by R J Theodore
“If he wasn’t wearing it, he might have hidden it anywhere.” Despite the reassurance, Dug crossed his arms and frowned deeply.
“You didn’t see him. I punched him twice, and he still acted like I’d gone there to wed him. He might have shown it to me if I’d known to ask.”
“You punched him twice?” Tisker goggled. “I saw the first, Cap, and—I won’t lie—I said, ‘about bloody time!’ when it happened.”
She wanted to punch Hankirk again, just that moment. But he, and his rot-speckled ring, were out of her reach again. She forced the frustration aside and pulled the wrinkled list of Yu’Nyun cargo from her back pocket and laid it out on the table, smoothing her palms over it so it laid mostly flat again. She ignored a small fluff of feather that drifted past her and focused on the interview. Some things on the list were checked off, things Sophie and Kirna had pretty much figured out with help from the tablet, but Talis wasn’t going to allow for any misunderstanding. She pushed it out and turned it to face Scrimshaw.
“We’ll get back to Hankirk and the ring later. Here’s what we took from the derelict starships. I’d like your help identifying things before we get to Haelli. I don’t want to sell anything dangerous to the University staff.”
Scrimshaw slid the paper closer for inspection. By the rough sizes and descriptions, si only needed to ask a few clarifying questions about each to know what they were. Most pieces were confirmed as they deduced: medical supplies, guns, translator tablets, and engineering equipment. Sophie grew more animated as they went along, her curiosity derailing the conversation at more than one line item. Scrimshaw seemed only too happy to answer all her questions, but Talis pressed them on when the ship’s clock chimed the loss of an hour with its demanding brass percussion.
“Okay, so most of this is what we thought. I want to talk about those syringes. They used it on a village in Bone skies, and now there’s no one left alive.”
They relayed what the stuff did to the creatures in Amos’s cabin and Scrimshaw went quiet. Sist face was unreadable as ever, but Talis thought she was learning to interpret the birdlike twitches of sist movements. Si wasn’t proud, that was for sure, of whatever the Yu’Nyun had created.
“You recall the zalika, Captain Talis.” Old habit made her want to wave the title off, and a shiver went between her shoulder blades as it dawned on her that it was fully true again.
She nodded. “The mermaids that went after you in the storm cloud.”
‘Zalika’ was a name si had taught her that day, though the blood-thirsty beasts were well known to her already. But it was after their conversation that Talis had recognized more than anger in their anguished faces. They were overwhelmed by grief.
Scrimshaw twitched a finger and then made a conscious mimic of her nod. Some standard body language was yet to become habit. “Their kind is an example of what an intelligent being reverts to without its quintessence. It is stripped of capacity for empathy, morality, and rational thought.”
“What about animals,” Sophie asked. “They may not be sentient, but they’re not mad either.”
“Sentience is not prerequisite to the existence of a soul. But you are correct; they are not the same. Souls are a finite resource. When your gods created the fauna of Peridot, they decided to be . . . efficient . . . with the quintessence they provided to subsentient species. Each animal of such a species possesses only a tiny shard of a whole. As such, they are linked together, strengthened as a population. When a creature dies, the shard is absorbed back into Nexus until the population increases again.”
“And the zalika?”
“Onaya Bone considered them a failed experiment and took back the souls she had granted them.”
Tisker ran his hands over the stubble of shaved hair on one side of his head. “No wonder they’re always so pissed.”
The ship’s lines creaked above them, and the sound traveled through the bulkhead like a purr. For a moment, there was quiet as they struggled to follow what Scrimshaw said. It wasn’t just sist accent. The way si understood Peridot went beyond the deepest knowledge of its own inhabitants. Their scout ship spent months exploring Peridot, looking for answers. Trying to figure out how to harvest the power that held it together for themselves.
Scrimshaw nodded. “Alchemy extracts potentiality from the elements, unlocking the energy stored in their molecules. Quintessence has only one anchor to your world. Living flesh.”
