Guardian of Empire

by Kylie Chan

  ‘Marque has the full list,’ I said.

  ‘Marque didn’t come with you?’ Oshala said.

  I gestured towards the floor. ‘The nanos attack Marque and infiltrate its code. It can’t come within comms distance of the planet.’

  ‘The dragons?’

  ‘They’re murdered by nanos if they approach as well. I’m the only one allowed here.’

  ‘So how are you going to get us out?’ Oshala said, desperate. ‘Do we have any hope at all?’

  ‘I’m working on it,’ I said. ‘We’re moving slowly through diplomatic channels.’

  ‘Slowly?’ one of the humans shouted. ‘How long is slowly?’

  I am broadcasting your location to the dragons, I said telepathically. Be ready to be transported out at any moment.

  This caused a frisson of delight through them.

  Masako isn’t answering, but we will have someone here soon to transport you.

  They visibly cheered up at that, and their desperation eased. They’d been close to panic at the thought of being stuck there.

  ‘Is there anything you need right now?’ I said. ‘They are providing you with food and water and sanitary facilities? I can talk to the leader about improving your housing.’

  Oshala guided me to the side of the structure, walking clumsily on the nano legs. A black lean-to stood in one corner of the building. We went inside and he showed me a bin full of small brown pellets.

  ‘This is the food,’ he said. ‘It’s effectively kibble, but it seems to have everything in it that we need, even though it tastes awful. There’s a device here,’ he pointed at a black box, as tall as a human, with a spigot sticking out from the side. ‘That’s an infinite water distillery – it seems to extract fresh water from the air.’ He held his hands under the spigot and water came out. ‘We pissed the cats off on the first day by using the toilet bowls as water bowls. They were horrified and now they’re convinced that we’re barbarians.’

  ‘No bathroom facilities?’ I said. ‘The cat leader said you’d asked about bathing.’

  ‘We tried to explain bathing but they’re having difficulty understanding the concept. They don’t bathe, so they haven’t provided us with any way to do it. At the moment we’re using our clothing as damp pads to wash ourselves with.’

  ‘A few of us are birth-natural,’ one of the women said. ‘They don’t believe us about menstruation: they think it’s from sexual activity and told us to show some restraint instead of helping us with sanitation.’

  ‘Cats bleed after sex,’ one of the men said, incredulous. ‘It’s normal!’

  ‘Adding to the perception that we’re barbarians, rampantly having sex with each other all the time,’ Oshala said wryly. ‘Even though . . .’ He gestured around. ‘There’s no walls so no privacy for us.’

  ‘What if it rains?’ I said. ‘Does the building grow walls if there’s a storm?’

  ‘It hasn’t rained yet and I honestly don’t think it will,’ he said.

  I half-listened to him as I tried to contact Masako.

  He became concerned at my inattention. ‘Jian?’

  ‘I am listening to you,’ I said, distracted. Still no answer, I added, now becoming concerned. ‘Tell me if there’s anything I can do to add to your comfort. I’ll try to get you facilities for bathing, better food, and hopefully some chairs to sit on. Are the sleeping pads soft enough?’

  ‘They’ll do,’ Oshala said. ‘Bathing is the big one right now.’

  ‘Me!’ one of the other people shouted at the back.

  ‘Oh, sorry, Mick,’ Oshala said. ‘Mick’s mentally ill and needs medication.’

  ‘I’m bipolar,’ Mick said. ‘I won’t be a danger to anyone but I may self-harm. My meds are on record – please. Soon.’

  ‘I’ll get them for you,’ I said.

  ‘We all stink,’ one of the others said. ‘If I had legs I’d give one of them for a bar of soap.’

  ‘You’ll get your legs back when we take you home.’

  ‘We know,’ Oshala said. He hesitated. ‘Any news?’

  I shook my head.

  He looked around at his fellow humans. ‘If there’s a chance that we’ll be here for more than a few days . . .’ He wiped his eyes, then squared his shoulders. ‘Okay. I can do this. We need to look after ourselves. Once we get the basics taken care of, it would be great to move up to some higher-level needs. Mental stimulation; some way of recording and sharing our experiences. Even pen and paper. We’re using oral interaction to keep our spirits up . . .’

