The Forgotten Sky

by R. M. Schultz

  The sweavers despised these monsters, probably taught to do so by their masters.

  No matter what Rynn’s dad did to her, he’s still a large part of her. She hates and loves him for that, which makes her stomach squeeze on itself.

  The shears weigh heavy in her hands as she guides the cutting ends over an outer rib of one of the creatures. She levers the long handles. Snap. The bone beneath slices in two.

  An acidic, bubbling nausea crawls up her throat, floods the base of her tongue, and lingers.

  Rynn cuts another rib and another until the entire left ribcage is severed into two segments. She sets down her shears, grabs two of the ribs, and heaves. Stiff skin rips open, and bones crack in protest. She gags, forces her mouth closed, but vomits a rush of bubbling froth between her teeth. It slops onto the charred dirt. She sputters for a moment and wipes her wet lips with her gloves.

  Orange tissue lies beneath the resected block of skin. Some organ: liver, lung?

  Rynn puts on a medical glove and reaches inside, prodding lobes of tissue that are still warm. There it is: a blob of sludgy fluid. She does as she was told, twists the sac of fluid around a stalk until she hears it pop. It should be sealed. The orange sac or organ releases a musty scent like a forest buck’s urine. She wrinkles her nose as she places the sac into her pack, then shuffles to the next body, her head hanging.

  The next body still grips something in one of its bony hands: a parchment, unfolded. A miniature galaxy with stars, planets, and empty space hovers in a three-dimensional model over its surface, similar to the model her dad used as a teaching aid.

  The drifting planet Rynn stands on spins in micro detail in the model, a lighted sphere near the dead alien’s thumb. There’s another dot farther out, out in the dead zone where no planets are supposed to be, where, according to her dad and Prabel, no one could go.

  What planet is that supposed to be? Does it matter? She’s here for only one reason.

  Rynn glances around the carnage. Massive craters with piles of dirt pock the outer landscape, as if something has been dug up rather than the surface of the planet impacted. She starts to wonder again but forces herself to stop.

  Her gaze falls to the ribcage framing the hideous outer body of this alien. It would be easy to make people hate aliens like this.

  A hundred. Prabel said she needs to gather no less than a hundred of the orange sacs before they can Stride on to sell them.

  The twisted dead fill all of the field around her and seem to press in on her like ghouls in a cemetery of the undead.

  Rynn hefts her sheers and cuts through a rib.

  Seeva

  Seeva cries out, writhing on an antigravity bed, prostrate. Her eyes open.

  She’s on her ship.

  She stills herself and sits up. Breathes. Another bad dream?

  Ori nestles into her neck, his feathers warm and soft, and releases a soft wee wee wee.

  Seeva flew to the Majestic Space Pearl, a tourist haven with virtually no security hassles for arrivals willing to spend marcs. Over the past few days, she’s moved about the artificial planet, learning of the major hangouts of the man who calls himself the Supreme Emperor, the commander of the Pearl, a leader of nothing else.

  Today is the day to attempt her first move, to find out if she can get to this emperor, if he’s ever alone. To confirm that he financed the hermadore slaughter and harvest of their spines.

  Dread feels like icicles forming in Seeva’s abdomen. She has to confront him.

  Seeva slips into a shimmery black dress that grips every curve of her backside and breasts and lifts. A low top with diamond-cut waist reveals her flat stomach. Short heels. The type of girl he prefers now? She wraps her sable hair around her neck in a silky choker effect.

  My body’s never been a temple, not since I was forced from the orphanage and that man took me. Now I turn the tables, use my body as a weapon.

  She plans to get close to this “Emperor,” do whatever physically needs to be done to get him alone, interrogate him, then, if indicated, kill him clean and simple. Preferably escape, too, but that is a secondary consideration. She can trust no one else to help her.

  “Stay here, Ori.”

  The proia looks hurt, his eyes partially concealed by gray lids. He huddles on the bed, appearing like a nest of feathers.