That bit of unpleasant news raised the bigger, nastier question. “And the Yu’Nyun . . . wanted to harvest quintessence—souls?”
Another deliberate nod. “There were two methods by which they intended to do so. Our starships were equipped to draw in the energy at close proximity and store it, as they would have attempted had the Gods not battled them at Nexus. Quintessence can also be driven from its host body, by force, and rerouted into containment before it returns to the source.”
“The green sludge the little rodent vomited up.” Talis would have liked to imagine anything worthy of being called a soul would have been beautiful and delicate. But before it faded, that stuff was the same color as Nexus.
“So that’s what the chemical soup in those needles will do to a person? Force out their soul and kill them?”
“It is not necessarily fatal. The zalika exist without souls, though they have the capacity for sentience. I imagine, Captain Talis, that your civilized peoples would have too much strength to be consumed by the process. Perhaps the sick or feeble would die, but I believe that most would survive in the same violent state that possesses the zalika.”
“Violent state is putting it mildly.” Tisker blanched. “That village destroyed itself from the inside out.”
“I was not aware they had scaled up their tests when I boarded.”
Scrimshaw explained the biological process that the Yu’Nyun solution induced when injected into an organic being on Peridot. The aliens developed the recipe after dissecting several native life forms. Talis tried not to picture that, but she’d been in cabins aboard the alien ships where such things might have happened, and her mind filled in the details unbidden.
If anyone was reported missing during the first few months after the Yu’Nyun arrived, it hadn’t been blamed on the aliens as far as Talis knew, but Scrimshaw assured them there had been abductions and experiments.
It seemed Scrimshaw gave no care what they thought of sist old culture. Si didn’t gloss over the truth.
They sat in stunned, horrified silence for a few moments. Sophie and Talis exchanged looks.
Amos was the only one who appeared more fascinated than repulsed. “So the Yu’Nyun use Nexus quintessence as a fuel source?”
Si placed sist hands flat on the table and seemed to search for the words to explain. “The crystals from their ships absorb and focus the energy, as they did with similar resources discovered elsewhere. It was difficult and time-consuming to collect this substance from other planets, but on Peridot the concentration at Nexus promised to make the process more rewarding.”
“Is that how you killed your home world?” Sophie shot a hand to her mouth, looking like she wished she could take back the question.
Scrimshaw didn’t seem offended. “The technology was developed a generation before the Yu’Nyun began to explore the upper atmosphere of their planet and beyond. Their progenitors did not know what it would do. It was only after the Yu’Nyun colonized their origin planet’s seven moons that they were able to observe the effects taking hold on the planet below. They believed quintessence was a radiation that permeated the air. The most highly regarded scientific minds at the time explained its source was the nearby star and that its supply was renewed by the nuclear reactions therein.
“Too late, the population learned the theory was not only incorrect, but the evidence was intentionally misstated to obfuscate the truth. It was a conspiracy to mislead, crafted by those responsibl
e for funding and generating support for the project.”
Si looked up from sist carved fingers and observed their confused expressions. “Yes, put simply, that is how the Yu’Nyun planet was destroyed.”
Talis was less interested in what the aliens had done to some distant world than what they intended to do with hers. “If the ships are all destroyed, why would someone be after this? Why harvest souls now?”
Scrimshaw shrugged. An uncomfortable gesture with sist rigid torso. “The effect of the soul leaving the body is, at the very least, destructive. It might be intended to keep Peridot’s population in line, to establish dominance. Your peoples are stronger, physically, than the Yu’Nyun and far outnumber the survivors of the incident at Nexus. The Yu’Nyun have strategically made themselves indispensable and eventually dominate the political landscape. But if they were to obtain a supply of the solution, it is no doubt a part of that plan. A senseless people descended into madness and chaos can’t organize or reason.”
Sophie frowned. “And now everyone’s digging through flotsam and pulling up all kinds of things, aren’t they? Anyone might have vials of this stuff.”
