Forgotten Suns

by Judith Tarr

  40

  Something about the way the living ship jumped was different. Aside, of course, from the fact that it could jump straight off a planet and end up next to a mini-moon of that same planet.

  Which turned out to be more of a space station than a simple moon. System maps didn’t say so, either. They just labeled it Morta and listed its size, mass, orbital period, and all the rest of the ordinary data.

  Everything was different in this universe Aisha had dropped herself into. She wasn’t sick the way she usually was during and right after jump, but she wasn’t right, either. She kept feeling as if she’d left her skin off.

  Rama had been keeping her inside herself since Nevermore. Taking over the ship had pushed him so hard there was nothing left for anything else. Including Aisha.

  He was hanging on. He couldn’t sleep, but the ship took care of that for him, for now.

  She could feel it doing it. She could feel the people on the ship, too, like sparks popping against the inside of her skull, some stronger, some weaker, and some barely there at all.

  She had to focus. The near side of this moon had Corps markers all over it, but they were blurred and broken. The far side made her think of the port down below. There were even some of the same people.

  Everyone seemed to be screaming at the ship. No one was firing on it, or trying to, which was an improvement.

  “Why are we here?” she asked Rama. “I thought we were headed for deep space.”

  “We were.” He sat back in the chair the ship had made for him. Aisha felt it give him another shot of whatever was keeping him awake and able to function. “Ship says we have to stop here. Fueling, it says.”

  “Why? If it eats star-stuff, what’s here?”

  “Star-stuff.”

  Of course it was. Hydrogen and helium were everywhere. Denser in interstellar gas clouds, and densest where stars were being born, but every system had its share. “It’s not going to eat the moon, is it?”

  “Not if the moon leaves it alone.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  His lips stretched. It wasn’t a smile. “I don’t, either. Tell me: would you rather I start a war or end one?”

  “You have to ask that?”

  “I would rather do neither. This is none of my world or my people or my concern. But it keeps getting in my way.”

  While they talked, Aisha had been feeling the people on the bridge: scientists at screens and running data, crew backing them up. They were listening, and they were not happy. Some because they thought him impossibly arrogant. Others because they’d started to understand what he was.

  One of them was a complete blank. She was crew. Her name, Aisha gathered from ship’s web, was MariAntonia. She’d been part of the original expedition, but past that, her history was as blank as she was. There was an overlay of backstory, which evaporated when Aisha leaned on it. Then nothing.

  Except for one thing. She was born on Araceli. There was a smell of the Corps around her, but she wasn’t Corps. At all. Even in the blankness that made Aisha’s skin itch, that was impossible to mistake.

  Aisha moved before MariAntonia did. So did the ship—throwing up a loop that caught MariAntonia securely.

  She didn’t seem terribly perturbed. “Sir,” she said, “you do have a debt to pay.”

  “By winning your war for you?”

  Rama didn’t sound angry. He didn’t sound sympathetic, either.

  “We’ll do our own fighting,” she said, “but we need something from you.”

  “I’m not giving you this ship,” he said.

  “That’s not what we’re asking.”

  “I have very little patience,” he said, “and none to spare for games of taunt and parry.”

  “Our apologies,” she said. “Two shuttles are coming in. Will you allow them both on board?”

  “I have a choice?”

  “You can refuse,” she said. “The planet will die. You’ll go on. Your debt will never be paid. You’ll have the whole of U.P. after you no matter what you do. I don’t suppose that matters to you, either.”

  “This is what you call persuasion?”

  “Is it working?”