  Seeva exits her docked ship and traverses neighborhoods with trash and refuse lining the walks. Strange people in long coats talk or laugh to themselves. Groups of others whisper and pass substances around. The artificial sun hovers low in the fake sky, both the center of the inner planet chamber of the Pearl. Distant walls rise like endless mountains of lights and metal. The air is stale and tastes of extortion, of the dying poor that no one notices. The temperature so moderate, comfortable, perverse.

  An hour later, Seeva climbs the steps of the tallest tower inside the rotating titanium planet, a behemoth of glittering gold, the Prime Casino. Her limbs shake with anxiety. She enters after being checked for weapons. Throws dice on black antigravity tables with indigo boxes. Dances with men and women. Sucks on luscious fruits split into halves. Watches.

  Seconds rain like minutes, like hours, Seeva’s head swimming in beats of bass music, each one a small concussion against the inner dome of her skull.

  She grabs a drink from a silver tray carried by a hostess and gulps a sweet yellow liquid with pulp and alcohol that burns her throat as it gushes down. People dance, gamble, and elbow her in passing. She wanders through the packed masses tossing their marcs away, into the pockets of her target. Her body is a network of tension. The feel of beetles crawling inside her skin sends a frisson, tingling her spine.

  The beings with the most detestable behavior of any living species in the galaxy: humans. And the worst of the worst, right here.

  The destruction, suffering and pain, and waste of resources these beings create or add to. She has to swallow her loathing … for now.

  Her target will supposedly make an appearance sometime in the afternoon to evening.

  Minutes slide into hours, lost in the clamor of shouting, overhead music, and blaring machines calling for stakes to be raised, bets, fallacious winnings.

  Men in pressed suits made of some black carbon fiber alloy march across the upper balcony in droves, surrounding someone of importance. Tapestries of gold dangle over the balustrade, flashing colored lights, ads, and specials.

  Seeva rushes for a staircase. An antigravity stair with golden banister carries her up.

  At the top, she realizes this will not be easy. A copse-like gathering of tall, slender women wear skimpy fishnets and strips of fabric that hide only the last protruding curves of their bodies. They linger, talking nervously as if to friends who are really competition. Or does each individual wish to lose, to not be chosen?

  Seeva sashays across a walk of blond carpet and sensually runs her fingertips along the balustrade, drawing near the bodyguards. She has to get noticed. She activates an eavesdropping function of the Silvergarde on her platinum v-rim.

  “That fucking Medegair,” a voice says, whiny, the tone carrying the belief of a man unequaled, but it’s high and nasal. The Supreme Emperor’s. “Tries to badmouth me after I’d almost sealed the deal for facilities maintenance. Told them a bunch of fucking lies, things I’d never done. They wouldn’t have cared if it was Emlia or Daniau or the Iron Goat. They’re all against me. Jealousy mostly. They want to bring down the titan himself.”

  “You’re right, sir,” a bodyguard in a suit of red carbon fiber alloy and a platinum tie says.

  “The whole fucking galaxy tries to gang up on me. You’ve seen it, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’ve never stiffed anyone, have always gone above and beyond to try to make everyone happy. Jealousy is a powerful creator of enemies.”

  “No one can touch you, sir. Their lies about you will be unveiled, your vindication unmatched.”

  There’s a pause in the conversation. Seeva adds a
bit of swish to her hips, pretending to walk a tightrope on the carpet.

  She glances back. A man with a huge gut, scintillating in his suit of gold and his red tie, stares at the copse of women-in-waiting, his wobbly chin rolling out of his collar in rippling waves.

  Those eyes. That is him, the man she’d met long ago. The Supreme Emperor, Drumeth. Time has not been kind to his figure, only to his wealth and power. Rage bubbles up from her bones, her soul. Fear and doubt linger on her skin.

  Seeva will follow this kingpin and find the trail of spines and whatever need there is for them. Even if he wasn’t responsible, he would know what black-side operations transpire in his artificial world, the world of the Pearl.

  Drumeth struts in his second skin of gold, slapping the backs of big spenders and VIPs. Just another day for him.

  Something shifts inside of Seeva, a tectonic plate in her psyche, a giant granite fist in the bedrock of her soul. Energy floods through her, the haze of trauma clearing from her mind after her body is invigorated. She will get to this man. But for now, she keeps walking.

