Galactic Empires

by Neil Clarke

  “He was probably lying about a lot of things.”

  “Like giving me a fifty percent share in the prize, uh?”

  “Like giving you any share at all.”

  “You might well be right,” Rider Jackson said, and looked for the first time at Useless Beauty’s tank. “Care to explain why you came along for the ride?”

  “I have nothing to give you,” it said.

  “I bet you don’t. But that wasn’t what I asked,” Rider Jackson said, and that was when Mr. Kanza arrived.

  Grim and angry and out of breath, he bulled straight across the roofless cube and stuck his shock stick in Carver’s face. Carver couldn’t help flinching and Mr. Kanza smiled and said, “Tell me what the !Cha found and where it is, and maybe I won’t have to use this.”

  Rider Jackson said, “There’s no point threatening him. You want to know the truth, figure out how to get the !Cha to talk straight.”

  Mr. Kanza stepped back from Carver and aimed the shock stick at Rider Jackson. “You were indentured once, just like him. Is that why you’re taking his side? I knew it was a mistake to let you go chase him down.”

  “You could have come with me,” Rider Jackson said, “but you were happy to let me take the risk.”

  “He told you. He told you what that thing found and you made a deal with him.”

  “You’re making a bad mistake.”

  The two men were staring at each other, Rider Jackson impassive, Mr. Kanza angry and sweating. Saying, “I bet you tasted the stick in your time. You’ll taste it again if you don’t drop that pistol.”

  Rider Jackson said, “I guess we aren’t partners anymore.”

  “You’re right,” Mr. Kanza said, and zapped him.

  Carver was caught by the edge of the stick’s field. His Judas bridge kicked in, his muscles went into spasm, hot spikes hammered through his skull, and he fell straight down.

  Rider Jackson didn’t so much as twitch. He put his pistol on Mr. Kanza and said, “The Navy took out my bridge when I signed up. Set down that stick and your pistol, and I’ll let you walk away.”

  “We’re partners.”

  “You said it yourself: not anymore. If you start walking now, maybe you can find somewhere to hide before the cutter turns up.”

  Mr. Kanza screamed and threw the shock stick at Rider Jackson and made a grab for the pistol stuck in his utility belt. Rider Jackson shot him. He shot Mr. Kanza twice in the chest and the man sat down, winded and dazed but still alive: his pressure suit had stopped the flechettes. He groped for his pistol and Rider Jackson said, “Don’t do it.”

  “Fuck you,” Mr. Kanza said and jerked up his pistol and fired it wildly. Rider Jackson didn’t flinch. He took careful aim and shot Mr. Kanza in the head, and the man fell sideways and lay still.

  Rider Jackson turned and put his pistol on Useless Beauty’s black cylinder and said calmly, “I don’t suppose this can punch through your casing, but I could shoot off your limbs one by one and set you on a fire.”

  There was a brief silence. Then the !Cha said, “You will need a very hot fire, and much more time than you have.”

  “I have more time than you think,” Rider Jackson said. “I know Dana Sabah, the woman flying that cutter. She’s a good pilot, but she’s inexperienced and too cautious. Right now, she’ll be watching us from orbit, waiting to see how it plays out before she makes her move.”

  “If she does not come, then the settlers will rescue me.”

  “Uh-uh. Even if the settlers know about us, which I doubt, Dana will have told them to back off. I reckon I have more than enough time to boil the truth out of you.”

  Useless Beauty said, “I have already told the truth.”

  Carver got to his feet and told Rider Jackson, “It doesn’t matter if it’s telling the truth or not. All that matters is that we can escape in the scow. But first, I want you to drop your pistol.”

  Rider Jackson looked at the pistol Carver was holding—Mr. Kanza’s pistol—and said, “I wondered if you’d have the guts to pick it up. The question now is, do you have the guts to use it?”

  “If I have to.”

  “Look at us,” Rider Jackson said. “I’m an officer in the Collective Navy; you’re a prisoner of war sold into slavery, trying to get home . . . We could fight a duel to see who gets the scow. It would make a good ending to the story, wouldn’t it?”

