The Twisted Vine

by Alyce Caswell

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  Fuck off, you totally did, his sister sent before she severed the connection between them.

  Shaking, hating himself even more, Kuja walked back down to the settlement.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  When GLEA attempted to contact Bock directly — about five seconds after Ton Tinel told them he had files proving their connection to Terra Corp — the governor refused to speak to them and named Tinel as his chosen mediator. All communication was to go through the mediaist’s shipboard systems and, as such, was at risk of appearing in a Webcast. So if GLEA dared to mention that the files were the reason they were proposing to hold negotiations down in Atsa City, they would incriminate themselves on a galactic scale.

  Fei couldn’t help but smile, even though the angry Chipper on the large vidscreen in Bock’s office could definitely see her sitting next to Ton Tinel. Bock had insisted she be there for the call, since she was the one who’d netted them the files and ‘deserved to take some of the blame’. But instead of being afraid, Fei found she quite enjoyed watching Head General Huw Hunslow squirm.

  She still wasn’t sure what to make of the previous night. She had woken up feeling as though she’d had sex and had even caught Kuja’s scent on her pillow. Then, when she’d checked her techpad, she’d found the files he had promised her. Her confusion hadn’t stopped her from using them — or from hoping that Kuja would revisit her dreams soon, especially if he was going to take her from behind again.

  ‘Looking forward to seeing you at our conference in two Old Earth weeks, Head General,’ Bock said with a smirk. Clearly he thought the label GLEA had given their upcoming negotiations was laughable. ‘All the security has been arranged. My best people will be there, packing lasguns. And trust me, they know how to use them.’

  GLEA’s highest-ranking agent flinched and swiped a hand in front of his face. The screen went dark.

  Tinel leaned forward in his chair, a diagonal line of triumph slashed across his features. ‘Of course you will now sign the agreement that states I have exclusive access to the conference.’

  Bock chuckled. ‘We’ll see, we’ll see.’ He lobbed a grin at Fei. ‘Did you ever think you could manage something on this scale?’

  ‘No,’ Fei answered honestly.

  ‘Well, you have,’ Bock said, then let his voice drop back into his usual accent. ‘And don’t ya forget it!’

  Fei ducked her head, embarrassed by his praise.

  Bock sighed and waved an impatient hand through the air. ‘You have to get used to saying “thanks, I’m fucking awesome”, because you’re starking good at what ya do. And I intend to use you once them terraforming machines are mine. Gonna make TerraCorp hand them over to me in return for those files, that’s the deal I’ll be offering them. Even Ala likes that idea.’

  Fei cleared her throat. ‘Um. Thanks, I’m fucking…yes.’

  ‘Now get back to work,’ Bock ordered her.

  • • •

  A rumble filled the air, too steady and constant to have come from a storm. Kuja glanced up as a starship broke apart the clouds, splitting grey into blue. The egg-shaped vessel coasted down onto the cracked landing pad, its engines whirring endlessly instead of cutting out. The ship wasn’t going to be there for long — all it needed to do was pick up three Chippers.

  Major Laura Minsra hadn’t announced the withdrawal until barely one Old Earth hour before the agents were due to leave. According to her, the Sarenites had lost their way and she could no longer help them find their path. While Kuja was sure this wasn’t a surprise to the townspeople, they were still shocked and upset.

  ‘They’re leaving!’ one woman cried, fingers clawing into her scalp. ‘How could they leave?’

  Other settlers used far stronger language. Some just sat in silence. Any children that were clutched to heaving chests cried out, not immune to the net of fear spun by their parents.

  Gerns’ beady eyes followed the Chippers as they took even strides away from the town. ‘Was this our fault, for not encouraging the Sarenites to say they were followers of the Creator God?’

  ‘No,’ Kuja said. ‘It was GLEA’s actions that lost them both worshippers and potential funders of their galactic invasion.’

  ‘Keep talking like that and this’ll start sounding like a war,’ Gerns warned him.

  Kuja laughed darkly. ‘Isn’t it a war already? We might be the mop-up crew, Gerns, but something is causing these casualties.’

