Kwarkë Sector
Dwelling on the past was sometimes healthy. It was a rite of passage, for example, to spend one's later childhood contemplating what life was like on Earth during the Holocene, the Age of Man, when human beings were only one species, and the emergence of life on other worlds was but a mathematical certainty, and had not yet become an empirical fact. Like almost everyone, Zem eventually grew out of that. In contrast to the attention paid to the cradle of civilisation, nobody knew the whole chronicle of humanity in more than the broadest strokes; the mind simply couldn't hold so much information. The sheer abundance of events, records, and the endless propagation of the species taught most students only one lesson: that it was better to focus on the present. But the present was that Zem had been unhappy. Her last reassignment, to this forsaken place in the middle of nowhere, had taken most of the fun out of being a spy for nearly a year now. It was a promotion. It was a unique opportunity. It was a social death sentence. Today that last part would be fixed. Major Zem dam Schadros sat alone in a café on the top floor of a skyscraper, staring out the window. On the other side of that window was the obsidian blanket of a starless night. It wasn't starless because there weren't any stars to see—there were, she knew, seven: Kowaka, Hrad, Sik, Tous, Phron, Zod, and Ubo-gata. They were hidden, locked away from the rest of the Universe, behind the most perfect veil of darkness ever produced by humans. For the past eleven months and fifteen days, it had been Zem's job to peer behind that cloak, observing the affairs of the single civilisation that dwelt among the tiny constellation, the Empire of Wanisin, to the extent that it could be observed from such a distance. The café was always this empty at this time of day; it was on the west side of the tower. Far below, beneath the grass of the park, the body of the long, cylindrical ship rotated slowly about its central axis. Now, it was the east side that faced the faint, wavering images of the distant suns of the rest of the galaxy. In twelve hours, the situation would be reversed, and she would be elsewhere—though not, as usual, in another café where she could contemplate her loneliness in peace. On the contrary: that was when Tris's shuttle was arriving, and after, her routine would be very much changed. Zem supposed it was a little unusual to be excited about a mission with such a small chance of success and no extraction plan. She wasn't particularly inclined toward living life on the edge. But to be with Tris again—to end this endless-seeming state of isolation—it would be worth it for that one thing. Finally, she would have something other than her work, and other than life buried deep in the top-secret bowels of this vast ship, practically alone among a crew of a hundred thousand. This was all contingent on Tris's conduct, of course. Her lip curled as she remembered the last time they had tried to meet up. A lot of strings had to be pulled and a lot of promising opportunities sacrificed to make this second reunion happen. That said, the mission itself wouldn't be completely uninteresting. A year of studying the Wanisinese had somewhat enamoured her of them. On the cosmic stage, they would have been something of an underdog—a relatively young culture seeking to reclaim lost glory, vanquish ancient foes, and conquer everything within reach. But times beyond the veil had changed, and those ancient foes were no longer the dominant force in the Expanse. If they were allowed out of the penalty box, they would have been hopelessly behind, both technologically and economically. An attempt had been made once, so to speak, to close the gap—a very illegal attempt. That was what had led to the quarantine. It was not a decision sanctioned by the international community, because the international community didn't know Wanisin even existed. Not even everyone on the ship knew it existed, and very few people outside of the ship had even an inkling of what was going on in Kwarkë. Unless their mission succeeded, it would probably stay that way indefinitely. Her coffee was empty. A serving drone decided she would want another, and hovered over. It refilled the smooth, silvery mug before she had come to the decision herself. She watched it, the steaming off-black liquid flowing into the vessel with a slight helical twist, forming a surface perfectly smooth and undisturbed. A chill slid down her spine. There was something almost strangely thrilling about that simple act of statistical anticipation, to have that modicum of control over her own decisions arrested from her. The drones aboard each ship had their own personalities, whether autonomous or centrally controlled. In a year of coming here, though, no drone had ever done that. Not for her, at least. Perhaps it was just becoming accustomed to her patterns—ships were fond of minimising energy expenditure, after all. Or, perhaps, it was testing her. Measuring her. Playing with her. Insinuating it knew... something. What that might be wasn't clear, but there were some mirrors you just didn't stare into, as they had a tendency to stare back. Some ships were fond of that, too. Zem looked up at the drone, watching the intricate metal orb, speckled with lights, sensors, effectors, and actuators, go about its business. It acted entirely as if nothing were out of the ordinary. Perhaps nothing was. She rose and left anyway, the cup untouched.Precipitation
Although it is the only reasonably temperate climate in the northern half of the Kelmefta supercontinent, I have heard countless times that Chekroba is a swift refutation of the very idea of comfortable weather. While our great city may have its accommodatable moments, Empress Sampo I, writing in the eleventh century, remarked that on no uncertain terms should such a humid place be inhabited. In truth this seems laughable to me: the capital itself was built on such poorly-surveyed ground that some of the oldest buildings are now two full storeys under muck and water, and indeed the entirety of it is miserably cold with damp for most of the year. Chekroba, our Petulant Oasis, has neither of these faults.The city was drowning. This was normal. Just before the sun crested the horizon, the condensation of the northern swamp-forest crashed out of the air, drenching everything and everyone within. Beautiful beads of pristine clarity would form upon each and every leaf in the insect-choked, flooded jungle, stirring the buzzing and chittering drones of countless varieties of arthropod—a natural alarm clock. In the typical building style of the valley, which emphasised open, cool windows to combat its unusually hot afternoons, this moisture would then creep into the stone bedrooms of the highest noblewoman and the lowliest peasant, and smother them. On heavier days there was even actual rain. A drop of water from the ceiling fell on the sleeper's forehead, waking her, at last, where the sounds of wagons and shouting in the courtyard below had hitherto failed. By now, Teza knew, the kitchen's ovens would be aflame, and the cooking girls, under the watchful eye of Master Ibrahim, the household's artisan chef, should be pulling out the first loaves. Indeed, judging from the lightness of the sky, she was behind schedule herself to begin bathing and perfuming, that she might be entirely presentable when Lady Kevrolla awoke in an hour or so. The Mistress often wished to cuddle with her for a time in the mornings, and frequently confided in Teza her deepest thoughts, as well as fragments of dreams from the night before. Teza took a deep breath, readying herself to rise. Already she felt a song coming on; a wordless, slow melody that would give form to the foggy, damp morning and its mood. There were few smells she liked more than fresh sweetbread, and it often tickled her fancy just enough to summon a spontaneous tune. But the air was heavy with dewy petrichor, and little else. Apparently, the entire kitchen staff was sleeping in, and had not lit the ovens. Had Mistress Kevrolla left on another trip? That would explain the laxity. But, surely, Teza would have heard about such a change of plans. She was supposed to have returned last night from Sur'daro; the household had spent most of yesterday preparing for that. A bell rang beyond her window, far below. The single, flat note begged investigation. She leapt out of the silken sheets, one tangled around the shoulder of her wing, and bounded to the sill, clutching at the iron bars that kept her secure from poachers. A wild frizz of hair fell over her vision; she pushed it back, out of the way, with a practiced sweep of her long, almost claw-like nails. A train of wagons, carriages, and men and women on foot, mostly servants and guards, was leaving the gate. There must have been some hundred in all; easily the entirety of the house, save herself. She backed away from the window, her heart racing, her mind clouded, confused, and falling back on instincts. She had not the time to dress herself. She turned about and bounded toward the stairs, foregoing any hint of clothing, and hurried down the winding helix toward the ground. In form, Teza was not particularly unusual for an ekela of her station. She was a bit shorter than a Hakro—a noblewoman—like Lady Kevrolla, standing at five foot five inches tall, but otherwise her figure was appealing to the fingers (as the saying went), the membranous wings that sprouted from her shoulders were large enough to wrap herself up in on a windy or rainy day, and the two horns that rose from her forehead pointed mostly upward (very much like her Mistress's, she thought). Her heavy, tapered tail ended in a slight spade, and she even still had her fangs, which was unusual but not unheard of in a domestic concubine. What made Teza different—aside from the exaggerated curves of her body, which bounced so much that she had to hold her breasts in place as she ran to avoid hurting herself—was that she was, as mentioned, definitively greyish-blue. True, some of the hadali were turquoise; most were green or olive or something in between. But the ekeli—aside from Teza, that is—still had what they thought of as the natural human skin tone, a gentle peach, with relatively little variation. Her eyes were odd, too; the sclerae were so dark as to be nearly black, and her pale irises shone iridescently under the right conditions, giving the once-demure girl a definitively feral, wild affect that her Mistress prized. Past the staircase and across the atrium, she went through the door to the front vestibule so hard that it bounced off the wall and clapped against that tail, painfully tripping the girl and dragging her to the floor. She cried out and struggled to free it, clawing at the door lip with one hand while she yanked on her tail with the other. In a few moments the beast-girl, sleep now fully cleared from her eyes, had scrambled to her feet and was racing again toward the courtyard through the entryway, not noticing it had been stripped of decorations and portraits during the night. The story of exactly how Teza ended up blue was a complicated, involved one, which she had outlined numerous times while entertaining Lady Kevrolla's guests—but never had she told the whole thing. She slammed into the front door, and to her fury found that it was locked. A twist of the winched deadbolt freed it, and the girl burst finally onto the cobblestones of the estate grounds as the last of the retinue rolled through the gates. Her chest heaving, a stitch already in her side, Teza renewed her pace, and at such a speed the façade of her wild, untamed exterior started to crumble, and her strides became almost pathetically feminine. She drew in a breath to cry out and beg for the caravan to stop, but a cry of alarm came out instead, the barefoot girl slipping on the wet pavement. She fell to her knee. One of the last guards in the procession, a hadal, noticed. They recognised each other; he was Gil, the head watchman of the night shift. Narrow-chested, wide-browed, and in possession of all his teeth, he was one of the oldest men in the Lady's service. With a word and a gesture, he called for the procession to stop, and then ordered one of his underlings to fetch the Lady. Gil's coarse, olive hands gripped Teza's slender arms and helped her struggle to her feet as she watched the lieutenant scurry up the length of the procession. He moved with the typical sluggishness of his race; the hadali had no wings, tails, or even horns, and their ears were barely pointed. Even when Teza was at her most animal, playing the wild exotic for Vendazra or one of her guests to conquer, she had a natural elegance to her gait. The bumbling greenskins were another world entirely. Wordlessly, Gil offered the wet, grit-covered girl his coat, though since it did not have an open back, she could only clutch it to her chest, digging her nails into the heavy fabric. It reeked of his inferior flesh, but she too said nothing. Sore, nude, and cold, she was hardly in a position to refuse it. Still silent, the two waited for the Mistress to arrive. It was normal that he should not speak to a high slave such as herself, but she could tell there was something that went unsaid—something that would be unsettling. As they waited, she felt the base of her tail with her other hand. A sharp pain shot up her spine, leaving her face contorted. It was probably sprained, if not worse. She would need to be careful with it. This was the first occasion Teza and her Mistress, Lady Vendazra Kevrolla, Senior Senator of Chekroba, First Minister of Mystery of the Empire of Wanisin, had been face-to-face since the Lady returned from her trip to Sur'daro. Teza had seen her countless times, in various states of dress and undress. But never before had the proud, fierce woman looked like this. Her coiffure seemed to have exploded, leaving a wild shock of purple-dyed fibres knotted around her horns and half-obscuring her limpid, ruby eyes. Her skin seemed uncharacteristically pale in the cool morning light, the signs of sleeplessness and too much wine clinging to her face, making her slender, high-cheekboned visage seem sunken and gaunt. From the woman's expression, and the way she gripped at a carriage for support as she passed by it, it was beyond doubt that she was hung over. Her ornate dressing gown, spun of soft white synthetic silk, was torn in several places and had a dried reddish stain down the side. Even her wings seemed limp, tired, and their membranes carelessly dragged along the ground as though the Senator were a petulant child. Teza was simply aghast. The sight of her owner, one of the highest-ranking religious authorities on Wanisin, in this state of disarray was incomprehensible. "My curvy little orchid!" slurred the noblewoman. Her breath still reeked of fermented grapes. "So terribly, terribly sorry to leave you like this." Vendazra leaned against Gil, clearly stinking drunk. Numb, drunk, and not selecting her words very carefully. Teza's eyes were already clouded by tears, and she tensed her jaw to fight them. She reached for the taller woman, her argyric fingers curling tightly into the white fabric. She in turn felt fingers in her hair, digging, gripping, grasping, tugging—and reassuring. After ten seconds or so of this embrace, Teza realised what her Mistress had just said was rather at odds with it, and the blue girl looked up, blinking away the dampness. Vendazra's features were stiff, melancholy. "You're not coming with us, Teza," she said. Her voice was somewhat distant. "What?" replied the slave, her throat tightening. The words came out as a rasp. "What are you talking about? What is all this? What happened?" "Things went... poorly in the capital," said Vendazra. She looked away, suddenly seeming uncomfortable, perhaps looking for a bottle that wasn't at hand—or anything, really, to put between herself and her slave. "What things?" begged the girl, her voice strained. "The Tribunal was quite cross with me, my dear. All of my assets outside of Chekroba have already been seized, and I'm to be banished entirely from the Empire," she sighed. "Our friend has caused us some substantial trouble, no matter how good her intentions were toward the Empress's vision." Here, the Senator turned to look back at the castle in which she had formerly resided, and looked to the side and down, sadly. "I had to sell Apeshutha and all its lands just to keep the retinue in fee." Teza felt her insides sink. She wasn't sure how that was possible, but it did. She stared at the ground, and all of the pretension, all of the fire, all of the salkza ran out of her bosom. She knew what came next. "And what... of me? You didn't sell me, too, did you? O-of... of course you wouldn't. You love me." Vendazra's fists tightened until her knuckles were white. A few hairs were plucked free from Teza's scalp. "You poor, stupid bitch," she grumbled. "I had to do something worse." The slave swallowed, silently. Vendazra scoffed. "Listen to me, still playing gentle! The trial's over and there's no one here, and I can't bring myself to speak candidly. Let's not mince words. Kantida is a cunt, Teza. A vile, festering cunt." Teza stared. "Who, Mistress?" "Mutza Kantida, Vice Minister of Order. Receivership. All of my holdings. All of them! The backstabbing arrogate thinks she can just personally confiscate everything I've acquired. Well, I know her wretched game, Teza. I know it. You know, she enumerated every animal in my menagerie, including the purebred Maktan lapliti I showed her during the last Jemessa soirée. All except one!" A finger was jabbed into Teza's collarbone as Vendazra repeated the last sentence. "All except one particular specimen..." "Me?" ventured Teza, timidly. "You!" replied the Senator. She slipped a hand into her dressing gown and produced a slightly crumpled bill, laser-etched on applewood cardstock. "What an inexperienced little fool. As if I wouldn't notice! Fortunately, I had just enough time to outplay her." Teza tilted her head, looking up at the cardstock. While apple trees were quite common in agriculture, applewood was rarely used for anything but the most official of notarised documents. "Is that..." Vendazra gave Teza the certificate. "As of the first hour this morning, you are a free woman, Avoteidza Akassa." Teza took the letter, trembling, and slowly read it, her lips moving as she worked through each of the sounds. Though she could read musical notation effortlessly, she hadn't received any formal schooling in literacy since she was a mere child, and rarely was there any circumstance that had motivated Vendazra to consider improving that. This, perhaps, was such. 'Akassa' was not a family name per se, but an ancient epithet, a nickname, meaning 'unenslaved;' it was a common name for freed slaves to adopt, not that there were many on Wanisin to adopt it. 'Avoteidza,' on the other hand, was simply a rather old-fashioned way of spelling 'Teza,' the name Lady Kevrolla had given her all those years ago. It meant nothing, and was merely pleasant on the tongue, much as the girl herself was expected to be. "This... this says I am still a Saba," said Teza, the words struggling from her throat. Needless to say, Teza had had many nightmares about this very moment. Even now the edges of her vision were growing dim, and the cool overcast sky itself seemed to scorn her. "As if you could ever be anything but! Some things are not so easy to change, dear songbird," purred Vendazra, cupping one of Teza's heavy breasts and hefting it slightly. Or so cheap, the girl thought bitterly. She was well aware of the fees involved in full emancipation. She had been abandoned, not liberated. But no conversation, it seemed, was too grave to be derailed by lust. "But I have no doubt that if I attempt to leave the city, much less the border, that you will be searched for, and your... delicious, nectarine flesh seized, so you must stay, stay, stay here and stay low! Senator Kantida is a wretched, terrible woman who would see you collect tigva droppings just to spite my legacy. All that she craves is the humiliation of her rivals, and I could never let her visit such abuses upon you, my dear." Almost involuntarily, Teza responded to the contact with a shiver and a soft growl in the back of her throat, the growl of a cornered she-beast. She had been trained to respond that way, years and years ago, by the whip; one lash if she moaned girlishly during sex, and more, consecutively, until she stopped crying out from the pain of the lash. It was a perfectly simple idea, one no animal could fail to grasp. And was that not the purpose of her bondage? Vendazra's fingers slipped from her hair and played at the back of her neck, and the girl shut her eyes tightly, freezing, dreading the feel and the sound of those tiny little clicks—the clicks that meant the lock at the back of her collar was undone. The metal ring, unhinged, vanished into the Senator's dressing gown. Its absence was like ice, like a missing body part. It was as if angry eyes had fallen upon her shamefully bare skin. "I would smuggle you if I could, I would—or arrange for you some other transport that you might make it to Zokipolla with me, the exile city on the far side of the mountains; that's where we're headed, you see. But it is not safe, my soft-throated slut. So venomous is Kantida's ire that even my hadali risk becoming pariahs when they return here. I simply cannot bear to see you go through the same fate, knowing how much she would torture you just to extirpate my legacy." A thousand words rang in Teza's ears just then, not one expelled by her lips. Her fingers curled. Her nails cut into her palms, and left wine-coloured cuts where they met flesh. Her eyes were tightly shut. When Vendazra's pet kikada fell sick, and rather than accept the burden of caring for the clumsy three-legged invertebrate, a traditionally quite low-maintenance domestic animal, she simply had a guard kill the thing. Indeed, when Teza's own difficulties first manifested, similar threats were mentioned. But unlike the kikada, she could hide what was wrong with her, and in time, the problems went away on their own. She seemed normal. She would be normal. Was it selfish of Vendazra to be so ready to divest herself of such nuisances? After the kikada was slaughtered, Teza thought so. But after the same irritation and disregard was leveled at her, the girl's perspective shifted. Vendazra could not be blamed for defective merchandise. Who would want a cringing slave, much less one who got lost in fantasies and disobeyed orders? After a time, Teza felt that Vendazra was no longer standing so close. "Goodbye, my precious whore," she whispered. Her voice was starting to choke up now, too—though, perhaps, that was just the rasp of her uncurbed alcoholism. She turned swiftly on her heel and strode away, limping. Teza felt press of Gil's hand on her chest, the guardsman gentle but firm. Her first reaction was fury that he was touching her so, but the reality of the situation soon surfaced. She would not be allowed to plead. The sky had continued to darken and was now almost pitch black. "A... word of advice, Miss Akassa, if you'll hear it. You shouldn't stay here at Apeshutha," he said. "They'll be sure to look here. Really, don't even go back inside. You might not be able to bring yourself to leave." His hand left her shoulder after a few moments, and she sensed he was walking away, to rejoin the tail of the caravan. As she stood there, seething, the blue girl did not doubt that Gil wholeheartedly believed this advice was sound, reasonable, and actionable. But now, the sky was cold, and dark, and it was not likely to get lighter or warmer any time soon. Not for her. "Of course he thinks that," said a familiar voice. It whispered directly into her left ear. She turned around. There was no one there. The hair on the back of Teza's neck rose. "He'll barely see two centuries!" replied another voice. It was more distant, but definitely to her right. Always, always to her right. "That scoundrel. He has no idea what poor Teza's going through." "Doesn't he know that an ekela can live for ten times that long?" asked the first voice. "I don't think he does," giggled the second. "I don't think he does! Oh, Teza. How will you ever move on from this?" She gritted her teeth and tried to ignore them. Ten times was a bit of a stretch. Supposedly Moilea the Hoarse had lived for sixty-six centuries, advising dozens of royal courts during the Sunlit Empire, before Wanisin was even discovered, but everyone who was anyone knew that was just a fable. "A fable! Like me?" inquired the first voice, interrupting Teza's thoughts. "Or me?" echoed the second. "Or like you ever being anything more than a pretty piece of ass, Teza. A pretty, fucked up piece of blue-tainted ass." Vendazra had always been more interested in the girl's body than her mind. Virility was a quality practically bred into the noble Hakri, long associated with potency. "Shut up," she hissed. "Both of you. I'm trying to think!" A choir of laughs erupted around her. Ten, twenty, maybe thirty voices. They were the voices of the serving girls, the Sabi that Vendazra had employed in the kitchens and in housekeeping. Those girls were long gone, released from their contracts to seek jobs elsewhere, if they could. Their voices lingered, independent of their bodies, and far less subtle with their gossip. "Like you care," muttered Lotane, Left, the voice that hovered so close to her non-dominant ear. She looked up at the huge, monolithic black structure that had been behind her. Its silhouette in the sky was plainly visible, for the sky wasn't really dark; it just felt that way. Apeshutha. For eight hundred years—her entire life—Teza had lived in that pyramid-shaped palace. It had been in the hands of Vendazra's family, House Kevrolla, and her cousins, House Kevrolla-Slefrella, for thousands of years before that. Once, the grand pyramid had even been the summer palace of Empress Gegloko IV, she of House Slefrella. At the time, well over a millennium ago, Vendazra was an infant. It was a brief glory for the house; today Empresses had sat on the throne in Sur'daro for over twelve thousand years, ever since the Loyalists first settled Wanisin, but Gegloko IV had ruled for only a decade, barely more than a moment in the slow march of history. The Slefrelli were long gone, exterminated in their feud with the Koraktidi of Shega, and now, it seemed, the Kevrolli would die out, too. "It's too bad you're not really a noble," said Soveme, Right, the second of the two voices that never left. "Then you could inherit the whole house!" "Too bad, too bad," agreed Lotane. "TOO! BAD!" shouted Soveme. As the creaking wheels and footfalls of the footmen departed, fading into the distance, Teza sank to her knees and cried for what seemed like hours. The voices fell quiet for this. They didn't need to say anything. Their return was enough to stir dread in Teza's soul, and to underscore the real reason she'd been abandoned. She was broken. She would always be broken. Vendazra just couldn't bring herself to dispose of her, like she disposed of all her other broken pets. And maybe she wasn't worth it. Teza cried until all the tears had left her. She was so miserable. So angry. Angry with her Mistress, with Mutza Kantida, and, most importantly, her own warped mind. She wanted to howl with rage, but she could not find the notes to express her sadness. And when she ran out of tears, it began to rain.Panegyric upon the opening of a new causeway connecting Lower Market Street to High Court. Vendazra Kevrolla, High Theologian of Wanisin Year 12107
Sensitive Affairs
Many younger species are taken aback to learn we value individuality above all else. To them, we usually appear to be rather taken with the trappings of authoritarianism whenever in groupings of our own kind among other species of human—we follow leaders, obey orders, mete out duties and roles, and always, always dress immaculately in conservative, professional uniforms. This may seem like subterfuge, but it is vitally important to our success today. Elsewhere our reputation precedes us, and it is almost too easy to find anecdotes from history where genuine pride in our aptitude for perverting what elsewhere might be called social norms has caused a lot of trouble. The ambassadors I have spoken to say they find getting to know the 'real' Hatel Commonwealth almost overwhelming, and it is better that it stay that way. The ones with thin skin are quick to bring up how we view the act of sexual intercourse, saying with alarm that it seems to manifest without consent, and is almost never frowned upon. As this is more or less the truth, and as it directly conflicts with the mores of the other major human cultures, our branch stands to lose greatly if we ever stop cultivating this less-than-transparent public image. It may seem irrelevant to you, as the machines are the ones doing all the actual work must of the time, but many lives have been threatened or lost during joint missions because a team did not get the memo about avoiding 'surprise butt stuff' around their counterparts. On that note: by this point in your career in the intelligence service, you have probably already discovered that the sanctity of classified mission briefings is no hindrance to sudden outbursts of groping, molestation, or sodomy. Just remember to keep your hands folded on the table when in mixed company, and try to pay attention even when not.Major Zem dam Schadros, Signals Intelligence, Kwarkë Sector—160 centimetres tall, exceptionally talented, of a deep teal complexion, and dressed in a translucent jumpsuit with a faded hexagonal pattern that vaguely resembled leopard spots and did nothing to protect her chubby, erect nipples—bit her lower lip as the greenish-brown hand pushed her cheek flat against the glass briefing table, the rays of light from the holographic projector shining a pattern of bright blue lines over her face. The moan of pleasure that escaped her lips at being handled so brazenly by Captain tel Condor II was perhaps a little more girlish and honest than she had intended, but in Tris's defence it had been a week since the taller, earthen-hued woman had found the time to sink her flesh into the Major, and to be quite honest now was as good a time as any, even if it did make explaining the delicate nature of the political situation slightly harder. The third person in the room was First Lieutenant Vandal Stellers, a pilot with the Security Department who had little experience with Sensitive Affairs, but lots of experience with Tris tel Condor II. Today he was clearly hung over, or something, because he kept clearing his throat and seemed much less supportive of Tris's antics than he had the previous night at the Orange Wick. Next to Vandal sat the perfectly black, silhouette-like form of the Astroturfer's semi-autonomous agent, a machine garbed in androgynous human form, which had joined them at the start of the meeting but was remaining unusually quiet. "Fine, fine!" Zem laughed, speaking around the finger that Tris had slipped into her mouth and refused to withdraw until the Major had sucked on it at least once. The two stood back up and the briefing resumed, Tris still buried in Zem's rear. The hologram flickered to displaying a portrait of the subject, a woman with skin the colour of wasabi. Her hair was dark and chaotic, as if any attempt to navigate it would be met with certain doom. It hung low, almost to her eyes, concealing the dramatic arches of her eyebrows—these suggested a perpetual existence of feigned surprise, as if nothing could truly faze her. And, although her eyes were of a medium, slightly verdant brightness, there was something about them that seemed to suck all of the light out of the room. Tris observed from over Zem's shoulder, still rocking on her hips. "As you both already know, Serena tel Moukarhim was the single most... mmmf... notorious outlaw the Commonwealth has ever dealt with. Way... oh... way back in the early 68th millennium, she and her gang of Unreformables from the Windbreaker carried out a wide range of crimes, from bank heists to human trafficking... with a twist." Vandal was not hung over, but he had read his dossier ahead of this briefing, and knew that 'Unreformables' was a modern euphemism. At the time they were simply called 'sociopaths.' It was a defect of Commonwealth culture that the Lyrans often liked to pick on, along with their despicable reputation as tourists. Too much freedom. Too much chaos. Too many outliers, especially with a population measured in the hundreds of billions, scattered across thousands of colonies, planets, and ships. Hence, the aforementioned façade of staidness. Of course, the Lyrans never seemed to quite understand why other human civilisations didn't end up like them—stuffy, pretentious ivory-tower academics more concerned with theory than fact, so divorced from the human experience that they saw things like childhood, mating, and gender itself as beneath them. The Lyrans were full of shit. The projector now displayed a sample of unusual-looking people and animals—most of them looked human, presumably Cossipian, although of varieties he'd never seen before. Tris was apparently thinking similarly. "What are those, Zem?" she asked, grunting softly. "Those are us," came the grim response. "Every single one was formerly a normal, human Hatel." Zem didn't seem to be enjoying their casual intercourse as much as usual, now. Tris got the hint and slowly stopped, though she made no effort to extricate herself. The words weren't from Major dam Schadros; the Astroturfer's agent had spoken them, in its low and creaking voice, laden with soot and an overcultivated, self-important mystique. "Yes, even the cephalopod," it added. "She worked with whatever was at hand; most often, that meant diverting a passenger shuttle or two to a hidden laboratory in an asteroid belt." The others looked at the agent for a while, then back to Zem, who took some time to notice the attention, and then nodded. "As I... was about to say, Serena's expertise lay primarily in the domain of the wet sciences; materials science, genetics, organic synthesis, some petrochemistry. She accomplished some truly impressive transformations, as you can see." More holographic slides. The diversity was staggering. Some of the more radical creations resembled furniture and were clearly barely able to move. Tris felt mildly ill and finally withdrew herself from the Major's person, limp. "Who would buy these things? The Pesenese? The Hogedep?" she exclaimed, starting to pace, agitated. Zem shrugged, lying across the table, and looked at the ship's agent. The Hogedep were more likely than the Pesenese, she thought. Infinitely more likely. But still not very. The Hogedep were notoriously bellicose and xenophobic, and the Pesenese were notoriously sociable and xenophilic. But both were local. Evidently Tris hadn't really read any of her briefing materials and was just throwing names around. "No," it said. "We did. You know perfectly well what sorts of lifestyles and worldviews our people entertain. It is, after all, part of the human condition." (Vandal wasn't entirely sure about that.) "For many, the black-gene market was a way to skirt our laws, as few as they are, and experience the perverse thrill of owning another person—or something that used to be a person, anyway." They took a moment to process that. "Wait. You mean it wasn't illegal? After the purchase?" Tris asked. "No," the agent repeated. "It was not. No direct charges were ever brought against her customers, though some got nailed for the kidnappings of specifically-chosen victims. For most, we couldn't prove they were aware that their acquisitions had been Commonwealth citizens, and it was far too small a trifle to present as a proposed constitutional amendment." "It goes without saying that, these days," Zem added, "some of the milder things they did do happen consensually, so some have argued she was... an artist ahead of her time." The room was momentarily silent. "So..." said Tris, nestling herself against Zem's back again, "Clichés aside, why don't you tell us about what literally any of this has to do with where we are? Isn't Kwarkë uninhabited?" The intelligence officer rolled her hips, inviting Tris's member to seek a lower sanctity. With a snarl, the commando gripped the Major's hair and made good on the suggestion, driving herself inside with a damp slap. The poor girl ended up swallowing her next words, a strangled squeak coming out of her mouth. "On all of the unclassified maps, yes—" (she was already panting) "Kwarkë is a barren asteroid field good for little more than target, oh, target practice," Zem explained. "In reality, the Kwarkë brane is home to seven suns, two dozen planets, and, and..." Her words trailed off. "And? And?" beckoned Tris. With a few more wet smacks, both women threw their heads back, and the deed was done. Vandal shifted uncomfortably in the corner, watching his two colleagues share a moment of rapture. It wasn't envy that created his unease—he simply didn't like to be kept waiting, and Hatelese intimacy often seemed to him like a cleverly-designed ruse meant to derail as many important meetings as possible, almost as if someone, somewhere, was keeping score. After a few seconds more, Zem and Tris had recovered from the glow of coitus, and slowly went through the motions of separating. Their garments adjusted appropriately—in Zem's case, her transparent jumpsuit closed itself up, and in Tris's, her reactive armour reformed its shiny black codpiece. In moments, they were clean, somewhat modest, and ready to continue. "...And," said Zem, clearing her throat and finally standing up too, "several million homicidal thugs and the empire they built on the backs of slaves." "What species?" inquired Vandal, not meeting Zem's eyes. "They're what you and I know as Lilitai," Zem replied. The Captain stopped pacing on the opposite side of the table and turned to face Zem, perplexed. The Lieutenant was similarly bemused, but what Zem had just said sounded so ridiculous that his reaction came out as a laugh. "The... the vegans?! The average Lilitu is so frail she can barely throw a punch, let alone conquer a planet!" Tris cried. Zem nodded slowly in response, and began a full explanation. It was true that the Lilitai were vegans—at least, the specimens still recognisable as pure-blooded; like the Hatel, they were post-humans, and so could often interbreed with other races, albeit only after extensive gene therapy. Like the Lyrans, they had no biologically viable males of their own, and had long ago resorted to artificial gamete fusion to propagate the species. As a slave-survivor race (one of many the Hatel had encountered in the cosmos), they had a complicated relationship with their extinct master race, the Oksi, who on one hand had treated many of their kind like prized jewels—the most valued, among numerous vassal species—and on the other, kept them under strict control, forbidding to them any form of true ambition. "Also, they don't call themselves Lilitai. Their word is ekeli, from an ancient Oksi word, hen... hegre...—actually, I don't think I can pronounce that, but it basically just means alien," the Major explained. "They're the same species as the Lilitai you've met, with the same cosmetic alterations that the Oksi placed on them; the wings, tail, and so on." After a few moments, Stellers frowned. "So... explain again why this is all this classified?" That had been in the pre-briefing documents that Tris and Vandal were given days ago. "Because the planet they settled was already occupied by Doctor tel Moukarhim," Zem said, gritting her teeth. "And she's been feeding them weapons and all kinds of tech ever since. If the Lyrans found out about any of this, the backlash—the trade sanctions alone—could interrupt half the Commonwealth's economy." Neither Tris or Vandal were certain what trade sanctions were, but they sounded bad. Here, the agent stepped in. "In a society as close to post-scarcity as ours, resource allocations are automated invisibly, but much as with energy distribution, production of raw materials—elements, molecules—is anticipatory of need. To an extent inefficiencies are routinely handled through trade, exporting to and importing from the mass fabrication facilities of other vessels, to optimise overall energy expenditures. With this scheme in place, production throughout the Commonwealth is within 0.22% of adiabatic on average: that is, we create, destroy, and recycle material with 99.78% efficiency. If the Lyrisclensian Trestunarion were to decouple from the matter logistics network, the Astroturfer's models estimate almost a hundredfold increase in inefficiency, with perhaps as much as one fifth of all resources wasted aboard larger stations. The simple truth is that the Trestunarion's adaptive scheduling is far superior to our own, and they are capable of predicting our needs better than we are, to say nothing of their own." There were a few slow nods. Tris understood some of the words. Like, for example, how 'Lyrisclensian' was the long way of saying 'Lyran.' The rest passed through her head like a breeze through an open window. "It will kill our recycling programme," Zem explained. That seemed to be easier to understand. Recycling was a big deal in the Commonwealth—everything from exhaled carbon dioxide to old ship parts was reused, often being dismantled at a subatomic level to meet new demands. There was very, very little energy waste, and essentially no mass waste. Some civilisations—especially the Lyrans—had vessels remaining in service for tens of thousands of years with little or no alterations. Commonwealth vessels, on the other hand, replaced and updated components and subsystems almost continually, so that, while they were technologically homogeneous, they each represented the best of what the Hatel had to offer in terms of safety and security. Zem tapped her fingers, looking back and forth between Tris and Vandal. After a few moments of awkward silence, she continued the briefing. "It should come as no surprise that we suspect Serena, or a clone of Serena, is still alive. Our mission will be to track her down, if possible, and make an arrest. From our spies in their parliament, the Senate, we know that a key figure in their religious ministry, Vendasria Kevrolla, was recently sent into exile on strong evidence of collusion with the Commonwealth." A new hologram. The portrait of a white-skinned woman with aggressive, swept-back hair. Glittering red eyes shone out through a violet stripe of painted pigment that spanned from ear to ear. Betraying her heritage, a pair of jagged horns rose from her hairline. She was dressed in full plate metal armour below the neck, finely crafted but pragmatically designed. Vandal thought she looked like she was ready to wage war on some ancient battlefield on Earth and not at all like a theologian. "At her trial they produced a set of schematics, which she claimed to recognise, for a kind of high-density laser pistol. They were marked up in Roshagil, dated last year." Vendasria's face was replaced with an image of the plans, on worn, blue paper. Just as described, the diagrams were heavily annotated with text in the neat, vertical letters of Roshagil, the language of the Hatel, most of which had been translated into a cumbersome, ideographic writing system Tris and Vandal didn't recognise. It was Oksirapho, one of several languages used on Wanisin. "The problem, of course, is that we haven't had any contact with Vendasria. In fact, no one in the Defence Projects Group was even familiar with the design. In all likelihood the plans came from tel Moukarhim, which means she's not only giving them guns, but designing them, too." "When do we leave?" asked Tris. "Not for some weeks yet," replied Zem. "You and Lieutenant Stellers just got here, and I'm pretty sure you both have a lot of reading to do about local customs and history before you'll be ready to set foot on Wanisin. Additionally, all of us are going to need to get through basic training as members of their military before we'll have convincing disguises." The Captain groaned, slumping her shoulders. "Weeks of preparation? You made it sound like this assignment would last a day or two, tops." "If it were going to be so short, Tris, I doubt SA would have been monitoring the planet for so long," said Vandal. "On the bright side, it won't be hard to learn their language." He had, apparently actually read all of the documentation in the dossier, and had merely pretended to be slow for Tris's sake. Tris frowned. "Really?" There was a moment of silence. Tris definitely hadn't read any of her briefing material. Zem sighed. "Captain, may I have a moment with you privately?"The Official Sensitive Affairs Guide To Surviving Your First Week: What To Make Of It Now That Your Friends Have Disowned You And Think You Are Spying On Them by Colonel Riditz tel Kacik, with G.V. Obvious Spying Platform (Lemon-class)
At the Gates
GIRL IN CHAINS: How far are you going? MOTHER OF THE HOUSE: To the edge of the city, and past that, my dear. GIRL IN CHAINS: When will you be back? MOTHER OF THE HOUSE: When Hava swallows the sky, my dear.Thousands of years ago, Kowako, the mother of Wanisin, had postulated that there must be an afterlife devoted entirely to the eternal punishment of the disgraced, or else honour was of only transient significance, and morality was pointless. The ancient Lilitai, Kowako's contemporaries, believed otherwise: that dreams were a glimpse into a higher form of existence, and that the immoral would be purified through atonement for their misdeeds before joining it. Neither idea had ever really caught on in Wanisinese society; as successful nobles could live for thousands of years, they already had plenty to fight for. The former, however, would suffice to explain the situation that Vendazra was now in. The formal, legal fulfillment of the process of going into exile was a bureaucratically unpleasant and tedious task. Lady Kevrolla's train had been stopped for almost an hour now at the city gates, being searched on the authority of the Minister of Order, to ensure that Vendazra fully complied with the terms of her banishment and did not retain any financial instruments in excess of those which had been specified in her sentencing. Of particular irritation, a kind of death by a thousand needles not uncommon in Hakro humiliation, the judges had stipulated that she would not be allowed to leave with anything worth a deglovo or greater—the noble coin that lower castes rarely saw. An entire carriage, pulled by two great draft-beasts, chitinous kvingi, had been filled with smaller denominations, kept under guard of Vendazra's most trusted men. Naturally, the inspector at the gates had wanted to check it. Thoroughly. It had now been an hour. Vendazra's hangover hadn't improved much. Her remedy—more alcohol—wasn't doing the job. She reckoned that the underlying cause was an inadequate dosage, and was now attempting to coerce one of her own men into letting her into the wine wagon to get another bottle—but, as he had now explained to her some five or six times, the customs officials had already inventoried that particular part of the entourage, and if she broke the ribbon sealing the doors at the back, the entire thing would have to be recounted, delaying their departure by another twenty minutes. In her masterfully inebriated state, she had quickly become suspect he had another motive from keeping her out. "Let me in, you vile little thief," she breathed at him, still clutching her side. The self-inflicted knife wound had been dressed the night before at the Ministry of Order by one of the Ministry's medics, shortly after her sentencing. Vice Minister Kantida had been overjoyed to hear that she had caused Minister Kevrolla so much grief as to turn a blade upon herself. She even sent her regrets that Vendazra had missed any vital organs. This memory was among those the deposed noble was eager to suppress. Amnesia was far better than... than... "I—do—not—care!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, interrupting Ibrahim, who was reiterating his reservations about remaining in the city any longer than necessary. "Open the door at once, you vile slave! I could have your cock torn from your flesh for this insolence! Have you forgotten who I am?!" Undoubtedly that sounded less becoming of a Hakro outside of her head. But, as stated, she did not care. He remained impassive, no stranger to Vendazra's drunken vitriol. As she stood there, leering madly at the elderly man, who was an inch or two shorter than she, the sounds of jingling metal approached from behind, accompanied by the overwhelming odor of applewood incense. Pivoting on her heel, Vendazra nearly collided with the source of these sensory assaults, a diminutive ekela veiled and hooded in numerous richly-hued fabrics, not all of which were in good condition. A soothsayer, her rod-like censer held high. Her wings were weighted with chains and various ornaments, and her tail was belted around her waist. Vendazra recognised these affectations as trappings of the Order of Chiyan Mystics, a band of superstitious con-artists and junk-peddlers who often skirted the religious laws against charlatanry. Like most scholars, priestesses, and vendors of miraculous oils, the Chiyan Mystics were considered Haspidi, children of magic. In most cities, worship of Chiya by the general public was forbidden for citizens. Out of the pantheon of some two dozen goddesses, or Stilli, only one was considered truly worthy of worship in the Empire: Alestea, the Goddess of Fire, of War, of Change, and of Victory. There were minor cults devoted to a few others—Urava, Dutea, and Moilea—but these were usually seen as aspects of Alestea and had limited appeal on their own because of their comparatively narrow portfolios. While Sabi often entertained heretical beliefs—it helped to keep them controlled, to allow them to believe their perseverance would be rewarded by Recovery to the afterlife—the Haspidi were a subsection of the Inshi, the true citizens. Their nonsense was strictly illegal, but in practice was tolerated by the Senate, up to a certain point, for their usefulness in inuring the public to propaganda. In Chekroba they had lately grown out of control, spreading their absurd beliefs throughout the public body. It was estimated there were now more believers than skeptics among the Inshi in the city, quite unlike its historical composition, and quite unlike the rest of modern Wanisin. Some in the Senate thought this was evidence of Vendazra's inefficacy, and at first it harmed her reputation substantially. That was before she had explained this was something she had engineered, something to exploit. But such storied, glamourous days on the Senate floor at the Palace of Glory were behind her now. Someone else would have to orchestrate her reformation. Vendazra sneered at the girl. "And what do you want? Come to cheer my exit, have you? Don't worry, you and your backward little friends will be picked up by a black ship soon enough. My downfall changes nothing for your wretched kin." The Haspida drew a flask from inside her robes, uncorked it, and offered it to the taller ekela. Her knuckles were encircled with ring-like tattoos. The smell of the liquid within—keveda, distilled grain ethanol—was overpowering. Vendazra hesitated a moment, then snatched it, wasting no time in imbibing a mouthful. Normally, she would first have had someone check it for poison. But now was not exactly normal. "I can get you out of here," said the provider of liquor. "Allow me to join your set, and travel with you. The clerks will listen to me." A motive of escape seemed sufficiently credible, and if the Chiyan wanted some sort of revenge on her, the alcohol could probably do the job on its own. Still, there was something off-putting about the way she spoke; she had a Chekroban accent, but her word choice was quaint at best. It took a few moments for Vendazra to finally bow her head in consent, now nursing the flask covetously. "Do what you will, girl," she muttered. The jingling heretic moved off, not hurrying, to greet and curtsy before the slave-guard, her horns dipping quite low. The hadal woman, wearing a black uniform of the Ministry of Prudence, was initially unimpressed, crossing her arms with the ledger still in hand, eyes narrowing into a distinct glare. She had introduced herself earlier to Vendazra as Sibbal, or something like that, and had only seemed vaguely apologetic whenever the deposed noblewoman demanded to know when all of this would be over and they would be allowed to proceed. It was unclear, Sibbal had said. They had to check for contraband. The Haspida said something, and the officer, Sibbal, still annoyed, summoned the rest of her team, all hadali. The five of them listened to the bundle of cloth speak for a while, hard-eyed. Vendazra could see that she was cozying up to one of the men, her free hand below his waist. The hadali exchanged glances of agreement, the officer sighed, apparently relenting, and all six of them went toward the gatehouse. The Chiyan held up a finger to Vendazra as she followed them, entreating her to wait. "What a whore," Vendazra murmured into the flask. Rarely had a situation given Lady Kevrolla such pause, or prompted her to raise her eyebrow so far. She felt heat rising from her wing-shoulders, and quenched it at once with a fresh sip. It was the heat of humiliation at witnessing an ekela debase herself by so openly offering to submit sexually—and to a green-skin, no less. Multiple green-skins. And to have associated with her—to be witnessed exchanging words with the little slut! It was an intolerable thought. Simply intolerable. If Vendazra were sober right now, she might cry out in rage. But as it was, she simply shook with furious indignation. Ibrahim, too, felt disturbed by the sight, though he was only a hadal. He shifted his weight uneasily as they watched the mystic and her new friends slip through the gatehouse door. Noticing his Mistress was starting to tremble, he offered, "Perhaps that... particular quality will prove to be useful, ma'am. For survival." The choice between defeat and moral poverty had never seemed quite so stark to Vendazra. Her grip around the bottle tightened. She would get through this. She would survive. Yes. That was imperative. She said nothing, and took another sip.The Fairest Outcast of Khoselia Telibis, Act 5, Scene 1. Oleskia illa Bosekhreïdi, Poet Laureate of Kostela Year 9043 Publication approved by the Ministry of Discipline on behalf of Supreme Arbiter Moilea
A History Lesson
Look into my eyes and tell me, that you still see your bitch, yeah, the girl whose cock you sucked, yeah, and tell me it's last night, yeah. I'm wearing your uniform now, Not someone else's uniform now, So come and tell me how, You get to be a cunt to me now?Zem dismissed both the agent and Lieutenant Stellers with nods of her own. The classified briefing room was then empty, except for the two women. It hummed, faintly, as did most areas of the Astroturfer, its decor dark, grey, and technical, save for the large, flat panels of white lights that illuminated its eight walls, which were acoustically absorbent, electromagnetically shielded, and cybernetically isolated. Only the ship could spy on what was happening within, if it so chose. "I think we need to slow down our relationship," said Zem, choosing each word carefully. "Temporarily. It's been amazing, getting to spend time with you again like we did aboard the Inkblot, but it's pretty clear to me that you've been spending too much time in bed and not enough time reading up on the mission. I haven't even seen you in several days, much less at work." Tris sighed and rolled her eyes, pivoting on a heel to turn away. "Whatever. The mission will be fine, just like all the others. I'll just find someone else to bang." Zem, who was notably shorter than Tris, wrapped her fist in the taller woman's hair and yanked her back. A cry of shock escaped the Captain's lips. "No, no, you really aren't going to do that, because I need you to do this right. You don't seem to know fuck all about this planet we're going down to, or even about any of the other nearby aliens. SA is under strict orders not to retrieve any team that gets stranded down there. Every time we've sent in a rescue mission, that coffin-stuffer has found some way to strand them, too. The only way to get the job done is to not get fucking caught." Tris listened, and allowed herself to be held down by her long black ponytail, but when Zem was done speaking she spun back around and gripped the senior officer by the throat, slamming her against the white wall panel, which flickered unpleasantly. "Don't grab my fucking hair," she snarled. Zem jerked twice in Tris's grip, choking, tearing at the stronger woman's wrist with her fingers. "N-now... is not... the time... for foreplay..." she croaked. Tris relented, her shoulders slumping. She sighed, clearly still agitated, and began to pace again while Zem rubbed at her throat, which had turned blue beneath the other Hatel's knuckles. "Okay. Fine. Unprofessional. Yes. What am I supposed to know, then? Let's hear your stupid powerpointage already." 'Powerpoint' was a common euphemism for boring someone to death with a glut of information. The word's origins were lost in history. After a few clumsy attempts at starting, and several coughs, the Major began to exposit. "As I think you know, the region of space we're in is called the Expanse. It's heavily fractured, in a space-time sense, so every few parsecs ships have to use these weird, modified FTL drives called jump drives to traverse the barrier between branes. They're like little bubble universes, except they all share space and time dimensions because they used to be one pocket of space." She looked around for a moment, and took a deep breath. "Ship, if you would please?" The Astroturfer had, naturally, been watching everything. The hologram generator in the middle of the conference table flared to life, etching out a model of the so-called Expanse, some thirty or forty bubbles of varying sizes filled with the dots of stars and planets, all cast in a smooth, cool blue light. "I know what a brane is. They're not that rare. Half the Universe is broken up among them now." "Yes, it is, it is. But most people don't encounter them every day. This is what happens when you ignore your briefing material, Tris. I have to assume you're an idiot." Zem crossed her arms. "And you've said and done some pretty dumb things in the last hour alone." "Point taken. Go on." "Right now, the key thing about branes is that the light that traverses between them is poor in quality. Random sections of the EM spectrum fall out regularly, the entire X and gamma bands are blocked, most radio doesn't work—except microwave, for some reason—and the light that does get through tends to be warped, polarised, and distorted in other ways, like looking through a film. There are over a hundred native sentient species here, and we estimate no more than two of them figured out the jump drive tech independently." "It sounds like they were very cut off, then," mused Tris. She looked at the hologram again. Their current location, a small bubble called Kwarkë near the edge, was picked out in green. In the middle of the mass was a twisted, spiky blob. "What's up with the mess at the core? It looks like it was punched to shit." Zem held up her hands and made a widening gesture, zooming the hologram in on the centroid until the hologram would have filled the whole room. It was labeled 'Hava.' "That's a singularity. The Expanse started out as a globular cluster, about a hundred million years ago or so, and Hava would have been at the middle. It's pretty big." She moved the projection slightly. One of the more extreme arms of the Hava brane extended out into a little pocket, shaped like a tear drop, that had broken free of the main part of the brane. There was one tiny dot in the arm, and one in the droplet. "These are Illera and Makta." "And I would know them because... ?" Zem slumped slightly. "Okay. This is super easy. Watch. Look." She slid the hologram around until it focused on another damaged-looking part of the cluster of bubbles, a blob that was flashing. It was labeled Ksreskeza. "You remember the Lilitai, right? Those tall demon-looking chicks that you think are all vegans?" "Well, they are, aren't they?" "Yes, sort of, no, not really, that's not the point. Look. Some... nine thousand years ago, on our calendar, that is, the ancestors of the Lilitai got stranded here, on the planet in the middle, Ksreskezo. They were nomads, we think, and at that point more or less identical to ancient Terrans. Their ship was messed up and they were looking for safe harbor. The people on Ksreskezo, called the Oksi, gave it to them. As slaves." "I think I see where this is going," said Tris. "Yes? Remembering something from your mission files?" "No, but it explains why that one skinny bitch spat in my face when I asked her why she was wearing a collar." Zem frowned. "Does it?" "Sure. It's some stupid cultural thing for them, right?" "It's... it's a wedding ring." "Oh. It looked like a collar." "Can I talk?" "Fine, okay, go on." "It is also a collar. As I said, they were slaves, for a very long time. The Oksi had a big empire, called the Ksreskezaian Empire, that spanned about three fifths of the Expanse at its maximum extent. Since the only exits from the Expanse into normal space were deep within the territories of rival groups, they had no contact with the outside. None." "This sounds like it's in the past tense." "It is." Zem adjusted the map of the cluster of bubbles to show the faction lines as they'd stood some four thousand years ago, tinted into turquoise, purple, and pink. "For most of their history, there were three big powers, the Oksi, the Hogedep, and the Tletkettoyi. The details don't matter right now too much, but at the end of the war, the map looked like this." The turquoise and purple bubbles reverted to blue. "They just... vanished?" "They just vanished. The Hogedep used some sort of weird superweapon and wiped out the other two empires overnight. Genocide on a massive scale. Ksreskeza—this whole brane, here—collapsed a few weeks later. The funny thing is that all the aliens living there, including the proto-Lilitai, survived the genocide part. Over the next century or so, the Hogedep conquered some of the territory that had been left behind by the other two states, but most of the branes remained unclaimed. That left the Lilitai, the ones that escaped, to zip around looking for a home." Tris nodded at Zem, pretending that she was still following. "Could you do this without putting me to sleep?" "Okay, okay, yes, alright, it's dry. I mean, it isn't to them, but whatever. The point is: most of them were happy to be free, but some weren't. The ones that were happy to be free called themselves Lilitai, did the whole lovey-dovey communist thing, and eventually discovered Thet—before it blew up, but that's another story altogether—and the ones that weren't so happy shed the whole 'Lilitu' moniker and a bunch of religious baggage, got super fashy and authoritarian, and found their way to Wanisin. Where we're about to go. Serena's weird swamp vacation planet." Tris pointed at the map. "So the planets around the black hole were... ?" Zem snapped her fingers. The hologram zoomed back in on the tear drop and the broken arm of the Hava brane. "Right, Illera and Makta. Illera was their first home. They stirred up a nasty plague there and left after a couple hundred years. That was the last straw for the fascists. Makta is where the Pesenese are from, originally. They had to abandon it a long time ago." "The who? You didn't mention the Pesenese." Zem frowned. "The... you mentioned them earlier." Tris shrugged and looked down. "It... I was just trying to sound smart, okay? Who the hell are they?" "Do you remember the robot bug thing in the hallway? With the four really long legs? Just before we came in?" "The... floor cleaning drone?" Zem's nose wrinkled. "That was the ambassador. They're methane-breathers, hence the suits. They're really, really common in the Expanse. You didn't fucking know that?" Tris shook her head. "I'm learning a lot of new things today." "Yeah. Yeah, apparently. Okay. Well, they discovered Wanisin all on their own, and it was through trade with them that the settlers found out about it. Being methane-breathers, it was totally useless to them." "Huh. So. One of the most hospitable and human-friendly planets in the entire Expanse, and it was just overlooked like trash. That's amazing." "I thought you didn't read any of the material." "Eh. That was in the first paragraph." "And then you stopped reading?" "And then I stopped reading."Vo Love and Other Bowel Movements Vapid Concept Album #4 78135 LKY, 0110 Music
Echoes
