Empire of Bones

by Liz Williams

  He waited until Ir Yth had bustled off, then went in search of somewhere quiet and dark. He needed to review his resources, and he was reluctant to call attention to himself. There was a small, dusty alcove beneath the temple steps, which Sirru slipped into. He leaned against the grimy wall and closed his eyes, traveling inward. First, he visited the seed, which was now slightly smaller than the palm of his hand, and still quite flat. It had sent thin tendrils around his waist and was now nestling beneath the arch of his rib cage. But it was softer than it should have been. The seed was too warm.

  Sirru left the alcove and glided along the covered walkway of the temple. He could see two of Jaya’s team in a small room, hunched over electronic equipment, but the next room was empty. Sirru stepped inside. Boxes lined the walls and papers were scattered over a desk. Sirru could make no sense of them. Moving on, he found himself in a third little room, barely more than another alcove. It smelled of food, of grease and spices. The room also contained two white boxes: one on the floor, and one on a ledge.

  Sirru opened the door of the first box, and discovered it to be empty. Perhaps it was some kind of heating device? It had dials along the front. But when he opened the door of the second box, he was rewarded with a blast of icy air. The box contained a dish of leaves, some kind of fruit, and a row of brown bottles. Sirru smiled. At the top of the box was another compartment behind a hatch. He had to wrench the hatch open, since the ice had crept around its edges and sealed it shut. Perfect. Carefully, Sirru detached the seed from his person and slid it into the compartment. The seed immediately reacted, sending filaments out into the ice. The box would probably not be cold enough when the seed grew larger, but it would do for now. Sirru closed the box, and slid back to the alcove along the walkway.

  Here, he reviewed the bony, flexible cells that lay between his ribs, checking each one for viral decomposition. Everything seemed to be intact. Not being a member of one of the Weapon Castes, he had not been equipped for destruction, but he checked for mutation in any case. Core knew that there had been enough accidents in the past. After some deliberation, he released a small amount of the relevant substance into his bloodstream. It began to take effect almost immediately, latching onto the yellow corpuscles and spiraling through his veins. He swallowed hard against sudden vertigo.

  The virus took swift effect, and by the time Sirru rose and left the little chamber, he felt light-headed. He was anxious to begin the next phase of the project as soon as possible, but caution pulled him back. As he stood indecisively in the courtyard for a moment, something chattered overhead. He looked up to see a snarling face lined with a rim of dusty fur—a hiroi of some sort. That, Sirru thought, was serendipitous. The guards clustered at the gate, but otherwise the courtyard was empty. Sirru climbed the steps that led up to the parapet of the temenos.

  The hiroi were chattering amongst themselves, but as he approached, soft-footed, they fell silent and looked at him apprehensively. Sirru sent soothing expressives, not wanting to frighten them away. He crouched down on the warm stone and held out his hand. One of the hiroi, bolder than the rest, sidled forward and sniffed at his palm. Fast as thought, Sirru grabbed it by the scruff of the neck. The hiroi gave a sharp, yipping howl. It squirmed round, and its long yellow teeth met in Sirru’s wrist. He gritted his teeth fast against the sudden pain, thinking: What I do for my job. He noted with a trace of grim satisfaction, mingled with dismay, that the hiroi’s mouth was full of sores.

  His wrist was bloody from elbow to palm where the hiroi had savaged it. He let go of the hiroi and it bounded away, squealing with rage and fright. Jaya’s hairy guard squinted up into the twilight, seeking the source of the commotion, and Sirru melted back against the wall. He hissed through his teeth, nursing his bloody wrist and flooding his system with endorphin analogs and biohealers. This, he thought through the fading haze of pain, had better work.

  5.

  Khaikurriyë, Rasasatra

  The enforcer stepped back, clicking open the gate of the pen with a claw. Using its own chemical signatures to control the írHazh, it directed the creature through the grounds of the Core Marginals and out into the city.

