by Rachel Bach
“Well, if that was the idea, she messed up,” I said. “That ship was full of downed xith’cal, but they weren’t dead.” I didn’t even have a word for what they were, other than wrong. I could still remember the horrible stench of them, the terrible white film over their eyes. Dead but not dead.
“My sources believe the virus that killed off that tribe ship was not yet complete,” Brenton admitted. “Now, of course, it never will be.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean there is no more Stoneclaw,” Brenton replied. “The lelgis have spent the last few weeks hunting down her tribe ships and destroying them one by one. If there’s so much as a scout ship left bearing her mark, I’d be very surprised.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. It seemed impossible that one of the three xith’cal clans, the monsters of my childhood, could just vanish. But even as I tried to work my brain around it, a part of me could only think that at least this explained why the lelgis hadn’t caught the emperor phantom that had destroyed Unity as they were supposed to. They’d been off killing lizards.
“Unlike the rest of us, the lelgis are nearly pure plasmex,” Brenton continued. “Though she didn’t make it to fight them, they had more to fear from Stoneclaw’s virus than anyone else, and they burned her entire clan to a cinder just to be sure it was destroyed. They did a good job, too. So far as we know, all records and samples of the virus are now gone. All, that is, except one.”
I didn’t need his pointed look to get where this was going. “You mean me,” I said. “You think I have the virus?”
“I don’t think,” Brenton said, reaching into his pocket to pull out a handset. “I know. Take a look at this.”
I took the offered handset gingerly, but it took me a moment to recognize the black shape on the screen as a woman’s body. It was Evelyn, Brenton’s other plasmex user, the one I’d killed. Her corpse was covered head to toe in the black stuff that had come off my finger when I’d touched her, and as I stared at it, I could feel my blood running colder and colder.
“Now tell me, Miss Morris,” Brenton said. “Does that look anything like the xith’cal you saw on Stoneclaw’s tribe ship?”
I closed my eyes. Part of me wanted to throw the handset back at him and scream that he was wrong. That I couldn’t have this virus. But it all lined up so nicely—the rotting xith’cal biting me across the shoulder, the black stuff that appeared on my skin with its pins and needles, the weird smell Hyrek claimed I had. But even if I accepted Brenton’s explanation, it still didn’t make sense, because that would mean I had the virus that was made to kill everything, and I was still alive.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “Let’s assume for the moment that I do have this virus. Why aren’t I dead? Why haven’t I killed everyone around me?”
“That’s a very good question,” Brenton said. “One I don’t have a definitive answer for, actually. That’s why I’m taking you to see some experts.”
“But I’ve already been tested up and down!” I cried. “Caldswell’s doctor ran more of my blood than I knew I had in me through his machines, and he still found nothing.”
“He wouldn’t,” Brenton said. “Because this sickness isn’t in your blood. It’s in your plasmex, and even the Eyes have never figured out a way to test plasmex properly.”
“But your ‘experts’ have?”
“Yes,” Brenton said simply.
I dropped his handset on the table and flopped back against the bench with a curse. I suppose I should have been relieved to finally have a name for what was wrong with me, but finding out my mystery illness was a xith’cal supervirus wasn’t something I could be happy about. Worse, my xith’cal supervirus was apparently malfunctioning, which meant I couldn’t even predict what was going to happen. It felt ungrateful to be miserable about something that was the only reason I was still alive, but I hated working with unknowns. What if my virus suddenly kicked in and I started a plague?
But all this doom and gloom brought another question to my mind, and though it was technically Brenton’s turn to ask something, I jumped in anyway. “If I do have this virus, what are you going to do with it?”
Brenton leaned back. “Let me put it this way,” he said. “The reason the Eyes used daughters to kill phantoms in the first place is because phantoms are pure plasmex, even more so than the lelgis. You can blast their physical manifestations into soup, but unless you destroy their plasmex, they always come back. Now, here you come with a virus that corrupts plasmex and spreads exponentially. What do you think I’m going to do with it?”
