Forgotten Suns

by Judith Tarr

  The woman looked up from the water. Her eyes met Khalida’s: dark and bright at the same time, with a glint of humor and a flicker of curiosity. Khalida opened her mouth to speak, and willed her foot to step forward out of the door.

  Darkness fell. Khalida snapped awake, glowering at the bar and the screen and her half-empty glass of beer.

  The dream wanted to cling. She pushed it away. She was unreasonably and unexpectedly angry. Because it was a dream. Because she wanted it to be real.

  The pattern stayed in her head, saved to her personal cache. The most immediately useful datum was the provenance of the vid: a company owned by her hosts in Central.

  ~~~

  The villa was quiet when Khalida came back to it. House net marked everyone as asleep. She was still ferociously awake, as the buzz of the liquor wore off and the dull ache in her head set in.

  She found the kitchen and the supply of drinking water, and drank until she felt ready to serve as the habitat for another of Alexandra’s species.

  As if the thought had conjured her up, a screen woke in front of Khalida. Alexandra’s golden eyes stared blandly at her. They were on stalks, Khalida happened to notice, and capable of focusing wherever they pleased.

  The eyes shrank until the whole creature fit into the screen, frills undulating and spines rising and falling in an almost hypnotic rhythm. “Sera Nasir,” Alexandra said.

  Khalida saluted her with the empty water bottle. “Sera. You have interesting hobbies. Do you physically track down ancient ruins, or do you delegate?”

  “You might be surprised,” Alexandra said. Her tone was amiable, however unreadable her physical expression happened to be. “Fascinating, isn’t it, how many worlds show signs of habitation, but no indication of who or what, or how those worlds or those structures were destroyed.”

  “Fascinating,” Khalida agreed, “and puzzling. Because none of those worlds seems to have been generally inhabited. Outposts, the ruins seem to be. Way stations. Markers on the way to—who knows?”

  “Ah,” said Alexandra. “You do have your family’s tropism toward the archaeological.”

  “Bred in the bone,” Khalida said, without quite the edge of sarcasm that she was used to giving it. “You targeted that vid at me. Didn’t you?”

  “Not necessarily at you,” Alexandra said, “but it seemed that you should see it.”

  It was not really Khalida’s place to do this, but she had the data. Her gut might be well pickled with synth-Lagavulin but her mind was clear enough. She sent what she had in a dataspurt, all of it, patterns and speculations and extrapolations, though not either the dream in the bar or the truth about the being they all called Rama.

  There was enough there to make Alexandra’s frills flush bright gold. “Oh! Oh, my dear! This is astonishing.”

  “We were hoping,” Khalida said, “that you might help us decipher the patterns. They’re a map, we think, or an itinerary. But we don’t know where it leads.”

  “My dear,” said Alexandra, “this is the kind of thing we live for. For you, after what you’ve done, it’s the very least we can do.”

  Khalida had no expectations. When she left Araceli, she had gone outside of time and space.

  It was a kind of freedom. It made her smile at the alien in the screen, retrieve a new bottle of water, and reflect that now, maybe, she could sleep.

  47

  When everyone had had a chance to catch up on sleep, the house that had seemed so quiet started to fill with people.

  Some of them came for Meser Abaad or his lifemate, who lived in the web as well as in the lake. Some came for Marta, because everyone here seemed to know and love her.

  The rest were simply curious. It might seem odd that the largest outpost of explorers and free traders would even notice yet another handful of strangers, but strangers who came in a living ship were something different.

  Aisha had grown up never knowing who she might run into wandering down a passageway or waiting in a sitting room. It went with living in big houses in the middle of archaeological sites.

  Still, it was a little startling to go in search of breakfast and find her way blocked by an assortment of large and dangerous-looking persons. They looked like pirates from every vid she’d ever seen, dressed on the far end of last decade’s high fashion on Centrum and bristling with things that looked like weapons, but they were a delegation from the musicians’ union in Central, armed with their instruments. Looking for Marta, of course. Wanting her to sing.

  Marta took care of that, herding them all into the garden that filled the whole middle of the house. Aisha slipped on past.

  When she came back with her belly comfortably full and a cup of chai warming her hands, there were even more people in the garden with Marta. And Rama—Aisha could feel him.

  He wasn’t angry, but he wasn’t calm, either. Aisha slipped through the crowd of larger bodies, toward the middle where Marta sat under a trellis of blood-red roses. “I want you to sing with me,” she said.

  Rama leaned against one of the supports of the trellis, seeming lazy and casual. He smiled as he said, “I’m not what you’d call a master of your art.”

  “Oh, but you are,” she said. “I’d like to try a new piece, and it needs a particular range of voice. Please try, ser. I promise you won’t be pelted with rotten fruit if you’re not perfect.”

  “Oh, no,” one of the large persons said. “We lean toward throwing knives and the odd blowgun.”

  Rama’s grin had too many teeth in it. “Now that’s a game I’d play.”

  “Sers,” Marta said with quelling sternness. “Hiroshi, there will be no weapons in my concert hall. Meser Rama, will you look at my music? It needs your voice.”

  Rama might know exactly what she was doing, but he was not immune. He bowed. “If there are blades and darts, I’ll do my best to defend you.”

  Hiroshi laughed. So did most of the others.

  Aisha took note of the rest. They might not be worth noting, but she liked to be sure. There were undertones, and things that weren’t being said. Marta wasn’t just doing this on a whim. It meant something.

  Aisha would have dreaded singing in front of who knew how many total strangers. Maybe Rama didn’t care so much. It couldn’t have been any worse than leading armies into battle.

  He was making them pay attention to him now. Asking questions. Listening to the answers. Managing to make it seem as if he was interested in every person there.

  She didn’t listen to the words. She watched the expressions, and the feelings that ran beneath. The ones who’d been skeptical were starting to think he maybe was, at least, interesting. The ones who’d thought so to start with were moving from interest toward fascination.

  Marta was watching, too. Listening. Being amused. Turning what she saw and heard to music.

  Aisha caught a skein of it, a bit of melody floating through the worldweb. Words drifted underneath. “He sang a psi master into submission. What could he do here?”

  “What do you want him to do?” Aisha asked.

  She didn’t get an answer. Not then. She would eventually, she was sure.

