The Vanished Birds

by Simon Jimenez

  They ordered a quintet of pipes. The first hit was a sour mix of berries and nose-numbing granite spice that hit Nia in the face. After they took their first, second, fifth drag, she relaxed into the cushion of the seat, feeling at once weightless and gravity-bound, her muscles taffy and her smile loose as Durat described with his hands the shape of a perfect ass that belonged to a man he’d met the prior night in the Grand Hall. They played two games of Tropic Shuffle with the pack Nia had brought from the ship, until their minds were too floaty to remember who had just gone, and who had rights to the flamboyance. When the pipes were emptied they climbed the twirling steps to the club above, into the pulse of light and gyrations, a roaring beat that shredded the last of her hang-ups. Nia swallowed a fist of spirits at the bar before she stepped into the crowd and synched her neural to the pub’s Movement, her eyes shut while her body obeyed the Movement’s command, the modulated electrical pulses carrying her into the mosh of bodies as they writhed together as one synchronized, beating mass.

  There was a time when she could lose herself in the Movement; find that neurotoxic nirvana among the swimming limbs and strobe lights. But that night, after the best of the smoke fluttered out of her head and the dizzying heights of her sensations turned grossly nauseous, she experienced no holy revelation like she was accustomed to in her reckless youth—just a cold finger down her spine as she looked around at the travelers who tore up the floor, their red joy, and knew these nights were no longer hers. With a wink she left the Movement. Stumbled to the counter, muscles numb as they remembered control, her finger held up, signaling the bartender, who then fixed her something small and sharp.

  The pipe smoke fleeting, the dancing ineffective, she looked around the room for someone to sleep with. Saw a man, alone at the fringe of the club, nursing a beer. He was postured like someone had jammed a stick up his ass. Toral, she thought hazily. He didn’t look half bad. Full head of fiery hair. Strong jaw. She could do without the perpetual scowl on his face, but still, he was handsome enough to satisfy. She grabbed her drink and wandered over to him, half a mind to chew him out for being such a bastard during the captains’ brunch, but when she arrived at his table—a journey that, in her mind, took hours—he had the nerve to look bashful, lowering his eyes when she took a seat without asking for permission. He muttered something, but it was drowned out by the pounding drums of the Movement. She shouted for a repeat. “I said I want to apologize for how I behaved earlier today!” he shouted back. “I know you weren’t trying to…flaunt your success. I forget myself sometimes. Something I’m working on.”

  “Accepted,” she told him, and when she saw that he seemed genuinely relieved, she thought, He’ll do. Her eyes wandered along his biceps, the contour of muscle described beneath the snug shirt he wore. It occurred to her that the last person she slept with was Kaeda, and she wondered if maybe that was part of the problem—that she needed to sleep with someone who wouldn’t die of old age the next time she saw him. After some aimless conversation with Toral about the finished delivery of seeds, and listening to the many gripes he had with his crew, all of whom he believed were too lax with inventory protocol, she silenced him with an invitation to her bed. He asked her if she was serious. And he smiled when she said yes. They left the bar together, back to his room in the Travillion. She shoved him onto the bed, grabbed his hands and slapped them to her waist. He was proficient, she would give him that. Adventurous in a way that many men were not. But no matter the joy she felt in the moment above him, and underneath, the act of it was much like the pipe smoke—fleeting, over before it really began. Two hours later, she was left in the same state she had been in before, only this time with Toral drifting off beside her, murmuring about abstract pleasures while she sat against the headboard, watching her minutes clip into hours. The fringe of day as the wings of Pelican Station unfurled, and sunlight broke through the glass ceiling of the Avenue Strip, the window blinds scoring her tired face.

  She was not in that room. She was not on that station. She was in the Debby, walking down the causeway. She was listening to the sandaled footsteps that followed her. The leather snapping between sole and metal.

  The snap of it like an awakening.

  In that Pelican morning, as her fellow captain slept beside her, she believed she would do anything to hear that sound again.