  A child cries, stopping Seeva.

  A young boy in a silver suit tugs at Drumeth’s sleeve. “I didn’t mean to hit her,” the child says.

  “Never hit your mother.” Drumeth smacks the kid across the face with a clap, whipping his head sideways. “Rettinger, grab a prostitute from below or some poor miser from the slums trying to change his life with his last marc. Bring ’em up. The boy needs another lesson.”

  Seeva waits, watching furtively, pretending to be entranced by the masses and ceaseless action below. Minutes tick by.

  Rettinger returns, dragging a woman dressed in fishnets, a skirt that looks more like thong underwear, a top that barely covers her nipples, her hair in tangled disarray. He marches up to the boy who is crying in the corner. The woman stumbles but tugs against her abductor. Rettinger elbows her in the stomach, and she slumps down beside the boy, who cringes and scoots away, bursting into tears.

  “I won’t do it anymore!” the boy says.

  Rettinger ruffs up his sandy hair.

  “Hit her again, Rettinger.” Drumeth points to the child. “And you’ll watch.”

  Rettinger kicks the woman, who crumples into a heap, pulls her hair to right her, and punches her in the face.

  “Stop!” The boy turns away, sobbing hysterically.

  “Then stop hitting your mother, you little shit.” Drumeth grabs the back of the boy’s collar and shakes him. “Why the fuck would you ever do such a thing?”

  “Because I’ve seen …” The boy hesitates as if considering something ineffable. “I’ve seen you do it.”

  Drumeth backhands the boy across the cheek, sending him spinning into a wall and sliding down it like a blob of slime.

  “What the fuck did you say?” Drumeth rages. “I’ve never hurt a woman in my life. They throw themselves at me just for a taste, and I treat them like queens. Isn’t that right, Rettinger?”

  “They all want you, sir, to the point of irritation sometimes.” The bodyguard brushes something off his pant leg, as if kicking the prostitute put a ruffle in his carbon fiber. “And you’ve never hit any of them.”

  “There you go, boy,” Drumeth says, “straight from the man who spends more time with me than anyone. Must be the truth. Now get your shit together.”

  Drumeth straightens his gold suit jacket, grabs one of the shimmery tree women with artificial fruit, and marches away with her into some back room. The door slams shut. Bodyguards in black suits cordon off the entry.

  He is alone when he’s with a woman.

  Seeva will find a time and place to become that woman. She will discover the truth about his ties to the hermadore slaughter.

  ***

  The games have begun down below. Giant cats cloaked in twilight blue fur roar and hiss as they pull wheeled ancient-style chariots across the sands, threading between the poison-barbed hedges creating this particular maze. Men in the chariots whip their harnessed beasts to run faster.

  One cat turns a corner and comes face to face with another massive beast with thick gray hide and curled horns also pulling a chariot. The cat leaps at the beast, clawing and biting. The other beast rams and stomps. Blue hair flies in clumps. The drivers whip the animals, and they separate from each other and gallop on, the cat’s huge paws thumping.

  Seeva watches the games from the antigravity stadium floating above the maze of an arena. She’s spent a small fortune for the best seats, inside the showman’s box, as close to the Supreme Emperor as possible for someone without celebrity status. Amidst the filth of the Pearl, the filth of the galaxy, those who wish to can pretend they are gods controlling the lives and deaths of others, the sacrificed people and animals below meant to appease their mighty wrath.

  She’s dressed in black leggings with rips across her buttocks to reveal slits of toned skin and the top of her silky blue thong, her leggings still covering enough to leave someone wanting to see more. A low-cut top does not hide her flat midsection. Heels almost as long as her feet. One of the girls the Supreme Emperor prefers, like those tree women in that harem-like copse from before. Her sable hair is again wrapped around her neck like a silky choker, or a noose.

  Seeva stands against the balustrade, leans over, and tries to seize the Supreme Emperor’s attention.

  How I hate men and their appetites.

  The box’s floor is transparent, and the arena can be seen by looking down, but the best view, unobscured by legs and feet, is over the golden balcony.