  Released, the írHazh soon picked up the trail. Mandibles whistling through the air, it locked onto the pheromonal traces that its handler had given it and set off through the underground water systems of the city. The red light glistened from its dark carapace as it surfaced occasionally for air, creeping swiftly through the vents on its numerous jointed legs. The pheromones had been doctored a little, but the írHazh didn’t know this. It only knew that it was aroused, and that at the end of the trail would come mating.

  The írHazh was not capable of thinking very far ahead, but it had mated before and the memories were still strong within it: the sense of yielding flesh, rubbery beneath its serrated mandibles, steaming gently as the eggs were implanted. Nothing short of death would stop the írHazh in its progress, and its very few natural predators had long since been eradicated. It headed through the city, drawn as if by a magnet to the old, dying temeni that lined Rhu Jher Canal, and the woman who was to serve as both mate and prey.

  6.

  Varanasi, Temple of Durga

  “What do you mean, you’ll tell people you aren’t there?” Jaya asked Sirru, via Ir Yth, the next morning. It sounded an insane thing to say, but at least Sirru had made no more noises about wandering off into the city. That had been a distraction that Jaya could have well done without. She was already working out the final stages of a plan with Rakh, devising a journey north, to the mountain fastness that had been their home in the days of revolution. Once the aliens were safely away from the city and under her wing, she would breathe more easily. Then all they’d have to worry about would be the rest of the world.

  Shiv had been informative on the subject. Half the U.S. Navy had been diverted to the Bay of Bengal, though the government of Bharat had so far resisted giving foreign jets permission to enter its airspace. That standoff wouldn’t last long, according to the media. The United Nations was putting pressure on Bharat to treat the alien presence as a global issue; there was little doubt that the UN would have its way in the end.

  Ir Yth fluttered her stumpy hands, interrupting Jaya’s train of thought.

  For the hundredth time, the mediator will explain to people that he is not present and so they will not see him.

  “I may be very stupid,” Jaya said acidly, “but I still don’t understand. And by the way—talking of seeing, what have you done to my eyes?”

  The raksasa appeared momentarily embarrassed.

  It was a matter of aesthetics. I decided to make them a more normal color. I thought this would please you. She hunched her shoulders in a kind of multijointed shrug, presumably indicating her indifference as to whether it gratified Jaya or not. If you do not comprehend Sirru’s abilities, I suppose we’ll have to go to the trouble of showing you. Look at the mediator.

  Jaya did so. Sirru stood with his usual expression of mild bewilderment. His hands were folded in the long sleeves of his robe. But as she stared, a strange sensation stole over her: Sirru was ceasing to feel real. She felt that she was looking at a projection, and after a moment, even that no longer impinged upon her. He had impressed her with his total irrelevancy.

  Abruptly, the sensation stopped. Sirru was back, smiling at her patiently. Unnerved and excited (Could he sustain that over the course of a journey? Could Ir Yth herself?), Jaya said, “And that will work for everyone, will it? There are troops surrounding this complex. They’re supposed to be here for our protection, but I don’t want to take risks.” She didn’t trust Singh’s assurances that Amir Anand was not out there waiting to put a bullet in her, for a start, and doubtless the CIA was working on an infiltration as well. She turned to Ir Yth. “What about you? Can you still see him?”

  The raksasa struggled to explain. It is a question of the nature of speech. Yes, I can still see him. If you turned to another of your kind and said “I am not here,�
� they would not believe you. But because you do have had a proper understanding of the levels by which meaning is communicated, you must believe what you are told.

  Jaya considered this. She nodded. “It’s a useful trick. Later, we’ll think about how it might be used.” But she also wondered just what else Sirru might be able to make people do.

  7.

  Mumbai

  There was a smile on the face of Naran Tokai, but inside, the industrialist was filled with a curious mix of elation and rage. He turned to Amir Anand.

  “She’s back, it seems.”

  “I know.” Anand’s pale gaze held Tokai’s, but eventually even the butcher-prince’s confidence wavered in the face of Tokai’s iron calm.

  “Well, Anand, what do you propose to do about it?”

  “Do I have a say in the matter?” Bitterly, Anand threw the newspaper onto the table and gestured. “I do your bidding and I fall from grace.”