  * * *

  —

  Two hundred twenty-six attendees were invited to the Canopy Dance. Those planning the event were surprised by the last-minute addition of Captain Nia Imani to the guest list, but the order had come from up the chain, so they did not question it, and placed another chair at a banquet table. The kitchen was alive leading up to the party, a crash of preparation as off-station chefs shouted at their charges for more salt and finer slices, each dish made by hand and not, as was usually the case on Pelican, by automation. As they mashed and baked the sweet-smelling seeds into delicate art, and the members of the orchestra tuned their instruments and went many times through the night’s set list, the invitees prepared for the event. In her hatch in the Debby, Nia fitted herself into her dress. The red silk draped down her body in rivers. Nurse looped the back straps together, telling Nia to please be still for one goddamn second. Despite the rocky state of their relationship, she was glad that Nurse came by to help, even though she was obviously exhausted from her night shift, her gray hair undone in long, frayed curls, and her eyes sagged. Nurse tightened the final knot and stepped back, appraising her work with a frown. “What’s wrong?” Nia asked.

  “The dress looks good,” she assured Nia. “I’m just worried we’ve prettied you up for the firing squad.”

  Nia chuckled but let the comment lie. She smoothed some lint off the hem and grabbed her bag.

  “I think this is a mistake,” Nurse said.

  “I know.”

  Nurse didn’t sigh, though it was clear she wanted to—she held it in, along with the many other things Nia imagined she wished to say.

  No public communication devices were allowed on Canopy Deck. Handhelds and other neural extensions were handed off to the Yellowjackets guarding the doors to the tower elevators. As Nia stepped in line for the elevator, she glanced warily at the crowd gathered behind the cordon applauding the ones chosen for the dance. Her crew was there, everyone but Nurse—Durat and Baylin leaning far enough over the cordon a Yellowjacket shoved them back, the two of them shouting incomprehensible words while Sonja, who stood between them, gave Nia a subtle salute from the hip, a salute that Nia returned before she gave her Handheld to the Yellowjacket and entered the pod.

  Four others shared her pod ride up the tower’s neck—nobles, if their impossible dresses were any clue. For the duration of the ten-minute climb, she stood apart from them, their clothing of liquid crystal and spectral shapes and patterned ideograms. She was unsure if she should try to make conversation with these people, until one of the women eyed Nia’s outfit and asked what company she represented; when Nia told her she represented no company but was the captain of a commercial transport ship, the woman’s smile wavered and she offered vague compliments in regards to her service of Umbai, then returned to her companions. When the pod hushed to a stop and the doors spiraled open, Nia let the others step out before her, waiting until they were a good distance ahead before she followed suit, her step staggering slightly at the awesome sight of the Canopy Deck.

  The scale of the deck was overwhelming. Large enough to house a guest list of thousands, let alone the curated gathering of hundreds that now occupied the space, the dance hall of the Allied elite made Nia feel claustrophobically small, as if the vast and empty space above and around her had omnidirectional weight, slowly crushing her into a diamond as she made her way to the cloth-draped tables in the center of this social arena. Beyond the glass dome, engine trails of distant ships scored the black of space with chemical streams of color, painting intricate patterns that she soon realized were va
rious company logos. Within the dome, clusters of nobles and company officials chatted under a riot of automaton birds—a peacock strutted past Nia, its brass-and-diamond plumage arrayed as its talons clicked between the tables. A child dressed in a suit of thousands of tiny black crystals giggled as he fed a thrasher the crumbled appetizers in his hand, the bird twittering at him before taking flight, back to the mechanic to have the food it had no way of digesting extracted. But beyond the automaton birds and the people dressed like abstractions of thought, Nia noticed something else—a difference in the gravity, lighter than in the rest of the station, subtly so, promoting a kind of glide when she moved. The furls of her dress swayed, suspended in the air just long enough to be noticed, and like everything in the canopy, moved as if underwater. Overwhelmed, she sat down at one of the empty tables and gathered her bearings. It was impossible to suss the difference between Umbai personnel and average royalty, for there was no conformity of dress, each outfit as spectacular and diverse as the last. There would be no way to know who was relevant to her goal until she got up and started talking to someone. As she decided on a target, a man asked her if the seat beside her was taken. She tossed her hand at it.

