Guardian of Empire

by Kylie Chan

  ‘And they love you.’

  ‘Time’s up,’ Kenji said, approaching us. ‘We have a great deal to rebuild.’

  ‘I know.’ Aki quickly embraced me, released me, and walked away with them.

  ‘She’s going to stir some shit,’ I said.

  ‘Good,’ Marque said. ‘Juicy drama.’

  ‘Can someone take me back to the Embassy site?’

  ‘Tomoyo is on her way.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  16

  I sat in the waiting room with a large group of other humans in a similar situation as me: their families had been killed on Earth and the dragons were restoring them from their stones. The four-metre-square windows overlooked the main plaza of Sky City, giving a view of Marque’s news sphere a hundred metres across floating in the middle of the square, relaying images of the cleanup and rebuilding on Earth.

  The Earth Ambassador, Charles Maxwell, was sitting in one of the chairs and waved to me. I went up to her. ‘Ambassador.’

  She gestured for me to sit next to her. ‘Captain.’

  ‘I didn’t know you lost someone on Earth.’

  ‘I didn’t. It’s five years since we put Shiumo into stasis to reattune her stone, and Marque is restoring her. My daughter and granddaughter are in there with her.’

  ‘Shiumo’s all right?’

  ‘We’ll know soon enough. The girls . . . Veronica has been impatient to see her dragonfather again; she really misses Shiumo.’ She quirked a small smile. ‘Despite what she did to Earth – and particularly to Mr Alto – Shiumo is still a member of the family, and my granddaughter’s dragonfather.’

  ‘I understand. How soon before you know?’

  ‘Marque?’ the Ambassador said.

  ‘The procedure is finished. Please come inside and speak to your family, Ambassador.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ The Ambassador rose and nodded to me. ‘Captain.’

  ‘General,’ I replied, and she smiled sadly. A door opened at the end of the room, and she went through.

  ‘Shiumo’s dead, isn’t she?’ I said. ‘If she was alive, she’d be coming out. You sent the Ambassador in to share the news in private.’

  ‘I won’t be able to share the result of the procedure until the family are fully notified. What I can say is: you are very perceptive sometimes, Captain Choumali.’

  I sorted through my feelings about Shiumo and came up short. Maybe they’d change when I had more time to think about it, but at that moment I didn’t feel grief for the dragon that had caused so much pain to my friends. My family came first anyway; I’d already lost my darling son and I still had to hear whether everybody else could be restored. If it didn’t work for Shiumo then it was a possibility that the rest of my family were lost as well . . .

  One of the human medical staff came through the door and approached me. ‘I’m Adriana Menendez, the psychologist caring for your family members. They’re in their new bodies, Captain Choumali. We’ve talked to them, and you can see them now.’

  I rose, full of relief. ‘Are they all right?’

  ‘The procedure worked. We took the radioactive stones, attached them to dragon bodies, and your family are inhabiting the bodies. We took out the radioactive stones and put in new stones that aren’t radioactive, and your family will have to be careful while we wait for the new stones to attune. So physically, your family are fine.’ I walked beside her as she explained. ‘Mentally, the transition will be difficult. Our psyches are built from childhood to be in human bodies. Putting them in dragon bodies causes profound dysmorphia; on top of that, Dianne and Victor have just lost their son. You can talk to them for a while but they’re not being very communicative, and it will take time for them to heal. Putting them back in human bodies is the best thing we can do for them; it will be a tough five years.’

  ‘And my mother?’

  She opened the door for me and lowered her head. ‘She isn’t as deeply traumatised as they are, but she’s still grieving for David.’ We arrived at an administrative section with white walls and floor made from a smooth, ceramic-like material, and soft light coming from no visible source. She pulled up several medical charts, with yellow dragon faces next to their human ones in the floating three-dimensional displays. ‘I hope you can assist her more than your spouses, because she won’t have anyone to stay by her side as she works it through.’

  ‘She has Yuki . . .’ My voice trailed off as I realised. ‘Dragons never have relationships with other dragons. They’ll break it off?’