  “You fell from grace, Anand, because you failed to do my bidding correctly. Had you captured Nihalani and the alien, we would not have a problem now.”

  “I told you—the alien was some kind of projection. It was just a trick.” There was a trace of grim satisfaction on Anand’s carved countenance; the thought evidently pleased him. Once again, Tokai noted that his subordinate did not welcome the thought of alien life, and he wondered just why this might be. Fear? Or was Anand afraid for his status, as if the carefully racist lies on which he had built his life might be challenged by the presence of something extraterrestrial? The true aristocrat, Tokai thought smugly, need have no such insecurities. If genetic superiority was innate, how could it be challenged? He said now, “It was not a trick, Anand. I have made extensive inquiries. And now Nihalani is back—with two aliens.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I have a lot of technology at my disposal, Anand. The temple is bugged, for instance.”

  “Nihalani will be expecting that,” Anand said, grudgingly.

  “Possibly so. But will she be able to do anything about it? We will wait until I judge the time is right, Anand, and then we will simply spirit Nihalani and the aliens away. Nihalani will be killed, and I will convince these people that their best interests lie with me.”

  Amir Anand gave a small snort.

  “After all,” Tokai said, after a pause, “that is no more than the truth.”

  Anand looked at him. “So how does it feel, Tokai, to be on the side of right for a change?”

  Tokai frowned, puzzled. What weird train of thought was Anand pursuing now? Patiently, he said, “But I am always on the side of right, Anand. How could it be otherwise?” He was surprised, and not particularly pleased, to see Anand smile.

  8.

  Varanasi

  Silently, Sirru glided throughout the complex, seeking Jaya. He found her in a lamplit room on the second tier. She was with the tall person named Rakh, closeted over a sheet of paper that Sirru believed to be a map, with a small smoldering stick of some kind in her hand; he wished he could ask her what it was. She was busy making plans for their safety, she had earlier told Ir Yth; they would not be staying long in the temenos. Sirru watched her for a pensive moment from behind the door, then withdrew.

  Privately, he shared her fears, though he was not too concerned about other desqusai—he was confident about being able to handle assassins, one way or another. No, his worry was over Ir Yth. So far, the raksasa had acquiesced to proposed plans. She agreed that it would be dangerous to stay; she had already witnessed one attempt at her own capture, whilst still in her avatar’s form, and like most khaithoi, Ir Yth disliked personal inconvenience to the point of being a physical coward. It made sense to go elsewhere, Ir Yth had said. It was what she planned to do when she got there that worried Sirru. At present, without effective communications, both of them were stuck, but he was not sure what contingency measures Ir Yth might have up her capacious sleeve. At the moment, therefore, they were circling one another like wary hiroi.

  Sirru had asked Jaya when they would be leaving. She had told him that they would be unable to move for another forty-eight hours, at most, just until certain necessary arrangements were made. Having received this assurance, Sirru decided to take matters into his own hands and inspect what he could of the colony in the time remaining to him.

  He could, of course, simply slip away and leave Jaya to her own devices, but he dismissed this as a possibility. If a second depth ship appeared, it would begin transmissions on the same frequency as the last one, and Jaya had been modified to pick up anything incoming. If they wanted to be rescued, they’d best stick with her. Besides, administrative guidelines were clear that the relationship between colonial staff and local Receivers should be fostered during the early days, and there were dire warnings about departures from protocol.

  But a few hours’ leave wouldn’t hurt, and if Jaya was worried about him wandering about the place on his own, Sirru would spare her the concern and simply omit to tell her. Emitting denials of his presence, he headed for the gate.

  As he reached it, a familiar form stepped from the shadows.

  Where are you going? Ir Yth inquired, warily.

  “Out. I should like a change of scene.”

  Then I am coming with you.

  “I’m sure you would find it more comfortable to remain here,” Sirru said, more out of a wish to see her insist than because he had any real hope of dissuading her.