  ‘We gather and share our different areas of expertise,’ one of the others said. ‘Impromptu university. But it’s hard without any writing implements.’

  ‘Any conflict?’ I said, still broadcasting to the dragons and becoming really concerned. I’d been with the humans for more than half an hour now – where the hell was Masako?

  ‘We haven’t really had time to build cliques or have a power struggle. Everybody’s breathless waiting for it to happen – for someone to break and become violent. It’s only a matter of time. We’ve established some basic behavioural rules, but we all knew that if we didn’t hear from someone back home soon, everything would start to break down.’

  ‘Are there more sociologists than you?’ I asked wryly.

  ‘Hey, you know us military are trained in the basics,’ one of the men said. ‘At least half of us are military.’

  ‘And by the time Oshala’s finished with us we’ll all have doctorates in sociology,’ one of the women said. ‘He identifies what’s happening, helps us to short-circuit any conflict, and generally keeps our spirits up.’

  ‘Boredom is sapping morale. If we had paper and markers, we could make some board games to keep ourselves entertained,’ Oshala said. ‘After the soap, I think that’s the biggest thing.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I said.

  ‘Now that we’ve talked about us and our needs, tell us what happened after we were stranded on the warp ships,’ Oshala said. ‘We’re not even sure how long we’ve been here; the cat days seem to be longer than Earth’s ones.’ He turned and spoke to the group. ‘Sit around us and if you can’t hear up the back, say so.’

  I’ll broadcast what I say telepathically as well, so that you can hear me, I said.

  ‘Do they know about that aspect of your abilities?’ Oshala said as we sat on the black floor.

  ‘I’m afraid they do,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to be careful.’

  ‘Damn,’ he said under his breath.

  ‘What about our families?’ one of them said.

  I spoke telepathically to Oshala. I still have the dragon army enhancements, and one of them is perfect recollection. I know the names of every single human and dragon lost. Should I tell them?

  If I didn’t tell these people, they would be in a crisis of anxiety about their loved ones. If I did tell them, they would have grieving on top of the stress of being incarcerated with their legs chopped off – but for some of them it would be good news.

  ‘Tell us,’ he said.

  I took a deep breath. ‘I know the names of every human and dragon that was lost,’ I said. ‘Sit with me, and I’ll tell you the list.’

  Masako still hadn’t responded when I finished telling them.

  8

  After I’d sat with my colleagues for another hour, sharing stories and making a list of requirements for their captors, the humans’ legs all disappeared into clouds of black nanos.

  ‘He’s coming back,’ Oshala said. ‘No word?’

  I’ve been broadcasting continuously, I said. I will continue to broadcast.

  ‘Stay strong, everyone,’ I said out loud. ‘My first priority is to get you home. I’ll remain on the cat planet until we have a way of getting you out; I’m officially Ambassador. We’ll establish a mission and work to get you more comfortable.’

  ‘Thanks, Jian,’ Oshala said.

  The floor moved; one side lifted, forcing us all down to the other side.
r />   ‘This is to prevent us from attacking him,’ Oshala said. ‘Just move with it.’

  Some of them walked on their stumps as the floor lifted. Others, like Oshala, went down on all fours to crawl – the stumps were too painful to carry their weight. When we were crammed into a corner of the building, with me towering over the other humans on their severed legs, the floor lifted around me until I was enclosed in a black bubble. A platform emerged under my feet, lifting me, and the bubble rolled around me with the platform remaining unmoving in the centre. The bubble opened to show the cat leader, standing next to his vehicle.

  I didn’t speak, not wanting to piss him off again. I merely bowed with my arms spread in the cat body language of thanks.

  ‘One of them is mentally ill?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. He requires medication to control it,’ I said.

  ‘You talk about it as if it were normal,’ he said.