  ‘Yuki will. Even if your mother wasn’t a goldenscales and prohibited from having children, Yuki would still be unable to have a relationship with her. It’s a deep psychological barrier for the dragons – I’d love to know why, and how they reproduced before they went interstellar.’

  ‘Have you told Mum this?’

  She shook her head. ‘She was so devastated when she learned about David that I thought it best to let it wait.’

  ‘I see.’ I checked the charts again. ‘Oliver? Where’s Oliver?’

  She smiled. ‘He’s grieving for his brother, but he’s in a cloned cat body and he’ll be out of the table soon. I hope you can look after him.’

  ‘I will. Is his partner Runa around? She can help him.’

  ‘She’s with him right now, but he’s still in the table. I suggest you speak to Dianne, Victor and Connie first – they need you more than he does.’

  ‘Take me.’

  Dianne was a two-metre-long goldenscales dragon, sitting in the middle of the padded floor looking bewildered. I stopped at the door and smiled. ‘Dianne?’

  She saw me. ‘Jian. Thank god! You can help me.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘What do you need?’

  She turned on the spot. ‘What do you think? Aren’t dragons amazing? They put me into a whole new body, my memories, everything.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re okay. We’ll get you back to human as soon as we can.’

  ‘I have strict instructions not to try to fold – but goldenscales can’t fold anyway. I guess that’s why they put me in this particular body.’

  Something wasn’t right; she seemed entirely too cheerful. ‘They did tell you what happened, didn’t they?’ I said. ‘You know about David?’

  ‘Isn’t it awful?’ she said, reclining on the mat. She lifted her butt and moved her back legs into a more comfortable position, then did the same thing with her tail. ‘Do you have any idea how freaking weird it is to have a tail? It feels really wrong.’

  Now she really sounded strange. ‘We’ll have you in a human body as soon as we can.’

  ‘They have clones of our human bodies, right?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I said.

  She moved closer to me. ‘And they must have clones of David’s body. So they can just activate the clone, fill it with David’s memories, and . . .’ Her eyes went wide with excitement. ‘There you are, we have him back!’

  ‘Without a soulstone that won’t work, love,’ I said, my heart breaking. ‘And the soulstone he was wearing was a fake. The cats gave our stones to the walkers.’

  ‘No, listen,’ she said, explaining patiently. ‘That doesn’t matter. If we have the body, and the memories, that’s good enough, right? That’s our David, back to us. We don’t need a soulstone, I just need . . .’ her voice broke. ‘I just need to hug my David again, you see? We can bring him back, and he’ll be here again. It’s just . . . I have this hole inside me, where he was, and I need to fill it. And we have cloned bodies, so why not use one, to fill the hole? We can have him back; isn’t dragon technology wonderful . . .’ She reclined on the mat and closed her eyes. ‘We can get him back. Don’t let them stop you – you can order it. You’re important.’

  ‘Dianne, I can’t—’ I said, but she didn’t respond. She appeared to be asleep.

  ‘Don’t sedate her too much, Marque,’ I said.

  ‘I ordered it,’ the doctor said from the doorway. ‘Please be patient, it will take a while for u
s to work this out with her.’

  ‘Is Victor this bad?’ I said.

  ‘It’s hard to put into words. He’s not very responsive. Having you visit might help.’

  ‘All right.’

  Victor was in the next room. A goldenscales dragon lay on the floor with her eyes closed, and I couldn’t distinguish it from Dianne. It seemed to be an identical goldenscales body, but all of them looked the same to me anyway – it was hard to tell the servants apart.

  ‘He heard his voice – his female voice – and is very upset,’ the doctor said softly to me. ‘The dysmorphia is more pronounced in him – we humans are very attached to our gender.’

  ‘Was there no other way?’

  ‘Not with the stones as radioactive as they were. It would have killed their bodies before their souls were connected.’ She raised her voice. ‘Jian’s here to see you, Victor.’

  ‘Hi, Victor,’ I said, but he didn’t respond.

  I went in and sat next to his head. I stroked his shining metallic scales. ‘You always were solid gold,’ I said.

  He sighed softly.

