by Rachel Bach
“Right, I get it, you’re heroes,” I said. “But I still don’t see why you need to keep it under wraps. It’s not like anyone could blame you for the loss of Svenya.”
“It’s not about blame,” the captain said sharply. “It’s about keeping the universe ticking over. It’s about managing fear. Even if we outed the truth, there would be nothing people could do that we’re not doing already, and all the fear and attention would make our jobs even harder. The only reason I’m telling you is because you need to understand how much is at stake.”
The captain leaned forward, getting right in my face. “We’re not playing around here, Morris,” he said quietly. “I’ve answered your questions honestly. Now, what did Brenton want with you?”
I didn’t like the captain’s tone one bit, but he had a point. He’d answered my questions, and fair was fair. Also, I was pretty curious myself at this point.
“He wanted to know about the xith’cal ghost ship,” I said, meeting Caldswell’s stare head-on. “I didn’t tell him anything, but then his mercs hacked the medical records and found out I’d been bitten. After that, he got a little crazy and said I was the one who was going to save the universe.”
The words sounded just as pretentious and stupid coming out of my mouth as they had coming out of Brenton’s, but Caldswell was suddenly looking at me like he’d never seen me before. “Interesting,” he said after a long silence.
“Interesting?” I cried. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” I slammed myself back into the soft couch with a furious snarl. “Why the hell am I here, then?” I demanded. “What do you want from me?”
“To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure,” Caldswell said, returning to his chair. “Did Brenton tell you about the daughters?”
“He had a girl with him,” I said cautiously. “She looked exactly like Ren, but thinner, like she was sick. He called her Enna.”
It might have been my imagination, but I thought Caldswell winced when I said the girl’s name. Whatever it was, though, it was gone in a flash. “I wasn’t entirely accurate, earlier,” he said. “We Eyes help to hunt and subdue phantoms, but we don’t kill them. The daughters do. So far as we know, they’re the only ones other than the lelgis who can actually kill the things.”
I took a breath, remembering the flash of light when Ren had touched the downed phantom back on Mycant. “They’re plasmex users.”
“They’re much more than that,” Caldswell said. “They’re some of the most powerful plasmex users humanity has ever produced, created from the most powerful plasmex user, a woman named Maat.”
That name sent a cold shiver through me. I was sure I’d heard it before, but I couldn’t place it before Caldswell went on.
“Our job is to protect and guide them,” he said. “The daughters pay a great price for their power, and we do whatever we can to honor their sacrifice. But killing the phantoms isn’t all the daughters can do. They’re also the only ones who can see the damn things. Or they were, until you.”
“Don’t be stupid,” I said with a nervous laugh. “I’m not a plasmex user.”
“No, you’re not,” Caldswell admitted. “Frankly, Morris, I have no idea what you are. Because of their centuries of isolation from the rest of humanity, Paradoxians have the lowest plasmex sensitivity of all humans. But according to Hyrek, your numbers are even lower than the Paradoxian average. You have about as much natural plasmex talent as a piece of plastic, and yet somehow you can see what no one except the most powerful plasmex users can.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “I’ve only seen one phantom, and it was really really big. I didn’t see the one on Mycant at all.”
“But you’ve seen every one since,” Caldswell said.
I was about to ask what he was talking about when I figured it out. “The bugs,” I groaned.
Caldswell nodded. “Phantoms come in all shapes and sizes. The little ones are everywhere. Fortunately they don’t get dangerous until they’re bigger than a person or we’d all be long dead. Considering the number of ‘bugs’ you told me about earlier, though, it also seems that you’re attracting them. If you were actually plasmex sensitive, this would be normal. Phantoms are drawn to plasmex use. But since your numbers are in the gutter every time we run them, you can see my confusion. If Brenton hadn’t tried to make another grab for you on Ample, I would have written you off as a freak anomaly.”
“Hold on—Brenton?” I said. “That HVFP team was Brenton’s?”
Caldswell rolled his eyes. “Nonlethal anti-armor pistols and a symbiont? Who else could it be?”