  “How is the gravity treating you, Captain Imani?” he asked.

  The man was smiling. He was shorter than most in the room, his face pleasantly round, and smooth of any facial hair, his brow shaped by a prominent widow’s peak. He wore a conservative black suit, a small winged brooch pinned to his heart, and in his hand was a napkin with a small purple pastry inside, the smell of which was more than familiar to Nia, considering she’d carted the ingredients to and from the station for the past four years. Her thoughts were knocked askew by the aroma and the memory it carried—the night she inhaled Kaeda’s scent, behind that rock, on that hill. The man beside her regarded her with a light in his eyes, something close to amusement, as if he had some sense of the warm place where her mind had gone, but not its exact coordinates.

  “Have we met?” she asked.

  “Not yet.” He put down his napkin and brushed the crumbs of dhuba off his palm, the work of decades discarded in a thoughtless instant as he extended his hand in introduction. She shook it a bit too firmly. “I’m Sartoris Moth, the architect of this soiree.” He beamed with pride at their surroundings while under the table he massaged the hand she had crushed. “What do you think? The birds were my idea. They felt appropriate, considering M. Nakajima’s preoccupation with the creatures.” He gazed at the mechanical thrush that had landed on the floor by their feet, pecking at the purple crumbs he had let fall. The bird chirped, electric, once it finished cleaning the mess, its jade eye glancing at Nia before its wings erupted in flight. “You were a last-minute addition to the guest list. When I found out you weren’t connected to any company or noble family, my curiosity was piqued, and I thought, I must know everything about her!”

  “Do you know who added me?” she asked.

  “You don’t know?” His eyes twinkled. “Now, that’s interesting. Unfortunately I cannot say. It was all a rather sudden, but welcome, interjection.”

  She clenched the cloth on the table between her thumb and finger and rubbed out her anxiety. Someone in this room had brought her here. “Can you tell me what I should expect tonight, M. Moth?”

  “Sartoris, please.” He had resumed eating his snack. She noticed he ate with one hand, while the other remained in his left pocket. “After the opening course and drinks, there will be a speech from the head consul of the station, followed by the seven-course entrée, after which Fumiko Nakajima will initiate the Canopy Dance. From there, a series of smaller events will open up, all of them optional, but available, should you be in the mood to partake—interactive presentations of life on various Resource Worlds. The people’s way of life, what they wear, the produce they cultivate on these unique habitats. Give the people a thrill, as it were.” He gestured to the dhuba pastry on his napkin as an example. “If I were given to gambling, I’d bet on your seeds winning the night. They have a sweetness like none other.”

  Nia wondered how strange it was going to be to see actors play out the harvesting of dhuba stalks, and hoped she wouldn’t have to stay long enough to see it. She leaned closer to the party architect. “Can you tell me something else?”

  He mirrored her lean forward, enjoying the conspiratorial shift in conversation. “If I am able.”

  “Are there any representatives from Nest Security here?” she asked.

  “Now, that is a question.” He gestured to a cluster of guests on the other side of the dome, at an older man with a thick gray beard and a posture that not only suggested he had served time in a private military company but that this was the last place in Allied Space he wanted to be. “Guard commander of the station—a chore and a half, convincing him to attend.” Sartoris let out a put-upon sigh. “He’s not one for socializing, which I find amazing, considering his social standing. His presence here is my second greatest accomplishment of the night.”

  “He’s very striking,” Nia said, hoping he would get the hint.

  “Do you think so?” Sartoris grinned at her. “Well. Would you like me to introduce the two of you?”

  Nia pretended bashfulness, made a show of fighting back a smile. “I’m just a transporter. I doubt he’d be very interested in me.”