  He spread his hands. “The ship isn’t going anywhere until it’s fed. If it lets the shuttles in, so be it.”

  ~~~

  “She’s talking to somebody by shielded link,” Aisha said after the ship had made sure MariAntonia went to her quarters and stayed there. “I can’t hack it at all. Can you?”

  “I’m not trying.” Rama pushed himself up out of the chair. “This is all part of the game they play on this world. They would like to make it bigger—to play it everywhere your people are. They think they can use this ship to make it happen.”

  He had to know they could hear, if they had a hack in the ship’s kludge of a system. He was disgusted, and tired, and pushed to the edge.

  Nobody here had the faintest idea how dangerous he was.

  At least he was talking. Aisha had to hope that meant he’d listen. Whether it would stop him from blasting them all when he’d finally had enough, she didn’t know. All she could do was hope.

  ~~~

  Both shuttles came in at once. The one from Spaceforce, with Leda’s ID attached, and the one from Araceli with its interestingly complicated set of authorizations. Rama was waiting when they got there, which meant Aisha was there, too, along with most of the crew and a handful of scientists.

  Those were studying Rama. He ignored them.

  The Leda’s shuttle had Aunt Khalida in it, and to Aisha’s deep dismay, Lieutenant Zhao. The other one, the one that she’d thought belonged to pirates, took its time opening. Then Marta stepped out: the lady from the bar, with her hair braided and caught in a net.

  “Well,” Rama said to them all with the first hint of humor he’d shown since he set out for the Ara Celi, “and welcome.”

  “And in good time, too,” Marta said with serenity she must practice in front of a mirror. “You know why I’ve come, I think.”

  “Suppose I don’t,” he said.

  “We all play games,” she said. “Even you. Ask Captain Nasir why she is here.”

  “I’ve come for my niece,” Aunt Khalida said. She sounded stiff and cold, which meant she was either crying or screaming inside.

  “Is that all?” Marta inquired.

  Screaming, Aisha thought. Definitely. Though not at Aisha. Yet.

  “You tell him,” Khalida said, biting off each word. “You’re the backup, after all. The failsafe.”

  “The trigger,” Marta said.

  Khalida rocked back. She couldn’t be that shocked, could she?

  Maybe she’d had as much to bear as Rama had, in her way. “A line of code? That’s what you are? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “We are all made of code,” Marta said. “Mine, in combination with certain implants, has an actual, and particular, use.”

  “You can’t be the only one in existence. You can’t—”

  “Limited resources,” Marta said with a graceful lift of the shoulder and turn of the hand.

  Khalida met it with deliberate gracelessness. “I don’t believe you.”

  “When you’re done sparring,” Rama said much too amiably, “do let us know what the match is in aid of. Meanwhile, I believe I’ll take the opportunity to rest. I can’t remember the last time I did that.”

  That stopped them both cold.

  “I come to claim my debt,” Marta said, at the same time Khalida said, “They want you to get their children out of here.”

  It was like a chorus. Aisha had no trouble telling the voices apart. Neither did Rama.

  “Debt I understand,” he said. “Pray explain the rest.”

  Marta was not about to, which left it to Khalida. She wasn’t happy about it, either. “They’ve liberated a shipload of children from the Corps. They want you to get them away from here, and keep them away. The Corps will probably come down on you with the prov
erbial fire and sword, but Araceli won’t blow. Or so they say. I don’t know what, or whom, I believe any more.”

  “They would entrust their children to me?” Rama looked even wilder than usual.

  “I don’t understand it, either,” Khalida said. “But I can’t budge them. You open an orphanage, the planet survives. I told them you wouldn’t do it.”

  “Not an orphanage,” Marta said. “They’re in stasis. We only ask that you take them out of the Corps’ reach, and keep them safe until they come there.”

  “Why? Why trust me?”

  “Instinct.”

  That was not a rational answer. From the expression on Rama’s face, it made actual sense to him. “Supposing I would agree to this, where is this safe place you speak of? How far and how long have I to go?”

  “As far and long as you choose,” Marta answered. “Just get them away from the Corps.”

  “Which, as the Captain reminds us, will simply lock on and follow.”

  “I doubt that,” Marta said.

  “Bargain for bargain,” he said. “You come with them. You bring your powers of darkness, all your shields and your defenses. You protect them. I transport them. Otherwise, no. I will not.”

