From Ruins

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  /On my name./

  /On your name, and mine./

  A faint sigh. /You have my promise, Surgeon who was born Sehkvit. On my name, I give it you./

  /Say it./

  /I, Jahir Seni Galare, so swear./

  The Surgeon exhaled, sitting back on his heels. Staring at him, Tsonet said, "Well?"

  "If we have time," the Surgeon said, "we'll run the fluids until the packs are empty. And I'll see to cutting away some of the worst of this. It is time for you to serve as physician's assistant."

  "Sounds better than cleaning toilets."

  "We'll see if you think so by the time we're done." As the Surgeon set out the tools, he glanced at the limp body of the alien and wondered if it would be enough, and why it mattered so much to him. But it did, so he set to work.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Silhouette unDusted under the wing of the flagship, and for the first time since they'd set off for the Source, they were free to contact the Alliance realtime. Half an hour later, Lisinthir received a formal invitation to a conference. That struck him as ominous; Meryl's style was more a quick call, not this flat text notification. Lisinthir dressed with care and wondered as he walked down the hall what he would have gathered from the emotional aether had he been with Jahir.

  The door to the conference room opened not just on the Fleet personnel, but all the freed slaves as well. The Knife perched on the edge of a chair, out of the way. The studied way he kept his palms flat on his knees spoke eloquently of his unease, however, and Lisinthir wondered if he knew something... or had guessed, the way Lisinthir was guessing. The Eldritch leaned against the wall beside the door with his arms folded and waited. No one was talking, and this silence persisted as Meryl entered and strode to the head of the table. Her expression had closed down, but her ears were back and her tail low.

  "We don't have figures," she said without preamble. "Casualty estimates are wildly variable, and the updates are continuous as rescue personnel report in. But we have sites."

  "Sites," Na'er repeated.

  "Yes. More than one." Meryl inhaled. "The biggest, and worst, was Tam-ley."

  "They hit Tam-ley?" Shanelle exclaimed.

  "Half the major continent," Meryl said. "And part of the adjacent, when the tsunamis hit. Initial projections are that least seventy percent of the population's dead."

  In the utter silence that followed, Lisinthir closed his eyes. He wished he could be the sort of person to pray for the dead, rather than the sort of person who wanted, instantly and overwhelmingly, to kill their murderers. Because he longed for it, so dizzyingly it was like being swamped with lust. His nostrils flared; he forced himself to breathe through the anger, pack it down.

  "The attack's thrown a lot of gunk into the atmosphere," Meryl continued, her voice flat. "So what remains of the population is being advised to evacuate before the climate goes bad. Some of them aren't going to have any place to go, though, and Fleet is going to be too busy to help with the refugee situation." She stopped, looking at everyone before continuing. "On their way past, they also took a swipe at the orbitals. There's almost nothing left there either. The welcome station at the system limit is completely destroyed." She turned, just enough to snap her fingers, bringing up a map. The Hinichi pointed at the red swatch on it. "Our guess is that they crept out along the border, lined up at the edge of Sector Veta and headed spinward, because they also hit Sector Alpha. They passed through the double system, but they only destroyed the installations at heliopause before moving on."

  "The planets?" Crosby asked, voice low.

  "Seersana and Karaka'A are safe, but they've lost billions of fins' worth of infrastructure." Meryl touched the sector, enlarging it. "They bypassed Selnor completely and headed through the Crown, where they stopped to raid three separate colonies. These were smaller groups, though. The damage isn't as extensive; it gets milder the farther from Tam-ley they get."

  "They're heading spinward," Shanelle said.

  "Away from the Core," Meryl agreed. "We don't know if they're still raiding. No reports there yet. But Tam-ley appears to have taken the brunt of it."

  The one Tam-illee listening had pressed her face into her companion's shoulder, her weeping muffled.

  "I don't get it," Na'er said. They all looked at him and he nodded at the map. "You don't start a war by running away. If they could wreck Tam-ley, why did they stop? Why didn't they go on a rampage through the Core?"

