“Aah. Raarpht . . . Your sister befriended the Ruling An, she gained permission, she went down, and she stepped on a landmine. You understand that there was no body to be recovered? That she was vaporized?”
“So I was told.”
Ki-anna rubbed her scarred forearms, the Shet studied Patrice. The interview room was haunted by meaning, shadowy with intent—
“Aap. You need to make a ‘pilgrimage.’ A memorial journey?”
“No, it’s not like that. There’s something wrong.”
The shadows tightened, but were they for him or against him?
“Lione disappeared. I don’t speak any KiAn language, I didn’t have to, the reports were in English: when I hunted for more detail there are translator bots. I haven’t missed anything. A vaporized body doesn’t vanish. All that tissue, blood, and bone leaves forensic traces. None. No samples recovered. She was there to collect samples, don’t tell me it was forbidden . . . She didn’t come back, that’s all. Something happened to her, something other than a warzone accident—”
“Are you saying your sister was murdered, Patrice?”
“I need to go down there.”
“I can see you’d feel thap way. You realize KiAn is uninhabitable?”
“A lot of places on Mars are called ‘uninhabitable.’ My work takes me to the worst-off regions. I can handle myself.”
“Aap. How do you feel about the KiAn issue, Messer Ferringhi?”
Patrice opened his mouth, and shut it. He didn’t have a prepared answer for that one. “I don’t know enough.”
The Shet and the Ki looked at each other, for the first time. He felt they’d been through the motions, and they were agreeing to quit.
“As you know,” rumbled Bhvaaan, “The Ruling An must give permission. The An-he will see you?”
“I have an appointment.”
“Then thap’s all for now. Enjoy your transit hangover in peace.”
Patrice Ferringhi took a moment, looking puzzled, before he realized he could go. He stood, hesitated, gave an odd little bow and left the room.
The Shet and the Ki relaxed somewhat.
“Collapsed at work,” said Roaaat Bhvaaan. “Thap’s not good.”
“We can’t all be made of stone, Shet.”
“Aaah well. Cross fingers, Chief.”
They were resigned to strange English figures of speech. The language of Speranza, of diplomacy, was also the language of interplanetary policing. You became fluent, or you relied on unreliable transaid: and you screwed up.
“And all my toes,” said the Ki.
On his way to his cabin, Patrice found an ob-bay. He stared into a hollow sphere, permeated by the star-pricked darkness of KiAn system space: the limb of the planet obscured, the mainstar and the blue “daystar” out of sight. Knurled objects flew around, suddenly making endless field-beams visible. One lump rushed straight at him, growing huge: seemed to miss the ob-bay by centimeters, with a roar like monstrous thunder. The big impacts could be close enough to make this Refuge shake. He’d felt that, already. Like the Gods throwing giant furniture about—
He could not get over the fact that nothing was real. Everything had been translated here by the Buonarotti Torus, as pure data. This habitat, this shipboard jumper he wore, this body. All made over again, out of local elements, as if in a 3D scanner . . . The scarred Ki woman fascinated him, he hardly knew why. The portent he felt in their meeting (had he really met her?) was what they call a “transit hangover.” He must sleep it off.
The Ki-anna was rated Chief of Police, but she walked the beat most days. All her officers above nightstick grade were seconded from the Ruling An’s Household Guard: she didn’t like to impose on them. The Ki—natural street-dwellers, if ever life was natural again—melted indoors as she approached. Her uniform, backed by Speranza, should have made the refugees feel safe: but none of them trusted her. The only people she could talk to were the habitual criminals. They appreciated the Ruling An’s strange appointment.
She made her rounds, visiting the nests where law-abiding people better stay away. The gangsters knew a human had “joined the station.”
They were very curious. She sniffed the wind and lounged with the idlers, giving up Patrice Ferringhi in scraps, a resource to be conserved. The pressure of the human’s strange eyes was still with her—
No one ought to look at her scars like that, it was indecent.
But he was an alien, he didn’t know how to behave.
