She was Gueran, after all. She hated Earth as much as he did.
In the dock was a small outship, Guild symbols bright on its hull. That was a good sign, he told himself. As long as only the Guild was involved in this, as long as the outworld press had no real idea what was going on, he still had a chance. They could keep this a secret as they kept so many other things a secret, and take advantage of his virus—or not—as they chose. Yes, the outship was an excellent sign.
They brought him to a small launch lounge and had him sit in one of the padded chairs. Mere minutes later he felt the ship shudder, and knew it to be leaving the prison station. “Where are we going?” he asked. He didn’t really expect an answer, and he didn’t receive one. All right; if silence was what they wanted, he could play that game, too. Sooner or later someone must tell him something; his rank demanded it.
After the ship was well clear of the station, and its gravity stabilized at a comfortable, if somewhat hi-G level, they indicated he should get to his feet once more and follow them. He obeyed. He knew this style of ship, so he wasn’t surprised when they indicated that he should turn to the right—that would bring them to the main passenger chamber, where any manner of interview or interrogation might take place. Two guards entered first, with him behind, and the remainder of the small troop either following or spreading out in the hallway he’d just left, presumably to discourage flight.
As if there was anywhere to run to.
The door slid open and he stepped inside. Harsh lights glared in his face, blinding, unexpected. He raised a hand to shield his eyes. There were people in the room, rank upon rank of Guild uniforms ... and civilians as well. He saw to his horror that some of the latter weren’t even Guerans—unthinkable!—then looked to the source of the lights and saw vidcams whizzing about, vying for the best possible view of him.
Oh, my God. The press. He felt a cold clenching in the pit of his stomach as he recognized the sigils of major news industries adorning the headsets of some of the spectators. If the press was here ... He shuddered. That was bad, very bad. Once news got out of exactly what he had done, all the rules of the game would change. Had she done that already? Surely Alya wouldn’t, Alya who loved him, Alya who understood.
And then she was before him. He didn’t even recognize her at first. Her face was unpainted, a blatant defiance of all Gueran custom. He had seen her thus in their private chambers, of course, but that was different; here, where her authority was absolute, the lack of kaja seemed almost primitive, too bizarre to absorb. Her every expression could be read now, by strangers who would attach whatever meaning they chose to each subtle movement. While he ... he was given no hint as to her purpose or mood, such as the kaja would have provided. The lack of paint made her vulnerable in fact, but as she stood before him thus, it was he who felt most naked because of it.
“Alya—” he began.
She glared at him, and rightfully so. Even when he was in favor, he had never been permitted to use her common name in public. It was the lights—they were making him crazy—and all those vidcams buzzing around his head, hungry for the most dramatic angle, dizzying him until he couldn’t think straight. He needed his surroundings to be ordered and regular, measured, precise. Not this chaos of wildly flying vidcams, with a hundred strangers standing behind them.
“Quiet,” she ordered. Her voice was like ice. Heart pounding, he obeyed. The sight of her face, naked in such company, was so bizarre he could scarcely begin to interpret it. But she was nantana as well as simba, and such kaja never did anything without purpose.
She turned her back to him then, to face the crowd gathered about them. He felt a guard’s hand on his shoulder, warning him to be still. How could he be otherwise? They’d run an inhibitor through his wellseeker that slowed all the long muscle response in his body. He’d learned to walk despite the awkwardness, but he sure as hell couldn’t run. Or fight. Or do ... anything else they might expect of him.
Alya! You know me, you know my values, surely you understand why I did this! It may be a crime on the books, but surely you know why it was necessary! You can still save me, Alya!
She began to speak then, her voice without emotion, her body unusually still, bereft of its usual lexicon of gestures. Clearly she meant for no human to have insight into what she was feeling at this moment.
“Citizens of the outworlds.” The vidcams ceased buzzing about his head and turned to her. “Men and women of the press. Representatives of Terra proper, and of all the Terran stations. I thank you for coming to Tiananmen Node, to stand as witnesses to my judgment.
“Today’s announcement follows on a two-year investigation of the virus known as Lucifer, and lengthy interrogation of all those responsible. Today the people responsible for that virus will meet justice.”
Was there a hesitation in her voice, a faint break between words in which emotion might be glimpsed? He prayed that it was so, even as his heart went cold with dread. She loved him, didn’t she? Loved him still? If so, she could hardly condemn him. Could she?
“Even as we speak here, conspirators in a dozen nodes are being arrested. Their fate will be that which they intended for Earth: to be Isolated from the galactic community, denied all congress with the outworlds, until the end of time.” She paused, letting the enormity of that sentence hit home. “It was what they tried to manipulate us into doing to all Terrans, so I consider it a suitable judgment.”
She glanced at Devlin, then quickly away. He could read nothing in her eyes.
“We of the Guild are not a political entity, using our power to facilitate the dominance of one world over another. And we will not be used as such. The Guild’s purpose has always been to contact the descendants of Earth and bring them safely through the ainniq, so that they can share in what we have built here. This we have done, for centuries. Some of the Hausman worlds which our scouts rediscovered had only the most primitive settlements, with Variants that were barely human, who had no knowledge of their heritage. We rescued our lost cousins, we educated them, and we made them part of our society. We forced others to accept them as well, and fought wars when necessary to guarantee that acceptance. That is what the Guild exists for: to find all of Earth’s lost colonies, so that all the children of the human race might be reunited at last.