“God and king,” I whispered. “You’re going to kill all the phantoms.”
Brenton smiled. “Bingo.”
I blinked. When I’d decided to throw my lot in with Brenton, I hadn’t given much thought to what he was after beyond fighting the Eyes. But this? This was huge. “How many phantoms are we talking about?”
“No one knows for sure,” Brenton said. “But that doesn’t matter to the virus. We know the little ones follow the big ones. All we have to do is spread the virus to a large enough group and let nature do the rest.”
“It’s too reckless,” I said, holding up my hands, which, though currently clean, had been black and dirty and deadly several times before. “You said yourself that plasmex is everywhere. If you just put this out in the wild, you could kill everything, not just phantoms.”
“That’s why I’m taking you to the experts,” Brenton said. “As I said, the virus is incomplete. Stoneclaw’s tribe was destroyed before they could finish it, but that doesn’t mean we can’t. If we can make it so it only infects phantoms, which shouldn’t be hard since they have more plasmex than anything else, we’ll have the miracle the Eyes should have been searching for for the last seven decades.”
Brenton leaned forward, grabbing my hand before I could move. “Don’t you see, Deviana?” he said, clutching my fingers. “You’re it. If we make this work, if we kill all the phantoms, there will be no more need for Maat and her daughters. You can set them free. You can set things right.”
He didn’t have to tell me that. My mind was already racing. If this virus really did what Brenton said, the tragedy I’d witness with Rashid and Ren would never happen again. I’d be able to keep my promise to Maat and put an end to disasters like Unity. I took a deep breath. Rupert would never have to shoot another daughter.
But even as I started to get excited, I realized it couldn’t work. I didn’t know how big Brenton’s organization was, but there was no way he had the facilities necessary to safely complete a virus that an entire xith’cal clan hadn’t been able to control. “I hate to say this, but I think we might need to go back to the Eyes.”
The joy on Brenton’s face vanished like a snuffed candle. “What?”
“This is huge,” I said. “Government huge. The Eyes have enormous resources on their side, and once they hear what this virus can do, I’m sure they’ll work with us.” I knew Caldswell would. He might be an overbearing ass, but I knew the old captain had a heart. If he didn’t, he would have killed me back on Falcon 34, memory wipe or no. Mostly, though, I knew Caldswell was a practical man, and I was sure he would jump on a chance, any chance, to end the wasteful, dangerous, destructive cycle of the daughters.
But while I was certain, Brenton clearly wasn’t. The words had barely left my mouth before his lip drew up in disgust. “You’re sure, are you?” he snarled. “Well, let me tell you what I’m sure of, Miss Morris. I’m sure that even if I could banish every phantom in the universe with a wave of my hand, the Eyes would never release Maat or her daughters. They would never set them free. Because to the Eyes, Maat and the girls they feed her are weapons, and I’ve worked for governments long enough to know that people in power never, ever, ever give up weapons on their own accord.”
I believed that, but—
Brenton held up his hand, cutting me off before I could speak. “I’m not a young man,” he said softly. “And I’ve been fighting phan
toms for the vast majority of my life. Over the years, I’ve lost track of how many girls I’ve taken from their families, how many children I’ve shot because Maat’s madness took them completely and they could no longer be controlled. I’ve killed fathers like Rashid whose only crime was trying to learn where their babies had gone. For decades I was able to pretend that the blood on my hands was shed in a good cause. That I was winning the war. That I was a hero.”
He broke off with a sigh and ran his hands over his face. “We all believed that dream at one point,” he whispered. “But some of us, the best of us, woke up. The truth is that there are no heroes. We’re all villains excusing our actions by hiding behind a greater good.”