  ~~~

  Rama escaped without making anyone think he was running away. He wheedled Marta into singing an aria from one of her most famous roles, and while she sang, he slipped out.

  The aria was the one she’d sung when they first saw her, back on Araceli. Aisha wanted to hang back and listen, but Rama was almost out of sight.

  He was headed for the street. She didn’t think he had any plan in mind, just to get out and see where they were. Aunt Khalida had done that when everyone else was asleep. Now Rama wanted a turn.

  He wasn’t headed for a bar, and he didn’t want to drink himself out of whatever funk he happened to be in. He had thinking to do.

  Aisha settled herself in his shadow. Rama didn’t object. Probably because he knew it wouldn’t do any good, but he seemed content with it.

  Aisha kept track of where they w
ere on the city’s grid. Parts of it weren’t so well monitored as others. Rama aimed for one of those, down toward the lake.

  It was midday, Central time, and the streets were not maybe as crowded as they would be after the virtual sun went down. People wandered in and around the shops and restaurants, though the bars were quiet at this hour.

  Rama didn’t stop anywhere. He was doing a walking meditation as Pater called it. Moving to keep his mind moving. Processing.

  Up one street, down another. Around a proscribed area: nonhuman habitat, atmosphere toxic to humans. Getting the shape of this place.

  “Madhusudana Rama?”

  He stopped. Nobody ever used the whole of his presumed name.

  Unless they were MI, and blocking the way. The one in charge was a sturdy, grizzled man with a look of perpetual tired. “We’d like to speak with you, Meser Rama, if you don’t mind.”