She didn’t remember being chosen for the treatment that would render her flesh delectable, while ensuring that what happened wouldn’t kill her. She only knew she’d been sold (tradition called it an honor) so that her littermates could live. She would always wonder, why me? What was wrong with me? We were very poor, I understand that, but why me? It had all been for nothing, anyway. Her parents and her littermates were dead, along with everyone else. So few survivors! A handful of die-hards on the surface. A token number of Ki taken away to Speranza, in the staggeringly distant Blue System. Would they ever return? The Ki-anna thought not . . . Six Refuge Habitats in orbit. And of course some of the Heaven-born, who’d seen what was coming before the war, and escaped to Balas or to Shet.
At curfew she filed a routine report, and retired to her quarters in the Curtain Wall. Roaaat, who was sharing her living space, was already at home. It was fortunate that Shet didn’t normally like to sit in Speranza-style “chairs”: he’d have broken a hole in her ceiling. His bulk, as he lay at ease, dwarfed her largest room. They compared notes.
“All the Refuges have problems,” said the Ki-anna. “But I get the feeling I have more than my share. Extortion, intimidation, theft and violence—”
“We can grease the wheels,” said Roaaat. “Strictly off the record, we can pay your villains off. It’s distasteful, not the way to do police work.”
“But expedient.”
“Aap . . . He seemed very taken with you,” said Roaaat.
“The human? I don’t know how you make that out.”
“Thap handsome Blue, yaas. I could smell pheromones.”
“He isn’t a ‘Blue’ ” said the Ki-anna. “The almighty Blues rule Speranza. The humans left behind on Earth, or ‘Mars’—What is ‘Mars’? Is it a moon?”
“Noope. A smaller planet in the Blue system.”
“Well, they aren’t Blues, they’re just ordinary aliens.”
“I shall give up matchmaking. You don’t appreciate my help . . . Let’s hope the An-he finds your ordinary alien more attractive.”
The Ki-anna shivered. “I think he will. He’s a simple soul.”
Roaaat was an undemanding guest, despite his size. They shared a meal, based on “culturally neutral” Speranza Food Aid. The Shet spread his bedding. The Ki-anna groomed herself, crouched by a screen that showed views of the Warrens. Nothing untoward stirred, in the simulated night. She pressed knuckle-fur to her mouth. Sometimes the pain of living, haunted by the uncounted dead, became very hard to bear. Waking from every sleep to remember afresh that there was nothing left.
“I might yet back out, Officer Bhvaaan. What if we only succeed in feeding the monsters, and make bad worse?”
She unfolded her nest, and settled behind him.
He patted her side with his clubbed fist—it felt like being clobbered by a kindly rock. “See how it goes. You can back out later.”
The Ki-anna lay sleepless, wondering about Patrice Ferringhi; the bulk of her unacknowledged bodyguard between her and the teeth of the An
When his appointment with alien royalty came around, Patrice was glad he’d had a breathing space. The world was solid again, he felt in control of himself. He donned his new transaid, settling the pickup against his skull, and set out for the high-security bulkhead gate that led to the Refuge Habitat itself.
Armored guards, intimidatingly tall, were waiting on the other side. They bent their heads, exhaled breath loudly—and indicated that he was to get into a kind of floating palanqui
n. Probably they knew no English.
The guards jogged around him in a hollow square: between their bodies he glimpsed the approach to an actual castle, like something in a fantasy game. Like a recreation of Mediaeval Europe or Japan, rising from a mass of basic living modules. It was amazing. He’d never been inside a big space-station before, not counting a few hours in Speranza Transit Port. The false horizon, the lilac sky, arcing far above the castle’s bannered towers, would have fooled him completely, if he hadn’t known.
He met the An-he in a windowless, antique chamber hung with tapestries (at least, tapestries seemed like the right word). Sleekly upholstered couches were scattered over the floor. The guard who’d escorted him backed out, snorting. Patrice looked around, vaguely bothered by an overly-warm indoor breeze. He saw someone almost human, loose-limbed and handsome in Speranza tailoring, reclining on a couch—large, wide-spaced eyes alight with curiosity—and realized he was alone with the king.