  “Cats win almost every damn time,” Drumeth’s nasally but arrogant tone reaches Seeva’s auditory enhancement in her v-rim, which filters out the background cheers and conversations around the floating stadium. “Next time, after the riders choose their mounts, I’m going to throw something else at them. Maybe a water maze. Put those riders who always pick the cats at a disadvantage. Cats don’t like water, right?”

  “No, sir,” Rettinger says. “At least that’s what I’ve heard.”

  “How about a wager?” a softer voice says from above. “I’ll take a meorse beast reaching the center first this time, and you can have all the cats.” There’s a pause without a response. “If you think cats have the advantage. Equal odds, even.”

  “Ha,” Drumeth responds. “Zacarias, you slimy dealer, I’ll take your bet. A cat rider will be the victor, even if it’s a fucking byonum over a Pearl man. Those byonum can’t fucking work, ride, or win anything.”

  “Yes, shall we say a cruiser ship?”

  “A fucking cruiser? Don’t waste my time. If I make a bet, it’s big. How about a new fusion reactor for the Pearl? I’ve noticed we’ve been slowing down, and your guys aren’t keeping it going like they used to.”

  The icicle feeling in Seeva’s abdomen recurs, prodding her organs.

  Still the same blowhard I met those years ago.

  Their conversation dies amidst a rising cheer. Two cats are attacking each other—rolling balls of claws, teeth, hair, their attached chariots overturned. Seeva feels their fear, their torment, their instinctual aggression like a thick black oil rising to the surface.

  “I’ll take the stake of the price of a new fusion reactor that could power the Pearl,” Zacarias says.

  Seeva furtively glances back to get a look at Zacarias and the Emperor without raising suspicion that she’s eavesdropping.

  “Deal.” Drumeth, in his typical suit of gold, shakes Zacarias’s hand and smacks him on the back.

  Zacarias rubs an almost absent chin, which has an indentation like a thumbprint.

  “Be careful,” an adolescent voice says. A firm hand lands on Seeva’s shoulder.

  Seeva tenses and jerks.

  “Don’t lean too far over the railing.” The speaker looks to be a teenage boy: the frame of a young man, short hair, a strong jaw, a hint of breasts … no, the voice, it’s a woman. She wears a black suit. One of the police of the Pearl. Her gaze falls to Seeva’s exposed rear.

&nbs
p; “Thank you.” Seeva studies this woman. Am I acting suspicious? “I love the animals and want to see them as close up as I can. I want to touch them.”

  “They’re magnificent,” the woman replies, a softness creeping into her tone. “They deserve better than killing each other for our entertainment. Just be careful.”

  Seeva nods, and the woman strides off, her movements stiff. The guard must have been pretending to be kind, attempting to use Seeva’s weakness against her, to get her to admit to something, to slip. How would the guard have guessed Seeva’s soft spot for the animals? She couldn’t have known. Is there really another soul here on the Pearl not as black as the rest?

  A roar erupts from the stands.

  A blue cat and a meorse beast chariot are racing through the last stretches of turns in the hedges, each coming from different directions. In the center of the maze sits a pedestal with a golden trophy.

  The meorse beast and the cat are driven at each other by their chariot riders. The cat leaps, but the meorse beast rears and kicks. A crunch sounds. The cat and chariot tumble into a hedge of barbs. The rider screams and falls silent. The rider of the meorse beast leaps from the chariot, races up the pedestal, grabs the trophy, and thrusts it into the air.

  “Quite the fucking twist on this one,” Drumeth says as the cheers die out.

  “I look forward to payment for a new fusion reactor that I don’t have to build.” Zacarias smirks.

  “What the fuck do you mean?” Drumeth asks. “A meorse beast just won. You lost the bet.”

  Zacarias is silent for a moment. “You took the cats.”

  “The fuck I did. I never said the fucking word ‘cat.’ Rettinger, all you others out there,” he shouts to the black suits all around him. “Did I take the cats? Did any of you hear me bet against Zacarias, this lying asshole, and did any of you hear me say I wanted to take the cats?”

  “No, sir,” Rettinger says. “You had the meorse beast.”

  A few other black suits shout agreements to support their Supreme Emperor.

  The Emperor’s employees, his servants, are all trained to lie like he does.