  Gerns’ made a soft huffing sound. ‘Now me, I’m just wondering why we can’t all get along.’

  ‘Probably because the gods don’t get along with each other,’ Kuja muttered as he began marching up towards the landing pad. ‘And they’re supposed to be our role models.’

  Major Minsra and one of her companions were facing the starship, their expressions grim, as though they were being forced to retreat from a fight they could have won. Zareth stood apart from the pair, quiet grief streaking over his face as surely as tears. His fellow Chippers began to board the ship but he stayed right where he was, unmoving, unspeaking.

  Kuja went to him, not bothering to keep his voice down. ‘I know you’re not like the others! You can’t leave — you don’t want to leave! These people badly need your protection.’

  ‘I know.’ Zareth’s dark eyes blazed. ‘Kuja, I’m staying. Minsra can run back to Gerasnin for all I care, but this is not how we’re meant to do things. We’re all children of the Creator God, doesn’t matter if some of us worship someone else. I can’t take anyone off this moon because I can’t afford to chart a vessel on my salary, but I have a lasgun and decent enough aim. I’ll protect Saren as best I can.’

  ‘Private Sins, get over here now!’ Minsra shouted from the boarding ramp.

  Kuja held his breath; he’d sensed a flutter of fear inside Zareth.

  But Zareth suppressed it and went for broke.

  ‘I can’t do that, Major,’ he said. ‘These people need me.’

  Minsra’s hand clapped down on her lasgun, but she didn’t draw it. ‘I’ll have your chip ripped out for this, Private! Don’t think I won’t!’

  ‘You better send someone else to do it then!’ Zareth told her. ‘Because you’re too afraid to do it yourself, without any authorisation, aren’t you?’

  Minsra swore loudly, then turned her back on him. The ramp popped seamlessly into place behind her and moments later the vessel tore up into the atmosphere, one Chipper short.

  ‘The Sarenites need to see me doing what’s right,’ Zareth muttered, his eyes travelling down the hill, towards the town.

  ‘You don’t represent all the Chippers in the galaxy,’ Kuja pointed out.

  ‘Neither does Minsra,’ Zareth said.

  ‘You’re still just one man.’

  Zareth spread his arms, as though to encompass the entire galaxy, and grinned carelessly. ‘Yes. But it always starts with just one man, doesn’t it. I want to make things right from the inside and convince the others to protect everyone as we should.’

  Kuja exhaled in exasperation. ‘That will take time — time Yalsa 5 doesn’t have.’

  ‘We’ll just have to hope those files we gave Fei can stall my superiors,’ Zareth said.

  ‘You could go straight over there now and expose GLEA for what it is,’ Kuja told him. ‘It would make Fei think more kindly towards you. You’re not a bad man, Zareth.’

  ‘I can’t.’ Zareth ran a hand over his hair. It bounced back immediately once he’d removed his touch. ‘I don’t want her forgiveness. What I did was shitty, no matter which way you cut the cake.’

  Kuja’s bowels gave a savage twist when he thought about his own behaviour regarding Fei. He settled for a safer topic. ‘So, if you do manage to get GLEA on track, I have to ask — what do you plan to do about the sub-level gods?’

  Zareth looked pained. ‘I’m not sure. But I won’t be storming in and terraforming things against everyone’s will. That looks
bad enough even before the mediaists start doing their Webcasts.’

  Kuja considered pressing his companion, asking more questions, but Zareth’s mind was full of turbulence and disbelief — mostly with himself, for doing something so foolish, something that had threatened his career. Zareth’s fingers strayed to the bump on his temple, where his chip lay.

  The agent didn’t want anyone to take it from him. But he had risked losing it anyway.

  Humbled, Kuja watched Zareth return to the townspeople. They crowded around the Chipper, all of them trying to lay their hands on him. Zareth looked distinctly uncomfortable with their praise; clearly the man wasn’t used to receiving it. Reminded of Fei, Kuja walked into a nearby thicket then vanished, heading for that perpetually cool room where she spent her nights alone.

