Empire of Bones

by Liz Williams

  Nowhere One said, “I am taking you in because I am sorry for you, and because I suspect that you might be part of a wider problem that we need to know about. I told you—my caste, originally, is desqusai, like your own. As an apsara, you obviously possess higher status within that caste, but we still have a caste bond between us.” He sighed. “Most Naturals seem to be desqusai these days. I have been making inquiries about things that are happening to the caste, but it isn’t easy. As I’ve said, we don’t have much technology—we’ve managed to get hold of equipment from ruined domes, but it’s old. You might just be able to help us in some way. I know that becoming like us might be a frightening thought and it may take time for you to adjust, but I don’t think you’ll regret it in the long run. After all,” he added, “it’s unlikely that you would have come this far if there was not some element of rebellion in your character already. Perhaps you’re more of a Natural than you think.”

  This was an alarming thought, but she seemed to have little choice in the matter.

  “All right,” Anarres said, with considerable reluctance. “Help me to understand.”

  10.

  Varanasi, Temple of Durga

  “We’ll leave tomorrow night, as soon as it’s dark,” Jaya said. She was leaning on a window still limed with bird droppings and age and gazing out across the expanse of the town. She lifted a hand and punched the warm marble, idly noting the absence of pain. “I wanted to go now, tonight. If only that damn boat hadn’t taken so long to arrange, all because I let my networks slip. I hadn’t realized how out of touch I was.”

  Rakh lifted the rifle so that the sun gleamed down its sights, ensuring that it was polished to his satisfaction. “It is worth taking time to get things right. The fort in Yamunotri is a good base, even if it is far away.”

  Their eyes met in memory; Kamal Rakh had died in Yamunotri. His brother said gruffly, “I had not asked you this before. I trust you, Jaya. I always have. But there is something I need to ask you now.”

  “Ask me,” she said. “But you should be careful with that trust, Rakhi.” She turned back to the town, a little falcon in the heights. “I let you down.”

  “No, not you. History let us down. It always does. You did what you could.”

  She was silent for a moment, then she said, “What did you want to ask me?”

  “These—people. Sirru and the raksasa. What do they want? Why are we helping them? And what did they do to you? When you left here, you looked old. And now—people have seen you, Jaya. Your pale hair, your golden eyes; the fact that you’re young again. People are talking about a miracle. They’re saying that these aliens are gods. Shrines are going up all over the countryside, with the most imaginative artwork. Sirru sits by Krishna in a spaceship; Ir Yth and Lakshmi are depicted side by side.”

  “How inappropriate. Ir Yth’s too much of a prude to hang out with the goddess of love, if you ask me.”

  Rakh smiled. “American fundamentalists are saying that the aliens are devils, that the last days are here. And Shiv found a Japanese site devoted to alien fashions—people have been dying their hair white and buying golden contact lenses. Everyone sees the aliens as the future, good or bad, but no one knows anything about them. Except you.”

  “Everyone’s asked me what the aliens want. And I still don’t know. They cured me—I don’t know how. I think whatever genetic mutation allowed me to talk to the ship also made me prematurely aged, and they fixed my DNA and changed my eyes. But they won’t tell me what they want. I searched and searched that ship, Rakhi, and I could find no answers—only more questions. I don’t understand what Sirru tries to tell me, and I don’t trust Ir Yth. And I keep asking myself: Why me? They sought me out because I could hear their ship, but what can I possibly do for them? If Sirru is really some kind of envoy, why are they staying here? They don’t seem to be in any hurry to do whatever they’re going to do, and their ship is dead. Why aren’t they seeking out… I don’t know—politicians? Someone in power?”

  “Perhaps they came simply to visit,” Rakh said, but he clearly didn’t believe it. Jaya gave him a level look.