  The sergeant wasn’t any taller than he was, but Rama managed to look as if he sneered down his nose at the man. “I believe I do mind.”

  “It will only take a few minutes,” the sergeant said. “This way, ser.”

  “I think not.”

  The sergeant’s troops closed in. There were more than Aisha had thought at first. They weren’t taking any chances.

  “You have no authority here,” she said sharply.

  “Actually, we do,” the sergeant said. “We’ll be wanting to speak to you, too, Sera Nasir. If you’ll come with us.”

  “By treaty with Kom Ombo,” Rama said, sounding just as casual as he’d been in the garden with Marta, “kidnapping, if proved, and if the victim is of appropriate age and family, is a crime without borders. That’s his authority.”

  “Nobody kidnapped me,” Aisha snapped. “I stowed away. Stowing away isn’t a crime without borders, is it, Sergeant? You can’t touch either of us.”

  “That remains to be proved,” the sergeant said.

  “Exactly,” said Rama. “When you have proof, lodge a complaint with Central. In the meantime, if you don’t mind…”

  Obviously the sergeant did. Unlike Rama, he cared if he lived or died. And he had rules to live by.

  He snapped a nod. His soldiers stepped back.

  Rama saluted them. Aisha thought about it, but that might be too much. She settled for making sure they could see that she was armed, and staring down the sergeant on the way by.

  ~~~

  “That was a pretext,” Aisha said when they were out of sight and into a market square. All the booths had free trader marks on them, family crests and company logos and the black slash of the ancient syndicate called Anonymous. U.P. wouldn’t dare make a move here.

  “Of course it was a pretext,” Rama said, pausing to inspect a table full of sharp and deadly things. “Your father wants you home. The Corps wants me stripped down to the last molecule, in as much pain as mortally possible.”

  He wasn’t any more afraid of that than he was of anything else in this universe he hadn’t asked to wake into. “I want to go home,” Aisha said, “but not now. Not till I’m done. I’ll send Pater a message. I’ve been ducking it. I should stop.”

  “That would be a good thing,” he said.

  Of course they’d keep coming after him anyway, because of what he’d done to the Corps. But Aisha would feel better.

  He wandered down through the market. He was making sure to be seen, Aisha realized: the same as he’d been in the garden. Buying a trinket here and a cup of exotic liquor there. Feeding pastries to his shadow, who had to eat under her veil.

  It was all theater. She didn’t know why, unless for its own sake. He had as much crew as he needed. More, in her opinion. Wherever he went next, it wouldn’t have anything to do with this nest of free traders.

  “A commander never wastes resources,” his voice said in her head. “These might be useful someday.”

  Aisha couldn’t very well argue with that. It was more entertaining than sitting in the principal’s house, and she got to see actual aliens—walking right out in the street, sometimes in atmo-suits and sometimes with breathing mechanisms and sometimes simply walking or crawling or slithering or fluttering like any other oxygen-breather.

  Like Rama. Which made her wonder how many other apparent humans in this place were not actually from Earth stock.

  Her head had started to hurt again. The sun’s image that Rama had taught her helped a little, but it was getting harder to keep her thoughts in and everybody else’s out.

  She was tired, and she wanted to go home. That was all it was. This adventure went on and on, but they were closer to an end, and an answer, than they’d been before.

  She tripped and almost fell, but caught herself before anybody noticed. The map on the web had them nearly back to the principal’s house.

  MI was waiting outside. Besides the sergeant and his unit who had tried to stop them before, there was a lieutenant and a major and two more units. They blocked the streets on all sides and spilled over into doorways and down alleys.

  They didn’t try to stop Rama from going in. The way to the door was clear. Equally clearly, once he went in, he wouldn’t get out again.

  He laughed. It was the purest mirth Aisha had ever heard, and it was perfectly terrifying. He sauntered down the narrow path, mocking them with every line of him.

  They weren’t used to being laughed at. Some looked ready to leap when he went by. They closed in behind him, rank by rank, until the door was in front of him and opening to admit him.

  He turned in it. A shiver ran across Aisha’s skin, but she felt as if she’d been brushed with fire. “Go home,” he said. “All of you, go.”

  Their faces went perfectly blank. They turned in formation and marched. Away. Every one of them. Not one even hesitated.