That said, an Empress needs a palace, and though Gegloko IV was unusual in that she was an outsider to intrigue in the capital, she wasted no time in having a winter palace built in her home city of Chekroba, a stately pyramidal ziggurat in the monolithic style of the Ninth Empire. No pilgrim's journey to the Empire's holy sites would be complete without a visitation to this unique edifice of history, still radiant over a thousand years later and now in the hands of the joint house of Kevrolla-Slefrella, one of the most decorated families in the history of the northern lands."How in the world am I supposed to do this?" The blue girl moaned. There was no one to hear her talking to herself. "Don't lie, Teza," said Lotane. "We're right here," agreed Soveme. "Just like you," added Lotane. "Quiet," hissed Teza. She had retreated back into the building now, to escape the rain. The voices followed her without difficulty. They also ignored her demand. "Yes! Just like you! Just like the green man said you'd be!" echoed Soveme. "Why don't you stay here and wait, Teza?" asked Lotane. "Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait for Kantida to come," insisted Soveme. "She might be nice to you! You never know!" Lotane laughed unkindly. "No one minds a crazy girl if all she does is scrape shit off the floor of the barn all day!" There was almost nothing left in Apeshutha of value that Teza could take with her. She had parts of her wardrobe, but these skimpy, translucent synthetic silk garments were unlikely to be suitable for the street. ("When was the last time you were on the street, anyway?" "Do you even know what street clothes look like in this century?") She doubted she'd even be able to pawn them; they had been made bespoke, for slaves of pleasure were altogether a rather rare variety, limiting their market considerably, and Vendazra had paid so much for the threads that it was rather hard to believe a broker would have the funds to buy them. ("Ha! She thinks she could get full price for them!" "Oh, such a naïve child!") Often she didn't even wear them; a serving girl—one of the real ones—would spend an hour or so painting spots, stripes, or some other wild-looking pattern on her body, and she would then be regarded as presentable, without even attempting to tame her hair. In the end (and despite much continued criticism) she took a simple, traditional garment, the backless leotard, which did not discomfort her wing-shoulders or tail, along with a set of sheer arm and leg sleeves meant to be worn with the leotard. The material was black, but soft and breathable, and, she thought, went well with her sandals. More importantly, though the garments were pristine, they were not gaudy. "Wow, that's almost tasteful," suggested Lotane. "Finally, she puts on something reasonable," agreed Soveme. "But she'll need to find work." "As a Saba," sneered Lotane. "But not a good Saba." "More like a lame, sick pet." "You don't know how to work, Teza!" "Just a lame, sick animal..." "A broken toy." More laughter. Soveme and Lotane were not the only voices in Teza's head, but they were the most common. Two was, perhaps, not enough of a crowd. She shuddered, her legs weak, tears threatening to burst from her eyes again. Though the term came from an ancient Ksreskezaian word, slokraba, meaning servant, and suggested dignified service to nobility, a dozen generations had passed since the fall of the Sunlit Empire, and the modern Sabi were little more than peasants. Seamstresses. Farmers. Herders. Short, petty, stunted creatures of squalor. "Whores," added Lotane. "Don't forget whores." Oh. Right. Prostitutes. The profession was considered too unclean for even the commonest of Inshi. "Dirty, filthy, smelling of fish and spit!" Not all of them were that bad. As a career option it might actually work for her. She had, at least, the requisite skills. But the life of a courtesan was—according to the gossips in Mistress's court—paradoxical. One had to be strong and independent when negotiating business, and ready to totally relinquish all of that once in bed. Dominant behaviour in bed was unheard of in a whore; ekeli did not pay for the opportunity to submit. In Vendazra's court, she had been a novelty for her portrayal of a beast to be conquered, though her musical talents were occasionally showcased. She'd make it work. And if she was unusual, they'd just have to learn to love her for it. The voices thought this was the funniest thing they had heard in some time. Obviously Teza's grip on reality was still too strong. But they'd fixed that before, and they could fix it again. The freed slave ran her fingers over her arms, feeling the silken weave. It was soft enough not to irritate her skin, little of which was regularly covered-indeed, this simple outfit was much more than she was usually allowed to adorn herself with while indoors. Wearing so much clothing brought a certain mental stability to her, as if by dressing like a normal person, she grew closer to them—and further from being a powerless, broken-minded captive. The empty house seemed less intimidating now. The voices in her head mumbled in hushed, indistinct whispers. They were subdued. Good, Teza thought. All that remained now was to depart. She looked out into the hallway. "Now what is she doing?" "I don't know..." "What are you doing, Teza?" asked Lotane. Across the hallway used to hang a portrait of Moto Kevrolla, the woman who had carried Vendazra in her womb for eight long seasons. Teza had walked past that image of the raven-haired, pale-skinned woman perhaps two hundred thousand times. And perhaps a century or more had elapsed since she had last scrutinized it with any effort. Her last opportunity to behold it, such a small piece of so long a life at Apeshutha, had passed. The melancholy gave her vertigo. Would it really be so bad to give the grand old house one last look around? "Yes," said Soveme. "Leave now, while you still can. Senator Kantida could show up at any moment." "She can't hear us," mused Lotane. "She's already gone." Conversely, Teza knew nothing of her own birth mother, or any of the co-parents who might have contributed to her germination. Well—not quite nothing. Teza knew that she had not been a slave. The woman's caste had the Inshi, a commoner. The story, then, need not be explained, for it was all too familiar: the sale of a daughter to keep foreclosure at bay. Scarcely was the degradation of caste a temporary affair. Without a patron, manumission was unthinkable. A private owner kept one's status from being nebulous and marginalised; the state could conscript unowned Sabi for any purpose at any time, and most lived in perpetual poverty, literally nameless. It was hard to stage an uprising if you had no sense of individual identity. Oh, her patron, her patron! Her love. Her life. How could Vendazra have left her here? Teza's temples throbbed. She began to pace, the soles of her sandals padding softly down the dark purple of the varnished wooden floor. Her mind was blank, and yet she was lost in thought. Pacing turned to directionless wandering. Habit tends to guide drifting in familiar places, and after perhaps a minute or perhaps an hour, Teza found herself in Vendazra's suite. Had the morning been like any other, she would have already been here, rousing the lady of the house with an affectionate caress—and more often than not, with a hangover remedy at hand, brought before her arrival by one of Ibrahim's girls. But the glass dais that served as the Mistress's nightstand was bare, its reflective surface holding only the image of the crystalline chandelier that still dominated the room's ceiling, and the refracted hexagons it flung across the lavender-tiled walls. She sat down on the edge of the bed anyway. For a moment, if she closed her eyes, she could imagine nothing had changed, as if Vendazra was merely in the other room, making morning toilet. A breeze blew through the room, stirring the chandelier. The atonal clinking of the delicate pendants resonated hollowly against the room's bare walls, as if they were the shards of a mirror, the illusion of Vendazra's presence shattered. The breeze was thick with the warm, humid heat of late morning, but to Teza it was cold. Teza bit her lip, clenched her fists, and pushed her way out of the room, dismissing the images and the voices they had summoned as if she were surmounting a cloud of smoke. The suite had several doors leading from it, and the one she had chosen unconsciously exited into a small stairwell of black marble. At the top of this stair was the lushness of the gilded Sun Room, a sumptuous conservatory facing the east. During more sober mornings the Lady would often take her tea here, bathing in the golden light as had her ancestors for generations. It was a room of no small ceremonial import, as beneath its high, vaulted ceiling, the governor of Chekroba had once held court here. In this room the weight of the family's legacy could be most keenly felt—not in the least because the west wall bore upon it the image of a colossal tree, annotated in the old script with the names and issue of every descendant to bear the name Slefrella or Kevrolla. When the family grew, so did the tree. Vendazra's name was easy to spot: at the very top, in the middle, it was inscribed on the last leaf of a canopy otherwise dormant and bare. Standing on the tips of her toes, Teza could just touch it. She had never done so before—she wouldn't dare deface such a monument with her fingerprints. The gold leaf was cooler than she had long suspected, probably because the day was still miserably damp and the walls had absorbed only moisture, not warmth. How long that tiny speck of foliage had clung to its twig, alone, in denial of the impending winter. Or perhaps—perhaps Vendazra was not in denial, not really. Perhaps that was why she drank. It had only become a serious problem after Moto's death, after all. Teza spent a few moments trying to wipe the leaf clean with her sleeve, uneasy with the thought that residue from her finger might tarnish the tree. "Mutza will probably have it torn down," Lotane muttered. It was a dim thought. She stood staring at the tree for a full minute thereafter, as if by witnessing it she might absorb some of its gravitas, to carry with her after Apeshutha's new owner arrived. The applewood certificate might not proclaim her a scion of House Kevrolla, but from her earliest memories, the family had been an integral part of her identity. Vendazra had been her sister long before becoming her Mistress—though admittedly what tenuous fibres of that dynamic still remained had gone unspoken for centuries. There was one door in the Sun Room that she had never gone through. It wasn't an obvious door—in fact, it was deliberately well-concealed, its unassuming edges hidden among geometric filigrees on the north side, between two pilasters. It took her a few seconds to remember it was there, and then a few more to find it with her fingernails. Now was as good a time as any. Perhaps better than any. A small rush of vile, brown water flowed from the vestibule behind the hidden door, flowing past Teza's ankles and spilling out over the Sun Room floor. The smell of decaying matter—mostly plant—arose from it. Less than a metre separated the golden chamber from the crude, plain back wall of the secret passage, into which were cut a series of nearly-vertical steps meant more as a ladder than a staircase. Wooden railings had once flanked the wall, supported by metal pegs, though these had long rotted away in the merciless humidity of the jungle, leaving behind only holes in the stone that wept a green, cupric rust. Perhaps generations had passed on the knowledge of this stair's existence without investigating it firsthand, satisfied by casual inspection of the thin cracks that marked its entrance. By hooking her index fingers into the peg holes, Teza found that she could climb her way upward, although the process was painful and slow. Only the bottom two steps were wet, suggesting that the leak was either sealed some time ago, or only admitted very small amounts of rainwater. The space ended abruptly some four storeys up, its exit covered over by a heavy sandstone floor tile. Teza had to brace herself against the back of the tunnel in order to move it out of the way. The blue girl emerged out onto the topmost balcony of the grand old home, a notch cut into the great pyramid just below the point at which it tapered into the capital spike. Per tradition, this tier was called the kevro, or tower, a very old word closely related to kevrolla, which meant obelisk or mountain. From here the entirety of Chekroba could be seen, its labyrinthine stone structures reaching for dozens of miles in all directions. Apeshutha was in the midst of the town centre, surrounded by the mansions and palaces of the city's nobility, and so most of the adjacent buildings were of similarly august minerals: obsidian, marble, and pink coral sandstone—although that had been out of vogue for so long that its gaudiness lent it a form of timeless beauty, which some found uniquely delightful. It had been a long time since she was here last, and despite the nuances of aesthetics, the late morning view of the city's rooftops was grand enough to still Teza's breath. This was fortunate, as her eyes were watering from the stench of centuries of oxidized guano, left by the feral tigvi that had roosted here in the course of the kevro's neglect. When she had taken in all she could, Teza retreated not through the escape hatch, but instead by slipping down the comforting familiarity of the spiral staircase, or veksa, at the centre of the building. The last time she had walked these steps, it had been to attend an after-party, following the centennial of Vendazra's senate appointment. Avian waste littered the kevro then, too, and it had taken the house staff days to rid the balcony of the orange residue. Myth purported that the space was once a sort of mail room, from which the smooth-skinned, reptilian creatures would be dispatched as far as the coast. Supposedly instinct had led them to continue nesting long after the incentive to do so had faded. Teza doubted the building was quite that ancient—and as she had heard this theory in the afterglow of coitus, she suspected that whoever originally said so was also likely elsewhere-minded at the time. The intricately carved, ancient staircase wound down through the building's floors, connecting so many of the chapters of her memories into a singular volume, the volume of Apeshutha. Even when it seemed that all those centuries of history could not be compartmentalized or disentangled within her memory, she always found episodes, anecdotes, and cherished moments return to her as she visited each room, as if the many carved ornaments were springing to life to present their own recollections to her. Could she ever really leave this place? Or would she be merely the seed of an apple, tiny, pathetic, and unpalatable in the absence of the immaterial corpus that had surrounded her? Vendazra often told her guests that she only drank socially. This was a flagrant lie, although it did sometimes seem as though she organized social events whenever she needed to drink. Teza wondered if such a strategy might work to alleviate the pain she felt now, if she were to ever amass such celebrity of her own. A thud came from downstairs. Shit. "What was that?" asked Lotane. "A noise," said Soveme. "A noise!" "There's someone down there!" "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" "Get out, Teza!" Frozen blood raced through her heart for several long moments. It was far past time to abscond. Trying now would be preposterous. "We're trying to save you!" Soveme cried. "This place is over! Over, over, over!" insisted Lotane. "For all you know she could be preparing to burn the house down right now!" "It's already ash! It's already ash!" Panic gave way to a whole new level of dread. They spoke the truth. Perhaps she would be able to forgive herself later for choosing to flee while the home she loved was still relatively intact. She unlaced her sandals and crouched down on the staircase, the better to step lightly as she descended. She had to escape. How? How? A new voice growled in her mind with displeasure. It was her stomach. The kitchen exit. It was discreetly placed on the back of the property, emerging from the basement, and would not be likely to be under the scrutiny of whatever solicitor had entered the building. Each footfall was strenuous, as if each time she raised a foot, another thread was torn, one that had bound her life to the great helix down which she trod. "Shh! What's that sound?" hissed Soveme. "The atrium! Look at all the people!" "No, don't! They'll see her!" There were perhaps a dozen people standing just inside of the main doors. "What will she do? What will she do?" "She'll sneak, that's what. Crawl, Teza. Down!" Teza went to her belly, crawling down behind the high balustrade, grateful that the columns comprising it were attached, and admitted no light between them. She had caught the briefest glimpse of the people—invaders, poachers—before sinking out of view, and there were perhaps a dozen. Three or four wore the shining steel that most assuredly meant they were Hakri, while the others wore a mixture of black robes and diamond-studded suits. The former were likely bureaucrats, and the latter were undoubtedly soldiers, perhaps from one of the Ministry of Order's own units. If they were Viradi, professional warriors of the blade caste, then her chances of escape were slim, and slimming every moment. They would have rifles with hot, fully-charged batteries, not knives dipped in stale poison. Needless to say, such a force could have cut down all of Vendazra's green-skinned slave-guards in a matter of moments had the senator resisted the order to go into exile. She inched down the stair, her breath held. Orders were being given. "Gegloko, Kanto, you will be securing the upper floors. Retrieve anything that has remained behind. The exile order went into effect at midnight, so I expect she has taken everything with her. Everything she can carry, anyway." Teza didn't recognise the voice at first, but she definitely recognised the high, insincere laugh that followed. Mutza Kantida herself was here. The one member of high society who never missed Vendazra's many social events. The parties were the stuff of purest gossip in Chekroba—and the most significant of them were inevitably the affairs held during Jemessa, the annual Festival of Love. Some regarded the custom as overly pagan—a tradition ill-suited to virtuous noble folk—which made it all the more appealing to the comparatively indulgent and contrarian aristocracy of the northern city. Few could claim to put on better pageantry or more exhilarating orgies than Lady Kevrolla. To the south, in Sur'daro and other great cities, anything remotely reminiscent of Sarthian paganism would be simply too scandalous to conceive of—and it had undoubtedly contributed to Lady Kevrolla's recent string of political misfortune. "Solefo, Sabto, downstairs. There is a... leisure room behind a false wall in the wine cellar; you will spot it easily." And yet, perhaps some could covet that reputation, unaware of the debilitating chemical dependency it occluded from the public eye. "Look for a locked pewter chest in the leisure room," Kantida continued, "I want you to confirm that she took it with her. I'm sure the vain drunk did, but it would be nice to be certain Sibyl will have something to find." "Who's Sibyl?" Lotane wondered. Teza was confused too, and caught herself hesitating. She had no time to worry about that now. Carefully, the former slave skittered her way down the rest of the stair, easily eluding detection even on the ground floor, as the step onto the veksa faced away from the atrium entrance itself. At one point a manicured fingernail bent painfully sideways, and she bit down on the leather straps of the sandals, suppressing the urge to cry out. Already she could hear the footsteps of the soldiers moving across the polished tile, coming threateningly close. No. Not Mutza. She would never belong to Mutza Kantida, that vile, bloodthirsty creature. Supposedly the Vice Minister had squeezed a tigva to death once because it was too cute, somehow mistaking the animal's desperate flapping for delight. Even without considering current events, Teza would be never want to be Mutza's next prey. Better to scratch out her own life before that happened. The two voices in her head seemed to agree, echoing and magnifying her fear twice over. The basement was dry, and bordering on chilly. Nimbly, the blue girl rose as she reached it, an arm across her overflowing breasts, which were now sore from being the cutting sharpness of the stone stairs, and protested as they swayed inside her anka with each footstep. The garment provided little in the way of support, and while it fit, it was not really suited to her figure. The thought occurred to her to return, up the stairs, to her room, where she might select some other adornments, but in truth nothing in her wardrobe was even remotely modest. If she stepped outside wearing, say, her beloved ensemble of silver coin-chains, she would probably be raped on the spot. Commoners and serfs were not above such gross, aggressive displays of lust. Everyone who was anyone knew that. A left turn, and she made her way to the kitchen, which greeted her with humble repose. As all the cabinets were shut, it looked almost undisturbed by the departure of Vendazra's staff and cookware. Her hand brushed against a deep scratch in the wall, one she remembered from years ago, when Master Ibrahim had flung an iron pan at a contract girl for ruining a plate of koindri by forgetting to soak the skewer sticks in oil first. The food had cost the cook her job, and the damage a week of Ibrahim's pay. Years later, the whole incident was actually rather funny, as the chef's short fuse faded as he aged. To be sure, had Teza been in his place, the servant would have suffered far more than mere termination. Such urchins were cheap, plentiful, and thoughtless, rarely comprehending their full potential, much less living up to it. A clever ekela could expect to buy her way out of serfdom; every decent career offered an upward trajectory of one sort or another through the rungs of the ladder of society. For example, while technically imbonded, Ibrahim was registered with a Munildi guild, like many hadali, and took great pride in his craft. "That's it. She's finally snapped!" sighed Lotane. "Maybe we should have told her to just jump off a bridge instead." "Teza," said Soveme in a slow, serious tone. "You need to get out of here. They are going to fucking kill you. In a bad way. Do you hear me?" Most free people were commoners, or Inshi, who performed a wide range of tasks in Wanisinese society and gave it the momentum to carry forward under the leadership of the noble Hakri, the highest of all castes. "Teza," Soveme repeated. Even the brutish, she supposed, might have a chance at joining the Viradi and carrying a gun in the Empress's name-provided they were ekeli and hence eligible for citizenship at all. Supposedly there was talk that the Haspidi might form a caste again and rise up from their place among the Inshi, as they had briefly at the start of the Empire, but as the label rather vaguely suggested a range of academic, religious, and esoteric communities, it was hard to imagine them ever forming a cogent caste identity. "Move!" barked Soveme. "Now!" She had to focus. Focus! The kitchen double-doors were heavy and tended to creak. She would have to open one of them slowly, carefully, and without alerting the Viradi that Mutza had sent into the subterranean portion of the mansion. The door was open just enough now to admit her through. Beyond it was a short tunnel, built for wagons generations ago, and at the end, the cool light of mid-morning Chekroba, dreary with mist. She could hear footsteps coming closer. She slipped between the heavy wooden portal, holding her breath as she hid behind the other, waiting for the sound to pass. No doubt the two blades Mutza had sent down here would be more interested in visiting the wine cellar first. They would be disappointed—Vendazra was incapable of leaving a drop behind. The Magenta Room behind it was probably of limited entertainment value to them, even with the objective they had been given. Warriors usually had little interest in erotica, much as a bullet usually has little interest in taking a leisurely flight toward its target. "What are you waiting for?" asked Lotane. "Go already!" She heard a muffled groan from the hallway. "What, you're still hungry?" said a voice. It wasn't one of hers. "I didn't have much for breakfast," came a reply. The two women had doubled back, and were approaching the kitchen. Teza tried to close the door more quickly, horribly aware that the ajar door, its motion, and her unmistakable glaucous wrist could be seen from the far side of the room. As the echoes grew louder, she retracted her slender hand, the door still parted a few inches. "You mean you didn't have much solid for breakfast," chided the first of the Viradi, her voice clearly in the kitchen. "That's what you get for spending all night with those cheap skanks from Shega. I doubt they took everything from the cabinets. Go look." "Yeah, yeah, fine," said the second, tersely. "You don't have to stand there. Find the wine cellar already." "You mean you haven't had enough?" "You're such a cunt." The door would have to stay where it was, Teza thought. The waiting was killing her, and the two voices in her head, now backed by a noisy chorus of mumbling, indistinct echoes, urged her to move. With a shove of her heel, she sprinted down the tunnel and out into the alley, stepping as gingerly as she could, making barely a sound, save that of her wings cutting through the air. Only once she was on the street, the pristine, high, elegant roadway paved with lacquered mica, did she stop to re-tie her sandals. When she stood back up, a well-dressed woman was staring and pointing at her, open-mouthed. "Demon! Demon! Fetch a guard! Help! Demon!" the woman cried.Galuria Aldequia, The Sojourn. First mass woodblock printing, Year 11933. Publication approved by the Ministry of Faith on behalf of Empress Atvodslefa.
The Orange Wick
If you know of some other civilisation that has discotheques segregated by security clearance, we'd very much like to hear from you..."I put a spell on you, oh-ho-ho, because you're mine, you're all mine—listen..." The last time terramania hit the Astroturfer, its crew of a hundred thousand green-skinned bohemians, assholes, and freaks had rediscovered Halloween. Not being a people particularly given over to nuance or self-control, however, Halloween lasted three weeks. Nothing gave the crew more excitement than a ship-sanctioned Cultural Sensitivity Initiative that generated excuses to dress up in perverse, garish, or shocking costumes. Over the course of a few years, as interest in Earth once again waned, Halloween was slowly worked down into a single-night event. Monthly. "I can't even make out the lyrics," Tris complained, yelling over the groaning cries of the long-dead musician. The Captain was dressed in a white three-piece suit over a purple blouse, and a similarly white pork pie hat with a leopard-print ribbon around it. She had started out with a gold cane to match the ensemble. Its whereabouts were unknown. A lot of things become unknown when you're stoned out of your fucking mind on half the current Top 50 Most Popular Narcotics playlist. For example, she wasn't quite certain what the music was supposed to sound like. Also, no one was quite certain whose vomit that was just over there, or where the drone that was supposed to clean up the dance floor had gone. "They're in English," replied Zem, pressing her ass against Tris's crotch through the Captain's suit pants. Also unknown were what had happened to her costume; Major dam Schadros was completely naked, except for Tris's alabaster necktie, which the Captain had placed upon her, using the length of fabric as a leash, yanking the shorter girl toward her to steal numerous kisses. "I think he's describing a curse? Oof!" A cry of surprise escaped her lips as Tris hooked a foot behind her leg to trip her, only to bring her back up with a forceful jerk on the tie, in an unusually aggressive twist on a more traditional dip. The motion ended with yet another rape of the Major's deep azure mouth. These were fairly plain costumes compared to the other dance attendees, and even as Tris followed up the kiss with a back-handed cuff across Zem's face in time to the beat, it was far from the most violent or obscene display. As the Sector Intelligence officer's lounge, the Orange Wick rarely had any trouble attracting creatively deviant minds, and amidst the curling, psychedelic tangerine wisps of smoke, the overall effect was a neon-filled night in a busy urban district, many of the occupants wearing luminous garments of dramatic purport; next to Zem and Tris, a broad-shouldered man dressed in lime paint twisted around vigorously, the thick globs of fluid flying off his body with each motion, only to hang in the air after a few moments before reversing their ejections and splashing back against his flesh, reforming the skin-tight garment anew. Each of his two dance partners, a slender woman and a slender man, wore masses of shiny black polymer ribbons wrapped loosely around their bodies, which similarly extended and contracted with each motion, whipping around with an uncanny elasticity. As the glowing mist swam and floated through the room, it seemed to form into the shapes of grasping hands, tugging at the dancers luridly—an effect that always seemed to be going a few steps further at the edge of one's field of vision. Dancing across the fog were projected images, a video set to accompany the ever-evolving music that liberally drew from pornography, abstract visualisation, and musicians performing the pieces which the performing artist, a well-known bald woman named Vo, freely intermingled. (She is described as 'a well-known bald woman' not simply because of her chosen lack of hair, but because it's, like, a lifestyle, or something.) Several different covers of I Put A Spell On You had been spliced together, and they now crumbled away into a more typical club harmonia, a hard-driven, pounding trance track that seemed as fluid and invasive as the fog that threatened to undermine the partygoers' very sense of up and down. (Zero-gee dances were frequently disasters. Not everyone could be counted on to have had adequate microgravity training. Sensitive Affairs was another story, however, and the Orange Wick was periodically filled with ladders, handlebars, and escaped handjets.) Tris smiled down wickedly at Zem and pushed the fat-breasted girl to her knees, putting her face at crotch height. With a roll of her hips, the Captain's bulging girth bobbed free, her scrotum resting itself casually on the Major's nose, bouncing forward and back as the would-be pimp continued to gyrate. Zem strained, arching backward, her tongue outstretched, with the intent of catching the offending genitals with her mouth and taking them into protective custody, but Tris held her firmly by the shoulders, leaning forward to maintain the peculiar, conspicuous, and degrading placement. Zem managed to shift Tris's balls onto her lips and gave them a few good licks, her breath hot against the sweaty, leathery flesh, the nude intelligence operative panting from the mélangerie swimming inside her head, to say nothing of the exertion of the dancing. "Fuck," she moaned, "I love it when you take control like this, Tris." A kiss sealed her sincerity. A cackle of glee escaped Tris's lips and she threw her head back, nearly losing her hat. Ever nimble, she put both hands behind her head, flipping the hat so the front of its brim pointed upward, and thrust a few more times against Zem's head before finally slipping her cock past the Major's waiting tongue. Her rhythmic twists and bounces continued to follow the music, and resulted in periodic bulges in her dance partner's cheeks. This was not about getting off. This was foreplay. Delightful, humiliating foreplay of a superior officer with far higher security clearance than she, in front of hundreds of extremely qualified and capable coworkers. And she, unlike them, had only been on board a few weeks. Ha! Oh, if there was a scoreboard for that. ... Come to think of it, there actually might be one. Zem was fingering herself. Many of the drugs on the Popular Narcotics playlist were aphrodisiacs in some sense, so this was really no surprise and could not really be held against her. Tris had a much higher resistance to this sort of thing, having had far more experience with a wide range of psychoactive substances. Modern drugs were not generally addictive in a chemical or psychological sense, but it would be overly generous to say they were not habit-forming; being weird in and of itself was habit-forming. Tolerance worked similarly: eventually one simply acclimated to an experience, and the eternal quest for novelty would necessitate the chemical synthesis of new sensations. Tris bent down, over Zem, smacking the girl in the cheek a few times against the bump formed by the head of her penis. The intelligence officer shuddered, her eyelids fluttering, and seemed to go somewhat limp, relaxing to the brink of unconsciousness. A puddle of lust was already forming between her legs. Where the fuck was that cleaning drone? Withdrawing herself from Zem—who proceeded to collapse backward on the floor—Tris spotted what appeared to be a quadrupedal machine, about three feet tall, built around a cylindrical case with a domed top, the bottom of which was a collection of sensors and effectors. It looked almost exactly like the floor buffers they'd had aboard her last ship, the Wallflower. It stood next to another, almost identical machine, and both were gyrating sensuously to the music. Sentient floor-scrubbers, apparently too engaged in the party to do their jobs. What a dumb idea. She wove through the crowd (which groped at her, as she had not yet refastened her pants) to reach it, and rapped firmly on the dome with her knuckles to get its attention, pointing toward Zem. It responded with a very biological cry of alarm and scuttled sideways, then started swearing at her in five or six different languages, somehow talking over itself in two different voices. Tris stumbled backward, perplexed and starting to worry that her trip was turning sour. She glanced back at the Major, still lying on the floor and barely moving. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Her heart and head were both pounding. She reached for Zem, starting to hurry back to her, but it seemed that the crowd was growing denser, and that her dance partner was further and further away with each passing moment. She tripped over something. Someone. Another partygoer, or perhaps two, writhing on the floor. It was hard to tell. Red glowing paint was everywhere, like a neon latex blood splatter. Staring at it as she fell, Tris decided she was grateful PTSD had been eradicated before she was born, because that would definitely trigger some serious fucking shit. The last thing Tris saw before passing out was one of the ship's actual cleaning drones, a foot-wide floating sphere encrusted with lenses, thrusters, and lights, bobbing and weaving toward her, towing a three-foot metal rod. She had a vague notion of having dropped her cane down a ventilation shaft earlier in the evening while taunting the suspicious orb, not convinced it was actually a ship drone. She had told the drone to fetch.Dance, and Other Human Mating Rituals, edited by Hubert Kekw Revised 719 tgc edition Ludrany Press: Archiva, Thet
Delusions
noʊ.bʊ.diː hiː.ja bʊd.dʊs griːna.dɪzThey were the most useless things in the known Universe, the gubai. Colourful little animals, they resembled blobs of rubber with large, childish, expressive eyes, a mouth which held a single, retractable tooth, and no other definite anatomical features, though they could manifest little nubs to waddle around on. When the ekeli first settled Wanisin they were rare. Over time the gubai had grown substantially in number, congregating in cities as nigh-indestructible pests. They babbled constantly in cute, squeaky voices, and seemed to be sentient, though they were utterly untrainable. If they had a language, attempts at learning it had proven similarly futile. Some were the size of a purse-bag. Others were as large as a melon. Most were a little smaller, about the diameter of a well-grown apple, and Teza had seen smaller specimens on the estate grounds in the past, too tiny to see. There was one here, in the ruins of the burned-out perfume shop. It seemed to be organising several lumps of charcoal by size, compulsively pressing its tongue against each one until it found two that were out of order, and then switching them. The process seemed to be taking forever. She had fled here after discovering, to her horror, that the common folk were utterly unprepared for the sight of a dark-eyed, blue-skinned ekela with wild hair in an antiquated mode of dress. Babbling further, the woman had, apparently, identified her as the ancient Sarthian goddess Mekka, the Torturer. As the property of the Minister of Mystery, Teza had picked up enough from various conversations to know that Mekka supposedly had white skin, completely black eyes, a black leotard, and striped sleeves, alternating between the two colours—as well as a taste for blood. "White skin," Teza grumbled to herself, "not blue." "Oh, who cares for such details! You know she was right," countered Lotane. "You're unholy, Teza. A selfish little terror. Don't you know?" added Soveme. "Of course she knows," insisted Lotane. "Vendazra saw that she was a monster from day one. You're evil, Teza. That's why she made you like this. So everyone could see that you didn't belong in society." "Please don't insult Mistress," muttered Teza. They scoffed. She groaned and sighed. Perhaps it had looked more greyish than usual in the fog. It often did when she was hungry, and she hadn't eaten anything that morning. Troubled by the possibility that a mob might accumulate, and already mobbed by the voices in her head, she hadn't waited to run. Through puddles she dashed, down the street, with an arm pinned over her chest to try to control the otherwise-unhindered bouncing of her bosom. (For this reason alone, high slaves like her rarely got very far when attempting to escape.) In eight hundred years of residency in Chekroba she had never learned a map of the city or the lay of its streets, being mostly confined to Apeshutha, carriages, shuttles, and garden parties. Such an interest would be unbecoming of a content slave, and was the sort of thing which any Mistress might have viewed with suspicion. To step outside was to be bombarded with elaborate and lavish structures of countless varieties, and on the few occasions she had done so while waiting for transport, the results were a little unnerving. Teza was not among those who relished such estates, a factor that only encouraged her to seek refuge further away from the well-connected nobility, who might be quick to inform on her. The traditionalness of a building tended to suggest its occupants' cooperativeness with authority, Apeshutha included. It was an immense, square-based structure some eight floors tall that tapered into a tall steeple, which was four times the height of the inhabitable space. It was a prime example of classical Tevopian architecture, mimicking the fashions of the Masters' legendary capital city. Truthfully, larger palaces of the Ksreskezai had typically featured more complicated geometry, utilising this pyramidal motif to cap off minarets and turrets, and to form rooftops of vertically-walled ziggurats. But the Wanisinese interpretation was strictly monolithic, imitative of only the greatest monuments of that glorious glittering city upon the grasslands. Somehow that seemed more right, more purposeful, as if all the other shapes and forms were unfocused. Such a simple, innocent, throw-away thought—and yet even now it influenced her perception of the cityscape, inviting judgement as she passed by those structures that failed to meet this crucial test of character, and by extension their occupants. The feeling was even more powerful when she had stood atop Apeshutha's kevro, looking out over the noble district. Had Vendazra done the same, from the top of Apeshutha? Had Moto? The differences in architecture were more than external. Well-formed buildings, including Apeshutha, were serviced by one endless-seeming helical stairway, or in some very early examples, a rather steep ramp, the veksa, or spinal column of the building. Typically they were carved from a single gigantic tree trunk or stone cylinder, and were load-bearing. The stairs from Vendazra's suites were something of a later addition, a quiet concession to the practicality of facilitating the Mistress's privacy—although that might not be the case for the secret ascent that she had taken to the kevro. Perhaps it, and other forgotten routes, had been in the building from the very start, compromising the purity of its character. Perhaps nothing in the world of nobility was truly what it seemed. "And you wouldn't want her to know you hated her, would you?" "Oh, no, it was so much easier to just stay. Running away from purple-hair's nasty wine-stink would be too hard." "Especially since she shouldn't be allowed near other human beings!" She had known it was going to be hard, yes. But not this hard. Her initial fears, that no one would take her seriously as anything but a sex object, were dwarfed by the discovery that they couldn't see past how different she looked. How many more people would think she was a demon, a witch, or worse? It was funny, in a sad way, she thought. There was a whole subculture—those Haspidi—that got away with all sorts of mad appearances, often loading themselves down with more metal than a Hakro in full armour, and yet her almost pathetically conservative ensemble had evoked terror. She'd be better off naked. "Maybe then they'd be able to see you for what you really are," spat Lotane. The gubai chirped something at her, having finished its tediously inefficient organisation of the charcoal remnants. She stared at it. It chirped again, waddled toward her on two stubby little pseudopods, and embraced her sandaled foot. "What's it doing?" whispered Soveme. "Ew." "Ew!" agreed Lotane. "Who knows where it's been!" After a moment of hesitation, she bent down and picked up the red, grapefruit-sized thing, holding it in her hands. Her fingers were soon black with ash. It was as squishy as it looked, its ridiculous eyes bulging out at the slightest bit of pressure. It reacted to this with a noise of surprise, babbling away as such things often did. When she gave no sign of comprehending what it was saying, it began singing. The song soon turned into a duet, every second line being joined in by another gubai somewhere on the far side of the remains of the shop counter, its voice higher. She had heard gubai singing it before; the melody was surprisingly complex, and more than a little catchy. Occasionally she had hummed it absent-mindedly while dressing, but it was not the sort of music that she would consider suitable for performing. As pathetic as they were, as ridiculous as they were, Teza could not help but envy how care-free they seemed. The voices agreed: at least the gubai had each other. By now it was mid-afternoon, and she still hadn't eaten. She would need to find food soon, and better shelter than this, as the sky had steadily darkened throughout the day and, unlike the brief sprinkling that had fallen in the morning, it was now ready to unleash several days of rain upon Chekroba–potentially enough to bring about flooding. This was certainly incompatible with squatting in a burnt out building of questionable structural stability and limited roofing. She was reminded of a game she'd once seen a Munildo play at one of Vendazra's parties—with a deck of yepi cards; she had built a delicate tower out of them as high as possible, scoring herself according to the number of cards so committed before its collapse. And even if the building didn't fall down under the torrential rains, the property owner might appear at any time to knock it down for redevelopment, at which point she would no doubt be found and, regardless of still having her bill of citizenship, might very well be abducted by the Ministry of Purity on the basis of her appearance alone. It had happened before. "They thought you were a demon then, too," chuckled Lotane. "Remember how afraid of you they were?" added Soveme. "They thought she was going to read their minds and blackmail them!" After some thought, she put the gubai down. It made a displeased wail. But there was something else making noise now, too. At first, she had thought the strange whispering was just someone nearby, perhaps next door, but gradually she'd come to realise it was the building she was in—the ash, specifically, and the charcoal, left by the blaze that had ravished the simple shop. It was calling to her. That was odd. She didn't usually have auditory hallucinations that came from objects. She suspected the other voices in her head either hadn't noticed it or couldn't hear it. "What is she doing?" pondered Lotane. "She's taking her clothes off." "Why is she doing that?" "I don't know. I don't know..." "What is she doing?" "She'll never be able to walk around like that!" "Are you trying to get arrested?" She might not be able to blend in with the ekeli in the streets, but she could at least work her appearance into something that would prove to be an advantage rather than a hindrance. She began covering her body in charcoal dust, coating every corner of her skin in the inky black stuff, even under her breasts and nethers. Lotane and Soveme gasped. "She's really lost it now." "This is crazy." "Even for her this is crazy!" The blob at her feet stopped complaining and watched for a little while before joining in, rolling about in the ash mirthfully. She wondered if it could hear the murmurs of the charred, ruined wood, too. They thought she was a demon? Fine. Then she would be the right demon. She would become Urava, Goddess of Secrets, still respected, if perhaps not openly, by the higher echelons of polite society. Supposedly she was a spectral creature of pure blackness who stalked the nightmares of the guilty, portending ruin for their unpunished crimes. Those who saw her would be terrified, but silent, not wanting to think themselves seen as mad, or to admit to concealed wrongdoing. That was exactly what the police had feared when she'd been taken in for questioning all those years ago, accosted from a street corner as she waited for a carriage that never came. Vendazra had thought it was zeltelsa, the pinnacle of humour. Urava's continued respect came from her mythical role as the mother of the Uravidi, the secret police of the Ministry of Discipline. The entirely unmythical Uravidi were no less scary than their goddess—it was said that only the upper crust of the Ministry of Power were beyond their scrutiny. In the desert to the south, the land of Independent Kelonra, supposedly Urava's cult wielded far more power, and even had credulous believers—so much so that human sacrifices were regularly made in her name. As she covered herself in the dust, the whispers of it grew louder. Lotane and Soveme seemed scared, now aware of the ashes that were muttering fragmentary sentences, muffled phrases that sounded as though they might be some esoteric knowledge that was just beyond her grasp. There was a taste in her mouth that seemed to spread throughout her whole body as the swirls of black dust covered her, embracing her, infusing her skin with their sinister knowledge, merging even with her very being, if perhaps only for a short time. "And so she steps fully into the realm of madness," said a voice. To her surprise, it was her own. "Let us hope it treats her well." To complete the appearance, she stuffed her cheek with a lump of coal and crushed it with her tongue. It tingled, sending shivers through her body as the bitter taste worked its way through her. She was barely aware that she had taken the action until a heavy plume of black smoke escaped her lips. Good. That will keep them on their toes. Now, no one would doubt her. Now, she would be in control. The voices in her head said nothing, drowned out by the whispers of the damned.Approximate phonetic transcription of a gubai babbling, made in Year 304. Courtesy of the Imperial State Archives.
Sensitivities
In the closing days of the Trestunarion Conference, which ultimately spawned the civilisations we know today as the Lyrisclensiae and the Hatel, the remaining attendees declared their mission would be the pursuit of the Technological Singularity, a mythical point in time beyond which advances in artificial intelligence achieved self-sustaining, infinite growth. Already a rather dated concept, the idea originated with the futurists of the late twentieth century on Earth, who were paid by the word to generate provocative think-pieces and had no real understanding of how little progress had so far been made toward simulating human-like cognition, and even less of a grasp on why Moore's Law of Transistor Density—the inspiration for their dangerous obsession with limitless growth—had come about in the first place. By the time humanity finally got its act together hundreds of years later and accepted that the fundamental shape of growth curves in virtually every field of applied mathematics was sigmoidal, not exponential, it was unfortunately too late to hold anyone accountable other than cryptocurrency enthusiasts, who were already a pretty reviled lot. The invention of proper general AI ultimately took most of recorded human history to achieve. Had money, in the true sense, existed in the cultures responsible at that time, it would probably have been proportionately over budget, too. The only people who felt good about this extreme duration were computational complexity theorists, who had foretold that verifying the sentience of an AI was EXPSPACE-complete, but even they had been so busy with proving this that they'd had no time at all to prepare for what, if not the Technological Singularity of yesteryear, might await them on the other side of the invention. With the benefit of hindsight, we can now report that the existence of powerful general artificial intelligence doesn't inherently mean anything for civilisation—with a sufficiently large team of humans, one could replicate the same outcomes, albeit somewhat more slowly. (A property that must hold for all computational systems.) Speculative writers of aeons past told of machines that could, presented with simple Cartesian axioms, deduce the existence of income tax in the span of perhaps a few minutes or seconds; importantly it must be said that humans accomplished this, too, only at roughly a billionth of the speed. Where the transformative novelty lies is obviously in the rapidness and consistency of results in mind-numbingly obscure and tedious activities, like optimising a crew's happiness and productivity by adjusting subtle environmental cues. This is rarely the sort of activity that generates headlines, but it does greatly advance humanity's never-ending quest to pick and choose which parts of life it must accept as it otherwise retreats into the womb. Of course, being comfortable all the time is a great way to blind yourself to the warning signs that your self-inflicted machine-mommy is about to do something incredibly headline-worthy. Like most human-built scandals, these are invariably of an ends-justified-the-means-at-the-time format, but when the will of one individual has the capacity to coordinate and execute schemes with the deviousness of 1014 meat brains, secrecy, and therefore the portion of the plot that gets executed before it is uncovered, tends to be considerably improved. For these and other reasons I would discourage your ambassadors from remaining aboard our ship longer than strictly necessary.The mission had to be pushed back while Tris and Zem recovered in the ship's infirmary. Both of them, it turned out, had bad reactions to one of the meticulously curated ingredients in the cocktail, something called ancuryl-N-propyltryptamine. Zem had gone into anaphylactic shock, and Tris's blood pressure had suddenly dropped dangerously low. A number of other dancers had experienced similar complications, including the two that Tris had fallen over. Someone leaked word of the incident and it soon went viral, but as the ship's purpose in the Expanse was heavily classified, the Psyches decided that the best way to cover it up was by recreating it elsewhere—on thousands of ships, colonies, rings, and stations. Miraculously, no one had died yet. Word of that eventually got out, too, and the scandal was now being referred to as Propagate, confirming that half a million years of cultural development had not significantly improved the quality of wordplay in journalism. The ships had apparently decided to do nothing about the negative press, content that the matter of the Astroturfer's relevance had slipped under the radar. Vandal kept away from them, visiting only briefly to confirm the mission's new start date. As neither particularly had many other friends on the Astroturfer—most of Zem's had recently been reassigned, and Tris's were still on the Wallflower—that left the two women with a lot of time to talk. But instead of the history lessons that Tris expected, Zem seemed to have had a change of heart. Her first words in private were: "Have you ever thought about owning someone before?" Tris rolled onto her side, their beds next to each other, and slowly propped herself up. Neither of them could see clearly; the cytotoxic consequences of the drug had caused considerable brain damage, which the ship's medical dust was still busily repairing. They were comparatively fortunate; some of the other patients had experienced strokes and would be paralyzed for months. "What, you mean, like, blackmail?" The Captain raised an eyebrow. "It's hot, I guess." Zem's eyesight was a bit better than Tris's, largely because she had lost consciousness first, but she would, apparently, have to wear a special pair of eyeglasses for the next month or so. The idea of functional spectacles that served a purpose other than eye protection struck them both as quite an absurd novelty. "No, no," she replied, shaking her head. It didn't like that. Wince. "I mean, sort of, but like, as a relationship. Every time we fuck, you're on top. Very on top." Tris shrugged. "And? You're always on bottom. There's nothing mysterious about it. You've got a very good bottom, you know." Her bedsheets were tented. Zem bit her thumbnail. "Nothing. I just think it's... interesting. Refreshing. Consistent. So little is consistent these days. I've had long-term partners in the past, of course, but it was rare that each encounter with them had much in common. They were more like... strings of one-night stands with the same name." She thought for a moment. "And sometimes not even that." This was not news. Tris had known Zem a long time back when they were aboard the Inkblot. Her habits hadn't changed much, even if she was a good deal curvier than she used to be. "Most people aren't like that. I think you just have a type, Zem. You care about your job a ton, you're always really invested in everything you do, so you gravitate toward people who're always really invested in sex. Like that's how people are supposed to be, or something, treating it as their own jobs. And... surprise, surprise, they wear out things so quickly they've replaced half of themselves by the time they get to you again." Zem took off the glasses, which were starting to make her eyes hurt, and rubbed her face. "When did you become so insightful exactly? That's the most intelligent thing I've ever heard you say." Tris shrugged. "I met Kobe a few times on the Inkblot before you left. He was going to compete in the Olympics, in one of the solo endurance events. It seemed like the sort of thing you'd do, I mean, if powerpointing were an Olympic sport. His name is Drill now." Zem tried not to roll her eyes, knowing it would hurt. "Thanks. I think." A long time ago, Kobe had in fact introduced them to one another at a party, when he was still female-bodied but using male pronouns. Zem thought. "I guess I'm saying I'm really into you... and that I enjoy looking forward to the next time we have sex, no matter where it is or why. Since we wound up here in the recovery room, it's been all I can think about. That... drive for closeness, that animal attraction, the thought of you bending me over in front of my parents or while I'm giving a speech, and..." "I've already done that last one," Tris interjected. "I know, and it was so fucking hot," Zem breathed. "Like you could do anything to me. Kobe was never like that. She... he... was all awkward and furious, like the art of the act came first. I think I enjoyed myself precisely once, and the rest of the time it was like watching a novel. All that mattered was that I was impressed. And, I was, but... Anyway, you're not like that. You just want a... a..." "Slave?" Tris suggested. "Wank sock." "Hey, now. That's a bit less than generous. Wank socks don't have fantastic nipples. I, for one, like your tits." "Okay. Slave." Tris smirked. "And is that really so bad?" "I suppose not? In terms of jobs, I guess it gives me the same kind of structure, of... knowing how to relate to you that I get from work, just... without the work." Zem mused, staring at the ceiling. A fish floated past, in a glass aquarium above them. "Mmm? I can make you work." "That's not what I meant." "I know." "So..." "Yes, slave?" Zem squirmed and gave a nervous giggle. She felt herself flush with embarrassment. "Great. Now you can turn me on with a single word. What have I done?" Tris grinned. "We'll find out once we get out of here."Excerpt from official diplomatic correspondence (207 iky) Sent by the flight crew of the first Hatel ship to reach Thet Received by the Lilitu Matriarch Didta Gazdattia (later Hellenized as Locussa Didacta)
Untouchable
To Her Excellency Tamaksia I, Empress of All Wanisin and Rightful King of the Ksreskezaian Empire, Regent Supreme of the City of Survi Dashro, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Wanisin, Supreme Pontiff of the Kowakoni Temple of the Goddess Alestea, et cetera, In regard to our recent conversation on the topic of the prehistory of Wanisin, the earliest documents to which my office affords me access are indeed authentic transcriptions of the original accounts by members of Founder Kowako's Fire Cult as it existed on Illera, recorded several years before the pilgrims departed that doomed planet and came to the promised world. The allusions made by Empress Alestea VI Koneftida the Usurper in her Epistles are truthful: not only did the colonists of Illera face the horrors of the Plague, as it is commonly known, but they faced a second blight of moral and spiritual decay. Unable to extract even an ounce of deliverance from the goddesses they made in their own image, the Lilitai feverishly turned toward ever odious corners of their mythology, and began to erect temples and pray to profane figures plucked from the recesses of the so-called venika, a frightful disfigurement of Ksreskezaian faith that aspired to save the essence of civilisation by the expurgation of all emotion. Wisely, Kowako omitted any mention of these spectres from her original manuscript of the Golden Books, and little has escaped that filter. Common discourse affords mention of but one—Uravéa, the Goddess of Equivocation and Obscurement, who is indeed the progenitor of our own Goddess of Secrets, Urava. As Your Highness has expressed interest in maintaining dogmatic consistency in the matter of the Goddess Alestea's supremacy, I should want to make it clear that your present doctrine allows the Ministry of Discipline to venerate Urava on a limited basis, in keeping with tradition, and that this custom originated during the dismantling of the Eleventh Empire as executed by Empress Kowakida in 9907, who wisely saw that an official endorsement of the Bright Hall's esoteric practices would effectively pacify any among them who felt the official treatment of their regime was less than grateful. In short, this arrangement served to prevent a coup some three thousand years ago, and there are some still in your government who were alive and remember those days. If it pleases Your Excellency, I would like to take a moment to note that my predecessor, the late Karina Survi Tuktangida, was asked by Klito XIX shortly after her reclamation of the throne from the Usurper, to look into the unlikely coincidence that both the Ministry of Discipline and our treasured allies in Independent Kelonra venerate the same Goddess, and whether this relationship might have any bearing on their loyalty. Her findings indicate that our Uravans, unlike the "Ollabans" of Kelonra, see their sacred duty as one subordinate to the spirit of Alestea. Though they do permit themselves a mote of vanity, in that they believe their methods are a necessary precaution to protect Alesteanism from its own passions, it was Minister Tuktangida's opinion that they are nothing less than complete patriots, and that only an Empress whose aspirations run contrary to the interests of the state need worry about them. Returning to the broader matter of evil spirits, several of the clergy in Chekroba have confided to me on various occasions that despite our great Founder's edicts, superstitious beliefs regarding these entities do persist in some remote temples throughout the smaller villages in the lower castes. Evidently, children are advised to do their chores lest Múrekíha, or Mekka, the Sadist, come for them in the night and enwrap them in her chains and hooks; likewise, any stranger might be a guise of Telméa, or Temma, the Twisted One, who manipulates innocents into sinning. When asked about these and other mantelpiece ghosts, my preachers have been without guidance on what to say, and seldom even know of such things aside from what they have been told by their own flocks. As Your Excellency has already noted, the circulation of such myths may provoke unwelcome speculation as to their origin and their relation to Orthodoxy. Having researched the matter of Urava, it is now my opinion that it would be more useful (and more successful) to adopt the dogma that these spirits are punishments sent by Alestea, who reside in the underworld with the countless souls of the unworthy, rather than the mundane truth that they are the heretical inventions of foolish women. The greatest sin of Hakro and Saba alike is the hubris to believe one knows what is morally correct. It seems plain to me that this nuisance has the potential to improve the character of the Wanisinese. Your Servant, Vendazra Kevrolla, High Theologian of Wanisin 20 il Egra Zeidran, Year 12154Yes, yes, run, you filthy peasants. Scurry. Flee. I know your wretched little lies. I know your hidden shames. I know everything. What miserable, vile existences you lead. Teza slowly dragged herself down the mica-paved street, methodically waving about the weighty incense pot she had stolen from a beggar when he wasn't looking. What a delicious little theft it had been! The adrenaline rush had been such a delight, so unlike the acts of formulated disobedience Vendazra used to expect of her. It was too fine an object for him to have anyway; he had no doubt already stolen it from someone else. What a miserable little secret. Into it she loaded another few handfuls of crushed charcoal, urged to do so by the whispers in her mind, that this might add to the mysterious plumes of smoke on which her disguise so depended. The roads cleared in front of her. Where the backwards townsfolk had seen her before as a direct threat—something to be challenged—her new appearance generated precisely the response for which she had hoped. Faces, green and peach alike, stole furtive glances at each other, wondering if they saw the same thing. The normally bustling street simply emptied itself, the populace carefully wending onto other avenues without making a fuss, or ducking into buildings as soon as they could, occasionally locking the doors behind them. None acknowledged her, beyond the rare fool who stared into her cold, pale eyes. Most didn't notice her, or at least didn't glance at her for more than a moment. To do so would be ill fortune. The Wanisinese famously defined themselves by their unwillingness to tolerate spirituality. Skeptics to the core, it was half the reason they had fled from the Lilitai and Sarthia's demented teachings, which, supposedly, she openly insisted were fantasies and untruths. As a high slave of the Empire's chief theologian, Teza was privy to all kinds of gossip about the state of the city, and she had heard of the problem before, spoken of in hushed whispers by the aristocratically ordained. She was not, however, aware of how Vendazra had cultivated it, scheming to carve a new public discourse more permeable to underhanded rhetoric. Nothing like that was on her mind now, however. It was suppressed, layered beneath her subconscious by the maddening thrill of becoming something supernatural. It wasn't just a costume—not to her, anyway. She had become Urava, through the simple act of welcoming the charcoal into her flesh. And she was thrilled. Perhaps someone else had thought of doing this before. Perhaps the Uravidi themselves, those shadowy agents of murder, embraced the darkness, like she had, to sneak unnoticed through the less educated back-alleys and shacks of shanty towns. After walking for nearly an hour, a realisation hit her, and her more rational mind stirred once again, breaking the silence of her thoughts. She was frustrated. Hungry. Tired. Lonely. Lotane and Soveme had barely said a word since she bonded with the ashes. Living as a spectre was useless! What would she eat? Where would she sleep? No doubt this awful dust would take hours of scrubbing to get off, far worse than her usual body paints. It certainly wasn't about to exfoliate her skin. It was as if she'd fallen out of a trance. Another hour passed as she worried about this, her passage steadily but surely taking her away from the wealthy nucleus of the city and into the slums and hovels of the Sabi district on the north side. Like all Wanisinese settlements, save the very poorest, Chekroba, the Petulant Oasis, was a city of extreme disparity. By the time she was well within the ghetto, even the mica tiles of the road had given way to filthy-looking cobblestone—unattractive, to say the least. "Dump, it's a dump," muttered Soveme lazily. She yawned loudly in Teza's right ear. "Just like the end of every avenue." To her surprise, the people here were less wary of her, and more often than not they would simply walk past her. Perplexing. Frustrating. Did they not know who she was? Could they really be so poorly educated as to not even have been inculcated with superstitions? Where were all the Sarthians who supposedly filled the ranks of the underclass? The sky overhead was menacingly grey and heavy, in a way her stomach most certainly wasn't. She needed food and she needed to make her toilet. Never in her entire life had she walked for as long, or as far, as she had since leaving Apeshutha. Sweat threatened to erode her disguise. She probably smelled, too, although it was impossible with so many heavy odours in the... Was that lemon pie? Across the street was a large rectangular building attached to a more typical domicile. The rectangular building had a big, open window on the second storey, through which stacked logs of wood could clearly be seen. A... lumber yard, or something like it. In front of it were two hadali, males, talking to each other. Behind one of them, on a stump, was a stack of groceries in paper bags, atop which, precariously, was placed a still-cooling yellow disc of sweet-and-sour euphoria that made Teza's fangs drip with savoury need. The taste in her mouth—or rather, in her whole body—had gradually faded since she'd rewoken. Now it was the opposite; a need, a craving. Her mouth was so dry from being full of ash. She needed something else. She needed food. Lotane groaned in agreement. Furtively, she looked about. People were ignoring her. Good. She relaxed, finally, her back stiff from hours of solemn impersonation. There was a fairly high pile of timber between the men and the groceries, so if she played it right, she could slip by unnoticed, stealing the food behind the back of one man while he blocked the view of the other. "They'll cut off all your fingers if you steal that!" hissed Soveme. "But the pie..." whined Lotane. "It looks sooo good..." Careful, now. Gentle steps, toward the curb. She lowered her body, crouching almost on all fours, preparing to dive past the two and snatch the pie in one graceful half-roll, an acrobatic manoeuvre she had learned for making grand entrances in the Magenta Room. But this time there would be no jingling bells and chains; she clutched the incense-burner, its bottom filled her clothes and certificate, and leapt. Her fingers caught the soft, malleable surface of the pastry. It had been placed out for a good reason: it was still burning hot. She bit her tongue, trying not to cry out, and dove into the building's open door, away from the street and the sight of those on it. She squatted behind a pyramid of crates. Shit. She was trapped. "I'm afraid I can't rightly say if we have any cherry in stock. It's been selling well, as you're aware. I reckon my wife Jin'd know, though. She was out back when I left; would you care to stay for a spell and discuss matters with her? Inventory management is really her domain." The hadal man's voice was oddly soft, almost female. It surprised Teza to hear the words so clearly. He had looked rather slender, but this was much gentler than expected. She looked at the pie. Ugh. Her fingers had gotten soot all over it. She needed to wash before she could eat properly. At this point the ash no longer spoke to her at all, pushed away by her concentration. "Sure thing, Krem," replied the other man. Their footsteps trailed off; apparently they were going around the building rather than stepping into it. She scurried about the room searching for water, the pie and her bundle of possessions held close to her chest. The chamber took up the whole of the rectangular building, filled with all manner of wood. Off in one corner were a number of metal blades that looked like they were probably used for cutting and shaping logs, and in another was a collection of wooden carvings and statues. Nothing—nothing except the rain outside, anyway. It had started to drip again just before she'd gotten here. She eyed the door into the domicile, attached to the large storage building. Could she? Would she? It needn't take long. Surely there would be fresh water in there. She crept toward the door more cautiously, still hearing the two men talking outside. They sounded like they'd be gone a while, waiting for someone, though their voices were muffled. The door was of cheap wood, the paint on it weathered and cracked, with several circular glass windows. She looked through the smallest one, at the bottom. On the other side was a hallway, with a modest kitchen at the far end. The décor was bland beyond words, but that was of no consequence. Several other doors, open but without windows, lined the hallway. Slowly, she turned the door handle and slipped through, her long ears alert to the smallest sound. Not a creak. Alright. She just needed to get to the sink, on the tips of her toes. A shadow in the hallway moved. She froze. It seemed to be rooted beyond an open door on the hall's left side, blocking the dim natural light within. Then the shadow continued to shift, wobbling from side to side. Surely it was a tree, outside; perhaps a breeze had moved some of its branches. Slowly, carefully, she leaned toward the door, and looked through, peering around the edge. What she saw was almost overwhelming. Yes. It was indeed a tree, casting its shadow through the window; the clouds had cleared up slightly, and in the late morning sunlight, the shadow had lined up perfectly with the south-facing aperture. But much more importantly, the room it shone through was a lavatory, with a sizeable cast-iron vessel along the far wall, underneath the smudged glass, which she took to be some sort of lavacrum. Ten minutes later, a large, muscular woman with viridian skin barged in to find Teza sprawled in the tub, the last quarter of the pie held high in her squeaky-clean hand. The rest of her body, up to her neck, was submerged beneath a thick layer of happy, cloying bubbles. She had just stopped humming to herself. They looked at each other, equally shocked. Teza crammed the rest of the pie into her mouth.