  “My dear captain,” he said, “we live this life only once. We must live it bravely.” She noticed in the man’s pearly eyes a hard-cut gleam, a boldness behind the pomp—an earned boldness, from someone who fought for his seat at the table. She liked him for that.

  “You’re right,” she said, standing up. “Let’s be brave.”

  He clapped his hands like a child.

  But once they had weaved through the crowds and Sartoris had introduced her to the guard commander, it was clear from the way the man’s once-unfocused gaze sharpened on her name that he was already well aware of her. “Congratulations on completing your shipment cycle with Umbai, Captain Imani,” the tall man growled. “You served this company well.”

  “Thank you,” Nia said. “It was a long few years. It’ll be nice to be stationary for a while.”

  “If the two of you will excuse me”—Sartoris backed away—“I believe I am being called. I’ll have more drink sent over. Please, enjoy, you two.” With a wink, he was gone, and Nia was alone with the guard commander. He gave her a thin smile before he moved his gaze toward the transparent wall of the dome. She followed. A ship cut across the horizon like a diamond on black glass, underlining the winged insignia of the Umbai Company. “I’m aware that you’ve been asking about the child you’ve brought to us,” he said. “I admire your persistence. But whatever you think is going on, it’s not. The boy is fine.”

  “I just want to see him,” she said.

  “And you’ve been told you cannot.” He gazed down at her. “How many more times must you be denied before you stop?”

  “I’ve yet to find out.”

  She grimaced at her silly choice of words, but the guard commander smiled. It was a tectonic shift of a smile, as if his face were unused to such an expression. “I am impressed you somehow got your way into this party to talk to me,” he said. “That’s an achievement in and of itself. Be proud of that. But as I said before, you are wasting your time. I suggest you take Sartoris’s advice and enjoy what is around you.” He placed his empty glass on the table. “Bother me again and I’ll have you thrown out.”

  With that, he turned heel and joined another group. The group accommodated him swiftly, swallowing him into their conversation, their backs turned to Nia, the borders made clear. It was a disheartening moment, but she took solace in the intel she’d gathered from the guard commander’s words—that Umbai had not invited her, but rather a third, yet unknown, party.

  The evening wore on. She spoke with the other guests, which proved a futile endeavor. Always they would be sweet at
first, interested, until she introduced herself as the relative no one that she was, and they, seeing that there was no advantage to be gained in conversation or disadvantage to be had in snubbing her, would almost invariably shut her down with a pitying smile before moving on to more fruitful quarry. After the fourth snub, she retreated to one of the buffet lines, snacking on the kebab of a pillaged Resource World, feeling more depleted than before. The most information she could gather was that people were irritated that Fumiko Nakajima had yet to arrive to her own party. She wondered if she was wasting her time.

  A glass was clinked and the people gathered in the center of the room for the head consul’s speech. The consul moved through the crowd in her dress of many geometries, up the steps of a raised dais, where she began her speech about the continued expansion of Umbai. The words were inert and uninspiring to Nia, and yet the nobles clapped at the end of every sentence as if it were the new gospel. She remained at the fringe of the crowd, half listening to the speech, when a hand grazed her shoulder. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” Sartoris whispered. “The guard commander can be blind to extraordinary beauty at the worst of times.”

  “You did your best,” she said.

  The consul was gesticulating to the stars.

  “Please don’t let one foolish man ruin your night. Let me know what you need, and I shall attend to it.”

  But she told him it was fine, and walked away. She headed back to the elevators to regroup. The light gravity was getting to her head and she needed solid footing. So I say again, the consul shouted behind her, thank you for all of your continued support, and please enjoy the rest of the night. And let us celebrate together a millennium of progress! The crowd broke into applause, the sound like thunder in Nia’s ears as she waited for the elevator. When the door opened, she stepped aside to let the woman inside pass, but instead of joining the dance, the woman halted midstep and turned toward her.