Endgame

by Kristine Smith

  She removed her overrobe, trousers, shirt. Greyed blue and sand they were, colors of the gaming room and veranda, made of cloth which possessed a delicate sheen and a light hand. Walked to her storage chest and removed sand-shaded trousers and sleeveless shirt and put them on. Bound the fasteners. Knotted the ties. Heavier cloth, this, dull to the eye and mended many times.

  Rilas looked down at her bare arms, gold-brown skin darkened by Shèráin sun and crosshatched by the pale ridges of old scars. Flexed her hands, watched the muscles work.

  “Time for the blades.” Wooden ones, most unfortunately. But such would have to suffice.

  “She proclaimed such at the meeting house on Elyas.” The male, a young Dahoumn, pale and blocky, executed a complex turn of wrist that caused his blade to spin as a fan. “She stood atop a stage, as humanish do, and proclaimed while all about her shouted and clapped their hands.”

  Rilas worked her blade in a solitary exercise, close enough to the Dahoumn to hear him, but far enough away to seem separate from his group. All were younger, pale, shorter Dahoumn and darker, taller Sìah, and most disordered. They did not work their blades in unison, and bumped and banged into one another repeatedly.

  “After she proclaimed, humanish challenged Haárin, and forced them to lave the circle afterward, to clean away their blood,” said another of the group, a Sìah female. “The walls as well…or walls and floor…or just the walls?”

  “It’s all the same,” sounded a female voice. A humanish voice.

  Kilian’s voice.

  Rilas flinched. Her hands dropped. The end of her blade caught on the edge of the floor pad, stopping her motion in mid-twist. Pain radiated up her right wrist and along her arm, a thin line of flame. Her hand spasmed and the wooden blade spun out of her grasp, through the air and into the midst of another group, striking an elder male in the face before clattering to the bare floor.

  The male covered his nose with both hands even as the blood flowed through his fingers and down the front of his tunic. A few Haárin shouted, while one ran to the communication array and pressed the switch that summoned the ship’s physician-priest.

  Rilas turned to the group of youngish, who stared at the blooded elder, their blades at all angles. One began to laugh, until his neighbor elbowed him in the pit of his soul. Another, one of the females, had positioned herself behind the others, ducking so she could not be seen.

  “What has happened?” Another of the elder male’s group stepped between Rilas and the youngish. A male of middle years, Sìah or light-skinned Vynshàrau, breeder’s fringe gathered in a knot and tied with a cord, arms so hacked with scarring there seemed no clear skin left. “Answer.”

  “She lost control of her blade.” The young Dahoumn male pointed to Rilas. “Demand answers from her.”

  The male turned. “So?”

  Rilas gripped her injured wrist and stared past the male to the Dahoumn. “One of them spoke in the Kièrshia’s voice, and another laughed.”

  The male stepped around to the rear of the youngish gaggle, where the guilty female all but crouched as an animal to hide herself. “Do you find the Kièrshia’s voice an amusement?” He gripped her by the wrist and pulled her upright. “She who accuses all idomeni of anathema? You imitate her?”

  “I did not—” The female looked toward Rilas. “We did not mean—”

  “Stop cowering!” The young Dahoumn faced the scarred male. “Ná Lia did nothing wrong. She—” He pointed at Rilas. “—she listened to private talk. The blood is her fault.”

  The doors opened and the physician-priest entered together with a suborn. They hurried to the elder male, who had been led off to the side of the room by others in his group and now sat on the floor, head tipped back to squelch the bleeding from his nose.

  “You distracted her.” The scarred male released ná Lia, then pushed her toward the rest of her group. “If you speak loudly enough to be heard, you will be heard, and others will act as they will when they hear you.”

  “That is for them. We shall still say that which we will, and laugh at that which we will.” The young Dahoumn broke away from the rest and faced the scarred male, moving around him as though they stood within the circle. “We did not laugh at ná Kièrshia’s voice. We laughed at the expression on her face when she heard it.” He pointed again to Rilas, looking her in the eye as he did. “As though she had seen a demon. Such was how she appeared, and truly.”

  The scarred male looked toward Rilas.