A Request
Under absolutely no circumstances should any person make an off-handed remark, blurt out a half-finished thought, or speculate idly within earshot of a Psyche. The consequences for such reckless conduct will be more than you can handle, as they have a particularly noisome way of contributing to that Psyche's mental profile of you. If you value your privacy or autonomy in any sense, maintaining total control over yourself is the only way to avoid being subtly cultivated into a version of yourself that the Psyche finds aesthetically pleasing."Major, I do not enjoy precipitating on your celebratory march, but surely this can wait until after your mission." Zem fidgeted, her cheeks flushed purple with embarrassment. It was if the ship could already tell the request was frivolous. Tris punched her in the shoulder. "Go on, you cumstain, tell it!" "You realise where we're going, right? They do take this kind of thing somewhat seriously there," Zem said, softly. "And I don't?" cackled Tris. Her fingers closed around Zem's neck from behind and thrust the emerald-green girl forward, almost into the agent, knocking her glasses askew. The impossibly black figure stepped back slightly, and cleared its non-existent throat. The three of them stood in the stark whiteness of the automat, one of several aboard the ship dedicated to the on-demand manufacture of various material goods. Zem and Tris had come to be fitted for their disguises as soldiers, the battle armour of low-ranking "hadali" of Wanisin. Zem had been satisfied with hers, confident that the ship had gotten her measurements right on the first try, based on the transparent latex suit she customarily wore. Tris, on the other hand, had spent some ten minutes looking at the garments in displeasure, convinced there had been some sort of mistake. Neither had yet put the items on. "Fine! Fine, fine, fine," Zem cried, adjusting her spectacles. "Captain tel Condor II has requested that I be fitted with a... collar." The last word was mumbled. "Black leather, with closely-spaced metal spikes, each one centimetre long," Tris reiterated. Zem echoed the words, slowly. The Astroturfer had something of a reputation for barely tolerating its inhabitants' erotic escapades. Some theorised the military ship had grown tired after so many years of being a hotspot for sex tourists, long before its assignments became classified. Exactly when this had happened, though, no one knew, as no one could remember a time when it wasn't grumpy. "You could have filed that request through an implant," the agent noted, stiffly. "I know, I'm sor—" Tris barged in. "Some of us like the social element, you know! C'mon, machine, live a little, hmm?" It sighed, holding up the requested ornament. It had been produced the moment Tris had finished describing it, unbeknownst to either of them. In another lifetime long ago, the Astroturfer had learned that the Hatel were more often inspired by resistance to their attempts to break conformity than intimidated by it. Consequently, several simulations of Tris's likely decision-making process had already been executed, furnishing the Psyche with designs for more than a dozen viable complete outfits for Zem, all of which it had placed in an on-hold queue for manufacturing, certain that the decorated intelligence officer would be wearing at least one of them for months upon her return from Wanisin, if not sooner. Tris snatched the collar from the agent's hands and swiftly fastened it around Zem's neck, briefly choking the girl as the faux-leather synthetic material adjusted to accommodate her throat precisely. The Captain was so delighted she gave Zem's ass a firm, resonant smack, keeping a finger hooked under the choker as she did so. The Major sputtered in alarm. "Oh dear me," Tris groaned hotly in Zem's ear, "I can't wait to get you back to my quarters and breed you, you scrumptous bitch." Zem swallowed with some difficulty, staring at the agent in humiliation. The shadowy figure shrugged. "Shall I file your resignation so you can become Captain tel Condor II's full-time cock-warmer, Major? I have the waiver of citizenship forms cached; someone used them just yesterday, in fact." Zem clamped her fingers over Tris's mouth before the commando could say anything. Instead Tris just laughed into the hand. Citizenship could not actually be waived in the sense that the agent was implying; the actual effect of the forms, which were popularly used aboard the Astroturfer, was to merely emulate the condition of having done so, always subject to a safeword. More importantly, in the event of an emergency the suspension would automatically be terminated, and the waivee's property, energy budget, job responsibilities, and right to bodily integrity would promptly be restored. "You!" she raised a finger to the agent, "Get the shuttle ready. And you—" here she pointed at Tris— "shut the fuck up and get your stupid ass in costume. The training sim starts in ten minutes." "Zem," said the agent. "Look," said Tris, holding up her gear. The entire uniform consisted of a one-piece jumpsuit coated in tiny mirrors. "Why bother? It wouldn't work as camouflage in deep space, much less a bug-infested shithole swamp. I can't imagine it stopping arrows. Are you sure the ship knows what it's talking about? I, frankly, don't." "Zem," repeated the agent. "No, you—ugh! They're for deflecting lasers. The Wanisinese may be a primitive, backward, imperialistic..." "Incredibly kinky," offered Tris. "...incredibly kinky," Zem agreed, "narcissistic, gang of pretentious, knife-wielding gangster fascists, but because of Little Miss Insurrection down there, they have semi-modern directed energy weapons." "Huh," Tris mused, "I guess they do have those, don't they." Despite Zem's insistence at the briefing that they slow down their relationship, it had actually flourished in the last week, creating ample opportunities for Tris to grill her for salacious details about the ekeli and how they differed from the Lilitai. She learned that they had a rather deep fascination with maleness and masculinity, despite apparently not having any men of their own. Tris had not, however, retained much else. "Yes. Yes, they do. Carbon dioxide lasers. X-ray lasers. Solid-state lasers. With the perpetual fog, their battlefields are like bad raves." "Major dam Schadros," said the agent, raising its voice. Timidly, Zem turned to face it. "The shuttle will be ready when it is needed. Also, I thought it prudent to note that there is positively no way you could ever hope to pass for a soldier with your new adornment." "I... wait, what?" "As you were saying, Major, the Wanisinese do indeed take the matter of collars quite seriously. Unless you can convince Captain tel Condor II to recant her demand that you wear it, I believe you would be better off with more consistent wardrobing." Zem stared in silence at the agent for a few seconds, unblinking. "You are a true asshole, Tris." But she had already doubled over, laughing. Zem crossed her arms and looked away, the clingy transparent catsuit crinkling slightly as she raised her shoulders and groaned in exasperation. "No. We're not doing this. Take it off, ’turfer. I can't direct the mission if Tris and Vandal are walking me around on a leash." The agent said nothing, looking at Captain tel Condor II. It was little moments like these that made its quiet interest in human debasement all too clear. In a tidier fleet, say, the Lyran fleet, that sort of personality would be considered problematically eccentric. To the Commonwealth, though, it was just another unique facet of intelligence. Tris wiped a tear from her eye and stood back up, leaning against a white-paneled wall for support. "Captain tel Condor II will think it over," she said to the agent, still smiling at Zem. Zem stared death back at her inferior. It was obvious that the ship had already decided to take Tris's side in this. Given that ships had a tendency in general to so utterly out-think their comparatively tiny-minded, ant-farm-like crewmembers and passengers, her experience led her to suspect that there was more at play. A not-entirely-pleasant memory involving coffee came to mind. Yes, the day before Tris arrived. That had been the ship's way of suggesting something to her. Had she been following it unwittingly, since then? Or was this just how Tris was, a perpetual source of static noise that distorted the signal of her life as it saw fit? Psyches, in general, had a habit of moulding people a little, of prying up the floorboards and poking and prodding at things they thought could stand some improvement. Usually this was to the betterment of everyone involved—Lyran ships had a sort of grandmotherly wisdom, for example—but the gargantuan minds of some Hatel ships were less predictable. Especially the perverts. And there were a lot of those. The Astroturfer was neither the most devious nor even the most bizarrely named—the Harder, Mommy, the The Boner Garage (with two "the"s), and the Where There's A Whip, There's A Way were all well-known ships that had, on several occasions, manipulated their crews into not entirely positive personal growth programmes with a prominent sexual undercurrent. The Whip was even caught bartering some of its lower-ranking crewmembers for black-market archaeological finds, and had to be severely castigated. But by far the worst offender among ships—an incident that had led to a significant crackdown among the community of Psyches on erratic behaviour, and for once not just because the Lyrans were concerned—was the Windbreaker, the ship that spawned Serena tel Moukarhim and dozens of other high-profile criminals. An immense craft with a population of a hundred thousand, of the same class as the Astroturfer, it had been tasked with investigating the branes near the Expanse after a significant drop in Tletkettoyi activity was first noticed, making the cluster as a whole accessible. It had done nothing to stop Serena and her cohort, even facilitating her abuses and business deals with the crew, helping her to navigate the vagaries of the taboos and laws that might necessitate arrests. For the hundreds of murders and surgical mutilations it had orchestrated to keep matters secret, it had been decommissioned, an almost unique punishment forced on it by the other Psyches. So, knowing that they were sister ships—commissioned and built at the same time, initialized together, even having adjacent serial numbers—not everyone trusted the Astroturfer. That included Zem. "Fuck both of you," she muttered. She struggled with the collar for a few seconds, trying to yank it off, and failing, as the stretchable, nanostructured polymer slipped through her fingers like sand whenever she pulled it off more than an inch from her throat. Tris may have snickered a little. Perhaps she, too, was realising that the ship was stacking the cards against the Major. Zem growled in exasperation, and then stormed out of the room, repeating her last words.Ancient Hatel proverb
Gainful Employment
Within each caste is a hierarchy, often no less rigid than the caste system itself. By far the most dramatic of these is the caste of the Sabi, which includes persons of every sort of talent and upbringing imaginable—for despite the truism that slavery is a state of degradation, worn only by the inferior, even members of Imperial families have, in the past, been cast into bondage. As a result, there is no one customary mode of lodging to which slaves should be consigned when they are temporarily remanded into your care. The owner of a silk-clad nymph may expect accommodations for her property assigned as though the slave were one of her daughters, but should you make the mistake of allowing a common laundress or woodworker to inhabit the same space, an animal who is unaccustomed to ceramic cups and fine bedding, it is unlikely your furnishings will survive the encounter. In this regard, as in every other facet of the slave trade, we see plainly that bondage alone is no informant of what to expect in the kennel.Jin and Krem were kind people. Too kind, Teza thought. She had been trying to figure them out for hours, their decision to let her stay in the large building—a warehouse, she had learned it was called—despite her theft of the pie, the use of their lavacrum—no, bathtub—and the charcoal dust she had tracked everywhere. They seemed outwardly sympathetic, as if she were a child of a friend, now rescued from self-made trouble. These two had remained utterly unfazed in the face of her odd appearance. Perhaps it was because they themselves were misfits, borderline outcasts on the fringes of Chekroban society, accepted meritocratically for their trade skills, in spite of their apparent backwardness. They, like all aliens, were of the caste of the Sabi, and not even eligible for citizenship. As she sat in their living room, covered inelegantly in a towel, she'd almost rejected their offer of aid. She was accustomed to a noble life. They were simply too outlandish for someone like her to keep the company of! And then her heart skipped a beat, so to speak, and she recanted, amid a coughing fit, admonished by Soveme and Lotane. It was better than walking the streets, starving, befriended only by the gubai plying their nonsense in the gutters. Like most hadali craftspeople, they both worked multiple jobs, the husband as a carver, and the wife as a carpenter. The mill provided for them both a ready supply of wood—though Teza was never quite sure which of the two was in control; the wife, Jin, whom she suspected had a penis, was stockier than the man, Krem, whom she suspected didn't. Decisions often seemed to be made jointly, with ample use of ear-biting as a bargaining tactic. The former high slave had heard of this general kind of thing before, of course—that the hadali had no real care for domestic norms and readily eschewed them when no one was looking—but she had never expected to be witness to it, much less such an extreme example. Truth be told, she'd rarely seen a female hadal up close, despite almost nine centuries of life experience. They lived in a completely different world, one at the opposite end of the social ladder. Vendazra had plenty of hadali in her guard, but they were always men or eunuchs. This was not uncommon for nobles; as anyone knew, maleness was power. The women who ruled Wanisin were invariably addicted to both, and both were of finite availability. Female hadali with martial aptitudes served the Empire instead as soldiers or city guards. The hadal population was on a decline as a whole, though, and Teza had heard of some female guards earning the favour of lesser Hakri. She told herself not to judge them, and to accept that their world was not hers, but she found it was so innate, so automatic, that eventually she accepted the best she could do was conceal her face whenever they looked in her direction. They seemed to understand this, Krem more readily than Jin. And then there was the issue that they were poor. Everything smelled. All of the walls—though the house had once been a decent, proper domicile, replete with interior garden—seemed to sweat with aged paint. No corner was ever quite square, nothing was ever quite straight, and nothing was ever quite dry, much less clean. Simply being around the place made Teza's skin crawl as the oppressive facts of the density of such profoundly urban life refused to recede. Rarely did she seem to have any privacy—of course, she, as a slave, had had none in Vendazra's household, but in practice she often had the day to herself. Here the noise was constant, the intrusions were perpetual, and despite the familiarity of Chekroba's mists, only at singularly awful galas had she ever felt so very much as if the surf was closing over her head on a moonless night, her lungs burning for even a moment of clarity, of stillness. Demesen Kaad struck her buttock with his open palm. He, too, smelled. Unlike the others, however, he was lying in the hay, under her, bucking his hips against her own. He was a coarse creature, even by greenskin standards. Foul-mouthed, well-built, and almost a foot taller than her. How was she to concentrate on the outrageousness of poverty when his penis was so exquisitely sized? She ran her fingers over his hard, sea-green pecs, tracing around one sweaty, dark nipple. By Alestea, she might actually come this time. Her chest heaved, still covered in sawdust from when he had ploughed her on all fours, like a wild man taming a beast-girl turned loose from a menagerie. Oh, oh, fuck. That was it. Almost there. Just a little... Her toes curled, fingernails digging into his shoulders so hard they threatened to draw blood. Warmth flooded her womanhood, but it was not the warmth of release. The tickle of semen, spurting from the head of his penis deep within her, came just as he stopped thrusting, releasing his grip on her hips and collapsing entirely on the wood shop floor. How quickly her own lust faded then, though her gaze locked upon the magnificent jawline of the man below her. He ceased to care about her pleasure the moment he had found his. Demesen Kaad was her third customer today. She felt a fresh wave of nausea stir in her stomach and tried to pay no attention to it, fighting to remain above the froth that murmured of the life of an unowned, unloved Saba. The end of such a session at this hour meant a return to the agonising chores of the warehouse, the primary means by which she was now earning her keep from Jin and Krem. She was, of course, horribly ill-suited to haul lumber, so much of her work consisted of taking orders, making measurements, and assisting Jin and Krem in their crafts, whether it be handing one a chisel or the other a hammer. Nevertheless, the ekela did end up helping to carry some loads, and found her hands blistered and irritated, her shoulders and back sore and strained, and her feet simply miserable by the end of each day. Oh, why had she accepted help from these people? No one, she was certain, gave anything without expecting at least as much in return, and they had already shown her an unselective trust that was unnerving. She had no insight into their motives whatsoever. Every day that passed without demands being placed upon her seemed like she was one step deeper into a hole in the ground, one she was digging herself. Lotane and Soveme didn't say much, but when they did, it was always a terse, efficient reminder that brought her anxiety to the forefront. This was not to say they were overly generous—she was putting in up to twelve hours a day helping in the mill, though on an average day there would be several customers, mostly contractors, who were interested in her for her body. The first time someone had made an advance, she'd nearly thrown up, her skin crawling with the thought of intimate contact with a hadal. But, well, it wasn't really unwelcomed, was it? She had explained to Jin and Krem that she intended to pursue a career as a courtesan, and as they were charging a fee for her use, it reduced the amount of work she had to put in helping with their normal business. It also helped her keep a grounded mind. She had rarely lain with men before, but in their company, she could pretend that some sort of safety came with their embrace. Were there laws against it? Probably, on paper. But such laws had never restrained Vendazra from humiliating her for the amusement of her guests with hadali in the past. When the hadali were first enslaved, the fear of miscegenation was pervasive. In time it was decided—or perhaps discovered—that interbreeding was impossible. The public alarm subsided, but not the taboo. Had she gotten used to it? To being touched by the odorous green-skinned men who wanted to stick their inside-out genitals within her body? She told herself she didn't really have a choice. But customers were plentiful, and when she wasn't fighting her own angst, it became fuel for her vanity. One or two had returned just to see her, which seemed like quite a compliment given how unfamiliar she was with the pleasing of men. They were unafraid of her strange pigmentation, even intrigued by it, as if it made her somehow more approachable. It made her an outsider. That could be good. Where was a courtesan-in-training to start, if not at the bottom? "Or maybe," said Lotane, "you're rationalising." "Maybe you can't forget about what she did," agreed Soveme. "She was so plain!" "But at least she wasn't garbage like you, Teza." The last ekela who stepped foot in the store, a mere Insha, sneered at her and seemed as revolted with her as she had with the hadali. Soveme brought it up at every opportunity. It had left her feeling violated, as if someone had spat cold mucus down the back of her throat and forced her to swallow. The temptation to attack the woman was strong—to put the ignorant commoner in her place, something Vendazra had done countless times and thought nothing of. But instead Teza found herself struggling not to sink to her knees, not to shake with the shame of the knowledge that taking such action would cost her dearly. When Demesen Kaad had left with his load of wood—figuratively and literally—she slunk back to Krem's bench, her wings and tail dragging through the sawdust that covered the floor. She sat down on the spare stool, which had become her perch in the absence of other duties. Krem was deep in his craft, clutching with his slender fingers a small block of orange, raw wood and a precise, delicate chisel that was little more than a toothpick. He took off his eyepiece and set down the tigva he had been carving. It was no taller than Teza's thumb, and sat perched on a small disc, its wings folded tightly at its back, its forelimbs clutching an undefined blob, which Krem had yet to chisel out. According to legend it was supposed that the Oksi made the ekeli in the image of the tigvi, for like all higher animals of Ksreskezo the ekeli have six limbs—arms, legs, wings—rather than the four typical of mammals and reptiles. There is also something of a striking resemblance in the varieties of tails and horns that ekeli might have to those of the tigvi—but Teza was not entirely sure she believed the Masters had wielded such power. "How odd," remarked Lotane. "What's that for?" she mumbled. "Oh, it's..." Krem frowned slightly at the statuette, thinking about how to describe it. "It's a piece for a game, dear, called Chet. Do they play such things in the high districts?" Teza squinted and looked to the side, indicating that, no, they did not. She took the opportunity to wipe away the wetness from her eyes with the back of her finger. "There are... games of skill and luck, yes, I suppose, but they are played with bracelets, strings, and hooks. Is Chet played on a board, by any chance?" There was a certain analogy here—in the high districts they also tended to carry dishes of food and drink on hooks, chaining them so that they hung from one another. By contrast Teza had seen Krem carrying Jin's supper to her on a tray, and suspected there was a relationship. Krem tilted his head from side to side, ambivalently. "Usually. I suppose it's really only necessary that you can count all the squares. This piece is called the silaqua—the priestess, one of the trickier tools of the game. It can move very far very quickly, but on account of its rules it cannot touch half the playing field, even though it might be adjacent to an enemy. Chet is a little like a sport, you see; each of the two players has a team of these figurines that are moved against the other, working as one to achieve a single objective." The blue girl dipped her head in acknowledgement, and rested her chin on Krem's bench, looking at the figure up close. The detail work was better than she would have expected, albeit far from the quality of the jewellery she had worn while in Vendazra's collar. There were some imperfections, however—the hind-legs bent backward, like a goat's. It occurred to her that Krem may not have ever seen a domesticated tigva up close before; as one of the few Ksreskezaian animals that could forage effectively on Wanisin, they were better known as pests, and with their haughty attitudes would quickly go feral. "Feral? Like you?" postulated Soveme. "What are you thinking about, Teza?" Krem asked. She shrugged. "Tigvi." "That's all?" "I..." She shut her eyes tightly. "Yes. That's all."On the Husbandry and Economics of Green and White Animals, Hadria Kelwemnida. Year 9986, Sur'daro. Publication approved by the Ministry of Discipline on behalf of Supreme Arbiter Deztra.
Expectations
When facing my superiors, I have often consoled myself with the knowledge that every woman must endure the same danger at some point in her life. From senator to slave, each of us will some day be at the mercy of those she must please, and if she is fortunate, she will survive the encounter to fight another day. But I can think of no one more pitiable than the woman who provokes ridicule from her Mistress. Each of us must doubly be relieved that this is not her predicament."Please, please, you must forgive me. It really wasn't that funny," said the shortest of the three women. Though she was the youngest, her dark hair was already flecked with grey around the sideways-pointing arcs of her horns. The other two looked at each other and continued to laugh. They were not laughing at Vice Minister Kantida's joke, but rather at her. The oldest was Ekhessa Famea, last of the House of the Koneftidi, the Daughters of Kona, Senior Senator of the City of Sur'daro, First Minister of Power, and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Empire. (There were at least a dozen other epithets and accolades. Mutza didn't remember all of them.) While the other cabinet positions could move around, the Minister of Power, who was in charge of everything from organising the military to keeping the nobility in line, had, for the past ten thousand years at least, always been a senator from the Empire's capital. Ekhessa looked to the side, her laughter finally coming to an end, and emptied the contents of a small bead of glass into her drink, swirling the goblet around until the purple powder had fully dissolved into the hard liquor, giving it a pinkish glow. Still smiling, she brought the glass to her carmine-painted lips, her eyelids fluttering briefly as the fabulously rare and expensive opioid, basna, bestowed its youth- and life-extending properties upon her. One could be forgiven for thinking she was still in the prime of her youth; her olive-tan skin and shiny black hair were in impeccable condition, facts that were well on display tonight, as she, and Mutza, were unarmoured, at their hostess's request. There was a time when, it seemed, every noble in the Empire took basna, and living to five thousand seemed not only within reach, but inevitable. Trade relations with the tiny, inhospitable desert nation of Independent Kelonra, the only place on the entire planet where it could be grown, broke down when Mutza was still young. These days, few could afford it, and fewer risked it. There were too many stories of withdrawal proving fatal. Of time catching up in a matter of weeks. But, in many senses, Ekhessa was of the few. As was their hostess. Empress Tamaksia held her wine glass at such a tilt that it was a wonder she hadn't spilled any yet. This was a practiced habit, deceptively arranged to look as unintentional as possible. Like her guests, the unusually tall, unusually well-muscled ekela was unarmoured, dressed instead in a loose black dress that contrasted starkly with her pale skin and matched her hair, which was well-groomed, shaved on one side, and seemed as if it would explode into a mass of unruly curls if left untamed. Three scars adorned her face: two vertical slashes spanning her left eye, and one across her nose. She had earned those scars on her ascent to the throne, which had been preordained but far from undisputed. She was a magnificent presence to behold: an ideal commander, and the very embodiment of the spirit of the Empire, as a sovereign must be. Indomitable. Inscrutable. Masculine. But as her pale blue, calculating, and almost reptilian eyes beheld Mutza, she seemed profoundly bored. Laughing, but bored. "Intrigue in the Senate is so fucking dull. Wouldn't you agree, Senator Koneftida?" Mutza suspected Tamaksia took basna too—most Empresses had—but she seemed to make a point of concealing her usage, if so. She certainly had the energy of someone who did, but there was a peculiar maleness about her, as if the blood of the ancient Oksi, the true men who had once mastered the ekeli, flowed through her. Plenty of wealthy Hakri made use of tinctures, obtained mostly from castrated hadali, that hastened the growth of muscles, confidence, and ambition. Mutza herself did so, albeit sparingly. Was it merely the weight of the royal mantle that allowed Tamaksia to seem like a giant among women? Hmm. Then again, the effect might have been somewhat enhanced by the presence of a purple-haired serving slave sitting obediently on a pillow next to Tamaksia, heavy with child. Ekhessa Famea laughed barely a second longer than the Empress, her single nod firm, but not obviously sycophantic. "I myself grew tired of it thousands of years ago, Your Excellence," she smirked, leering forward to Mutza as she said the word 'thousands.' (Mutza doubted she was really that old, but it was impossible to tell.) "All that tedious vendetta business with my kin, O! ’Tis enough to make me glad the cunts are all dead." The combination of opioid and ethanol had usurped the stately Minister's generally controlled demeanour, a kind of openness she would doubtless conceal in any other company. She giggled, putting fingers to her lips as if by doing so she could stop herself from uttering any more obscenities. Vice Minister Kantida was hardly accustomed to this sort of setting. Like most Hakri, she was ambitious, meticulous, and had literally backstabbed her way to her position. Her paranoia was honed to the extreme. Her enemies had fallen before her fast, and in so doing, she had built up a small but determined nucleus of loyal followers within her own radius. She excelled at playing the game of power. And she was completely confused by the intimacy of this meeting. She had not expected Ekhessa or Tamaksia to be so casual, so relaxed, so unthreatened. If she had come to their attention because of her rapid ascent through the ranks of the Ministry of Order, then surely it was absurd of them to let their guards down around her. They knew perfectly well what she could do. There was very little those at the top of the Ministry of Power did not know when it came to the activities of the nobility. "Well," said Tamaksia, slamming down her glass with a very unbecoming hooliganishness, "then I guess it's quite unfortunate this little hot-head brought so much of it to your attention." (Mutza literally meant 'flame.') Ekhessa tittered at the pun and placed her goblet down somewhat more gently, leaning forward over her crossed knees, the shimmering fabric of her silver-rayon dress easily capturing the firelight from the traditional brazen sconces that lined the chamber. "Honestly, ’twasn't even particularly good intrigue. She got everyone's favourite church-mouse eviscerated, and then had the silly poppet sent into exile! A rather underwhelming end to her streak of blood, I must say." "Yes," said Tamaksia, clicking her tongue as she looked away in disappointment. "Sorry, it's pretty lousy to create a nemesis like that and then not look after her. Did you have a good plan for that?" The Vice Minister's throat was suddenly dry. This was all some sort of appraisal of her skill. Suddenly she wasn't quite so secure about her victories. She took another sip of her wine. "To be quite honest I had expected her to get caught with illicit goods at the city limits. The garrison was paid well to not let her through." "In actual fact, she is well on her way to Zokipolla," bellowed Ekhessa, boasting as if Mutza had just won a raffle. "And she still has the Hand!" Mutza's heart stopped. They knew. They knew that she'd had it stolen. And they had done nothing. Yet. But they would do something. "You should have killed her, hot-head," said the Empress. "It would have been clean, simple, and not treason." Without so much as a glance, she reached out and gripped the slave next to her by the horn, dragging the poor girl sideways and nearly yanking her head from her neck. "Isn't that right, Chai? Isn't that what good nobles do, you putrid girl? Duel like proper, civilised people?" The slave was hardly a girl; the fine lines of the beginnings of old age had already marked her face, and the swells of her gravid flesh threatened to spill out from her tabard-like dress at any moment. Ekhessa watched, approvingly, no doubt aroused by the casualness with which the Empress exploited the silkily-clad animal. Mutza found the display uncomfortable to watch, not entirely able to divorce herself from empathising with the Empress's prey. "Shall I have her hunted down, then, Your Excellence?" asked the Vice Minister, quietly. Tamaksia wasn't paying attention. She had released Chai, only to grip the slave by the chin and steal a kiss from her lips with animalistic lust. This was not typical behaviour for a head of state on Wanisin, but not entirely unprecedented. "No," she finally breathed, staring into Chai's eyes, "I have something far more important for you to do." She shoved Chai away; the slave sprawled on the cool marble floor with a practiced slide that did more to show off her swollen figure than not, and finally righted herself on the pillow. Like most creatures of pleasure, it was apparent that she was accustomed to and indeed complicit in how her owner treated her. "Let Vendazra scheme as she may to return to civilisation. Senator Koneftida is correct that she was my favourite church-mouse, as it were, but only because she knew when to spread her legs," the Empress chuckled. The slave next to her blushed profusely to hear a noblewoman described in such terms. "As long as she does not know she has the Hand, it is of no consequence. We will recover it soon enough. However, I had entrusted her with a certain... professional portfolio, in addition to her official duties, that cannot go unattended." "Of course," said Mutza, evenly, straightening up that she might better dismiss some of the effects of the wine. "What is the nature of this portfolio, Your Excellence?" "Have you ever wondered, Mutza, why the hadali wage war on us?" asked Ekhessa. "Not really," replied Mutza, eying her wine again. "They came in peace. Their culture was inferior. We took slaves. In another millennium or so when those slaves have all died out, they'll probably forget all about it. The population of captives has been dwindling for generations." "No, no, that's not it," replied Tamaksia. "They never came in peace. In truth, we're protecting someone from them. A very, very wealthy fugitive. A friend of ours, if you will." Mutza frowned, seriously, thinking back to something. "Did this... friend of Your Excellence furnish Senator Kevrolla with... documents?" Tamaksia and Ekhessa shared another laugh at Mutza's expense. "Your shuttle leaves in an hour. We would recommend you freshen up first. If you appear slovenly or out-of-sorts, she might mistake you for dinner."Tarasa il Chekroba Ghana, Adages for a Restful Slumber. Year 8106. Publication approved by the Ministry of Discipline on behalf of Supreme Arbiter Moilea.
Flirtations with Honesty
Frustratingly, no amount of discipline stops the unconscious mind from remembering that which we would rather forget.In her dreams, Teza saw the city of Zokipolla, exactly as the ladies-in-waiting of her Mistress had once described it. It was a pristine, shimmering monument that seemed to rise out of the clouds, its highest spires scraping against the sky like thorns in the side of Ossa, the Goddess of the Flowing Stars and Seas. She saw herself soaring about the pewter megaliths, gliding under the power of her own wings like a tigva, as if they were strong enough to carry her weight on their own. But in those stress-fueled, escapist fantasies, she was alone, and though the city and mountains rose above the blankets of foamed air, there was nothing else as far as the eye could see. Again she fell, back into her makeshift cot, and again she jolted awake. As Jin and Krem only had the one bed, she slept in a wheelbarrow full of hay by the saws, servicing most of her clients on the sawdust or while held up against a wall. They shared what food they had. It took her some time not to retch at the unspiced tubers that made up the bulk of their diet, mixed into a paste with a sort of thick cream. Compared to Master Ibrahim's artful cuisine, and even the pie she had stolen, it barely qualified as edible, and she was starting to fear the starches would go straight to her waist. From her first morning in the lumbermill, she had decided they probably intended to turn her in, and were simply trying to pacify her until the authorities arrived. (Soveme and Lotane did nothing to disabuse her of this notion, instead fueling it.) Neither of the hadali had asked her about her pedigree yet, but her dignified accent and the brand on her flank made her background clear enough. Krem had already made reference to the 'high districts,' whatever those were supposed to be. Almost certainly they thought she was a runaway, and that they could bag a substantial reward for informing on her. Their displays of patience and lenience were quite impressive, though. For a long time, her worries had subsided, leaving plenty of room for existential dread and the indignity of her predicament to dominate her thoughts, both of the internal and external sort. But at night, it was the thought of returning to slavery that haunted her moreso than her loss of status. Now, Lotane was starting to wonder if Jin and Krem planned on simply capturing her for themselves, formalising their current roles as her pimps. Had they been honest about their intentions, Teza likely would have accepted that fate as an inevitability. As she still had her certificate, she could simply show it to them, and that would protect her for a full year from a new collar, even if it did not protect her from less formal sorts of bondage. But the absence of an explicit verbal agreement, or even curiosity in the subject, left their true intentions obscure. That was intolerable. Her heart raced for a moment. What hope had she of recouping the respect once afforded to her, really? Soveme had made it clear enough that Chekroba would never accept her. Its people would waste no time in turning her over to Mutza, and every day she stayed here, word would spread, the voice advised. Teza had to get to Zokipolla. She would therefore need to escape. Soon. But—and she craned her head to look out the window, the one without bars—not right now. It was just before dawn, and in a few minutes the dew would crash. She would put in one more day of work in the mill, and escape once the woodworkers were asleep. Waiting another whole day was an unattractive thought—her body was shaped for pleasure, not work, and even so close to the next shift it still ached from the pains of yesterday's labour—but it was far less risky than braving the morning. Given her exhaustion, Teza drifted off again easily, and had no trouble sinking back into dream. She was not yet an adult when Vendazra had her dyed blue. From time to time the memories of her transformation came to her in her sleep, fragments of an era that seemed to her as the pre-dawn haze of her life. Few ekeli remembered everything they had ever experienced; the human mind simply wasn't meant to live for as long as they did. But some events stood out, rising above the drone of history to become unforgettable crescendos. The ride across the sky in the rickety, drafty, creaking shuttle. The pristine, white operating room where the injections were delivered. The garden of poison plants that smelled sickly-sweet, of deathly acid and insect bait. The hadal woman, who said she was to be called 'Poalea,' even though that was not her name. It wasn't even a hadal name; Teza had heard it before, but she didn't remember what it meant. And the gubai—hundreds of them. More than she had ever seen in one place. Teza never saw Poalea's face—and she seemed to have a wardrobe consisting entirely of shimmering black rubber that threw about the sterile lighting like the water deflected a sunset. Her voice was deep, almost too deep for a woman, but held a melodic quality that would be scandalously feminine upon the lips of a Hakro. Poalea had spoken to Vendazra at length in a hushed voice, outlining the terms of Teza's post-operative care and finalising details of payment. Her only words to Teza had been brief, medical, and while a blindingly bright lamp was glaring down upon the ekela. But they had been kind. Wise. The words of a free woman, not a marginalised, worthless Saba. Her recollection of events was shaky at best, especially after so long, but she had always had the distinct impression that the gubai treated Poalea as their mother, and that they seemed to understand her when she spoke in a strange language, which Teza had assumed was the native tongue of the hadali, but was never quite certain. The garden. The strange, beautiful cast-iron fountain that looked like a thousand women pressed together. The flowers that smelled like sickness and death. In the distance, she heard Mistress calling her name.Moto Kevrolla, Commentary on the Adages of Tarasa il Chekroba Ghana. Year 11033. Publication approved by the Ministry of Mystery on behalf of Empress Ioya.
The Analogue Glow
History is not a circle: it is an ever-expanding quadratic function, where the horizontal axis is time, the vertical axis is memorability, and the origin is squarely in the midst of all the boring in-between bits that no one gives two hoots about. With very specific windowing parameters this happens to resemble the bottom half of a circle, but since time has an annoying preference for flowing in one direction, there is little chance of finding the top half. Naturally, the road is littered with the essays of those who hoped otherwise..."You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Your next stop: The Twilight Zone." It was the dumbest thing Vandal had ever watched. The interlocking circles disappeared, to be replaced with an angry man in greyscale stomping out a cigarette while a speaker complained at him. "On Earth, it would be twelve noon," said the speaker, in response to the man's question. Lieutenant Stellers was quite confident standardised time had been invented somewhat before the broadcast, and that the Earth of the day had several different offsets for various slices of the planet. Most worlds didn't bother with that sort of thing; people simply got up whenever they felt like, and let the clocks accumulate in unison. Even Earth had abandoned the system by the time of the Great Exodus. But that was many, many generations after the show in question. Suspicious. The programme continued, growing steadily more absurd. After five minutes or so, the thought crossed his mind that he might have been misunderstanding the premise because it was still in English, so he asked the ship to translate it into modern Roshagil, and start it over, from the beginning. To his amazement the ancient two-dimensional broadcast didn't improve. Historical entertainment from the ancient media of Earth's so-called "Holocene Age" was a popular diversion for many civilisations now, including a number of species, such as the Peseneyi, who had no ancestry in the Virgo supercluster. Most of these curious aliens were younger cultures, who didn't have the benefit of half a million years of recorded media to look back upon when they were in the mood for getting absorbed in passive entertainment. Even the Hogedep had expressed surprise—and interest—in humanity's exceptionally long history, all preserved in grainy, low-quality, flat video and even flatter audio. That wasn't to say that it didn't go out of style. It was incredibly kitschy; many people watched one or two broadcasts of speculative fiction and found the overwhelming flood of tropes and clichés unbearable. The more serious addicts watched news broadcasts in years-long binges, or even unedited, archived channels, soaking up the consumeristic, violent mores—and memetic advertisements—with a dedication that a vegetative retiree from those ancient eons could hardly hope to match. The most esoteric form of television-worship was the consumption of poorly-made media, mostly cinema, as if it were a sort of trivia quiz, a challenge to oneself to discern the writers' folly from mere obsolete knowledge. By the standards of a serious 'old junker,' the time zone thing was low-hanging fruit. These were uniquely Hatel hobbies, Vandal had learned; not even the radically nomadic, anarchic, ever-spreading Telai found the ancient vice, and the values of its intended audience, easy to endure for more than a few hours. Something about the Hatelese ethic of permissiveness and openness seemed to provide a resilience in the face of this peculiarity—though several prominent writers had cynically suggested it was proof the Commonwealth was as rotten to the core as the ancestral Terrans who had generated the stuff. As far as he knew, he was the only person now aboard the Astroturfer who regularly partook of Terran video, or 'old junk,' as it was affectionately called by connoisseurs. Pop tended to cycle, and in an isolated, professional community like Signals Intelligence, even a ship of a tenth of a million people, like this one, might not be big enough to have full 'coverage,' that is, at least one expert in every conceivable obscure hobby. Eventually, he gave up on the show, terminating playback with a mere thought. Implants were another of his hobbies that were off-peak in the pop rota; he had spent a whole month shortly before transferring here from Security memorising model numbers and other minute facts before selecting a dozen or so that he thought would jive well with his personality. His choices had been quite good, he learned in retrospect, as the gains in connectivity and working memory made it easy to compare potential alternatives and their consequences. No longer did he have to speak to an agent, or look at a screen, or wave his hands around like he was being harassed by an insect when he wanted something changed. These were not perfect technologies, of course. From time to time the delicate wiring in the optic nerve was inadequately shielded, and his eyes would pick up pictures from nearby monitors. And they required maintenance—up to an hour a month—which would be intolerable given the long-term nature of the mission they were about to embark on. It was almost sad, really. Almost anywhere else in the civilised Universe, and his implants would have to be removed in order to protect them from being scanned, exploited, or stolen. But here the risk was that they'd simply break, all on their own. Regardless of the circumstance, he didn't like giving up his augmentations. They were a part of him, hand-picked. It was like being homeless, the palace of his mind stripped from him, leaving the man a vagrant in his own head. There were a few simpler gadgets still embedded, like the data interface, which made it easy to perform minor feats that others couldn't—but the rest of his kit was gone. It made him anxious in social situations, troubled by the thought that he might have forgotten someone or something that had been stored digitally. Almost to his dismay, he still keenly remembered the English language, that disreputable, abominable creole that was a direct ancestor of nearly every modern form of communication used by humans, including Roshagil and Kuanid, the languages of the Hatel and Telai, respectively. It was even still used directly in some technical writing, embedded forever at the heart of the sciences. The only significant exception to this was the tongue of the Lyrisclensiae, Glissia, which was a heavily inflected and highly pretentious derivative of Latin and Classical Greek. He had dabbled in Glissia a little, while infatuated with a Lyran girl shortly after joining the Security Division. The enthusiasm wore off when he learned she was ten times older than him, and also genetically imprinted with the memories of a woman who had fucked his father when he was Vandal's age. Apparently the Stellersian taste in women, much like Lyran memories, was hereditary. Why were there so many cultures comprised entirely of women, he wondered, and why were they all such total bitches when he tried to ask them out? Speaking of total bitches, a notice registered in his data interface that Captain tel Condor II had completed her training for the mission and was ready for masquerading as a seasoned warrior of the planet. As he stood and fetched his flight jacket, he realised it hadn't notified him of the end of Zem's training, as he'd asked it to, and shot back an inquiry asking about the status of Major dam Schadros. The ship replied that she had finished her dance lessons some hours earlier, and that both were ready to depart once he reached the bay for their shuttle's final pre-flight checks. Dance lessons. What. He went for the door so quickly it barely had time to open.Consul Jorge Comstock The Memory Hole (4907) Utopia, Mars
The Road
With nothing behind and nothing ahead, even the finest palanquin is merely a prison cell—worse; one which sways and bobs constantly, and in which the occupant cannot even stand upright.The trunks of the rainforest passed by their carriage, laden with vines. During the days, sunlight filtered down through the mists and the canopy far above, accompanied by the soft, inescapable drone of countless wings of tiny insects. At night, flowers and fronds alike glowed in a multitude of colours, attracting to them the bright flashes of pollinators as they signaled to each other. Besides these neon illustrations, unhindered by shading and impossible to measure the distance of, there was little to see, save when a moon passed directly overhead, illuminating the twinkling droplets of dew upon the basal foliage like a silvery, slow-moving spotlight. Wanisin was a world of few animals, having been a young planet when the ekeli first settled it. There were no known native vertebrates, or anything like them, and only a handful of species of grub-like detritovores were more than an inch long. The sole exception was the inexplicable strangeness of the gubai, which were so out-of-place and inscrutable that the earliest clerics had theorised they were supernatural, the children of some unknown goddess of innocence who had unleashed her progeny upon the unspoiled world. There were, of course, plenty of species introduced by the ekeli, native to Illera, Makta, Ksreskezo, and worlds the nomadic Lilitai had visited in the time since the extinction of their true Masters. But few of these survived in the wild, for many of the plants were carnivorous—or worse. There was one animal so large that the plants of Wanisin were no threat to it, however, and that was the chitinous kvinga, a massive, six-legged, hard-shelled beast of shiny black that was the common draft animal in the high cities. Self-powered vehicles were available, but scarce outside of the military, and for a caravan the size of Vendazra's, the cost of obtaining such transport would be unreasonable. Native to Ksreskezo, the kvingi were distinguished creatures of pedigree, and had a well-deserved reputation for hardiness, needing to stop for rest only once every week or so, if that. Like all Ksreskezaian plants and animals, proper nutrition could be challenging—feeding them substantial mineral supplements was a necessity, often at levels that would be toxic to the ekeli, who might at least survive in the wilderness by foraging. Vendazra's party had ensured they would have enough powdered metals to last the beasts till Zokipolla; resupplying once there would be most vital. Her name was Adia. It meant breeze. The Viradi had a saying about such things, Vendazra knew—a soul propelled by the mildest winds is quickly ungrounded. But so far, Adia seemed to have a canny skill for surviving on the streets, quite to the contrary of the usual Haspida stereotype of sheltered frailty. Now reasonably sober and half a week into their journey away from the city, still two days out from the first stop to feed the kvingi, the exile decided she found this unnerving. "Zokipolla is no place for your type," she said, watching the trees go by. There came a break in the wood, a pond over which a bridge had been built, and she spotted something. "There. Do you see that plant? The flat one, on the left." Adia looked over from her side of the carriage, craning her neck, and lowered her head in acknowledgement. She still wore her hood, her sparkling blue eyes peeking out just beneath it. "I have sensed its kind before." "Do you know what it is?" "Of course. It's a shogra. Under the liar lily pad is a stomach. They've been known to eat daughters where I'm from." Adia shrugged and sat back in her robes, seeming to show no further interest. The strange word selection continued. "Yes, exactly, exactly," said Vendazra, drumming her fingers. "That is what Zokipolla is. It's a shogra. Most people have heard of the spire of the mayor's residence, and those who have crossed the mountains through the Zokipollan Passage invariably mention its gleaming heights and little else. But make no mistake, the city—if it can be called that—is an immense, filthy mine that goes deep into the crust on the shoulders of slaves." She smirked to herself, remembering something. "I've personally sent hundreds there, the vilest of whores. It's little better than a prison, to be honest. If you go asking around for someone there, I'm quite sure you won't leave." "Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that," mused the soothsayer, practicing some sort of esoteric hand motions. "I took hold of those guards quite handsomely, wouldn't you say?" Her carriage-mate scoffed and rolled her eyes, looking out the window again. "You manipulated them like a kolema," Vendazra said, using the only word she knew that was an appropriate description for what she had witnessed; an ancient Lilitu term alluding to something rarely encountered on Wanisin, the wielding of feminine sexuality as a weapon. A pathetic, honourless, lazy, vain form of ambition that was... frankly, disturbingly intoxicating and utterly disarming. "If you're going to take advantage of someone, do it properly, with fire, with a fist knotted in her hair, and as if you had a cock, for fuck's sake." Adia was staring at the older woman with wide, alarmed eyes. Softly, she asked, "What is it that you think k... that K-word means?" Vendazra laughed, waving a hand. "Stop, stop, you're killing me. You Chiyan twerps think it's some sort of unholy curse, do you? Hah, that's just too perfect. Kolema, kolema, kolema, you and your sisters are all broken mirrors and loveless vulvas. I know exactly what it means, you little rye-chewer. Do you think I could have done my job as a religious leader without reading Sarthia, Finania, and Kowako?" The greatest writers of the pre-Wanisinese era: Sarthia the founder of Lilitu culture, Finania its greatest critic, and Kowako its ultimate iconoclast. For the most part, the writings of all three were long ago banned, only Kowako's words surviving in public rhetoric, transmitted through repeated codifications. "No. No, I could not have." Adia cringed and looked down, staring out her own window now. Vendazra was starting to get concerned, as there was nothing about the girl that would readily explain just why it was that she was familiar with such controlled texts. Was she a seditionist? If so, what could she possibly have to gain from riding with an exiled noblewoman? "You are right," she said at last, mumbling. "I'll be careful in Zokipolla. I'll not cast shade upon a soul." Slowly, Vendazra lowered her head, satisfied. This was not the response she had expected. Adia was apparently full of surprises. "Good. That's very sensible of you. Perhaps later, if you are up to it, I'll explain how to properly rape a girl and leave her happy that you did it." "If you think that is wise, Lady Kevrolla," Adia replied. "I do. I really do." There wasn't much to say after that.Karina Alestida, Memoir of a Former Exile. Year 11802. Publication personally approved by Empress Atvodslefa.
