They existed.
“Her family traveled here?”
Melin blinked. Had he been speaking this entire time? Or was this a new question segueing from what she’d said however many minutes or seconds ago? The shrink explained the absentmindedness was wrapped about the trauma of it all, and Melin had replied it was complete bullshit. She’d had her implant ripped from her brain, and her brain now spent most of its energy struggling to catch up and think for itself without a computer doing all the work. Nothing more to it. Worse things had happened to other people—the people she’d fought with—than having an implant torn out. Worse things had happened to her than the implant—
Melin shook her head, remembered the conversation. The expectation of response. “They were refugees of the incorporation.”
“Curious. Makes sense as to how you got here,” he said. “What’re you assigned as?”
“General assistant.”
His eyes said it all as he dismissed her completely. In a tech world—even one with odd glitches—general assistants were the unskilled labor. She self-consciously rubbed her scalp, fingering the fourteen-centimeter-long scar behind her left ear where her implant had been. Regen hadn’t fixed that scar. She wanted to remember that loss.
Calderon focused on that spot. She knew he wanted to ask what she had done to lose her implant. She doubted he would connect the dots—it was so obviously not surgical, so haphazardly scarred and running down her neck at angles. He probably thought she’d had a horrifying accident. She doubted Calderon had ever seen a victim of the Blood Sun Empire’s most famous torture method.
There weren’t many survivors.
Most died within years of rescue, unable to cope with the loss of half their mind and unable to accept another implant. The lingering few were all strapped down to hospital beds, pumped full of happy drugs with open eyes staring into nothingness. None had had her advantage of time. Some advantage that had been. She’d lost some memories and gained…some very odd ones.
During the first few months of her recovery, the doctors parading in and out of her room had been fascinated by the implant removal and subsequent rewiring of her brain. They were intent on studying what had happened in cryo, amazed over her claim to have dreamed. She had a lot of gaps in memory and cognitive ability—of course there were gaps; she’d had an implant enhancing everything for seven years—but overall, her brain was fully functioning.
But it would never accept another implant. She would never be able to go back to combat. Assimilate with the population. Hold down a normal job. She was, in polite terms, a nonaccepting human. In impolite terms, a nube.
The shuttle bumped down, brakes squealing as it hit the long runway.
“Well, we’ve landed,” Calderon announced unnecessarily. “It was bumpier than what we’re used to.”
She raised an eyebrow and looked him square in the face for the first time. His eyes widened. Gen-modded features weren’t uncommon, but apparently, he hadn’t been expecting eyes like hers on someone without an implant. Cat-slit pupils were uncommon even on the more adventurous moddies.
“I could have sworn this flight was the norm.” She stressed the final word to emphasize the rudeness of his prolonged gaze. He focused on the seat in front of him, reddening.
“Shuttle preparing for planetary gravity,” the pilot cut in over the comm.
Pressure pounded down on her shoulders, pressing her into her seat once again as full grav—and then some—cut in.
1.25 Standard, near the upper limit of gravitational force an unmodified human could endure for long periods of time. Melin thanked her ancestors’ scientists that she had been built for higher grav even if the long dark had eroded her tolerance for much of anything. She eased upright, letting her bones do the work as Calderon grunted beside her in pain.
“This part is the worst,” he wheezed. “Damn, damn place.”
“External pressurizing complete. Attendants, unseal the door.”
Melin’s ears popped as unrecycled air rushed into the cabin. It was sweet and fresh, causing a thrill to run unexpectedly over her, jolting from her extremities like a bolt of electricity. The hair on her arms stood up. She scanned the cabin to see if the effects had been general or localized. Beside her, Calderon’s nose wrinkled as if he found the pure scents unappealing.
“It always smells like this,” he complained. “This isn’t your first planet, is it?”
Melin snorted. He thought she was a spacer. “No,” she replied. Her body tingled pleasantly from the effects of … whatever it had been.
The other passengers filed off the shuttle, and Calderon stood up with effort, gripping the backs of each chair for support as he moved ponderously down the aisle. One of the attendants took his luggage before Melin rose, cutting in front of her and following the undersecretary.
She took her time gathering up her lone carry-all from the overhead compartment, letting the few remaining passengers stagger out before her.
“Do you need help?” one of the other attendants asked. His tone indicated he would rather not exert himself unless it would get him off this planet and on the spaceport faster. He’d pulled down the grav suit to his waist, and already sweat stains dampened the armpits of his tunic.
“I’ve got it, thanks.” She slung the sack over her shoulder and walked down the ramp, noting the gentle slope instead of the usual stairs.
A small crowd had gathered at the bottom, and the man at its center had cornered Calderon into conversation. A cluster of grav-chairs stood beside them, two unoccupied. Melin’s stomach sank in anticipation, and then everything went out of her head as her feet touched down on the smooth jetway.
A second burst of energy burned through her, the shock dropping her to her knees. Her sight sparkled with blue and her ears roared. The pain vanished as rapidly as it hit, leaving prickles down her spine and fingers.