  Warrior skein. Rilas began to straighten, and forced herself still. Whatever the male may once have been, whatever honor he may have earned, he was now Haárin, and she would show submission to no Haárin.

  “Ná Kièrshia is the cause of fear in some.” The scarred male turned back to the Dahoumn. “She is anathema.”

  “All is anathema.” The Dahoumn laughed. “Ní Tsecha is dead. What difference? He was anathema. Such was all we heard, that he was a shame on all idomeni. Now he is dead, and such is anathema as well, and all cry out at the sadness of it, the sadness of the death of one we called anathema.” He picked up a discarded wooden blade and inscribed a circle in the air. “A humanish would tell you to make up your minds. He is Tsecha, or he is not. He is great, or he is not. We mourn and honor him, or revile and forget him. We hate him and all for which he stood, or we do not.”

  The scarred male kept the Dahoumn in his sights, turning with him. “NìRau Cèel has said—”

  “Cèel is a hypocrite!” Ná Lia found her voice once more. “He exiled ní Tsecha, and made him Haárin. But now ní Tsecha is dead, and he calls him great.”

  “Great now that he is dead,” the Dahoumn said. “Great now that he cannot write, or speak.” He stopped his turning of his blade and stilled. “Great now that Cèel does not have to listen to him any longer.”

  All had gone quiet in the room. Even the physician-priest and her suborn had stilled to watch the two males circle one another. Meanwhile, the Dahoumn’s friends had moved to one side of the room, the scarred male’s to the other.

  Rilas backed toward the far wall, away from both groups. The Dahoumn’s arms showed pale and lightly scarred, as nothing compared to those of the other male. Such would prove an unseemly challenge, unbalanced and graceless.

  The scarred male’s shoulder rounded. “Why do you speak against nìRau Cèel? Humanish killed ní Tsecha. He did not.”

  “He wished to. He would have executed ní Tsecha if he ever returned to Shèrá. Some say—” The young Dahoumn began to circle again. “Some say that Cèel paid humanish to kill ní Tsecha. Thus could he condemn the killers even as he rejoiced that the killing had been done.”

  None moved. Even the elder male who bled over his shirt listened.

  “Who are these ‘some’ who say this?” The scarred male’s voice deepened in anger. “Who?”

  “Many.” The Dahoumn stilled once more. “Many say this.”

  “Such is—”

  “Anathema?” The Dahoumn bared his teeth. “A humanish would say that if all is anathema, then nothing is.”

  The silence that followed was disturbed by the physician-priest, who aided the elder male to his feet and guided him to the door.

  Rilas followed them, straightening and lifting her chin as though requesting the injured male’s pardon. But as soon as she stepped into the corridor, she left them behind. Rounded the corner and—

  —collided with ná Bolan, who stifled a cry of surprise.

  “Ná Nahin?” The female curved her right arm in profound question. “What is this?”

  “We must leave.” Rilas continued down the corridor. Prayed the physician-priest would not come after her, or the scarred male, or any of the Dahoumn’s idiot companions. “There will be a challenge fought, and it will be a mess. I do not wish to witness such.”

  “Shall we play the stones, then?”

  “Yes.” Rilas massaged her wrist. The joint felt hot to her touch. Tender. Not a break, but a sprain, or a tear of a tend
on. She could provide an ice wrap herself, pray over it herself. She did not need to see the ship’s physician-priest, who would ask her why she lowered her hands, why she let the blade drop. Because I heard the Kièrshia’s voice.

  And first the priest would laugh. Then she would ask, Why do you fear ná Kièrshia?

  Because she knows.

  But what does she know?

  “Ná Nahin?”

  Rilas felt the hand on her arm. “Ná Bolan.”

  “You are not well.”

  “I am most well, and truly.”

  Bolan removed her hand and gestured reluctant agreement, a tilt of head and sweep of arm. “We dock at Guernsey in a short time. Will you disembark?”