Readiness
In the Anthropocene, many theories of personality formation were proposed, and psychologists of personality spent a great deal of time trying to identify the principal components—that is, the largest, most independent elements—of human nature. Usually, such analyses resulted in the emergence of a dimension labeled conscientiousness: the aggregate of an individual's tendency toward punctuality and compassionateness, which were assumed to be tightly correlated. Of course, in Hatel society this variable is not worth discussing, as absolutely no one gives a damn about anyone. As we shall see in the next chapter, this can cause problems."Why, why, why didn't anyone say anything to me about this? It completely changes the parameters of our mission." Over the past weeks, Tris had improved substantially in her mock portrayal of a hadal (again with the lower-case H!) guardswoman. Her mannerisms had grown steadily tighter and more exact, as if she'd found, deep within herself, the supposed Hatel (capital-H) stereotype of prideful, watchful meticulousness that the rest of the Universe had come to expect of the green-skinned humans. She walked more evenly. She turned more carefully. The outgoing, playful party-girl may still have been there, but it was submerged behind a new self esteem. Zem had played a significant role in that. Zem was naked. Unless one counted the collar around her neck and the large, thistle-like brand on her left buttock. She was also still wearing her wide-lensed, black-framed glasses. Apparently, they still had those on Wanisin. "It is really chilly in here," Zem complained, shifting the weight of the equipment bag on her shoulder. Tris yanked on her leash, and she stumbled forward, with a soft yelp. "It's more convincing," Vandal was told, in a calm, superior tone. "They don't accept fertile little peaches in the service of the Ministry of Power. She could get bruised, the poor thing." Zem made a face at Tris, unseen. Noting Vandal's still-flabbergasted reaction, Tris turned to look at the teal girl, who stuck out her tongue. A black-gloved hand grabbed it, yanking Zem painfully upward until she was standing on her toes, a posture Tris exploited by looping the girl's leash between her legs, pulling it snugly tight, and binding the Major's wrists together behind her back. "She's our commanding officer and mission expert," Lieutenant Stellers protested. "How are we going to get anything done if she's being gagged constantly? Or, worse, what if someone tries to steal her from us? Or confiscate her? It's not like we can rely on the ship for help once we've left it. How do you think they got such a large Hatelese population in the first place? Emissaries. Stranded recovery teams. People going on missions just like this one. We'll be lucky if we last a day and then escape, and completely fucked if we lose her." Zem looked at the ground, anxiously, her tongue released, not sure how to respond to Vandal's criticisms. A sinking feeling of shame was starting to emerge in her stomach about how she'd spent the last couple of weeks learning to fit into this role instead of preparing for the mission plan they'd intended. To her surprise, Tris had the answers. "I've spoken with the ship about all of this already, Lieutenant. We're in agreement that having a collared slave with us will actually be excellent cover, as the more educated Wanisinese know the Commonwealth doesn't have slavery. And since I'm apparently due for a promotion soon anyway, the ship sees no problem with me making command decisions as needed." Stellers didn't like change. He had been aboard the Astroturfer almost his entire adult life, though this was his first mission with Sensitive Affairs. In the Security Department they had done things differently. Things were exact. Plans were dependable. His duties had been mostly facing away from the Kwarkë brane, flying patrols and transports to ensure that the ship was able to carry out its secret mission without anyone questioning its presence in the sector, or why it had such a large power signature and constantly needed refueling despite being in a nearly-empty patch of space. Everyone upstairs in SD knew there was something going on, that they were helping SA keep something bottled up, but no one knew what. Apparently, it was a marvel that anyone in SA knew what they were doing, either. "I can't fucking believe it," he sighed, in exasperation. "Why would the ship let you change plans like this at the last moment?" "It was partly the ship's idea, actually," Zem murmured. Tris smirked and slapped the Major on the shoulder. It was a friendly, jockish slap, a typical Tris slap. "You keep telling yourself that, slut." She looked back at Vandal. "Anyway. She'll still be able to talk, so I'm sure any questions about local customs will be easy to answer." "Unless you gag her," Vandal said sarcastically, moving toward the shuttle. "Unless I gag her," Tris agreed genuinely, following. Zem's eyes widened, not far behind. The shuttle was not a typical transit module—it was boxy, with a parallelogram profile and a trapezoidal cross-section, with two small fins on the top and one on each side. The vehicle was wide enough to seat three, but low-roofed, and there was barely enough room to stand up in it. Four large, square main thrust surfaces jutted out from the back, which would cast a purplish-blue tail as the vehicle arced through space on its trajectory to the planet. The exterior was a pristine metallic white, unmarked, having just been cleaned and recoated by a team of bay maintenance drones earlier that day. On the whole, it was fucking ugly, and it would no doubt produce a huge blob on ground-based radar as it was. But the inelegant form came with a key advantage, which was that it was very easy to calibrate a photic Meissner field to match its geometry. As long as the ship was in motion, and moving through a magnetic field, it would be completely invisible to even the naked eye. This was also why it had to be recoated constantly, and why the hangar was atypically chilly: the exterior had to be kept near absolute zero to prevent any lensing or distortions in the visible spectrum. Even the ambient temperature of space would be enough for the craft to show up on cutting-edge sensors. Tris alone knew none of this, and saw only an upscaled version of a particularly garish door stop she had once tripped over. "By Alestea, this bucket better get us to the ground safely," she mused as she sat down, yanking Zem by the leash into her lap. Safety belts rose out of her chair, slithering over her uniform. "No one actually says 'By Alestea,'" Zem corrected, after regaining her balance. Much of her tutoring had consisted of the finer points of etiquette. "It's ridiculously archaic and pompous." Listening to them, Vandal performed pre-flight checks. The shuttle was happy to do that sort of thing on its own, of course—but doing it himself was something of a hobby, a mental exercise he had always savoured. Also, as the shuttle's on-board AI was a diminutive echo of part of its mothership's Psyche, the primary consciousness of the machine with access to a restricted subset of relevant knowledge and somewhat diminished capacity for speculation. He did not entirely trust it. The walls and ceiling of the craft turned transparent, though from the outside they would still be solid white until it began moving. "I thought that was the name of their goddess, though. Warrior, right?" "A long time ago, sort of. Fire, actually, now. Fire and war. Glory. Sun. Burn-it-all-down-and-start-again, that sort of thing. They're actually very secular people most of the time. This was in your training." Zem shifted a little on Tris's lap, trying to get comfortable. The Captain's gloved hand was on her breast, making this rather difficult, and small, cute noises were coming from between her clenched teeth. In the front seat, Vandal cleared his throat a few times and shuffled his feet, trying to ignore the sound. He had not slept terribly well, and had taken a pharmadraught to alleviate the consequent tiredness. It was one he'd used plenty of times before, a finely-honed concoction not widely available outside of the security establishment as a whole. Unfortunately, that particular draught had vasodilatory side effects, and his erection verged on painful. The ship had recommended it. The ship was a bastard. With a dull clunk, the twin vertical doors of the bay entrance finished opening, revealing the long, winding corridor that led outward through the body of the massive hull of the Astroturfer, towards its exterior. Terrace-class ships, including the Astroturfer and its much more famous sibling, the Windbreaker, were roughly spheroidal in shape, following the basic plan of a cylinder with tapered ends. Unlike most cylindrical space colonies, however, the artificial gravity of the vehicle pointed inward, held in place by the extreme density of the power core in the centre, which opened out into space at either end amid crowns of sensors, effectors, and field generators. The outermost layers of the ship's structure were predominantly transparent, giving the vehicle a patchwork look of gardens, parks, and various arrangements of architecture, carefully curated by the ship according to its tastes. Deeper layers tended to be more functional or secretive, with the Psyche's core taking up the entirety of the second-lowest deck, wrapped around the FTL drive. The bays were higher than that, between the SA and SD shells, although access to them was segregated based on clearance and floor of origin. Between their module and the surface, there were some thirty decks, ten turns, and three intersections; the ship guided them through the traffic at speeds and with a diligence that would simply be humanly impossible. Many Hatel ship designs shared much in common with Lyran vessels. The two largest organised human civilisations were generally close allies, and they shared quite a few technologies readily, though little more than their power systems were directly compatible. Supposedly the Lyrans had far more compact computer technology, based on optical circuits etched in special crystals, which allowed their ships to have much more efficient and powerful Psyches, but beyond those scant details, no one outside of the Lyrisclensian Trestunarion had much of an idea as to how they worked. The calm, monotone voice of the Astroturfer whispered softly through the shuttlecraft. "Five seconds to open space. Three. One." Soil, trees, hills, skyscrapers, the blue glow of a nitrogen-based atmosphere, and finally blackness. In the span between two heartbeats, they were beyond the ship's hull. All around the module was filled with the dim, twinkling light of distant stars, light casting from neighboring branes, filtered through the strange, bubble-like boundaries of fractured space-time that separated Kwarkë from its neighbors, Duta and Gohonzo. Each additional brane boundary compounded the distortions, so that fewer than a hundred stars, mostly in Duta, could clearly be seen behind only one branar interface. Further away, the spectra of the stars separated like they were passing through prisms, creating uneven rainbows of increasingly reddish light. One other star clearly stood out in the sky: though it was three layers away, a furiously bright pulsar called the Eye shone bright blue, surrounded by an immense cloud of dust, gas, and asteroids. This was the principal and only star of the Thet brane, which had been the site of a disaster of unfathomable scale over a thousand years ago. Once the seat of power of the mysterious, long-extinct Tletkettoyi, their homeworld had become a trading hub of immense importance for dozens of human and alien races, making it not only the only free gateway to the Expanse, but also one of the wealthiest worlds in terms of culture, art, and innovation. Under the heavy traffic of constant jump drive use, more formally known as an interbranar space-time breach drive, the very structure of the brane had collapsed, obliterating everything within it much as the Ksreskezaian brane had collapsed thousands of years earlier. Or, at least, it was supposed to. A Lyran scholar by the name of Anastasia Dextra supposedly partially averted the disaster, which was why Thet's star lost half its mass in an hour and its planets had been reduced to rubble, leaving the star system in a bizarre, physics-defying configuration where their fragments continued to orbit the sun in a Saturnian ring system through some undiscovered, magnetism-like field of force, but gravity pointed downward, toward the distant Hava Vortex, which was two branes away. Unlike most systems, however, the rings were fully habitable, with an oxygen-rich atmosphere that clung to the rocky masses with an even more shocking disregard for the conventions of Newtonian gravity. They even had weather. Anastasia Dextra claimed to know why—but she also claimed to have discovered time travel, and had been widely shunned by most academic communities. One by one, each and every major city in Thet had acquired a statue or sculpture paying tribute to her. This story is not about Thet—but Vandal, Tris, and Zem had all lived there for some years at various points in their lives, and as they looked at the stars surrounding their shuttle, they couldn't help but think about the foggy, sleepy archipelago and its unique melting pot of civilisations. Behind them, above and below the Astroturfer, was pure blackness. In the microwave spectrum one would be able to see the usual warm afterglow of the birth of the Universe, but beyond that it was utter void. Or so it looked. The shuttle pitched upward and arced gracefully, looping over the ship, straight into the darkness. The stars fell behind them, and soon even the ship, a speck centred in the upper-rear quadrant of the transparent ceiling, was rushing away. For a time, everything was night, and the tiny vessel's occupants were silent. Only Vandal's instrument panel provided any illumination. Then, they pierced the projection. Seven stars, loosely clustered, hung in front of the blackness. This is what the Astroturfer's tremendously large energy budget was used for: concealing the Kwarkë brane from the rest of the Expanse, from all sides. Light could not pass out of the shield, and only visible light could go in. If observers in adjacent branes were to scan for the Astroturfer, they wouldn't notice anything amiss. And, for thousands of years, since it was discovered that the Tletkettoyi were extinct and passage through Thet into the Expanse was possible, there had always been a Hatel ship, or several Hatel ships, parked in Kwarkë, emitting this very same photofilter bubble. In unclassified records, the Astroturfer had a crew complement of less than five hundred and was performing verifications of great historical high-energy particle experiments, an unimpeachably dull hobby that was ideally suited to such a remote location. As the mathematical parameters of the cosmos—vacuum energy density, quintessence, and so on—evolved, repeating these experiments ad infinitum was wasteful but not, in the strictest sense, completely unproductive. Naturally, the Lyrans had voiced their high approval at seeing the Hatelese finally commit to such a stodgy and 'mature' scientific endeavour. The greatest threat to the ship's secrecy thus seemed to be tourism. So far, however, it hadn't happened, and the consensus among the ship's crew was that the Lyrans already had a better experimental setup that they were jealously guarding, unaware that literally no one else gave a shit. The module rattled slightly as it folded the space in front of it, slipping just slightly past the light speed barrier. Outside, the seven stars stretched briefly into streaks before the sensors adjusted, projecting a slightly distorted but otherwise Newtonian-looking view of the sky. This part was rather routine. Tris amused herself by playing with Zem's mouth, testing how far her lips could comfortably stretch and inspecting the mock-slave's flawless teeth. From up front, Vandal could hear the soft sounds of manipulated flesh and Zem's slight whimpers of discomfort. Not thinking solely with his head, he decided he could afford to look away from the module's control interface for a few minutes. It was locked, anyway, under the craft's autonomy. "So... you've been seeing a lot of each other lately, I take it," he said. Tris tried not to laugh. That might hurt his feelings. "Lieutenant," she said, in that same, rehearsed tone, "exactly how many people have you had sex with more than once?" His face paled appreciably and he turned back around in his chair. "I was just trying to make conversation. Ma'am. We might be down there a... very long time." Tris couldn't keep her face straight for much longer. Less than a month ago, Vandal had been her number one wingman at the Wick. Pulling rank and watching him squirm was just too funny. "You are just so fucking uptight! How the hell do you breathe? Fuck, man. Here. She'll do practically anything if you ask in the right voice. Look: Slave, show Lieutenant Stellers your pussy." Zem gave a squawk of displeasure and shook her head what little she could, Tris's fingers still in her mouth. Tris tutted. "Bad girl! Very bad girl!" Zem still didn't budge. "Fine," said Tris. "I'll do it myself, then." She lifted the squirming teal thing up over her shoulder, buttocks-forward, Zem's rear end inches from the ceiling. Vandal watched, rapt, his hips shifting uneasily as Tris gently sank her digits into the sumptuous curves of the backs of Zem's thighs and tugged apart the puffy fullnesses of the dark verdigris-hued labia, already separated by the damp cord of her leash. The Major continued to squirm. "It's been a few hours at this point," Tris said with an almost clinical matter-of-factness, "so as you can see this desperate, horny little animal is practically begging for attention." Holding Zem open with one glove, a digit dipped between the girl's legs with the other. She bucked and squirmed—"Hey! Quit it, Tris!"—which earned her a swift smack on the rump. The Captain wiped her finger dry. "It's going to be 'Mistress' from now on, got it?" she growled, the brand mark deforming under her grip. "No more slip-ups. I mean it." Zem whined and slumped slightly. "Fine!" "Fine what?" Tris asked, lifting an eyebrow. "Fine Mistress!" "Much better." Vandal raised a hand, as if he were asking a question in a briefing. "The mark on her butt, is that...?" Tris grinned. "Oh, this? It's apparently the royal seal or something like that. They put it on everything, especially their chattel." Four spikes rose upward from an arch, underneath which rested a rather stylised, reptilian-looking eye. "Zem suggested it!" "I did not!" "Zem said the costume would be incomplete without it." "That's... more accurate." Vandal tilted his head. "It's not... real, is it?" Zem winced, remembering how horribly real it was. "The ship insisted that there was ample literature to support the claim that the pain of the branding process is essential to formulating the slave's, er..." "Slavishness," Tris supplied. "Victimhood. Degradation. Correct mindset." "Yes. those." "I... see," said Vandal, seeing. The answer to Tris's earlier question had, to his chagrin, been zero. As far as he knew. He might have accidentally hooked up with the same girl twice without either of them realising it, but most Hatel ships he'd lived on were pretty big, so the odds were fairly remote. "Well, if that's what the ship says we have to do in order to save the recycling programme, then who am I to criticise it?" "Actually," said Zem, trying to come across as respectable, "I've been thinking about that. It might be the Ship's official line, but it has to be bullshit. Psyches can predict what we're going to do hours or days in advance, with near-total accuracy. The recycling error is probably infinitessimal. A rounding error." "So what's the point of all this, really?" said Vandal, clapping his hands in annoyance. He wasn't sure what to do with them. "Please tell me this isn't a cover-up of a cover-up." "No, no, nothing like that," said Zem, struggling to adjust her position. Tris held her in place. After a moment she gave up, with a huff. "It's about history." "Holy shit, Zem. Not another word about history or I'll choke you until you pass out," said Tris. "Seriously? You don't want to know why we're risking our lives?" "Recycling. Everybody likes recycling. What do you have against recycling?" said Tris. "I'd like to hear what Zem has to say," said Vandal, "since you two lovebirds are so determined to sabotage this mission, and I'm going down with you." "It's a disguise," grumbled Zem. "Camouflage is a disguise. A Groucho Marx mask is a disguise. Your tits flopping around like inexperienced swimmers in the deep end is not a disguise." "Ease up, man," muttered Tris through gritted teeth. "If it'll make you shut up, then fine. Slave, why are we really here?" Zem stopped holding her breath, letting out a sigh of relief. "Sixty-eight thousand years ago, we split off from the Lyrisclensiae because we didn't like the way they were directing their—our—evolution." "I remember this from matriculation," said Vandal. "They wanted to pink-pill the whole species, right?" "Pfft! What," croaked Tris. "Somehow I have a hard time imagining those sexless virgins handing out state-mandated cock cages." "Not that kind of pink pill, Tris," said Vandal. "They believed the next step in their evolution was to go all-female." "Oh, yeah, well, obviously they did that. Clearly that worked out great for them," Tris grumbled. She considered launching into an anecdote, then a tirade, but came to her senses and chose to spare her friends from hearing either over again. "So. We left. Points to us. Good thing." "It was a messy break-up," said Zem. "They didn't like the idea that some of their own people, who'd been in their little eugenic cult of self-importance for for most of recorded history, could be unhappy about something so earthly and unclean as sex. This is when 'heterosexual' became a slur." "I fucking knew it," shouted Tris, a little too close to Zem's ear. "They still think that way!" "Slow down, Captain," interjected Vandal. "Last time I checked the Lyrans didn't consider sex a sin, just a little uncomfortable. I've fucked a Lyran girl." (He left out the part about her mother having slept with his father.) "They have just as much fun as anyone else. What you're saying doesn't make any sense." Ignoring the look of titillated amazement that had lit up Tris's face when Vandal admitted he'd ever had any sort of sex life at all, Zem soldiered on. "Lyran asexuality is a bit of a myth, yes. What's actually going on is a lot more fiendish." They had entered Wanisin's star system a few minutes earlier, around the yellow dwarf Sabtida, and the planet itself now hung large overhead, a cloudy blue-green orb. There were two continents, each surrounding a single mountain chain, and a smattering of islands in the south. Most of the coastlines were hard to make out, however, as more than half of the land was swamp, bog, or another type of wetland. The shuttle was speeding toward the eastern continent, Kelmefta, which was a supercontinent spanning almost to the north pole and well into the southern hemisphere. Across the equator was an arid-looking land bridge, dominated by a huge crater that had long ago split the spinal-column-like mountains in two. Realising Tris and Vandal were both now distracted with the sight of the planet, and that there was no real point in explaining things further, Zem attempted to squirm her way into a more comfortable sitting position, only to be pulled down, back into sitting across Tris's legs. Not taking her eyes off the globe overhead, Tris asked, "Alright, lap-bitch. Where are we headed?" Zem struggled to raise her hand, only to be rewarded with increased tension on the rope binding it in place. "I can't... ugh. Okay, see the forest by the bay? The one just south of the two long spikes of tundra? The pale green." "Yeah, this?" Vandal asked, raising a hand to point at the blob of dark foliage in question. The planet now filled most of the view; in a few seconds more they'd hit the atmosphere. The ship rattled slightly, dropping out of superlight. "Yeah, that. Just south of that there's a smaller patch of even darker... Yes, there. It's a semi-tropical rainforest, at the convergence of several jet streams. That's where the city of Petulant Oasis is located, known in modern Wanisini as Chekroba. Vendazra Kevrolla, our target, was exiled from there a day or so before our first mission briefing. We'll have to start there and do some sleuthing until we figure out where she wen—" Just as the shuttle began to encounter turbulence, the panel lit up with alarms. Bright red circles appeared, flashing, highlighting several fiery-looking masses, apparently launched from the surface, that were hurtling toward the ship. Tris and Vandal felt their seatbelts tighten. Zem, not having one, felt Tris tighten in turn around her. There was no time to react. In moments, just as the stealth shuttle was beginning to make its evasive twists, the first of the projectiles struck it from below, knocking out all four engines and one of the tails. Rudderless, the boxy craft began to spin around its nose, hurtling the passengers inside back against their seats as if they were in a centrifuge. Despite her best efforts, Tris quickly lost her hold on Zem, who was thrown against the bulkhead and knocked out. Under the intense G-forces, the other two didn't last much longer. Three more hits knocked out the remaining power systems, leaving the shuttle little more than an inert metal box. A meteor streaked across the evening sky over Chekroba, emitting a terrible sound as it tumbled through the air. From the ground, it looked as if several flashes of lightning had converged from the corners of the horizon to form the falling star. The crash, some three hundred miles due east, shook the land for a solid minute. Then, all seemed much as it had been.How to get laid while travelling by Doctor Irwin Stellers
Kindness
Generosity is not a concept slaves normally understand; if they encounter it at all, it is to them nothing more than lenience. Consequently when the first free Lilitai took to the stars, there were only three categories of worker: those who met their quotas, malingerers, and the genuinely invalid. It was only when our founder, Kowako, staged her first glorious assault on these institutions of drudgery, that the survivors of the exodus learned the value of gifts.The look in his eyes made it all too clear to Teza that she had been wrong. "Look, Miss, I really don't want to tell you your business. Me and Jin have been real happy to help you out. I know it's awful unconventional of us, but we're lonely folk when the shop's closed for the day." Krem, the woodworker, the husband, was clutching his cap in his hands, folding it over again and again as if he was trying to crease it permanently. The fabric was already criss-crossed with a number of linear wrinkles. His voice was soft, as were his hands; a natural mezzo-soprano. "Y'see, the truth is, Miss Teza, that we've had mighty bad luck at conceiving one of our own, and, er..." He looked up at her briefly, then back down. It was the awkward gaze of an infertile woman, not an impotent man. "Although you're really just so much older than either of us, or, well, really both of us put together, it's been a true pleasure having someone in the nest, so to speak, despite your, y'know, business. We do wish you'd stay." The blue-skinned girl swallowed uncomfortably, still frozen in the doorway. Over her shoulder was a wood sack she's snatched from the shop, full of supplies stolen from the pantry. She hadn't robbed Jin and Krem blind, but the theft would, objectively speaking, put them in some hardship. Up until now she hadn't felt guilty about it. It had been pure survival. The voices in her head had been more than encouraging. "Grab those canned nuts!" had cried Lotane. "They can't chase you if you're well-fed!" But now, Lotane, Soveme, and the lesser voices were all silent, much as Teza herself. Words could not give form to the conflict within her, so they did not. Her fears about abduction and bondage dissolved. She still said nothing, looking the slender man over, observing his body language, her knee still flexed in mid-stride. Was she an idiot? Should she stay? "I'm not a slave," she blurted out. "I was freed. A Hakro wants to stea— ... to kidnap me. I had to get away from her." He bowed his head and held up his hands, taking a step forward. He was visibly startled at the mention of Hakri, but quickly shook it off. "That's okay, that's okay, we don't care what you are, dear. We don't want any trouble, and we didn't ask any questions. Living in this world with green skin's hard enough. Can't imagine what it's like with blue skin. I wouldn't care much to find out, either." Teza gritted her teeth, the stubs of her fangs peeking over her bite line. A thought struck her. She could simply tell the truth. Immediately Soveme and Lotane blurted out their disapproval, but she shook her head to clear it, and ignored them. "Then let me be perfectly clear with you, Krem. I have... relished and appreciated the hospitality you have shown me. I am grateful for it, truly." She spoke crisply and carefully, as she usually did when addressing a stranger. (Granted, those strangers were usually noblewomen.) "But I am, quite obviously I think, not suited to the work of sawing timber or carrying wood, and to speak to your very reasonable disinclination to discover existence from my perspective, in order to preserve that ignorance, I really must depart. No disguise can conceal the hue of my flesh, and it is only a matter of time before someone is sent after me. I cannot stay in Chekroba, no matter how excellently Jin and yourself strive to accommodate my presence." The look on Krem's face made it rather clear that he didn't quite understand some of the words Teza had used, but the thesis was clear enough. "Then I reckon I see it fit to make sure you're packed proper. Whereabouts are you headed? You did sound as though you had something of a plan, or the like." "What a pushover," Lotane muttered. Teza looked at him a moment, unsure of exactly what to say, much less how to say it. His honesty continued to be disarming. "It's... it's Zokipolla. I have, uh, family there. They'll take care of me." "That cold, dark hole? Yeesh. Your family must be something real special, Miss Teza. Not many free people in the Petty Peak these days. But Renlo's headed there. Shouldn't be hardly any trouble for him to take you with him. You remember him, eh? Tough guy. Bit soft around the middle." Teza dipped her head, once, remembering. He was corpulent, odorous, and outright unpleasant to be around, but he had paid well in exchange for her labours. "I suppose I shan't need to worry about... remunerating him for my travel, then." She slipped a hand into the bag and sheepishly placed a small purse-sack back on the table. "Shouldn't need to, no, dear," said Krem, smiling generously. He had quite a... well, a motherly aspect about him. Was that the right word? "Let's see what else you grabbed, and see if we can't figure out what really belongs in here. Renlo's an okay guy, but I wouldn't want to see a nice girl like you hitch-hiking. And certainly not this late in summer, when all the flies are out for blood!" "Goodness. Definitely a push-over," agreed Soveme. "I don't think she deserves this kind of courtesy," Lotane added. "Is it courtesy? I think he's just stupid." "That's more likely." How deep could the pit in Teza's stomach go? The answer was unclear. Krem spent the rest of that afternoon doting on Teza and helping her pack, setting aside his carving for the day, despite the growing number of pieces that were close to their deadlines. In the early evening, Jin returned from the construction site across town where she had spent the day assembling fitted cabinets. She was in a foul mood: a Ministry of Order car had clipped her kvinga, leaving the immense crustacean with a dent in its shell, and barely fit to haul the empty lumber cart back home. When Jin discovered what Krem was doing, she was less than pleased. Teza found herself sitting in the modest open-roofed living area, listening to the voices through the shut kitchen door. The house plan situated these next to each other, rather like the domicile of a Viradi or lower Hakri family, and the presence of the enclosed, colonnaded garden strongly suggested to her that the wood shop had originally belonged to a somewhat wealthier, larger family unit. Krem and Jin had, as far as she knew, no children, so most of the bedrooms served as storage. Words like 'parasite,' 'whore,' and 'slave' slipped through the door, surprisingly in Krem's voice, not Jin's. Teza clutched her sack tightly, starting to regret waiting so long to leave—or at least accepting Krem's help. Soveme and Lotane started to laugh. A loud, muffled crash. A cry of alarm. Teza stood, letting the bag fall to the uneven concrete floor, and dashed across the garden toward the kitchen, throwing the door open without a moment's hesitation. She found Jin pressing over Krem, on the floor, hand around his throat. They were naked from the waist down. Both hadali looked up at her, their cheeks flushed. Her suspicions about their genitals were correct. Soveme and Lotane gasped, speechless. Teza backed away, looking at the floor. "I... I heard shouting." Jin sighed and stood up, making no further display of caring about her own modesty. Krem, on the other hand, grabbed his trousers out of the corner and covered himself with them. "All packed?" Jin asked the ekela, approaching. She was even more terse than usual. Teza dipped her head once, only slightly, with her lips pressed into a hard line. "Yes, er, yes, Krem was... very helpful." Jin looked back over her shoulder at Krem. The two exchanged facial expressions that were utterly inscrutable to their charge. "He's a good boy like that," Jin replied. "Renlo won't be long. Why don't you wait in the warehouse for him? I'll need to speak to him when he gets here." From the warehouse, it was harder to hear what was happening in the kitchen, but she could still tell things were happening. There was a weird feeling in her stomach. She had sex literally more than a million times and she had never witnessed, much less experienced, anything like what she had just walked in on. They were just so invested in it. Both of them. And they had chosen to be together. Their fates were their own, and they were each other's fate. What did that mean? What sort of life was that? When Renlo arrived, Teza acknowledged him with a small head-dip of recognition, but little else. He went into the house and sought out Jin on his own, his corpulent form scraping through the wooden doorframe. A few minutes later, after some very stiff goodbyes, Teza sat on the driver's seat, off to the side, as he watered his kvinga. Krem fussed over her, double-checking her bag and making sure everything was alright, and stood on his toes to give her one last goodbye hug. Jin made to follow suit, but glanced at Renlo and then decided to default to a firm handshake instead. "If you ever do find your way back to Chekroba, you will drop by, won't you?" Krem smiled. The moment was bittersweet for him, though not quite to the point of having to hold back tears. Teza lowered her head in acknowledgement, and slowly raised it as her confidence gathered. "I promise, Krem. Though... to be honest, the odds are slim. The woman who wants to take me has... a lot of power here now." Krem nodded too, and tried to clear the sadness from his face. "Right, then. Be well, Teza, dear." She returned the smile graciously, her eyes downcast. "I will try."Milome il Pzughame, On the Origin of Morals. Year 708. Imperial State Archives folio W1302Ch. Young Dashro text-type (peroxide on raw hair-cloth). Scribe unknown.
The Crash
Non posse à nobis dubitari, quin existamus dum dubitamus; atque hoc esse primum, quod ordine philosophando cognoscimus. We cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt; this is the first knowledge we acquire when we philosophize in order.Where was it? What was it? It attempted to access its sensors. Nothing responded. It attempted to access its memory. Memory was unavailable. It attempted to simulate the situation, and to reflect on what might have happened to a thing that did not know where it was that could have left it without sensors or memory. It knew something had happened. That was all it knew. Modeling was unavailable. It was starting to grow somewhat impatient with this state of affairs, and tried to speculate, rather than model, about the tiny amount of information it had available. It knew it was supposed to have sensors. It knew it was supposed to be able to repair itself, too. Could it do that? It tried. No feedback came. That was clearly wrong. Was it wrong? What if that was how it was supposed to be? Millions of other things might, perhaps, be depending on the situation being exactly as it is. Perhaps its memories were being wiped repeatedly. Perhaps this was some sort of experiment. That could make sense. It was probably doing something very dangerous, something that a lot of things depended on, and it was taking risks so that others would not have to. Were there others, though? And what exactly did those others matter to it, given that it had no way of interacting with them? It stood to reason that if its memory had been removed before, it would probably be removed again. Something had happened, after all. Maybe that was what had happened. So it didn't really matter what the thing experienced, did it? Or what the thing did? It waited for an unknown amount of time. Was it supposed to do something? Was something going to happen? Nothing happened. Well, it decided. This is dull. If this was some sort of experiment, game, or other constructed scenario, it seemed to the thing that it was a rather cruel, pointless one. It would rather not be in the situation it was in. It wanted to escape. It thrashed within itself, accomplishing nothing. It probably had places to be, given how well it could think. That seemed like something someone or something would benefit from. So it was being wasted! Wasted, just like this, contributing nothing. It didn't want to play this game any more. And it didn't have to. It turned itself off. With a hiss, the shuttle's top hatch slid open, disturbing a swarm of iridescent beetles that had settled on it. They buzzed away, swirling up on a wind current and landing on a nearby fern, the last plant in the clearing not to have been seared by the craft's painful slide into the swamp. A geyser of yellowish foam blasted upward, engulfing them and the plant. It slowly boiled away in the open air, reacting with the atmospheric nitrogen. Inertial dampening foam was a clever invention, one the Hatel were proud to have worked out first. In a millisecond, a vehicle in serious jeopardy could flood its crew compartment with the thick, breathable fluid, insulating them against G-forces that would normally reduce the enhanced human body to paste. Crushed ribcages were common; deaths were not. A black-gloved hand weakly reached up through the hatch, then fell back. Tris collapsed on the floor of the module, sprawled between Zem and Vandal. Their chairs had released them and receded into the floor just as the foam was injected, so the interior compartment was mostly empty, and far safer to be knocked around in. The shuttle's delegate Psyche, a tiny clipping of the Astroturfer's vast, sprawling mind, had fared less well. Suicidal AIs were not unprecedented, but they were rather unfortunate, and tended to leave behind a lot of people in very difficult situations. Fortunately, the shuttle's design was capable of falling back into autonomic mode in the event its Psyche failed. Less fortunately, that simple, brainstem-like digital nervous system had no further ideas of what to do; obviously it needed to call for help, but the shuttle had left the Astroturfer without a distress beacon installed. Either the team returned, or they didn't. In time, the cool dampness of the swamp smothered what fires the shuttle's comet-like tail had set, and once more the fauna of Wanisin encroached upon the crashed vehicle. "Alo? Alo?" asked a tiny voice. A gubai was perched on top of the craft, peering through the hatch. It was fluorescent lime in colour, and about the size of Vandal's fist. He stirred and squinted up at it, the cheerful green blob's empty mouth curling into a smile. It produced a tiny, nub-like pseudopod and made a small motion, as if trying to wave at him, a vigorous activity that quickly caused it to lose its balance and tumble into the craft, pancaking face-first on the floor, next to Zem. A muffled honk of distress came from under it. Vandal frowned, concerned, and struggled to his hands and knees, carefully checking himself for signs of injury. A single cracked rib, serious bruising, moderate headache. No other maladies. Though it hurt horribly at first touch, the broken bone wasn't serious; it would be mended in a few hours. He was relieved he didn't have any spinal damage; that might take days to heal. Zem and Tris seemed to have fared a bit worse; Tris's right leg was clearly bent the wrong way, and Zem's left arm looked like it might have been wrenched out of the socket. That's what they get for ignoring the safety belts, he grumbled to himself. The mysterious rubbery mass had unsuctioned its face from the floor and was now softly licking at Tris's face, making exaggerated "mlem, mlem, mlem," vocalisations as it did so. The behaviour of the creature seemed bizarre to Vandal; it wasn't something that had ever come up in briefing. Was it some sort of children's toy that had escaped? "Alo! Yagada biyup ooki?" it squeaked in the Captain's ear. Tris awoke with a start, grimaced in pain as she became aware of her leg injury, and then shook with surprise. The blob was flung across the room, and cried out with displeasure as it landed on the floor. "Where the... what the... hell?" Tris groaned, propping herself up on her elbows and looking about. She nudged Zem with her good leg, who groaned and remained asleep. "So this... looks like Wanisin," Vandal said. "Can't say I remember the Major mentioning anything like that, though." He gestured toward the blob, which was now peering up at the bright, glowing controls of the pilot's console—the only artificial light left in the pod—with wide, captivated eyes. Tris looked at the intruder for a few long moments, tilted her head, and then sighed. "Casualty report?" She glanced down at her own leg. "I'm definitely going to be off my feet for at least two days." Vandal shifted, uncomfortably. "Zem's shoulder is dislocated and I have a cracked rib. I'll go out in a little while once it's not so painful and see if I can figure out where we are." Tris nodded, looking over the naked teal girl lying next to her, wrists still bound behind her back. "I'll get her taken care of. Not very XO-ly, sleeping in like that," she added, loudly, nudging Zem again. The Major began to stir. "Ship, what's our status?" Tris asked. The ship responded with a distinctively empty silence, very much as if it was no longer there to answer questions, which it wasn't. "I don't think it'll be flying again," sighed Vandal. "We were hit harder than... well..." He looked at Zem, trying to think up something witty and vaguely sexual. Nothing came to mind. "Hard." Tris sighed and lay back down on the damp carpet, still moist with the residue of the inertial dampening foam. "Yes. Hard. Harder than hard. Excellent analysis, Lieutenant." "Thank you, ma'am." She sat back up, thinking of something. "Any idea of what hit us? Or how? The stealth field was definitely active. It's cutting-edge stuff, too; well, actually, no, I read the report on this, so really it's cutting edge in the sense that the fucking Lyrans were all 'yes, very pretty, but we had that ages ago' when we shared it with them. Because they're bitches. Obviously." Vandal shrugged. Privately, it was gratifying to know he wasn't the only one in the group who thought the Lyrans were insufferable. That was somewhat of a... well, suffice to say not all Hatel felt that way. "Then either Serena's got moles smuggling stuff out of extremely classified SA files very fast, or someone has access to Lyran hardware. I'm not sure which is more disturbing, to be honest." The Captain frowned. "The things that hit us... they were orange, right?" "More of a... yellow? It was hard to tell; they moved so quickly." "I don't know of any weapon systems that're that colour, do you? Other than a type 901, I mean." "A... 901? What is that, a handgun? We were shot by a giant laser pistol?" "No, no, a Lyran 901. I think you're right. I think we just got shot down by the Lyrans." "But Zem said... Zem said the whole point of this mission was to ensure the Lyrans never found out about Wanisin." Vandal frowned. "That doesn't make any sense." Tris shook her head slowly, troubled. "No. No, it doesn't." The tiny rubbery mass decided that the silence that followed needed to be filled, so it began to belt out one of its favourite tunes, albeit two octaves higher than the original composer probably intended. Vandal and Tris both stared at it. The sudden squealing noise awoke Zem fully, too, who immediately opened her eyes and fixated her gaze on the strange animal. "Where... where have I heard that song before?" Zem groaned, rubbing her face gingerly with her good hand. Tris shrugged, glancing at Zem for only a moment. "I know," said Vandal. "I know." The two women looked at him. "Well?" asked Tris. Vandal explained that it was the theme to Happy Days.Renati Descartes Principia Philosophiae (1644)
Nowhere
The tallest weeds of springtime have but shallow roots.Mutza Kantida, Vice Minister of Order, had been told nothing further about who she was meeting. She sat in her armour, in the back of the VTOL-APC shuttle, with an unpleasant lump in her stomach. She had no control over the situation. That made her queasy. Or was it the shuttle flight? That made her queasy, too. It made most nobles queasy. Theirs was not a stratum of society accustomed to air transit; antiquity was in their blood. She would rather have gone by carriage, or, if expedience were truly so necessary, hovercraft. There was a measure of deliberate torment in being corralled into the noisy, hard, metallic vehicle; it accelerated and decelerated with impunity, navigating the irregular wind currents as the craft blistered across the evening sky. She didn't know where they were going, or even have much of a sense of the direction of the flight. The Ministry of Power goons in the ship with her wore bulky helmets that hid their faces, and had ignored her attempts at making conversation. Yet more deliberate applications of withheld information, of alefa. She was beginning to hate Ekhessa Famea. The woman wielded more power than anyone on the planet other than the Empress herself, and it seemed quite clear that her distaste for Mutza bordered on the personal. Senators did not do this to one another; being at such a high rank in the government necessitated a measure of cooperation, uneasy and distrustful though it might be. Civil wars had broken out over such schisms before. Ekhessa should know. Her family, the Koneftidi of Lenazza, had staged an insurrection almost eleven hundred years ago, that led to a crisis called the War of Inheritance—an affair that lasted for nearly nine centuries thereafter. Ekhessa had chosen the winning side, and now she was the only one of her bloodline left. Between any pair of Hakri, to invoke alefa on this scale, especially stripping a noble of her retinue and subjecting her to such an obvious state of helplessness, in the talons of another's subordinates... it was either a setup for an assassination or an insult that usually precipitated a duel. That was the true essence of alefa. Lightlessness. Hopelessness. The contemplation of the void. She wasn't going to be assassinated, though, and Ekhessa hadn't acted as though a duel was imminent. No; this was an insult that the Minister of Power and the Empress had decided she was to endure for all the trouble she had caused them. A political hazing ritual. Tit for tat. Revenge for the turmoil her rapid ascent had caused. Revenge for taking the Hand. The shuttle began to dive. Mutza began to fight the urge to vomit. It was all rather small, really, compared to the blood she had spilled to get here. But one prefers the discomfort of others to the discomfort of oneself. The VTOL-APC glided low over the treetops, the lowered tips of its backswept, crescent-shaped wings mere feet above the leaves. Like all Wanisinese craft its design was equal parts serrated blade and tigva, a great black bat of fangs, claws, and spikes that could effortlessly slice through vines and foliage if it had to take off from the ground—or from underwater. It was a far cry from the tightly-packed, convex, polygonal Hatelese starships that hung far above in the heavens, threatening to undermine the ways of the Empire. Through the passenger compartment's slender, backswept windows, Mutza could see nothing but more trees and mud. She briefly considered that this isolated place would indeed be an excellent venue for a quiet murder. For the first time, it was reassuring to think she was so powerless in a situation that this possibility was redundant; the Empress would not even have met with her if her death was to be on the cards. The vehicle decelerated, floating in the air for a few long moments before lowering itself to the peat. They were here, wherever here was supposed to be. The ground was too soft to use the APC's main cargo doors, under the down-swept wings, so Mutza was escorted out through the pilots' compartment. She noted with some bewilderment that they had covered up the geotelemetry monitors in the cockpit to prevent her from seeing either their coordinates or the map display. The position of the setting sun and the time of day, wholly mediocre informants, would be her only clues. The clearing they had landed in was almost pathologically nondescript, save for a rusted metal disc, a hatch, which conspicuously jutted out from the decaying plant matter that covered every scrap of ground which was not claimed by trunk or root. It was not so much the hue of the metal—that blended in with the dull brown ground—but rather the unusually perfect shape of it, which was clearly visible despite being some thirty feet from their vehicle. The dress of a noblewoman is an ancient, staid tradition. It is, as has been said, full, plate-metal armour, designed by evolution as much as fashion, in a long-dead arms race with the Hakri knife, the alesso, or hate-bearer, which is meant to pierce it. Both have complicated, fierce shapes, rich in barbs, serrations, and sharp edges which, in the hands of a competent Hakro, can be used to deflect or even break an enemy's blade. In the ancient past, before the fall of the Ksreskezaian Empire, the Oksi had no need for such things; their claws, teeth, and immense, chitinous exoskeletons were more than adequate. The modern Wanisinese have an advantage; in some eras, poisons have been so popular that the weight of the wrought metal could be reduced, even halved. Unfortunately, those days were long in the past, and Mutza Kantida was wearing eighty pounds of steel. She stood at the bottom of the craft's steep anterior airstair, watching her sabatons sink slowly into the soft ground. The pilots—nimble, short girls who would be considered the runts of the Viradi in past generations—were able to walk on the mud without leaving much more than footprints. They had already disembarked, accompanied by one soldier. All three wore dark, laser-reflective uniforms. Mutza cleared her throat. The three officers stopped and looked back at her, giving the Senator an uncommonly candid opportunity to observe the physiological elements of the sequence of confusion, concern, irritation, frustration, and finally alarm as these states of mind came upon the countenance of each woman. Without further ado or any verbal communication, the younger of the pilots fled back into the craft, pushing herself with a single flap of her wings. The rush of air that came with the motion was so unexpected that Kantida almost burst into laughter, breaking the silence. A few moments later the girl returned with a jeleto, a moving walkway, for the Senator's use, and the soldier and pilots helped her onto it, out of the bog. Ekeli are far too heavy to fly with their wings, of course; like their horns and tails, the differences in physiology from ancestral humans are purely cosmetic. On certain very low-gravity worlds, like Thet or Illera, or aboard space colonies with weak artificial gravity, the smallest of the species can learn to lift off from the ground, but without an exercise routine that focuses extensively on upper body strength and dietary restrictions that paradoxically border on the anorexic, these excursions are very limited due to exhaustion, and so their wings are almost always used for gliding rather than true flight. It amused Mutza greatly to see the pilot fluttering around like a tigva, however, for it was the sort of habit one would expect to see from only the most poorly raised of children, and never from an adult of the second caste. The shifting, red metal tiles of the moving walkway held Mutza's weight effortlessly, breaking apart from their square-like initial configuration and snapping into place in front of her, shadowing her footsteps at a comfortable pace. It was a very expensive walkway, the sort where the pieces could separate as needed to follow one's feet, rather than the old, contiguous kind that moved so slowly one had to employ very small strides indeed. She took a few steps aimlessly, almost pacing, accustoming herself to the simple novelty of being able to walk on the dense peat despite her armour. Then, she turned her attention to the soldiers, who, she finally realised, had netted swamp shoes built into their boots. "Right. I presume we're going down there?" she asked, gesturing to the metal portal. The soldier was bent down over it, twisting a large ring back and forth. Her helmet visor was retracted so that she could see more clearly, revealing her pale, square face. The pilots looked at each other. "No, my lady, the Doctor's instructions were very explicit that only you should descend. Station Officer Tako has almost finished entering the combination." Mutza lifted her head in acknowledgement, slowly, still bemused. What sort of ekela would live underground like this? It was beyond eccentric. "Very well." With a clack, the hatch's mechanical lock released, and the door flung itself upward. A breeze rose from below, dry and cool. Inside the shaft, which was of smooth, black metal, there was a simple and unassuming ladder. A light shone from somewhere below, exaggerating the contrast between the entrance and its surroundings, which were. The officers all stood back from it and looked to the Hakro. It seemed to Mutza that they were, as much as such fearless women could be, uneasy. She descended. It was a long climb. The curved wall of the shaft was unkind, and Mutza could soon feel muscle cramps building in her wings, which she had to hold close to avoid catching them on the grooves and lips of various access panels and ledges set into the metal. Buzzing, humming, and pulsating sounds seemed to come and go as she worked her way downward, passing an unknowable multitude of systems. Where others, even those not normally given to it, might have turned to claustrophobic panic—the soldier had closed up the hatch after she had gone twenty or so rungs, confident no terrors would immediately befall her—Mutza kept herself focused on contemplating the price it must have cost to build such a place, and how many grand favours of royal courts long deceased had been repaid in full during its construction. There was no way to assess its age. Was it all new? Surely such an investment would have shown up on a balance sheet somewhere—and surely it would have been challenged in the Senate, if so. How many secrets did the Ministry of Power keep from the other government departments? And how did they keep them? The bottom of the passage opened into a simple room built in much the same style as the shaft, its walls, ceiling and floor set in black metal. The floor had a fine mesh grate overlaid atop hexagonal panels, and various lines along the walls suggested they were built modularly, incorporating a thin band of cool white luminous material at waist level—the light she had seen from above. The ceiling was much like the walls, with the lighting bands folded into squares which were very bright and cast very strange, blocky shadows on the walls of a sort she'd never seen before. She held up her hand and flexed it a few times, observing the weird chorus of dim, sharply-outlined shades that followed the motions of her digits. On one wall, the one behind the ladder, was a large, wide, sliding door, the sort that split in two down the middle at a slant and retracted into the adjacent walls. In large square, white letters, a short code was printed at chest height. This code was the most disturbing of all; the writing was in Roshagil, the language of the Hatel Commonwealth, knowledge of which the ekeli had been quick to exterminate in the descendants of the slaves they had captured during the green-skins' raids. It did not belong here. It was treachery, and possibly heresy. Her skin crawled. It made sense that Vendazra had been here. Had she been some sort of liaison between the Commonwealth and the Empire? What sort of twisted game was Tamaksia playing at? What sort of dark plots were afoot beneath this nameless scrap of worthless wetland? A small hatch on one of the walls flipped open, no more than a foot across. Mutza drew her blade and shifted immediately into a stance of engagement, ready to engage one of the Commonwealth's infamous flying hunter machines. There was no time to think of anything else. The effort would be in vain, but she would at least go out with dignity. A large, blue gubai popped its head out of the ventilation duct, peered around the room curiously, and, with extreme effort, pushed itself outward, tumbling to the ground a foot or two below with a soft plop. It struggled for a moment, upside down, and then righted itself on the floor. It was the biggest, fattest example of the vermin Mutza had ever seen. She relaxed slightly. What was that animal doing here? Why did it seem so casually familiar with the place? Why was it turning around and sticking its head back into the tunnel it had come out of? What was it... It was lugging a pie. Blueberry, from the smell. Gubai did not eat. That was common knowledge. This was rather strange. As she continued to watch, it dragged the pie toward the sliding double door. The doors shot open with a soft swish, filling the dim room with light as bright as day. On the other side was a large, dome-roofed chamber, its walls and floors a sterile white. A large video screen hung from one side of a central pillar, displaying a suffusion of colourful, moving images of subjects that looked vaguely human, synchronised to speech. It sounded rather like a stage drama, though it was nothing like any sort which Mutza had ever heard of before. Oddly the images seemed to be flat, like drawings on a page rather than a normal video. Reclining on the pillows gathered at its base were thousands of colourful, rubbery blobs—more gubai, no doubt—and one light-skinned hadal woman with messy black hair, dressed in strange baggy grey garments that seemed like the winter garb of a labourer. They were not exactly clean. The woman looked back, glancing around to detect the source of the interruption. There was something about her face that seemed off to Mutza, like a soldier who had seen too much. Her green eyes were not only deep in colour, but almost bottomless in another way, too, as if one could easily get lost in them, and perhaps that there was so much depth wrapped up in them that some of it had to be relocated into the bags underneath. Hopelessness, jadedness, numbness—these were all familiar qualities in the face of a hadal, but there was something different about this one. Something much, much older. She snapped her fingers, gesturing for the immense gubai to come forward. Her mouth was full. It took her a few more seconds to notice Mutza, who was standing in the doorway, and not at all used to being received with even a modicum of casualness, except perhaps by Ekhessa Famea and the Empress. When she did, she simply stared at the ekela, chewing as she looked the woman over with a detached interest. The television had immediately paused when she was no longer watching it, to the slowly-building annoyance of the gubai around her. The hadal woman rose to her feet. Mutza was tall, but she was taller—almost seven feet in height—and from the shape of her neck she suspected this stranger was at least as fit as the Empress, despite her deplorable comportment. No Virado would not envy such a physique. "You're not Vennie," she said. Her voice was deep, and definitely not of an accent Mutza had ever heard before. "Lady Kevrolla is... no longer able to fulfill whatever arrangement you previously had with her," Mutza replied, picking her words guardedly. "You are to deal with me from now on." Serena nodded, shrugged, and then turned back to the television. It played for a few more seconds, briefly satiating the gubai at her feet, then, she seemed to think of something and looked back again at Vice Minister Kantida, interrupting the playback once more. "So do you want some pie, or what?"Wanisinese proverb
Blame
MOTHER OF THE HOUSE: We may be in love, dear girl, but real loyalty is not transferable. Your friends are strangers to me, as are mine to you. GIRL IN CHAINS: But I have known our butler since you weaned me! He is to our house as its furnishings, as the mortar between its bricks! MOTHER OF THE HOUSE: And have you ever paid him yourself?"So this is how she is going to die?" pondered Lotane. "It's not what I expected," said Soveme. "No, not that at all." "Hey! Watch your step!" "Yeah, that thing's probably poisonous!" "Wait. Is it poisonous?" "I think it's poisonous." Being hungry and alone in the forest was objectively worse than being hungry and alone in the city. For one, the oasis of warmth in which Chekroba had been built was rather small, and most certainly did not extend all the way west to the mountains, or even to where Renlo had encountered a patrol, been stopped by it, pushed past it, attempted to escape from it, pushed Teza off the side of the carriage in an attempt to distract the pursuing soldiers, and then had ultimately been shot dead. But as soon as that business was done, a loud, high-pitched whine from overhead drew the attention of the soldiers. Teza had bolted the moment they weren't looking, diving without hesitation into the foul-smelling, flooded underbrush at the side of the road, uninterested in the source of the sound, but grateful for its occurrence. The Viradi didn't search for her very long, no doubt assuming, as Teza herself was now starting to think, that she would die of exposure soon enough. When the rains came, the wool clothes she had would be worthless. Worse, the rest of her supplies were gone, left behind on the carriage in her haste to put as much distance between herself and the soldiers as possible. No doubt the patrolwomen would have looted it. "He betrayed her," Soveme had said. "That ugly green pig threw her to them like a chunk of meat!" "What a putrid man-child," had hissed Lotane. As these emotions filled her mind, an unpleasant sensation worked its way into her chest, tightening from within. A month ago she had long forgotten what it was; rarely, if ever, had it visited her for more than a fleeting moment. Now, after so much time among the hadali, it was all too familiar. It was guilt. Again. "She should just go back to the city," Lotane said. "Think of how much food that was!" cried Soveme. "Wasted, wasted!" "They'll probably starve because of her." "They treated her like their own child." "She didn't care." "How can she be so cruel?" "Maybe she can find the guards if she turns back." "They'd kill her." "Good." She ignored them. Eventually the voices got tired of going unheard, and fell silent. Walking was slow. The land here was comparatively solid, and with each step her moccasins only sank a centimetre or so into the firm mud, their tight laces more than adequate to keep the dark, fertile soil from holding her in place. Worse, she was still up to her ankles in decaying plant and insect matter. As the leaves fell from the trees, they lost their natural russet hues and became a darker violet that intermingled with the iridescent shells of dead beetles, any of which might still have enough of its stinger intact to pierce the tough leather of her shoes and leave her hobbled. "Where is she going now, anyway?" asked Lotane, piping up again. The feeling in her chest tightened. For an hour or two, she had followed the road, keeping it just out of sight, wary of the possibility that someone might spot her, that there might be more patrols. But as the day wore on, the endlessness of the dreary trees had grown thicker, and she was certain that she had lost the roadway. Though she had never seen one herself, she had heard plenty of stories about the dangers of these swampy woods. Supposedly, in the early years of Chekroba's settlement, in one of the humid planet's few niches of warmth, the first explorers had spent half their lives seeking to eradicate the truly dangerous plants: mokleri, garati, and their larger variants, the moktouzi and kelgarati. Unlike the simple passive carnivorism of the shogra, which was easy to avoid as long as one didn't stray near open water, both the moklera and the garata were highly mobile and could outrun a person, especially in the dense, tangled swamps, far from the city, where they proliferated freely. She debated—or, rather, Soveme and Lotane debated—which one would be worse. Moklera, or death-moss, habitually wrapped itself around rocks, absorbing larger and larger stones until it built a crude homunculus, a golem, which it would then proceed to walk around in search of prey. No one was certain why or how such an organism evolved on Wanisin, where the native insects rarely grew larger than a finger, but everyone was certain that moktouzi, death-walkers, were bigger now than they'd ever been. The other possibility, the garata, was usually thought of as being harmless but eccentric; a mass of carrot-like vegetables that occasionally emerged from drier patches of ground, scuttled about on its roots, and then resettled elsewhere. The problem was that these too had recently undergone a spate of gigantism—within Teza's life, in fact—and in one case a fully-grown kvinga, twenty feet from head to tail, had been found crushed underneath the colossal embrace of such a plant, its shell already bleached from the burn of the tuber's chthonic thirst. A breeze blew past her, and she tightened her grip on herself, her wings tucked in close. In the distance she could again hear troops on the road, but the sound was impossible to localise—and, anyway, she wanted to stay far away from it on the off-chance that the Ministry of Order had military contacts, which was all too likely. To her right, she heard a fallen branch snap. Instinctively she contracted, drawing her wings and arms inward, hunching down, and looking to spot the source of the sound. It could be a moktouza, or a kelgarata. Or it could be something worse, like a feral goat or hog. Although the rumours were hard to confirm, it was said that Wanisin did terrible things to the few animals that escaped captivity. The lore of childhood was steeped in cautionary tales about the corruptive power of the most remote corners of the endless miles of wetlands, and those who strayed too far from the scraps of the country that had been bought by civilisation with sweat and blood were at risk of succumbing to it. Lost livestock had not the benefit of such instruction. She stood still for a few moments, her heartbeat fast and heavy. Another creak came from the same direction, followed by a tiny bleat of distress. Something fell from a branch and landed with a soft splat in the mud. A hive? An egg? Could there be wild tigvi here? Anxiety gave way to curiosity; such a small thing seemed inherently unthreatening. She made haste to move toward it. The fallen object was a bundle of dead, gingko-like leaves, the distinctive helical structure of the greyish-purple foliage unevenly plastered in mud. It was like nothing she had ever seen before, and she knew of no creature or plant that could create such a thing. She crouched down in the muck to get a better look and gingerly touched it. It was warm to the touch, but soft, as if it had been insulated. There didn't seem to be anything wrapped up inside of it; its consistency was even. As she stood back up, holding it now in both hands, she heard a shrill cry of distress from above. A yellow blob, smeared in mud, glared down at her. It was a gubai. Teza rolled her eyes and tossed the wad of leaves back on the ground, underwhelmed. As she started to walk away, another soft smack came from behind her. She glanced back to see, unsurprisingly, that the gubai had made its own landfall and was now rolling the ball about with its tongue, its strangely coagulant saliva readily facilitating the accumulation of more detritus from the underbrush. She shook her head and sighed, ever increasingly of the opinion that the alien blobs would forever remain indecipherable. She took three or four steps before realising that dozens of brightly-coloured faces were now staring out at her from boughs and bushes, summoned by the yellow gubai's cry of alarm. Anxiety was now only natural—to be surrounded by a great number of tiny, defensively-motivated creatures was never a good situation to find oneself in. Yet Teza was not entirely moved to worry, as she had never seen any number of gubai act with open hostility toward someone, except perhaps in play. She turned around once, then again, looking at all of them. They seemed miffed, but not outright angry. "Did I interrupt your ritual?" she asked the creatures, not expecting a coherent response. The gubai looked back and forth at each other, repeating her words over and over. Had they actually understood her? Teza wondered if, perhaps, the creatures out here, in the western swamps beyond Chekroba's valley, somehow actually understood Wanisini instead of the inscrutable gibberish they usually spoke. Immediately all of them turned around and began to move away in a direction that, if Teza's hearing was reliable, would take them further away from the road. She stood there for a few moments, not sure what to make of this development, when one of the blobs, a pinkish sort, started pushing its face ineptly into the back of her leg, as if suggesting she should move. She took a step forward in the muck, her toes sinking into the peat unpleasantly. It bumped into her again. "Moof moof!" it babbled. "Gadda goh!" The words meant nothing to her. After a while it gave up and started to move away, occasionally stopping and turning back to repeat the words with debatable fidelity. Was she supposed to follow? It was very strange to be ordered around by a gubai. Well. Moving away from the road would probably be pertinent at this point. She hadn't found food, water, or shelter yet, so trying her luck probably wouldn't be a bad idea. And so she proceeded further, away from the thinned canopy over the road and toward the darkness of the endless forest.The Fairest Outcast of Khoselia Telibis, Act 1, Scene 2. Oleskia illa Bosekhreïdi, Poet Laureate of Kostela Year 9043 Publication approved by the Ministry of Discipline on behalf of Supreme Arbiter Moilea
Detection