  “Debt for debt,” she said. “I accept.”

  “One more thing,” Khalida said. “The code. You’ve got what you wanted. Now hand it over.”

  “I told you,” said Marta. “I am the code. I’m going wherever this ship takes me. Araceli lives.”

  “Unless you come back,” Khalida said. “Or another trigger happens to have been made. Or born.”

  “Both,” Marta said. “Does it matter?”

  Khalida’s eyes narrowed. Her mouth was a thin line. Aisha could feel her thinking, through the static and the blankness and the craziness in this place. Clicking over data. Reckoning up accounts. Calculating options.

  Not trusting Marta even slightly. She was playing a bigger game than this one planet, and offering a greater threat to the whole of U.P. Turning her loose might kill far more than a hundred million people. But there was no way to be sure of that.

  Kill Araceli for certain. Risk killing who knew how many other planets. Back and forth. Weighing. Measuring. Deciding.

  Taking the bargain in front of her. Leaving the rest to whatever gods might exist.

  Her mind was a beautiful thing, even with all its broken bits and its jagged edges. Beautiful and terrible. Aisha remembered to get out before she got caught.

  She felt eyes on her. Lieutenant Zhao had managed to disappear while the others talked. Watching. Listening.

  Thinking. And seeing.

  She threw up the old familiar wall. It was too late; she knew that. She still did it.

  She hoped she’d given him a mother of a headache.

  41

  The ship made a bay for the stasis pods that Marta had brought in her shuttle. There were six hundred of them, and a bit more; they weren’t all baby-small, but only a few were big enough to hold a grown person.

  They were sad and hopeful at the same time. All those children who might never grow up, but at least they were free.

  Ship’s web told Aisha what they’d come from. Slaves, in a way. Tools for the Corps to use. Living shields. Enough of them in one place would make it invisible to anyone with psi.

  Even in stasis, they were enough to do the same for the ship. That was a gift. Aisha was sure it was intentional.

  The ship was taking a long time to feed, and it wouldn’t be hurried. People, even crew, straggled off to bunks and berths. Rama was one of the few who stayed awake and on the bridge.

  Aisha stayed close by him. She mostly stayed awake. She kept thinking she was dreaming, that the living ship and the planetary war and the ancient king were all in her imagination. Then she snapped awake, and it was as real as the kink in her neck.

  A whole lot of people were trying to hail the ship. They couldn’t find it, but the ship’s communications systems picked up the signals. The Corps and MI and half the Spaceforce ships in the system were melting down.

  The only thing that wasn’t was Araceli. The worldwrecker was still there—she could trace the millions of devices that made up its parts—but the trigger was off.

  “Aren’t you afraid the Corps will kill all your people?” Aisha asked Marta. “Or worse?”

  Marta had made herself a station near one end of the bridge, set up a cradle and a screen and gone to work on Aisha couldn’t quite see what. It wasn’t harmful was all she could tell. It looked as if she was studying an opera score.

  She glanced up from it when Aisha spoke. Aisha was still in the black robes, but she hadn’t had the veil on in a while. She put up with Marta searching her face, though what there was to see, she couldn’t think. Marking points for ID, maybe.

  “The Corps will do nothing,” Marta said. “We’ve scrambled their web systems from here to Outer Pradesh. They’ll be planetyears sorting it out.”

  “Wonderful,” Aisha said. “You’ve made them mad. They’ll hunt you to the ends of the universe, just on general principle.”

  “I’m sure they will. They’ll have to find us first. And that needs the systems we’ve worked hardest to scramble.”

  “All they need is hostages, and you’ve left them a planet full.”

  Marta turned to face her. “This planet is full of farmers, artisans, builders, engineers. Infrastructure, Sera Nasir. Their lovely country houses, their endless supply of foodstuffs, the roads they travel and the machines they depend on and the web they use for communications because mind to mind takes an excess of energy and requires a plethora of shields—take away the people who make all these things happen, and what’s left? A nest of parasites without a host.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” Aisha said.