  “Yes.” Rilas closed her eyes, heard Caith’s laugh. I shall allow myself one round of the stones. Then she would present herself to the security dominant, the male whose name she did not know, even after twenty ship-cycles and numerous encounters in corridors and in the games room. The male who had searched her rooms and found nothing. He will give me good news. He would tell her that she would not be questioned on Guernsey, that she did not even need to leave the ship. That she was free to travel on her way.

  She paused as Bolan coded open the door to the games room. Followed her inside, and found the security dominant seated alone at a table, casting stones.

  “Ná Nahin. Ná Bolan.” He gestured to the empty chairs next to his own. “Join me in a game before we prepare to dock.”

  Rilas walked past the chair he pointed out and sat across from him. “You have received a message for me?”

  “Yes, ná Nahin.” The male bared his teeth, then handed her the cup of stones. “Your play.”

  The Haárin concourse of Guernsey Station had no gargoyles, no stained glass or transepts. Instead, there were white and grey walls and battered grey flooring, kiosks and shops and hallways as bright and crooked as the snow-coated branches of winter trees.

  Rilas walked beside the security dominant. He had not allowed her to leave his presence since their meeting in the games room, arranging for one of the ship suborns to collect her possessions, and remaining with her throughout the approach and docking sequences.

  “This way.” He pointed down yet another corridor, this one marked with plaques covered in Sìah script. “The office of ná Calas is here—” He stopped as a rumble like thunder sounded, shuddering through walls and floor.

  Then came the sirens, like the screeches for beasts.

  “There has been an explosion.” The dominant grabbed Rilas by the arm. “We must find a shelter and—”

  The door of ná Calas’s office opened and a female emerged. A most familiar female.

  Rilas slowed, hands clenching even as her wrist ached.

  “Ná Bolan Thea?” The security dominant gestured toward Bolan, a vague wave of the hand that meant nothing. “You have knowledge of ná Calas—” He stopped, then looked at Rilas, his lips moving, saying something…

  A shadow moved in from the side. A male, dark-clad, his arm raised. The security dominant turned toward him, but too late. Brought up his arm, but not high enough to counter the blow. Fell where he stood, groaned and shuddered and stilled as the blood seeped from his battered skull and puddled around him.

  Rilas watched his soul leave him. Then, slowly, she raised her eyes.

  “NìaRauta Rilas.” Ná Bolan spoke with a voice not hers. Gone was the querulous tone, the high pitch of the suborn, replaced by depth and strength and the chill of snow.

  Rilas sensed the male at her back. “Why? I am going to him freely.” He gripped her injured wrist, and she gasped.

  Then Rilas felt a sting, a sensation of warmth travel up her arm. A cessation of pain. Tried to pull away and found she could not move at all. Looked to the female she had known as ná Bolan Thea, the female she had not known at all, as her knees weakened and her vision tunneled and her whisper roared in her ears. “Freely…I go…freely…”

  CHAPTER 22

  Jani opened her eyes and checked her bedside clock. Six hours out. Guernsey Station, here we come. She pushed off her bed cover, shivered as the chill air hit her, and dragged it back on. Waited for the sensation to leave, the light-headedness that came from too little sleep over too long a time. Waited a little longer, and knew she could wait forever for her head to clear and her limbs to feel like parts of her body again and not dead weight. Pushed the cover off again and sat up.

  The entry buzzer twittered. She ignored it. It twittered again, a mechanical imitation of a songbird.

  “Jan? Are you awake?”

  Val? She shook her head, wondered if she still dreamed. Things had remained cool between them over the first half of the voyage, their sole interaction the odd greeting during inadvertent corridor encounters.

  “I’d like to talk to you for a minute.” Val gave up on the buzzer and switched to tapping on the door panel. “Jan?”

  What could you possibly have to say to me? And did she want an answer to that question? No. Did she really think she could avoid it for long? No.

  Did she long to hear another voice right now besides the one in her head? Oh, hell. She slapped the door pad on the bedside end table.

  The panel swept aside and Val stuck his head in, looking first to his left, then to his right, as though he expected crossways traffic. “We missed you at breakfast.” He stepped inside, a casual vision in blue and brown. “Jeez, this place is small.” He stopped and looked around the one-room cabin, then paced the sitting area, which was separated from the sleeping area by a strip of carpet and wishful thinking. “My bathroom’s bigger.”