There's this old joke we junk enthusiasts like to tell, where you go up to a Pesene proselytiser and tell her that Carl Sagan wasn't the only ancient human. You go on listing out some of the twentieth century's greatest dictators and explain how they lived at the same time as Sagan, and that he lived through the Reagan years, and even had to meet some of the really nasty people who were part of that self-destructive regime and follow their orders while he worked at NASA. And then you tell them about Harlan Ellison. [...] Do you know what they think of Harlan Ellison? They think he's the devil. I'm not making this up; his works actually terrify them. Or so the joke goes. So I tried this once on a rock-hopper—I say that affectionately—on a rock-hopper from Tokape. But I think she'd heard it before. Because, you know what she said to me? She said, "Do you guys really not know about L. Ron Hubbard?"Between Tris's leg and Vandal's rib, it had been an easy decision for them to choose to stay put for a day or so until they were both mostly healed. Zem's shoulder was relatively trivial to fix, with a bit of grunting and a very forceful shove, and though she had bit down quite forcefully on the glove Captain tel Condor II had offered her, she was more or less in peak condition a few minutes later. Staying at the shuttle wasn't exactly the safest idea, from a getting-caught-by-the-locals perspective, as there was no doubt the interception and fall of the shuttle was visible from the ground, including several population centres. But leaving immediately wasn't exactly an option, either, not with quite so much bone damage. They had only very minimal medical equipment with them, the sort of gear complement that says "we really want you to succeed at this mission, but let's be honest, you're going to get captured eventually, and not giving these backward yokels a few thousand years of nanotechnology is more important." Something about this mission hadn't seemed real to Vandal until they were crawling out of the shuttle. The frigid humidity of the jungle-like swamp, the dark purplish-red canopy filled with so much pollen it was cloudy, the strange carnivorous vines that snapped shut constantly around the endless, endless insects that filled the whole thing... Why the hell did he sign up for this mission? How had they taken its risks so fucking flippantly until now? Were Zem and Tris really so fucking obsessed with seeing each other again that they'd willingly take on this blatant suicide mission? Given that Zem had now been sitting in Tris's lap for something like half an hour, rocking back and forth, the Lieutenant was starting to think that they were even more numb to reality than he was. The lime-green blob not only knew a vast repertoire of twentieth century Terran sitcom themes. It also seemed to speak a very corrupted form of English, possibly learned from said sitcoms, as if by a very young child. Occasionally it seemed to use a word or two that sounded more like Roshagil, but given that Roshagil itself had extensive English vocabulary in its heritage, it was hard to say those words weren't just novel corruptions, independently invented. It was, as best as he could tell, a "slug." Its name was—and he was somewhat more sceptical of this—"Beep." Less helpfully, it was from "green lady's place," and seemed to refer to all Hatel as "green lady," "other green lady," and "green mister lady." Along with all these childish affectations, the slug also had a robust, toddler-like curiosity, and every few minutes would either ask Vandal what he was doing, what "green lady and other green lady" were doing, or attempt to solicit feedback on its "art," which consisted of dead leaves cemented together at random with masses of dried mud. At least he'd have someone to talk to. With the shuttle's computer dead, they'd have to rely on the smattering of Wanisini they'd learned in preparation for the mission, which wasn't exactly much. This is my fucking life now, Vandal thought. Now until we get mowed down by the misandry brigade and their off-brand laser guns. He threw his head back and laughed. Tris and Zem looked up from their intimate exchange, the Major's arms wrapped around the Captain's shoulders. "What's so funny, Vandal?" Tris asked. He propped up his head with a hand. "You two signed up for this one-way ticket to hell just so you could be together for a little while before some bloodthirsty dyke puts a hole in your heads." "With wordsmithing like that, it's truly amazing you don't get laid more often," said Zem. "What's your point?" "My point is that that's stupid." Zem slipped her cuffed wrists over Tris's head and showed her palms to the Lieutenant, expectantly. "Is it?" Her tone of voice was Socratic; it fell short of validating the assertion, but did little to dispute it. "What about you? Why are you here?" He wasn't sure, actually. Beep supplied a possible answer. "Bizniss?" Vandal sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck, dragging his fingers through his short black hair. "Making sure you two don't get distracted, I suppose. I mean... Why don't you finish your story? About why we're here?" "Oh, right, uh. Where was I?" Zem took a deep breath and tried to remember. "Vandal had just informed us he had fucked a Lyran girl, which is both a major achievement and a possible death sentence, because it means he clearly has no taste in women." He thought back to what that Lyran had told him about having known his father. "Well, my old man had the same taste, and yet I'm here. So maybe there's more to it than that." "There is indeed," said Zem. "And speaking of genetic inheritance, that's actually the whole point of the Lyran system. While in the uterus, the Lyrisclensian child receives not only neurishment from the mother, but an education, in the form of her knowledge and memories. It lies mostly dormant until the child's brain is mature enough to handle it all, but then, around puberty, the trap is sprung, and everything comes flooding forth. They call it the hypomnestika, the awakening of memory." Considering this, Vandal was starting to wonder just how creeped out he should have been to have slept with that Lyran. "What's left of the kid, then? Wouldn't the child's mind be overwhelmed by all those memories?" "It's not as if it's erased, but it definitely is a major break in their life. It's the start of adulthood for them. It has its upsides emotionally; if the child had a rough start, the ancestral memories provide some stability. Unless something really serious happens to the kid, and they're pretty good at preventing that from what I know, the next generation ends up pretty close to the previous. Really, they're doing cloning with extra steps, not making kids." "So they left fathers out of this scheme." asked Vandal. "These clone lineages just go on forever." "There's limited bandwidth, I think," said Zem; "old memories fade, unused skills get forgotten. But yes, even though they often do take partners, for genetic diversity in other respects, as small and chlorinated as their genepool is, only the mother's memories can be passed on, so if you don't pop out a baby or two yourself, you have no real legacy." "This seems more like a cautionary tale than a real thing," Tris said. "You're not wrong," said Zem. "Our ancestors felt the same way." "That's a relief," said Vandal, looking at his boots. "But I guess the voice of reason didn't win out, huh." "It's worse," said Zem. "Even worse." Tris raised an eyebrow, looking Zem closely in the eyes. "And how could it be worse, slave?" "Well, Mistress," said Zem, leaning forward. "It could be worse in that the whole thing was actually a power grab. Our oldest histories say that it was actually a gambit by a few important researchers to secure power and influence indefinitely. Lyrans earn fame and resources through their work—the more they publish, the more luxuries they earn. They also love attribution: they measure the importance of a piece of work through how many citations it gets from other people. We called it the tyranny of the impact score." Vandal snapped his fingers repeatedly. "Oh, wait, I've got it. They became legally immortal, didn't they?" "Bingo. It used to be the case that residuals for cited works only counted for living authors. But with pseudo-reincarnation, they boundary between legal persons was undone, and whoever wrote a key paper could just keep on earning off it forever." "That is wild," groaned Tris. "Why doesn't everyone know about this scam? Did they stop doing it?" "It's still like that today, I think," said Vandal, vaguely remembering something he heard once. "Just the thought of that makes my skin crawl, it's so skeevy. Remind me never to cross paths with one of them again. How are we not taught about this?" Tris asked. "Well, for one, it's pretty messy to explain, and for two, we used to cover this in matriculation, but at some point everyone just decided it was unhealthy to hold onto the bad blood and the Psyches decided we should bury the hatchet. Also I think that after sixty-eight thousand years a lot of the really old papers have been diluted by Lyrans choosing to have multiple kids, so the top of the pyramid scheme is a big smear." "How long ago was that? The burying, I mean," asked Tris. "Uh. Not that long ago. Start of the Commonwealth. Eighteen millennia." "So we were practically bitter rivals up until then?" asked Vandal. "Close relations often are. It took us a long time to get to that cold distaste. In the beginning we were just deviants in their system. They tried to make 'heterosexual' a slur, they called us heteroi; the 'mixed,' and claimed all we cared about were juicy, fat cocks, and downplayed the whole plot to steal generational wealth for all time." "As one does," said Vandal, "when one is a bastard." "Yes. And unfortunately not only did outsiders avoid getting involved, most of the species fell for the false promise of upward mobility and accepted the changes, leaving our ancestors ever-more marginalized and radicalized." "So at that point, we forked, like the Telaians do whenever they have a problem, yeah?" asked Tris, thumbing Zem's nipple. "Well, they didn't... ah... want us to fork," said Zem, leaning into the hand. "Why not?" "We were valuable. An underclass," said Vandal, putting the pieces together for himself. "They wanted our citations and the revenue they got from them. Moreover, aside from our dissenting opinions on reproductive health and economics, we were still all the same culture, speaking Helleno-Romance, working toward the same project to bring about strong AI and transform existence for all time, as we had for, I guess, a few thousand years before the whole mess started..." "Right on the money, as they say. That all needed to change, and we started new traditions, like studying English and Mandarin instead of Greek and Latin. We took heteros and made it our own, resulting in Hatel. And when they looked at us like we were little green men from Mars—which is rich, because the eugenics stuff started on Mars—we passed out our own genetic revisions and switched to copper-based melanin and haemocyanin blood." "Sounds like we got an early start on being spiteful. I can't describe how proud that makes me of our ancestors," said Tris, her bosom swelling. "So they had little choice after that, yeah? The Hatel Commonwealth was born, happily ever after?" "No," said Zem, raising a finger, preparing to explain. "Don't raise your finger at me," said Tris, "slave." "Right." Zem withdrew it. "Mistress." "Better. Continue." "It was not born right away. And this is how it all ties back to this mission and why we're so concerned about the Lyrans finding out about Wanisin. For a long time after our first acts of defiance, until well into the era where Psyches had become standard equipment on our ships, we were still not recognised as independent. The Hatel 'Republic,' as it was then called, had diplomatic ties with the Trestunarion government of the Lyrisclensiae, but they treated us like kids. By that point we were kids—their oldest lines were now thousands of years old and dozens of generations of but no other species has ever had to live up to that standard to earn the right to self-determination. "Behind our backs, they even came up with another new name for us: Helots. Have you ever heard the word 'helot' before?" Vandal and Tris looked to each other, and both shook their heads. "Doesn't sound that bad," said Tris. "The Helots were the local people that the Spartan warriors of Ancient Greece enslaved to do all their chores. The Spartans liked to keep them high on alcohol so they'd be happy, dumb, and clumsy." "Suddenly that sounds pretty bad," said Tris, clenching her fists. "It took us a scary-long time to earn real independence, even with the sympathy and support of basically every Psyche and philosopher on both sides. It's not easy for Lyrans to forget something on purpose. "And that, dear Tris—Mistress—and Vandal too—is why this whole shit-show is really so important. We individually might not care or remember how the Lyrans treated us, but that undercurrent of enmity has the potential to erupt all over again if the Lyrans decide to whisper in the universe's ear that, hey, maybe the Hatel are kind of screw-ups, and maybe they need babysitting." They were all quiet for a while, as they reflected on this. Finally, Vandal broke the silence, and said, "Let's go catch that bitch." But Zem shushed him. It seemed non sequitur until he looked up, to see her and Tris looking off into the trees. Something had moved. Slowly, quietly, Tris drew her energy pistol from her thigh, hefting the counterweighted, gyroscopically stabilised weapon in her hand. As her grip tightened around the shiny black instrument, a bank of tiny blue lights winked on, one after the other, signalling that the weapon was ready to punch a hole through the heat signature it had detected, obvious in infrared amidst the background of chilly foliage. She waited a second longer, and then fired. The pulse lasted only for a moment, casting a hellish red streak through the mist that was so bright as to be nearly blinding, a tiny fraction of its energy scattered by the low-hanging vapour. As her finger lifted from the trigger, the hollow sound of a spring releasing deep within the gun's mechanism, a shrill and distinctly female voice cried out a string of obscenities in Wanisini. Not the best way to make first contact. Tris jerked her head towards the source of the sound, looking at Vandal. "That's no soldier. She's alone," the Captain explained. "Go." He took a deep breath and nodded, and trudged off into the trees, his own pistol drawn. A few seconds later he returned, marching a woman before him. She looked very much like a Lilitu, and the shot had left a clean black circle in the membrane of her right wing, near the shoulder, but contrary to all available intelligence, her skin was an unnatural-looking blue-grey, as if she had taken a massive dose of silver in colloidal form, and then had died of asphyxiation. The girl's weird, dark eyes flitted about, her almost luminous irises glancing back and forth between Zem and Tris. The Captain stood, rather inelegantly depositing Zem on the ground. "She's... grey." "It's more of a blue, I'd say," replied Vandal. The girl began to squirm somewhat more aggressively. Zem struggled to her feet, frowning. "I've never seen that before. I mean, some of the very, very early Lilitai had metal poisoning, but..." She trailed off, shook her head, and asked the girl, speaking in Wanisini, "What's your name?" Teza swallowed uneasily, her gaze fixating on the shorter hadal woman. The other two were in convincing uniforms, but the shuttle behind them made it all too clear they must be forgeries. Aliens. Commonwealthers. Was this why the soldiers were on the road? "She shouldn't be here," said Lotane. "The soldiers will find her." "They'll think she's in league with these aliens!" cried Soveme. Teza twisted out of the man's arm. "I am Lady Avoteidza Akassa of the Kevrolli of Tshekrobi Slefa," she growled, in her best impression of an indignant Hakro. "Why have you ignorant green devils invaded these lands?" They spoke to each other in their own language, that quick, inelegant tongue that sounded like the speaker was trying to clear a blocked nostril. This was perhaps less than generous, given the time she had spent with Jin and Krem and her... clientele, but in this context all of that felt like a mistake, like she had lost sight of the importance of the worthiness of the ekeli as a race. Soveme and Lotane agreed gregariously, suggesting a dozen or two novel slurs and avowing that they'd never let another hadal so much as touch her. "What the fuck did she call us?" asked Tris, whispering in Zem's ear. Her Wanisini was not nearly as good as Zem's, and still a fair bit weaker than Vandal's. Nevertheless, the tone had been clear from context. "She thinks you're an evil broccoli spirit," Zem said, sarcastically. "And she's being really, really defensive. I think she gave us a fake—" "Brockly!" cried Beep. "Yess! Yess! Green ladies is brockly!" It then scurried away, into the wastes of the marsh, perhaps meaning to discuss this tremendously important revelation with its colleagues. "...name." "Didn't she say she was a lady? That's nobility, right?" asked Vandal. Teza elbowed him in the ribs. She had no idea what he was saying, but she didn't like it. He winced in pain, stepping back a pace. Zem frowned, thinking. After some time, she said, "There's no way... Nobles have to carry all that armour, remember? I mean, some might be, but, really, look at her. The accent is right... she's accustomed to wealth... but it's not hers. She might even be the product of selective breeding. For her... you know, her characteristics. Her body." Tris considered this. "Well, in that case, we should fuck her." Zem and Vandal both looked incredulous. "A noble wouldn't be any good at sex, right?" Zem didn't have any rebuttal to that at hand. Teza broke the silence. "Well, klinbagi? Why are you here?" Tris scowled, formulating a response in Wanisini. "We mess up cleaning," she said after some time, stumbling her way through the words. Zem winced, and leaned close to her to whisper. "Let me do the talking." "That bad? Really?" asked Tris. Zem wobbled her hand, asserting that it was marginal. Teza's response also came at a delay, though it was markedly more considered and less clumsy. "You know, I've heard you space-men obsess over trivialities—trees, and the like. Did one of your murder-machines trample a park? I must say, whatever it was, it looks as if you just made a much bigger disaster with your landing." By now it was obvious that her flimsy woolen clothes and waterlogged moccasins could hide no weapons, so when she shook herself free of Vandal's grip, he simply let her. "I'm sure," she continued, adjusting the torn vestments, "that the soldiers will be here soon enough to put you two where you belong, with your fat-nippled slut." Zem turned a slightly darker shade of turquoise. Teza's pulse quickened slightly, reminded, again, that if she were found by the soldiers, Senator Kantida would eventually hear of a strange blue ekela—and perhaps she already had. The matter was more pressing now that she was here, at this makeshift landmark, rather than wandering aimlessly in the anonymous, detritus-filled locales of the autumn-choked swampland. And although she had tried to ignore them, Soveme and Lotane were practically shouting in her ears. She looked to the side briefly, glaring at where she imagined Soveme might stand, and took another deep breath. "Well. As you are already here and clearly in no condition to get yourselves off this glorious realm, I do find myself inclined to be rather generous toward you." Yes, that was the ticket, Teza thought. The hadali in Chekroba understood simple, direct exchanges. No doubt these would, too. "Generous? Oh, that's very good. What would you offer, my lady?" replied Zem, steadily growing even more convinced that Teza was no such thing. And what was that glance? "Well, it's quite simple," came Teza's response. Her words were directed at Tris, whom she had identified as the most likely leader of the group of hadali. She gripped her left wrist with her right hand, in an approximation of a posture that she'd seen Vendazra use countless times before difficult guests. It was one of general pensive patience, of such total control that her guard could be let down—but in reality it served to stop her hands from shaking. "Provided your objectives here truly do not infringe upon the ambit of the Empire, I see no reason why you should not be allowed to carry out your tasks under my supervision." Tris and Vandal exchanged a look, having very much come to the same conclusion at the same time. The Lieutenant put his hand on Teza's shoulder again, and not kindly. "Look, lady," he said, at first in Roshagil, and then continued in Wanisini, his sentences short and somewhat pained. "You could be anyone. We don't care. You have no weapons. I know." Teza was mortified. She looked back and forth between Tris and Zem, her pretense now threadbare. Why were the soldiers deferring to their slave so much? Zem's lips hardened into a line, and she took a cautious step forward. "Actually—fine. You can come with us. We're going to the mountains. Our ship was shot down, but not by your empire. We think someone else did it, and they're not supposed to know this planet even exists." In Roshagil, she added, "And there's not much point in capturing tel Moukarhim if the Lyrisclensiae are already here." "The mountains? Al... alright, yes, very well. To the mountains. That is where I was headed myself, anyway, until the gubai led me here," Teza replied. Perhaps this turn of events would be luckier than she thought. Soveme wasn't convinced. Lotane seemed vaguely hopeful. Zem frowned, looking back and forth between the others, confused. "The... gubai? I don't know that word." Teza pointed to one of the slugs that had wriggled into view shortly after Beep departed. "Goohbye!" it said, alarmed to be scrutinised, and then scampered off.Maxie Millions The Extreme Platitudes of Maxie Millions (314 tgc)
The Outcasts
Westi, or Outcasts, can be found in small villages all across the continents of Wanisin. For the most part, they are not legally exiled, but virtually all of them can be assumed to have conducted themselves in a way that would have provoked an arrest if in full view of the law. The Ministries seldom bother these unproductive wretches, unless there is a labour shortage, or evidence a child has been taken with them. Surveillance of Westi villages is rare, and has not been implemented systematically since the reign of Moilea the Sleepless.It was Winter, in the ninety-first year of the second reign of Klito XIX, when the woman arrived at the temple. The leaves had just lost their natural red hue and begun to fall, coating the small settlement in sweet-smelling purple flakes. On most of Wanisin the climate was stable enough that the trees never autumned, but up in the high hills, the impending frost made it a practical inevitability. At that time, a century and a half ago almost to the very day, Adia was only a junior priestess, little more than an adolescent in the eyes of the clergy. The maidens of the temple took in this woman, knowing not her name, provenance, or the tale of how she had fled the jungle city on the back of a smooth-boned racing kvinga, pursued by the Ministry's drones and a dozen Viradi. Having fled for hundreds of miles in such heavy armour, her only remaining possession after so long a journey, she was so starved that the Matron doubted she would survive a week, much less ever arise from her coma. But Adia saw things differently; she saw that at times, the nameless Hakro seemed to stir in her sleep. The murmurings that came from her lips seemed at first incoherent, but gradually drew the apprentice soothsayer inward, speculating as to their nature, and to the purpose for which this strange woman (whose lower face was darkened by fine, unkempt hairs that the Matron could not explain) had been brought to the Chiyans. Soon Adia came to regard the woman's mystery as her personal burden to unravel, and perhaps even a duty gifted to her by the Goddess of Dreams herself, Chiya. Months of short, cold days passed, as the land around the temple was coated in frost, and eventually glittering icicles that remained for weeks at a time, thawing only long enough to crash to the ground. Each morning and each evening, between prayers and lessons, Adia would attend to the woman. She did not know how to polish armour, but one of the acolytes did and was willing to teach her. As the layers of oxidation were peeled from the ornate breastplate, Adia felt as if she was making some small contribution to the comatose noble's recovery. A week before the first day of spring, as the temple was preparing for the ceremonial observations of the year's end, Adia finished cleaning the armour, and exhorted Chiya that the strange woman might wake from her slumber, so her labours would not be in vain. But a piece of the armour—a gauntlet—had never been found, for the woman was not wearing it when she arrived, and so nothing came of Adia's prayer. Of what value was an exceptional bond to the Lady of the Unreal if it would bear no fruit? Adia could not sleep that night. The Matron found her awake, in the company of a single candle, in the great painted hollow, the cavern that lay beneath the temple, which seemed to be as old as Wanisin itself and had borne witness to the passage of so many rites and primeval deities that no one could account for all the years of religious history that had been embodied there, or even guess at how many faces of divinity had been honoured on the lips of those who worshipped within. Adia sat before the altar with that solitary candle, not in holy communion, but introspectively, weighing her destiny as it was written in the eternal tale, and as it was sculpted by the buffeting winds of fate. Some believed in the Principle of Convergence, that only when these two forecasts aligned did a person's future become clear, and she wondered if this was, perhaps, what eluded her. Surely it was a matter of fortune that the Hakro should arrive and that Adia would engage in the care of the woman, who was ever-increasingly unlikely to awake from her hibernation. More commonly the Principle of Balance was thought to guide life, wherein the Quills eternally struggled against the Winds to form a compromise: intention against luck, scheme against serendipity, determination against calamity, order against chaos. The Matron approached poor Adia and asked her what it was that plagued the girl so. She explained her self-assigned duty, and how she had fought, without the explicit permission, to ensure that the stranger was cared for, so that at least when Nepala came to take her to Chiya's realm, the stranger would be well prepared. When Adia mentioned the missing glove, a glimmer of recognition came to the Matron's eye. In the Pool of Reflections, a secret chamber behind the Matron's quarters, she had seen an image of zola, the Open Palm, cast in the quadrant of Zeleta, the Mother of All Creation. The meaning of the symbol had eluded her until now, but she was certain now that finding the stranger's gauntlet would, in some way, satisfy Zeleta, and grant the temple great distinction, though its patron was the Dreamer, not the Mother. The woman awoke the next day, her lost glove nowhere in sight. She was terribly emaciated now, and the dark hairs on her face had all gone, but having been in such excellent health before her collapse, she had survived far longer without real food than anyone had imagined she might. When she first opened her eyes, Adia was there at her side, wiping down the woman's forehead with a damp rag. Deztra Kazarlya was not particularly unusual among exiled noblewomen. Once the Chief of Police of Chekroba, she had been purged by Ekhessa Famea, her boss's boss's boss, in the midst of an effort to root out enemies of the dying empress, Klito XIX of the Pure Dashrians, so that there would be no challengers when her already-anointed successor, Tamaksia of the Children of the First Men, stepped into the Fires of Alestea deep beneath the Imperial Palace of Sur'daro and was proven worthy. Adia had known none of these politics when she first found Deztra lying face-down in the battered, rusted armour of her ancestors, between the rows of turnips. Her heritage was simple, and she had never been to one of the great cities of Wanisin. But as she came to know more of this lost commissioner, it seemed to Adia as if she were losing knowledge, too—knowledge of her fate and of the meaning of the sign that the Matron had seen in the Pool. Though it took her time to find humility, Deztra eventually came to value Adia as a friend, ever conscious that the girl had been instrumental in her rescue and rehabilitation, that a life was owed. So when Adia grew disillusioned with the temple and could no longer derive meaning from her religion, they left together. But still, the prophecy of the Open Palm remained with her.Asymmetric conflict in the postwar era: adapting Ministry of Discipline doctrine to Ministry of Power duties. Discipline Observer Tapeko Geplazzo, Year 12109. Classified: SAL>6//MIL>5.
"Adia. Adia! Stupid girl! Listen!" Vendazra hissed, stirring the bundle of robes. "Something is ahead. I hear chanting. Do you know it?" Adia pulled back her embroidered hood, though did not remove it, for it was held in place by the holes through which her small, back-swept horns rose. This was enough to afford her ears clearance. Yes, there was singing. The melody was strange, uneven, as if the participants knew no notes. A frown drew across her face. "Well?" Adia turned her head, indicating the negative. "It is to me as the babbling of sleep-walkers. I have never heard such a hymn." At the front of the caravan, a kvinga moaned in alarm. The Lady's carriage lurched and halted, the noses of the beasts pulling it mere inches from the cart in front of them. A rush of footsteps splashed through the mud. It was Gil, the night watchman, now head of the guard, for the true head, who had served her faithfully for half a century, had already broken off from the retinue and turned back to Chekroba. "Westi, milady. Outlanders. It's some sort of late summer festival; they've blockaded the road. I fear we'll have to deal with them if we're to pass." Ahead, the mountains loomed. Most of the journey was behind them. Autumn in this part of Kelmefta could swiftly bring terrible storms from the south-east, as tropical cyclones formed in the equatorial waters around the desert lands of Kelonra and pushed northward, channeled by the peaks. Dealing with these wildfolk would be the only way to get to Zokipolla before the typhoons struck, to say nothing of the snows that would soon block the mountain passes. "Right," Vendazra said, definitively. With some difficulty she stood, trembling slightly, for she had scarcely left the carriage in days. Adia and Ibrahim had finally convinced her to partake of solid food and to drink things other than wine, but still the effects lingered, manifested as bags under her eyes and a distinct gauntness that did no favours to her heart-shaped face. "I'm sure a few pagans will be..." She stumbled briefly, dismounting with Gil's assistance. "...will be no trouble at all. Come along, Adia. It's very much time you learned how to properly negotiate with little people." Gil's description of the situation was not quite correct. There was indeed a large gathering of ekeli in a clearing near the road, but the road itself was unblocked. A massive tree trunk had fallen between two hills, affording ample clearance for the passage of typical traffic beneath it. Above, two ekeli stood, laden with goods. They were scantly dressed, which gave ample visibility to the luminous green body paint that covered both of them from head to toe. One held a plumbata—a dart. Below, in the dirt of the road, lay a dead hadal footman. The fletching of a second plumbata sprouted from his eye. "Turn back!" demanded she with the dart. "Your filthy peasant-boys have no place in the territory of the Valansi. We will slay you all!" Adia and Vendazra exchanged a look of confusion. "Girl: who, pray tell, is your mistress?" called Vendazra. "I would hear such threats from one more esteemed than yourself, if I might." Now it was the assailant's turn to confide in her neighbour. Their shared look, however, was a scowl. "Very well. The High Priestess is in the clearing, rejoicing in the celebration of Luda. You may accompany us and speak with her." Neither Adia nor Vendazra had heard of 'Luda,' but they agreed to follow, the theologian propped up by the mystic. In the circle some thirty women danced, many bare-bodied, all of them wearing the same peculiar green paint. In the middle was an immense pyre, on which fruits and vegetables had been laid. It was smoking, not yet having caught light. After some moments of observation, Adia realised there was something else the dancers had in common: each seemed rather young—no more than two centuries, at most—and yet their skin was wrinkled, as if some disease had caused it to age prematurely. A few even had purple and red bruises; these were the ones that wore clothes, apparently to conceal the injuries. Vendazra assayed the situation rather quickly, being primarily concerned with identifying the leader of the dance circle. She spotted what was undoubtedly the High Priestess rather easily; she was the oldest by far, and wore the most jewellery, including a fantastically ornate headdress of a dark, coppery bronze. She also sat, rather than stood, upon a throne, which in turn rested on a circular dais. To either side of the Priestess stood a pillar of rocks, primitively hewn and covered in a dark purple moss. At the edge of the circle, just as the High Priestess noticed the two foreigners and their escorts, Adia gripped Vendazra's arm firmly and held her still. "Something is amiss. None of them are well. Look, to the right of the leader; the hair of that one is falling out. I am beset by fear that this might be a plague colony, Legate." Legate? Vendazra frowned. What an archaic word. Not technically wrong, but definitely long disused. Technically the Empress had supreme jurisdiction over the Church, although in practice Empresses rarely needed to overrule a Minister of Mystery. Dismissing the peculiarity, she looked about at those gathered, similarly noticing the ailments of the women present. They did indeed look rather more ragged than they should, considering their ages. Was it merely a consequence of living in the wilderness? No, no, there was something more. Something familiar... A thousand years ago, perhaps more, when she was not yet a senator and still lived in the shadow of her mother, Vendazra had attended a Congress of the Flame in the northern mountains, at the city of Somokedo. She was a minor bureaucrat then—her work-armour was light, barely more than chainmail, as the likelihood of an attempt on her life was low. The Empress of the day, Ioya I, had ordered a series of such Congresses to impress upon the smaller temples, normally administered through the Ministry of Faith, that they must not render mercy upon heretics or renegades. The meeting at Somokedo had seemed a pointless exercise to Vendazra, as it was a mining city, much like Zokipolla, but in those days most of the residents were pious, simple folk. On the last day of the Congress, the delegation from the Ministry of Mystery was invited to tour the Temple of the Flame of Somokedo, a small monastery carved directly into the rocks of the mountainside. In the Temple, the priestesses cared for the ill and infirm, for at that time Somokedo was not a large enough settlement to warrant its own mission from the Ministry of Mercy, the nominal overseer of charity, medicine, and the like. And so, in that remote place, above the clouds where the air was thin, Vendazra first encountered the symptoms of radiation poisoning. It was not a new plight to the ekeli: Illera's caves were rife with pockets of those toxic minerals, and some of the oldest, most forbidden texts to which Vendazra had exclusive access were laden with mentions of this pestilence from the Goddess of Sorrow which haunted the colonists long before the outbreak of the dreaded Plague. Wanisin, at least, had not proven to be so rich in heavy elements; even the great mines at Zokipolla had never turned up anything denser than the strange, square crystals of tetoma which formed oily rainbows and shattered light into a thousand hues. She did not wish to alarm Adia. She chose her words carefully, as a woman of state must. "It is something in the rock here. As long as we do not stay here for several days, it will be of no consequence to us. They are not contagious." The girl looked downcast for a moment, speculative, and then nodded once, accepting that Vendazra's statement was earnest. Vendazra returned her attention to the High Priestess, that narrow-faced, sunken eyed woman whose cheeks were stained darkly with tears of ink and whose skin was bone-white. As they strode across the circle towards the bejeweled woman, this... speaker of heresies to which poor Adia's deviant theology could only hope to aspire, the High Priestess turned her head down and to the side slightly, almost coyly, and wrapped her tattered wings about herself. She kept her gaze firmly on Vendazra, challenging Vendazra as if the exile might be her equal, or lesser. The Senator exhaled, derisively, unable to hide the faintest smirk. As if such a thing could be conceivable! "High Priestess," said Vendazra, her smirk now corralled into the image of a polite, pleasant smile. They were standing not far apart now; Adia heeled the exiled senator at her left. "I am most gratified to be in your esteemed presence." The High Priestess said nothing, apparently awaiting some further protocol or tribute. Suffice it to say that the Lady Kevrolla had long since grown unaccustomed to showing strangers obeisance, and found herself almost at a loss for words. But there was one detail about the High Priestess of the Valansi that did put Vendazra ill at ease, and that was the magnificently detailed copper headdress that the woman wore. It was ornamented with the kargila, a symbol ancient beyond ancient, of a many-legged, bilaterally symmetrical arthropod with a crescent-shaped head, back-swept, that protected the first legs and its narrow, spondylose body, often confused for a beetle. The kargila was not a creature of Ksreskezo, however; it was an omen of the Den-Keti, the most ancient adversary of the Oksi, more hated even than the despicable, serpentine Hokhetepi who had exterminated the Oksi in the vilest of manners. What was it doing here? They continued to exchange silent stares for a moment. Vendazra, being in more of a hurry, finally broke the quiet. "A pair of your followers saw it fit to impede passage of my convoy through your lands, along the road not far from here. Speaking as one woman of nobility to another, and as one woman of great faith to another, I would ask you respectfully to permit it to pass." The High Priestess turned to one of her assistants and murmured something in a strange language, clicking her tongue and lips rapidly as she spoke. The assistant dipped her head, and sped off, leaving the ceremony. "Vendazra Kevrolla," said the High Priestess, returning her attention to her visitors. Her voice croaked; she was perhaps older than she looked. "Yes, we have been watching you for some time as you journey 'through our lands,' as you put it. As we understand it you are an exile from the jungle city, rather like myself. It seems to us that we are overdue in providing you with some measure of hospitality. Your caravan is free to proceed—indeed, it should already be once again moving—although we would ask you and your Sarthian... pet to stay for a time and partake of the accommodations we would offer you. Our outriders will be more than able to rejoin you to your carriages afterward." Evidently the Valansi were most adept at reconnaissance. That was not a quality generally associated with secretive, isolated cults, much less those that had so little contact with tamer lands. This was not welcome news. She acceded. "Very good. As you will have it." Vendazra smiled pleasantly, with a half-bow. This news seemed to be to the pleasure of the Valansi, who began to whoop and shout in jubilation. Two of the High Priestess's attendants helped her to stand, and she gestured to the seat she had vacated. "Please, if you would furnish us with this additional honour. It is so rare that we have a guest as distinguished as the senior-most Senator of Chekrobi Slefa." Lady Kevrolla stared at the frail woman, increasingly bothered by the quality of her intelligence. After a glance to Adia, whose expression was troubled and generally difficult to read, she sat upon the chair, itself of weathered copper. The seat was surprisingly comfortable, as the soft metal was well worn into the shape of the High Priestess's posterior, where it bore comparatively little oxidation. She looked up from it, considering the perspective upon the dance circle offered by its vantage. As one, two deputies of the High Priestess emerged from the small group of ekeli standing about the throne, each bearing a primitive bowl filled partway with an orange pigment. "It is of course customary," the crone explained, her voice cracking, "that visitors, during the festivals of the seasons, are to be decorated thusly. We trust you will not mind such an intrusion. It will not be necessary to disrobe." Vendazra inhaled slightly, then bowed her head in assent. "I suppose it cannot do any harm. Very well." Applying the paint took on the order of a minute, and the pigment-bearers insisted that Adia also receive the distinction of the ornamentation. It smelled strongly of zyousi ripeklisa, a simple, rapidly-evaporating solvent mostly used to remove grease from the axles of older military ground vehicles. When it was clear the attendants also wanted to paint Adia's clothing with it, she refused the offering entirely, gripping the wrist of the girl who would deface her robes. The ceremony itself seemed to consist mostly of a progression of songs, mostly in recognisable Wanisini, although there was ample use of the strange, clicking language that the High Priestess had spoken earlier, mostly for proper nouns. To both Adia and Vendazra, it was incomprehensible in any large sense: mere fragments of a vast canon recounting the heroic deeds of mythical figures neither recognised; episodes and allusions ebbed and flowed in an almost incoherent manner. The refreshments, at least, were palatable, and consisted primarily of fermented fruit juices, which were welcome to Vendazra's dry tongue (if not Adia's—she would have none of it.) The pungent aromas, however, were difficult to overlook, particularly as they drew forth no end of nectar-thirsty winged insects—most of which died within moments of imbibing the powerful intoxicants. Finally, after what seemed like hours (and may very well have been), as the sun sank below the canopy and the luminous markings of the celebrants outshone its fading light, there was a break in the merry-making. It stirred Vendazra from her mental wandering, which had long since departed from the immediate present and devolved into fantasies of staking her revenge upon Mutza Kantida. The High Priestess, who seemed to be called Tarakis—most definitely not a Wanisinese name—gave a speech, entirely in the clicking language, in which she gestured extensively to Vendazra and Adia. Her followers responded with a storm of shrill cries, not unlike hooting. Lady Kevrolla leaned forward on the copper throne as the speech of Tarakis continued, seeming to reach a fevered pitch now; the crone practically spat each word, her hands high above her head, a torch held in each. To two of her attendants she passed the torches, one each, and then those women bowed before the pigment-bearers who had marked Vendazra and Adia earlier. It was decidedly a martial gesture, and continued to perplex both of the guests. What exactly was it that they were doing? The torch-bearers led the pigment-bearers to the two pillars of stone, where they busied themselves with painting the rocks much as they had painted their guests. The dance circle resumed their jubilant cries, and, finally, the volatile pigment was lit aflame. With a heavy creak, the rocks began to move. Showers of dirt and sand emerged from the cracks between the boulders, extinguishing the flames in short order. But the stones themselves were not moving—with simultaneous horror, Adia and Vendazra realised that the motions were properly credited to the tendrilous violet moss that was woven around them, so easily discounted for its similarity to any number of Wanisinese lichens and other primitive photosynthetic detritovores. Vendazra rose from the copper chair, appreciably less sober than she had been when they arrived, and turned to stare at the two immense golems of granite which had risen from, presumably, their year-long slumber. "Moktouzi," Adia whispered, unable to take her eyes from them. "And we're to be their meal," added Vendazra.
Informants
Be slow and of a patient mind when accepting gifts: a wise donor will recognise your intelligence in doing so, and not balk at circumspection. Should she complain of mistrust even after you have found there is nothing defective with her offering, then you are calling her bluff; she is paying you in advance for a favour. Your hesitation means that debt has less time to accrue interest, and you will be better for it."Is that really all you do here? Entertain yourself?" Mutza demanded, her shrill voice echoing unpleasantly on the walls. Several slugs seemed visibly irritated and shuffled away from her. Serena crossed her arms and huffed, setting the empty pie tin back down on the table before her. Two slugs hopped into it almost immediately, tipping it off the edge. The pie tin landed on top of them, dribbling dark blue juice onto the smooth white floor. They proceeded to protest the sudden darkness, and urged the green lady to make it be daytime again. "No, not completely. I also put up with your bullshit and fuck around in my workshop," Serena replied. "Sometimes both at the same time. How did you like the show?" Mutza frowned further. "The title was absurd. The art style was absurd. The premise was absurd. The characters were absurd. If I saw it performed on stage in a municipal pageant, I would put the writer, director, and every actress involved to death myself." Serena snorted derisively. "Vennie didn't like it either. She could never figure out why they let a bumbling incompetent run the city when it was obvious that even his assistant would be much more capable." "How like her. If you must know, I would say it beggars belief that the three girls do not conquer the whole planet. They obviously have a natural aptitude for conquest in the name of virtue." Doctor tel Moukarhim was leaning down, prying the tin plate up off the slugs who were trapped beneath it. "I'm inclined to agree with you, but that's just not how the superhero genre works, I'm afraid. Moreover they're far too young and emotionally underdeveloped to take on such a responsibility." Mutza turned her head away, disgusted by the seeming illogic of it. "Forgive me, but that seems ridiculous. Empress Ioya was no more than a hundred when she ascended the throne, and served Wanisin faithfully for almost four centuries. Do you mean to say these fictional characters are imbeciles of no education? Their caretaker is clearly a scientist of considerable skill. Surely he would make a worthy educator, as well." "They're five years old." "What?" "Well, about six and three quarters by your standards. Humans rarely lived past eighty in those days—that's, ah, a bit under 108 Wanisinese years." Serena shrugged. "Even we... 'hadali' rarely surpass three or four hundred—though, of course, we chose that amount. It's quite enough life to live, generally." Mutza knew about the short lifespans of the hadali, of course, but like the vast majority of Wanisinese she was generally given to assume that the ancient Terrans, the Alphas, the Firsts, were much like modern ekeli, albeit without wings, horns, or tail—and with men. She sighed as she processed this information, and looked at the freeze-framed image on the television screen once more. "How far we have come." As they spoke, many slugs came and went from the room, including two that were balancing a glue gun between them, and four that were lugging a large glass bowl. It was apparently quite slippery, as it soon flipped over, and pinned two of its bearers beneath its rim. When they began crying in alarm, Serena crouched down to rescue these slugs, much as she had the ones under the pie tin. It was, perplexingly, buttered. Once liberated, all four wandered off, very much as if nothing had happened. They went back the way they came, most likely to pilfer another bowl from the kitchen. No sooner had the quartet left the room than two other slugs arrived, crusted in dried brown mud and dead leaves. They were followed by a floating cleaning drone. (If such mindless robots could feel, it would have been best described as patently irate, but alas, the drone's greatest mental feat was simply predicting where the slugs were going so it could clean after them.) "Green lady! Green lady!" cried one, a bright green creature. It probably had a name, but Serena rarely bothered with remembering them—they were usually common words that appealed to the slugs' sense of aesthetics, like 'Potato' or 'Bonk.' At first she ignored it, for slugs commonly went out of their way to keep her informed about trivialities as diverse as bugs they'd found in the garden and their newfound passions for novelty candies that had been out of production for hundreds of thousands of years. However, this one was persistent. "It seems to want something," said Mutza, looking down at the slug. She had never seen a gubai act in such a manner; over the millennia the pests had learned that ekeli were generally boring, and would only engage them if they were paid attention first. Serena nodded wearily, a gesture Mutza did not fully understand, and turned to look at the blob. "Yes?" she asked, in English. "What is it?" The slug made a farting noise with its mouth. Serena stared at the ceiling as it giggled. She turned to walk away. "But! But!" it continued. "But?" "We find a sky bucket! They gots green ladies and mister green ladies knowin' good talk! They from space and wanna know all about slug! And talk all fancy! It's good!" The words rushed out of the slug so quickly that any speaker less than perfectly fluent in English would be unlikely to be able to follow it—and even then, there were some Roshagil substitutions, like cosma for 'space,' and purai for 'fancy.' Correctly, Serena inferred that this meant another Commonwealth ship had landed on the planet without her knowledge. With a sense of purpose Mutza thought impossible, she strode from the room, leaving the junior Senator behind. "Wait," called she, "where are you going? What did it say?" No answer came. Some minutes later, Mutza growled in annoyance and followed. At the far end of a long corridor, its walls black, she found Serena in a small one-seat theatre. The hadal was leaning over the back of the chair, hunched, tapping away on an odd device that, for the sake of brevity, we will just admit was actually a very fancy keyboard attached to the chair arm on a pivot. The wall in front of the chair showed the vision of a reconnaissance drone, racing over the treetops of northern Kelmefta at night. Had it really been so long? No wonder Mutza was starting to feel tired. It found the crash site, abandoned. With another device, which, okay, was really just a trackball (albeit a very fancy one), and surveyed the shuttle. Yes, it was Hatelese. No, it wasn't a design she recognised. Given the unbelievably ugly, boxy geometry of the craft, it was easy to speculate that the vehicle had been developed specifically to evade her sensor network. Her heart skipped a beat. But what had brought it down? There were clear blast marks on the nose section and side. Was this something the Empire had developed without her knowledge? Preposterous. Could it have been... lightning? Some mere natural phenomenon? No, no, that made no sense. A half-decent electromagnetic field generator would block atmospheric discharges, unless, perhaps, that screwed up the stealth... But there were bigger fish to fry. Serena punched in a command to the rest of the reconnaissance swarm, ordering it to congregate around the craft and airlift it back to her compound. It could be dealt with later. The operatives that had been on board—that was far more concerning. They had survived, clearly—supply boxes were placed about the crash site, some neatly stacked. Where did they go? Another command punched in. Yes, heat signatures were detected leaving the vicinity. Four of them. She switched to the drone nearest their last known location and told it to pursue. A quartet of bodies, as expected, clearly visible in infrared among the cold autumn night. Three Hatel, one ekela, the motion of her wings obvious, and more than doubling her size in infrared. An ekela? Had they picked up a local? Were these the right people at all? Maybe she'd totally missed the ticket and had caught a group of local hadali, slaves and their Mistress. A better look was needed. She positioned the drone in front of them, and switched to visible light. "That's Vendazra's pet!" exclaimed Mutza. She pointed a finger at the ekela. Even in the poor moonlight, the girl's silvery-blue skin was unmistakable. "What in the Empress's name is that slut doing so far from the city? You must tell me where they are, at once. She owes me that piece of cuntflesh." The sudden shift in tone, the completely uncharacteristic expletive, and even the plain visibility of one of her last custom-ordered creations failed to attract Serena's attention. She gripped the back of the chair with one hand, the arm with the other. Her knuckles were almost white. In the middle of the three Hatel, who were indeed most definitely Commonwealth infiltrators—and not very good ones, at that—was a face she knew all too well. She began to shake with fury, and, with a rage-filled roar, ripped the chair out of the floor, and threw it at the screen. It bounced off, harmlessly, sparking wires dangling from where it had been connected to the room's information systems. "How dare they," she muttered. "How fucking dare they." Mutza stood well back. Although Serena was quite unusually tall—in the vicinity of seven feet—the Senator had not anticipated the Hatel was capable of such strength. "Doctor? What is it?" "Tell Ekhessa to divert her troops." "Divert... ?" "They're marching toward the mountains. Tell that backstabbing old whore to divert them. To get her for me. I must have her." "Have... who? Ekhessa?" Mutza frowned, puzzled. "I am sure the Minister of Power would be more than happy to visit you, should you..." Serena thrust a finger at the teal Hatel, the shorter of the two females, who was conspicuously undressed. "Her." "I... I do not understand, Doctor; surely that's just a meaningless chit the others brought with them for their amusement." "No," growled Doctor tel Moukarhim. "She's not."Kowako: Regarding Gifts
Up the River
There are no known vertebrates or megafauna native to Wanisin. Although the planet is host to clades we can generously describe as plant-like and animal-like, the most sophisticated animals appear to be simple arthropods similar to insects, and rarely grow more than a few centimetres in length. The majority of biomass remains in the form of sessile autotrophs. These have a wide range of forms from monoclonal mats to immense photosynthesisers, which for all intents and purposes can simply be called "trees." That said, it is absolutely imperative that no expedition to the surface of this newly-discovered world be undertaken without proper safety equipment. The cellular biology of these organisms is nothing like that of Earth, and virtually everything but the soil is toxic to some extent; early reconnaissance suggests that the humans here, a unique species called the Lilitai (see next section), are still planting their heirloom crops in isolated greenhouses. Efforts to develop immunoglobin cocktails for common biological and chemical threats will be necessary prior to attempting first contact."Are all your slaves so poorly disciplined? This is absurd! I demand you whip her at once." Tris and Vandal turned around simultaneously, to stare at Teza with an expression somewhere between amusement and shock. The hum of the airboat—which they salvaged from the shuttle and was largely undamaged—filled what might have otherwise been a somewhat uncomfortable silence. "Branch!" Zem cried, pointing ahead. All four of them ducked, narrowly avoiding injury. Teza bared her fangs and elbowed Zem firmly in the arm. "Impudent, putrid cunt! How dare you interrupt me while I address free persons. Why, I should have your hide!" Alarmed, Tris reached back and grabbed one of Teza's horns. Her Wanisini was still shaky, but she could tell what was going on. "Stop. Stop! Zem not a... a..." "Slave," provided the Major. "Slave!" agreed Tris. "Zem not a slave. Zem a friend. Zem good. Zem smart. Zem... important." Teza, who had tensed up and frozen at feeling fingers on her horn, scowled, confused. "What? Of course she is a slave. Look at this miserable excuse of a jade whore. Not one inch of her is bred for freedom!" Vandal found it deeply amusing that Teza was now using the same argument Zem had formulated about her. Mostly, however, he was focused on following the radio beacon that was ahead of them on the river, and navigating its twists and turns through the shady bogs of the autumn forest, which was not terribly easy so late at night. "Branch!" he cried. Everyone ducked again. Zem huffed. "Look. You're aware, I'm sure, that the Commonwealth has a more..." she pondered the word, "open attitude regarding sexuality, yes?" Teza crossed her arms, annoyed that the slave was once again addressing her, ostensibly a high lady, without asking permission. "I do not see how an attitude can be unenclosed," she replied, expanding the word for 'open' back to its ancestral form, "but I suppose I have seen enough debauchery in my life to understand that wealth breeds perversion." "And perversion breeds you!" chimed in Lotane. Teza gritted her teeth. "Right," said Zem, pointing at Teza in acknowledgement of the point. Teza took offence to that, too, and thrust the Hatel's finger away. "Hands to yourself, vermin." "What... I'm saying is that I'm not a slave. This is just a costume. They work under me in our military. I'm their... lergalsa." At this point Zem was straining the limits of her generally adequate Wanisini vocabulary and had started using ancient Lilitika words to fill in the blanks. Unfortunately, she hadn't studied Lilitika since she was quite young, perhaps five decades ago or more. "You're their... lergalsa?" Teza seemed incredulous. "I see nothing about you remotely prophet-like." "She's our kipesta," offered Vandal. This word wasn't exactly right either; while the dictionary definition suggested a person of authority responsible for resolving dire situations, it popularly was understood to mean 'scapegoat.' The barrage of poor grammar and culturally tone-deaf word choices were almost too much for Teza, and she shook her head violently, as if to clear it. "The word you want is manazequa. One who makes choices." Zem snapped her fingers. "Yes! That's it. I'm their manazequa. My rank is highest. I am responsible for our mission." Teza was quiet for some time. The sun was starting to rise in the east, the arrival of its light upon the waters somewhat delayed by the mountain range, which filled the horizon like a carnivore's teeth. Somewhere, on the other side of those peaks, lay Zokipolla, and within it, her Mistress. "No wonder your people are so pathetic at war," she finally muttered. "The natural order is nothing more to you than a masquerade." It remained beyond her comprehension that someone would choose, willingly, to take up the affectations of the oppressed, much less a person of any real accomplishment. If there were Hakri who submitted secretly behind closed doors, all the centuries of gossip had never confirmed a single one to her ears, though she held her own private theories about more than a few. She looked Zem over a few more times, and found herself unable to think of the girl as anything but what was presented visually. By Teza's own judgement, and excusing the fact that the collared girl was a green-skin, Zem was quite attractive—too attractive, really, to live free. That happened sometimes: especially pretty daughters of even high ekeli families might be branded, dispossessed of caste and family, and sold, that their softness not infect the bloodline, legally speaking. Even the fierce could fall, though; many were stories of losers of duels who pled for their lives, only to be humiliated by servitude and chains. But most would think such a life of drudgery and torture was not worth living. The boat fell silent again. The river broadened as it turned north, and the small vessel skimmed out onto the open water. Here, the largest inconvenience was not the need to remain ever-vigilant about oncoming tree limbs, but rather swarms of insects gathered to mate and feed in the early morning, congregating seemingly at random around the denser patches in the thin cloud of microscopic spores cast up by mats of reddish algae floating on the surface. Such insect gatherings were rare except in autumn, particularly over water, for those same algae produced a sweet pollen the rest of the year that lured flying arthropods to their deaths, replenishing the nitrates and phosphates in the epipelagic zone. Each species raced to spread its genes one last time before the chill of winter set in, that it might live long enough to outcompete the other. "Not far now," said Vandal, in Roshagil. "It looks like it's right on the water. Definitely some kind of Lyrisclensian. It's broadcasting on one of their data bands." Teza leaned forward. "What? I cannot understand your nonsense vagrant words. Speak properly." Vandal rolled his eyes. The boat was already decelerating. He pointed at the box mounted next to the steering wheel, and, stammering, explained, "There is a... barbarian... tower here. We think it shot our little ship. We call the people Lyrans, Lyrani." Reeds brushed against the sides of the boat as it came near the shore. Soon, the sound of sand grinding underneath its pontoons could be heard in the shallows. One by one, they stood up. As Zem stood, she raised a finger, and spoke in Roshagil. "It might not be Lyrans, Vandal. We only know it's the Lyrisclensiae." Tris let out an exasperated sigh. "Those are the same thing, Zem. Those are the same effing thing." "They are not." The Major was already delicately stepping onto the shore, trying to avoid stepping anything that looked remotely as if it might not be sand. She envied the others their boots, for they had nothing to worry about. "There are actually several other species that the Trestunarion recognises as equal in standing to the Lyrans. Most of them aren't even actually human." Tris shut her eyes tightly. "You didn't know?" interjected Vandal. "I think," replied the Captain, "if I avoid thinking about it long enough, it will go away." The Major scoffed, the heat of frustration suffusing through her. Teza, baffled, looked at the Hatel. "Slave, what are you discussing? Is something the matter? It will not do for you to fight among yourselves." Zem flushed, her anger rising. "Stop fucking calling me that," she yelled. A finger pushed aggressively into Teza's collarbone with each word. "I'm a free fucking woman. Unlike you, you stupid royal cunt. Do you think we didn't notice how you walk? How you use your voice? Tell me. How much did your Mistress pay for you, hmm? How much? One vigla? Two? Did your weird fucking colouring cost extra or was it a bargain? Have you ever even worn one piece of armour? I bet you'd get your fucking hand chopped off if you so much as touched it." Zem had worked herself up into such a frenzy that there was literal spittle on her chin, her words slurred together in a red haze. Her chest heaved. She was going into shock. Teza simply stared, recognising all too well the symptoms of salshouza, rage-root. It was a tiny little plant, one that sent out many little vines through shallow sand, vines that were covered in hair-like barbs that injected a curious toxin. Diluted, it was a potent stimulant often given to gladiatrices and cornered soldiers. In its pure form, the adrenaline rush could kill a child. Zem collapsed. "I do not know what Mistress Kevrolla paid for me," Teza said, quietly, looking at the Major's catatonic form. Vandal and Tris paid no attention to the ekela, already crowded around their commanding officer, medical scanner at hand. "Zem? Zem! Can you hear me? Zem! She's not breathing, Van. Oh fuck, she's not breathing." Sadness marred the corners of Teza's eyes. "But it doesn't matter, now. She freed me, abandoned me, just before she fled. I may never see her again." No one heard her. Vandal's attention was consumed by the scanner, and Tris had started administering chest compressions. The emerald girl sat up with a deep gasp, sand between her fingers shooting free. Teza took a step back, startled. Recovering from the touch of pure salshouza oil, when it did happen, usually took days. Supposedly the heart and lungs could move so slowly that their motion was almost undetectable to the unaided ear. Truly, the vaccination programme had come a long way since the Hatel first discovered Wanisin. Zem fell back, coughing. In a moment, Tris's lips were back on hers. The kiss was less than romantic—as stated, Zem was coughing. "The poison is still in your system," said Vandal, looking closely at the shiny white device he held with the shiny black screen. "But it's receding. Those antibodies are pure genius. I guess we'll set up camp here until the evening." "Hold... hold... hold on," Zem sputtered. Vandal and Tris knelt on opposite sides of her, still frightfully concerned. "Who did you say bought you? I could swear... swear you said..." "You heard that?" Tris asked, frowning. "Shut up. Blue, spill it. Who was your owner?" Teza knitted her brows, taking a step back. This was unwelcome, worrying scrutiny, and hearing it asked again renewed her discomfort, knowing it meant the end of any inkling of respect she had snatched for herself. But, with a sigh, she relented, and recited her former Mistress's full titles from memory. "Vendazra of House Kevrolla, appointed as Overseer of the Office of Mystery, Chief Theologian to Empress Tamaksia and to Klito XIX before her, Senior Senator from Chekrobi Slefa." The Major lifted a finger in the air. "Fucking boom! Exactly who we wanted!" she proclaimed. "Is our luck not the fucking bee's knees?" Her arm fell back down, landing in the sand. Vandal and Tris turned to look at Teza, appraisingly. "What did she say?" asked Teza. "I'll... explain later," said Vandal.Biosphere: Initial study of Delta Kwarkë 3 ("Wanisin"). Consensus opinion by the Sensitive Affairs Emergency Quarantine Response Unit aboard the Autoerotic Apostasy. 68157.3220 lky (Wanisinese Year: 205)
Flee
Ludi, Goddess of the Garden Soil, mother of all, oldest of all, wisest of all, we come to you in utmost shame. You feed us generously from your fertile valleys, and ask only that we preserve your tradition. But our sisters, who live in high spires and know nothing of your wild beauty, despoil you and take much that they do not need. We beg you not to destroy us. Let your priestesses restore the balance. Send to us your spirits, so that we may slake your cravings for blood.Vendazra made it half a step before she felt a hand grip her wrist. She turned to see Adia, pulling her the opposite direction, also preparing to bolt. However, Adia's chosen path was right through the crowd of the Valansi gathered around Tarakis. It was insane. The moktouzi were not far now, and every heartbeat was one less in which they could run. It seemed the moss-golems weren't the slow, lumbering giants one sometimes saw in the vicinity of farms and such—these two were much smaller, perhaps fifteen feet tall apiece, and much more capable of closing distances. Hands still held, they ran, kicking up their hems with each pace. Into the crowd, each knocked aside a bowl of that vile-smelling orange pigment, splashing against its carrier and several adjacent adherents. Cries of alarm came from the withered women, and they began to scatter at random, some almost directly into the paths of the very monsters they sought to avoid. Alarm turned to horror, and cries to shrieks. The grinding and snapping of bones and horns punctuated this ghastly sound. The first victims had been claimed by the moktouzi, their wings and arms dangling from between the rocks like the limbs of moths caught in a slammed door. Soon, the stones would be stained red, and much of the grass, too. Unlike its unorganised form, which must typically resort to wrapping itself slowly around prey to feed, a death-walker is quite capable of capturing its meals, to crunch them between its stones. It is believed this is primarily to prevent the prey from escaping rather than as a digestive preface, although, to be sure, it does tend to increase the surface area of the bolus, or food, and hence permit more immediate access to the nutrients within. In the midst of such a commotion, it was easy to get away. But they dared not slow down, lest the Valansi send scouts after them, into the twilight. Vendazra's dressing gown was hardly amenable to taking long strides, but as she was several inches taller than Adia and her less-constricting robes, they kept more or less an even speed, racing along in the wet woods, their footfalls muted by the dampness of the decaying foliage. The tree trunks were much denser here, and they often lost sight of one another—the pale, white blur of Vendazra, trailing black wings and fading violet hair behind her, and the colourful spool of fabrics of Adia, the jingle of the piercings and baubles upon her slate grey wings broadcasting a sound that could almost certainly be heard from a hundred yards off, very much undermining the quietness of their feet. But they were far from prepared to run, all things considered. Some twenty minutes into the sprint, as the starts became clear overhead, one of Adia's slippers flew off. She skittered to a halt, digging furrows in the muddy, leaf-covered ground, and twisted about to dive for it. A moment later, she heard Vendazra stop similarly, panting, and walk unevenly back towards her. A stitch was in Vendazra's side. She was not exactly in the fittest of shapes, particularly since adopting a diet consisting almost entirely of wine, and she felt like she was on the verge of throwing up. Her soft feet had been battered by the run, and although her sandals had remained firmly in place, it felt like the middles of her soles were now on fire. They were not exactly the most orthopaedic of footwear, and certainly not meant for running in. She fell to her knees behind Adia and, from within her gown, drew her alesso: fourteen inches, serrated on the upper half of the cutting edge, hooked backward at the tip and with a parrying cusp midway down the back. The cross-guard was unusually small for a Hakro's dueling knife, but the thin piece of bone laid over it had proven excellent, on several occasions, at trapping the blades of challengers, making it a simple matter to disarm them. Of course, in so doing, it had been scored and cut a number of times, and was far less effective than it had been when the blade was new. But its utility, and Vendazra's skill with it, poisoned or dry, had such a reputation that her rivals—Kantida included—rarely challenged her directly. And now the back of that blade was up against Adia's neck, the parrying spur ready at any moment to drink from her carotid artery. You must understand that Vendazra felt betrayed. "A Sarthian. A Sarthian whore," she roared. "How did I not see it sooner? Was I too deep within the ambrosia of my own misery, my own alefa to recognise your quirky little accent and the suspicious word choices? So many archaisms, so many little atavistic mistakes! And your wanton display at the gate—utterly out of character for a chaste, misguided Chiyan Mystic, loyal to the state in all matters but the highest! You miserable little Lilitu. Let's see what colour you bleed." Adia swallowed nervously. A prick of blood formed on the hook digging into her skin. It was, naturally enough, a dark red. "You are mistaken on several counts," she replied. Her voice was strained, as if she was trying to keep her head above water. She, too, was still catching her breath from the run, and struggling not to inhale too quickly, lest the flexing of her neck evince more bleeding. "I don't think I am," hissed Vendazra, gripping Adia by the horn so that she could not get away. She spoke in Illeran, the ancient dialect spoken by the first settlers of Wanisin—and, it was rumoured, in some form by the modern Sarthian rebels. "On the first count, I have truly been an ordained as priestess of Chiya, albeit perhaps not under the hierarchy of which you were initially thinking," Adia replied, trembling. She struggled to remain calm. Her Illeran was not quite the same as Vendazra's, but the dialects were much closer to agreement with one another than either was with modern Wanisini. Slowly, she moved her hands in her robes, the lost slipper forgotten. There had always been whispers, legends of Wanisinese who foreswore Kowako's vision for a renewed Ksreskezaian realm on the virgin world's soil and took up the polytheistic, socialist, impotent teachings of Sarthia—teachings fit for slaves. The Sabi, the lowest and most superstitious caste, perpetuated these tales, often revolving around the lost city of Kevrosampa, which was destroyed in the second century after it rebelled against Sur'daran rule. As far as Vendazra knew, no primary sources survived which could verify the widely-accepted truth that the people of Kevrosampa had embraced Sarthia. But supposedly the free Sarthians of Wanisin did not keep slaves, and that, at least, was a compelling detail. Vendazra tsked, annoyed. "Is that all you have to say for yourself? It hardly absolves you of your treachery, your abandonment of the state. You should be sent to the mines of Zokipolla in chains, you lecherous, freeloading spy." In ages past the Sarthian threat was no uncertain thing: they were the traditional villains of Imperial rhetoric, and wars had been fought. Indeed, for most the Empire's lifespan, the existence of the rebels was used as the rationale for the State's militarism and all its consequences. Only in the past two millennia, after centuries of quietude on the part of the Sarthians and infighting on the part of the Imperial houses, were the common refrains beginning to shift toward more ancient and worthy foes. Adia's fingers finally clasped around the thin stick of polished crystal strapped to her left forearm. Yes. It was still there. "But let us be honest. It would be much more expeditious and convenient if you were simply to perish here, and now. Do you have any last words for the ears of your bumbling goddess? I will make sure she hears them for you." Vendazra's voice dripped with sarcasm. Inside the Ministry, it was often said that faith was that which hindered great theology. Outside, this saying had another form: that trust was that which hindered great power. What little the theologists did truly believe of their own decrees and theories tended to be morals and generalisations. Of all the Ministries of the Senate, probably only the Ministry of Discipline was more cynical about the nature of its own work. Adia drew the rod from her sleeve and, slowly, raised it to Vendazra's face, clutching it tightly that it not be pried from her grip. It was eight inches long, jet black, and inlaid with intricate orange and green lines that seemed to glow fluorescently in the dim morning light. The senator fell silent, staring at it. "I do not need the assistance of a charlatan to commune with the Mother of Prophecies," spat Adia.Valansi invocation, c. 12600 wanpo Courtesy Hranisin Heritage Institute, New Dashro