“We knew where Earth was from the start, of course, for we had the ancient maps. We chose to go find her. We chose to bring the unaltered children of Terra into our society, because it is their birthright. So did the founders of the Guild believe, and so do I believe as well.”
Now she looked again at Gaza, and her gaze was frigid. He felt his heart stop beating for a moment, and a band of steel seemed to contract about his ribs, so that he could hardly breathe.
“This man,” she pronounced—and there was no emotion in her voice, absolutely none, as if that whole part of her had suddenly gone dead—“This man, Devlin Gaza, intended to destroy all that we have built. This man intended to use our ancient hatreds to split the human race asunder—again—so that the sons and daughters of Earth would live and grow in ignorance of each other. Such action would be criminal for any man, but for a Guildsman ... it is unforgivable. It is an insult to everything we stand for. Everything we believe in. Everything we are.”
He started to move, to voice some protest—if he couldn’t save himself, at least he could speak for his cause—but the guard at his side snapped, “Silence!” Something in his headset buzzed something in his brainware, which jarred some vital neural connection out of alignment. And he no longer remembered how to speak.
IT’S OVER, DEVLIN. The words that appeared before him were hers, though he couldn’t say how he knew that for sure. PROVE YOURSELF A MAN AT THE END, AND GO WITH DIGNITY.
His headset would not let him respond.
“Variants, Terrans, members of the press.” Her tone was utterly formal, the pitch and cadence of an empress addressing her court. “I have called you here today to see how such a crime is punished. I wa
nt no rumors of leniency for those who wear the Guild’s sigil. What is unacceptable in other humans is ten times more unacceptable in us, and will be punished accordingly.” She nodded toward Gaza, a sign for the guards who flanked him. “Take him.”
He couldn’t fight them. He couldn’t protest. With his speech centers shut down, he couldn’t even cry out her name. When he tried to move, he discovered that they’d increased the inhibitors on his motor control, making every motion an agony of effort. Numbly he managed to force each foot to move, so that he would not fall on his face as the black-clad guards dragged him forward.
The press followed, vidcams buzzing overhead, with other guests behind. God, how he hated them! Hated them all. How could they not understand what he had done for them? They should be crowning him with their glory and gratitude, not forcing him into exile.
They brought him back to the dock. There was a small pod there now, which hadn’t been present before. Suddenly he saw where this was heading. Terror gripped his heart, and in panic he tried to pull from the guards. The defiance lasted but a second, and then a command from someone’s headset shut down several more muscle sets. By the time they got him to the pod, he could barely walk, and his arms were all but useless.
NO! He screamed it in the silence of his own head. NO!!!!
They put him inside the pod. They strapped him in. They let him see the navigational chart before they shut the door, so that he would understand exactly where the pod was going. Vidcams buzzed about the edge of the door until it finally shut, fighting to get that last shot of his horrified expression.
The last thing he saw was her eyes. Cold, so cold. Had his lover ever had eyes like that?
GO QUICKLY, the words came in his head. And then, after a pause: I DID LOVE YOU, DEV.
Alya!
The pod began to move. Slowly at first, as the massive braces of the transport pulled it into position. Then there was that momentary sickness which accompanied all launches, as real grav and faux grav and a dozen other forces, inertial and otherwise, warred for dominance in his gut. But it meant nothing to him. His eyes were fixed on the screen before him, a tiny portal through which he might view his fate. He watched as the pod hurtled through space, toward the ainniq nearest the station. Slowly it took form before him, searing in its beauty, closer and larger with every passing moment. There was no more he could do; the controls were all locked until immersion, and his prison headset lacked the programs he would have needed to free them up in time.
Prove yourself a man.
He could sense the great predators stirring even as his tiny pod dove into the ainniq. Hunger and hatred in perfect unity, and perhaps intelligence also. Did they have a territorial sense, these sana, did they understand enough of the human worlds to hate the men who had invaded their homeland? Was this rare conquest not only dinner for them, but vengeance as well?
He tried to flee from them. He couldn’t steer the pod more than a few degrees but he managed to take control of its acceleration, and he ran for all he was worth. It was a futile act, he knew, but no man could do otherwise. The patterns of predator and prey were hardwired into his human brain, and once one of the monsters caught his mental scent his hindbrain took over, prolonging the hunt as long as it could.
Not long enough, however. Never long enough.
He didn’t scream until the end.
Alya Cairo watched the screen until the pod was gone, swallowed by the ainniq. And then she watched it yet longer, waiting. Silent. The guards by her side dared not stir, not knowing how to read her. The press was restless but respectful. They did not need access to her emotional circuits to know the pain she was going through. Her unpainted face would be splayed across news files within the hour, the ultimate story of human anguish. It was a perfect counterpoint to the death of Gaza, the imprisonment of so many League members, and the data purge which had been going on since Lucifer’s origin was known.