“Excuse my steward,” said the An. “He doesn’t speak English well, and doesn’t like to embarrass himself by trying. Please, be at home.”
“Thank you for seeing me,” said Patrice. “Your, er, Majesty—?”
The An-he grinned. “You are Patrice. I am the An, let’s just talk.”
The young co-ruler was charming and direct. He asked about the police: Patrice noted, disappointed, that Ki-anna was a title, the Ki-she, or something. He wondered what you had to do to learn their personal names.
“It was a brief interview,” he admitted, ruefully. “I got the impression they weren’t very interested.”
“Well, I am interested. Lione was a great friend to my people. To both my peoples. I’m not sure I understand, were you partners, or litter-mates?”
“We were twins, that means litter-mates, but ‘partners’ too, though our careers took different directions.”
He needed to get partner into the conversation. The An partnership wasn’t sexual, but it was lifelong, and the closest social and emotional bond they knew. A lost partner justified his appeal.
The An-he touched the clip on the side of his head (he was using a transaid, too), reflexively. “A double loss, poor Patrice. Please do confide in me, it will help enormously if you are completely frank—”
In this pairing, the An-she was the senior. She made the decisions, but Patrice couldn’t meet her, she was too important. He could only work on the An-he, who would (hopefully) promote his cause . . . He had the eerie thought that he was doing exactly what Lione had done—trying to make a good impression on this alien aristocrat, maybe in this very room. The tapestries (if that was the word) swam and rippled in the moving air, drawing his attention to scenes he really didn’t want to examine. Brightly dressed lords and ladies gathered for the hunt. The game was driven onto the guns. The butchery, the bustling kitchen scenes, the banquet—
He realized, horrified, that his host had asked him something about his work on Mars, and he hadn’t heard the question.
“Oh,” said the An-he, easily. “I see what you’re looking at. Don’t be offended, it’s all in the past, and priceless, marvelous art. Recreated, sadly. The originals were destroyed, along with the original of this castle. But still, our heritage! Don’t you Blues love ancient battle scenes, heaps of painted slaughter? And by the way, aren’t you closely related, limb for limb and bone for bone, to the beings that you traditionally kill and eat?”
“Not on Mars.”
“There, you are sundered from your web of life. At home on Earth, the natural humans do it all the time, I assure you.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
Notoriously, the Ki and the An had both been affronted when they were identified, by other sentient bipeds, as a single species. Of course they knew, but an indecent topic! In ways, the most disturbing aspect of “the KiAn issue” was not the genocidal war, in which the oppressed had risen up, savagely, against the oppressors. It was the fact that some highly respected Ki leaders actually defended “the traditional diet of the An.”
The An-he showed his bright white teeth. “Then you have an open mind, my dear Patrice! It gives me hope that you’ll come to understand us.” He stretched, and exhaled noisily. “Enough. All I can tell you today is that your request is under consideration. You’re a valuable person, and it’s dangerous down there! We don’t want to lose you. Now, I suppose you’d like to see your sister’s rooms? She stayed with us, you know: here in the castle.”
“Would that be possible?”
“Certainly! I’ll get some people to take you.”
More guards—or servants in military-looking uniform—led him along winding, irregular corridors, all plagued by that insistent breeze, and opened a round plug of a doorway. The An-he’s face appeared, on a display screen emblazoned on a guard’s tunic.
“Take as long as you like, dear Patrice. Don’t be afraid of disturbing the evidence! The police took anything they thought was useful, ages ago.”
The guards gave him privacy, which he had not expected: they shut the door and stayed outside. He was alone, in his sister’s space. The eons he’d crossed, the unthinkable interstellar distance, vanished. Lione was here. He could feel her, all around him. The warm air, suddenly still, seemed full of images: glimpses of his sister, rushing into his mind—
“Recreation” was skin-deep here. Essentially the room was identical to his cabin. A bed-shelf with a puffy mattress; storage space beneath. A desk, a closet bathroom, stripped of fittings. Her effects had been returned to Mars, couriered as data. The police had been and gone “ages ago.” What could this empty box tell him? Nothing, but he had to try.
Was he under surveillance? He decided he didn’t care.