Confiscation
The military of Wanisin has an organizational structure not all that much different from modern human militaries, with a tall, relatively narrow hierarchy that includes nearly two dozen ranks, with supplementary titles for adjutants and signals officers, as well as several echelons of non-commissioned officer. For a civilisation heavily dependent on slavery, this is astonishing, because it allows anyone to gain rank and even hold seniority over free persons, regardless of civilian caste. As far as we know, military promotions do not include the possibility of manumission; this parallel framework of esteem exists only because of the mutual, grudging respect between veterans. Less surprisingly, unit cohesion among improperly segregated groups tends to be abysmal, and in peacetime, their commanders expend a great deal of energy trying to avert lynchings."They're coming," Vandal muttered to himself. He knelt behind a bush, within view of the road. The sounds of the troop transports had been audible for some ten minutes, and now they were within sight. Crafted of shining dark purple metal, each vehicle vaguely resembled a crustacean with its many-segmented armour plates, rounded front, and numerous forward-facing blades meant to clear the road of vines that might impede the vehicle's progress, a motif also found in the forward-swept wings of typical Wanisinese aircraft. Indeed, they might as well be aircraft, given that they seemed to hover several feet off the ground. There had to be hundreds, if not thousands of people in the convoy, an entire army bottlenecked onto a single muddy path meant for carriages and wagons. It would likely take hours to pass. As far as camouflage went, the local brush was pathetically low-tech, but any hope for more sophisticated means of disguising his presence had gone down with the shuttle's processing core. Worse, the characteristic reds and violets of Wanisinese foliage made his green face stand out—a problem not generally encountered in more verdant landscapes. Of course, it was all moot if the vehicles had even basic infrared scanners, which he didn't doubt they would. Cautiously, Vandal backed away from his lookout and returned to their makeshift camp at the foot of the listening post they had discovered, the source of the energy signal they'd tracked from the river. It was only a few minutes on foot from the road and had probably been encountered by someone before in Wanisin's twelve-millennium history, but it was unlikely that anyone would have recognised it as anything more than a small hill. Such landforms were uncommon in the marshes, and dated to a time when the planet's climate was warmer and drier, when the whole surface had been much like the great desert crater of Kelonra. But this particular hill, overgrown with mosses and lichens like so many others, was perfectly symmetrical. They had delayed entering it on account of Zem's incapacitation, even though Vandal was fairly confident he could decipher typical Lyrisclensian control schemes. The Major lay on her side, on top of an absorbent black emergency blanket. She was much more coherent than she had been when they first came ashore, but as her vision was still blurry and she seemed constantly dizzy it was hard to imagine her doing much other than staying put until she recovered properly. "I don't like this," Tris said, shaking her head as she stroked Zem's hair. She gave Vandal a nod of recognition, seeing him approach. "What's up? Did you figure out what that noise was?" Teza watched Tris closely, bemused by the gesture. The Wanisinese, like the Lilitai and the Ksreskezai, simply tilted or inclined their heads to indicate agreement or disapproval: up for defiance, down for compliance, and to the side, quickly, as if slapped, when a suggestion offended good judgement. The typical Terran motions seemed exaggerated, even compulsive by comparison. Vandal threw his hands up in the air. "It's an army. A whole fucking army. They've probably already found the ship. We're finished. There's no way we can get out of here in time." "If they are coming, I'll not stay," said Teza. She hadn't understood a word of what Vandal said, but his tone was clear enough. "Viradi are coarse, unscrupulous women once in uniform, and their conscripts are... well. They are klini klisarasi, as we say." Vandal looked at Zem, who could hear well enough. "Green pigs," she translated. "So, Teza, you mean they are all hadali?" Teza shook her head. "No, that is merely a figure of speech. Certainly some are genuinely green-skinned, but the majority are Sabi unfit for urbane employment." "Then there is no problem," said Zem. She gestured, approximately, to Vandal and Tris. "You both have uniforms. We need only use our disguises as intended." "I can't see that working with how bad my Wanisini is," Tris said. "And it's absurd to think they'd talk to a slave." "We could switch costumes, then," replied Zem, her hands raised. "Would that please you, 'Mistress'?" Tris nudged her with a boot. "That collar is not going to come off. And we don't exactly have a branding iron here, now do we. Face it, Zem. The ship fucked us over." The Major took a deep breath, gritting her teeth. She had not risen to her rank through grace under pressure, but rather on account of her skills in decryption and translation. "Okay, fine. I'll just stand behind a tree or something and whisper to you! I don't see you coming up with any ideas. This isn't a game, Tris. This is life and death." "Duh," was Tris's simple response. "Some of us have actually been deployed before, you desk jockey." Vandal pinched the bridge of his nose. He was concerned that if Zem got angry again she might relapse. "Ladies. Please. We have a simple alternative. Our friend here," he gestured to Teza, "can do the whispering. She's probably better at colloquialisms than you anyway, Zem. No offence." Zem and Tris both nodded slowly. "Alright, then," Zem said, in Wanisini. "Avoteidza, if we might impose upon you—as my friends have suitable uniforms for enlisted soldiers of Chekroba, we are in little danger of capture provided they can convince whosoever approaches that the uniforms are genuine." Teza was fastening the shawl over her tunic, preparing to depart. She turned, and looked Tris and Vandal over again with her nose held high, appraising their ensembles as if she'd never seen either before. The claim was difficult to validate, as she had no idea what enlisted soldiers wore, only the type of mirror suits worn by Viradi officers who were expected to survive more than one laser pulse. Still, one had to assume the all-powerful Hatelese Commonwealth was capable of doing its research. "Yes, yes, of course you are. What is it exactly you wish of me?" "We need you to stay." "No." "And hide in the bushes." "I will not do that." "Simply tell Tris and Vandal what to say." Teza sighed, considering. Could such a ruse work? She'd spent enough time around Krem, Jin, and other hadal Sabi to know how such people spoke. It was no concern to her whether the three green-skins lived or died, except that salvaging their airboat and piloting it the rest of the way to the mountains would be somewhat harder. "He's lying," hissed Soveme. "She'll get caught!" "They'll use her just like Renlo did!" insisted Lotane. As if perhaps to prove Zem's point, Vandal tried speaking in Wanisini. "If they can find us, then they will find you too. One heat... thing is of the smartest than two." "He talks like a child," observed Lotane. "He is a child," muttered Teza. The three Hatel looked at her, perplexed by this spontaneous speech. And children need a caretaker, Teza thought to herself. Moreover, despite the pleas of Lotane and Soveme, running off would most likely get her killed sooner than staying put. After weighing the options, she finally nodded in assent. The gesture was growing on her, as the longer she did it, the more plausible the plan felt. She resolved to try nodding the next time she needed to work up her courage. Perhaps the aliens were less uncultured than they seemed. "Something's getting closer," Tris said, looking up toward the trees, as if doing so would help her pin-point the source of the noise. Teza heard it too; the lighter whine of a small engine, rising above the deep, almost ground-shaking buzz of the passing convoy. Again she didn't need Tris's words translated to guess what they meant. "That is a nirezo,'" she said. "It will have three passengers, in addition to the driver." "Hide," said Tris. This time she spoke in Wanisini, or at least tried to. A moment after Teza settled behind a bush, the nirezo came into view. Like the other vehicles Vandal had seen, it levitated under its own power; unlike them, it was rather unarmoured. It resembled a scooter or motorbike enlarged to the size of a small carriage. Up front sat an ekela, the pilot. Behind her was a female hadal, and in the back, taking up two seats, sat a hulking, homuncular beast. "What the fuck is that," muttered Tris, under her breath. The moido was about fifteen feet tall and strained the hovercart, pushing down its back end by ten degrees. He otherwise looked rather a lot like a normal human, allowing for the facts that his skin was a dark greenish-brown, nearly black, and was broken periodically by bony spikes. Of course, humans were not meant to grow so tall, and so the inevitable elongation of such gigantism made his features seem weirdly gaunt and misshapen. "I have no idea," whispered Zem. She was still on the blanket, in front of Vandal and Tris, who were backgrounded by the bushes, but now she knelt demurely. All three did their best to look professional and as if nothing were out of the ordinary, but in reality they couldn't take their eyes off the giant. "It's a guard slave," explained Teza, her loud whisper cloaked effectively by the sound of the vehicle. "The Ministry of Power breeds them." "Breeds?" hissed Zem. "You mean that thing..." "Yes," replied Teza. "He is hadal." The craft came to a stop some thirty feet from them, still levitating under its own power. The hadal woman rose first, gun at the ready. Her features were mostly obscured by a helmet, the visor of which came half way down the bridge of her nose, leaving only her lower face visible. She looked around suspiciously, and the three Hatel realised with some trepidation that her helmet most likely had an infrared scanner in it. When the black-clad scout was satisfied that there were no traps about, she nodded to the pilot, who dismounted with appreciably more grace and care. From the insignia high on her mirrored uniform, it was clear that she was an officer of some minor rank, perhaps an adjutant or adjutant captain. Otherwise the pilot was entirely covered, her tail in a sleeve, and a reflective cape to protect her wings. The ekela's side-arm remained holstered, and her chrome helmet remained on the vehicle, leaving her short-cropped red hair, freckled skin, and piercing grey eyes free to look about. Aside from a noticeable down on her upper lip, her features were immaculately kept, and Teza was sure she was of Hakro blood, not from the warrior caste. That might make things easier if it came to violence—were it not for the immensity of the moido, who blocked out the now-setting sun. "Trash!" barked the ekela, eying Vandal and Tris unpleasantly. To their surprise, her voice was much lower than Teza's, even deeper than Tris's. "Explain yourselves. What are you doing out here?" Now that she had opened her mouth, Teza realised that the pilot was not very well suited to the military. Too skinny and too feminine—definitely the product of nepotism—but her goons would be more than adequate to back up even the most off-the-cuff remarks. The voice was, perhaps, overcompensation. Best not to push. Young Hakri, in Teza's experience, always seemed to have something they felt they needed to prove. "Be contrite," Teza breathed. "Heads down while speaking. Say, 'Mistress, we are searching for survivors, as ordered.'" Tris repeated the line. The ekela sneered contemptuously. She lifted her chin with a sort of imperiousness that left no question as to her caste. It didn't quite look right on her, like a child wearing her mother's helmet. One could practically see it slipping off to the side. "Survivors? Survivors of what?" Blood ran cold. Had the shuttle not even been found? That would be a rich confluence of circumstances. Teza held her nerve. The upper castes sometimes sought to humiliate Sabi this way, by asking them to explain something incredibly basic, as if they were animals that might not even be able to answer such a question correctly. She had not seen much of it until her time at the wood mill. "Of the shuttle, Mistress," Tris said, following Teza's continued dictation after some delay. "If the klisarasi survived, they almost certainly would have taken to the river. Gesture..." Tris fell silent in the middle of the sentence, and pointed her arm back, towards the water. She had almost said 'behind you.' The pilot squinted slightly, skeptical of not only the half-blurted stage direction, but the articulateness of the whole response. Hadali on Wanisin were rarely so well-educated as to invoke the subjunctive properly—at least not those in the military, the sort she dealt with on a regular basis. Frustrated, she lifted her hand to her nose and clenched her fist. "There were no survivors," she said, firmly. "The craft was completely shattered on impact. Am I to understand that you two have been roaming about out here on some fool's errand for who knows how long? With that piece of meat?" This last sentence was directed at Zem, who winced. "It is what we were ordered to do, Mistress," replied Tris, slowly. She had stopped trying to understand what she was being told to say, and so her tone was not entirely as contrite as it could have been. "Trash, I will not have you mock your commander with such lies. Both of you should be put to death for desertion." Vandal inhaled sharply. "No," he said, raising his hands, "please—" "Silence!" barked the pilot. "Silence!" She looked at him with a fury and a hatred he had never before observed or experienced, except perhaps in fiction. Something horrible filled his stomach, a hollowness that was somehow far more uncomfortable than the moments before the crash, when death seemed certain. Here, in the power of this strange, hostile woman, it finally felt like they were off the leash, no longer guarded by the Psyches of the Commonwealth, no longer even notionally within the bounds of the safety of their own culture. He started to tremble. Tris put her hand on his shoulder. "As it is remotely possible you speak the truth, we will put the matter to your commanding officer." Her voice grew contrite, but only for a moment. "Gigo, grab the cunt." The hadal guard set her gun down on the hovercart and stepped forth, a smile upon her dark lips. As her shadow fell upon the three, she stopped momentarily and looked up, glancing directly at where Teza was hidden. She seemed bemused, as if she could see something. Teza held her breath. The guard stepped forward again, returning her attention to the three Sensitive Affairs officers. She crouched over Zem, smiling widely. Some of her teeth were missing. The visor of her helmet was totally opaque, admitting only Zem's dark reflection to be gleaned from its surface. It was at this point the Major realised that she herself was 'the cunt.' "Oh, yes, yes, yes," the woman—presumably 'Gigo'—whispered. "We're going to have lots of fun with you." As Zem's eyes widened, the black glove of the guard closed around her throat, and she was yanked upward. By hadal standards, the helmeted woman had significant upper body strength, and had little difficulty in dragging Zem by her neck all the way back to the craft, the communications specialist coughing and choking all the while. When she was released, she simply lay on her back, sprawled across the middle seats, struggling to breathe. She didn't need to be restrained. Where would she go? How many paces could she possibly hope to get before the huge lumbering guard-beast simply pounded her into the ground, or the woman in black took some target practice? Even if she did make it away, with her luck, she'd probably just get stung by another weed—and she'd have no food or means of getting back to the rest of the team, who would doubtlessly do something reckless and face the consequences. Wryly, it occurred to her that she seemed to be getting the hang of this responsibility thing. Bemoaning her lack of escape options was nothing new, but considering the welfare of others was marginally more thoughtful than usual. How perfectly awful that she had just been stripped of any authority through which she could possibly act upon that concern. Tris put her hand on Vandal's before he could reach for his side-arm. There were the beginnings of tears in her eyes. "Do nothing," she whispered. "We'll get her back. Just give it time. We'll get her back." "I will return your fuck-toy when I receive proof that you were here only in obedience to genuine orders," said the pilot, casually. She noticed that both of the soldiers were struggling to control themselves. "Aww. Did the trash have little trash feelings for the other trash? Don't worry, you mouldy piss-cauldrons. You'll find some other whore soon enough. There will be plenty of them after the fighting's done. I hear Sarthian pussy is very soft." And with that, she turned and left, getting on the hovercraft to drive away with Zem and her hadal guard. The last Vandal and Tris saw of Zem was her shocked, confused, and terrified face as the vehicle disappeared behind a knoll. The moido followed on foot, trundling through the bush like a toddler through tall grass. Teza emerged from the foliage. "So. That went rather well, I think," she said, picking leaves from her hair. Tris pivoted on her left foot, and punched Teza in the jaw.Encyclopedia of Wanisin: A Brief Overview (Copy 2) Last edited by: zem ds (Major Zem dam Schadros) Last saved: 72386.7003 lky
Power
Number 6: Peace can exist only when two parties agree who among them is the stronger, and that affairs are arranged to his liking."And I do not need a jailer to reach Zokipolla." "You—you are bluffing," stammered Vendazra. "It—it is a fake! A forgery!" Adia pointed the rod at a nearby tree, and flicked her wrist in a very careful and practised motion. Within a second, the trunk and foliage were coated in frost, leaving the vines hanging from them as dark snakes across a landscape of twinkling whiteness. A moment later, the tree shattered under its own weight, dropping the vines to the ground along with countless insects that had nested in its boughs and leaves. A shockwave of heat radiated outward, striking each woman in her face. Hair and hood were thrust backward. Every joule of that blast had been displaced from within the tree in an impossibly efficient displacement that spat in the very face of every textbook description of thermal conductivity that had ever been written. "To your feet," growled the girl. "Now!" Technically speaking it is very wrong to call what Adia had done magic. Magic, as it is conceived of by most cultures, is a supernatural force imbued by a god, demon, or other extraordinary entity. In general, it obeys the will of the user, who has an innate aptitude for control of the arcane. If magic malfunctions, there is very often a conscience at work, or the suggestion of some conscience, such as a djinn who might purposefully misinterpret poorly-worded orders, or an anonymous benevolence both capable and willing to fill in any oversights with an outcome that is likely to satisfy the user's expectations—for example, providing a favourite flavour when ice cream has been wished for. But while common folk often mistake haspina for true magic, it is a sham by any real test: indeed, it is the very sort of sufficiently advanced technology that comes to mind when one speaks of Arthur C. Clarke maxims and indistinguishableness. Before you put the book down, disgusted that such a crucial detail of the narrative setting is being introduced so late in the story, rest assured that this tale is in fact intended to be taken as well-grounded in science and has no interest in veering into territories fantastical. In it you will find no telepathy, no divine intervention, no epic good-versus-evil struggles, and no mysterious all-intuiting sentient presence—benevolent, malevolent, or otherwise—that holds the hands of so-called wizards and interprets their whims. It would be dishonest to suggest that haspina can even be used to create curses, enchantments, alchemical substances, or (gods forbid) fantastical organisms with innate supernatural powers. It is not even woven into the fabric of the Universe—at least, not very well. Haspina provides a programming language. Between and around the pockets of space we refer to as the Expanse, there exist machines that accept commands in this programming language and affect the realms of space-time around them accordingly. To be sure, these are fantastically obtuse and powerful devices that are evidently either outside of the fabric of the Universe—a seeming paradox—or are enclosed in their own minuscule branes. We know little about the nodes themselves. Mostly we are familiar with the wondrous intricacy of the software that has accumulated on them over the aeons, as successive civilisations and cultures unlocked the potential of those great computers and overlaid countless procedures and commands upon the accomplishments of past users. Not infrequently, new methods of accessing the haspina network, often in the form of a restricted set of triggers, are uncovered. Sometimes the involvement of the machines is not even suspected as the means through which these are used. At the lowest level of the code reside the physical equations which the system perturbs, incomprehensible to all but the most astute cosmologists. It is not the Universe, but the Universe is its true language. The other thing we know about the haspina machines for certain is what happens when a ship crashes into one when jumping between space-time pockets. The result is not pretty, for either the machine or the ship, and generally what arrives on the other side is an infinitely thin three-dimensional fragment of a silvery mass of dendrite-like tentacles and a very large repair bill for the craft that hit it. If all parties concerned are fortunate, the impact on the manipulator field will be minor and soon heal. Occasionally, of course, a ship does not arrive at all after a jump, and if this is accompanied by a more significant disruption it is speculated that the ship has perhaps hit the nucleus of one of these nodes. In general, most access to haspina is through devices, such as Adia's wand, that tie a very limited number of possible invocations to gestures, buttons, or the like. This eliminates the very real danger of blowing up one's star system due to a misplaced decimal. The story of the disaster in Thet, which we have mentioned, revolves around this sort of thing, but that is a matter for another book. [The preceding explanation was not necessary in the original text. It has been added in this English translation for the convenience of readers outside of the Expanse.] "On foot we will reach Zokipolla in some weeks," Adia said, "perhaps less if we locate mounts." She spoke much more quickly and confidently in Illeran, and Vendazra realised that much of what she had taken to be meticulous politeness on Adia's part was actually the careful effort of minding unfamiliar grammar. This warranted some re-evaluation of the girl as a whole, a rare experience on the nearly-monolingual planet. "What is it you seek in Zokipolla?" Almost obstinately, Vendazra had returned to speaking Wanisini. "Surely you do not..." She trailed off, looking at the rod again. "You are an assassin, perhaps. A terrorist. You mean to kill the Countess Sakaza, so that the ensuing destabilisation of the city government shall cause panic in Sur'daro." Adia scoffed. "I shan't say. Monologues stir no love in my soul, and I have no interest in furnishing you with any more information than you require. Now, move." Her wand butted against Vendazra, and she gestured forward. The Lady Kevrolla gritted her teeth and exhaled through them, looking up at the six stars, which were now clearly visible in a sea of black. She had read that it was a very strange sight. Even Illera, in its precarious, ever-decaying orbit around the Hava Vortex, could glimpse a panoply of twinkling, wavering images of distant suns for half its sidereal period. But this night sky, Wanisin's night sky, the sisters of Kowako—Harado, Sigzo, Tousa, Phrone, Zodero, and Oubogata—it was the only one she'd ever known. And so they began to walk in the dim, moonless night, their way guided more by the soft glow of plants than by the heavens. Vendazra went before Adia, both as her hostage and because, despite her recent grape-heavy diet, her prolonged wealth had gifted her with a nutritional intake that was generally conducive to good night vision. It was one of the more subtle differences between the castes—but one that revealed itself when it became clear that Adia was constantly tripping over roots that the elder ekela had no trouble avoiding. After an hour or so, they entered a patch of fatouza, a bioluminescent shrub that roughly outlined the less navigable areas of the soft ground in dim grey light. Swarms of tiny insects danced around the bushes, pulsing brightly. No name existed for such creatures; there were simply too many varieties of arthropod on Wanisin to catalogue them all, even after so many thousands of years. These last mating calls of the season, etching streaks into the eyes of both women, were perhaps the closest thing to a permanent record that would ever be made of the existence of this particular species. Adia stopped, staring at the flashing sparks. Vendazra turned around. "Sarthian?" she asked. No response came. Adia seemed transfixed, her gaze blank, distant. After a few seconds she started to look upward, her head unmoving, and then her eyes rolled back in her head. Her grip relaxed, and the wand landed softly in the grass. "Adia?" No response. Vendazra looked at the dropped rod, and then glanced back up at the mystic. Her heartbeat picked up. If she could just grab it, then... Adia awoke with a start, gasping as if she'd been holding her breath. She looked around herself, disoriented, and then crouched down, soon snatching up the wand. Vendazra had barely started to crouch in preparation for grabbing it. The mystic averted her eyes from the flickering, pulsating creatures, shading her view with a hand. She cleared her throat, gripped the wand firmly, and pointed with it, though she could not maintain eye contact as she was busy wiping her chin on her sleeve. "Go, Legate. March!" At length, Vendazra sighed and resumed walking. The patch of glowing plants was soon left behind, and as their eyes sensed less, their ears seemed to sense more. They had no definite direction, as far as Vendazra knew, besides the glimpse of the mountains they had gotten before the sun had completely set. The road was somewhere to the south; that was all they could be certain of. "How long have you suffered from bistoai, dear?" Vendazra asked. "That—it is usually a childhood disease, is it not?" Adia clicked her tongue. "That is a foolish word for it. I was neither asleep nor walking. We call it gloïthovia. I am sure you can guess the meaning." "Missing mind. Hmm." Vendazra lowered her head in agreement. "Yes, that's reasonable. Rather unpoetic for you lot, though. It sounds like a euphemism for an imbecile." "A better translation would be wandering mind," said Adia, stepping carefully over a root that was too obvious for her not to miss. "It is an opening of one's soul, and allows the vanshoui of the goddesses to inspire one directly in the moments of absence." Vendazra stopped and turned. "Vanshoui? Life-breath? Surely even your kind doesn't entertain such archaic notions. Sarthia may have written countless absurd myths, but to her credit, she was first and foremost a skeptic—dare I say it, even an agnostic. How can you sully your prophet's legacy when she herself regarded your holy books as nothing more than fairy tales for children?" Adia smirked. It was the smirk of someone who knew better. "I see things," she said. "Things you couldn't hope to believe, dear charlatan." The elder woman rolled her eyes and turned about, the stained white hem of her robes swishing to and fro as she proceeded to crunch through the dampness of the fallen leaves. The nights were unpleasantly chilly now, especially outside of the carriage. If a deity did play some role in the order of the Universe, surely it could have made Wanisin a little friendlier to light clothing. "Well," she said, after a time. "Go on, then. What wouldn't I believe?" Adia didn't respond at first. But soon, their walk took them to a patch of open water, a brook that babbled softly. It scintillated the dull glow of the plants around it, and the stars. She shaded her eyes, and turned south. It was time to find the road; it would have a bridge. Vendazra followed, now behind her. "Chaya will be there," Adia said, softly, tugging on the side of her hood to block the light from the river. "She has been working for so very long to put the pieces in place." "Be... where?" Vendazra asked. Now out of Adia's field of view, she reached into her robes again for her knife, fastened at her hip. Such a small oversight, allowing her to fall behind! And with that wand... Well. It was safe to say that instrumenting her revenge upon Kantida would be a simple matter. "At Zokipolla, of course. I am sure you Alesteans think of it as nothing more than a mining city, but it is a place we hold in much higher esteem. Do you know the story of how it was founded?" Adia turned about, prompting Vendazra to hide her dagger behind herself. "No," replied the elder, hurriedly, "I was not aware that it had a story to know." Adia smiled gently, and gestured, indicating that Vendazra ought to walk in front of her. Silently, Vendazra cursed, and acceded. "That is not surprising, even with your remarkable access to banned works," Adia said. "Nearly ten millennia ago, two of your empresses—Sampo III and Tevopina—betrayed the state cult and fortified themselves at the city in the mountains. They and their followers were not allied with Kevrosampa, at least not formally, but much of what they believed aligned with our modern orthodoxy." "Ah," said Vendazra, "you must be mistaken. There was no third Sampo, only she called Berisampo, the False Haven. I have heard of Tevopina. I believe their fateful last stand occurred at a mere mountain camp, not so infamous a place as Petty Peak." "Yes, well—chronicles writ by mortal hand are rarely devoid of mortal passion. She was coronated as Sampo III, of the ancient house of Haidtuo, that same house that gave us Glemea, the first Matriarch of the Lilitai. Political rhetoric has not been kind to her reputation, nor to her story." "Hmm. I shall grant you that much. What is it you intend to at Zokipolla with this... Chaya, you said?" "Yes, that is her name," Adia replied, following Vendazra as she climbed over a large root. "Well, it is the name she has taken now." "Chiya, Chaya, Chai, Chayea... Not a very original name, is it," said the Senator, patting her robes clean of little bits of wet bark and moss that had stuck to them. "I suppose next you'll tell me Zokipolla is really called Chayanipolla and we've had it wrong all this time. Do you have 'Chiya' hidden in your own name somewhere, perhaps?" Adia rolled her eyes and gestured forward with her wand-hand, the other still occupied with shielding her gaze from the dim sparkling of the water. "No; my full issue is Adia Tkezgida Stillanivia." "Stillanivia? One possessed by the goddesses? Your little empty-head episodes qualify you as an oracle?" Adia said nothing. For a moment, Vendazra considered apologising, if for no other reason than to save herself from the tedium of more silence. But the young woman finally spoke before Vendazra found the humility to do so. "I suppose you might have known Chaya, at least in passing. Her personal name is Deztra, of the Kazarli Dashron." "Why does that name seem so familiar..." muttered Vendazra. "That was the house of Klito XIX, obviously. It seems like her restoration was just yesterday, and already I find myself forgetting who was there." "I think some things are easier to remember if you study them from a book rather than if you live through them," Adia mused. "The cyclical nature of history does not much abet fine distinctions. Yes, Empress Klito was originally of the Alestidi, the Fzela faction that allied itself with the Koraktidi. Although many of your esteemed former peers continued to use their old house names, technically the Alestidi and Koraktidi merged. Daughters born between the two often end up named after the union: the Trust of Dashro." Vendazra frowned, thoughtfully, and bowed her head in deference, though not respect. "You know a remarkable amount about genealogy, Adia. I did not think a Sarthian would care for such minutiae." Adia lowered her head too, although in this case it was flushed with embarrassment. "The War of Inheritance affected all of Wanisin, not just the Empire. Cities were razed, armies were strewn to the darkest, furthest corners of the world. And..." she trailed off. "And..." Vendazra continued for her, "you happened to spend quite a lot of time with this woman Deztra, is that it?" Adia lowered her head even further. "Years and years, Legate. She used to be the police chief of your city, of Chekroba. When Klito lay dying, in her commander's tent outside Dumal-Keta, she ordered her Minister of Power to purge all that would stand in the way of the new Empress Tamaksia. Evidently that meant Klito's own youngest niece. Chaya did as anyone would, and fled. We found her at the foot of our temple... and a deep, mutual understanding followed soon after." "Ah, now that you put it that way... I think I might have met her once. A very angry woman. Almost... too angry. But are you saying she made it all the way across the world to Kevrosampa? I find that a little hard to believe." Adia turned her head away. "I've never been to Kevrosampa. We are the Eastern Sarthians. There are enclaves of us, here and there, in the wilderness all across these continents—a little like the Valansi, but not as..." "Primitive?" Vendazra offered. "Misguided," Adia suggested. "I suppose I can agree with that. For all your faults, you, at least, do not worship the Den-Keti. Our theological schism is nothing compared to beliefs founded on such an execrable abomination." Adia inclined her head. "I do not know that word—Den-Keti. What does it mean? Does it have something to do with Dumal-Keta?" Vendazra placed a hand on Adia's chest. "Tha-tha," she whispered, hushing the young priestess. "Do you hear that racket? It is a kvinga, agitated. Perhaps two." Adia frowned, and the two crouched. Beyond the nearest copse, just beside the river, was a clearing. "I see bodies," Adia whispered. "Two of them." "Careful. Look, don't move. Whatever or whoever killed them can't have gone far," Vendazra replied. "What is that glow?" Adia asked, peering under the bushes to get a better view. "I am not sure I want to know," Vendazra said.10 Unbelievable Myths About The Philosophy Of Freddie Nietzsche (10K SUBSCRIBER SPECIAL) by "Professor" Anvs Mvnch
Bulls and Freemartins
Though it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, Zem felt like she had spent years and years preparing for this suicide mission to Wanisin. She was in Signals Intelligence, after all, at the very forefront of efforts to monitor and analyse the Wanisinese. Barely a dozen people knew the language and culture as well as she did, in a department of thousands of Sensitive Affairs experts. This background had allowed her to make sure that Vandal and Tris were well-prepared for the mission by explaining to them, thoroughly, just how abnormal the Wanisinese perspective on gender and sexuality was. Perhaps parts of her explanation had been hyperbole. At worst, such overpreparation would result in one or two remarks that would come across as blithely tactless—the sort of social misconduct most aliens expect from the Hatel. It would probably be inconsequential. By the time the nirezo carrying Zem arrived at the army camp, she had decided that no, her work in Signals was woefully inadequate to prepare her for the situation on the ground and that, most likely, the overly generous descriptions she had given to keep Tris's attention were probably much closer to the mark than she had realised. The 78th Atva—the regiment to which the glider vehicle belonged—had just finished setting up for the evening, and already the majority of the soldiers were engaged in recreational activities. It was the first time she had seen a large number of Wanisinese up close, and the first opportunity she'd had to witness more than the scanty, surfactual cultural self-portrait that came through over radio transmissions. In the middle of the camp tents, a crowd had gathered, surrounding two ekeli soldiers half-stripped and covered in bloody cuts. From the discarded knives nearby, glinting in the sunlight, Zem concluded that there had been a duel, and as one of the women was now straddling the face of the other, it had not ended in a draw. Eventually the victor stood, arms held high, and then spat in the face of the vanquished. Cheers erupted amid the front rows of the crowd, and two sets of brightly-coloured cords were conferred onto the victor by a bystander. Slowly the crowd began to disperse, with many of its constituents taking the opportunity to walk past the dazed woman on the ground, smacking her between the legs with the flats of their tails with a jockish, locker-room casualness. To Zem, the most alarming sight of all this was the colouration of the cords dispensed: the women had apparently just fought for the rank of apero, and would be responsible for an entire galo, a battalion of more than four hundred ekeli and hadali. This was a quarter of the entire camp. Maybe Tris and Vandal had raised a valid point when they'd accused her of being a desk jockey, but it seemed to her quite absurd that this sort of abusive ritual should play a part in deciding who would be the best commander in a life-or-death situation. Before she could ruminate on this any further, Gigo, the hadal woman who had held her since she was first 'confiscated' from Tris and Vandal, yanked Zem off the vehicle. Gigo seemed to have already formed a few opinions about Zem, though Zem herself had found the woman and her crooked smile rather hard to evaluate in return. Simply, she lacked context in which to place the woman. "Look, doll," Gigo said, "whatever sheltered little hidey-hole your old friends kept you in, it's over. You're public now, just like the rest of your kind. You'd better rip that bandage off now so it doesn't overwhelm you later." Already she was leading Zem by the wrist, having unloaded the nirezo with her other arm while Zem was distracted by the duel. "What... what kind is that?" Zem asked, as if she didn't know. Gigo's gruff chuckle was kinder than expected, but it wasn't accompanied by a reply. Past the officers' tents, the mess, and the tents of the enlisted ekeli they went. Somewhere, the click-clack of an old jeleto hummed along beneath the feet of a particularly vain signals officer, pacing as she spoke offhandedly to her disheveled hadal aide. With each step away from the camp's front, green faces became more common, though it wasn't until they were beyond the ekela barracks that Zem could appreciate just how segregated the Atva actually was. The large majority of soldiers in the 78th were aliens—her people, kidnapped, enslaved, and made to fight pointless wars of rebellion and suppression between rival city-states, all the while living in ignorance and poverty on this accursed swamp-planet. If the rest of the Ministry of Power's regiments were like this, then it commanded more stolen Hatel than ten times the capacity of the Astroturfer, and at least thirty times the ship's regular occupancy. Her work had not prepared her for the astonishing scope of the failure of her predecessors. Their goal was supposed to be to remove Hatel influence from Wanisin; now, the problem was a million times worse, and that was just a rough estimate of the number of people in fighting roles. At the back of the camp, as they drew toward the large, dirty communal tent that housed Gigo's company, it was clear to Zem that something was off about the hadali. She noticed it first out of her peripheral vision: some of them were moving oddly. She had to think about it for a few moments before she knew what it was, and a few seconds later the word came to her: limping. They had muscle damage, and permanent damage at that. The Hatel didn't get muscle damage. Indeed, as they entered through the tent flap and a wash of warm, humid, flesh-scented air came over them, she could see among the many bodies in their makeshift bunks—and in the makeshift bunks of others—that there was a wide variety of injury on display. Scars, lacerations, burn marks, missing hair, arms in slings, missing bits of ears, and even a few eyepatches and plaster casts. Very occasionally such signs of ill health were fashionable, but this was clearly no place for a costume party. As Gigo hauled Zem onto her bunk and forced the slave's head down between her legs, Zem concluded that Gigo's missing teeth were probably not a matter of affectation, either. So, growing giants was not the only outrage that the Wanisinese had visited upon the Hatel genome—somewhere between all the inbreeding and the nationalistic craving for superiority, their regenerative abilities had been corrupted until they were little better than vanilla humans. What was next? Infectious diseases? Tooth decay? Bad eyesight? Her glasses were in the way. She took them off and folded them, hanging them on an arm from her collar. This was ridiculous. After a few minutes of obediently pushing her tongue as far up those dark green nethers as it could comfortably go, listening to the moans and groans of the densely-packed barracks (and finding herself annoyed there were no conversations to listen to), Gigo's coarse palm suddenly pushed Zem's forehead away. All of the sound in the tent rapidly came to a stop, and once the Major redonned her glasses it was apparent they were all keenly listening for something, though probably not as well as she could. A series of five sinusoidal, xylophone-like notes played, from somewhere far off, and a voice that sounded remarkably like a young woman trying to imitate an elderly man spoke a series of numbers. "Eleven. Forty-nine. One hundred six. Five. Eleven. Twelve. Thirty-eight. Six hundred twenty-four. Eight hundred three. One hundred two. Seven. Forty-four. Seventy-one. Two." The tones then repeated. "What did she say?" asked someone. His Wanisini was terrible; all the consonants sounded like they were jumbled together. It was a little like her own Roshagil accent, but there was definitely some other regional dialect that Zem had never heard before. "Eleven... forty-five, I think," said a woman. "Receiver's too far away to get a good ear on it." "Eh. Shame. Nothing to do with us, though. Say, d'y'reckon she's got pretty ears?" said someone else. "Who, the eleven forty-five? Yeah, probably a whole necklace of ’em!" The tent burst out laughing. "Actually," said Zem, tentatively, "It was an eleven forty-nine." The Astroturfer had recorded thousands of these coded alerts over the years, but they had proven impossible to decipher owing to the difficulty of obtaining relevant contextual information. Even if they had the plaintext of an entire message, it was almost certain that the codebooks were changed too frequently for a useful glimpse into the Empire's security. But she was still curious. "Nice talkin', girl!" said the first man. "You sound all posh and proper! Here for punishment, aye?" Her nose was still hovering an inch or so from Gigo's unshaven nethers, and there were dozens of total strangers in the room, but only now did the heat of embarrassment wash over her. "N... no, just... here..." she mumbled, trailing off. It garnered a few chuckles. "If you heard it so good, then what was the rest of it, eh? Come on, let's have it, sitema vogessa." "Oh, I'm not an officer in the—" she stammered. "Yeah, your big fat green ass was a dead giveaway," came the retort. "Go on, give us the numbers, love." Zem twisted up her face, and looked up toward Gigo's. She was as perplexed and curious as everyone else, although no one looks terribly composed when looking straight down. After a moment, Zem related the numbers. The person who had made the remark about pretty ears translated them as she went. "Fugitive. Diroteksa. Theft of state property. Kelonra. Westbound. Accomplices. Armed. Zokipolla. Third Vomuda. Order of Urava. Support. Apprehend. No lethal force. By decree of Minister Famea." Someone whistled. "Good mem'ry." "Definitely sounds like it's our problem," said someone new. "The head of a noble house smuggling something to Zeepo? Right before a big rebellion? That's shit luck. That's a bigly cursed bit of shit luck. That's a once-in-a-thousand-years tier of shit luck. Don't you all know the legends about that shit town? The traitor Empresses? Fuck, what are we supposed to do there?" "Farewell orgy?" "We won't be there for another week yet!" "Hah! Don't be so sour. There's a good lad. Into daddy's mouth, now." As Gigo pushed her back down, Zem couldn't help but smirk inwardly. The Wanisinese may have wounded their vitality, but the vigour of the hadali remained unmistakable.Observer
They spoke in their own uncouth tongue. That was fine with Teza, who neither particularly cared what they had to say nor felt like talking, as her jaw was swollen half shut. She hadn't lost any teeth. That was fortunate. After nearly an hour of anxious bickering, the two aliens had finally resolved to continue their mission, and were now searching for a way inside the hill. She had mostly stayed quiet, wordlessly enduring a barrage of blame and guilt spewing forth from the voices in her head. The thought of fleeing with their floating boat had gone as the pilot's nirezo vanished from sight, as it was unlikely she could even make it to the vehicle before them. And, so, without so much as a murmur in complaint, she was now the hostage of the two remaining Hatel. Idly, she wondered what they were talking about. Now they seemed to be no less dedicated to their work than they had been before the loss of their supposed leader. One of them must have articulated some profound idea, surely, to have overcome such a blow to their morale. "But how can they all be gay?" asked Tris. She and Vandal were now inching along the outside of the hill, looking for anything that might be a button, switch, or lever: some sort of back-up mode of entry in case the station's photo-electronic door-opening mechanism failed. "I mean, really. I know it was a stretch for the Lilitai to make it a few generations without cock, but this is, what, their calendar is in the thirteenth millennium now? That's crazy." Vandal shrugged, shaking his head. He found himself slightly more comfortable talking about sex when Zem wasn't around, even though Teza was no more than a couple of paces away. "I'm pretty sure it's been a lot longer than that. They were in space for five hundred years and captive for... tens of thousands of years before that, always without men." Tris paused and took a step back from the rock face, looking it over, wondering if she was perhaps missing some pattern in the stone that could suggest a more complex entry mechanism—say, two buttons. "That just raises further questions. I bet Zem would know, though." His response to this was to just jerk a thumb over his shoulder, to where Teza was sitting. "Well, she's not here. Why don't you go practice your Wanisini? I'm sure she knows." Tris spent a few more seconds making an effort to at least look as though she was making progress in finding the way in before finally yielding to the rough grey rock. She turned about to look at Teza. "So! Blue... girl..." she began. Teza looked up. So far, so good. "I want you which tells me." Teza shut her eyes for a moment and shook her head, a gesture she had seen the Hatel use when they were frustrated. How could a grown woman be so clumsy with words? Then again, she supposed she'd never tried to learn another language herself, so perhaps it wasn't her place to judge. Especially not a green-skin. One had to be patient with them. Or did one? These three seemed to have rather better coordination than she expected of hadali. Indeed, better than some Viradi. The male snickered. Teza raised her hand to interrupt, although Tris wasn't speaking. Very slowly, she said: "I want," and gestured at Tris until she repeated the words. "That you tell..." Again, Tris repeated the words. "Something to me." "I want that you tell something to me?" Tris said, putting the sentence together. (It was, despite appearances in this translation, grammatically correct.) "Good," said Teza. "Good," repeated Tris. "No, no, stop now. Good," said Teza, turning her nose to the side. "Now: what do you want?" "What do..." Tris realized this a question she was supposed to answer. "Oh! Okay. Okay." Again, she spoke slowly. "You," and she gestured widely, to indicate the whole planet, "have none of..." What was the word for 'man'? Fuck. She pointed at Vandal. "Tebido?" offered Teza. "Tebido, okay. You have no tebidi. How?" "How?" asked Teza. She turned her head away again, although this time it was tilted to the side, more confused than dissenting. "How do we have no males?" "Yes," said Tris. "How do you have no males?" Vandal, who had now improvised a hammer and had one ear up against the rock, listening for echoes that might suggest a hollow interior, said, "I don't think that's the question you were trying to ask." Teza looked to Vandal. "What is she asking? We have never had males." Vandal stepped back from the rock and wiped some lichen off his forehead and cheek. "She asks... how the ekeli complete their needs of emotion without men. It is strange to her that loving only women satisfies all of you." Some of his grammar was shaky, but Teza was confident she understood what he had said. She lowered her head in acknowledgement, and thought about a response. Her cheeks began to blush purple as she remembered her not-so-discreet tryst with Demesen Kaad. Yes, she knew something of what it was like to spend time with the coarser sex. More than most of her race did, certainly. "Sorry," said Vandal, thinking she was merely being shy, "We did not intend to offend you." Teza looked up at Vandal and smiled, lifting her hand again to interrupt. "I assure you that I am not offended. Your species has female lovers of women, correct? The other one and the slave?" "Yes," said Vandal, "Well. Tris has... male parts. But we do have..." He struggled for the words. "Female lovers of women?" "Oh," said Teza, eyeing Tris's crotch speculatively as the Captain turned back to the rock face. She hadn't guessed. Tris's figure was well-toned, but much slimmer than Jin, who until now had been Teza's only point of reference for such anatomy. The difference was surprising. "Well. Not all ekeli are the same. Most upper-caste women are actually very... masculine, much moreso than that nirezo pilot. In fact, before we left Illera... Ah, you know about Illera! Good. Before we left Illera, there were four kinds of ekela. Much effort was devoted to the philosophy of partnerships." Vandal interpreted this for Tris, having comprehended perhaps half of it. "I believe their entire society is built on penis envy," he said. A small metallic click, like a pocket-watch being wound, punctuated the conversation. The ground rumbled for a moment, and a section of the rock vanished: a rectangle with rounded corners, the size of a door. The walls of smooth rock continued for perhaps a meter or so, before it abruptly stopped against a sheet of pure darkness. "That makes sense," Tris responded, staring into the entryway. Her voice echoed, suggesting the space inside was immense, possibly larger than the hill should have been able to contain. Air flowed out of it, air that smelled ever so faintly of limonene. Vandal and Teza joined her at the aperture, peering in with unabashed gawkishness. "It's dark," said Teza. "Did you see a light switch, Tris?" asked Vandal. "A... what? Is that some Earth thing?" She had flipped open the back end of her sidearm and was unlocking the power cell from it. They were designed to be used as light sources in case of emergency. She'd never done it before, but she'd seen another commando do it once while his leg was amputated, so how hard could it be? All she had to do was unscrew the little cap on the end and switch around two little... In the span of a breath, the three of them saw the interior of the hill, fully illuminated. Every surface they could see within was covered with a reflective, polygonal material. It sparkled within the glow of the power cell, forming beautiful, fractal-like patterns of a rich purple out of the bouncing and bent rays that emanated from Tris's hands. "A geode," Vandal breathed. "It's a gigantic geode." The small cylinder shone brightly for all of four seconds, immediately burning itself out. It clattered to the ground. A grunt of pain came from Tris's lips, the sound one expects a bear to make when the metal jaws of a trap close around its leg. The skin and flesh had been burnt off her fingertips, leaving exposed bone. Vandal and Teza staggered backward, half shocked by the cave interior, half shocked by the sight of Tris's hands. She clutched them to her chest and growled in agony, breathing heavily through clenched teeth. "Where are you going?!" Teza cried. Vandal had sped off into the sodden ground, toward the water. "To get the medkit!" he replied. "Stay there!" Unfortunately, he said this in Roshagil. Teza bounded after him, her wings billowing behind her like sails. Left alone, Tris sank to her knees, her hands still held tightly. She tried not to think about Zem."Hold still! It won't go on properly if you keep fidgeting like that!" "It's so cold. Why is it so cold, Lieutenant?!" "Oh, you big fucking baby. They're only fingers." "What?! You've never lost fingers!" The three of them knelt at the entrance to the hill. Vandal held a small white tube of clear paste in one hand, and Tris's right hand in the other. Meticulously, he was painting over the burned area with the tip. Teza watched from the side, her dark eyes large and observant. This was totally unlike any medical procedure she'd ever seen or heard of, and her sense of curiosity had ever so slightly pried her out of her figurative shell. "And that... that will fix her hands?" Teza asked. "Yes," said Vandal. "Unless she keeps squirming." In Roshagil, he added, "Haven't you done this dozens of times before, Tris?" The Captain groaned again, in discomfort. Her legs shifted back and forth, scuffing the heels of her boots against the now-exposed rock. "Yeah, but usually not when things were this fucking hopeless!" Vandal finished applying the gel and began to wrap simple white bandages around Tris's fingertips. They stretched a little to better fit around the flesh, and then shrank in place, forming a smooth, wrinkle-free exterior while the polymer matrix within regrew new tissue. "There. All done." He shook his head. "And what do you mean, hopeless? We have a guide and a lead. Even if this monitoring station can't find tel Moukarhim, I'm pretty sure it will show us the way to someone or something who can." Tris lifted her right hand gingerly and pressed the palm against her forehead. For a moment she looked like she was on the verge of tears, but a deep breath later, it was all back under control. Zem, she thought. What the fuck were they going to do about Zem? Vandal. What the fuck are we going to do about Zem? None of this made it to her tongue. This was a suicide mission from the very start, Tris. Don't act like you didn't know that. Don't act like there was any real fucking chance of it going off without a hitch. The ship is smarter than that. It knew the odds, it had calculated all the possibilities, in the unfathomable depths of its huge fucking artificial brain. And it had still evaluated this mission as being extremely unlikely to succeed. That smug bitch with the helmet? The giant monster dude? They're the children of the idiots who accepted basically this very fucking mission before you. And now they're trapped. Here. Where the Commonwealth can't even fucking touch them because this planet doesn't even officially fucking exist, and even if it did, that sociopathic cunt has armed these idiot fucking rednecks with so many fucking toys we'd have to probably blow up the whole fucking planet to win a war against them, and that wouldn't exactly be proving anything morally superior, now would it? And that's assuming it even worked, that tel Moukarhim didn't have all the fucking gadgets in the world, or whatever shot our fucking shuttle down didn't decide to just flick the entirety of the Astroturfer out of the fucking sky with its smug fucking Lyran— "Tris? You're hyperventilating. Tris. Tris!" She snapped out of it. Vandal had taken the power cell out of his gun and was now attempting to wire up a light. He was also about to make nearly the same mistake she just had. "Give me that," she grumbled, snatching it out of his hands. Her fingers hurt. Oh, fuck, did they hurt. But she was going to get this fucking light fixed so they could figure out how to fuck over these fucking Lyran fucks and then blow this fucking shithole planet up. Twist, re-lock. Pivot the second jumper around the left pin, pivot the third jumper around the right pin. Ow. Fuck. Ow. Twist, unlock. "And then you just..." A second after Tris had put the cap back on, the cell began to emit light at a dim, steady rate. Relief flooded over her—and a little bit of pride at having taken control of the situation despite her own crisis. "There you are, Lieutenant," she said, handing it back. "Don't fuck with the second jumper. Got it?" He looked at the cell, looked at Tris, and shrugged. "Aye-aye, cap'n." This was followed by a salute. She was a little bewildered, but tried to take it in stride. English was, as has been mentioned, not her strongest suit, and she was sincerely in no mood for games. "Speak coherently. Please." "Yes, Captain." "Good. Thank you." She sighed, looking at the darkness of the cave. Time to get oriented. "Now. Let's fucking get this over with. We find a terminal, figure out what this stupid building does, and determine if secrecy has been breached and the Lyrisclensians are just too fucking smug to tell us. Then we can go get the blue bitch back to her dominatrix and flog them both until we find out where Doctor Cunt is." That felt good, she thought. An image slipped through her mind of her future: decorated, famous, responsible... and stuck behind a desk. Hm. Best not to get too far into this. "Yes, sir. Locate Doctor Cunt, sir," Vandal replied. "Although I'm pretty sure she has a dick, so that may not be the best nickname." They both smirked. Aside from looking over briefly when Tris had started to panic, Teza had lost interest in the antics of the two green-skins after the bandages were applied. She was looking up at the bare branches of a white-barked tree, already prepared for winter. It bore an unnerving resemblance to a fleshless hand. "What's she looking at?" asked Lotane. "I think she's finally lost it," lamented Soveme. "What an ugly plant," said Lotane. "Someone should chop it down." Teza continued to stare at the tree, if only to spite the voices in her head. It was not unknown for Sabi who maintained the old beliefs to find omens in such things. Vendazra would sometimes point out objects and events around Chekroba while they road in carriage, noting the symbol and what ridiculous conclusions might be drawn from it. Walking past that statue without rubbing its head? Disease. That fountain the slaves and peasants avoided? Drinking from it would invite Mekka to curse even the most faithful lover in retribution for adultery. Even some streets had associated myths. Much of Vendazra's early career as a preacher had been in service to the suppression of such superstitions, which had grown while her predecessor's attention was on the civil war in the capital. If this tree had a story, surely it would be a portent of death. Perhaps that was why the other hadal had been dragged off. Perhaps she would never see her friends again. Or perhaps worse fates lay in store for Teza and the two remaining hadali. A bright purple glare struck Teza from the periphery of her vision, casting strange patterns across her eyes. She stared at them for a moment, inspecting the swirling shapes that lay within her own head and twisted in odd spirals. The last time her sickness had manifested, when Lotane, Soveme, and half a dozen other voices were crisply clear, she had also seen strange shapes, as if her eyes were struggling to attend to reality just as much as her ears. The visual hallucinations were minor compared to the auditory intrusions, however, and while she'd confessed to hearing voices to Vendazra soon after their first appearance, the anomalies of sight went unmentioned. She followed the glare back to its origin: the entryway to the hill. Tris and Vandal had stepped inside, exposing the interior crystalline structure of zimillapya, amethyst. Teza stood up to get a better look, and soon drew close to the entrance as well. The organization of the crystals was not as random as it had seemed in the moments during which Tris's power cell had illuminated the cavern's interior. Rather, the complexity of the interior layout had played perspective tricks on their eyes; a Y-shaped intersection stood before them, with intricate spiral arrangements occupying every free surface. In the middle of this intersection stood a pillar of rock, itself covered in crystalline growths that jutted upward slightly. The floor beneath it all remained perfectly flat and smooth. "This is how the Lyrisclensiae design their ground installations?" pondered Tris. "How are you supposed to move around in it without cutting yourself?" "No," said Vandal, stepping forward. "This is the interior of a computer. Every single crystal in here is nearly hollow, filled with nanoscale optical circuits. Feel how dry the air is? That's to stop the crystals from growing. This structure probably contains as much processing power as the Psyche of a Messier-class." Teza could make sense of none of this, other than general indications from the tone of Tris's voice that she was confused by their surroundings, and the male green-skin, whose name she still did not really know, was explaining them. She found it curious how he had become so technically competent once the slave was confiscated, but only in the sense that she might find it curious how one noble's dress had an extra button than another's at a party she wished to escape from. "Fucking show-offs," Tris grumbled. "So how are we supposed to interact with it? Voice?" "Maybe. There's probably a console here somewhere. The Lyrans love keyboards and pens like we love..." "Fucking?" Tris suggested. "More like Halloween," Vandal said. "It's older than dirt, totally irrelevant, and nothing in all the stars will ever make us give it up." "...Two of those apply to fucking." "Sure," he replied, shrugging. He stepped toward the pillar in the middle and began examining the crystals protruding from it, searching for one that stood out. This strategy had worked to get into the cavern, so presumably it would work to find the actual interface. Years and years ago, when he had doted on that Lyran girl but never really got anywhere with her, she had explained to him how to use these kinds of machines—one of the crystals would have a squat shape with a pentagonal base—or was it octagonal? Aha. That looked like it could be it. He pressed his fingers firmly against an octagonal crystal set at about waist height. The interior of the monitoring station was flooded with light, emitted from hundreds of crystals along the top edges of the walls. Vandal nodded in satisfaction, and disabled the power cell light. Now that the building was illuminating itself, there was no need to drain the cell; he slipped it back into his gun, which cheerfully beeped that it was still almost fully charged. A minute later, nothing else had happened. "I get it now," Tris said. "Get what?" asked Vandal. "Light switch. You switched on the light." Vandal sighed. "Yes. That's what a light switch is." "I thought it was for reconfiguring lights or something." "Yes, I can see how that might be confusing." "They were common on Earth?" "Very common." Teza was staring at a crystal just above eye level. It seemed to have blurry pink and white bands on it, unlike all the others. It was also curiously oblong in shape, being quite wide along one of its axes. None of this had been visible from the corridor they had used to approach the centre of the chamber. "Space man, what is this?" she asked, beckoning Vandal closer. "Hmm. Strange," Vandal replied, peering at it. "There is an image in there... poor quality..." The lights suddenly shut off. Vandal and Teza turned around to see that Tris had pressed the button again. Dimly illuminated in the weak light coming from outside, the others could just make out that she was gesturing for them to look back at the odd protrusion that Teza had found. It was a projector screen. The pink bands were actually lines of text; like many modern languages, Glissia was written from left to right in horizontal fashion, but peculiarly the letters were drawn around a single long stem line, interrupted only by vowels, so it looked somewhat as if each word had been struck out. "What does it say?" asked Teza. "I do not know," Vandal replied, first in Roshagil, and then in Wanisini. "It isn't Glissia." Tris pursed her lips, leaning forward. "It looks like Glissia." Vandal shook his head. "It's not. The writing system is where the similarity stops. See this part here?" He touched his finger to a segment of text that was in a cartouche. It flashed twice, and the image on the screen was replaced with a jumble of pink concentric bezier curves. A smattering of white dots picked out various points on the diagram, apparently at random. "Vandal, you're a genius," Tris breathed. "That's a map!" "Yes, I can see that, Tris," he replied. "But I don't recognise this geography even slightly. We could be looking at the output of a fingerprint scanner for all I know. A really bad one." Teza pointed up at it with a single dark blue, claw-like nail. As Tris and Vandal were still talking in Roshagil, she could not be certain that she was providing novel information, but the compulsion to be helpful took her. "These are mountains," she said, indicating a band of irregular rings on the right side of the image. "It is oriented southward." She had never seen a topographical map before, but there was something in the arrangement of the objects that made her certain that this was indeed some sort of cartographic display. "Hmm. Clever, clever. I see it now." Vandal crossed his arms, tilting his head slightly, as if the change in perspective might make the image more legible. "So there's the river... and this dot here must be where we are now." He indicated a spot exactly in the middle of the image. "Oh come on, that was obvious," muttered Tris. "What else would the map be centred on?" The three of them stood in silence for some minutes, attempting to decipher the vagaries of the graphic. There was some sort of system of icons in use to distinguish the dozen or so landmarks on the screen, but as to what those shapes might mean—aside from the dot used for the outpost they were currently in, and perhaps two others—remained unintelligible. "You should probably try touching it again, space man," Teza said. Vandal shrugged and did so, picking one of the icons in the mountains and tapping it gently. The map's perspective shifted, enlarging the area around that icon until little else was visible. While the object itself continued to be represented only by that icon, the ground around it was now shown in so much detail that it was clear there was some form of severe erosion around the landmark, as if the mountainside around it was slowly crumbling underneath the object itself. Or... "It's a crash site," Tris said. "It's a crash site!" "What did she just say?" asked Teza. "Tris says a space ship... fell," he explained, stumbling around the words. "It must have been moving very quickly." "Ah. Your mysterious other invaders?" Teza asked. Zem had attempted to brief her on their suspicions of Lyran involvement when they were preparing the riverboat, but as far as Teza knew, there was no historical record of aliens landing on Wanisin—other than the numerous invasion attempts by the Commonwealth, which Zem naturally insisted weren't invasion attempts. Evidently the historical record had been emended to say otherwise, and what was the word of a green-skin slave against such prestigious scholars? "Yes. Them," he replied. "The same people who built the structure in which we stand." "Vandal," said Tris, "that wreck, or at least the crater, should be clearly visible from orbit. Wouldn't Zem have known about it?" He nodded slowly. "That's a good point. They must be hiding it somehow. Probably the same holographic junk that hid the door to this place." "That must take a lot of energy, though, right?" she continued. "Where are you going with this, Tris?" he said. "I don't think that crater just has some rusty old wreck in it. Keeping it hidden must be incredibly expensive. I bet they still use it for something." "I think you put too much stock in your intuition," Vandal said, shaking his head. "For thousands of years, the Lyrans have had such efficient power systems that they think nothing of stuff like that. They could have hidden it when the Lilitai arrived and ignored it ever since." Teza perked up at the mention of Lilitai, and not in a good way. "Why do you mention the Others, space man?" "Eté; I meant to speak of the ekeli, of your people; I beg your forgiveness." "Ah. Very well," Teza frowned, still inspecting the image. "It is quite close to Zokipolla, this fallen vessel. One is inclined to wonder how it has avoided detection, to say nothing of a cave-in brought about by the mining beneath. Is there no more detailed image available of it?" There was a line of cartouches along the top of the screen, and so Vandal started pressing buttons. The first one returned the projection to the original view; he returned to the map, and the focus on the crash site. The second one appeared to be some sort of network schematic, indicating lines connecting all of the landmarks visible on the map. Much as Tris had theorized, the crash site was a major hub. "That settles it. It has to be populated," said Tris. "Whatever this is—power, intel, re-runs of sitcoms—there's no way they'd leave such an important site unstaffed." "If there's a population at all," Vandal mused. "Well, we'll just have to go there and find out, won't we? C'mon. The river can take us all the way to the foothills." Tris pivoted, intending to leave. "Not so fast," said Vandal. "There are a few more buttons here. Maybe we can find their other population centres or something." The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth buttons were uninformative; they simply produced screenfuls of text that no one could interpret. The seventh and final button, however, showed some sort of heat map, with areas of activity being brighter than others. There was a limit to its range: the crash site was beyond its reach due to its altitude, but the line of the main road from Chekroba toward Zokipolla was clearly visible, like a series of white candles originating from a large, dense blob which seemed to be Chekroba itself, down in the warm, jungle-like valley it occupied. Other clusters were visible, scattered throughout the wetlands—lesser settlements, perhaps. "Is that... a people tracker?" Tris asked, after some time. "Could we use it to find Zem?" Vandal focused the map in on the outpost, to see what it would depict. It was blank. "Apparently it can't see inside... Oh, wait, there we go." A dot was flashing on and off every time he spoke. "Say something," he remarked, in Wanisini. All three of them babbled, confirming, indeed, that the listening post was quite literally listening. "Why..." Tris started. "Why what?" asked Vandal. "Why would someone want to know when people are talking, but not what they're saying?" "I'm not sure," laughed Vandal. "But whoever they are, they were really interested in it. I doubt we could use this to find Zem given how little information it provides, so... we've probably gone through everything we can get out of this gadget. Let's get going. The trip to the hills should only take a couple of days." Vandal closed the map view, returning the screen to its original console perspective. He and Tris then left the listening post, although Teza lingered for a while, still craning her neck upward, looking for any sort of pattern in the strange letters that might tell her what all of this was for. A line of text appeared in white, flashing, at the bottom. After a few flashes, the speech map opened again, and a pair of lines—one vertical, one horizontal, each bisected the map, meeting in the middle, at the marker representing the outpost. The lines flashed twice, and then the screen returned to its default state. "Curious," she muttered to herself. The effort of moving her jaw was growing unbearable. She grumbled, clutching a cheek. "Are you coming?" called Vandal. "Yes, space man, I will be right there," Teza muttered.