I hadn’t actually thought about the fight on Ample through the lens of my returned memories yet. Now that Caldswell said it, though, I had to admit he was probably right. “You think that’s why Brenton wants me, then?” I asked. “Because of the seeing phantoms thing?”
“No,” Caldswell said. “He’d never risk so much for something that small. Whatever he thinks you are, it’s big enough for him to gamble everything. I’d actually meant to go over what you’ve been seeing in more detail to see if we couldn’t figure it out, but you took longer to wake up from the memory return than we expected, and we’re almost out of time.”
The cold dread began to creep back into my stomach. “Out of time for what?”
“Talking,” Caldswell said. “I had Ren send for a pickup as soon as we got away from Unity.”
“A pickup?” I repeated dumbly.
“We’d already be in hyperspace if we could jump ourselves,” Caldswell said. “But the phantom wrecked our air system when it squeezed us. Fortunately, our emergency jump protocol dumps out in a pretty dense area of space, so Basil was able to limp us over to the closest planet to wait for reinforcements. That was five hours ago. The pickup team should be here any minute to take you to headquarters.”
The creeping dread in my stomach went colder still. “Why would I go to headquarters?”
Caldswell looked at me, and what was left of his amiable captain mask vanished. “We lost a planet today, Morris,” he said quietly. “Tomorrow, we could lose another. I don’t know what the hell is going on with you, but if you can see phantoms like the daughters do, there’s a chance you might be able to learn to kill them as well.”
“But you just said I can’t use plasmex!” I protested. “I can’t do anything like Ren can do, I can’t even do stuff Nova can do.”
“Maybe I haven’t made our situation clear,” Caldswell snapped, pinning me with a glare. “Other than the lelgis, who, as you’ve seen, only help when they feel like it, the daughters are our only weapons against the phantoms. Right now, we have sixty-two of them in active service. Sixty-two weapons to cover a front of nearly three hundred thousand inhabited planets across the known galaxy. You’re a soldier, you can see exactly how bad that situation is. We’re holding the line by the skin of our teeth. I might not understand what’s going on with you, but I know John Brenton. If he was willing to risk as much as he did to get you, it’s worth investigating. I don’t have the tools to do that here, so I’m sending you to the people who do.”
“And what about me?” I cried. My voice was shaking openly now, but I didn’t care. I was just starting to realize what all this meant. Caldswell was giving me to his secret phantom killing organization. Giving me over to be made into a weapon, like Ren. A shudder went through me at the memory of her blank eyes, the tears on her face back on Io5 when she’d begged me to free her. I didn’t want that. I wouldn’t let them do that to me. “I’m not going.”
I expected Caldswell to tell me I had no choice, but he didn’t. Instead, the captain looked me over like I was a troublemaking cadet. “I’ve always liked you, Morris,” he said. “Even when you were being a pain, you were always a good soldier. You did your duty and fought with honor as a Paradoxian should. This is just the next step.”
“Disappearing into some secret organization isn’t my idea of honor,” I snapped.
“But serving your king is,�
� Caldswell calmly replied. “The Eyes protect Paradox and her colonies just like we do every other planet. Are you saying you would not lay down your life for your homeland?”
I closed my eyes, cursing him for bringing the Sacred King into this. When he put it like that, he made me a traitor and a blasphemer if I denied him, but I could not accept what he was saying. If I did what Caldswell asked, my future was finished. My dreams of being a Devastator, everything I’d fought for, my whole life would be gone. I couldn’t do it. I would not throw myself away just so Caldswell could have the possibility of a new weapon in his war, and I was about to tell him so when I felt a hand on my knee.
I jumped, my whole body going rigid as my eyes snapped back open, but Caldswell didn’t let go. He grabbed my knee and held it, his fingers strong as steel and surprisingly warm through the soft fabric of the thin pants I wore under my armor. “This isn’t the end, Morris,” he said quietly. “Whatever you might think of us, we’re not monsters. You’ll be well taken care of.”
“Like a lab rat,” I muttered.
“Like a resource,” he corrected. “A valuable one.”