She stood, feeling more energized than she had in years. Decades, even. Her entire body buzzed as if every strand of hair in her body stood on end. She smoothed down the fine strands floating about her head.
A gentle breeze rumpled her hair, immediately destroying her efforts, and she stared up into the brilliant blue of the sky. Tinges of purple and red sat at the edges of the horizon, but the upper heights were pure cerulean, barely lighter than the ocean they had passed over. She glanced down, taking in the gently rolling hills covered in blue-green waving grass. There were trees in the distance and stumps of trees on the fields near the airfield. Tall, razor wire topped fences surrounded the airfield, and a number of guards were positioned on strategically placed towers, all pointed outboard toward the fields and woods as if expecting an attack from nature itself.
“Are you okay?” asked the attendant who had offered to take her bag. “Do you need me to get you a hoverchair or a medic?”
Melin nodded, still transfixed on the security spread across the airfield before shaking her head as his question sunk in. The attendant tossed his hands up and retreated into the shuttle.
“You were the last one off?” someone asked, breaking her attention away from the scenery. It was one of the aides from the main group—none of whom had seen her stumble.
Melin sighed. Time to face reality and join the rest of the group.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t end in disaster.
“Of course, Joe.” Calderon settled into a grav-chair with a sigh. “You were expecting someone besides myself?”
“Someone? Of course I’m looking for someone. Didn’t you read the manifest?” the man asked. Melin recognized him as Ambassador Joe Koshkay. He was tall, distinguished, and his lined, light-skinned frown was in desperate need of another face-regen. “Are you sure you didn’t see a woman about your age on the shuttle? Scarred?”
Melin bit back a groan. She’d hoped this far into the Outer Rim, however militarily and diplomatically significant, no one would know her, but apparently news travelled fast—or remained news. Her desires to slink into oblivion were being
scuttled faster than an imploding starship.
She turned to the man who had asked the question and walked toward the group as Calderon explained that no one fitting that description was on the shuttle.
“How could you have fucked this up so badly?” Koshkay snarled. His attendants cringed. Melin frowned slightly. All the reports she’d read had praised Koshkay’s amiable, easygoing nature. Judging from the redness of his face and the veins bulging on his neck, he had excellent press agents.
She sighed and stepped forward, right hand extended.
Fresh start number ten or eleven, ready or not, here I come.
“I’m Melin Grezzij. I believe you’re looking for me?”
Chapter Two
The ambassador did a classic double take.
“Sera Grezzij?” His tone was doubtful, although he addressed her as an adult woman instead of a child. “Are you the daughter—”
“Spending seventeen years in cryo-sleep will do wonders.” Melin’s lips pursed. “That, and some serious regen.” Gods, how she hated this part of the introductions where people were confronted with the disappointing reality after years of newsfeeds building up a heroic image. Perhaps this was how she so often got off on the wrong foot. It hadn’t been this hard before.
The ambassador jutted out his hand and snapped her good right one up and down a moment too long. His frozen smile lingered a shade, waiting for the familiar clicks of the cameras to end. “Sera, what a pleasure it is to meet you! I’d known we were receiving a war veteran, but when I read your file, I was astounded to learn we were receiving a hero!”
“I’m retired, Ambassador,” she told him, unclenching her teeth with effort. “The Redelki Wars are long over.”
Calderon rolled over, finally catching on. “You didn’t tell me you were that Melin,” he said. “We must share our stories sometime. You can regale us of the Battle of Uderon Basin— “
“It was an ambush, and I don’t talk about the war.” Tonight she’d have to take a knife to unhinge her jaw from this awful fake smile. “It was a long time ago.” Even if it was more recent for her than for the others. At least he hadn’t asked about the War Witch.
There was a slight check over her comment before the ambassador cut in and insisted that, retired or not, she would ride with him in his hovercar. She slid into the car, sinking into the plush interior, and an aide assisted the ambassador into his seat.
Their chat on the ride over stayed pleasant and polite although she was inclined to stare out the window and marvel at her new surroundings. Koshkay beamed over her interest and asked only a few questions about the journey to Satura, her last station, and her most recent rounds of physical therapy, regen, and regrowth. She smiled and nodded and answered at the appropriate times, but her gaze was riveted to the outside.
They traveled along a rough cobblestone road—at least, she assumed it was rough since the car flew above the ground.
As they drove further along, they moved from the green countryside—not a person in sight besides their IASS escort—up and down some hilly mounds. The car halted several times, stopping at what she assumed were military checkpoints in the city until she realized the convoy was collecting their outer perimeter of soldiers.
Her questions of the local culture, people, and planet in general were gently rebuffed in favor of other, more galactic topics, so she stopped asking questions.
The car stopped again at the top of one hill where the terrain had been alternating between open grass meadows filled with alien flora and strange trees. Melin craned her head to peer forward and her jaw dropped. A wide expanse of water stretched out before them, distantly cradled on either side by wide arms of land. Fading sunlight glinted off the water, making it appear to dance and toss upon the gentle waves. An island sat in the middle of the bay, a tiny spot with rose-colored walls and a long bridge connecting it to the mainland. It niggled at the corner of her memory.