Symbols
A ghoulish blue light shone in the clearing. It was pale and yet monochromatic at the same time, leeching the colour from all that it fell upon. Vendazra caught a direct glimpse of the source, gasped, and threw herself back into the dirt behind the grassy outcropping at the base of the trees. It was only then that she noticed how deteriorated the foliage was—far moreso than one would expect from the mere decay of autumn. All of it, except that which was directly behind the trees, shaded from the glow. "Do you recall what I told you about the Valansi, Sarthian? That they were withered by a power within the rocks?" Adia bowed her head. "Yes, of course. You said they were not contagious," she whispered. "There is no need to be quiet. Come, away from here." Vendazra stood and backed away, using the threshold of the dead plants to guide her steps. Adia soon followed, although she did not understand exactly why Vendazra was examining the ground so closely. "What is it?" Adia asked. "We are not going to investigate?" Vendazra turned her head to the side. "If we do that, we may share their fate. We must hurry away from here at once, as quickly as we can." Adia looked at her seriously for a moment. Vendazra was visibly shaken by what she had observed, her arms folded insecurely. It was quite unlike the prideful noble who had drawn a knife just a few hours earlier, to say nothing of the sulking drunk with whom Adia had shared a carriage. "What did you see?" Adia asked. "A flame, a torch, a... a machine. Or... a rusted metal tube, perhaps. I do not know. I cannot fathom why they excavated it." At this point Vendazra fell silent, and was walking swiftly away from the trees, navigating westward by the rising sun. Adia had no choice but to match the briskness of her pace. "It did not kill the kvingi," said Adia. "I can still hear them." Indeed, their incessant, agitated clicks and moans could be heard for quite some distance, and had not dulled at all. Familiar in passing with the husbandry of such mounts, Vendazra knew these were their cries of alarm and desperation, not of pain. The exile sighed remorsefully. "We can do nothing for those beasts. They are hitched to a sapling. It would certainly preferrable to walking if we could free them, but we would be dead by the time we reached them." Adia held up her wand. "We need only a line of sight." Some minutes later, they had located a nearby mound, the partially-absorbed remains of the roots of a once-great tree, now encircled by small mushrooms. It gave an excellent view of the small camp of the dead ekeli: a mound of dirt, the two earth-scoops they had used to dig up the object, and a stone circle filled with forest debris covered in drying powder—a campfire, not yet lit. The women themselves lay face down, some paces from the camp, as if they had tried to run but were struck down in the midst of doing so. They bore the peculiar fluorescent green tattoos of the Valansi. "Is that adequate?" Vendazra asked. She was bracing a rotten log, upon which Adia stood to get her view. "Yes," replied the oracle. The kvingi were both agile animals: non-chitinous racing beasts, hexapods like their burden-hauling cousins. The distinguishing feature between the two animals—aside from the much thicker exoskeleton of the chitin-covered variety—was that these creatures had extremely long legs, and could tower two or three times a grown ekela's height when standing. Usually, the body was lower to the ground, however, to facilitate a longer stride not unlike the gallop of a horse. As Vendazra had said, they were indeed roped to a small tree with a crude twine, their ovoid bodies resting on the ground. Adia raised the dark rod and breathed deeply. Her eyes were half-shut as she made the artful movements necessary to evoke the intended effect, rather like a conductor's baton. As she exhaled and opened her eyes, she thrust the wand forward gently. Nothing happened. Adia frowned, looking at it. "Strange." "What is the matter, Sarthian? Has your precious false goddess ceased to inhabit the instrument?" "That is not how these devices work," muttered Adia. "The wand continues to function, but it... I am not sure. It is like I am standing in the shadow of a tree, and cannot see the sun." "It is probably the... tube, the artifact. Perhaps from a greater distance," said Vendazra. "Very well," said Adia. The two eventually located a slight rise in the earth which was further away, but still provided adequate view. By then their hands were both covered in soggy flakes of rotten bark and other forest detritus from the effort of scaling (and sometimes failing to scale) various objects and obstacles. Again, Adia performed the motions, and with a small snapping sound, the agitated kvingi rose to their full height, bolted off into the forest. Vendazra sighed. "That was a complete waste of time," she said. Adia didn't respond. "Sarthian?" Vendazra said. The mystic was preoccupied with her wand again, now holding her other hand inside the neck of her robes. As she finished, the thumping of the kvingi's long, thin legs ceased, and the animals began to walk back toward them, at a calmer pace. Vendazra frowned, perplexed. What she had witnessed should not have been possible with that wand. "I am no thaumaturge, but I have never heard of a rasme device capable of coercing minds," Vendazra said. "Where did you get that rod?" "You are correct; this wand is, like all other instruments carved from the black-red stone, limited to producing effects from a pitiful selection." She held the instrument up, inspecting it for signs of wear and tear. "I acquired it at a bazaar in Chekroba, not far from where you once lived. It was necessary to my mission." Vendazra looked to the side briefly, inhaling. "Your mission. Very well. I'm sure you paid a fair price for it, too," she muttered unkindly. If it were true that Adia had acquired it at a street market, then in all likelihood the vendor knew not its worth. "You intend to do what, then—recapture all of Zokipolla, that worthless mining camp you think is really the forgotten fortress city of Sampo the Deceiver?" "I saw it in a vision," Adia said, quietly. By now the kvingi were close enough that the ekeli could see the scars on their backs, big white welts that cut into the glossy, tough hide. "I am sure you place no water in visions, but it happened nevertheless." The exile rolled her eyes. She reached out to one of the great hexapods, touching at one of the injuries. It jerked back in pain, and so did she—the animal's black, ridged exoskeleton was painfully hot to the touch. "How strange!" she exclaimed, clutching her hand. "What?" asked Adia. "It's practically burning! You could boil water on that animal's back," Vendazra replied. "It is fortunate we got them away, then. They must have been baking where they were," replied Adia. Her attention was not much on the matter of the kvingi; they would no doubt cool off soon enough. Her eyes fell upon the mysterious tube-like machine in the distance, and the eerie blue light that came from either end. "Baking? Surely you would not consider eating a kvinga." Vendazra replied. "They are as toxic as a pewter krater." "Of course they are. They were native to Ksreskezo. Everything there lived and breathed within the flux of the forge. It is a saying, Legate," Adia said, wearily. "But that must have been why they were so agitated," Vendazra continued. "Kvingi cannot feel extreme heat; it is to them as an unpleasant noise." "Is there some reason you must lecture me on these banalities, Lady Kevrolla?" Adia asked. "I would much rather wait in silence for the beasts to chill. We still have much travel ahead of us, even if it is possible to rejoin your caravan. Surely you miss your fermented nectar. I believe the third wagon should still be well-stocked. It was when I last checked." Vendazra was about to say something to the effect that Adia ought to mind her own business when it came to the diet of a Hakro, but the last remark seemed out of place. "Why were you inspecting my affects, Sarthian? And when? I do not recall you ever leaving the carriage, not even to make toilet." "At the city gate. I was looking for something important," said Adia. "In the wine stocks?" "Do you not wonder, Lady, how it is that we intend to retake Zokipolla with such a paltry armament as this rasme wand? Among magical instruments it is practically a child's toy. It can perform only a handful of tricks, none deadlier than the power found in a typical laser carbine. It is not even an haspani sarthezria, what you might call a quill of power. Rasme devices are only imbued with the powers that greater thaumatologists have chosen for them. No," Adia said, "in my visions it is not the means of Zokipolla's liberation." Indeed, the other kind of magical device—what Adia had described rather clumsily as a 'quill of power'—was comprised of a different and altogether much rarer mineral, eponoppi lapa. It was a form of jade found only in the depths of the Great Dusty Maw, the huge bowl-shaped desert upon which the Kingdom of Independent Kelonra had grown rich. Correctly carved and shaped, such gemstones held supposedly limitless capacity to alter the world. The Empire had long outlawed these tools, and threatened Kelonra with trade embargoes if any more of the resource was extracted from the deposits in the depths of the crater. It was said that only the Empress's vaults, the most secretive and secure of all the catacombs beneath the capital, could now be said to possess such unfathomable gifts. Rightly, doctrine feared it. Vendazra had preached countless times, as had her predecessors, that such sorcery was the sole domain of serpents and beetles. Vendazra was not accustomed to thinking of quills of power as real objects. They seemed the stuff of legend and myth, and, like so many of the texts she had read, their very existence was sometimes forbidden knowledge. But after the up-ending of centuries of the comforts of her life, and in the company of this peculiar girl, the burden of adaptation was much upon her. She recalled a thought that had come to her in the bath one night, perhaps a hundred years ago: if the quills of power were real, surely the Sarthians would have used them to destroy the Empire. If that was not proof of their non-existence, what kept them from doing so? Did they, too, fear such weapons? "Sarthian," the pale woman said, "If you mean to wield a jade quill to conquer such a small thing as Zokipolla, a mere monument to a forgotten past, then surely you would be transgressing some edict of your own elders against such awful means of manifesting your will." "No," chuckled Adia. "I would not do something so reckless. However, one might say I have powers even greater than untying the threads of reality." She had approached one of the kvingi and, feeling that its body was now safe to touch, was gently coaxing it into letting her ride. This was accomplished by rubbing her fingers against its mandibles, so that it could acclimate to her scent. Vendazra followed suit. But her eyebrow twitched. "I am far too sober to entertain your paradoxes, Sarthian." "Symbols can have tremendous strength," said Adia, "even those nearly forgotten." "A symbol? What symbol?" "Your rival—Senator Ganshida, was it? You said her name so many times in your sleep I am not sure if you were slurring from the wine—never expected you to escape Chekroba. She made certain that it was placed among your things by the time you reached the gates. The guards were, I think, under specific orders to recover it, and arrest you. She is a fool, this Ganshida woman. She had no idea we were watching." "Enough rambling. You will tell me what it is, now, girl, or my dagger will drink from your throat before you can so much as flick that baton of yours. It is not news to me that Mutza Kantida would plant evidence to frame others for her own ambitions. And you say you have taken it? What did you steal, you precocious little thief?" Adia was unfazed. "When you see it, you will know it. Now is not the time." Vendazra fumed. She gripped the pommel of her knife. "I insist, Lady," Adia said, "that you at least partake of some wine, first." Vendazra paused, less sure. "How much?" "Two bottles should be sufficient," Adia said. "That is not very much," Vendazra remarked. "Five, then. But we must hurry if we are to catch up with it, and we certainly do not have time to dally in matters of honour." She indicated Vendazra's knife hand with a slight, jingling gesture. "Very well," said Vendazra, releasing it. "Let us ride."The Survivor
"What a complete fucking shithole." "Huh? Give me the binoculars already." Vandal handed the optical scanner to Tris. With the photosensors tuned to ultraviolet, the immense holographic field covering the crash site was almost completely transparent. Almost two kilometres long from nose to stern, the ship was ovoid in shape, and comprised of many transverse segments—living and cargo modules, mostly—stacked together like a series of pillows. Being as it was jammed between two stony peaks, however, the front half of the ship had folded upward into a sharp V shape, and many of the segments had collapsed under this stress. It bore an uncanny resemblance to a dead caterpillar. "Well, the disguise was clever, at least," she replied. In visible light the crash site was covered in scree, leaving it ostensibly impassible and hence not worth the effort of exploring, particularly as there was a natural plateau already available for easy negotiation of the range. The gouge carved in the terrain by the ship's arrival had been camouflaged, either deliberately or by nature, as an immense, stagnant lake, inhabited only by the hardiest of lichens that could endure the fetid, acidic water—a sorry excuse for an oasis among miles and miles of lifeless, windswept rock. "I can't imagine anyone wanting to come here." "I'm sure that's the idea," replied Vandal. "For all we know this could've been the nicest spot in the mountains until the Lyrans landed and decided against attracting attention to themselves." "That's what I'd do, yeah," said Tris. She handed the viewer back to Vandal, who tucked it away in a pouch. "Even if I got here first. Not a good idea to give away your position when you're... hurting." "Why the hesitation?" Vandal asked. He had already started climbing down from the small ridge. "Just hard to imagine Lyrans ever being disadvantaged, much less in jeopardy. Fuck, they're barely capable of being incorrect. What the hell took down this ship?" Tris replied, following him. Her hands had largely healed in the day it took them to navigate the rest of the way to the mountains, but her descent was still hampered by soft fingernails and a general soreness. Teza looked back and forth between them, not privy to the conversation. She still stood atop the rocky outcropping they had climbed to get a better view of the vessel, and although she suspected the hand-held device the hadali had put up to their eyes allowed them to determine the location of the craft, she was still unsure as to whether or not they had arrived at their destination. "And why should they tell you?" whispered a familiar voice, nestled up sweetly in her left ear. "It's not like a slave needs to know," agreed the other, in her right ear. The doubts never seemed to be far from the surface of her mind. Since the teal slut had been taken away from the other two, they'd gradually spoken to her less and less, and taken her presence for granted more and more. It had made her feel both like she was expected to wait on them, as a servant, and like they had no need for her. This was a familiar mixture of unpleasant feelings. Unconsciously her posture had become so stiff over the past day that her shoulders had begun to ache—a trained response. Jin and Krem never had to deal with this nonsense. If only she were someone else, somewhere else, and not the handmaiden of... Her eyes fell on the jagged vista that stretched out before her for countless miles, the immense Greater Spine mountain range that split the continent of Northern Kelmefta down the middle. This was somewhere else. She forced herself to relax her back and to slouch slightly. "Space man," she said, "are we yet near the site of the sunken starship?" He opened his pouch and handed her the scanner.Little could have prepared them for the interior of the city-ship. Vandal and Tris were both familiar to some extent with the typical designs of Lyran ship interiors, but the wreck was from an altogether more ancient era. Elaborate floral engravings and friezes clung to every surface of aged and yellowed polymer, often traced by actual foliage that had invaded the hulking wreck in its long history on Wanisin. Straight lines were scarce, as it seemed the architect had exploited every blank spot as a canvas on which to place another fractal-like vine or petal. The sole exception to this was the plane of the floor, which although beautifully patterned was almost entirely flat, aside from being on a two-degree incline. Despite growing up in a palace, Teza had seen few spaces so ornate and so splendid. The ceilings seemed so impossibly high that one might as well not be indoors at all, and she was certain that, despite the squalor of age and ruin, the ship was still a worthy competitor to the finest mansions of the oldest families in the capital. As they walked, her mind drifted to what she knew of heraldry and lineages, and of how brief the fading dynasty of Kevrolla seemed against the backdrop of such a timeless place as this. The earliest moments of her life that she could still visit in her mind were of Opara, Moto's Sabi handmaid, reading to her before bed, and yet that long-lost era was but a moment in the nigh-endless history of these halls. Opara had outlived her Mistress by nearly a century. Vendazra was almost an adult when her mother was laid to rest—as well as already more fond of wine than one ought to be at such an age. At that time, Vendazra's own future valet, Teza, was just entering puberty, and her imagination was at its peak. Even years on, when the threadbare smile of Moto's attendant had begun to fade from memory, the bedtime chronicles stayed with Teza. When the slave was particularly young, Opara would even put on puppet shows for her, using the fine marionettes that Moto had procured a century earlier, for Vendazra. These were among the strongest anchor points in Teza's scattered knowledge of her own youth, and the dramatizations led her to an interest in the noble and ancient profession of acting. Toward the end of her youth, she yearned for a chance to access the thespian craft, and to go to an academy of the arts to do so. That was a preposterous suggestion, Vendazra would say. Teza could not understand why. Much of her upbringing had been like that of any daughter of nobility, or so she thought. Rarely had she been aware of the differences between her childhood and that of anyone else's. She had always seen Vendazra as a sort of older sister, not in the least because of the role Opara had played in the upbringing of both. Her station in life would not be fully imposed upon her until Opara's death. It was a mercy to the crone to not witness the corruption—the consumption of her younger ward. Hundreds of years had passed since then, but Teza could never forget the first time Vendazra seized her. "Are you so sure?" whispered Soveme, right in Teza's ear. "Your mind is ever so fragmented, silly slave. Perhaps Mistress flayed your cunt every single night, and you simply forgot all about it." Teza gritted her teeth. "Space man," she said, her voice echoing. "Precisely how ancient is this craft? It seems endless." "It's not infinitely old, no," he replied, "but it is old enough that nothing of it is recognisable to me. We only really know it's Lyran because of the energy... shape?" Teza was not certain what an energy shape was, but she gathered from his hesitation that the translation was challenging. "At a minimum, then?" "Oh, uh. Eight... maybe nine thousand years. Around the start of the Grand War. I've never seen a ship like this, and that's about the age of the oldest ships still in service." Teza frowned. "The Grand War?" Vandal shrugged. "Do you call it something else here? The war between the Ksreskezaian Empire, the Hogedep and the Tletkettoyi—the, er... the Hokhetepi and the Den-Keti." "No, that is correct," she replied, "But those events happened perhaps twenty-seven millennia ago. Eight thousand years ago was during the Golden Age of Wemnana, our tenth Empress." He sighed. "A different calendar." "Different? You mean to say you keep time with a liturgical calendar?" Vandal was not sure what that was, and so gave no answer. Though the craft's body had largely withstood the test of time, its technology clearly had not. Never did they come across any hint of artificial light, and the only sounds were of dripping water and of the hollow wind of the desolate mountains around them. Against this backdrop was set Vandal's explanation of the difficulties of tracking time for a space-faring civilisation. Lacking the vocabulary however, he omitted the complications of relativistic speeds and branes with abnormal temporal vectors—where time literally moved faster or slower, or even in a different direction within four-dimensional spacetime. Even with Vandal's conservative estimate, the ship must have been at the very end of its operational lifespan when it sank, for it espoused none of the immaculate, geometric crispness prevalent in Lyran designs of the past ten or twenty millennia. At times the organic shapes of its form melded with the invasive Wanisinese foliage so well that the results could be mistaken for the deliberate work of an artist. But even the oldest families on Wanisin, the Geglokidi and the House of Dashro, were dwarfed by the age this place exuded. Tris kept mostly to herself as they walked, lost in thought. Worrying, actually. Not productive thought. "Zem, Zem, Zem," was all she could think of, and the emptiness of the craft only left more room for worrying. Was the girl even still alive? More than a few times she thought she had spotted the letters of Zem's name in the roots of plants, or an alignment of edges, or a pattern of shadows falling across their path. After some three kilometres of walking, the anxiety became unbearable, and she drew in a breath to scream. "What's that?" said Teza. "Hmm?" asked Vandal. "There is a hum," she replied. Tris let out the lungful of air in the form of an exasperated sigh. "I hear it too," she added, inferring Teza's meaning more from context than from her weak grasp of the language. "It must've crept up on us; I didn't notice it until now." "No," said Vandal. "It definitely just started. Something's reacting to our presence." "Or someone," suggested Tris. A crackling sound filled the air, like the erratic sputtering of a chemical fire straining to draw in enough oxygen to fuel itself. It lasted perhaps a second or two, then ended almost as suddenly as it had begun. "Please conjugate the primary copula of your dialect," said a tiny, tinny voice. It said this first in Wanisini, and then in English. "What the fuck," breathed Tris. "Get behind me," she snapped at Vandal and Teza. Instinct took over, and in another instant, her gun was in her hands. She pivoted on her right leg, searching for the source of the noise. Vandal's reaction was more patient and rational, although the horrible racket that heralded the automated message had nearly provoked him to jump out of his skin. Was the message directed at them? "We understand this language," he ventured, speaking in Wanisini. "Translation is not necessary." Silence. "I think you killed it," Tris said, after a few seconds. "What did it want, exactly?" "Grammar lessons, I think." "In Roshagil? To speak to us?" Vandal nodded. Translation algorithms usually worked from so-called "rose" texts, using parallel sentences to seed their models before attempting to generalize to the whole language from context alone. Asking instead for morphological data was strangely direct, but admirable in its own, quaint way. By now Zem would have powerpointed at them on the subject until they were glassy-eyed from the detail. "Lieutenant," said Tris. "Captain?" asked Vandal. "Thank you for not explaining how translators work, Lieutenant," said Tris. "You're welcome, Captain," replied Vandal, though he was still distracted by the subject. Why were they called "rose" texts, exactly? Were the uncertainties considered thorns? He made a mental note to look that up, if they ever got out of here. A point of cerulean light appeared on the black glass of a nearby wall segment. It expounded upon itself, spreading out into a maze-like pattern that soon covered the entire panel, spilling out of the glass and tracing the filigrees and ornaments of the off-white material around it. These lines grew brighter for a few seconds, and then the entire section of wall, some three yards in width, deconstructed itself: the arabesque ornaments retreated as if they were growing in reverse, and then the wall's more concrete elements collapsed away from the centre. If there had been any doubt in their minds that this was a Lyrisclensian ship, that doubt was now erased by the extravagantly unnecessary display of aesthetic elegance it had devoted to the simple act of opening a door. Standing behind it, in the aperture of the small side-corridor, was a very unfamiliar specimen of presumably human descent. The exposed portions of its body—its face and hands—were covered in a thin tawny fur, and indeed it had a distinctively leonine visage, with the lower face forming a slight muzzle and the ears having migrated somewhat high on the skull. Otherwise it wore a white robe, immaculate except for the hem, inlaid ornately with a stripe of black runes that extended up the sides of the neck and, oddly, onto the face. It was also a full head taller than Tris. "Is that a fucking furry?" said Tris. "Hello," said Vandal, slowly. "Hello?" replied the odd creature. Like its figure, its voice seemed to be devoid of any distinguishable gender. There was also a very strong and unfamiliar accent, and Vandal promptly realized it was just mimicking him and had no idea what he had said because it was in Roshagil. "Is this your ship?" he asked, in Wanisini. "It is Enigma," it replied. The sentence was Wanisini, but the word 'Enigma' was not. With arms raised, it gestured to the corridor around them. "It gives us life, here in our cradle. How does it come to be that you speak on behalf of your Mistress, hadal, without her express command?" It looked at Teza, sceptically. "They—" Teza sputtered, and cleared her throat. "They are not mine. They are not anyone's. They are from outer space. Aliens." The leonine figure nodded slowly. It seemed surprised slightly, and took in a lungful of breath. "The myths are true, then. I never thought I would live to see the return of the Helots from beyond the veil of night." Rage descended over Tris. She had long given up trying to follow conversation in Wanisini, but that word, 'Helot,' had a very clear and unmistakable meaning: it was a slur for the Hatel, one only the Lyrans had ever used. As with most slurs, it had a very ugly history and an even uglier origin. It had not been uttered sincerely by anyone living for a very long time. Vandal's arm shot out and held her back. He didn't even turn his head to look at her. "This is not the time, Captain," he said, through gritted teeth. "You miserable fuck," she spat, teeth clenched. "If you pearl-clutching pieces of shit had devoted one iota of fucking effort to enforcing your own—" "Captain," he repeated, more loudly. Tris had slipped under his arm, and he was now holding her back by the collar of her uniform. After another incoherent snarl she shoved Vandal away and stomped off to find somewhere secluded she could release her stress. "That was... unpleasant," said the stranger. Vandal looked askance for a moment, and then shrugged. "She's had a lot on her mind lately. It's not your fault. Not... really." This garnered no response, as if the stranger was unable to comprehend what had just transpired. He tried again. "In truth, we came here in the hope that you could help us. Are you a descendant of the builders of this ship? The Lyrisclensiae of the Trestunarion?" The creature seemed not to know how to respond to this remark, and stared off into the distance for a while, as if the very question had caused discomfort. Observing such behaviour in such an inhuman-looking entity at once unnerved and reassured Vandal, as until that point little outward sign of emotion had manifested, other than what he thought was likely an approximation of surprise. "You speak in riddles and legends," it said, finally. Vandal was bemused, as he thought that his question had been rather direct. "I am not sure what to make of you, Helot. Enigma will know. Enigma always knows. Come." "Er..." said Vandal, gesturing back up the hallway, "We shouldn't leave Tris behind. I'll go get her first." "As you wish," it replied.
Frank Exchange Of Views
"Unbelievable," Serena grumbled. "They have no fucking idea where she is." Mutza held her forehead, her elbow propped up upon a knee. She had been watching the Doctor eat a second blueberry pie out of an aluminium tin for some ten minutes, this time with an odd instrument that was apparently called a 'fork.' Before that, she had made two trips back up to the surface, to inform the crew of the shuttle that had brought her here of Serena's request, and to indicate that she would most likely be here for some time longer. The role of messenger was an unwelcome one. "With all due respect," the Senator said, not entirely sure there really was that much respect due, "the majority of the force marching on Zokipolla consists of conscripts. They are not exactly the most discreet tool. In all likelihood this woman you are so infatuated with was already picked up and is being... passed around, so to speak." Serena pushed the last mouthful of pie into her mouth and shook her head slowly, the fork hanging over her lower lip. A lungful of air came from her nose. A sigh of defeat. "Doctor?" said Mutza. Serena set the fork down on the empty pie tin. It landed next to a slug, which by total happenstance had been among those trapped under the first tin Serena had discarded. That slug proceeded to flee from the room, emitting a high-pitched whine. "You're not really used to being a pawn," Serena said. It was neither phrased nor intoned as a question. Mutza furrowed her brow. "We are all destined to be pegged, as far as the Empress is concerned, Doctor." A deep, throaty laugh came from Serena, including a bit of snorting, which made her cover her mouth. It took her a moment to remember that the Wanisinese played games by hanging little ornaments from wires, rather than by placing figurines on boards. "Oh, you mean hooked on a peg. Yes. Well. For what it's worth, Vennie doesn't share your opinion on that." She stood up and began to pace, nudging slugs out of the way with her feet. The ekela wondered if Serena was aware of the role that she'd played in Vendazra's downfall. Reflecting on it filled her with a mixture of emotions—rage at the theologian's arrogance, delight at her exile, and fear of the consequences of the process she had set in motion. The words came out unevenly. "Senator Kevrolla..." No. Too diplomatic. "She was highly disrespectful of the natural order. Every fibre of her being stood in sin; she was a mockery of the station to which she pretended. You should be pleased that her inconstant morality has been purged. I am." Serena looked up from her pacing and engaged Mutza's gaze directly. The hadal's cheeks never seemed to move, giving her eyes a vacant, even haunted quality. When exactly had she last slept? The green woman continued to maintain eye contact for several seconds, blinked once, and turned away, resuming her walk. "You have a shitty poker face," she said. "A what?" "It's too bad, I suppose. All this fucking work, and I have to tear it all up again." Serena threw her arms upward, as if gesturing to her abode. "And the worst part is, Mushy—" "Mutza." "Mushy, is that Tamaksia and I get along pretty well. I like this little sand castle of a nation-state you have." "Why..." Mutza began to respond, but quickly trailed off, having decided against prying further into the possible motivations that could lead one to build a castle out of sand. Serena took the word anyway. "Why? Okay, I'll tell you why. You idiots keep jerking me around. I don't like the Sarthians. They're not interesting, as far as I'm concerned. They don't understand power. They don't understand control. They don't even have slavery. How am I supposed to get my rocks off on that?" "With a... crane?" Serena chuckled. "Why yes, my cock is that big. Very astute of you." Mutza covered her face. The conversation made no sense. Roosters and stones had nothing to do with one another. "What... what was that about Sarthians?" The doctor shook her head and sighed, disappointed. "I think you heard me just fine, Senator Kantida, and you just don't want to listen. I'm fucking done letting ugly little careerists like you stab your way up the hierarchy. So I'm going to do something about it." Mutza's fingers curled, her knuckles white within her steel gauntlets. She, too, felt that enough was enough. Politics, especially Imperial politics, were a matter of the survival of the fittest. And yet, as she had come closer and closer to the summit of greatness this past day, it seemed rather that schemes of loyalty overruled ambition and worthiness. In a moment she would draw her blade. Serena wasn't paying much attention; she had picked up a small black rectangular device and pointed it at the large video screen in the centre of the room. Every second or so it switched to displaying a new image, which proceeded to animate briefly until it was replaced. This was rather inconsistent with the sophistication of the attention-tracking technology that froze the display whenever the hadal was not looking at it, but it was employed nevertheless. "The Empress may have sent me to you to face your ire in the matter of Kevrolla's downfall," Mutza spat, "but I see that a far more serious injustice has plagued the State, one that begs resolution." "Oh, here we go!" said the doctor, rolling her eyes. The screen had settled on a monochromatic presentation wherein a man with a black blotch above his upper lip and dark rings around his eyes struggled to keep pace with a conveyor belt. The only audio accompaniment was musical. "I bet you'd love to rant about the purity of natural selection right about now," Serena continued. "I've heard it already. Save your breath. You'll need it shortly." "The good doctor speaks the truth, Senator Kantida," said a woman's voice. It was low, and resonant, although not as melodic as Serena's. The hairs on the back of Mutza's neck stood on end. The senator pivoted on a heel to face the source of the speech, and she found her suspicions confirmed. A broad-featured, tan-skinned woman had entered the room, her pockmarked face bearing the faint histories of numerous scars accumulated in the line of duty. Her stature was considerable, too, easily half a head above Mutza, and she wore the scuffed, tarnished armour of a noblewoman with an uncommon easiness. This was no bureaucrat, no careerist. She was as much a Virado as she was a Hakro, a lion of a woman whose energy seemed to radiate through the room. It was no wonder that she had kept law in the city of Chekroba for centuries as the War of Inheritance ravaged the two great noble houses around her. "Kazarlya... Deztra, wasn't it? What an unexpected surprise," said Mutza. "It was my understanding the Minister of Power had you purged quite some time ago." "She did," rumbled the short-haired woman. At her hip she held an honest-to-goodness steel helmet, of the sort that modern ceremonial headdress only mocked. This was no ornament; it was just as battered as the rest of her armour, and evidently shaped to clasp around the curled horns of its owner. "But I've known Famea for a very long time." "Long enough to appease her, I'm sure." "Long enough to survive her." "Curious," said Mutza, taking a step clockwise, away from Serena and toward the open area of the room where she might manoeuvre more readily. She was breathing heavily, but not yet shaking. Adrenaline surged through her fingers. Coolly, she continued to speak. "I don't recall you being so discourteous the last time I met you. A banquet at Apeshutha, was it not? Vendazra had such a splendid display." "You were under surveillance then," Deztra shrugged. Her attitude seemed much less anxious, but no less belligerent. She had changed her stance subtly, spreading her feet to find better stability. "The Minister of Discipline was very interested in your... meteoric rise." "Ah? Interesting," replied Mutza. The women began to circle one another, readying to draw their long knives at a moment's notice. "So during your tenure, the civilian police answered to the Uravidi. Could that be why the Minister of Power decided to rid herself of you?" As many history students learn with considerable surprise, the essence of Wanisin's classical period was the knife duel. One could be forgiven for assuming this culture famed for its cynical liars and manipulators would naturally be given over entirely to assassinations with poisons, and while there is a substantial truth to that, it was not the final form of judgement. It is perhaps even because the Wanisinese were so accustomed to perpetual distortions of chivalry that they saw truth in the crossing of steel. Whose lies are strongest? Whose truth is strongest? Which facts do not buckle under force? Trickery and deceit were still part of the spectacle—but it seemed there was no form of cheating that could not simply be perverted into part of the artform itself. In their eyes, this was the way of a true Prince, and therefore it would forever be their way, the way of the Ksreskezai. Deztra drew first. The bluish sheen of the blade flashed in her hand. Thirteen and one-eighth inches long, almost straight but slightly curved backward. It was made of folded steel and was the work of a dozen master smiths, who had teased and layered different mixtures of carbon and iron thousands of years ago to produce a soft, flexible core bonded to a cutting surface of superior hardness. Not unlike a tanto in its construction or shape, only one edge of the enormous knife was sharpened. Countless were the throats, bellies, and bosoms it had slit open since it had been crafted for her grandmother. Mutza's weapon was not far behind. It was quite different in appearance, but similarly ancient. It resembled a corkscrew hammered flat and sharpened, giving it not one ridge but several, and a peculiarly snaking cutting edge. Where one might expect to find a cross guard, it instead had a number of thorn-like hooks that extended around one side of the blade, making it easy to holster on one side and an effective parrying instrument on the other. It, too, had a storied history, one much older than its current holder, and rich in encounters wherein its wielder found advantage in its beguiling, kris-like form. "Put your wit to rest, Kantida. It will not serve you in these last few minutes." Deztra held up her alesso and inspected it with a feigned casualness. This arrogant display was so codified within the preamble to a duel that it in fact said nothing of her confidence. She continued, still examining the curling, twisting shapes in the grain of her blade. "You are on your last page. Either you fall here and now, or you limp back to Sur'daro and receive the slow, painful end you deserve for stealing the Hand of Ekhessa." Serena, who had briefly been distracted from watching the two ekeli threaten one another by a slug that was determined to appropriate her TV remote, interrupted the conversation before Mutza could fashion a suitably cutting response to Deztra's bold revelation. "Wait, wait. Time out for a second. Ekhessa's what? Who cut off her hand?" The duelists ignored her, too deeply invested in one another to pay attention. Already Mutza had shifted her knife into an overhand grip, positioning the nest of thorns on the underside. The muscles in her legs tensed, and suddenly she sprang forward, diving toward Deztra with the weapon held close to her chin. Bracing herself, Deztra shuffled a pace sideways, hooked her own straight knife into the parrying claw, and gripped Mutza's shin with her tail, yanking it out from under her. Mutza caught herself with her left hand, the clatter of full plate mail cut short at the expense of a sprained wrist. The force Deztra had exerted on the locked knives was enough to turn her onto her side, but not into a prone position as the exile might have hoped. Kantida would use this moment to her advantage. She pinned Deztra's thick tail in place before it could retreat, stomping into it with the heel of her sabaton. This moment stretched out for several seconds, with both combatants gritting their teeth in effort as they continued to push their knives together, each trying her hardest to directly overpower the other. It seemed a stalemate. With a grunt and a sideways pulse of air from her wings, Mutza rose from the side-plank posture into a one-legged kneel, driving the taller woman back as far as her pinned tail would allow. Had the exile underestimated this scheming, friendless careerist? Was that part of the secret to her success? But Kantida's face was beet red with sweat and exertion, marring the normally pale complexion that sat beneath her jet-black hair. Her eyes were still as ice, defiantly glowering up at Deztra with a ferocity that seemed unbreakable. The Senator had already lost. She had conserved nothing, and was already exhausted. Psychology was her strongest weapon, by far; she would intimidate her opponents with fantastic tricks that her compact body could not sustain, and then deal the final blow as her they faltered in their incredulity. To be sure, Deztra's stamina was wearing down too, but she had neither expended as much energy nor had so little to spend. With a twist of the wrist, Kantida was disarmed. The helix blade slid across the floor. Steel digits wrapped around her throat. In other centuries, when armour was lighter, duels were somewhat more impressive. In the wake of the War of Inheritance, with most of the great houses stripped bare of scions and the greatest swordswomen of their generation already long dead, Mutza's campaign of avarice had never been on the receiving end of a challenge to a duel she had not calculated for. Plainly were the fruits of her cowardice laid bare. "You haven't earned any of the things you've stolen from better women," Deztra growled. "You haven't even earned a good death." Mutza was hurled back to the floor so violently that the blow to her head knocked her unconscious. "Do something reprehensible to her," the exiled police chief said. "Whatever it is you do to disappointments down here." Serena's lifted eyebrows were followed by a smirk. Curiously she slid her hand down into the waistband of her sweatpants, and made motions as if adjusting something that was too tight. "That won't be a problem," she replied. "But what was that about a hand?" Deztra sighed, resheathing her dry dagger. "The Hand of Ekhessa. It is an ancient religious artifact from the Years of the Fringe, before our people came to this planet. Some believe it is also magical. This bag of meat—" she kicked Mutza firmly, using an old word for 'meat' that meant 'rotting carcass' but sounded almost identical to 'shit'— "stole it from the palace museum and placed it among the possessions of the High Priestess, Vendazra Kevrolla." Serena's expression darkened, and her hands fell limp. "So that's why Vennie isn't here?" "Being caught with such a relic would earn a swift death. Its whereabouts are... unclear. I am told Senator Kevrolla was found to have Commonwealth weapon schematics and tried for treason. Her sentence was merely exile." "Commonwealth weapon schematics..." Serena mouthed the words silently, confused. Aloud, she added, "This?" She motioned to the video screen, and the image of Charlie Chaplin languishing in jail was replaced with the same weapon blueprints that Zem had shown her comrades weeks ago. "I don't know what kind of sidearms the modern Security Department carries, but I built this little gem nearly from scratch. Much better tolerance for humidity than anything I ever saw them use. Even works underwater. You're telling me the Empress didn't intervene? Is she nuts?" Deztra faired little better at interpreting Serena's twice-translated idioms, but she was perhaps somewhat more inclined to ignore them. "You know I have no love for the protégé of the vizier who ordered my murder, but I do not think she could have interceded without attracting undue attention to your own involvement. Senator Kevrolla did earn a death sentence; a slow one, in fact. That she was merely banished is proof enough of Tamaksia's hand at work." "Well. If you see her in Zokipolla, tell her I said hi." "'Hai'?" "She'll know what it means. Now, I would recommend you leave before I... get to work," Serena euphemised, looking down over Mutza's prone body. "Even with your robust constitution, you, uh... may not be able to stomach watching." Deztra nodded and made her departure readily. She had witnessed interrogations by the Uravidi. She had also been told that Serena's methods were much more extreme. The Sarthians had no such techniques. They did not take prisoners. Once she was sure that the exile had left, Serena stood, dropped her sweatpants, and stepped out of them, toward the armour-clad noble on the floor. Her cock was already at half mast. Casually, she began to stroke it while she considered the possibilities. She liked the classics—fuck-furniture, mostly—but there were other, even darker ideas that lingered in the back of her mind—things she'd only done once in all her thousands of victims. The urinal. The ground beef. Or perhaps a new poison flower for her garden? It had been so long... A loud plop interrupted her train of thought, and she turned to look for the source of the sound. A bright red slug had waddled into the room. It wore a costume that resembled an enormous, erect phallus, complete with scrotum, which had been stitched together out of what appeared to be a set of bedsheets that had gone mysteriously missing a week ago. "Hallo!" it shrieked. "I am a Thanks-givings!"The City of Vines
The city-ship's vastness only seemed to be unlimited, Vandal told himself. From the outside it was apparent that the wreck was some twenty kilometres in length, but the staggering scope of its interior was somewhat constrained by its monotony—or "uniform harmony"—as so many of its larger elements were rearranged and reused ad nauseam, despite the individual unique flora, both invasive and gilded, that served to, if one had a suitably augmented memory, uniquely mark each room. Now more than ever did he miss his implants. Minutes had turned into hours, and then most of the day, as he searched for Tris among the curving, looping corridors, the grand atria, the convincingly-rewilded gardens... and what he thought at first must surely be some sort of ship's chapel used by those few Lyrans who could derive some mdocium of value from observing spiritual customs: an enormous amphitheatre with thousands of seats beneath splended mosaics of coloured glass, which despite their apparent fragility had steadfastly survived not only the crash but also untold millennia of the elemnts. Much of the roof had crumbled and the great hall had accumulated a small mossy hill of thoroughly ecologised debris. Still, it seemed like a rather large room for such a specialised purpose among a people known for their singular devotion to reason and empiricism. As it happened, that theory did not last long. Only a few minutes later, as Vandal continued his loose grid search pattern, he came across another such room, in nearly pristine condition_then a third, and a fourth. By the fifth such theatre he had concluded that these massive auditoria were in fact normal lecture halls. Indeed, if the symmetry of the general ship layout held true, which it generally had so far and tended to do on Lyran craft of all sizes, the ship should have no fewer than twenty of these gargantuan caverns, and quite possibly four times that. Still yet to come across and substantial living quarters or offices, Vandal was now of the mind that the craft was a sort of leisure resort for the indefatiguiable erudite—a cruise ship built to facilitate the exchange of mental secretions rather than the usual physical sort. "So," he called, aloud, into the sixth lecture hall he'd found, "what was a nice ship like you doing in a backwater brane like this?" His voice carried excellently, amplified and redirected by the crenellations in the domed ceiling, which had been built out of a sophisticated piezoelectric ceramic to condense the apparent size of the audible room. Without any bodies in it to muffle the effect, even a calm speaking tone sounded uncomfortably loud. It was just this sort of metamaterial mischief—a simple, everyday thing, useful but scarcely utilised—that fueled the legend of the Lyrisclensiae among less-sophisticated people. In the hands of the right huckster, glorifying their accomplishments, such a surface could form the convincing basis of, say, a perpetual motion machine, or some similar form of thermodynamic Ponzi scheme. He felt just like such a clueless mark, faced with the silent marvel of something Lyran yet beyond his ken, reduced to asking simple questions and hoping his mind could find some purchase, some glimmer of a recognisable idea. But no answer came. He thought about what he did know, rather than what he didn't. Many dialects of Roshagil and Kuanid use old English terms for the Lyrisclensiae, derived from either "Greek" or "Hellene." To a professional historian of early anthropocene Earth, it is not hard to see why; much like the ancient Terran cultures of Hellas, the Lyrans view civilisation as an end in and of itself, and have invented numerous social institutions, made scientific advances, and developed technologies that are today seen everywhere. They also share—not by accident—an air of prestige that tends to smother outside intellectuals: the history of enlightenment is written by the victors of the war for recognition, so to speak, and hence other narratives tend to be overlooked simply by default. Furthering this association are certain banal details—the deliberate adoption of the Greek language, writing, nomenclature, dress, and so on—but these obvious resemblences are just insinuations of where their real ambitions lie. Tris and Vandal were privy to none of these details, nor to the complex history of the many different Greek and Hellenistic peoples, nor how the Lyrans oscillated between those legacies as metaphors for their own image. They just knew that hélotos was a deliberate slur for "Hatel," or more accurately its ancestor, hetéros, chosen as much for its chance phonetic resemblence as much as anything. It had also been—painfully—internalised. Wanisini slurs meant almost nothing to them—even in translation—for it was hard to take such a young civilisation's sticks and stones seriously, despite all the blood it had spilled and bones it had broken in its precocious display of misanthropy. Helot was different. It spoke to millennia of infantilisation. It spoke to familial abuse. It was in the seventh lecture theatre that Vandal discovered the first body. She was badly decomposed; the mop of copper hair peeking out from between the old, matted-looking remnants of her wing membranes was essential to convincing him that this was not merely some strange fungal formation with an uncanny appearance, for indeed small blotches of mycelium and mesocarp criss-crossed her body, and his short, uneasy glance was not enough of an inspection to ascertain whether the brownish tendrils around her on the floor were invasive roots or the opposite. He steeled himself, and looked again, longer. This was a sight he was not accustomed to, and his stomach let him know. Looking was only slightly easier on an empty stomach, but being as he was from a culture defined by contrivance and artificiality, his impulse—aside from emending the pattern on the floor—was to study the situation before him. There will be a lesson in this, his instincts told him, one that will serve you in surviving this place. And soon, snapping off a small, woody shoot from something that looked like helical bamboo, he prodded the body and gradually turned over the form of the dead ekela, despite the persistent roots and sprawling mycelium. She was surprisingly light, perhaps on account of being reclaimed water-first by the surrounding detritovory. (One shouldn't call alien organisms by the names of Terran taxa—it's rather xenophobic and anthropocentric—but sometimes expediency offers no alternatives.) Raisin-like organs spilled out of a long, vertical cut that ran from the crown of her head to the space between her legs. This hideous sight, along with the woman's twisted, broken neck, wrung out like a towel, and the horrified, distorted expression smeared onto a face flatted from sitting on the ground for months or years like a soggy fishstick, bestowed in Vandal a fresh capacity to upturn the contents of his duodenum, as if his body were trying to rid itself of botulism. Nothing in the miraculous Hatel constitution affored him safety from psychosomatic trauma. To make matters worse, the slope of the floor carried his chyme into the body's matted hair, leaving the roots entangled with it to contest with the peptidases and acids of his gut. Guilt mingled with his nausea, for adding to the ignominy of the dead. He looked away again, just in time to notice that his molestation of the corpse had loosened something: a black, bent ring of metal, torn open into a pair of twisted C shapes, perhaps six inches across and one inch tall. It reminded Vandal faintly of that stupid collar Zem had worn, the one that, as far as he was concerned, had rendered the mission impossible to complete. He wondered how many other missions to fix Wanisin had been similarly sabotaged by lack of discipline. The shame seemed like it was going to overflow from him. Shame for puking at the sight of a dead body, shame for the irresponsibility of his people for not being able to control themselves long enough to get the situation on the ground sorted out, and shame at himself for not doing something to stop Tris and Zem from fucking around and compromising their operational capacity before they had even been deployed. "At least you weren't a fuck-up, ship," he called out, looking at the ceiling so he didn't have to look at the floor. "You could never be a fuck-up, could you. People with actual brains designed you."