“The Veritors have had two years to figure out what a bad idea it was to put them in charge.” Talis chewed the inside of her lip and leaned back with her arms crossed. “Could be looking for a way to climb back on top again, maybe make the aliens think their welcome isn’t going to last. But if Hankirk and the Tempest use the solution on the aliens first . . .”
“It is unlikely the solution works on the aliens with the same effectiveness, Captain.” Scrimshaw folded sist hands together and laced sist fingers, rubbing one knuckle across a deep scrape in one finger of the opposite hand. “Every planet’s quintessence has a unique signature and composition. The solution targets the extension of Nexus present in the body, and the Yu’Nyun have none. At least, this generation has none. If injected, it may simply be toxic, as any foreign material injected into the bloodstream would be. But I do not think it will harm them in the long-term. If the Veritors or the Tempest attempt to turn the solution upon the Yu’Nyun, they will only expose their intent.”
“Do they know that? If they do, maybe they’re working on an antidote,” suggested Sophie, giving the Veritor bastards a lot more credit than Talis. “I mean, Amos is already trying for us.”
Scrimshaw turned sist head to the Rakkar alchemist. “I am sorry. There is no antidote to reverse, nor vaccine to prevent the effects of the injection. Quintessence is bound to the mitochondrial organelles in your body. The reaction to the chemical violently–and mechanically–divides the two energies.”
Tisker pushed away from the counter. “Rotted alien science jargon, making my head hurt.”
He fetched six tin cups, then hesitated and grabbed a seventh from the overhead cabinet. Scooped each into the wooden tub at the inner bulkhead. The ship’s rum supply. It took two trips to get the cups back to the table.
“I need to get back to the helm. Someone explain this all to me later, yeah? In Common?”
Few more conversations like this, Talis thought, and we’ll be through that barrel in a week. But she accepted the cup Tisker offered her before he left the galley.
Scrimshaw considered the rum. Si’d only just recovered from the cleanup. Si held the cup delicately but never brought it to sist mouth. “It is similar to separating an emulsified substance. A single bonded energy within your cells becomes two, and after separation, those energies repel each other, as with oil and water. There may be a way to recombine them again but, to date, the Yu’Nyun have had no interest in reversing the process.”
The metaphor helped, though some things one didn’t truly want to understand. Talis slumped a bit, picking up her cup in defeat. With it raised halfway to her lips, she frowned and set it back down again, annoyed. She didn’t need to drink. She needed to move. Do something useful.
The galley was narrower than the one on Wind Sabre had been, but it was longer from end to end. Even with the crowd gathered, there was a clear path she could pace. She scooted sideways to escape the bench, left her rum on the table, and walked from to the stove and back.
“So there’s no way to stop it from hurting anyone it’s injected into?”
Sophie inhaled sharply, her spine going straight and lifting her away from her seat back. “Amos. You said the solution could also be concentrated and released into a reservoir.”
“I said it could be diluted and remain effective. There are numerous ways to dilute a concentration.”
All heads swiveled to look at Scrimshaw. Si ran a thumb tip around the edge of sist cup.
“In the water supply, it would affect anyone who uses it. Fortunately for your planet, the islands and their water supplies are isolated. One island’s population would be completely ruined by such an attack, but it could not spread. It would require a systematic contamination of the reservoirs on each of your land masses. If their methods are so widespread, it would be devastating to the planet’s population.”
Scrimshaw shifted and leaned forward on sist elbows. No longer with the elegant movements of the Yu’Nyun, Talis noted, then chided herself. Time to stop expecting sin to reflect the culture si had abandoned.
Dug asked, “How much water will it take to weaken the mix?”
“One molecule of the solution is as potent as an ocean and has a half-life of ten thousand years.”
“Half-life?” asked Sophie, and Talis was glad she wasn’t the only one having trouble following. Mito-what-have-yous and organettes and so forth. She considered joining Tisker at the helm for a conversation using words that didn’t make her head spin.
