by Liz Williams
“Hush,” she said. “Don’t say anything more.”
16.
Varanasi, Temple of Durga
“Moksha,” Satyajit Rakh said, gloomily.
“What?” Jaya looked up from the Web reports and the headset that connected her to the Net. Her head was beginning to pound. She blinked in the dimmer light, the memory of the screen still scrolling across her retinas. Rakh’s face was filled with a sour sadness. He repeated, “Moksha. If you die in Varanasi by the sacred river, it means liberation from the wheel of life. That’s why that man killed himself last night—there are rumors that the aliens are gods, that they’ve come to take us all to Heaven. Apparently the suicide decided he couldn’t wait. They’ve already put up a shrine to him across the square. People have been visiting it all morning—Shiv says it’s got your photo in it. You could be becoming the center of another cult, Jaya.”
“I’m starting to get used to that.” Jaya sighed. “What happened to Kharishma?”
“She’s set up camp across the square. With a pavilion. I’ve issued a complaint to the minister, as you instructed, but the troops all adore her. You saw the elephant?”
Jaya gave a sardonic nod. “Almost as difficult to miss as Kharishma herself. Was it an elephant, though?” She had a memory of something bigger, with huge sweeping tusks and a white mane, and an even vaguer memory of an ex-lover of Kharishma’s being the director of a wildlife park in northern Uttar Pradesh. “Looked like one of those purported cloned mammoths to me.”
Rakh shook his head, unsure. “What do you think Kharishma wants?”
“She wants to be famous,” Jaya snapped. “What else?”
She pointed to the computer screen, where Shiv was downloading a clip from the forthcoming movie. In the absence of more concrete information, this clip was causing a great deal of attention throughout the media. Jaya, Shiv, and Rakh watched it in silence, and some bewilderment. In the clip, Jaya was portrayed as aristocratic, victorious, vengeful, and magnificent. It seemed to be a typical over-the-top Bollywood production, complete with songs.
“Not going for realism, are they?” Shiv remarked.
Jaya snorted. “I don’t see too many allusions to mud and dysentery, no. Look at that,” she said as Kharishma battled her way across a crocodile-infested river. “She’s still got her lipstick on!”
“I know,” Shiv said artlessly. “And you were such a mess most of the time.”
Jaya gave him a chilly look. “I’d like you to keep your eye on Kharishma.”
“All right. Are we still planning to leave tonight?”
Jaya sighed. “Yes. I think so. If we kill the aliens, more will come, and besides, they’re the last bargaining chip we have left. But if they’re planning genocide… Oh, I don’t know, Rakh. I don’t know what to do. We’ll keep to the original plan and go north. I’m going to get some rest.” She slapped Rakh on the shoulder with an old affection on her way through the door. “Guard us well, Rakhi. As you always have.”
Later, however, she was deep in some uneasy dream when Rakh shook her awake. The sun slanted in through the windows, suggesting that it was already past noon.
“Commander? Excuse me. You have a visitor.”
“What, another one? Goddess… Who is it this time?”
Rakh’s teeth flashed white in a grin.
“Someone you might be pleased to see. For a change.”
Jaya sat up. There was a small figure at Rakh’s elbow, who stepped awkwardly forward. The Selenge had taken so great a hold that it was hard to recognize him at first.
“Halil?”
The last time she had seen the boy was in the sewers beneath Varanasi General, on the day of her escape from the hospital. She reached out and hugged the boy. Halil felt slight and frail in her arms, bird-boned. He gave a wide, shy grin.
“I wanted to come before, but I couldn’t. I was ill,” he explained, unnecessarily.
“We found him inside the courtyard,” Rakh said, with an unmistakable note of warning in his voice.
“Halil?” She drew the boy beside her. “Sit down. Tell me. How did you get in?”
The child readily replied, “Through the passages underneath the temple. They lead into the sewers, end up out on the river.”
“Rakhi, I thought you had people posted down there.”
“Who do you think caught him?”
“Halil, why did you come here? To see me, or—?”