His words rang hollow. “I didn’t fight for a decade to become someone’s resource.”
“Better than being dead,” Caldswell said, giving my knee a final squeeze before standing up. “I’m going to go back into my room so you can have a few minutes alone before the retrieval team gets here. It might be your last time to yourself for a while, so I suggest you make the most of it. And if you have anything to say to Rupert, I’ll pass it on.”
I lifted my eyes. The captain’s face was all concern, but I knew now that it was a mask, just like Rupert’s. “Go to hell,” I snarled.
Caldswell sighed deeply, but then, as he’d promised, he left, retreating to his room and shutting the door to just a crack.
The moment he was out of sight, I started trying to break free. I bent my body into shapes I’d never known I could make as I yanked with everything I had on the plasma binding my feet and the metal cuffs that kept my wrists locked behind me. But all my struggling earned me were strained muscles, and after a few moments I flopped defeated back onto the couch. Fighting was useless, it seemed. Everything was useless.
Since it didn’t matter anymore, I threw back my head with a string of curses that would have made my mother faint. In a matter of minutes, my whole life had unraveled. Even if I did turn out to be nothing more than an anomaly who could see floating bugs, they’d never let me go after everything Caldswell had told me. Not alive, anyway.
I shut my eyes tight, but it didn’t help. All the things I’d lost were pounding on me one after another. Nine years of armored combat, all my honors, my illustrious record, gone. I’d never go home to Paradox again. I’d never be a Devastator.
I felt the moisture welling behind my eyelids, but I kept them shut tight. I felt more hopeless right now than I’d ever felt in my life, but I was determined not to cry. Caldswell had taken everything from me—my future, my past, all of it—like hell was I giving him my tears as well.
To distract myself, I turned to the window. The heavy reentry shutters were down, but I could see bright daylight shining through the cracks. I could tell from the color that the light came from a yellow-star sun, probably somewhere in the Sevalis. If I’d had my computer, that information might have been enough to narrow down my location, but my suit was almost certainly locked up in some cabinet by now. They probably wouldn’t even take my equipment when they came for me, I realized with a pang. I might never wear my beautiful Lady again. She’d rot on the ship until Caldswell sold her, and then we’d both be victims of the Glorious Fool.
That thought brought me closer to crying than anything else had yet, and I doubled over, pressing my forehead against my knees. I would not cry. My will was the only weapon I had left. I would not let it crack now before the fight had even begun.
I was still swearing oaths to myself when I felt something touch my cheek. It was a tiny brush, little more than a breeze, but my head shot up anyway, teeth bared for a fight. But fast as the anger had risen, it fled, because it wasn’t Caldswell standing in front of me. It was Ren.
The moment I saw her, I knew it couldn’t really be Ren. First, she was alone, which the real Ren never was. Second, she wasn’t wearing the simple shirt, loose pants, and flats Caldswell dressed his daughter in. This Ren was barefoot, wearing the same side-tied white medical gown she’d worn in the snow on Io5, and her brown eyes were looking straight at me with an intensity I’d never seen on Ren’s face, not even when she was playing chess.
Don’t cry, her voice whispered in my mind.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” I said bitterly.
She raised a finger to her lips, tilting her head toward Caldswell’s door.
I got the point and dropped my voice to a whisper. “Why are you here? Your father’s already given me the speech about your noble war.”
The girl who looked like Ren narrowed her eyes. Brian is not my father.
I winced. I hadn’t known a whisper could be so full of hate. “Okay,” I said more slowly. “Who are you?”
The girl smiled at my question, a too-wide grin that was somehow more upsetting than her hateful glare. You’ve already guessed who I am, Deviana.
That cold creeping feeling that had been crawling through my stomach for so long it was starting to feel normal suddenly got even stronger. I glanced at Caldswell’s door, but it was still closed, and it wasn’t like I had anything left to lose at this point if he caught me talking to things that weren’t actually there. “You’re the one who makes the daughters,” I said. “You’re Maat.”
