from her and gazing out at the stars, seeming to slip into a meditation. She felt Satya close, almost at her back, and wanted nothing more than to lean against her again and close her eyes. But she couldn’t. Not now.
Now she had to stand alone.
“I’ve feared something like this,” Adisa said at last. “No visions as you have had. No readings. But hints in dreams. Premonitions. Nothing I could point to, nothing clear enough. Nothing that I could take to anyone else.” He sighed. “So now I suppose I have my answer.”
He lowered his head, almost as though he were praying. Perhaps he was.
“If Ixchel were here, no doubt she would tell us that something like this demands action on our part. That what we began on the Plain isn’t done yet. That we must take the next step and go to Adam’s aid.” He lifted his head again, a faint smile playing about his mouth. “Chere, I can practically hear her now. She would be so irritated with us for delaying so long.”
Nkiruka tried to smile too, but it felt more like a grimace and she abandoned it almost immediately. “I’ve been hearing her. I don’t know if it’s simply my imagination or if she really is speaking to me, but …” She shrugged. “I can’t ignore her. Not anymore. Not after what I saw.”
“You know that many of the others of us want to run.” He faced her, his face as grave as his tone. “And some want to attack the Protectorate directly, before they can do the same to us. It seems like you might be ready to present us with a third way.” He pursed his lips, his expression thoughtful. “What do you advise, Nkiruka?”
She hesitated. She knew that she shouldn’t, that she already understood what had to be done, and these were just the last few steps, but oh, they were hard ones. Her first act of counsel. It might seem like a small thing, but …
Small things start ripples. And ripples grow.
“We need to go,” she said. “Not should. Need. If we fail at this moment …” She shook her head, fighting back a shiver. “I don’t know what will happen to us. I mean, I can’t see it at all. It’s darkness.”
“What of Suzaku and Jakana?” Adisa’s voice was soft, but merciless. He was pushing her gently toward the rest of it. The harder steps. “Our communications with them lately have been strained. I doubt they would agree to come.” He let a significant pause fill the air between them. “And Ixchel counseled unity above all things.”
“Unity can be weakness when it leads you away from what’s right.” The words came quickly, though not easily. Each one hurt, each one was heavy on her tongue. “If they refuse to come with us, we can’t force them. They should join another convoy.”
“Such a thing is almost unheard of. Except in the most terrible extremity.” Adisa wasn’t chiding. He wasn’t objecting. He didn’t even seem surprised by the idea. He was merely stating a fact, letting it face her. “There are always three. The three need each other. One cannot survive without the others.”
“If we don’t help Adam and Lochlan and the others—if we don’t help the Protectorate—none of us will survive at all.” Nkiruka glanced back at Satya, pleading with her eyes. I’m so sorry. Forgive me. “You have my counsel. This is what we must do. There’s nothing more I can say.”
Adisa was silent again, regarding her with a stare that seemed to see her completely, every broken piece and everything she was struggling to make strong. Everything she was still clinging to and everything that she would have to give up.
“I will take this to the council,” he said simply, in the same tone he had used to lay the facts before her. “I will tell them just as you have told me. We’ll have an answer in a matter of hours.”
Only one answer is the right one. But Nkiruka only lowered her head once more, in thanks and in acknowledgment that he was shouldering a heavy burden of his own. For though Jakana and Suzaku would be nearly impossible to convince, she didn’t expect the council of Ashwina to be any easier.
“I’ll let you know as soon as our meeting has concluded.” He stepped forward, preparing to head past her for the corridors that would take him down to the council chamber. “Thank you for coming to me, Nkiruka. Thank you for your counsel.”
Nkiruka nodded again. And for a moment she stood there, her hands clenched at her sides, the stars ruthless and old.
“Wait.”
Adisa turned. “What is it?”
She faced him. She didn’t look at Satya. Maybe it was cowardly, but she simply couldn’t. It hurt too much. All these good-byes, and each one would be more difficult than the last, until the darkness swallowed her.
She let out a long breath.
“Tell them to prepare the ceremony,” she said softly. “Tell them to set the fire and heat the iron. Tell them that if they want me as their Aalim, I will be that for them.”
Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall. In the shadows, she was certain that Satya was once more weeping silently. She could feel it, a wrenching beneath her breastbone, the crying of a limb that had yet to be cut off but knew its time was coming.
“Tell them I’ll go into the dark.”
“Report.”
Alkor spat the word out like a curse, and every eye on the bridge swung in her direction. Watching her, ice settling into his veins, Sinder thought of a predator with eyesight based on movement, and a room full of prey animals keeping motionless.
It wasn’t working.
“One of them went down, ma’am. The other one … got to slipstream.” An older bridge officer, a man with a face that somehow managed to be both perfectly formed and unattractive, stood at attention, his apprehension barely concealed.