  ‘We can work this out,’ I said. ‘We will all survive.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ he said, and his voice was female. ‘Oh fuck this for a game of soldiers. David’s dead, and I’m stuck in this awful body for five years. I will never finish that sculpture. Never.’

  ‘Not even as a memorial for a fantastic, courageous young man who gave his life to protect humanity?’

  He raised his front claws. ‘I can’t even write my bloody name with these things.’ He fell onto his side. ‘When can I see Dianne?’

  ‘She’s . . . not well,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ he said, and closed his eyes.

  ‘Victor?’

  He didn’t respond.

  ‘I’m going to see Oliver and my mum now, and I’ll be back, okay?’

  He still didn’t reply. He appeared to be asleep.

  ‘Marque, please stop sedating my family,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t,’ Marque said.

  Victor was completely unresponsive. I ran my hand over the smooth scales of his head and went out. I looked up and down the corridor, then returned to the admin station.

  ‘Where’s Doctor Menendez?’ I said.

  ‘With one of the patients,’ the staff member said from behind the desk. She had a female voice in Marque’s translator, but was two metres tall, solid and hairy with a single faceted eye on the front of her head, and no mouth. ‘Oh! You’re Captain Choumali. Doctor Menendez is with your mother. Let me show you the way.’

  She fell to all fours and I followed her down another corridor to a room containing my mother in another identical goldenscales body. My mother was howling, making a long, inhuman noise of grief and pain. I rushed in and knelt beside her. ‘Mum. Mum! I’m here.’

  ‘Jian, oh Jian!’ she shouted, and grabbed me.

  ‘Mum, you have claws, loosen up,’ I said, pulling her forearms away from me. ‘You’re digging them into my back.’

  ‘Sorry, honey,’ she said, and relaxed her grip. She pulled back to see into my eyes. ‘David’s dead! Our little one! What are we going to do?’

  Her desperation and grief set me off, and we held each other. I wept, and she made loud agonised noises of pain – dragons didn’t cry, they keened for their losses.

  ‘Tell Marque when you want me to come back,’ the doctor said.

  She went out and closed the door softly behind her.

  Half an hour later I went to find Oliver. He and Runa were sitting in a sunlit ward with a human-style bed and window showing the blue-white sky of the dragon homeworld. Oliver smiled when he saw me, rose and swept me into a huge embrace. He pulled back, his bright green eyes full of concern. ‘How is everybody?’ He saw my face, obviously swollen from crying with Mum. ‘That bad?’

  ‘It will take time,’ I said, hearing my voice quiver. ‘We’ll get there.’

  ‘I learned something new about my cat nature today,’ he said, morose. ‘I don’t grieve. I feel like: okay I lost my brother. That’s bad. But I can function.’

  ‘That’s not necessarily a bad thing, Ollie.’

  ‘I feel like a psychopath.’

  ‘We do the same thing,’ Runa said. ‘We keen, but we move on. Species are different in their ways of dealing with loss.’

  ‘How does everybody feel about me? My people did this,’ he said.

  ‘We all love you,’ I said. ‘You’re family.’

  ‘See? What did I say?’ Runa said.

  ‘It’s just . . .’ He turned and sat on the bed human-style. ‘Every time someone sees me on the square, they’re going to remember how many people died.’ He looked up at me, full of misery. ‘Can I move into a human body?’

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ the Empress said behind me.

  I glared at her. ‘This is private family business, Silver, what the hell?’

  ‘As Empress I am your family,’ she said. She was so large that she had trouble fitting through the door, and it was a squeeze with all of us in there. She towered over Oliver and turned her laser-bright gaze onto him.

  ‘Listen to me, young man. One day I sincerely hope we will have peace with the cats. You are living proof that your people can be sensible – hell, you’re smart and wise and a fine citizen of the Empire, and having a whole nation of people like you can only benefit both sides. When the cats finally grow up and come around, we’ll need someone to represent us, that they can trust.’ She put her claw on his shoulder. ‘That’s you.’

  ‘I’m an outcast,’ he said. ‘If I return to the cat homeworld they’ll kill me on sight.’

