by Liz Williams
An intense humming filled Jaya’s head, and she clapped her hands to her ears. She seemed to stand on the edge of a vast gulf. Stars drifted beneath her feet, suns caught in the galactic tides. A red and sparkling world hung above her. She saw a tiny speck, outlined against the shoulder of the planet, and then a face. It swam in the air before her: long and narrow and black, like the face of a horse, with two hot-coal eyes. Jaya reeled backward. The creature’s jointed mouth hinged open, and soon everything was gone—the humming stopped and the lights faded out. She was standing in the little chamber. Ir Yth lay motionless at her feet. Sirru was nowhere to be seen. A little trickle of oily blood leaked from Ir Yth’s ear.
Jaya knelt beside the raksasa. She had no idea where Ir Yth’s heart was to be found. The human pulse points of wrist and throat were still. Gingerly, she slid a hand beneath the raksasa’s robe and found surprisingly soft, cool skin between serrated ridges. The chest rose and fell; Ir Yth was still breathing, then. Jaya wasn’t sure whether this was a good thing or not. The raksasa was scorched down her right side, as though she had been licked with a long fiery tongue.
The opposite wall began to open, and Sirru stepped through, carrying something in both hands. It was wet and round, trailing filaments, and was a pale, watery green traced with scarlet veins. It looked organic, but Jaya had no idea what it might be. At her feet, Ir Yth stirred, then sat up.
What happened? Her voice echoed wanly in Jaya’s mind. Jaya was half inclined to hit her again, but the memory of that lightning bolt of pain shooting up her arm dissuaded her. They’d have to deal with Ir Yth later. In the meantime, it seemed that they had prevented the raksasa from doing whatever she had been trying to accomplish.
Ir Yth struggled to her feet. I am burned! The communication plate must have malfunctioned.
Thinking quickly, Jaya replied, “I think that must be what happened. We went to find you, then just as we entered the chamber there was a flash, and you were knocked unconscious.” Doing her best to sound concerned, she added, “Are you all right? Can you walk?”
Everything is going wrong! We have to leave.
For once, Jaya found herself in agreement with the raksasa.
“Come on.” She gestured to Sirru. They made their way back up through the rotting ship, and at last came out onto the high corridor overlooking Earth. Bharat basked in sunlight; clouds swirled in milky patterns above the Himalayas.
Sirru set the thing in his arms down carefully and ran a hand along the wall. Filaments started to move outward, creeping down to the floor and exuding a chain of tiny hooks, which locked into the shriveling flesh of the ship. The wall bulged out. Jaya watched with fascinated revulsion as a pulse traveled the length of one of the filaments. Some kind of parasite, perhaps? It smelled green and ripe. Its surface was covered with a satiny coating of moisture, which glistened in the light. It was growing, expanding as she watched, like a water-filled balloon. Sirru touched the pod and it split. Then he picked up the small pod, which was still resting on the floor, and placed it in the folds of his robe.
He motioned to Jaya, who suddenly found herself balking. The thought that the ship might be about to take revenge for its injury came to her. It would stifle her, she thought, extending its fibers down her throat and into her lungs. She flailed Sirru’s hand away before she could stop herself. There was the usual rush of reassurance, but this time Jaya wasn’t buying it; adrenaline was forcing it away. And the ship said inside her head, I am dying.
It spoke with a small, clear voice like a child’s. Ir Yth looked wildly upward. Sirru grasped her shoulder, but Jaya had ceased to pay any attention to him—she was listening to the ship. It was not its time to die, it told her, but nonetheless it was content. It had lived for a very long time, ever since it was grown from a fractional bundle of cells, millions of years ago, the child of some unknown desqusai and another ship. It showed her how it sped out into the darkness of space until it came to a small blue world and split its pods, releasing the spores that bore carefully engineered skeins of genetic material into the DNA of existing life.