  Carver smiled and said, “It would, but this isn’t a story.”

  “Of course it’s a story. Do you know why !Cha risk their lives chasing after Elder Culture artifacts?”

  “It’s something to do with sex.”

  “That’s it. Back in the oceans of their homeworld, male !Cha constructed elaborate nests to attract a mate. The strongest, those most likely to produce the fittest offspring, made the biggest and most elaborate nests. Simple, straight-ahead Darwinism. The !Cha left their homeworld a long time ago, but the males still have to prove their worth by finding something novel, something no other male has. They have a bad jones for Elder Culture junk, but these days they get a lot of useful stuff from us too.”

  “It’s lying about what it found,” Carver said. “It told me it lost it, but I know it has it hidden away inside that tank.”

  Rider Jackson shook his head. “If it still had it, it would have killed you and paid off Mr. Kanza. And it wouldn’t have called up the garrison back at Ganesh Five.”

  “It did? Is that why the cutter came after us?”

  “Why do you think traffic control spotted you so quickly? It told them what you were up to, and it told them all about my deal with Mr. Kanza too. Dana Sabah told me all about it when she tried to get me to surrender,” Rider Jackson said. “I guess our friend thought that involving the Navy would make the story more exciting.”

  “Son of a bitch. And I thought it was on my side because it owes me its life.”

  “As far as it’s concerned, it doesn’t owe you anything. The only reason it stuck with you is because you have something it needs. Something as unique as any ancient artifact, something it believes will win it a mate: the story of how you tried to escape.”

  “Your own story is just as good, Lieutenant Jackson,” Useless Beauty said. “The two of you are enemies, as you said. Fight your duel. The winner will take me with him—I will pay well for it.”

  Rider Jackson looked at Carver and smiled. “What do you think?”

  “I think the war is over.” Carver was smiling too, remembering something Jarred had said. That peace was harder work than war, but more worthwhile.

  Useless Beauty said, “I do not understand. You are enemies.”

  Rider Jackson stuck his pistol in his belt. “Like he said, the war is over. Besides, we both want the same thing.”

  Carver lowered the pistol he’d taken off Mr. Kanza’s body and told the !Cha, “You’re like Mr. Kanza. You think you own us, but you don’t understand us.”

  “You must take me with you,” Useless Beauty said.

  “It wants to find out how the story ends,” Rider Jackson told Carver.

  “I will pay you well,” Useless Beauty said.

  Carver shook his head. “We don’t need your money. We have the scow, and I have about thirty meters of a weird thread I took off Dr. Smith’s body. It’s superconducting and very strong, and I can’t help wondering if it’s something you and her pulled out of Ganesh Five B.”

  “I told you the truth about what we found,” Useless Beauty said. “It escaped us and destroyed our ship, but it did not survive. However, I admit this thread may be of interest. I must examine it, of course, but if it is material transformed during the destruction of the ship, I may be willing to purchase it.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Carver said. “It may not be an Elder Culture artifact, but it could be worth something. And maybe the data from the probes I dropped into Ganesh Five B might be worth something too.”

  “I may be willing to purchase that too,” Useless Beauty said. “As a souvenir.”
>
  “What do you think?” Carver said to Rider Jackson. “Think we’ll get a better price on the open market.”

  “I can force you to take me,” Useless Beauty said.

  “No you can’t,” Carver said.

  “And even if you could, it would ruin the ending of your story,” Rider Jackson said. “I’m sure the settlers or the Navy will rescue you, for a price.”

  There was a long moment of silence. Then Useless Beauty said, “I would like to know what happens after you escape. I will pay well.”

  “If we escape,” Carver said. “We have to get past the cutter.”

  “Dana Sabah’s a good pilot, but I’m better,” Rider Jackson said. “I reckon you are too.”

  “Before we do this, we need to work out where we’re going.”

  “That’s pretty easy, given that you’re an indentured worker and the Navy wants my ass. Think that Kanza’s old boat will get us to the Alliance?”

  “It just might.”

  The two men grinned at each other. Then they ran for the scow.