  "But they did start a war," Lisinthir said, quiet. "The war no one wanted."

  "They wanted it," Na'er hissed.

  "No." The Knife's voice was so tentative they almost didn't hear it. His eyes were very wide, and he was trembling; he had to be aware of his status as the sole Chatcaavan in the room, surrounded by very angry, or very unhappy aliens. "Not all of us. Not even most of us."

  "The Chatcaava in power knew that a war with the Alliance would tear the Empire apart," Lisinthir said. "And the Alliance never wanted a fight with their neighbors. That-" He let his eyes rise from them to the map and the crimson path cut across it. "That is someone starting a war and leaving its prosecution to everyone else. Particularly those who were doing all in their power to stop it."

  "I don't understand," Andrea said, speaking for the first time. She was very pale, but composed despite the wet glitter of her lashes. "Why would anyone do that? What does it accomplish?"

  "It lets a traitor escape in the confusion." Lisinthir loosened his grip on his arms, realizing he was bruising himself. "A traitor who might not have succeeded in his treachery otherwise." The pattern felt too clear to him, pounding in time with his pulse.

  "They're going to get away with it," Na'er said. "Whoever started this. They wanted a war? They've got one."

  "We can't dance to their tune," Shanelle said to him.

  "Can't?" Na'er's ears slicked back, and his lips drew back from his teeth. "'Can't'? Just watch us, Shanelle. They destroyed Tam-ley. Someone's going to pay for that. As many someones as we can make pay for it. They touched a Core world. They're going to die."

  "We've got to kill the right people," Shanelle answered. "Or we're going to be wasting lives for nothing."

  "I don't know," Na'er said. "Most of you tell me there's some kind of god. I say we let him sort out the dead once we're done with them."

  "So what do we do?" Dominika asked, voice husky. The former slave was sitting on the other side of the Tam-illee, gently petting her shoulder.

  "I just said-"

  "Not what do you want to do in some long-term fantasy," Dominika growled. "I mean right now. In Apex-East with all these Chatcaava. With this news. What do we-we on this ship-do? To make this right?"

  "There's no making this right!" Na'er said.

  "No," Meryl agreed, slowly. "There isn't. Nothing will ever make this right. But Shanelle's point is valid. We have to punish the right people or how can we stop it from happening again?" She looked at the Knife. "Right now, these people are our allies. These particular Chatcaava. And the Chatcaavan we're supporting for the throne doesn't want a war. So we're going to do what we have to, to help him."

  "All the Chatcaava who've been slipping away from this fight," Na'er said. "They're going to go finish the job-"

  "We'll tell Fleet Central they're coming," Meryl said. "And if they have other orders for us, we can ask. But until I get word otherwise, we're going to stay here and make sure this Emperor survives to stop this before it gets any worse." She looked from one end of the room to the other, ears slick against her hair. "You heard the Admiral-Offense's reports. If these people unite under an Emperor who wants to kill us, we're dead. The Core is going to be nothing but a series of Tam-leys, smoking in orbit around their suns. We have got to secure these people's promise to back off. Understood?"

  A chorus of murmured assents from the Fleet personnel. Even Na'er, though he looked murderous. Lisinthir could hardly blame him.

  "Dismissed," Meryl said.

  Lisinthir slipped from the room,
needing the space to breathe. The chance to walk. For once, sparring against solidigraphic foes in the gym didn't entice, wasn't enough. He wanted to be about the work. Nothing less would do.

  Tam-ley. He had never visited, had never thought to. The Tam-illee were so ubiquitous throughout the Alliance, a vital component to its society. They had built the first space stations. They had designed the starbases that protected every sector. Their dedication to the reproductive sciences had saved many of the Pelted from the failed genetics bred into them by their well-meaning but less knowledgeable human creators. Their homeworld had been a pilgrimage site for scientists, engineers, doctors, their teaching and research universities a watchword. And in one blow, the Chatcaava had struck into the heart of every Tam-illee in space, stolen from beneath their feet a sacred trust in their place in the universe.