  ~~~

  Once he was inside, Rama staggered. Fire brushed over Aisha again, but different this time: stronger. It felt like Ship, and like the sun on which Ship was feeding.

  Rama steadied. It was beginning to sink in on Aisha what he’d done to the MI units, and what kinds of trouble they could all be in because of it.

  She tried to say something, but he was already most of the way to his room, and there were people coming and going, looking for the principal. The moment slipped away.

  She waited another moment. Then she went down the hall and through the door before he could shut it.

  “That was stupid,” she said. So was saying it, knowing what he’d just done, but she didn’t let that stop her.

  “I used to have patience for idiots,” he said. “I slept too long. Time is short. I won’t stay here any longer than my promise keeps me.”

  “That won’t stop U.P. from going after you,” she said. “The Corps wants your blood. You’ve made sure they want your brain, too. In a vat. Slaved to them forever.”

  He dropped onto the bed that must be meant for honored guests: it was huge, and the wood it was carved from must have cost a fortune to bring all the way out here. “They think I’m better than a living ship now?”

  “After what you just did? If they can control that, they’ve got more power than they dared to dream of. When they find out what else you can do—”

  “What else can I do?”

  “That’s what they’ll want to know.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I know you don’t.” Aisha pulled off her veils and dropped them on the floor. “I hope you learn to care about something again. Someday. In the meantime, could you at least try not to get anyone else killed or mind-slaved? Not that you care, but we do.”

  He lifted himself on his elbow. “So now you’re done with me.”

  “Don’t you wish.” She dropped her swords on top of the veils. She’d have dropped her robe, too, but all she had on under it was a shift. “If time is really that short, you don’t need to waste any more of it fighting the Corps.”

  “What should I do, then? Apologize?”

  He really seemed to want to know the answer. “It’s awfully late fo
r that,” she said. Then paused. “Did you send them all the way home?”

  His eyelids lowered: a yes.

  “Can you make sure they don’t let the Corps know what happened until they get there? If they haven’t already?”

  “It was stupid of me to do what I did, and now you want me to do more of it?”

  “That was stupid,” she said. “This is damage control. I can hack their system, I think. Or Aunt can. If you’ll do the rest of what’s needed.”

  “That would make you a criminal,” he said.

  “Not if we do it right.” She wasn’t as sure as she tried to sound. But she had a very bad feeling about what would happen if she didn’t do it.

  He dropped back flat. At first she thought he was asleep. Then she felt the shiver under her skin again.

  Making magic. Or using psi. There wasn’t any difference.

  48

  “What does he mean, time is short?”

  Khalida had heard Aisha out with a certain sense of inevitability. From the moment she realized what the being called Rama was, she had expected something like this. Destroying the Corps to end a war—that was justice. Mind-bending an entire MI garrison was no more or less than royal whim.

  MI’s access codes were not especially hard to find, if one still had one’s own codes that with the slowness of subspace communications had not yet been voided. She simply wanted to prevent the troops here from notifying Centrum that they were abandoning Kom Ombo. Centrum would get that news when the ships emerged from jump.

  Fifteen Earthdays. Then another fifteen at least before Kom Ombo could expect a reprisal. Longer, probably, with the amount of chaos Rama had already caused.

  That was a given. What caught her attention now was that he was feeling the pressure of time. After six millennia and a handful of tendays, suddenly he was in a hurry to find whatever he had set out to find.

  “Why?” she asked Aisha; not expecting the child to know.

  But Aisha surprised her. “When he woke up, it was like tripping a trigger. Something started. He has to get to the end before—whatever else does.”