  Ann Leckie is the author of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Award winning novel Ancillary Justice. She has also published short stories in Subterranean Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Realms of Fantasy. Her story “Hesperia and Glory” was reprinted in Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition edited by Rich Horton.

  Ann has worked as a waitress, a receptionist, a rodman on a land-surveying crew, and a recording engineer. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

  NIGHT’S SLOW POISON

  Ann Leckie

  The Jewel of Athat was mainly a cargo ship, and most spaces were narrow and cramped. Like the Outer Station, where it was docked, it was austere, its decks and bulkheads scuffed and dingy with age. Inarakhat Kels, armed, and properly masked, had already turned away one passenger, and now he stood in the passageway that led from the station to the ship, awaiting the next.

  The man approached, striding as though the confined space did not constrain him. He wore a kilt and embroidered blouse. His skin was light brown, his hair dark and straight, cut short. And his eyes . . . Inarakhat Kels felt abashed. He had thought that in his years of dealing with outsiders he had lost his squeamishness at looking strangers in the face.

  The man glanced over his shoulder, and cocked an eyebrow. “She was angry.” The corners of his mouth twitched in a suppressed grin.

  “One regrets.” Inarakhat Kels frowned behind his mask. “Who?”

  “The woman in line before me. I take it you refused to let her board?”

  “She carried undeclared communication implants.” Privately, Kels suspected her of being a spy for the Radchaai, but he did not say this. “One is, of course, most sorry for her inconvenience, but . . . ”

  “I’m not,” the man interrupted. “She nearly ruined my supper last night insisting that I give up my seat, since she was certain she was of a higher caste than I.”

  “Did you?”

  “I did not,” said the man. “I am not from Xum, nor are we anywhere near it, so why should I bow to their customs? And then this morning she shoved herself in front of me as we waited outside.” He grinned fully. “I confess myself relieved at not having to spend six months with her as a fellow passenger.”

  “Ah,” Kels said, his voice noncommittal. The grin, the angle of the man’s jaw—now he understood why the eyes had affected him. But he had no time for old memories. He consulted his list. “You are Awt Emnys, from the Gerentate.” The man acknowledged this. “Your reason for visiting Ghaon?”

  “My grandmother was Ghaonish,” Awt Emnys said, eyes sober that had previously been amused. “I never knew her, and no one can tell me much about her. I hope to learn more in Athat.”

  Whoever she was, she had been from the Ghem agnate, Kels was certain. His eyes, his mouth, the line of his chin . . . With just a little more information, Kels could tell Awt which house his grandmother had been born in. “One wishes you good fortune in your search, Honored Awt,” he said, with a small bow he could not suppress.

  Awt Emnys smiled in return, and bowed respectfully. “I thank you, Honored,” he said. “I understand I must disable any communications implants.”

  “If they are re-activated during the voyage, we will take any steps necessary to preserve the safety of the ship.”

  Awt glanced at the gun at Kels’ waist. “Of course. But is it really so dangerous?”

  “About three months in,” said Kels, in his blandest voice, “we will pass the last ship that attempted to traverse the Crawl with live communications. It will be visible from the passengers’ lounge.”

  Awt grinned. “I have an abiding wish to die old, in my bed. Preferably after a long and boring life tracking warehouse inventories.”

  Kels allowed himself a small smile. “One wishes you success,” he said, and stepped aside, pressing against the wall so that Awt could pass him. “Your belongings will be delivered to your cabin.”

  “I thank you, Honored.” Awt brushed Kels as he passed, awakening some unfamiliar emotion in him.

  “Good voyage,” Kels murmured to the other man’s back, but there was no sign Awt had heard.

  Ghaon is a moonless blue and white jewel orbiting a yellow sun. Its three continents provide every sort of terrain, from the great deserts of southern Lysire, and the rivers and gentle farmlands of the north and west of that same continent, to the mountains of Aneng, still fitfully smoking. Arim, the third continent, is arctic and uninhabited. Aside from the sorts of industry and agriculture that support the population of any world, Ghaon produces pearls and ingeniously carved corals, which, when they find their way outside the Crawl, are highly valued. Flutes carved from the wood of Aneng’s western forests are prized by Gerentate musicians.