  Na'er was correct. Someone would have to pay for it, and if no one could be found to surrender the price, the Alliance would never heal from the blow.

  In some perfect universe, some Perfect universe, the Emperor had taken the throne and prevented this war from beginning. Lisinthir had thought himself disabused of the hope of living in that universe. Now that he found the door forever closed to that future, he discovered he hadn't been as resigned to its loss as he'd thought. He grieved, and the rage that swept up that grief and used it for fuel was volcanic.

  He'd only just reached his quarters when Shanelle's voice dropped from the ceiling. "Ambassador?"

  "Go ahead, alet."

  "You've got a comm request from the Chatcaavan flagship."

  "Put it through, if you would."

  An ascending arpeggio. The Admiral-Offense said, "Ambassador?"

  "Admiral-Offense," Lisinthir poured himself a cup of tonic water, remembering the Emperor drinking it. "What can I do for you?"

  "We are sending a shuttle to the base, and you should be on it."

  "Should I?" Lisinthir asked. "The Emperor hasn't asked for me. I assumed he was still engaged in consolidating his support."

  "He is," the Admiral-Offense replied, gruff. "But he also won that support by shapeshifting. No one is going to be surprised to see the male who donated one of those shapes by his side."

  "Perhaps not. I have no desire to make his task more difficult by confronting his potential allies with their own prejudices."

  "If your presence makes them reconsider their support, then the Emperor needs to know it." A good point, Lisinthir thought. It would have been sufficient, but the Admiral-Offense surprised him by saying, "And you belong there. With him."

  Momentarily speechless, Lisinthir wondered what expression the male was wearing, saying the words.

  "You will come aboard?"

  "Yes," Lisinthir said. "Of course. How can I decline when you've presented such a convincing argument?"

  A snort. "Pad over when you are prepared. Pack to stay on the flagship, if you wish. We'll quarter you."

  "I'll be sure to do so."

  "And..." Another pause. "The human female. The one he's fond of. Bring her too."

  Brows lifting, Lisinthir said, "I'll ask if she'd like to come."

  With a grunt, the Admiral-Offense cut the connection, leaving Lisinthir listening to the descending arpeggio and wondering at how he could sustain so much anger at the same time as such wonder. That Change worked.

  Laniis couldn't rise. The map transfixed her, as if it had pinned her to her seat with a needle. She could understand everyone's anger, or at least, she thought she could. She couldn't feel anger, though. Only a numb disbelief. Tam-ley... gone? Karaka'A and Seersana bombed? Three colonies raided? How many slaves had the Chatcaava taken? And where had they gone? Would those people ever be recovered? How many had died in the conflagrations before the Chatcaava could steal them away?

  Which would she have preferred, given the choice? To die or live a life in thrall to people no one knew where to find?

  She heard rather than saw the rescued slaves leaving, supporting their Tam-illee friend. She thought she was alone, until she spotted the shadow out of the corner of her eye, cautiously drawing nigh. She looked up.

  "I am... I regret this," the Knife said, his entire face a study in horror. "It was an important place to you. It must have been, or they wouldn't have chosen it."

  "One of the most important," Laniis whispered. She swallowed, touched her dry cheeks. "I can't believe... when we heard that we'd been attacked, I didn't think it would be this bad. Or at least, I thought it might be that bad, but I hoped...."

  "It is not what I would have chosen for us," the Knife told her, earnest. "Not what most of us want. We don't... the people who keep slaves and want plunder, they already have so much. The rest of us are trying to make a life for ourselves. Just a life. Not... not this. We didn't want this."

  "I know," she whispered, and found it absurd that she did. That she believed, after over a year in the imperial harem, the word of a Chatcaavan male when he said he didn't want a fight. That was what made her eyes spill, and she couldn't have quantified the feelings that had pushed her over the edge. She covered her eyes and tried to compose herself.

  When she looked up, the Knife was still there, perched on the side of the adjacent chair, watching her with every evidence of distress a dragon could show.