  “I think Anais took charge of the assignments.” Jani stretched her legs and grazed the edge of the carpet with her toes. “I’m probably lucky she didn’t stick me in the engine room.”

  “Or an airlock.” Val sat in the sole chair, a straight-backed thing with balky ergoworks. “This is bullshit—why didn’t you ask for something else?” He grimaced as he tried to work into a comfortable position.

  Jani looked around and shrugged. “I’ve lived in worse.”

  “Yes, but that’s not your life anymore, is it?” Val drummed his fingers on the chair arm, then looked toward the corner near the bed, and the small desk that held a workstation and stacks of wafer folders. “Working?”

  “Researching separatist groups. Going over dossiers.” Jani stood and walked to the closet, dragging the bed cover with her and wrapping it around her shoulders. “Niall got me some information.”

  Val eyed her makeshift robe and shook his head. “Don’t tell me—you can’t adjust the temperature in here, either.”

  “OK, I won’t tell you.”

  “That old bitch.” Val swung a leg over the arm of his chair, shifting it back and forth to avoid kicking a nearby table. “Are they going to let us go wherever we want on that carrier? Like, all the way to the other end?”

  Jani dragged out a set of coveralls, then tucked them back inside, opting instead for wrapshirt and trousers in dark blue. Going to ride on a carrier. Probably time to stop dressing like she actually had lived in a ship’s engine room for three weeks. “I think we’ll be limited to a transient VIP area, which, if distant memory serves, is usually one section of a single deck. Unless we’re escorted. They don’t want civilians wandering around, getting into trouble.”

  Val sighed. “I could use some trouble. Some nice, attractive trouble that didn’t run my heart through a grinder.” He laid his head back, watched her dress through half-closed eyes. “You know, one of the best things about owning my own ship is having the freedom to pick my travel companions.” He looked away for a moment. “Barring the odd billet privilege.” He frowned. Sniffed. “I think I’m paying for it now, because so help me Jesus, the absolute last people in the Commonwealth that I would choose to long-haul with are Anais, Yevgeny, and you know who.” He groaned. “God. Anais has a cackle that could shatter crystal at fifty meters.”

  Jani finished tying the sash of her shirt, then stood on
her toes so she could check herself in the half mirror. “I wouldn’t know. She never laughs when I’m around.”

  “No, she doesn’t, does she?” Val gave a mean little grin. “I think we’d fail every group dynamics evaluation on the books. Anais and Yevgeny pretty much talk to one another. You know who spends all his time either working in the Service area or showing off in the gym. John’s like you, spending way too much time in his cabin. I always call it his tiger-in-a-cage mood, pacing and pissed as hell. I finally pulled it out of him a couple of days ago. Did you have to be quite so brutal?”

  “He’ll still have his work. Overall ownership changes, is all. Does that really matter?”

  “Yes. A little. Maybe more than a little. He thinks it’s payback for not telling you about Tsecha.”

  “Maybe he should stop thinking about himself so damned much.”

  “Yeah.” Val massaged his temples. “Then there’s you and Niall, two people I could long-haul with any time…” He studied the ceiling. “He’s drinking. You know that?”

  Fuck. Jani glanced at Val in the mirror. Of course he can tell. It’s his job. “It’s not as bad as it could be.”

  “How bad does it have to be?” Val folded his arms and nestled into the chair, as though he intended to nap. “He covers it pretty well, and his staff protects him when he doesn’t. But it’s going to get worse the closer we get to Shèrá, and on top of that he’ll be on a carrier with his precious Roshi, which means he’ll be under even more pressure.” Again, the half-closed eyes, the deceptively casual observation. “You’re no better off than he is, though in your case the problem isn’t liquor. You’re not sleeping well, though. Anyone can see that.” He worked into a sitting position. “John was the one who mentioned it to me. He said that when he’d bring it up back in Thalassa, you’d brush him off. He thought maybe Meva was getting under your skin.”

  Jani folded her sleep shirt and stuffed it beneath her pillow, then sat down so she could put on her boots. “Did he send you here?”