  According to legend, the first inhabitants of Ghaon came from a world called Walkaway, the location of which is unknown. There were thirteen original settlers, three agnates of four people each plus one eunuch priest of Iraon. The three agnates parceled out the world among themselves: Lysire, Aneng, and the surface of the sea. The priest blessed the division, and each agnate prospered and filled the world.

  The legend is only that, of course. It is impossible that thirteen people would possess the genetic diversity required to populate a planet, and in any case studies show that the first human inhabitants of Ghaon, whose descendants now populate Lysire and Aneng, derived largely from the same populations that eventually made up much of the Gerentate. The ancestors of the sea-going agnates arrived several thousand years later, and their origins are obscure.

  In any case, the first colonists must have either known about the Crawl before they arrived, or constructed it themselves. The latter seems staggeringly unlikely.

  Gerentate explorers found Ghaon some years after that entity’s expansionist phase had run itself out, and so the only threat they presented was a trickle of ill-bred, bare-faced tourists.

  But the Radch was another matter. Every soul on Ghaon, from the smallest infant at the breast to the most ancient Lysire matriarch in her tent on the edge of the drylands, believed that the nefarious Anaander Mianaai, overlord of the Radch, had cast a covetous eye on Ghaon and contemplated how he might make it his own.

  Fortunately enough, the ships and seemingly endless armies of the Radch, which had been the downfall of a thousand worlds and stations, could not traverse the Crawl. Only it stood between Ghaon and the Rad-chaai. Spies regularly probed this defense, the Ghaonish were certain, and the acquisitive minds of the Radchaai continually planned and plotted how best to breach it.

  In vain did more sober minds point out that the worlds of the Ger-entate were a larger and in some ways easier target, that the reward for defeating the Crawl was far outweighed by the difficulty of the task, that the sweeping ambition of the Radchaai could hardly notice this one, small, somewhat obscure world. The people of Ghaon knew these arguments were specious. The overlord of the Radch had set his mind on acquiring Ghaon—so its inhabitants believed.
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br />   Third watch was on duty, guarding the pilot’s station and pacing the corridors of the Jewel of Athat. First watch was asleep. Second watch had finished their supper, and the small table held cups of tea and the remains of the bread. Inarakhat Kels leaned forward, elbows on the table. Ninan and Tris, his fellows on second watch, leaned against the bulkhead.

  “A spy!” said Ninan, trying not to sound jealous. “Well, we were about due for another one.” He leaned an elbow companionably on the table beside Kels’.

  “How is it,” asked Tris, “that their attempts are so obvious, and yet the Radchaai are so rich and powerful?”

  “They are naturally perverse.” Ninan picked up a teacup and peered at its contents.

  “So one imagines,” said Kels. “In any case, Anaander Mianaai must find some other way to pass the Crawl.”

  Tris grinned, teeth showing beneath the mask that covered his upper face. “And the others? What do we have to look forward to this time?”

  “Chis Sulca,” said Kels. He leaned back, feeling crowded by Ninan. They knew the Ghaonish merchant from previous trips. “A few others.” He thought of Awt Emnys. “The usual sort. A tourist from Semblance.” Ninan and Tris each made derisive noises. “A Faunt clanswoman on her wander. A young man from the Gerentate.”

  “Another tourist,” groaned Ninan.

  “No!” said Tris, half-laughing. “I spoke to that one. He’s searching for his Ghaonish grandmother!”

  Ninan laughed. “He’ll find some runaway or some whore was his ancestress, and to what end?”

  “Whoever she was, her grandson has money and time to indulge his curiosity,” said Kels, stung.

  Ninan shook his head in disapproval. “He expects to find some ancient, noble agnate, whose matriarch will acknowledge him as her cousin.”

  Tris nodded. “He’ll hang an overpriced, tasteless mask on his wall and brag to his neighbors about his exotic and aristocratic blood.”

  “What if his blood truly is aristocratic?” asked Kels, knowing what the other two did not know. The Ghem agnate was among the most ancient, most prestigious of families. He reached forward, poured himself more tea.