  ‘It is normal,’ I said. ‘He just needs his medication, and he’ll be fine. He’s not delusional or anything, he just has . . .’ I tried to use the cat language to describe being bipolar. ‘Emotional swings from deep depression to high energy, caused by a chemical imbalance in his brain. He’s chosen not to have it permanently fixed, as he’s decided to remain birth-natural. It’s fully managed with his medication anyway.’

  ‘And the other humans are living with him without fear?’ the cat said, still incredulous.

  ‘Yes of course they are,’ I said, as bewildered as he was. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘I’ll arrange for him to be separated and locked up,’ the cat leader said. ‘He’s a danger to himself and others.’

  ‘No, he isn’t. Even off his meds, he’s no danger to anyone,’ I said.

  He flattened his ears. ‘He said he will harm himself. I will not endanger our guests.’

  ‘You cut their legs off!’

  ‘For their own safety.’

  ‘You don’t need to—’ I began.

  He interrupted me. ‘The discussion about him is closed. We will now talk about their needs. They have been annoying me about this for a while, and I need clarification.’ He sat on the floor of the vehicle, and it lifted to carry us back to the city.

  He gestured for me to sit as well, and I did.

  ‘The word “bathing” seems to have two meanings: one is “exercise by swimming in a large body of water”. The other is “washing in a small amount of water with a surfactant.” Which one are they referring to when they demand this?’

  I gave up on Mick’s mental health needs for the moment, to focus on the greater good. ‘They mean a small amount of water with a surfactant. Usually a pleasantly-fragranced one that we call soap. We have sprays of warm water that we use to cover ourselves with water and soap, and it removes the oils from our skin.’

  ‘That sounds extremely unhealthy.’

  ‘We smell bad otherwise.’

  ‘No, you don’t. I can’t believe you dislike your own smell. That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Put it that way, you’re right,’ I admitted.

  ‘The women regularly bleed? And this is normal?’

  ‘Yes. There are a few species in the Empire that do it. We require absorbent bandages to manage it. Bathing also helps – it is messy when it happens.’

  ‘Does that happen to you?’ he said, looking me up and down as if I was about to spontaneously explode in a blood-soaked horror show.

  ‘No. I’ve had it turned off, because I don’t want children right now.’

  His ears went up. ‘I see. It’s part of the reproductive process. That makes sense. We have something similar.’

  ‘Your females bleed after sexual contact?’

  ‘We do not discuss that,’ he said stiffly. ‘Your people asked for writing material. I have shown them how to use the nanos to record their thoughts.’

  ‘When did you do that?’

  ‘I’m doing it now. A model has appeared in their residence with instructions on how to record memories onto nanos.’

  ‘This is fascinating,’ I said. ‘How do you do it?’

  A copy of him emerged from the floor of the vehicle. It was shiny black, made from the nanos, and about one-third his size.

  The model pushed its hand into the surface of the car and pulled out a handful of the thick liquid nano material. It moulded the material between its hands until it was a rough flat ovoid, then ran its hand down the sides to make them straight. After thirty seconds of deft manipulation of the nanos, the model was holding a square tablet fifteen centimetres to a side and half a centimetre thick.

  The model put the tablet in one hand and ran the other hand over it. The nanos turned from black to dark grey. It continued to run its hand backwards and forwards over it, until the tablet was pale grey.

  ‘I’m so impressed at their flexibility and usefulness,’ I said.

  ‘You haven’t even seen the beginning of their usefulness,’ the cat leader said.

  The model buried its hand into the nano surface again, and pulled out a smaller handful. It placed the pale grey tablet on the floor and rolled the new piece of nanos until it was a rough tube. It pulled one end into a point and squished the other end flat, and used it as a stylus to mark on the tablet. It wrote the first few lines of a famous cat poem onto the tablet in a flowing hand in the cat script.

  I will return for you

  I will fulfil my duty

  I will return for you

  And live as I please

  My child will be treasured

  And I will be free

  And when all my duty is done

  I will return to you.

  I’d talked with the clicks about possible meanings of the poem in the past, and they’d focused on the different preposition used in the repeating line – return for you, then return to you. We’d speculated for ages and hadn’t worked out why the obviously significant difference was made by the poet. I was sure it was something meaningful about their culture and had no idea what it was.