  He stood over her for some time before rousing her. She said it was a dream. He did not deny it. Being with her was a dream that could never become reality. But he could be there for her in the shadows of night, making love to her and holding her close for as long as he dared.

  He didn’t regret the smile that painted her lips as she fell asleep in his arms.

  • • •

  When Kuja returned to Saren, the town was in the throes of a hot afternoon, having been deserted by the wind. Many of the settlers were uneasy and muttered amongst themselves, looking towards the tree line, where the virus lay in wait. Zareth was nowhere to be seen, but the potted plant inside the outpost told Kuja that the Chipper was hunched over on the floor of the antechamber, his head in his hands.

  Kuja remained inside the dense grove, hidden from view as he knelt into the path of the virus. It rushed up to him like an enthusiastic child; the fronds beneath him died instantly, browning and falling apart before fluttering away like ash on a breeze. The virus danced around the Rforine, momentarily distracted from its destruction, and begged him for his approval.

  This virus was created by the Ine, before I was even born, Kuja thought, his lip curling. I suppose it’s fitting that the Chippers abandoned the Sarenites to the destruction set into motion by their god.

  Master? the virus whispered.

  Kuja sighed, wishing it didn’t sound so in awe of him. ‘I have something to ask of you.’

  Anything, Master, it promised. Anything.

  ‘Is there any way you can avoid the town in the valley?’

  A pause. If you wished it, your powers could bar me from anywhere you chose.

  ‘But the moment I lose concentration,’ Kuja said, grimacing, ‘you’ll sweep into the valley and destroy the crops there.’

  Confusion coloured the virus’ words. But, Master, you would never lose concentration.

  Kuja drew his thumb over a crease forming on his forehead. Several more attempts did nothing to erase it so he dropped his hand to caress the destroyed plant material beneath him. He was sad whenever anything died, but death always led to life and renewal inside the rainforests. It was a natural process, something he couldn’t subvert without a great deal of will.

  And Kuja knew he was capable of losing concentration. He doubted he had much mental capacity left when he was making love to Fei and that…that was something he’d decided he should be allowed to keep, even if he could never again see sunlight kiss her skin.

  I have to think like Gerns and Fei, he decided.

  It would take years for Gerns to find a plant that the virus couldn’t eat, especially if it was not indigenous to the planet, and then there were the months needed to grow a protective circle around the town…

  ‘Have you ever encountered a plant — or anything, really — that blocks you and hampers you from moving forward?’ Kuja asked, watching the virus circle the fingers he’d left in the soil.

  The virus delivered its answer after some consideration. Not a plant. Myself.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  If I come across plants I have previously killed, the virus explained, then I cannot reinfect them or go past them. This is why I must always seek new ground.

  Kuja pursed his lips. Finara had once said something similar about the way fire reacted to material that had already been burned — flames could not easily cross an area they had destroyed. Some worlds, like savannah-clad Sundafar, actually torched their grasses in order to form firebreaks for when a more deadly inferno swept towards their settlements.

  ‘Thank you!’ Kuja said and sprinted back towards the town.

  He slowed to a jog before entering Gerns’ warehouse. The botanist, in lieu of any real progress, had continued to send data about the flora she encountered to Yalsa 5. Fei had mentioned it to her employers at some point, so Gerns was now on a salary given to her by Governor Bock Atsason. The Jezlo said this was a much better incentive than a rainforest god promising her goodwill and warm fuzzies.

  When Gerns saw Kuja, she hopped off her seat. Kuja didn’t even give her a chance to greet him; he immediately blurted out what he had deduced and finished with, ‘…so you’ll need to work with the virus and get it to ring the town and somehow not let it get out of control.’

  ‘Now me, I can infect the grasses around here, but I’m not sayin’ I can control it,’ Gerns said, waddling down one of the rows inside the lab.

  Kuja frowned. ‘But you will try.’

  ‘What do you think I’m doing, Kuja?’ Gerns stopped dead and slapped the tables either side of her with her tentacles. ‘My brain’s bigger than yours and it’s already tickin’ over. Now me, if I was you, I’d get out of here and find something useful to do. You’ll only be in my way here.’