  “Oh, come on. No one does that. They may think they do, like the Westerners who used to come here in their sari petticoats, going out half dressed and wondering why everyone stared at them, wearing T-shirts with gods whom they’ll never worship or understand.” She gave a small snort of genuine amusement. “No one comes ‘just to visit,’ Rakhi. Everyone comes to take. Everyone comes to use.” She gripped the rough edges of the sill, eyes narrowed. “We have an opportunity, now, with these people, and we have to take it, before it’s too late. Sooner or later all these rumors will coalesce and the Americans will send in troops, or the government here will lose patience. I don’t know what the aliens are doing here, or what they’re capable of, and yes, it worries me. But there’s the question of Selenge. How many people are still dying, Rakh? The aliens have a cure. They are a weapon that fate has placed in our hands. I know this. I can feel it. I just need to work out how that weapon is to be used.” My father’s lies: sound as if you know what you’re doing and they might just believe you. She turned to face him. “Tell me what’s been happening today.” The old command; they might still be on the walls of a ruined fortress, looking down over the northern passes. Rakh gave a small, rare smile.

  “We’re still monitoring the information channels. Shiv has extended the hive links into the Web. Do you want to know what everyone is saying?”

  “Tell me.”

  “The Americans are becoming desperate: for access, for information. They are accusing the Bharati government of withholding information from the UN. They suspect that something is happening here, but they do not know what.”

  “Withholding information from America, they mean. The USA is the UN.”

  “It is not generally known that the mediator is here, though some people saw the little ship, the one you came back on. Those scientists who came here yesterday haven’t found any traces from their soil samples.”

  Jaya smiled. She couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for the scientists, who had taken so many samples of the place where the ship had landed and who were so clearly hoping to see an alien. At their insistence, Rakh and she had showed them around the temple, but Ir Yth and Sirru clearly—and mercifully—had preferred invisibility.

  Rakh continued, “Maybe we’re fortunate that the Americans can’t really believe that aliens would land anywhere other than their own country. Otherwise, who knows what they’d do—drop a nuke on us or something. Their ships are already lining the coast, just in case. Bad enough that Tokai and Anand have joined forces against us. Rumors are rife, especially after the government statement. There is widespread talk of Ir Yth, and then of course there is the ship in orbit.”

  “Does anyone know what has happened to the ship?”

  “There is concern. Its orbit is decaying. NASA has sent a probe, which is apparently trying to gain access to the ship. It has not responded to any attempts at communication.” Rakh sounded as though he was quoting.

  “That’s because it’s dead. There’s no one up there.”

  “And everyone wants to know why they didn’t notice that an enormous spacecraft has been lurking about the solar system.”

  “I wondered that, and I don’t know the answer. But if Sirru can conceal himself from plain view, maybe the ship could do something similar. What’s Minister Singh saying?”

  “Singh is counseling caution, but the military are here in force, you know.”

  Jaya stared at her old comrade. “Who else is out there?”

  “Many people. Sadhus, sannyasins, tourists.” Rakh paused, oddly diffident. “But that’s more because of you than because of some rumored alien.”

  Jaya sighed. “All seeking enlightenment, most of all from me. Me and my miracles.”

  “Talking of miracles, did you know they’re making a movie?”

  “About what?”

  “You.”

  Jaya
gaped at him. “What are you talking about?”

  Rakh called down into the courtyard. A few minutes later, Shiv Sakai hastened up the stairs, carrying a magazine. The title on the cover read: Movie Monthly.

  “Show her,” Rakh said.

  “She won’t like it.”

  “Give me that.” Jaya snatched the magazine from Shiv’s hands and scanned the article. There were photographs of a very glamorous woman, evidently clad in Bollywood’s idea of camouflage. “She doesn’t look anything like me—then or now. And it says here that she’s playing a princess ‘who sacrifices her position to save India, only to be reunited with the man she loves.’ God! Who is this Kharishma Kharim? I’ve never even heard of her.”

  “She did a couple of films with P. K. Hawa, and she was in a rather interesting historical movie a few years ago called—”

  “Shiv, I don’t care!” Where had Shiv Sakai found the time to develop such an exhaustive knowledge of cinema?

  “And she’s Amir Anand’s girlfriend.”

  Irony upon irony! Jaya seized the magazine and hurled it into the wastebasket. “When is this abomination coming out?”

  “Next month. If we’re still alive, can we go and see it?”