“I heard there are some people here. From another world. I wanted to see them. And you, too,” he added loyally. “No one sent me, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m not a spy.”
Jaya was not sure that she believed this, but whatever the truth of the matter, she did not think that Halil had very long left to live. And maybe he was not the only one. All the hopes she had that the aliens might be able to heal her people settled in a knot in her stomach. As a tight anger constricted her throat, she took the child by the hand.
“Come on. You want to see the aliens, do you? Well, let’s go and see them, then. Rakh, go back to the gate.”
She found Sirru crouching by the main entrance of the great hall. He was running his fingertips across the stone step, his hands twisting in a complex pattern. She had no idea what he was doing, but it seemed to her that there was a trace of furtiveness in the golden eyes. He glanced indifferently at the child.
“Sirru? I want you to meet someone. This is Halil.”
She gave the child a little push between his thin shoulder blades, propelling him forward. Halil dug his feet in for a moment, then stepped toward Sirru. He was almost eye to eye with the crouching alien. They regarded each other gravely for a moment, then Sirru reached out and turned the child’s face to the lamplight. He moved the boy’s jaw this way and that, considering the striations of Selenge, like snail tracks across the skin. Soon, when the disease entered its last leprotic stages, Jaya knew, the flesh along those striations would be eaten away, and then would come liver failure. Halil’s joints had stiffened, too.
An unmistakable look of speculation entered Sirru’s gaze: relating to what? Jaya wondered. Suddenly uneasy, she took a step forward, ready to snatch the child away, but Halil stood as if entranced. Sirru’s long hands cupped the boy’s face for a moment, and the alien’s eyes narrowed. Then, with a movement so swift that Jaya did not even see it, Sirru’s sharp nails opened up the child’s wrist. There was blood from palm to elbow. Halil gave a sharp, startled cry and sank to the floor, his mouth working in shock. Jaya sprang forward, but the alien was no longer there. He had dragged the child into the corner and backed him up against the wall.
“Sirru!” she cried. “Let him go. Let him go now!”
A wave of fear, so strong it was almost palpable, made Jaya stumble to her knees. And though she struggled against it, she could not rise. It was not her own fear, but something imposed from without, goading her adrenaline into override action. Neutralized by Sirru, she could only watch helplessly. His own wrist had been injured, she saw as he pulled back the sleeve of his robe. She watched with horrified fascination as the skin of his arm began to pull back, crawling up his arm as if someone were rolling back a sock. Layers of muscle exposed themselves, followed by the slow seep of blood from a vein. It might have been arterial blood, but it looked too dark. He pressed his own bleeding flesh against the child’s injured wrist, so that the blood mingled. Halil’s eyes were wide, his mouth open in a silent rictus shout.
“Sirru,” she croaked. Her throat felt as though a hand had closed around it. “What are you doing?” A stray memory snapped at her, of her room on the ship; the walls closing in on her, and pain.
Sirru was murmuring to the boy, and Jaya caught the soft drift of reassurance. “Sirru?” she whispered again, and the alien looked up. His face was filled with pity. He sent:
frustrationanger/sorrowwrongness
“What?”
wrongnessincorrectness/failure/
The child’s head was drooping. Sirru raised the boy’s
bloodstained wrist, which already seemed to have closed, and fastidiously licked it clean. Jaya stared, appalled and still unable to move, but then Sirru’s grip was abruptly released. Her calf muscles shook like jelly. She crawled as quickly as she could across the floor and reached out a trembling hand to the boy’s throat.
“Halil! Are you all right? I won’t let him touch you again.”
The pulse was strong, though Halil was unconscious. Sirru’s free arm, cleansed of blood, snaked around her waist and pulled her close.
“Don’t touch me!” She tried to pull away, but his grip was too strong.
He gave her a reassuring pat on her forearm.
good girlfinished now/better/order restored/
“What in the name of hell have you done?”
He squinted round so that he could look her in the face.
why, healed
He seemed surprised. She looked down at the child. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but the silvery striations of the disease appeared to be fading. Sirru drew a gentle finger down the child’s cheek.
“Jaya?”