She tilted her head, looking back. Around the bay sprawled a city like nothing she had ever seen. She had grown up on the frontier planet of Hwesta and had been to several of the Inner Planets and a number of more established Outer Rim planets, but she had never seen anything so lacking in technology. There was no indication of cars besides their convoy, no flitters darting about the skies, and the boats—actual boats—sitting in the water had sails. Few people moved about on the tiny streets or around the houses and buildings and shops and other tiny things, and she had an odd ache to go out there and wander about the streets until she became thoroughly lost.
The car slid forward, and she wished she could see directly ahead of them as they appeared to be heading toward the water itself and the island in the bay.
With a shock she realized this city—so tiny, so dirty, so old, so different from her long-ago dreams and that brochure—was her great-grandmother’s Jidda.
It existed.
It actually existed.
Nothing about this journey had seemed real until this moment. If the city of her ancestors was real, it meant—
“We’re headed to Veskia, aren’t we, Ser?” she asked. “The IASS established their regional headquarters at the old palace, from what I remember reading.”
Koshkay blinked. “I didn’t know you were a scholar of Saturan history.”
“I studied up on what I could find,” she admitted. “There wasn’t much.” Aside from Nana Anikki’s stories. Monsters and dragons and magic took a bit away from her credibility though.
“Ah.” He rested in his seat, sipping from a glass of alcohol poured from the dispenser early in the journey. There had been no consternation in his face or manners when she had refused the same. “Veskie,” he gently corrected, “what the natives called their old palace, was located on a natural peninsula in the bay. It made perfect sense for the IASS to locate the embassy in the middle of such a natural fortress. The city shares the same name.”
Veskia. The palace had been called Veskia, and the city was Jidda. The thought sprang unbidden in her head, like the whisper of a friend against her ear. She shivered.
White-crested water splashed on either side as the car drove over a long metal bridge spanning the bay. This was different too. There had been a land bridge connecting the palace to the city. She didn’t know how she knew that. Was it the picture?
“Of course, the initial team made modifications,” Koshkay continued as if reading her thoughts. “The land bridge was destroyed during the capture and with the stone palace those barbarians lived in. Stone, can you imagine? No central heating or electricity whatsoever. We built a new building—to code—in its place, but we left the original walls as a sign that we are uniting the past with the future. The IASS is the future of Satura after all.”
Melin gave a vague gesture of agreement, enraptured by the rosy stone enveloping the island in a protective curtain. As they grew closer, the details in the stonework came into focus. She knew nothing about masonry, but the structure was a work of art and an architectural marvel to have stood against nature, war, and mankind for so many centuries. Odd shimmers flashed along in patches where the wall wasn’t crumbling, which she attributed to an old sealant. Anikki had mentioned how her brothers and cousins had tried to climb it time and time again and were constantly forced down by the king’s guard.
When she turned to ask the ambassador a question, he had the glazed expression of a man accessing his implant, so she faced the window once more as the car entered the gates.
The palace of her dreams wasn’t there.
She knew it wouldn’t be, not after the ambassador’s explanation, but the shock remained. She had built an image in her mind, one that didn’t exist.
Melin stared, open mouthed, at the ugly gray building squatting on the ground before her, drab and utilitarian. A long gray building resembling a barracks stretched along one side of the embassy, and to the other were a line of small houses. One was larger, set with sprawling porches and dimming lights. Uniformed personnel in gray were working about th
e big house, dangling light strands and setting up small tables. Few chairs had been placed around the tables.
Disappointment flared. Anikki had spoken of the palace, and the long, never-ending dreams of cryo-sleep had done the rest. Melin remembered Veskia, as false as that memory was. The palace had been built of the same rose stones as the walls with seven turrets stretching one hundred feet into the air, enough rooms to house three hundred guests and two thousand servants and guards, and famous rose gardens. She had dreamed of wandering the palace halls, the stone smooth on her bare feet, of running through the hedge maze in the gardens and wading into one of the biggest fountains. It had been so real. And now it was all gone.
Aside from the large house and the gardens between it and the embassy, the main building itself was plain. And small. Too small for the vast, vast space of the island. It made it appear even more that the IASS was squatting here, temporarily and illegally.
There were more people inside the walls than she had seen on the entire journey from the airfield although she didn’t spot anyone readily identifiable as Saturan. When she expressed her thoughts, she learned the embassy employed few Saturans and made them wear uniforms instead of their traditional garb.
The car stopped, and she stepped out before either the driver or the guard sitting on the back were able to open the door. They blinked in surprise, but then, she figured they also weren’t used to seeing someone bounce onto a moderate-gee planet either.
The ambassador stepped out and into the hoverchair presented to him. “Most of us elder folk use one.” There was an extra chair, presumably for her. “And the unacclimated. This place hurts the bones after a while.”
That Distant Dream Page 2