“I can see that, you idiot,” she snapped. “How? We had five ships to their two.”
“Good flying, ma’am. Luck. Otherwise, I— It would take time to produce a full analysis of it, we could—”
“I already have, and it’s that you failed.” Alkor made a disgusted noise and spun away from him. “At least we got one of them. Yuga might have been on it.”
“Yes,” Sinder said quietly. It was possible. There was a fifty-fifty chance, but he didn’t like those odds. He liked none of this. “He might have. How can we be sure either way?”
“The ship broke up at an extremely high altitude,” said a younger officer. “A great deal of it would have burned up in the atmosphere before it hit the ground, and after that whatever was left would be scattered in a debris field hundreds of kilometers long. I—I’m sorry, ma’am, sir, but I think it’s unlikely that we’ll recover much in the way of remains.”
“So the only way to be sure is to find the other ship.” Alkor tapped her fingers on her arm. “Can we track them?”
“If we chase them now, we might have a chance. But not a good one. They’ll be too far away; their drive trail will have mostly dissipated.”
“Fuck.” Everyone on the bridge jumped. “All right. We’re going, then. Contact the Vanguard and the Superior and tell them they’re with us. The Orion and the Advantage will stay behind and comb through the debris. And tell them to get the hell down to the camp and debrief whoever’s still alive there. We need to understand what happened and how.”
“Ma’am.” The officer nodded smartly and spun back to her console.
“Go to slipstream as soon as possible. Find them, people. No excuses. I’ll be in my cabin. Contact me immediately if there’s any news.” Without waiting for a response, she turned toward the door that led off the bridge, motioning for Sinder to follow. Which he did, silently.
There was nothing to do for the moment. And strangely, where before he had been full of jittery energy, now he was calm. Coolly determined. If he was going to get through this, he would need his composure.
The trip to Alkor’s cabin was full of quiet tension, and when they entered and the door hissed closed behind them, she stalked to the windows and slammed a fist against the transparency, letting out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a wince of pain. Sinder remained close to the door, his hands clasped behind his back, waiting.
It was good that she was angry. It meant that she was in it with him, to the end, whatever that should be.
“Why is everything going wrong?” She whirled on him as if he bore personal responsibility. “You said this would be simple. That it would be easy. I know he’s more than one man and all that shit, but how the hell is it possible that a bunch of deathly ill people overpowered a facility full of armed peacekeepers and stole two ships? How does that happen?”
Sinder smiled coldly. “Welcome to a universe with Adam Yuga in it, I suppose.”
Slowly, still calmly, he glided over
to her desk and took a seat in front of it, crossing his legs and leaning back.
In a way, he felt a degree of sympathy for the man. Adam clearly believed that what he was doing was right. His convictions, though they were ghastly, appeared sincerely held. He was even right, at least a little, about his mysterious illness. But it didn’t matter. His way, his method, how he proposed to cure people and what that cure might mean—revealing it all would destabilize everything. Create panic. Sow dissent. If things were as they were beginning to seem … It wasn’t even about a conspiracy. It wasn’t just about a few traitors in their ranks. It was about everything on which the Protectorate was built. Purity, superiority, separation from everything irrational or unclean. Perfection almost to the point of invincibility.
If what Adam had said about his illness was at all true, the foundations of the whole thing might begin to wobble. They couldn’t be undermined any further. And no one was going to crawl to the Bideshi for whatever they claimed to offer. No one was going to sink that low, to sacrifice the soul for the body. Solutions would be found elsewhere. It was only a matter of time.
Yuga couldn’t be allowed to succeed.
“Have you read the full report we got on what happened on that little planet in the nebula? With the Bideshi?”
Alkor frowned. “I looked it over, yes.”
“Then you saw how difficult he was. How elusive he proved. Yuga was no warrior, nor is he now if any of his breeding holds true, but he was a gifted problem-solver, and he could find his way through tight spaces. He could see things that others couldn’t—he developed a certain viewpoint that few possess. A significant element of his ability was pure analytical thinking, but I believe he also possesses unusually powerful intuition.” He and I might have that in common. “We shouldn’t be surprised that he’s still alive. And … I believe that he is.”
Alkor arched an eyebrow. “You do? Why?”
Sinder shrugged. “I feel it, and I’ve learned to trust those feelings. And it’s reasonable, given his origin. He wouldn’t simply burn in a senseless meteor of twisted metal. He would demand a better end than that, and he would probably be able to get it. He was, after all, a Protectorate man with the highest quality of code, however perverse and ruined. Our society produced him. If he’s survived for this long, I don’t think it can be through unusually good fortune.”
Fall and Rising Page 25