“Yes?”
many?
“What do you mean?”
He tapped the child’s face.
many?
“Yes,” she said, trying to gather her confused and angry thoughts and project the right emotion. “Many of them, Sirru. A lot of sick people.”
The hope of a cure for Selenge, the whole reason for her need to keep the aliens close, returned with full force. Warring with it, however, was that later echo… Healing and harvest. How did those two fit together? If indeed they did. After what Sirru had just done to the boy, she was more confused than ever. Worrying over understanding like a jackal with a bone, Jaya shrank from the alien’s grasp and sagged back against the wall with the child’s head in her lap, so that they were sitting in a row: a family from nightmare.
17.
Orbital, Rasasatra
“Hurry up,” Anarres hissed. “Someone’s bound to notice what we’re doing.” She shifted from foot to foot in agitation as Nowhere One scrolled through the list of translation logs.
“I’m nearly there. EsItta… EsIttgi… EsIttikh! And here’s the file for Arakrahali.” He pointed to a vault in triumph.
“Only one person?”
“There was only one administrator on Arakrahali,” the Natural informed her. “A desqusai named IrEthiverris. And a Khaith.”
“But I recognize this vault,” Anarres said. She looked around her, certain now that she had come here once before. “I’m sure this is the person that EsRavesh told me to erase.”
“Interesting,” Nowhere One said softly. He slid the storage container out of the vault. It was roughly the size of the palm of his hand, and fitted easily into the sleeve of his robe.
“You’re stealing that?” Anarres said, wide-eyed.
“That was the whole point of the trip.” Nowhere One closed the vault. “Let’s go.”
“But who is it?”
Nowhere One smiled at her. “IrEthiverris’ First Body. I want some answers about Arakrahali, and there’s only one person who can give them to me.”
Together, they hastened out of the chamber containing the vaults and back along the corridor. But as they reached the docking bay, someone stepped in front of them, towering over Anarres and the Natural. Beneath a robe encrusted with ornamental wire, the being’s skin was a deep black, like a bruise, and his eyes were a startling light lavender. A spiny crest rose along the crown of his head and he had long, attenuated fingers. He spoke in a high whistling voice.
“Madam! I am overseer of this facility. I am Uassi SiMethiKhajhat. I have been looking for you. My hessirei gatekeeper told me that you were seeking me. I fear you have become lost.”
His lavender gaze flickered over Nowhere One. The Natural, with an anxious glance at Anarres, sidled back into the shadows.
“Come with me,” the overseer said. He turned, flicking a hand toward the Natural as he passed. Anarres caught the tail end of a stinging hail of pheromones. Nowhere One gave a brief hiss of pain.
“Maintenance people! Always getting in my way,” the overseer snapped. He led her through a maze of corridors, to what was evidently his private chambers. “Sit down. Now. I did not summon an apsara. Why have you come to see me?”
Anarres, thinking fast, noted the encrusted wire of the overseer’s robes and the waxed sheen of his face. She saw that the spines of his crest were inlaid with metal grooves, and that the long claws were polished to an obsidian shine. Anarres cast her eyes modestly toward the floor and murmured, “We apsarai gossip among ourselves. Word has got around about the Weapons Caste.” Taking a risk, she whispered, “You see, normally I am affiliated with the khaithoi, but—”
“Khaithoi!” the overseer snapped. “A vile people. I will not permit them on this facility, higher caste though they are. They are constantly requesting access, but I baffle them with bureaucracy, divert them with security checks.” His crest rose at this evidence of his own cleverness.
That explained why EsRavesh had initially sent her here, then. “So I’m sure you understand why I might seek the company of someone more…” Anarres reached out and drew a finger down the overseer’s arm. “…enticing.” She caught her lip between her teeth and gazed up into SiMethiKhajhat’s lavender eyes.
The overseer’s spines prickled with pride. “You are a connoisseur, then! What a delight. We understand one another, I can see. Let us dispense with the formalities and begin. I prefer to initiate my first sexual act with Fourth Position, moving on to Sixth as we become more familiar with one another.” He indicated a set of bonds attached to the floor. “I am also fond of the use of artificial restraints. How about you?”