He searched swiftly, efficiently, studying the floor, running his hands over the walls and closet space, checking the seals on the mattress. The screen above the desk was set in an ornate decorative frame. He probed around it, and his fingertips brushed something that had slipped behind. Carefully, patiently, he teased out a corner of the object, and drew it from hiding.
Lione, he whispered.
He tucked his prize inside the breast of his shipboard jumper, and went to knock on the round door. It opened, and the guards were there.
“I’m ready to leave now.”
The An-he looked out of the tunic display again. “By all means! But don’t be a stranger. Come and see me again, come often!”
That evening he searched the little tablet’s drive for his own name, for a message. He tried every password of theirs he could remember: found nothing, and was heartbroken. He barely noted the contents, except that it wasn’t about her work. Next day, to his great surprise, he was recalled to the castle. He met the An-he as before, and learned that the Ruling An would like to approve his mission, but the police were making difficulties.
“Speranza doesn’t mind having a tragedy associated with their showcase Project,” said the young king. “A scandal would be much worse, so they want to bury this. My partner and I feel you have a right to investigate, but we have met with resistance.”
There was nothing Patrice could do . . . and it wasn’t a refusal. If the alien royals were on his side, the police would probably be helpless in the end. Back in his cabin he examined the tablet again and realized that Lione had been keeping a private record of her encounter with “the KiAn issue.”
KiAn isn’t like other worlds of the Diaspora; they didn’t have a Conventional Space Age before First Contact. But they weren’t primitives when “we” found them, nor even Mediaeval. The An of today are the remnant of a planetary superpower. They were always the Great Nation, and the many nations of the Ki were treated as inferior, through millennia of civilization. But it was no more than fifteen hundred standard years ago, when, in a time of famine, the An or “Heaven Born” first began to hunt and eat the “Earth Born” Ki. They don’t do that anymore. They have painless processing plants (or did). They have retail packaging—
Cannibalism happens. It’s known in ever
y sentient and pre-sentient biped species. What developed on KiAn is different, and the so-called “atavists” are not really atavist. This isn’t the survival, as some on Speranza would like to believe, of an ancient prehistoric symbiosis. The An weren’t animals, when this “stable genocide” began. They were people, who could think and feel. People, like us.
The entry was text-only, but he heard his sister’s voice: forthright, uncompromising. She must have forced herself to be more tactful with the An-he! The next was video. Lione, talking to him. Living and breathing.
Inside the slim case, when he opened it, he’d found pressed fragments of a moss, or lichen. Shards of it clung to his fingers; it smelled odd, but not unpleasant. He sniffed his fingertips and turned pages, painfully happy.
Days passed, in a rhythm of light and darkness that belonged to the planet “below.” Patrice shuttled between the “station visitors quarters,” where he was the only guest, and the An castle. He didn’t dare refuse a summons, although he politely declined all dinner invitations, which made the An laugh.
The odd couple showed no interest in Patrice at all, and did not return his calls. He might have tried harder to get their attention, but there was Lione’s journal. He didn’t want to hand it over; or to lie about it either.
Once, as they walked in the castle’s galleries, the insistent breeze nagging at him as usual, Patrice felt he was being watched. He looked up. From a high, curtained balcony a wide-eyed, narrow face was looking down intently. “That was the An-she,” murmured his companion, stooping to exhale the words in Patrice’s ear. “She likes you, or she wouldn’t have let you glimpse her . . . I tell her all about you.”
“I didn’t really see anything,” said Patrice, wary of causing offence. “The breeze is so strong, tossing the curtains about.”
“I’m afraid we’re obsessed with air circulation, due to the crowded accommodation. There are aliens about, who don’t always smell very nice.”
“I’m very sorry! I had no idea!”
“Oh no, Patrice, not you. You smell fresh and sweet.”
The entries in Lione’s journal weren’t dated, but they charted a progress. At first he was afraid he’d find Lione actually defending industrial cannibalism. That never happened. But as he immersed himself, reviewing every entry over and over, he knew Lione was asking him to understand. Not to accept, but to understand the unthinkable—
Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 85 Page 7
