Born in Darkness

by Thomas Farmer

  Before her elevation, Rivka was never certain whether Diomedes let Kipos's underworld thrive because he could not prevent it or because he did not want to. Even after, she was never sure of her predecessor's motivations, though she suspected it was the latter. For herself, it was most definitely the latter of those two options. Of course, she came down like a hammer on anything truly dangerous, but otherwise the same information and material trade that brought her success as a Second Lord continued to thrive.

  Of course, she thought with a smile, even if none of them knew who “Lady Whipcord” actually was, Kipos's various “enterprising organizations” understood very well how important it was to deal fairly with her. Those who did not often found themselves shut out of business deals or even completely isolated by the others.

  All of it happened without “First Lord Rivka, Hexarch Kipos” knowing anything.

  Rivka deactivated the tablet and the holo-display vanished. A moment later and it was back in its locked desk drawer and she had a completely different tablet in her hand as she strode out of the room and into the balcony. Her sudden arrival disturbed a number of colorful birds that had taken that section of balcony as their resting place for the afternoon, and they took off in a squawking swirl of yellow and green.

  Below the balcony sprawled her palace complex, alive with lights and action barely visible through the forest of trees. It reached more than a kilometer down the vale, where a series of well-hidden trams connected everything together. A vast swath of green occupied the space between the ill-defined, but well-patrolled, edge of her palace and Kipos's capital far in the distance. Unlike her palace nestled against the mountain and full of transplanted trees, the capital city gleamed like a jeweled beacon.

  When she addressed the other Hexarchs, especially the elders of the Council like Aegesander or Hyperion, Rivka still did not feel she belonged. Especially given the unconventional nature with which she attained her seat, a nagging voice always told her she was not truly “one of them,” which was one reason she was so quick to shed her purple robes in private. However, the view of her palace and capital city assuaged that anxiety significantly.

  There on the balcony, she opened a vast array of single-sided holographic windows. From outside, they showed as jade green blanks, barely distinguishable against the forest-colored exterior of the tower. On her side, however, the displays gave Rivka all of the information and control she needed to properly execute her duties as Hexarch.

  The entire setup was unconventional, but it reminded her in a tangential way of how she used to operate as a Second Lord and even before then. Rivka could lose herself in the vast array of information, operating it on a nearly unconscious level. She still had a pattern and a way of tacking it all, but working like this allowed her to simply do her work, rather than stressing herself by thinking about it.

  Out of the mass of data, she pulled a series of communications with Lelantos's personal physicians. As her Titan, he had access to the best minds she could bring in, and an entire panel of specialists monitored his condition on a nearly constant basis. Nutritionists, chemists, even psychologists fed her constant updates on his condition. She skimmed those quickly. As important as they were, after so many years of working with Lelantos, Rivka knew two things. First, his own analysis equipment would pick up any chemical imbalances when they happened and he would know almost before his own doctors did. Second, when there was something that important, the doctors understood her schedule and marked the information as such.

  These updates were not labeled as high-priority, so after a cursory examination, she marked them as being finished and filed them away.

  Dozens of things needed her approval, or at least examination. Most of them were mundane things. Business projects needing approval for a budget or for land usage were by far the most common. However, no matter how ostensibly uninteresting some of the projects were, each of them required careful thought.

  Unlike the messages from Lelantos's physicians, Rivka had to actually do something with these messages. Worse, the ones spread across her holo-display at that moment were notes and requests that had been passed to her by her staff, meaning this was likely one percent or less of the total. Total personal control over Kipos or no, Rivka had an entire staff of people dedicated to managing the various avenues of the planet's operation. Anything that came to her desk, either metaphoric or literal, meant whatever it was, her staff could not deal with it.

  So, methodically, Rivka paged through each and every request that she had been presented with. Despite being important enough to merit her attention, most were still fairly simple affairs. A few, she marked to deal with later through other channels, usually her private black-market tablet, and still others she marked as needing further attention.

  Worst among them were a pair of project proposals. As soon as she read them, she realized why they had been transferred to her within moments of one another. One project wanted to repurpose an unused warehouse in the downtown district of the capital as a sporting arena. Rivka had to admit that the proposal swayed her a little by playing on her own planetary pride—it suggested that the reason Kipos repeatedly came in dead center of nearly every single sport the Technocrats played was because they lacked a “proper” sporting arena.

  The second proposal came from the university. More accurately, it came from a group of university students. They wanted her approval to turn the same warehouse into a new theater space, citing the aging nature of the university's current theater. It detailed plans for the existing facility, including using the large auditorium as combination lecture hall and dedicated music venue.

  Three things immediately swayed her towards that proposal instead of the sporting arena. First, the students organized the entire thing themselves. Other than having official university approval, the message was careful to note that everything had been thought of and written down by a dedicated group of student activists. Second, and by extension third, the students included plans to work with the other Hexarchs. Their proposal included an inaugural performance at the renovated music hall by the Katarraktes Symphony, pending First Lord Enyalios's approval, and a personal consultation with First Lord Tritogenes in regards to the construction of the new theater.