  Jaya stared. “Quite apart from the fact that being played by Anand’s girlfriend is a mortal insult, Shiv—aliens have landed, Earth may be about to end for all we know, and you’re talking about going to the cinema?”

  “I want to see who plays me,” Shiv said, unrepentant.

  “I hope it’s a bit part. Forget about the movies. Just stay on the Web. Hack into wherever you can, find out whatever you can. In the meantime, I’m going to try and talk to Sirru.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I plan to draw up a list of demands.”

  She found Sirru standing on the walls of the temple, looking down on the crowds. He had positioned himself behind a pillar so that they could not see him; he appeared pensive. To her relief, Ir Yth was nowhere to be seen. Jaya touched Sirru’s arm, and he turned and smiled.

  “Sirru?” She reached out and encircled his smooth, hard wrist with her hand. She tried to convey: I need to talk to you.

  There was a vague sense of encouragement. Jaya thought, very hard: I have to know, Sirru. Why are you here? What are your plans? It occurred to her that she was just like one of those Western tourists she had criticized earlier; if she spoke loudly enough and repeated it sufficiently often, maybe he’d understand.

  Surprise

  Jaya looked at him.

  “What?”

  He said, aloud, “Ir Yth.” He mouthed saying-noises, pointed to Jaya.

  “No,” Jaya said. “Ir Yth tells me nothing.” She tried to convey negation, frustration. Sirru stared at her.

  Nothing?

  Nothing. “Look,” Jaya said impatiently. We should have done this in the beginning. She knelt down in the dust and started to draw. “Here are you.” She pointed to Sirru. “Here’s Earth.” A circle, one of nine, with a smaller sphere in orbit and a dot for the ship.

  “Tekhei,” Sirru said.

  “All right. Tekhei. You, to Tekhei. Why?” Feeling a fool, she shrugged, grimaced, mimed incomprehension.

  “Ir Yth?” This was spoken with such an air of fading hope that Jaya almost laughed.

  No

  He couldn’t believe the raksasa hadn’t told her; she could see it in his eyes. Sirru pointed to the little stick figure of himself. His long, oddly jointed forefinger trailed through the dust, to Earth. Kneeling back on his heels, he took Jaya by the wrists. She began to feel something that she did not at first understand, but which slowly resolved itself into a sequence of images. Memories. Her own.

  She was traveling into the hills, waiting for war, but the countryside through which they passed was peaceful. These were the lowest slopes of the Himalayas, not rich country, but enough for people to live. In other areas Western nanotech had been brought in to collect the crop, but here the women still picked the tea, moving patiently from bush to bush, selecting shoots and dropping them into the wide baskets. Jaya watched them through the binoculars, and the peace and regularity of their lives saddened her. But it was not the sense of a life that could never be hers which seized her now, triggered by whatever Sirru was saying. It was the memory of the tea-pickers, for what Sirru said was both immeasurably complex and extremely simple:

  harvest

  11.

  Varanasi, Temple of Durga

  Sirru sat high on the tower of the Temple of Durga and stared out across the dead city. It was sunset, and the sky had become a deep and beautiful shade of rose-tangerine. It reminded him of Khaikurriyë, and for the first time on this little world, he felt almost at home. Kites wheeled above the river, seeking carrion, and Sirru watched with pleasure as they flocked and swooped. Fragments of emotion whirled up from the shifting throng outside the temple, chemical traces caught on the thermals, rising and falling like the birds. Sirru tapped a bare clawed foot against the dark red stone and tried not to dwell on his annoyance with Ir Yth. He imagined the depth ship’s decay: shriveling up, consuming its own flesh, sacrificing itself so that the deadly spores that it carried could no longer be released. His shoulders sank with relief. At least Jaya’s attack on the raksasa meant that part of Ir Yth’s plan had been postponed.

  He had checked the seed that morning. It was still safe in its box, but he needed to keep alert to changes within it until the time for planting was ready. Sirru shivered. He was still not used to thoughts of rebellion. Ideas sneaked up on him, as if from behind, attacking him as he stood unawares, and among them was a growing disobedience of the commands of the Core. This exhilarated him, but he could not help but be afraid. With an effort, he turned his attention to smaller, safer matters.