Kirna made a small noise that sounded a lot like Sophie when she was inspired by an idea, but she only began to sketch in a corner of the vellum sheet.
Amos spared her only a glance before explaining the new term. “The length of time for molecules to lose the integrity of half of their bonds.”
Scrimshaw nodded as if that was clear at all. “Diluting or concentrating the dose—such methods are inconsequential. One part-per-trillion is still enough to wrench the soul from a sentient being, large or small.”
“We need to stop it.” Sophie balled her hands into fists and looked to stand up, as though she could walk out of the room and punch the solution out of existence.
Talis put a hand out. “We will. Right, Amos? Kirna?”
Amos looked to be lost in thought, but Kirna nodded. “Everything has a counteragent. If we can’t cure it after injection or ingestion, we will create something to nullify the batches before they’re used.”
She looked to Scrimshaw.
“That . . . may work.”
Talis nodded, then picked up the cup of rum. “Good. I’m glad you two came along.”
Kirna and Amos were murmuring to each other in quiet tones, which Talis took as brainstorming their new assignment. Dug and Sophie exchanged looks across the table and cast furtive glances at Amos and Scrimshaw. Whatever they were thinking, they had the sense to hold it. Another time, after a few more cups of rum, and if it was important, they’d let Talis know.
“Right. Okay.” She inhaled and tried to settle the pandemonium within her rib cage. Downed the rum and put her cup in the sink for whoever drew cleanup duty. “We’ve all got our projects. A few days to Haelli. By the time we arrive, I want us to feel like this is the only ship we’ve ever known. Fluid and efficient, hear? Let’s get to it.”
At least she could thank her fated winds that the borders were open, and they could pass through without an inspection. A ship crew of three Cutters, two Rakkar, and one each Bone and Yu’Nyun. Wouldn’t that be a fun conversation?
Chapter 34
Talis tried to focus on the charts and the course she was plotting. She had to get to Haelli so the Vein researchers could play around with the simula chunk she’d retrieved. And she wanted them to take a good loo
k at Talbot’s device before she made the sale he’d charged her with.
But all she could think about was that she’d been standing in front of Hankirk trying to talk him down from one ledge while, at the same time, he had a ring hidden in his pocket—or in a safe, wherever.
She didn’t doubt he’d changed in the two years since the battle at Nexus. But that just made him a different sort of dangerous. An unknown. His desperate heroics like leaves caught in a wind swirl, with no focus, no true vision. He thought leading a revolution would make him the leading figure that the Veritors refused to recognize. She took a centering breath. It was narrow luck that they’d gotten to him in time. That he’d not been too self-sure to listen.
She opened her eyes and tried, once more, to focus on the sky charts in her cabin. Having the aft windows in her periphery wasn’t helping. Her gaze drifted, not for the first time, out to the skies at stern where the pulsing lights of glow pumpkins bobbed in the distance, lavender pinpricks that held back the darkness. She slid a curtain along its track to block the view, leaving nothing but bulkhead and thick fabric in her vision beyond the edges of the navigator’s table. She considered moving the charts to the central deckhouse so she could work with her focus on the skies ahead, not behind.
She missed the arrangement of her great cabin aboard Wind Sabre. Fortune’s Storm’s wood was bare of the kind of memories that had permeated their old carrack’s wooden hull. Their commissioned shipbuild was going to take months, if not longer. Talis knew she’d get to know every corner and quirk of the ship while they waited. For now, though, she felt like a stranger in someone else’s home.
“Weird, isn’t it?” came a voice from the cabin entrance. Talis turned to see Tisker leaning against the door with a bottle of rum clutched in his hand. “Like we stole it.”
“We did steal it,” she said with a chuckle.
“We’ll settle in,” he said. Hearing it from him, she could let herself believe it. He held the bottle up. “Come on, afraid there’s something you need to see.”