  ‘Can you store the writing?’

  ‘Everything is stored,’ the cat said.

  The model turned the tablet over and pressed it onto the floor. The image was transferred, and a hyper-thin slice of the floor floated up and into its hand. It had effectively created a piece of paper with writing on it; it wasn’t even mirror-reversed.

  The model wrote the next stanza of the poem, pressed the tablet to the floor, and produced another sheet of poetry. It touched the two sheets along one side, and they glued together. It had the beginnings of an old-fashioned book.

  ‘Once it is more than a few pages, or requires longer storage, it is easier to record it within the nano matrix itself,’ the cat leader said. ‘But your people are not familiar with the data retrieval methods that we use, so a hard copy is probably their best option.’

  ‘Thank you for showing them this,’ I said. ‘It will make their captivity much easier.’

  ‘I do not want them to suffer while we study their soulstones,’ he said.

  The model and the book it had created sank and disappeared into the floor.

  ‘You are welcome to send some cats to our planet to study the stones, instead of holding my people captive,’ I said. ‘There’s no need to hold them prisoner; we want to live in peace with you. Please release them and send them home.’

  ‘This is our destination,’ he said.

  We’d arrived outside a two-storey-high tower made of nano material that was ten metres across. It was at the edge of the black solar array, and no other buildings were within view. I followed him off the vehicle without asking what was up, not wanting to piss him off while he was being so forthcoming.

  ‘Through there,’ he said, opening the front door.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, realising that this was my residence. I wasn’t staying with him. There was a human-furnished room, with a toilet bowl room, a kibble room and a water dispenser. A thick-glassed window looked out to the sandy desert beyond. I turned back to the cat leader. ‘Thank y
ou, this is very comfortable.’

  ‘It will do,’ he said. He went out and closed the door.

  ‘Oh shit no!’ I shouted. I tried the door, and of course it was locked. I thumped on it. ‘You don’t need to lock me up, I won’t go anywhere! I can’t go anywhere!’

  There was no reply. I checked the floor; a sleeping mat was placed on it, and the floor was made of the black nanos.

  The floor tilted and I reeled back. Loud metallic clangs rocked the building, and I was nearly knocked off my feet. There were three deafening clicks that sounded hard enough to make the ceramic walls crack, then silence.

  I banged on the door again. ‘This is a breach of diplomatic protocol. You cannot keep me prisoner!’

  Masako, help, I added telepathically, but she didn’t reply.

  The room filled with a metallic whine and I stepped back from the door, worried that it might be electrified. I tried to place the whine – it rose in pitch and volume until I thought that something would explode.

  There was a rush of air, then silence.

  I sat on the floor and wiped my face. I knew that sound. I was inside a warp field.

  *

  I woke and stared at the ceiling. I’d dreamt that I was back on Barracks, playing with Oliver and Endicott. I rolled onto my side and curled up at the thought of my boys, my mother . . . my family. I wondered if they knew whether I was alive or not.

  The tower was connected to a warp ship, and there were a couple of windows looking out into space, made bright and fuzzy by the warp field. Light was the only thing that could enter and leave the field, meaning I could only communicate with visual signals – and there was nobody out there to see my messages. Not even my telepathy would carry through.

  I used the little bathroom and scooped some kibble out of the bin. It was spongy and moist, and tasted like a vile mixture of liver and bone marrow. I’d grown to hate it so much that I was losing weight because I was avoiding it. I held the handful of kibble under the water – cats did not use bowls for food, they placed their kibble directly on the table and ate with their hands. The concept of crockery was alien to them, so I didn’t have anything except my clay toilet bowl. I scrunched the foul kibble with some of the water in my hand to make a brown slurry, and struggled to eat it. I was so repelled by it that I had difficulty keeping it down. I finished it, rinsed my hand in the bathroom, and drank some of the water. I didn’t have soap, and I wondered if the cat leader had given some to the captives. I hoped so.