Slowly she turned, silently facing her audience. There were no tears in her eyes, or any other sign that others might read. She nodded to someone in the crowd, who brought a small bowl to her, filled with black fluid. She did not look at it, but found it by feel, dipping her fingers into the paint within. One touch to gather up paint, then a stroke to smear it across her face. Gueran mourning custom; the vidcams buzzed with activity, preparing for the articles on Gueran social habits that would appear in newscasts later that day.
When her face was thus marked in a primitive pattern of sorrow, obscuring any natural expression as it might have obscured her kaja, she walked slowly through the crowd. Questions were tossed at her from both sides; she ignored them. Guards flanked her uneasily; she didn’t seem to notice their presence. One man stood in her path long enough that a guard had to grab him by the arm and pull him out of her way; she would probably have walked right into him.
Unseeing, unfeeling, the Guildmistress Prima of the Gueran outworlds walked past guards and press, guests and advisors, into the narrow hallway that would take her to her chamber. No one followed her there. No one dared. A few vidcams flitted behind her head for a yard or two, until a signal sent by one of her people scrambled the navigator programs and they dropped to the floor with a sharp thud.
She walked on, alone.
Into her chambers. Standing there alone, silent. Seeing the icons that would enable all the systems she’d shut down an hour before, preparing for the press. RELEASE CONTROL OF TEAR DUCT FLUID PRODUCTION, she instructed her wellseeker. Tears began to seep out of her eyes. RELEASE METABOLIC INHIBITORS. Her heart began to pound heavily, flushing her cheeks with hot blood, and her measured breathing became deeper, and strained, and faster than was normal. RELEASE EMOTIVE INHIBITORS. She shut her eyes in dread as synapses opened and shut, neurotransmitters stirred, dendrites sparkled with fresh activity.
And grief, like a vast tsunami, rolled over her brain, and flooded her body, and disrupted every natural system within her, until the warnings of her wellseeker drowned out her vision in a field of bright red letters, and the real world could not even be sensed through her sorrow.
Alone in her chamber, the Guild’s Prima wept.
RUSA
The forest is deep and green, its air warm and thick with moisture. Through it the hunter moves, silently, carefully, hand-carved weapon tucked against his side, poisoned darts fitted into a pouch at his hip.
There, there, the trail ends. He pauses, testing the air with his nose. A faint scent of animal musk drifts toward him on the warm breeze, assuring him that prey is near, assuring him that it cannot smell him.
He fits a dart into the long tube, lifts it to his lips, and moves forward slowly. Step by step, pressing the leaves so slowly beneath his feet that they barely make a whisper of sound.
Now he can see a clearing before him. Now, through a curtain of leaves and branches and twisted vines, he sees the deer.
Rusa.
The hunter feels his breath catch in his throat. Perhaps he moves. Perhaps he makes a noise. The deer looks up at him, startled, and the deep brown eyes meet his.
Rusa, the keeper of spirits. Rusa, the sacred deer, whose flesh is a house for the souls of lost humans.
He lowers the weapon from his lips. His heart is pounding. The deer does not move. What spirit wears this flesh now, whose ancestor, whose lover, whose lost child? What soul looks out from those lambent eyes, which personality chooses to make the deer step away, shift its ears, prepare to run?
He does not shoot it, of course. How can you kill a living thing, without knowing what manner of soul is inside it? How can you judge it in any one moment, when the next may require a new and different judgment?
He watches as it walks away: slowly, majestically, sensing its own invulnerability. And then, when the awe in his heart gives way to hunger once more, he turns to other trails, to hunt for simpler prey.
KAJA: An Outworlder’s Guide to the Gueron Social Contract, Volume 2: Signs of the Soul
PARADISE NODE PARADISE STATION
> THE OBSERVATION LOUNGE was nearly deserted when Sonondra Ra came into it. The lush padded seats surrounding glass tables were empty. The bar was shuttered, and the illumination had been turned down, allowing the distant station lights to cast gleaming lines across the floor.
Phoenix stood by the vast window looking out at the rings of Paradise. Though he had lived here for much of his life, he had rarely been in a place where such a view was possible. From here, inside the Guild complex, one could see all the rings of the station sweeping across the glittering sky, and the stately dance of pods and transports as they wove in and out of them, seeking sanctuary.
She came up beside him and just stood there for a while. Sharing the view, and the silence of the moment.
Then she said, very quietly, “You miss her a lot.”
“Yeah. Pretty stupid, huh?” He brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes, then lodged both hands deeply in his pockets. “I only knew her a few days. Never figured anyone could get to me that fast.”
She said it gently: “You know it had to be done.”
“Yeah. I know.” He sighed. “Earth aggression and all that bullshit. Had to be dealt with.”
An outship was disengaging from the inner ring; its docking lights swept across the darkened room. “Tell me again how she’s happier where she is.”
“Her nature is Gueran. She belongs among us. Maybe not by birth, but after what Shido did to her, she has no place among Terrans. Guera will accept her for what she is. And now that Tridac’s been fooled into thinking she’s dead, there’ll be no one coming after her. She’ll have time to come to terms with what she’s become. And in time she’ll realize that on Guera she has no need to hide her nature.”
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