And then it drifted off to watch, dreaming, over its multitude of evolving children. Its sleep had been interrupted only by the sporadic visits of the írRas, who were keeping an occasional eye on Earth’s progress. The ship was Jaya’s ancestor, just as it was the ancestor of everyone on Earth; just as she and it would be the ancestors of some other world, if their seed survived. This knowledge, and the realization of a violation that she could not properly understand, was too vast for Jaya to grasp. She was left breathless and disbelieving, and the ship plucked her feelings from her with the last of its strength until she was empty.
In its fading voice it told Jaya that she had done nothing to hurt it; it was not her doing, but that of the raksasa. So Sirru was right! At least they knew. The ship was sorry that it had taken genetic material from her, but this was the way of things. The voice inside her head was devoid of malice. It downloaded information into her waiting brain. And it told her where Sirru and Ir Yth had come from: somewhere hot, and incredibly ancient, and unimaginably far away.
The smell of green decay was growing, as though they were in an overheated hothouse. A thick, sticky fluid began to leak from the walls. Sirru’s quills rose and rattled; looking up, Jaya saw that he had understood. He radiated dismay. He placed his palm down flat on the floor. An abstracted expression appeared on his face. He muttered something before hauling Jaya to her feet and pushing her none too gently in the direction of the pod. Then he strode across and grabbed hold of the raksasa. Ir Yth emitted a sound like a distressed insect. Sirru grasped her firmly by an arm and dragged her after Jaya. He pointed: in.
Jaya was flooded with fright and relief, and a sudden overwhelming longing for home. She forced herself to step into the pod. The raksasa was crammed in beside her, chittering with distaste. The mesh felt viscous and moved sluggishly. Jaya shuffled backward as Sirru joined them, so that she was awkwardly sandwiched between two inhuman bodies. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calmness and suddenly missing the suppressing presence of the ship. The pod popped shut. There was a lurch, then a sickening sensation of acceleration as the pod was, presumably, expelled. If it had not been for the mesh that had clamped itself tightly around her lips and tongue, Jaya would have been screaming. Unconsciousness came with merciful speed.
ALLIES AND ENEMIES
1.
Khaikurriyë, Rasasatra
There was a storm sweeping in from the north when Anarres finally left the Core Third Marginals. She watched from the high ledge of the wall as the control systems seized the storm, drawing it harmlessly out over the ocean. Lightning flashed along the system’s edge; she tasted rain on the wind. Anarres drew the hood of her robe more closely across her face and waited for the barge. It was not long in coming. She stepped quickly over the edge of the ledge, then settled herself as the barge drifted down through the restless air. The pilot, one of the small and insignificant castes, watched her with bright eyes. “Where to?” “Khattuyë dock.”
The pilot’s many hands fluttered over the controls of the barge, which shuddered as it was touched. Anarres tried to quell the sudden queasiness in her stomach, telling herself that it was no more than the distant storm. This had to be done; she had gone too deep to pull back now. The voice of EsRavesh echoed in her mind: Status remapping is not difficult. If one has the right connections, of course. You are very fortunate, apsara, in having such connections… And all you have to do is a small favor for me.
Anarres swallowed hard against the thought of EsRavesh’s stumpy little hands traveling down her spine. She thought: I should have kept to my own caste and ignored EsRavesh’s perverted desires, but it was much too late for that now. The members of her clan were depending on her; if her own status rose, theirs would too, and she had already made some dangerous promises. Anarres closed her eyes and willed away regret.
By the time they reached Khattuyë dock, the skies were clear once m
ore. Anarres left the barge, tipping the already-besotted pilot with a flicker of pheromone-drenched fingertips, and passed swiftly through the gateways without hindrance. The signatures which EsRavesh had supplied made it an easy passage; the gatekeepers were lower caste and no match for one marked by the khaithoi. The raft was half empty, with only a few outworkers settled into their mesh. Anarres stripped down to her scale and lay sinuously back. She could feel the virus under her tongue, like a small hot ball. She knew she was imagining it, but it felt so real.
That is the taste of shame, her conscience kindly informed her. Sirru’s face swam before her imagination’s eye. She had to battle the impulse to snatch up her robes and run back through the gates while there was still time. It was almost a relief when the raft took off.