  "It's called crying," she said, remembering the first time she'd had this conversation with the Slave Queen, in the base of the harem tower. "Water leaks from our eyes when we're sad, or in pain, or overwhelmed."

  The Knife shifted on his seat. "Huntsister... it will get worse before it gets better. The system lords that fled-they are heading for your home."

  "I know." She inhaled, shuddering. "I can't believe we're going to sit here for a week while they get a headstart on... on that."

  "He has to," the Knife said. "He needs the time. All these ships, they're not used to working together. They will have to be reassigned, organized. One week might not be enough. He is rushing the process."

  She wanted to protest that he wasn't rushing enough, but what good would it do? Instead, she found herself saying, "He used the Seersa shape a lot."

  The Knife's reply was hesitant. "It helped him win."

  "I gave him that," she whispered.

  "Then you will have had a direct hand in the salvation of your people."

  "If he stops the war."

  The Knife met her eyes. "He is no longer solely Chatcaavan. A part of you is in him. He will honor it, because there is no separating it anymore. He is... he is named, as well as exalted."

  A name she helped him claim. "I don't know what it means."

  "We will find out. Together." An embarrassed pause. "Have... have faith, huntsister."

  "I don't think I have any left," she answered, nerves jangled beneath the numbness. "But I know how to keep going. He taught me that."

  The Worldlord entered the office the Emperor had claimed on the base with all the self-possession the Emperor had found unbearable while wearing his collar, as if this, their first formal meeting since the Emperor's escape from the apex-world, was nothing more than another day. A formidable male, the Worldlord, without pretension or bravado. He met his Emperor's eyes without flinching despite their shared history. Had the Ambassador not uncovered the Worldlord's secret flaw, the Emperor would never have suspected him of indecency.

  But the Worldlord had nursed a tendre for his Karaka'An slave, and that had given him to his Emperor, as surely as if he'd blackmailed himself.

  For several moments, they studied one another. Perhaps the Worldlord was expecting him to look away first. Show some sign of the craven nature that had allowed him to accept his abuse. Perhaps he was remembering the message the Emperor had sent him in response to his question.

  I know three alien shapes, and all three of them were gifts. What have you learned? What do you want to?

  When the Worldlord bowed, wings spread and tilted to show their edges, the Emperor knew the male was his... and by his own choice. How good ‘yes' was, when ‘no'
was allowed.

  "Exalted."

  "Worldlord. Be seated, please."

  The male took the chair across from him and waited, hands folded on his leg and expression patient.

  "I imagine you know the work I am about to ask you to undertake."

  The Worldlord canted his head, mane easing off one shoulder. "Most Exalted. I have my guesses, yes."

  "I do not expect you to control all the system lords," the Emperor continued. "But of the powers gathered here, you are the most influential in that sphere. I need someone to suggest to them the wisdom of choosing the winning side. Someone they might listen to."

  "I can't guarantee they'll decide in your favor," the Worldlord answered. "As you no doubt know. But yes. I'll speak for you. I have no desire to see the Empire mired any further in this conflict. If we can curtail it before it spins out of control...."

  How much to divulge to this male, who was both one of his most powerful allies, and his former abuser? The Emperor thought of Laniis and felt a surge of empathy. "I think it's already beyond our control. But whatever we can do to limit the damage, we must."

  The Worldlord frowned. "You believe we are too late?"

  "I know we are. But I plan to salvage the best of what remains and start again."

  A pause then, as the Worldlord studied him. "You admit to weakness."

  "Weakness is denying reality," the Emperor said. "You advised me once to accept what I could not change. It was good advice."

  The male's lower eyelids twitched, but to his credit he did not look away at this reminder of how poorly he'd treated the male upon whose whim he lived. "Some would say such acceptance is submission."

  The Emperor thought of his new name and answered, "Submission is not always weakness."

  The Worldlord leaned back, eyes unreadable.

  "Speak to the system lords," the Emperor said. "You will find I reward loyalty in kind."

  "Did the aliens teach you that?"

  "The Navy taught me that." The Emperor smiled, eyes hooded. "But the aliens reminded me."