  I have seen all too little of this place, the raksasa countered. And much of that was in my avatar’s form. Like you, I should like to see something of this colony. She fell in beside him as he strode through the gate and then they progressed down the street, unseen and unspeaking.

  The first thing that struck Sirru about Varanasi was its lack of diversity. This was only to be expected in an embryonic desqusai colony, but it seemed strange to him nonetheless. He thought sadly of Khaikurriyë: so vast, so multiplicitous. Three thousand castes in the Western Quarter alone, most of them so ancient that only whatever might lie in the heart of the Core knew their origins, some of them less than a million years in the making.

  The Core constantly changed and refined, tinkering with the levels of genetic structures in its unending attempt to achieve an optimal aesthetic; observing, pruning, and cross-matching in its efforts to maximize the mixture. It was a little strange to be surrounded by this particular form of desqusai: everyone looked alike. No one had claws, or multiple arms. He had seen no one resembling the scaled, tailed people who took care of the low-level city tasks.

  Whatever lived at the heart of the Core had been producing new phenotypes for so long that the original purpose had probably been lost, Sirru thought, and then realized that yet again he had entertained a forbidden thought. But the suppressants were almost gone from his system, and heresy brought only the faintest sense of unease. Yet it occurred to him to wonder just how free he really was. The suppressants might be gone, but cultural conditioning, social mores and expectations—all these would remain. He had already made a fool of himself by talking to a dead house. Despite his initial confidence, he wondered just how capable he was of understanding this new world. Was this what freedom of thought involved? It was starting to seem more like freedom of doubt.

  Walking beside him, Ir Yth glanced up absently, and frowned. Carefully, he steered his reflections back to more conventional channels.

  To the Core, this colony of Tekhei was no more than an odd little plant in the corner of a vast, carefully tended garden. Still, Sirru reflected, it was fortunate for Tekhei that it was a desqusai world and had the wisdom and experience of an ancient caste, however lowly, to guide it. Some of the more avant garde projects had proved rather… excessive—to the feelings of the EsMoyshekhali, at any rate. What about that case of the latest shekei colony, where half the denizens of the planet had been forced into a mass breeding program? Or the instance of that little world out on the Fringes, where the atmosphere had been renovated according to irikhain standards an
d the population had been treated to lung transplants? At least Tekhei didn’t have that to look forward to.

  The city also appeared charmingly small—no more than a few large temeni, really. There were many plants, but they were silent. Sirru found this sad. Occasionally he whispered to a wall as he passed, but it seemed that Ir Yth was, annoyingly, right—the city was quite dead.

  Sirru began to feel a pleasant, almost nostalgic melancholy. The temples and towers and houses reminded him of skeletons from which all the flesh had long since fallen away. The somber, earthy colors reinforced Sirru’s dark vision. Yet the city was not silent—on the contrary, it was cacophonous. Sirru was bombarded from all sides by continual scraps and fragments of speech. The place was a turmoil of unconcealed emotion, a bath of pheromonal discourse.

  At first, he found this exhilarating. Such naked honesty, unmodulated by any consideration of refinement, courtesy, or reticence—how could anyone have any secrets here? And then he remembered that they could not hear one another. It was like being an infant at a party, a perpetual eavesdropper. Among the deaf, he was the only one who could hear.

  The lack of inhibition was almost arousing. Beneath the wrap of the robe, his skin flushed and grew warm. lean say anything! A child stepped out of a doorway. Filthy, half naked, it stared wonderingly up at the passing alien, and Sirru turned, smiled, and walked backward for a step. You can never lie to the young. They feel too much what you do not want them to feel.

  Ir Yth’s rudimentary fingers closed over his arm like a steel trap. What are you doing? You will endanger us both! she modulated furiously.

  He had let his disguise slip a little. Sirru laughed and caught the outraged raksasa around the waist. It is a garden, nothing more, with strange paths and stranger fruit. The suppressants were definitely gone. It was invigorating. Ir Yth gave him a furious glance as he let his disguise fall further. A wrinkled old woman stared, her mouth hanging open in disbelief. With a curious reluctance, Sirru resumed the disguise.