He dropped his hand then and stared at me, his eyes sharp and too bright in a way that reminded me of Maat’s. “I don’t care about the war with the phantoms anymore,” he said. “I left the Eyes for one reason: to free Maat. If we gave your virus to the Eyes, the phantoms would die, but the madness wouldn’t stop. Maat and her daughters would still be prisoners, and nothing would change. But what you fail to see, Miss Morris, is that by keeping the virus away from the Eyes, we create an opportunity like never before. For the first time, we will have the weapon that kills the phantoms, and if the Eyes want it, they’ll have to play by our rules.”
When he finished, Brenton looked pretty crazy, but for the first time since I’d nearly run into him on the boardwalk back on Seni Major, I felt a trickle of respect for the man.
“You’re going to hold it hostage,” I said. “You’re going to use the virus as leverage against the Eyes, to make them free Maat and her daughters in return for a final solution to the phantom problem.” It was a ruthless plan that put the salvation of everyone on the line for an ideal, just the sort of thing I’d come to expect from Brenton, but for once I couldn’t fault him. If it worked, it would be a coup indeed, and I started smiling despite myself.
“You’re crazy as hell,” I said, shaking my head. “But I have to admit, I like it.”
Brenton’s face broke into a wide smile. “So does this mean you’re going to join us?”
I frowned, working it through one last time, but my conclusion was the same. If I had a virus inside me that could stop the monsters that killed entire planets, then I would be the worst person possible if I didn’t at least make an effort to use it. But even that reasoning was still too abstract, too clean and rational. The truth was, I’d already made the decision in my gut to stop this when I’d heard Mabel break Rashid’s neck.
For all that he’d been a Terran, I’d liked and respected Rashid, both as a man and as a professional, and the way he’d died bugged the shit out of me. To fight and suffer so much for so long and then die like an afterthought, achieving nothing—it was intolerable. He’d deserved better. So had Ren. They all deserved better, and if the king in his grace had given me the means to make things right, then I would. To do otherwise would be shameful cowardice and bring eternal disgrace.
But even as these grand notions circled like a royal parade through my head, I had to admit that my motives weren’t entirely selfless. The ambitious corner of my mind had already worked out what it could mean to be the weapon who killed the phantoms. They might be secret from the universe at large, but Caldswell had a Royal Warrant, which meant someone powerful on Paradox had to know about the Eyes and their mission. Fixing that problem for good was exactly the sort of huge, heroic, universe-changing service to the king that got peasants like me royal knighthoods.
That thought was enough to make me grin. Back in Caldswell’s quarters, I’d been sure my dreams were dead. Even if I escaped, there was no way I could become a Devastator with the Eyes after me, but Royal Knights were the king’s own weapons answerable only to his own sacred word. If Brenton was right, this horrible curse I’d picked up could turn out to be the very ticket I’d been looking for when I’d first signed on with the Fool. It was a long shot to be sure, but considering how hopeless I’d been when Maat found me, the return of any hope, no matter how far-fetched, was enough to fill me to bursting.
“All right,” I said, lifting my head to look at Brenton dead-on. “I’m in.”
Brenton shot me a wide, blindingly white smile. “Welcome to the good guys, Deviana.”
The way he said that still made me wince, but Brenton was already walking back toward the cockpit. “Finish your food and get some sleep,” he said as he dropped into the pilot’s chair. “You look like death warmed over.”
I felt like death warmed over, but I couldn’t rest yet. Not with my suit in this condition.
After my fight with Rupert and my adventures in the mines, my Lady was in desperate need of repair. Despite the flush I’d done earlier, I could still feel the grit in her joints, and Elsie was still jammed in her sheath from where Rupert had broken it. My gear needed serious work if it was going to be any use at all, and though I’d never admit it aloud, I needed work, too.
A life of fighting had made me pretty good at putting off stress, but even I couldn’t go forever. I’d been able to hold things together in the mines by focusing only on the present, but now that I was still, it was all starting to catch up with me. Add to that the way my life had just been turned on its ear again and it was no wonder I was well past my limit. Already my hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold my ration, and I knew from experience it would only get worse. If I was going to be in any sort of fighting shape when we reached wherever we were going, I needed some serious down time, and since sleep was impossible on a small ship with two strangers I didn’t trust, that left mechanical therapy.