  There was no point in trying to hold a conversation with her when she was like this, so Kuja simply nodded and left.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Fei kept her eyes closed when she woke and stayed very still, maintaining her cocoon inside the sheets. The cold, sterile air supplied by the climate control system allowed her to maintain this position, which was dangerous because Fei was tempted to lie there in bed for too long, her anxiety mounting to unbearable levels.

  Today GLEA would arrive en masse to attend their so-called ‘conference’. And she would have to go meet them, sit with them, maybe even say things to them.

  Fei lifted her knees, then bent over and rested her head between them, breathing deeply. ‘Bock’s doing most of the talking. You just have to provide data. And supporting arguments.’

  But her stomach squirmed instead of settling. Fei groaned, pressing a hand to her abdomen. Ala had taken her out the previous night and plied her with alcohol which should have made Fei feel brave, but it had only made her feel nauseous. And her nerves definitely weren’t helping right now.

  Muttering some choice words, Fei dragged herself out of bed and into the shower. By the time she had scrubbed the phantom scent of Kuja from her skin and dealt with her hair, she was running extremely late so she had to sprint for the hoverlift, a piece of toast cratered against her teeth. Brushing crumbs off her lips as she stepped onto the ground floor, she caught sight of the heavily shielded hovercar waiting outside for her — and then she baulked. Dividing her from safety was a gauntlet made up of mediaists with vidcams and onlookers bristling with lasguns.

  ‘Am I…supposed to go through that alone?’ she demanded of the empty lobby.

  Kuja didn’t arrive to rescue her. But someone else did.

  ‘No, that’s what ya got me for,’ Ala said, entering through the front door and supporting a bulky lasgun on one hip like a beloved child. ‘They know not to fuck with the wife of the Clan Leader.’

  ‘So he’s the Clan Leader today, not a governor,’ Fei noted.

  ‘Same smell,’ Ala replied with a smirk. ‘But it’ll make them Chippers uncomfortable if we remind them we’ve still got some real fight left in us.’

  Fei knotted her hands together. ‘Ala…I’m not sure I can do this.’

  Ala watched Fei closely for a moment, then jerked her head back towards the crowd outside. ‘Come on, Fei. The faster we get there, the faster it’s over. And not that I’d e
ver let my personal life interfere with this shit, but it’s my turn with Ginsella tonight and I really don’t want this starking conference to run overtime.’

  Fei reluctantly smiled and followed Ala out the door. The screaming crowd and the heat of densely packed bodies immediately pressed in on Fei, making her lungs seize up. She couldn’t fault her protector, but while Ala’s hands on her head and shoulder kept her beneath the worst of the tumult, they did little to comfort her.

  Fei, you can do this, I know you can, Kuja told her.

  She latched onto the voice of the man she loved, letting it guide her steps until she was safely inside the hovercar. Sliding into the front, Ala snapped her fingers at the driver and began barking orders at him, something about taking a more circuitous route in case the Chippers had installed snipers on the main road. Swallowing her panic, Fei closed her eyes and tilted her head back against the seat.

  Oh, Kuja, Fei thought. I need you with me.

  I’m always here with you, the voice of her lover promised.

  Fei sighed. If you say so. I’ve prayed to Bagara, asking for you. But has he really sent you? Or have I been dreaming these past two weeks?

  Kuja’s ensuing chuckle was laced with desire and something else, something secret. I know you want me instead of Bagara. Just…let him stand in for me.

  But I don’t want to kiss him, Fei protested.

  I don’t want you to kiss anyone else either!

  Fei laughed and opened her eyes to find Ala studying her closely.

  ‘Do ya lose focus like that often?’ Ala asked.

  ‘Please don’t tell me I need hyponeedles,’ Fei grumbled. ‘I get by without any enhancements, thank you. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because you had a look on that face of yours just then…’ Ala frowned. ‘Like you were talkin’ to someone in your mind. I know that look. So were you? That Kuja dude?’

  Fei wriggled her toes inside her shoes. They were flats, designed to mould to her feet, but now they felt too sweaty and too tight. ‘I like imagining he’s here with me. It relaxes me.’