  ‘Like I said, when they grow up,’ she said. ‘It may take some time. Fortunately time is something we have plenty of.’ She turned to me. ‘Jian, as soon as you’re feeling confident about your family’s care, I want to tour Earth and inspect the rebuilding and relief effort so I can be a symbol of the Empire’s concern for our human citizens. Let me know when you feel strong enough to do it, because I want you at my side to represent your people in my esteem.’

  I was torn. I wanted to stay with my family, but being at the Empress’ side while she showed empathy for the plight of Earth would demonstrate a positive message and be a real morale booster.

  ‘I’ll talk to them and let them know what I’m doing,’ I said. ‘Give me a few hours.’

  ‘I understand,’ she said. She turned to Oliver. ‘Your training has just begun, young cat. Your quarters in the Imperial complex are still here, and if you’re willing, I’d like to give you full security clearance, Imperial family status, and unrestricted access to diplomatic training.’

  ‘I’d be honoured, Majesty,’ he said, smiling for the first time.

  ‘Good.’ She winked at Runa. ‘Look after him.’

  ‘I will, Mama,’ Runa said.

  ‘Captain.’ The Empress nodded to me and went out, squeezing through the door with difficulty. Her goldenscales servant was waiting for her in the hallway, and it wasn’t Kana.

  ‘She’s very wise,’ Oliver said.

  ‘She truly cares for all the people of the Empire,’ Runa said. ‘Her role may only be symbolic, but she’s a powerful symbol.’

  Oliver raised his head. ‘I hope that I will have the chance to be an intermediary one day. It’s a goal to aim for.’

  ‘I am so proud of you,’ I said, and embraced him again.

  As I exited, I went past my mother again and spoke to her, then checked on Dianne and Victor, who were both unresponsive. I had the unpleasant realisation – they were in Kana’s bodies. All three of them were in Kana’s spare cloned bodies.

  I rushed back to the Palace to find Five-Shriek and Six Eighty Four stationed at the entrance. Five-Shriek looked like a small round feathered crocodile with wings and a long-toothed snout, and Six Eighty Four was a dancing blue flame next to the door.

  ‘You’re out of uniform, Six,’ I said.

  ‘Apologies, ma’am, it�
�s being repaired,’ it replied without missing a beat.

  ‘Is she in her quarters?’

  ‘She’s in the audience chamber with a whole bunch of goldenscales and threw us out,’ Five-Shriek said.

  I went along the corridors to the chamber entrance; the doors were closed.

  ‘Open up,’ I said, and Marque didn’t respond

  I have an urgent message for you from Earth, I broadcast telepathically. I need to come in immediately, this is extremely important. The fate of the Empire is at risk.

  The doors opened and I stormed in, then the doors slammed shut behind me. The Empress was reclining on the floor at the head of the room next to her throne, with Masako’s goldenscales servant Miko next to her. The rest of the hall was packed with at least two hundred goldenscales servants. A yellow soulstone stood on a small plinth in the middle of the room in front of the Empress – Kana’s soulstone.

  ‘What’s the message?’ the Empress said. ‘This had better be important, Jian, this is an extremely private ceremony.’

  ‘The message is this,’ I said. ‘If you execute Kana I will resign on the spot and tell the entire Empire how you mistreat your goldenscales slaves.’

  There was a ripple of consternation through the goldenscales.

  ‘Thank you!’ she said, and raised herself. ‘Another reason to spare her life, my children. Let her live!’

  One of the goldenscales stepped forward. ‘This is our decision to make, not the Empress’, Captain.’

  ‘And we were discussing that decision, Saki,’ the Empress said. ‘Continue, Miko. Your argument is sound.’

  ‘As I was saying, our coloured sisters receive training in folding from an early age,’ Miko said. ‘If we received similar training in gating, it would be just as safe.’

  ‘If a fold fails, the dragon dies,’ Saki said. ‘If a gate fails, everybody dies.’

  ‘A fold hasn’t failed in centuries,’ the Empress said. ‘Mostly because of the training. If you received the same training, your gates would be just as safe.’