The journey to the orbital was short. Anarres waited patiently in the queue to disembark, with the result that she was one of the last to exit. As she stepped through the gateway, the hessirei of the gate brushed her shoulder with an apologetic finger.
“Please excuse. Purpose of visit?”
Anarres stifled the small quiver of panic and said as she had been instructed to do, “My visit is a personal one,” followed by a sending of delicate modesty.
The hessirei shuddered with embarrassment, but nonetheless insisted, “A locative must be given.”
Anarres murmured the locative of the orbital’s overseer, whom she had never met. “I’m here to see Uassi SiMethiKhajhat.”
She stumbled a little over the unfamiliar syllables and hoped that the hessirei would put this down to maidenly reticence. From the sound of the locative, its owner was a member of one of the Weapons Castes, and her assumption was borne out by the sudden nervousness of the hessirei.
“Excuse, excuse. A pass must be produced.”
Anarres gestured assent. “I have one.”
She pressed her palm against the hessirei’s multijointed hand, emanating the complex syllables of Core authority. She laced it with an element of personal appreciation, and the hessirei s thick skin flushed dull crimson.
“Thank you so much for your help,” Anarres murmured, and headed swiftly through the gate and into the bowels of the ship. EsRavesh had supplied her with the location of the translation vaults, and she hastened toward them, sending out a complex array of conflicting traces to baffle the sensors. EsRavesh had been very thorough. He had also provided her with an array of code elements for the doors of the translation vaults; as she placed her palms against the screens, she felt her resentment growing that the khaithoi had ordered her to do their dirty work for them.
The suppressants muted her anger, but only by a little. She did not know why it was so important to the khaithoi that Sirru should be impeded. It was only a small project he’d been assigned to, after all. As for the second piece of information that EsRavesh had given her, she didn’t even have a name for the person; surely it couldn’t be that significant. Politics had always bored Anarres to the point of faintness.
After she’d made a few abortive attempts at entry, the walls glided open and Anarres found herself in the translation vaults. Thousands of units, each the location of the manifold for a First Body, lined the chambers. She checked her instructions.
First take care of Sirru, and then delete the manifold for a second, unnamed person.
Anarres set off down the myriad rows until she reached the locative that signified Sirru’s First Body. She paused before the pattern-screen and ran her fingertips across it. Some sense of Sirru seemed to remain in the outlay, and momentarily it was as though he was standing unseen in front of her. But she was only imagining it, she was certain, and she told herself once more that she wasn’t really killing Sirru, but just erasing the pattern for his First Body. No, Sirru himself was very much alive, far away on that little colony of his, and when he was ready to return, all the translators would have to do was reconstruct his pattern. Anarres was sure of it. And it would be the same for the second person, whoever he or she was.
Anyway, Anarres continued to reassure herself, Sirru and the other one wouldn’t really be lost. The erasure could be attributed to translation degradation, which wasn’t all that uncommon, EsRavesh had told her. And by then she’d have her status upgrade, and she and Sirru could be together again. She didn’t know why the erasure seemed to be so important to the khaithoi, but EsRavesh had been very specific…
It’s really all for the best, Anarres told herself with uneasy conviction as she pressed her fingertips against the pattern-screen and introduced the viral overlay that would eradicate Sirru’s First Body from the manifold. A light glowed: deletion of manifold complete.
That was one task accomplished. Now, she had to find this second person and do the same thing. EsRavesh had supplied her only with coordinates, not a locative. She called up the manifold listing and searched through it, but she could not make sense of the data. Invoking a help-file, she bent down and whispered, “I’m looking for element/76,987/issue 360. The manifold was filed about a year ago. I can’t seem to find it.”
The help-file hummed. After a moment, it said, “Locative?”
“I don’t have one. Isn’t this the right code?”
“The codes have changed. Security precaution.”
“So you can’t find it?”
“No.”
How important could it be? Anarres decided to let the matter lie and get out of here. She could always tell EsRavesh that she’d followed his instructions; he’d probably never know the difference.