  Rivka approved the students' proposal, taking a few minutes to compose a personal reply as she did so. In it, she expressed not only her approval of their plan, but of their initiative and wished them the best of luck in their negotiations with the other Hexarchs.

  Despite that, she knew she had to give the sporting groups something, so she drafted a note to her staff, instructing them to form a committee to begin drafting plans for a new facility on the outskirts of the capital city.

  Satisfied, she nearly closed the entire message window, when two new ones appeared, both flagged as high-priority. The first was a message from a school on the far side of the planet, which was a surprise. Rivka opened it, finding a not and a scan of a hand-written invitation. The note explained that one of the school's students, a young girl by the name of Alexis, had been selected to compete in a marksmanship competition held on Limani. The handwritten part, recorded in the meticulous handwriting of a child eager to please the adults around her, asked for Rivka herself to be present at the competition.

  Smiling wide, Rivka took several minutes to return to her bedroom and get dressed the rest of the way in a clean robe. Thankful she had not yet washed the dramatic blue and pink swirls off her cheeks, Rivka returned to her impromptu workstation on the balcony to record a video message.

  She clasped her hands in front of her, putting on her best friendly smile, and waited for the indicator light to come on.

  “Hello, Sixth Lord Alexis. This is Hexarch Rivka. Thank you for taking the time to write to me; that was very thoughtful. Congratulations on the invitation! That's a big achievement. I would be delighted to attend your competition. I would also consider it a personal favor if your instructor and parents sat with me during the event.

&n
bsp; “Please don't hesitate to write to me again.”

  She stood still for a moment, waiting for the system to realize she was finished. The indicator light went off and Rivka relaxed.

  While her system compiled the video file to send off to Sixth Lord Alexis, her instructor, and her parents, Rivka opened the last piece of high-priority mail, a recording from First Lord Aegesander.

  The voice-only message grated for a moment, likely a planned voice to make the message seem more relaxed. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect. Rivka might have been fairly new to the Council, but she knew First Lord Aegesander. He never did anything in any way that she could consider “relaxed,” and for him to attempt to project that sort of atmosphere kicked her usually suspicious mind into overdrive.

  “Rivka,” his gravelly voice opened, “I have recently commissioned a new training facility on Prosgeiosi. I would like very much to meet your Second Lord Lelantos, as well. Would you do me the honor of bringing him to the capital to train with Helena and Panatakis, First Lord Eurybia's Titan? I would very much appreciate your assistance in training Helena.”

  The message ended, leaving Rivka somewhat surprised. That Aegesander requested her presence was no real surprise. That was how the Hexarchs did things, especially when it related to asking for favors or offering the use of something. Hence her careful phrasing of the message to Alexis's parents. It had to be a request, like Rivka was asking them to do her a favor. Even coming from a Hexarch, simply asking them something would have been a slight.

  Similarly, had Aegesander simply offered the use of his facility to her, the gesture would have been insulting, a backhanded way of telling her that her own training facilities were sub-par. Then, if she refused, she would have been insulting him, implying that not only was his training space the sub-par facility, but he was lying to her about it.

  So, he phrased things as a request, asking for her help. To ask another Technocrat for help was neither a sign of weakness nor of failure. Rather, it was a sign of strength and mutual appreciation. The insult came when one person forced their help on another without first being asked.

  One of the principle benefits of that unspoken system, Rivka thought, was that it fostered communication. People were afraid of insulting one another by assuming they knew what the other person needed or wanted that they took extra care to ask after their friends' and coworkers' needs.

  More to the point, First Lord Aegesander was the oldest sitting member of the Council, and second only to First Lord Hyperion himself in seniority of experience. For someone in his position to ask anything of a relative newcomer like Rivka was an even greater honor for her.

  Quickly, she checked her schedule, comparing what she still needed to do before she could possibly leave Kipos to the amount of time it would take to prep Lelantos's equipment for travel. Within minutes, she was ready to compose a reply.

  “Aegesander,” she said, “thanks for taking the time to message me. Please allow me a week to finish some business here and then Lelantos and I will be delighted to join you on Prosgeiosi. Lelantos has a number of special requirements, which I can forward to you. Please make sure there's a facility ready for us when we arrive.”

  With a nod, she sent that message off as well, then turned her attention to the last piece of business she had to take care of before she and Lelantos went through their final training session for the day.

  With a wave, Rivka dismissed all but one of her windows. It expanded automatically, taking up the entire area she set aside as her work space. First Lord Enyalios might have had the largest military in the binary, with First Lord Aegesander close behind him, but Rivka prided herself on having the largest effective army in the form of Kipos's planetary militia.

  With a wave, she opened the first of many militia documents needing her review and approval. With a sigh, she glanced at the page count. Another training session with Lelantos was going to be a welcome relief when she was done.

  Chapter 10

  Dekaneas Stavros laughed. “I know that. All I'm saying is...”