  He was growing to like Jaya. She reminded him of the city in which her temenos lay: complex and strange. Currents of tidal fierceness ran beneath the shell with which she shut out the world; sudden hot flares of temper, depths of sadness which lay like a well within her, limitless and unresolved. He wondered, not for the first time, what had befallen her. She carried her history like a stone upon her back, weighing her down; only on a couple of occasions had he seen her as swift and light as the river. And suddenly Sirru thought with a lightning pang of Anarres.

  He seized upon a single bright strand from the emotional melange below, someone’s pleasure at the sight of a loved one, and began to weave it into an expressive for Anarres. She’d never experience it, of course, but it made him feel a little better. Complex chains of molecules shifted and combined to produce a tapestry of impressions: love and longing and place. Above his head, the birds wheeled on the wind, sensing otherness, and below, the remaining hiroi looked uneasily upward. The sky darkened to old gold. Ir Yth was asleep in the dim inner chamber that she had claimed for her own, and Jaya was nowhere to be seen.

  Since the moment earlier when he had explained to her what was planned for Tekhei, it seemed to him that she had been avoiding his company. Doubtless there was an explanation for this; perhaps she had misunderstood him. He decided to seek her out in the morning. Sadly, Sirru let the expressive drift out across the rooftops of Varanasi and turned his attention to the courtyard.

  Seven of the hiroi had now entered coma. He could see their limp bodies curled on the parapet that surrounded the courtyard; one lay below. It was impossible to see them from the courtyard, only from the upper reaches of the temenos. Jaya had not noticed and Ir Yth, if she had seen, had said nothing. That last thought made him uneasy; his project had become too visible. The animals’ blood glistened crimson in the last of the light, and Sirru felt a twinge of regret, but the thing had had to be done. If the hiroi were going to die, they would surely have done so by now.

  Sirru reached out, chemically listening to the air, and it seemed to him that he could hear something after all. It was a layered sequence of perspectives, sibilant, murmuring just beneath the edge of sound. It spoke of fear, incomprehension, and pain. It
was an animal voice. It gave location: the edge of stone, a strip of sky. For a disorientated moment Sirru saw his own narrow face looking down. His toes clenched in brief elation. Things were beginning to move forward.

  His thoughts turned to other, more advanced plans. He wondered whether he should postpone his intentions until the following day, but decided against it. Besides, after his thoughts of Anarres, he had a sudden longing for company.

  Swiftly, Sirru descended the tower, climbed over the parapet and down the wall. The stone was crumbling, providing numerous footholds. His unseen defenses were in place, and when he passed in front of the gates the fierce black-hairy person who guarded the temenos did not give him a second glance. Nor did the soldiers, or the ring of pilgrims beyond them. After a few false starts, he succeeded in remembering the locative of the apsara Ir Yth had pointed out to him earlier. Tangible signals along the way reminded him, even in these lifeless streets. He picked up his own lingering pheromonal traces, and other scents, too, which functioned as markers: the sudden pungency of dung combined with sweet watermelon, a subtle interface of spices. Sirru slipped through the labyrinth of streets until he found himself in front of the apsara’s house. He could smell the strong, artificial odor of her perfume, masking but not hiding her pheromonal signature.

  The door was unlocked. Sirru stepped through and found himself in a long, narrow room. It was stuffy and decorated in dark, rich colors. Incense burning before the blue image of a god made his eyes prickle. Sirru prowled around for a moment before finding the staircase. He knew that this was not going to be easy, if his experiences with Jaya were anything to go by. But the woman was an apsara, after all, and therefore must surely be versed in basic techniques of communication.

  Ir Yth’s comments echoed in his mind: Sexual intimacy here is limited to one of those two roles. Pleasure and reproduction. He couldn’t believe these people were that restricted; Ir Yth was lying, trying to dissuade him from the obvious route to the communications network. Stepping onto a landing, he paused before a door. He could hear sounds within. Sirru dismantled his defenses and opened the door.