The girl’s face fell. Maat doesn’t make her daughters, she said. They’re made from Maat. I don’t want their lives, their pain. She covered her mouth with her fingers, eyes suddenly wide, vacant, and terrified. Don’t want. Don’t want.
I pushed myself even farther back into the couch. It was unnerving to see so many emotions pass over Ren’s usually blank face. But then, from what I’d gathered, Caldswell’s daughter was some kind of copy. Maat was the original, and while I’d always suspected Ren was crazy, I knew for certain that the girl in front of me was several shots shy of a full clip.
“Why are you here?” I asked. “How are you here? What do you want from me?”
The girl blinked like she’d just remembered she wasn’t alone. Maat is wherever her daughters are, she said. But that’s not important now. Maat came to Deviana because I can see through you. Listen. Her hands shot out, grabbing my knees hard. Listen!
I had to bite my tongue to keep from crying out. Though I knew she couldn’t actually be here in the room with me, Maat’s hands certainly felt solid as they dug into my skin. It was just like the dream, vision, whatever I’d had on Io5, only worse, because now I knew it was real, and if Maat didn’t stop squeezing my knees, she was going to break something.
“I am listening,” I gasped, fighting against the weight on my feet as I tried in vain to pull my legs away from her hands. “You can see through me, okay? Now what the hell does that mean?”
Maat eased her grip but didn’t let go. Instead, she leaned down until our noses touched, her too-bright eyes fixed on mine like stickpins. I know what you are.
Her words doused my anger faster than a bucket of ice water. “What am I?”
Maat smiled and stepped back. I blinked at her sudden retreat, but when I looked up to see why she’d moved, my breath caught.
The room was full of phantoms. They hung behind Maat like a glowing mist made of tiny legs and transparent bodies. But though they seemed drawn to her like flies to honey, not a single one of them came within arm’s reach of me.
They told me, Maat said, reaching out her arm so the glowing bugs could crawl over her skin. They speak in little voices, but Maat hears. Maat has learned to listen, because it is Maat who keeps them prisoner.
My hopes faded with every word she spoke. I’d really believed she was just going to tell me wha
t was going on, but Maat wasn’t even looking in my direction anymore. She was staring down her arm at the phantoms that had clustered on the palm of her hand, and the longer she looked, the angrier she got.
They will not leave me alone, she hissed, closing her fist around the crawling phantoms. I flinched, waiting for the flash of light, but it never came. Instead, the phantoms drifted through her hand unscathed, and Maat pulled her arms back to bury her face in her palms.
I tell them again and again that Maat cannot help them, she whispered. Maat cannot free them because Maat is also a prisoner. Maat was the first prisoner, and her daughters are slaves. Nothing sets me free, not even the madness. Not anymore. Maat can kill millions, but she can’t even die. She looked up at me in panic, biting her lip so hard I thought she’d bite it off. Why can’t I die?
I couldn’t begin to think of an answer to that. Fortunately, Maat didn’t seem to need one. She stepped forward, leaving the phantoms behind as she leaned over until she was right in my face again. The phantoms know you, she whispered as the mad smile crept back over her face. They tell Maat, Go and find her. She can set you free. So I did, and you can, can’t you? You can free us all.
I pushed back to get some distance. “I don’t know anything about—”
She leaned in again, taking over the space I’d just put between us. Maat will make you a trade, yes?
I blinked. “A trade?”
Maat nodded frantically. You are a prisoner, too. Right now you are safe because Brian does not know, but when he gives you to the others, they will find out the truth. They will find out what you are, and when that happens, they will make you like me.
I jerked back against the couch. I’d already braced for imprisonment and death, torture at the worst, but the idea of becoming like this madwoman in front of me turned my blood to snowmelt. My fear must have been plain in my eyes, because Maat’s smile went even wider.
Brian’s war is not so simple as he makes out, she continued. There are others, you’ve already seen them. I sent them to help you before, but you fought them. She scowled. That was very stupid of you, she scolded. This time you will not fight, though. Maat has friends who will help you escape. Whatever happens, though, you must not go with the Eyes. If you trust them even for an instant, they will make you a slave like Maat, and then no one will be free.