  A sharp gesture from Lochias Photeos who, along with Dekanii Isodorus and Myrto, had been taking point, cut him off. He raised a single hand, clenched in a tight fist in a signal for them all to halt, then extended a single finger which he pointed upward, then forward. Finally, he extended all of his fingers with his palm facing backward.

  Pallasophia nodded. It might have been some time since her last real combat assignment, but the hand signals remained clear enough. One target waited for them up ahead and the Lochias wanted them to fall back for a moment, likely to plan.

  The team followed his orders without needing clarification, moving backward as one unit to their previous “safe” spot. For a few moments, Dekanii Eleni and Stavros took point as they went. Pallasophia remained in the center of the group, shepherding both her people and the bulk of their equipment.

  They rounded a corner and Eleni gestured for them to stop. She and Stavros scanned the area, then lowered their rifles slightly. A moment more passed, and she signaled that the immediate area was tentatively clear. The rest of the team lowered their weapons as well, but no one was about to actually put them down or come off their guard without significantly more distance between them and the noises they had been hearing all morning.

  “Up ahead,” Pallasophia began. “Do you think it's Number One Hundred?”

  Photeos shook his head. “I don't think so, no.”

  “Mastigas, then.”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  Pallasophia cocked her head to the side, which was as much expression as the face-shrouding armor allowed. “Lochias?”

  “I apologize, Lochagos, but I do not recognize the tracks we have been following or the sounds. They match general mastigas movement patterns, but the foot and step sizes are not like anything I've seen before.”

  Pallasophia frowned, thinking out loud. “I'm perhaps more intimately familiar with the listing of mastigas that were brought to this facility before the Incident than anyone else, and Second Lord Stavros knows more about them as a species than even I do. Are you telling me that, with our resources, you don't know what's up ahead?”

  Stiffly, he said, “that is correct, Lochagos.”

  Her frown deepened. “That's impossible.”

  “I understand that, Lochagos, but it is what it is. The tracks belong to no known mastigas breed.”

  “Describe them, please. As much detail is relevant.”

  Next to her, Stavros sidle up to listen. He already had his holo-computer active, likely ready to take notes. Pallasophia had to admit she admired the native Kiposian's dedication to understanding the mastigas.

  “It's big,” Photeos began. “Smaller than the gigas in mass, but nearly matching them in height. It moves around with the long strides of the more predatory breeds like the fonias or the elite, but is much larger than the former and smaller than the latter. More to the point, the foot shape is not quite the same. It seems to lack the claws of the fonias.”

  She nodded. “Anything else?”

  “We passed multiple signs of tool usage, spots where things had been manipulated or moved by hands with long fingers and possible claws.”

  “It sounds like you're describing a sophont.”

  “I thought One Hundred killed the sophont?” Isodorus asked.

  Pallasophia growled. “She did.”

  “It's not a sophont,” Photeos said. “They walk, how do I put this? They walk like a human, with smaller, more measured steps.”

  “Impossible,” Stavros muttered.

  “I'm only telling you what I'm seeing, Dekaneas.”

  Quickly, Stavros shook his head. “Sorry, Lochias. I wasn't calling your observations impossible. It's just that...”

  Pallasophia gestured for him to continue.

  Stavros drew himself up straighter. “A few years ago, after the Project began, I was involved in some research on mastigas corpses recovered from their attack on Kipos. We discovered
that the five breeds could actually be classified into two primary types. We argued back and forth about how and why, and even what to call them. None of us could agree on...”

  “Stavros?”

  He cleared his throat with a sharp nod. “Apologies, Lochagos.”

  “Continue, please.”

  “Anyway, two main types. Let's call them 'simple' and 'complex.' The simple breeds were the fonias and the gigas. They tend to be less intelligent and less capable of thinking on their own. The complex breeds were the mikros, the sophont, and the elite. All three are trinocular tetrabrachs.”

  “Tri-what?” Isodorus asked. Helmet or no, the sound of his eyes going wide with confusion was clear enough.

  “Three eyes and four arms,” Pallasophia supplied. “Though the mikros' second set of arms are so small that they barely count.”

  “Yes. Some of us posited that the complex breeds all came from the same stock, likely a mikros or something similar.”

  Pallasophia felt her blood freeze. “And there were dozens of mikros here. You're telling me it's possible one of them could be, what, growing up? Becoming another sophont?”

  “I'm telling you there were people on Kipos five years ago, myself included, who believed it might be possible.”

  “Why is this the first I'm hearing of it?”

  Stavros shrugged. “The senior scientists reported directly to the Council. One day they came into the lab and started turning equipment off and sending people home. None of the research was ever published, and we were all threatened with hefty penalties, even jail time, if we talked.”

  “But you're talking now,” Photeos said.

  Stavros laughed, a thin nervous found. “Yeah, I suppose I am. Because if we were right, then what's up there,” he pointed down the hall whence they came, “is far scarier than anything the Hexarchs can do to me.”

  Photeos drew himself up taller. “You think there's a juvenile elite up there.”

  “I do.”