She hurried back through the translation vaults and waited for the next raft home to Khaikurriyë. Beyond the view portals, Rasasatra was not visible. All she could see was night, and the endless, unforgiving stars.
2.
Varanasi
Jaya returned to consciousness with a tight band of headache scoring her skull. The pod was rocking to a halt. There was a strong, sweet smell of fermenting watermelon, suddenly pungent, and the pod split to a sight of familiar burning blue sky. Jaya heard herself give a gasp of pure relief. Fighting aside the rotting mesh, she scrambled clear. They had landed, she saw with sudden fright, in the courtyard of the Temple of Durga. She was back in what passed for home.
Behind her, Sirru stepped from the pod in a damp tangle of robes to stand barefoot in the dust of the courtyard. Along the tiers of the red temple the monkeys fell silent, one by one.
“Wait here,” Jaya said to Sirru, and ran to the gate. When she looked inside the gatehouse, she could have wept with relief. Rakh was there. His arms were folded, and his Uzi hung by his side. He scowled out across the empty square. She might have been gone only a few hours. What had happened to Anand and his men?
“Rakhi!” she cried, suddenly cross. If she’d known he’d been standing here all along, it would have saved a world of worry. The big man turned, and his eyes widened.
“Jaya? Is that you?”
She remembered, then, how much the aliens had changed her. When Rakh had last set eyes on her, she might have been ninety years old, but now she was young again. At least on the outside. There had been no mirrors on the ship, but now she could see her reflection in the office window: a strange, fierce face, hawk-boned.
“Your hair. And what happened to your eyes?”
“What?” She peered into the glass, and caught a sharp golden gleam. So much for being unobtrusive now. Her eyes were as yellow as Sirru’s, a tiger’s gilded gaze. She’d stick out a mile in anything other than a freakshow. Maybe if she wore a veil and sunglasses…
“The others saw—that.” Rakh, mustering himself, nodded in the direction of the pod. “They ran.” His scorn was as palpable as Sirru’s emotional speech. Jaya grinned.
A laconic voice came from the back office. “I didn’t.” Shiv Sakai, beaming, poked his head around the door.
Rakh added gruffly, “I knew you’d come back. But why did you come back here?”
“God, Rakh, why did you?” She drew him out into the courtyard, where there was less chance of being
overheard; she was sure the temple had been bugged. Speaking low into Rakh’s ear, she said, “What happened to Anand?”
A small, grim smile appeared on Rakh’s austere countenance. “The government intervened. There have been interesting political developments since you left. Singh has admitted to the presence of an alien; there’s been an official statement.”
“And Anand?”
“He’s in disgrace. Singh fired him.”
“Why did they send him in here in the first place? To get rid of me, I suppose?”
“Singh says he didn’t send him in. That was off the record, though, and I’m sure he’s lying. But now Anand’s failed, Singh’s scapegoated him.”
“You had an ‘off the record’ conversation with the minister?”
“We are terrorists no longer, Jayachanda—we are delegates. I told the minister that only you knew where the alien was, and the price was Anand. If he got rid of the butcher-prince, then you’d bring the alien back. Which you did.” He spoke as though this had not been mere coincidence. “However—”
Jaya cut him short.
“Rakhi. We need to keep this place as safe as possible for as long as we can, and work on getting the aliens out of here. Anand might be off the scene officially, but he’s not going to rest until I’m dead. A blow to his pride will only make things worse.”
“That’s what I’m trying to—”
“So we can’t stay here. We’re too visible. And something has happened, something unexpected. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.”
“Jaya, listen to me. We’ve been making inquiries. Anand’s working for Naran Tokai.”
Jaya stared at him. “What?”
“We only found out yesterday. Shiv had him followed, asked around. Tokai’s living in Anand’s ancestral palace; he’s using it as a base. He’s hired Anand as a personal security advisor.”
“Tokai’s got economic clout, and the power to give Anand anything he wants,” Jaya said bitterly. She leaned back against the wall. “Being fired from the official military has just freed him up, and with Tokai’s backing—no one in the government’s going to go against Tokai’s wishes. He is the pharmaceutical industry here.”