Shoving the last of the ration bar into my mouth, I popped the pressure lock on my suit and peeled the Lady off piece by piece. When she was completely disassembled, I grabbed her chest piece and pried off the hidden panel that stored my emergency tools. They weren’t a patch on my case’s nano-repair of course, but they’d do. Power was a larger issue. I had only four days left in my battery before I’d need to find a way of charging my suit without my armor case, but that was a worry for later. Right now, I’d focus on what I could fix.
Using my fingernails, I plucked my little file out of its niche and then reached over to grab the arm piece that Elsie was bolted on to. Moving the piece to my lap, I pulled my legs up until I was sitting cross-legged on the bench and put on my helmet. Then, with my music blasting and my camera acting as a magnifier, I let myself become completely absorbed in the painstaking process of repairing the motor Rupert had crushed.
Hours later, we were in hyperspace, and Elsie’s blade was working again. I couldn’t do anything about the dent in her sheath, so she deployed a little crooked, but it was good enough. I’d just started scraping the mud out of the Lady’s seams when I spotted Nic walking toward me from the cockpit.
I stopped my music with a thought and pulled off my helmet. “Do you need something?”
“All my immediate needs are met,” Nic said calmly, sitting down on the bench across from me. “We made our jump to hyperspace successfully. More than that I could not ask at this moment.”
He smiled wide as he finished, and I couldn’t help smiling back. The way he talked reminded me of Nova. I was about to get back to work when Nic nodded at the Lady’s scattered pieces. “Cleaning your suit?”
“Cleaning and repairing,” I said, tapping a line of dried silt from my boot into the plastic cup I was using as a dirt catch.
Nic nodded. “You’re very good at it.”
I snorted. “I should be. Been doing this long enough. Anyway, I like working on my armor. It’s soothing. Gives me a sense of control when the universe feels a bit too big.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t worry about that,” Nic said cheerfully. “Any sense of control is merely illusion. We are all just tiny specks in a cosmic system larger than we can possibly comprehend. You are no more out of control now than you have ever been.”
He clearly meant the words to be comforting, but the thought of being a speck didn’t exactly do it
for me. Still, the ridiculous reply was enough to send me into a giggle fit. Nic tilted his head at my laughter, and I shook my head. “Sorry, sorry,” I said, returning to my boot. “I swear I’m not laughing at you. It’s just that you just remind me of my old roommate.”
“I could only hope so,” Nic said humbly. “Novascape always had a more innate understanding of the truths than I. To hear that I remind you of her is praise indeed.”
My head snapped back up. “How do you know Nova?”
Nic raised his pale eyebrows. “Can’t you see the resemblance? Novascape is my sister.”
“You’re Copernicus?” I said, louder than I’d meant to.
He smiled. “Only my family calls me that. Everyone else calls me Nic.”
“What the hell are you doing with Brenton?” I said, speaking right over him.
“Helping him,” Nic replied.
Suddenly, several things made a lot more sense. “God and king,” I muttered, rubbing my temple. “That’s how Rashid ended up the only good candidate on Wuxia. Nova told you everything over dinner.”
“Actually, Basil told me about the hiring,” Nic said with a smile. “He had a great deal to say about you.”
I bet he did.
“We suspected Caldswell would go to Wuxia,” Nic admitted. “He tries to keep his movements unpredictable, but the years have left him with certain habitual ruts, and Wuxia has long been his favorite repair port. I merely arranged to be in town when he arrived. After that, the setup was fairly simple.” He paused. “You’re not angry, I hope?”
I had to think about that one. “No,” I said at last. “I mean, I don’t like feeling like a chump, but Caldswell was the one who got played, not me. Still, how the hell did you end up on Brenton’s side? Nova said your dad put her on the Fool because he believed in Caldswell’s work. That puts you on the wrong end of things, doesn’t it?”