Anarres sighed—but rather this than capture. Silently praying that Nowhere One had found somewhere to hide, she turned to the overseer and smiled. “That sounds wonderful.”
A considerable time later, Anarres rose from the couch and retied the laces of her dress. She glanced down at the slumbering form of the overseer and wondered whether her lie about gossiping apsarai might actually be true. SiMethiKhajhat certainly had some interesting hobbies. A year or so ago, Anarres might have been shocked, but after EsRavesh, anyone seemed acceptable. She had to find Nowhere One, but first, it seemed worthwhile to take a look around the overseer’s private chamber. If he kept files, they did not seem to be here. Quickly, she searched through the racks of robes. SiMethiKhajhat’s wardrobe was even more extensive than her own had been, and Anarres entertained a pang of regret for all her lost clothes. She’d probably never see her house again. But if that meant being free of the khaithoi, it was worth it.
In an annex, she found an equipment deck. A communication harness hung on the wall and, after a moment of indecision, Anarres slipped it off its hook and rolled it up into a thin coil of mesh. Hadn’t Nowhere One said that the Naturals’ own pilfered technology was antiquated? This was a translation orbital; presumably its communications array would be powerful enough to reach other worlds? Though she was not sure, she folded the mesh into her sleeve and crept stealthily out of the chamber.
To her immense relief, Nowhere One was loitering by the entrance to the docking bay with a service-brush. His quills flared up when he saw her.
“What happened to you? I’ve been worried out of my mind!”
“I’ll explain later. We have to go.”
They had an uneasy wait for the next raft, but boarding was not a problem. Anarres, now known to be the consort of the overseer, did not have to show her pass again. Within the space of an hour, they were once more standing on the landing ledge in the hot, soft darkness of Khaikurriyë. Anarres leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes.
There was a sudden confusion behind her. An alarm began to shrill, but it was a moment before she realized that it was inside her body. It throbbed through her, reverberating up and down her bones.
“Anarres!”
She turned.
“Come with me.” Nowhere One grasped her hand and dragged her along the ledge. She tried not to look down. The alarm sent weakness through her body, causing her to stagger.
“What’s happening?” she cried.
“I don’t know. Maybe your recent client’s found his mesh missing.” He motioned toward the far end of the ledge, and Anarres stiffened. The beings moving toward them were immense. Indigo carapaces glittered in the lamplight; pincers twitched.
The Natural hissed, and Anarres stumbled as they raced around a corner. She caught a brief, vertiginous glimpse of the ground, a very long way below.
“I’ve got you.” The Natural’s hand was clamped around her arm. “Now.” Grasping her around the waist, he stepped off the ledge into thin air. Anarres cried out, then found that they were not falling. They had stepped into an airwell, and were now proceeding swiftly downward. The glistening shaft of a building towered up alongside the well; spines arched from its sides. Squinting up into the night, she could see their pursuers slide forth into nothingness. They resembled a pair of long-legged crustaceans tossed from a high building.
“Can’t we go any faster?”
“No. But neither can they.” The Natural gestured below. “Look. See that barge?”
She could feel his pointed chin resting on the top of her head. They were nearly level with the gliding air-barge; its navigation lights sent a beacon through the darkness. The Natural was pulling at her dress, tugging it outward.
“What are you doing?”
“Moving us.”
Slowly but surely, they were drifting to the edge of the airwell. Nowhere One gave a tug at his ballooning robes, and then there was a blast of air like a punch in the face. Finally, they were falling. The barge seemed to rush up from below, piloted by a very startled face. The air was knocked from Anarres’ lungs as they hit the arch of air that sealed the barge, and then the deck. Nowhere One was already crawling to the front of the barge, knocking the pilot aside. The pilot’s hiss of wrath was abruptly silenced as the Natural elbowed him in the throat and the pilot sprawled across the deck. The barge veered and turned and Anarres, who had only just gained her feet, was knocked backward by the sudden acceleration.