  “Nothing ever is.” Marta turned back to her screen. It was opera: she had the music set to a tight feed, but Aisha caught the edge of it. Grand, roaring stuff. She would have listened if she’d had time, but the twisting in her stomach told her the not-easy was about to get a lot harder.

  ~~~

  Rama went down so slowly Aisha didn’t realize what was happening until the ship lurched.

  He was sitting upright as he had been for hours. His hands were on his knees. His eyes were open.

  Empty.

  He was in there somewhere. Deep down, curled up tight, sleeping deep.

  The ship rocked again, less sharply. It was almost done feeding, and starting to feel another hunger, to be moving—sailing—swimming through infinite space.

  Without Rama to keep it focused, it didn’t care about the swarm of microbes running up and down its insides. It was starting a long roll, powering up for another subspace leap. A bigger one this time. All the way out of the system.

  That was what they wanted. Wasn’t it?

  “Stop!” Aisha shouted—screeched, really. “Ship, stop now. Wait.”

  There was no reason for it to listen. It had a bond with Rama, which he had earned. She had nothing but desperation.

  She pushed at it till her head ached. It had stopped rolling, which was good, she hoped. It still wanted to dive deep.

  Somebody’s hand closed over hers. She felt a rush of something like wind and something like the one sip of brandy she’d ever managed to sneak when her father wasn’t looking.

  “Hold on,” he said. “Breathe.”

  It wasn’t Rama. This voice was too soft and light. It was Lieutenant Zhao.

  Part of her wanted to rip free and run to the other end of the universe. The rest drank his strength and used it to lean on the ship.

  It didn’t stop wanting to dive, but it decided to feed a little more around the edges of this moon. Aisha’s knees tried to let go.

  Lieutenant Zhao held her up. She shrank away from him.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said. “Or sell you to the Corps, either.”

  “No. You’ll just sign me over, and the law will make me go.”

  “
From here?”

  She worked her arm free of his hand. It was hard, because she wanted to like him. He wasn’t a bad person at all. He was just…

  “Corps.” He was reading her. She’d been too badly thrown off to remember how to stop him.

  “He helped you with the test, didn’t he?” he said. He tilted his head toward Rama, who hadn’t moved at all. “Of course he would.”

  “He’ll never let you have me,” she said.

  “I didn’t come to take you to the Corps,” he said, “but to your mother and father.”

  Her body went rigid. It didn’t stop her brain from working. “You’re not getting your hands on me again. Ever. You understand?”

  “Even to take you back to Nevermore?”

  “I’ll go back when I’m ready to go back.” She stepped away from him. “You leave me alone.”

  He took a breath as if he might have said something else, but in the end decided not to. Not that she would have listened anyway.

  They were still in deep trouble. Rama was not responding, the ship was just barely under control, and Aisha had no idea what to do. There wasn’t anybody she could trust, to ask.

  Even Aunt.

  It hurt to realize that. Aunt was part of the reason why Araceli was such a nightmare. Aisha couldn’t be sure Aunt would hold together if anybody pushed, especially MI. Or the Corps.

  She’d belonged to them once. They’d messed her up and thrown her out. She was broken.

  There was one person Aisha might talk to. She was not on this ship, but her XO was.

  ~~~

  The Spaceforce shuttle sat at the end of the bay, with its whole crew still on board. Aunt, too.

  Aisha never got that far. People waited at the entrance to the bay. They were all crew, and they weren’t about to move.

  In a vid she’d whip out her swords and swashbuckle her way through. In real life she was half the size of half of them, and half the age of the rest, and her swords were plasteel.

  They didn’t necessarily know about the second two, but the first was obvious. Even standing up straight, she had to tip her head back to glare at the big one named Kirkov.

  He wasn’t the one who got in her face. MariAntonia was almost as small as Aisha, but she didn’t seem to care.