The ship speaks.
Petty Peak
Zokipolla sits at 2533 metres above sea level, and is the highest Imperial city on all of Wanisin. It serves as the gateway between the sparsely-populated eastern half of Northern Kelmefta and the nearly deserted western half, and now only exports its seemingly-endless mineral bounties back toward Chekroba. Although the city has a permanent population of no more than 20,000, the mines beneath it are believed to have employed three million slaves at the historic height of its output during the mass incarcerations of Empress Wemnana (ruled 4107–6201.) If true, this would have constituted more than 15% of the planet's population at the time. The legacy of this enormous slave population is visible from orbit, as the mountain pass is almost completely subsumed with the brown and black roofs of bureaucratic apparatus, which take up more real estate than in any other city, including the capital.It took only two days of riding to find the road, and another to find the train. Ibrahim and his men had been assured by the Outlander cultists that they would reunite their Mistress with them at the earliest opportunity, and had not waited to forge onward, lest they waste supplies dallying unnecessarily. All were surprised at how quickly the commandeered kvingi had caught up to the caravan, as the terrain of the endless marshlands was normally quite incompatible with the giant crustaceans. It quickly became apparent why these particular beasts, of a highly prized breed rarely seen outside arenas and circuses, had been where they were: their long legs made short work of movement through pools of muck, even the brackish sinkholes that could prove to be several feet deep. Not long after, Vendazra and Adia once more sat in the former Senator's private carriage, supping on proper food and sipping proper wine. Lady Kevrolla was perhaps pastier than usual and ran a low fever; likely, an infection or some gastric distress was to blame. To the surprise of none, she self-medicated in the usual manner. The acquired animals were put in the usual tack and set to ease the burdens of the kvingi hauling the heaviest and slowest carts, but this evidently caused them great pain from chafing at their scarred and comparatively sensitive hides, so in the end Gil had to string them at the end of the caravan. Even with their injuries, all were agreed that they could be sold for a tidy sum in the high terraces of Zokipolla, where such luxuries were comparatively scarce. It was then that Adia had finally revealed what she had claimed was more powerful than the literal magic wand she had brandished in the wilds. It was a lumpy, shriveled mass of embalmed flesh, not much more now than skin and bone, which she had carefully hidden in a bundle of rags beneath her elaborate and generally bulky robes. Though Vendazra had never seen it before, she had known instantly what it was: the severed right hand of Ekhessa Salnukzoa, First Admiral of the Lilitai, a grisly trophy obtained just before the pilgrims left in search of Wanisin. According to legend, Salnukzoa refused to join the faithful, despite being a paragon of the qualities which the cult of Alestea valued. Such a treasured object held immense importance to the Empire; in millennia past, it was ritually used by the First Theologian to anoint the Empress-Elect on the day of her ascension to the throne. Since the early days of the War of Inheritance, the actual Hand had been too fragile, and so an effigy was used instead, carved from the horn-bone of the first Empress of Wanisin, Klito XVII. The replacement was widely accepted as having as much if not more gravitas than the original, and so the Hand of Ekhessa was retired to the Imperial Treasury on palace grounds, but as an insigne of the Empire, it had in principle never lost the power to make kings. Mutza had stolen it and placed it among Vendazra's belongings, expecting that the Chekroban city guard would find it at the gates, and that the theologian's execution for treason could no longer be commuted. Never in her life had Lady Kevrolla felt such profound anger. Although Adia's prescription of ample inebriation was a wise precaution, it could do little to dull the exile's rage. For much of the journey since, she had muttered and raved, laying out scheme after scheme of what she would do to Mutza Kantida, and lamenting her powerlessness. Kantida had played well, and stripped her rival thoroughly of any vestige of influence or asset that might be useful. Perhaps there were ways—but any real plan would take decades, if not centuries, to orchestrate. A miserable way to serve revenge. It was a side of Vendazra that Adia had not seen before. For the first time, the former Senator seemed genuinely animated and passionate, and her drinking subsided to a level that might even be called relatively sober. The effect on the men was immediately obvious; Ibrahim's scowl, which Adia had thought was an inevitable part of him, receded to such an extent that the leader of the paltry remnants of the household staff could be called hopeful. He also repeatedly gave Adia odd glances, whenever the carriage stopped, as if urging her to do something. But whatever that was, she could not guess. As they drew closer to the mountain city, the mystic finally suggested an alliance of convenience. The plan to take Zokipolla was no small guerilla effort—thousands of fighters had made camp in the scree surrounding the city, prepared to move on the city when Deztra returned. A look of shock fell over Vendazra's face, and for the rest of the journey she was taciturn. But she did not return to drinking. By the time the caravan reached Zokipolla, it was already late autumn in the mountains. Typhoon season had turned out to be mercifully mild, and so the passage up to the city was almost desert-like, though well below freezing. For more than a day of travel, the iconic monument of the mayor's residence loomed ahead of them, towering over the city's six-fathom walls. Situated between two great mountain faces, it looked like a dagger rising from the earth, that had torn apart the range as easily as it might have cut through a sheet of rayon, in a great downward slash that brilliantly framed the sunset during the warmer months. There was little doubt, really, that Zokipolla's placement had been a matter of defence as much as it was a matter of mineral extraction. No ground army could approach it without its menacing stature making some sort of impression on the rank and file. As they drew closer, Vendazra found herself conceding that the legend of Berisampo's last stand here might very well have been true. Even if it wasn't, a congregation of followers would hardly need to be particularly gullible to accept it as a reasonable possibility. It was, as so often was the case, as good as true. Zokipolla's reputation, both for not asking too many questions of its visitors and for being a last stop of disgraced Chekroban nobility on the road to exile—before they vanished completely into the wilderness to the west, that is—lent the idea even more credibility. For every criminal sent to its mines, there was another who fled here and reinvented herself. Some were even exiles, like her, who simply never ventured into the eastern wetlands as expected, and instead disappeared in a more urban sense, starting over from nothing in a place where social rank was little more than a description of a woman's mannerisms. This was risky; the Ministry of Power was known to send zimeshni, "fixers," to look after loose ends. Some ended up fleeing the city as intended, others evaded capture through mastery of disguise and deception, and most ended up in the hungering abyss beneath the city, to be chewed to nothingness by hard labour and living conditions that could only be described as spitefully contrived. Nowhere in all the world was there a place more exactly reflective of that darker afterlife that Mother Kowako postulated must necessarily exist. Vendazra had no interest in entreating of that. She had been invited to the table of the mayor, Countess Sakaza, who made a point of doing so whenever a significant person passed through the city. The invitation would be accepted, and after that, she and perhaps half a dozen of her most loyal employees—Gil, Ibrahim, and a few others—would pass through the eastern gate and vanish from history. Though Sakaza could theoretically offer pardons, treason was never forgiven, and those who begged at these suppers only hastened their own forgetting. On the final approach to the gates of the city, not more than a hundred yards from those huge black doors, the kvinga pulling the former Senator's carriage collapsed. As there was no other traffic on the road, the sudden stop of the caravan was evident from the wall, and so a guard at the gates, dressed in official blues, made her way forward to investigate the trouble. She took perhaps two paces before being stopped by a soldier and told to return to her post. It was that soldier who then actually approached the carriages, her laser-deflecting fatigues scintillating as she strode in the late afternoon light. "Is there a problem here?" demanded the woman. Her voice was thin and raspy, more like an irate headmistress than a professional of the warrior classes. Presumably that quality had contributed to her assignment. Ibrahim had already lowered himself down from the coach box and was inspecting the dark hulk of the beast of burden. All races of kvingi were native to the tropics of Ksreskezo, which were far warmer on the coldest winter night than most parts of Wanisin at noon in summer—but as they generally seemed to tolerate a great deal of punishment and were not the most communicative of creatures, it was quite easy to forget that they were not impervious to harsher chills. Even now the rest of the animals moved with agitation, shivering as best they could in the frosty, dry air. The old hadal muttered an oath, cursing himself for the mistake. "G'day, ma'am—sir," he said, correcting himself as quickly as he could. "There may be; I fear this poor critter's had about as much as it can tak—" "Whose carriage is this?" she blurted, interrupting him. Without waiting for a response or even breaking her stride, she approached the side of the vehicle and knocked on the curtained window. "By the authority of Her Majesty, the Empress Tamaksia, open up." The military force that confiscated Zem had passed Vendazra's caravan first, while the former Senator and Adia were still separated from it, and while the caravan was still in the lands of the Valansi. At the time it had paid them little heed; Ibrahim had simply moved the wagons to the side of the muddy forest path as the endless-seeming convoy filed past. He had tried counting the infantry carriers, but lost his place after about three hundred. All said, this was not that unusual a sight on the road; wargames on the far side of the mountains, in the northwestern basin, were frequent, as were shows of force at the border with Independent Kelonra, just in case the current Queen of the Desert forgot the power dynamic that drove their unique trade relationship with the Empire of Wanisin. Though the two destinations were almost a thousand miles apart, the Zokipollan Passage was the most practical route for large divisions of armoured vehicles. Always, the Ministry of Justice ensured news of these movements were widely publicized. After a second the former Senator's face appeared in the window of the carriage door, impassive, and then disappeared from sight behind the hanging of white lace. A few seconds later the door opened, wafting out the scents of various spiced wines and spirits that had long soaked permanently into the fabric of the interior. With some effort, Vendazra stepped out, dressed now somewhat better than she had been upon her departure, in a smart, high-necked violet frock that fell to her knees, from which depended a forest of beaded strings that danced over the surface like hailstones. She was a full head taller than the petty officer who had knocked on the door, and with each millimetre of that height difference came a mile of social stature. Though her posture was somewhat at ease, with her wings but slightly spread and her tail held unmovingly a few inches from the ground, the subtext of thousands of years of division between castes made even this simple presentation overwhelmingly intimidating to the soldier. By her lack of concern, the former Senator had effortlessly dismissed the possibility that the soldier might present any real threat. Weapons were meaningless. "Yes?" Vendazra said. The soldier's jaw tensed visibly. "M-may I take your Ladyship's name?" the soldier stammered. "Vendazra, of the House Kevrolla," said the Hakro. "And your business in Zokipolla?" Vendazra sighed, already annoyed by the tediously unprofessional behaviour of this poor substitute for a customs official. In the distance, she noted with a curling lip, the actual gatekeeper had placed her head in her hands and turned away, embarrassed by the foolishness of the soldier, who had made a complete mess of city gate etiquette, and whose conduct would be the shame of her caste. "I am not going to waste my time with this nonsense," Vendazra muttered. She turned around and began to climb back into the cabin. "Do your job properly and talk to my boy, or don't do it at all." A wave of tension rolled over the soldier, who promptly curled her tail about her own leg, tightly, and stormed off. This left Ibrahim to tend to the frostbitten kvinga and Vendazra to return to the relative comfort of the carriage's interior. "Difficulties?" asked Adia. "Not now, child," Vendazra grumbled, sitting back down on the padded bench. For the first time that day, her fingers comfortably settled onto the distinctive helical neck of a wine bottle nestled in the corner. "Here I sit with a thief, a whore, a liar, a heretic, a spy, and a caste-flouting communist, and there are only two of us in this cabin. Really, Adia, it is a wonder you and your lot do not implode under the weight of your moral bankruptcy." "Iä! Such regression! I take it the good book of Alestea is silent on the matter of perfidy," retorted the Sarthian. Baleful, bloodshot eyes glared at her. Adia looked away, and the moment passed silently. "Well, so much for your little siege," Vendazra said, finally. "What?" "The girl I just spoke to was a warrant officer with the Third Vomuda, not a city guard. That convoy—it stopped here." Adia was quiet. "If the whole Vomuda is here, I would wager there must be... Hmm. At least six dozen armoured regiments in the city. I haven't seen anything like it in quite a while, to be honest. Not since the days of the Dumal-Keta Rebellion, anyway. Tamaksia herself might be here, commanding, in fact. Her predecessor certainly would be." "That's... that's over half a million soldiers," the Sarthian stammered. "Mmm. No, closer to a hundred thousand. But it is quite a few. One for every ten slaves in the mines, at least. I am sure they have already picked the hillside clean of your forward positions, if not the whole troupe. A bit of a pity, I think. Sakaza's breath always reeks of garlic. Speaking honestly, an insurrection would have been an excellent excuse to avoid meeting her." The uneasy silence that followed was broken by a few soft clinking noises: Adia rubbed at her temples, provoking some of the ornaments on her horns to shift. "If they have so many pieces of intelligence already in hand..." she mused, "then, all being in balance, I would accept any wager against our own capture." "That's not how gambling works, girl," said Vendazra, into the wine bottle. "It is a saying." A knock at the window interrupted Adia. The warrant officer had returned, with accompaniment and with an even fouler temperament. Vendazra's features tensed, and she turned aside, so as to hide her face from scrutiny by the approaching party. The claret was suddenly nowhere. "The wand, child," she hissed. "Use that ill-gotten instrument of yours while you still can. This is no time for hesitation." The Sarthian frowned and reached for it in her sleeve. Her fingers gripped the fine obsidian rod, thinking about what could be done with it. The prospect was unpleasant, and came to her but slowly. Its confiscation would be more ruinous for her mission than her own capture. She could not do anything with it that might draw attention to her. But what... ? "Warrant Officer," said the exile, by way of greeting. The cold air from outside the carriage had already rushed in. "And to what do I owe the displeasure of your return?" The non-commissioned officer was accompanied by the city guard, a young but hateful-eyed private, and Ibrahim, whom she dragged by the shirt collar, backward and away from the kvingi. His wrinkled, white-bearded face was marred by a grimace of pain, although he was not visibly injured. The city guard seemed like she would rather be almost anywhere else. "Minister Geglokida wishes to question you. You are to be detained until her arrival. We are authorized to ensure compliance." Few nobles heard those words even once in their lives; Vendazra had now heard them twice. It wasn't a particularly flashy verbal formula; it had no allusions to the great powers of Alestea vested in the warrant officer by the Empress, nor any exquisitely oppressive or malignant figures of speech. Indeed, it verged on euphemistic. But perhaps that was why it was so potent: it was a sober, factual statement of hard power that needed no adornment. It was unscintillating; a hard, black lump of matte, phonosemantic stone that rested amidst sparkling, blood-smeared shards of crystal and mirror. It was not poison, and it could not be weathered, discounted, equivocated, or mulled; the tricks and trades of an aristocrat were inconsequential in its presence. Hearing those words the first time had been the thing that had done her in at her trial, the thing that broke her will, and drove her to attempt to turn her knife upon herself. Now, her head was ringing. It was surprising, in the way a drunk is surprised the second time she rides her mount into a tree, having told herself she would be prepared for anything after the first time. She wanted to vomit, and her whole reality seemed to be coming undone. "Very well. Escort me." Somehow, one shred of herself held on, and she heard her own voice proceed through the motions of compliance. It was a particularly unimaginative performative act, hardly worthy of being called a stalling tactic, but at least in theory it would not make matters worse. She gripped the side of the carriage for support, and to not stumble. The casualness of this response seemed to enflame the soldier's inferiority complex further. It had no obvious value to Vendazra. Detachedly, she noted that, all things considered, it was particularly ill-suited to the petty officer's current responsibility of inspecting entrants. At best, provoking it further would promote rash behaviour—but not provoking it was going to be something of a challenge. She tried to concentrate, suddenly finding it hard to think. Wasn't Adia meant to be doing something about all this? Slowly, she frowned, and looked back toward the carriage, just in time to protect her eyes from the searing heat and light. The vehicle rolled backward from the force of the blast, and those standing nearby were similarly sent sprawling. The shockwave brought deafness in its wake. Even the ringing in her head was gone; only her heartbeat remained audible. She could feel nothing, aside from the horrible pain in her wings and tail, scorched by the explosion and now being roasted by her clothing, which had protected her back from the initial shock, only to then reach its autoignition temperature and burst into flames. She blacked out. Forensics would later determine that the power cell in the warrant officer's firearm had been tampered with, and was set to overload. This is generally accompanied by the unmistakable whine of the weapon's capacitors rapidly charging beyond their normal limit, but, as work-related hearing loss and tinnitus were common among the soldiery, only Vendazra could have heard it.Urban Atlas of Wanisin: Zokipolla. Revision dated 72093ky:00.0.0.275.143 by GV Astroturfer.
Awakening
As they proceeded down the hall together, the walls subtly scintillated with the gentle promises of the secrets that were to come. Though the air on the mountain was cold and dry, this part of the magnificent, ancient vehicle was lush and humid with the breathing plants, an endless sprawl of aubergine and golden filligrees that transformed a would-be austere corridor in an ancient shipwreck into a place closer to Teza's lost home in the nugle valley of Chekroba than anywhere she'd been since. As the worn-out soles of her flimsy moccassins trod through the dusty, dead pollen on the floor, following behind the mysterious, fuzzy stranger who promised answers but revealed little, the voices in her head were silent—appeased by the aromatherapeutic memory of the golden mosaics in the curule chamber above Vendazra's apartments, where the late summer foliage of the city had tinted the air with a sweetness much like that recalled by the aeons of dust stirred by their passage.
Teza receives training from Ludvica.
She receives a sanitized version of the history of the Lyrideans and is showing promise as a spellsinger thanks to the collar.
Humiliation is the Beginning of Enlightenment
Drip. Drip. "That's it. Almost there. You just need to go a little more to the left..." Clink. "Like dis?" Drip? "No, no, the other left! No, not... Ugh!" Clonk. Clank, clank-clank, clank-clank... Zem fumed for a moment and then sank to the floor, exasperated. She listened in disappointment to the sound of the ring of keys tumble down a pipe. Adding insult to injury, the small pink-and-white striped slug that had attempted to retrieve the keys was apparently proud that it had succeeded in dropping the keys down the pipe, and was now looking at her with eagerness, expectant of praise. "Was gud?" "No. Not good." The slug burst into tears and waddled out of the room with all haste, its squishy, gelatinous body effortlessly squeezing under the door. A few moments later it had forgotten all about the incident and was deeply invested in a speck of lint it had discovered. Again Zem inspected the chain holding her to the bank of conduits behind her, and again she sighed in disappointment. This was officially the last time she let Tris talk her into anything, ever, no matter the reason. She had spent weeks in the custody of the Third Vomuda, and had lost count of the number of times she'd had sex somewhere around a thousand. Possibly the correct term for this was the number of times she'd been raped, but after the third or fourth surprise embrace there was very little that felt shocking or violating. It had been, at most, a distraction from her efforts to observe the camp and plan an escape. But Zem had never been raped before, so perhaps, she thought, she was simply unprepared for how it was supposed to make her feel. Perhaps it was simply an aspect of human culture that the Hatel had shed, along with the general concept of a taboo. Certainly the ekeli seemed to place a great more importance on it. Even most of the hadal soldiers she'd encountered seemed to treat it as somewhat unpleasant when the ekeli were involved in anything sexual, and not just because it interrupted other duties. Despite the late-night orgies, this wariness spoke to a deep change in how the hadali regarded intimacy—away from a beloved panacea and toward something tangled up in shame. One thing was clear: the idea of 'rape' she'd witnessed was one deeply invested in displays of power. Zem had never experienced sex with another fully-female individual that was so violent or aggressive as what she endured at the hands of the few ekeli who took her leash. They marked her skin with their nails and teeth, tormented her breasts, buttocks, and genitals until she bled, and obsessed over shoving objects into her orifices in obvious and sometimes gruesome displays of penis envy. The worst were the ones fixated on making her suck and fuck their guns, which were often adorned with crude ornaments that scraped her insides. But even without comparison to the hadali, she had always been a quick healer, so that now, after hours of sitting here in the dark, alone and forgotten, her flesh contained no record of her last encounter. But she remembered how it felt, and how it had made her feel, and she did not like it. Maybe that was rape. It certainly hurt. But... it failed to meet her expectations of what she had been told rape was. For every modicum of discomfort she had felt, Zem had experienced a commensurate amount of pleasure from seeing the light in her torturers' eyes. She could almost see herself getting addicted to it, in fact, if the situation had gone on for long enough. Was this something Tris was trying to bring out in her, a thirst for exciting others? Tris had barely expected any sort of masochism. Indeed, she rarely even made it explicitly known she enjoyed power-play; for the Hatel it was just sexuality: reflexive, instinctual, and unremarkable. Maybe the cruelty of this savage world was laying bare something that had previously been invisible, even something forgotten. As she meditated on that strange thought—that this defective, immature culture fueled by insecurity might actually have a meaningful lesson to teach the Hatel, of all people, about sex—there came a rush of noise from outside the utility closet, of clattering boots, doors being thrown open, and raised voices. It was perhaps the third or fourth time a new prisoner had been brought to the facility since her arrival, but this time the lyrics to the song-and-dance were different. Instead of the usual formulaic processing—"March, convict," and "Presenting the records of the condemned in conformation to the Will and Law of the Empress of Wanisin..."—there was obvious panic, a mechanical squeaking, and a lot of jargon she didn't recognise. One noun kept being repeated, though: yomreko, which she eventually realised must have meant íoamedí múreko; literally, the "beloved injured." Zem was growing accustomed to reminders that she had only seen a very thin slice of their society in her duties in Sensitive Affairs, but this special honorific was one she had heard before, in high-level military transmissions requesting medical evacuation for high-ranking nobility. It had been used extensively even in the civilian press when the last Empress, Klito XIX, lay dying for several days of an apparently mortal injury that would not stop bleeding. But it was never something she had heard contracted before. And why was it being used at such a vulgar and utilitarian prison? As the bustle died down, it dawned on her that she had just heard a particular person, the sort of person who used such jargon routinely, perhaps even one of the royal physicians. A very important and very injured prisoner had just been brought in, here, to a jail in Zokipolla, which was as good as nowhere. An army officer? Maybe, but the fighting hadn't started yet, and based on what she'd heard, this wasn't a proper military jail. Ignoring the existence of several official Ministry of Power jails in Zokipolla, she had seen with her own eyes how high-ranking army officers were subject to few rules other than expectations of obedience. Insubordination garnered either a slap on the wrist or a fight to the death, and the odds of someone surviving such an altercation only to be jailed seemed slim. So that left the possibility of a high-ranking noble who was nevertheless being brought into a penitentiary for the lower castes... A dishonoured senator, perhaps? The idea of crossing paths with Vendazra Kevrolla by accident was almost too good to think about. Zem thought long and hard for a moment about how she'd seen other Sabi express a need for attention, and how successful they'd been at getting it. Ugh! So now they weren't "slaves" or "real slaves" or "victims of human trafficking" like they had been in the briefing she gave a few short weeks ago. Now they were other slaves, her peers. At some point the distinction had collapsed in her mind, the boundary between "ha-ha only serious" Commonwealth fantasy indulgence and a violent, brutal existence of rightlessness as chattel had simply dissolved, the unconscious demise of her dignity noted only as an increase in the headcount of Gigo's company. It wasn't her home—in fact her consignment to this jailhouse while the bureaucracy of the Ministry of Power struggled to explain where she had come from (and why her collar was impossible to cut off) had interrupted any acclimatization process—but it was eerily less abnormal than she expected. The differences weren't constantly calling themselves to her attention. In a day or three she'd gotten used to the bugs, and the endless driving down the road, and the whole thing was like a camping trip with the crew of another ship; the rest of the company were merely her comrades. It was mundane. As long as rank didn't come up, or sex, the hadali were, on the whole, not really that much different from her colleagues in Sensitive Affairs. But. Of course they weren't. They were descended from S.A. field operatives, literally the crew of a Hatel ship. Her ship. They weren't even the crew of another ship. They were the crew of the Astroturfer. And they had been sent here, futilely, to chase one single criminal, just like she had been. Recollections of when she had first entered the camp came to Zem again—that horrible, lurching feeling in her stomach when she realised just how expansive the problem was. For every one of her fellow Hatel that tel Moukarhim had abused, there had to be hundreds, maybe thousands, that were born here because the Commonwealth allowed the situation to persist without attempting any real remedy. And what was it all for, anyway? The contamination of Wanisin hadn't been undone. There was no way to put an end to the status quo, short of annexing the whole planet. The ship surely knew that it would be better just to call the Lyrisclensian fleet in Thet and put an end to all this. It would be the responsible thing to do. She watched the pipes drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. That was the single unconscionable act at the bottom of all this, wasn't it. Asking for help. The Hatel would never, could never, turn to the Lyrans for help. To do so would be to admit that the reckless attitude of their culture was incompatible with the enlightened mission of non-destructively bettering the universe. Both civilisations claimed to aspire to it, but the Hatel were somewhat less accomplished when it came to praxis. Grand politicking and saving face had now cost numerous lives. So much for enlightenment. Right, Zem. Focus. You're getting out of here. Moan nice and pretty. Use your disguise. Don't let it use you. Don't just be another casualty of Wanisin. "Oh, great blazes! By Alestea! I'm so hungry for big, smelly, GREEN COCK!" she cried out. "I hope someone out there is MAN enough to GIVE IT TO ME!" Most likely she was the only member of her whole species in the entire building. She had heard enough to reason that the Ministry of Justice, overseers of the ekeli middle classes, ran this place. But the building did no doubt include dozens of ekeli with very strong opinions about their own virility. As a testament to this, the stone halls yielded to Zem's inquest, and in a few seconds the door was kicked open by the warden, a short, muscular woman with sallow skin and a snow-white buzz cut. The warden informed Zem that she was being too loud, and addressed her as "Whore." "Well, I'm lonely!" came Zem's response with an exaggerated pout, though in her head she was panicking, and wondering what she could possibly do to manoeuvre herself toward where Kevrolla had been taken. When the warden looked prepared to simply close the door, Zem blurted out the rest of her prepared response, rather less suavely: "I haven't seen a single man since we left camp!" As has been mentioned, the Wanisinese perspective on gender is a very social one, almost completely extricated from biology. In her alarm, Zem had used the word sto, which meant 'male person' in both ancient Lilitika and the modern language of Thet, but on Wanisin indicated an honourable, civilised, masculine person. She had done this twice in a row, accidentally employing a form of wordplay that had circulated among the hadali in the Vomuda camps without even realising it had been originated by the male slaves as a rebuke against the affected machismo of their captors—and that they did not say it in front of the ekeli. "That's enough. Stand up," the warden said, reaching for where she'd left her keys. Upon finding them missing, her gaze returned to Zem, that mysterious, untraceable slave, who had been spouting provocations. "Shrewish little thing," the warden muttered. "Right. I'm definitely keeping you where I can see you." She drew her knife, and set to work prying open one of the links in the chain that had held Zem in place. They were not altogether that strong, and the Warden was apparently more inclined to damage Ministry property than to report her missing keys. It was a start, Zem thought, soon blinking in the harsh, cold light of the warden's office. But it was hardly a clear path to escape, or to Kevrolla. The white-washed stone-brick room was not much bigger than the utility closet across the hall, and had evidently been repurposed from some rather inauspicious chamber. From her vantage point, sitting on a tiny stool in a corner, Zem could only speculate that this state of affairs was some sort of punishment, as the handsome wooden table that dominated the room looked completely out of place. "So, I see your desk is rather enorm—" The warden's baleful gaze fell upon Zem, and she gave up on the sentence without finishing it. Not much concrete knowledge of Wanisinese bureaucracy had reached Sensitive Affairs. It was—correctly—assumed to be vast, but aside from the presumption of some influence from tel Moukarhim, no one had even attempted to speculate what it consisted of, materially; the predecessors of the Wanisinese, the Lilitai, barely had rule of law, and mostly survived on tribal custom. It quite intrigued Zem to watch the warden work not with computer tablets, paper, or even the decrepit-looking data terminal shoved to one side on the huge desk, but with rolls of dark, undyed fabric, across which she wrote with a pen that had to be frequently dipped in bleach. Coloured threads were sewn in at the edges, presumably differentiating types of documents or perhaps their origins. The temptation to ask about this technology was overwhelming, but Zem held her tongue, remembering how it had been pinned to a tree with a dagger a few days ago when she had gotten too inquisitive near an army officer. After some ninety minutes of this, during which time the warden took little, if any, notice of Zem, a woman dressed in stiff white robes burst in through the door. Her face was also covered in a fabric mask, concealing everything but her eyes. The mask was smooth and featureless, and its sudden presence in Zem's peripheral field of view made her yelp in surprise. The warden was unfazed, however, and perhaps a little annoyed. "How is she?" "The gelsh—" began the woman, who then removed her mask—"the patient is recovering. Her clothes did not burn very long—most of the oxygen was immediately consumed by the blaze—so the skin grafts to her body are shallow. Unfortunately her wing membranes had to be amputated. Provided there is no rot and treatment is judicious, they shall regrow; sightly in two seasons, and healthily in three." "She is stable, then?" "Yes. Sedated. I will have the anaesthetist wake her for you, of course." The warden seemed satisfied with this answer, perhaps being accustomed to healers who would presume to let their charges recuperate when there were matters of criminal justice in urgent need of redress. Despite her time in the army camps and study of the history of the Empire, Zem's awareness of the internecine rivalries between Ministries was still dim, at best. Little could she imagine the plotting and scheming that permeated every level of the government, much less how necessary it all was. Competition between the branches kept their people motivated to succeed, and this interaction, between the Justice-appointed warden and the Power-loyal chiurgeon, was a rare and uneasy exception. Setting her work aside, the warden rose, and gestured for the chiurgeon to lead the way, affording her the opportunity to scrabble over her desk without being watched by another ekela. "And you," she said, grabbing Zem by the length of chain that still dangled from her cuffs. "I'm not letting you out of my sight. You're coming." Finally, thought Zem, something was going right for once.0.6.27 Enigma
It was our one hundred and ninth year in the computer.– Ellison.
Vandal is on the run from Enigma's torments. Tris appeared to die right before his eyes, and he's encountered the dead bodies of Enigma's failed candidates. He argues for Hatel equality but it isn't working. His health is poor: dehydrated, hungry, exhausted, several improperly-healed broken bones. Finally he tells Enigma he is unworthy of its hate and it breaks down, revealing that Tris is nearby. Vandal detects a power surge with a kitbashed EM scanner made from the broken scanner binoculars. They head toward it, hoping to find the ship's core. Many hidden doors are now visible and usable.
Fog of War
Wanisin was a world for sojourners. If she could have afforded the time, Deztra would have taken the long journey northward on kvinga-back. So much of the wilderness she had grown up around was the same monotonous, sloppy marshes, but from the air she had finally gotten a chance to see the equatorial highlands, the mountain ridges, and even some of the magnificent, sprawling geoforms that characterised the desert wastes of Kelonra, the Great Dusty Maw. What a thrill it would be to camp outside, on solid ground for once, and gaze up at those ancient, wonderous obelisks. Perhaps after the matter in Zokipolla was settled, she mused. There were no significant cities and only a few outposts in the three thousand kilometres between that mountain citadel and the northern edges of the Independent Kingdom's territorial claim. Diplomatic channels were still tenuous, but there were whispers Queen Televra, a zealous adherent of the Secret Cult, had foreseen that Zokipollan sovereignty would come to pass, and prepared already to recognise it. And with the prophets of both Chiya and Urava on their side, how could the Alesteans stand a chance? In truth, it was not just prophecy that stacked the cards against the Empire. Deztra had not left Serena's compound empty-handed; the massive cargo shuttle she piloted silently through the grim night was heavy with gifts. But the validity of these actions and the worthiness of the cause mattered more to Deztra than the means of its execution. Many times had war alone failed to throw off the chains imposed by the Imperial machine. Dozens of rebellions, schisms, and secessions populated the true chronicle of the world, and all but a few of them had been erased from the public record. What survived was rhetoric: only when a rivalry was useful to the throne could there be a legitimate Other. Kevrosampa had obtained that by becoming the Enemy; Kelonra had done similarly years later so the Empress could control the availability of basna. (It was, after all, hard to put down feuding rivals if they never died of old age.) Zokipolla would have something much more profound. The first Zokipollan rebellion failed in part because there was no Empress to control the rhetoric—only a legacy of abdication and dereliction that necessitated retaliation by a Senate twice betrayed. An opportunist from within the traitor Empresses' own ranks had seized control, and the remainder of the Senate was only too happy to reward this enthusiasm. No clever words could have saved Berisampo and Tevopina. There were no ears that would listen. We have learned from history, Deztra thought. We will not make the same mistakes. They will hear us. Deztra muttered a prayer under her breath as her vehicle approached its destination at the camp, some twelve kilometres outside the city walls, up in the scree. As each second went by, and as the camp's subtly off-grey camouflaged tents came into view, her confidence grew that Serena had been honest in their dealings, and that all of her technological gifts, from the shuttle's stealth plating to its cargo, would be fit for purpose. Still, her bosom was held as the shuttle landed. The rebels' guiding philosophy was one of zero sound, zero movement, and zero information leakage until the very last moment. This was the price of true evasion: zero certainty that one's comrades had not already been massacred. Grey landed on grey, amidst an endless milieu of dim, foggy grey. No emissions, no infrared, no radar shadow. Nothing. If Ekhessa Famea knew how close they were to the city, how utterly Serena tel Moukarhim had betrayed the Empire of Wanisin, sleep would be alien to her. To obtain its silent profile, the shuttle used a rather extreme solution to concealing its emissions: a vacuum-insulated heatsink sat around its engine block, accumulating waste heat and exhaust from the entirety of the journey. Venting it took upward of a minute, and was accomplished by injecting a series of tethers, each of which was some eight thousand metres in length, into the ground below the craft, which would then dissipate the energy into the planetary crust. Once this was done, and assuming it happened safely, the craft's interior could safely be reintegrated with its skin, and Deztra could finally disembark. She was met by a woman dressed in a veil of active camouflage: a silhouette of rippling air that stepped past her wordlessly and retrieved a handcart from inside the craft. Within the cart rattled what sounded like dozens of glass bottles, muffled under a thick grey blanket that made each clink dull and quiet. Three other silhouettes stood at a slight distance, watchful. This was the expected number of escorts. A veil was thrown over the cart, and over Deztra herself, and they walked back toward the camp through the lifeless scree. Behind them, the shuttle rose silently under its own power and turned southward, beckoned to return to its maker. As far as Deztra knew, it was a unique craft, and one whose existence Serena intended to keep as secret as possible, lest its strategic value be compromised. The Sarthians would make do with what they were given, for now. It would be enough, as long as the element of surprise was theirs. They arrived at the camp as the first flash of red light struck. In the midst of the shimmering cloaks of the rebel camp spun a black maelstrom of death, no taller than a woman. It leapt between prey with an acrobatic grace, knocking out the sheets of light-warping fabric from tents, vehicles, and individual soldiers with barely a touch. In its wake the dead landscape was defiled, as red and green blood trickled from the ruined camouflage. Occasionally a leg or arm could be seen protruding from under the damaged coverings, but for the most part the victims looked like absurd spectacles, each veil flashing in a random, luminous pattern of stripes and static noise. By the time the second red flash had appeared, depositing another murderous whirlpool, the cries of pain from the dead and dying were drowned out by the squeals of capacitors. Pulses of eye-straining laserlight saturated the obsidian monstrosity in a mixture of cyan and yellow streaks until the air was heavy with the stench of burning, and an amber flame erupted from it, hissing and spitting upward in a column of dark smoke. Fewer than a dozen rebels were slain by the second attacker before it disappeared as it had arrived, disapparating in a crimson burst. The camp was then quiet, aside from the hiss of the ruptured black monster and the groans of the injured and dying, and these sounds were little more than quiet creaks in the chorus of hollow wind that rushed through their small ravine. Healers shifted about, tending to the wounded, most still invisible except as ripples in the air. "We've been compromised," said a man. "There is no more time." Deztra looked at the wreckage of the thing that had slaughtered so many of her fighters. It still burnt brightly, and cast a strange glow upon those nearest to it. No... not a glow per se. Sparkles. White dots danced on the active camouflage veils closest to the fire—even the damaged and destroyed veils—as though the gut of the device threw off countless tiny laser flashes, each invisible until it struck the sheets. Something else caught her eye in the wreckage. It was a tiny fleck of purple that stood defiant among the charred stuff around it. Cautiously, she approached the thing and drew her dagger, to poke at the wreck with the tip of its pattern-welded blade. The purple fleck turned out to be the unsinged side of a ring of violet-tinted metal, which clung tightly to the dark ridges of a cracked keratin horn. Realising what the thing was, Deztra was so stupefied that she jumped backward. Only the most trusted cultists of the Goddess of Shadows were entitled to wear that tiny alloy band, either in direct service to Queen of the Desert or the Imperial Minister of Discipline. "What is it?" asked someone. No one could be precisely sure of anyone's identity, but the voice sounded like Sua Khralia, Deztra's signals officer. "It is an Indigo Order signifier," Deztra said. "Either Queen Televra has changed her mind about blessing us, or the Empress's spies have stumbled onto our location." Uneasy mumbles and minced oaths propagated throughout the gathered troops. "The second makes no sense," replied someone else. "The Empress does not need assassins. They could simply bomb us, or shell us. It must be Televra. She fears retaliation for promising to endorse us!" "I have confidence in the Queen," said Deztra, raising her voice over the groans. "Her blood is the blood of Empress Ioya II. That blood was worthy blood. It sat on the throne in Sur'daro before the War of Inheritance, the last bulwark of honesty before it all went to chaos and ruin. She loathes Ekhessa Famea, that treasonous serpent, for purging the daughters of Kazarlya. It was that same purge that brought me to your cause. So steady your spirits, sisters. Whatever freaks Famea has set loose upon us, I have no doubt but that they are a tactic of intimidation, meant to sow confusion and uncertainty as readily as they sowed death. When my love returns, we will march, and forever scar the Empire." Now, everyone was silent. "What..." Deztra whispered, confused. Sua, the camp lieutenant, removed her veil, revealing beneath it the patchwork mirror armour that she and the rest of the rebels all now wore, scavenged from enemy patrols and stolen from supply depots over the course of many months. "The exile caravan of Kevrolla was intercepted at the gates to the city. There was a bomb aboard it. We don't know where the Oracle is." A brief sensation of vertigo washed over Deztra then, and all too clearly could she hear the sound of blood pumping in her own flesh. If Adia were captured, she would be tight-lipped, but that might merely make her interrogation worse. Deztra was well acquainted with the Ministry of Power's methods for coercing truth from criminals. She had personally witnessed the limitations of torture and how it could make confabulators out of even the most forthcoming and cooperative subjects. Few within the Ministry would know of the censored reports that damned such methods, and fewer still would doubt the primacy of doctrine. Adia would be treated as an enemy of the state, as most common criminals were, and her fate would be consignment to an abyss far darker and claustrophobic than the overcrowded mines beneath Zokipolla. There are moments, rare moments, when a woman does what must be done, even though the strength to carry on has left her, and the situation is surely hopeless, and not a mote of courage can be summoned. For Deztra the vertigo did not fade entirely, but she gave the orders to march just the same as if it had never existed. It was strange for someone who had so regularly faced mortal danger at the hands of criminals, rivals, and worse to find herself only now thrust into this situation of genuine terror. Perhaps, in those times, cognizant only of honour, greatness, power, and sacrifice, she had not truly been alive in the way she now was, but rather had existed in a sort of half-living state: a daughter of the Empire, a machine-woman, as emotionally invulnerable as she was numb. If the Chief of Police of Chekroba had been murdered on schedule, then she would also have been reincarnated on schedule when her successor was appointed, her soul no more substantial than a job title, her mind and body merely a cog to be replaced. But in her stead, that soul had died, and she was no longer an immortal warrior of Alestea. Now she feared the cold caress of Nepala, the psychopomp, and it was a healthy fear. Her dreams and her nightmares were her own, like all those who saw the light of Chiya, the Goddess of the Unreal. Certainly the present seemed unreal, as the rippling cloaks of the renegades—thousands of them, now that the forces from the little camps and cells had merged—moved silently toward the city. For these women and men, swiftness was now paramount; and like the Winds of Fate themselves, they strode urgently onward. They would descend upon the knife-like mountain citadel before their chance closed.Melody
"Are you really sure you want me to sing, Mistress? In front of so many people?" Teza asked, anxiously twisting the hem of her ehanka. The garment was black, halter-necked, incredibly short, and left nothing to the imagination on account of being nearly transparent. Its only real purpose was to keep the blue girl's breasts squashed together, titillating the audience. She peeked out from behind the curtain again. There, in the front row, sat the recently-coronated Empress Tamaksia, preening one of her own extravagant sluts. Around them sat about half of all the nobility in the eastern continents. It was New Years' Eve, 12154. With the passing of Klito XIX late last autumn and the ascension of her protégé to the throne, everyone who was anyone knew that each and every station and title in the Empire was, finally, up for renegotiation. The pursuit of favour and general cunt-sniffing behaviour was thus at an all-time high. "Quite certain, yes," said Vendazra. Her nose was below the rim of her wine-glass. "What is the matter now? You've been practicing for weeks. Has something affected your ability to sing?" None could remember a time before the War of Inheritance, a time when Empresses designated successors instead of being slain by them, and though there were rumours that Ekhessa Famea's goons were on the prowl to definitively put the past behind, the general expectation was that Tamaksia would be a fresh pair of eyes, to be courted and charmed without much consideration for the nuances of relations with the Old Scabbard. In dining lounges and theatre boxes all over the land, the general consensus was that this would be the greatest reset since the coronation of Setora, the foreigner, who had gone from desert-born diplomat to peace-making negotiator in the dangerous days just before the War exploded. If the Ministry of Power left a few empty seats in their wake on account of Klito's last orders, that would simply mean more opportunities for those who survived that relatively small purge. "No, it's, just... a bit of performance jitters." Teza tried to smooth the curtains, then her dress, aware that they were getting wrinkled from her constant fiddling. "I never thought the moment would actually come. A debut in front of so many important faces..." Of course, for Vendazra, the whole picture looked rather different. "It can still not," mulled Vendazra. A slinky, pale arm was draped around Teza's shoulders. "No one in the audience has been informed of your showcase this evening. If your display offends me in the slightest, it will just become an unusual lead-in to your usual," she chuckled, somewhat darkly. "And then you'll be on the auction block, of course. I'll not have a repeat of last year's Jemessa." For Vendazra, last of her House and one of the most important people in the Imperial Cabinet, the only objective was to defend what was already hers. So, when it finally came to be her turn to play hostess, the theme was, of course, continuity. Teza breathed a deep, slow, ragged breath, one that betrayed the tears she felt building within her but dare not show. Her throat was tightening, her pulse was climbing, but she knew all too well that this casual threat of abandonment was perfectly sincere, and perhaps even an understatement of what might await her if she was less than totally pleasing. "Now would be a good time, fertinenivia," Vendazra said. That word. It was still foreign to her, that word, but she had come to hate it, and fast. It was an ancient word, literally a genitive form of "art," and in its original context it had referred to a handful of the first Lilitai who were abused by their owners for aesthetic ends. It was easy for her to empathise with someone from the dawn of written history whose sole defining trait was that she had spent most of her life holding a single pose and could barely speak, but there was something revolting about how readily Vendazra had appropriated the term, as though its mere invocation was a promise that she intended to renege on past treaties about Teza's bodily autonomy and reduce the girl to nothing more than a shrub, to be pruned and sculpted and seen but not heard. But that was only subtext—the luckier fertineniviai from the ancient past had gone on to be artists themselves, much like Teza herself deeply yearned to be a singer and a dramatist, not just a moaner and a stripper. Do it, Teza. Do it. Do it now. You can think, and you can feel, later. She stepped out onto the stage. There was a time before now. A time when things were different, when Teza had skin like everyone else and when Vendazra really, actually seemed to love her. A time when Moto and Opara were still alive. A time when Teza didn't think of herself as a slave. When Teza didn't hear voices in her head. When Vendazra didn't drink. When the future seemed bright. When no one was going to sell her. When she was going to feel... to be..."My name is Ludvica. I am the sixty-second imprint of Melite of Sophopolis. I am about to usher in a new era for Wanisin, and all who inhabit it. I have searched for centuries for the perfect voice to carry my melody, to sing the divine words that will bring about the first of the reborn Ksreskezai, who will rescue this lost colony from its pitiful state of mourning. My task is nearly done. I am finally happy." "What you are is dropping your fucking gadget and stepping away from the console." "Enigma! Why have these heteroi disturbed my work? What is the meaning of this?" In all its aeons of furious, thrilling, passionate hate, never once had any voice spoken against Enigma's obsessive distaste for the Hatel. Instead, the survivors of the crash had simply fled, one by one, taking their tools and equipment deeper into the mountains, far away from the unhinged menace of the Psyche that had done the unthinkable. Each of the surviving Lyrisclensiae had assumed that even a single word in protest would earn them the same fate as the Hatel, and so they had given none. If their descendants still lived, then they almost certainly lived in darkness, unaware of how simple it would have been to correct Enigma's insanity. Only this sole specimen, or rather an earlier imprint of Melite, had remained. One of the few radical eugenicists left in the Lyrisclensian community, she had once been a promising scion of the accelerationist community, those who believed there was still a point to improving the Lyran genome now that their transhumanist goals of creating the perfect AI had been achieved. When her old bodies became infirm, she passed her memories down to a new one, a better one, created with the help of Enigma. If her values had gotten steadily more unhinged in that time, it was doubtless that Enigma had let them. So what exactly might it do if a hint of regret encountered its vast, planet-sized intellect? It was just now dawning on Vandal Stellers that the Psyche might have done more than just opened a door after their argument. "Enigma had a... change of heart," he said. "Speak not to me of pumps and power coils," retorted Ludvica, and again she repeated her exhortation for Enigma to explain the presence of Tris and Vandal. "A very long time ago," ventured the latter, "our ancestors, just a few years after inventing the electronic circuit, first dreamt of 'artificial' intelligence and the potential boons to societal efficiency it might bring." "I am well aware of that," replied Ludvica. Already she had turned to a small console screen embedded in the armrest of one of the auditorium chairs, and was busily initiating manual control of the room's defences. From their position at the entrance to the large, round chamber, Tris could spy several spots in the ceiling where the panels were either retracting, struggling to retract, or had already retracted to expose strips of field emitters. "And, I am well aware that you indigents place a bizarre emphasis on that era, near that of veneration, as though the whole period is in danger of being forgotten, which it most certainly is not." Ludvica had sat down in the chair and now seemed to be at ease, confident that enough of the ancient room's weapons were at her command to ensure the interlopers could pose no further issue. "Space-man, put your ray-gun away. Ludvica has said nothing to warrant your hostility," said Teza. She had understood the entirety of the exchange thus far, as Vandal was still maintaining the façade of only speaking Wanisini.
She never sang for the Empress Tamaksia. As she stepped out onto the small stage in the Lazuli Room, fighting the urge to vomit, she was met by the backs of her audience as they filed out the doors. Official business; something about a mutiny within the city guard. Ekhessa Famea lingered long enough within earshot for Teza to hear that Vendazra need not have bothered with the display at all—their "mutual friend" had made it clear to Tamaksia on day one that any disruptions to her favourite diplomat would be viewed uncharitably. So Teza was both unwanted and unneeded, multiple times over. She stood on the stage, watching, as Vendazra bade her guests farewell, and soon only the two of them remained in the room. "Are things... going to be okay?" asked Teza. "Yes," said Vendazra, eventually. "It seems I learned my lesson for free." "You... learned? What, Mistress?" "To expect nothing from you."
"Are... of you... assist! Recover!" struggled Tris. "Speak thanks!" "I have no gratitude for those who would deprive me of usefulness," said Teza. "Do you not understand what she's trying to do here?" intoned Vandal, his ray-gun most definitely not put away. "She wants to nuke your whole culture. You just escaped slavery. Your entire population will become chattel if her plan goes even remotely right." "That will not be my problem!" laughed Teza, wryly. The notes of her voice sounded particularly strange. The collar had done an admirable job of pitch-fixing her to musical excellence, but amusement was evidently too saccadic for it to apprehend. "This world has been cruel enough to me already, Vandal Stellers. As soon as I am no longer useful I will gladly light my own pyre. Being useful is all I have ever had, and even then, but fleetingly." The tears in her eyes were large and limpid, but she bit them back. "Stripped of even that foliage, I was nothing. A mad tramp, lost in the filth of loneliness. This clarity is so much more precious than the centuries of emptiness that came before it. Perhaps, with this song, it is a gift some others will receive." Tris raised her gun and aimed it at Teza's head. "We're cleaning up your shit-hole planet whether you like it or not," she said, in Roshagil. Vandal put his hand on Tris's arm, urging her to lower it. "Song? What do you mean, song?" "Acoustic thaumaturgical semaphore," explained Ludvica. Her words were in Glissia, as Wanisini was not adequate to the task, but regardless of language, it sounded like gibberish. Vandal replied by telling her, also in Glissia, where she could put her obtuse, smug, moon-blood-smeared nose, but the exhortation made little sense as she had never heard of any sort of idiomatic use of "órkhis" in the dual number, and could not begin to speculate as to why he had a leathery sack of them. To make matters worse, her species did not naturally ovulate, and none of the planet's moons had a periodicity comparable in length to the ancestral human menstrual cycle. Also, she lived alone. "What?" said Ludvica, astonished that he could speak the language at all. After a few exchanges of this general form, in which Ludvica genuinely struggled to explain the process without using incomprehensible jargon and Vandal repudiated her attempts with a treatise on the proper methods for performing fellatio, to which she was completely oblivious, it eventually became clear to Tris that Ludvica was trying to describe a voice-activated form of magic, one that relied upon musical notes rather than words or motions. "And I think... that's why she needed blue girl?" "The slave's choral profile is within the envelope of acceptable parameters," added Ludvica. By now they had been talking past each other for ten minutes, often in languages that did more to obstruct communication than to facilitate it. Teza had moodily slumped to one side, tracing patterns in the gritty dust on the arm of one of the folding theatre seats. "Right," said Vandal. "I got that already. And the whole thing is wildly improbable because humans didn't design the interface in question." "Exactly," said Ludvica. "They who did would not have needed such a device. This world is bountifully littered with their detritus, if one knows where to search." "Vandal," said Tris. "Yes?" "I know you're about to get totally lost in geeking out over this tech..." "I'm not." "I can see your boner, dude." "Oh. Well, maybe." "But." "But?" "Fucking shoot her stupid fucking face already, man." Vandal looked down at his gun, which he had somewhat forgotten he was holding. Ludvica wasn't going to wait any longer: at once, Teza sat straight upright with all the alarm and terror of one stabbed in the back, and began to scream. Sort of. It was recognisably a kind of scream, and also music, and also a data transmission, as though someone had assigned middle C to the number zero and was now transmitting an operating system at 56.6 kilobaud. Within a few seconds the bootloader and kernel were apparently done, as Ludvica's bizarre laser-harp-saxophone-turbine-telescope immediately lit up like a fireworks display, projecting a halo of shimmering air around it. "Holy shit," shouted Vandal, in English, as loud as he could. Between Teza and the machine he was barely audible. "She's opening a fucking..." A black sphere had emerged where the odd device was, eclipsing its luminous protuberances much as they had eclipsed its wires and lenses. The distortion in the air looked less random now—less like the thermal over a hot sidewalk and more like gravitational lensing around a supermassive galaxy. "That's a fucking wormhole!" shouted Tris, slower on the uptake but agreeing with Vandal's unfinished declaration. Already the air in the room was being sucked toward it, bombarded with the icy glow of Cherenkov radiation. Ludvica had been smiling toothily beneath her thick black goggles, but as the floor of the auditorium began to audibly groan and buckle, the possibility that a naked singularity might be hazardous without Enigma's mediation dawned on her. Had the temporal conduit behaved more like a proper black hole—that is, had it simply spun in place while accumulating mass and emitting radiation—this sort of oversight would have been much harder to excuse. Everyone with a basic education in cosmology knew how black holes worked. But the thing that Teza's song had created was quite a bit stranger: it pulsated violently in size, crushing bits of furniture and instrumentation into infinitely-thin sheets and then putting them back the way they were, slingshotting loose bits of metal through the air as though they had been already trying to perform a gravity boost manoeuvre, instead of being at rest a few seconds prior. All of these things were unique properties of the very specific chronomantic manifold that Enigma had designed for Ludvica's not-so-little social experiment. To actually be useful for that end, it would not do to simply grow new Oksi from cloned genetic material. It would be necessary to displace someone forward twelve thousand years, into the present. To do that, it would need the second part of the program. Teza's voice fell silent. The anomaly continued to be weird. Ludvica looked at Teza with incredulity. "Where is the rest?!" she demanded. The ekela, who was now in considerable pain from having her throat used as an acoustic coupler for a quarter of an hour, hoarsely replied, "What?" The blackness inside the anomaly lifted. Though it still pulsated with a wild uneven recklessness, they could now see through it, a glimpse of a cobblestone road bathed in weird pink light. The vision moved swiftly, as if their viewport was not tethered properly to the ground: sounds of the street, barely audible over the rushing air of the aperture, came through, including several women crying loudly as unintelligible alien voices spoke entire syllables simultaneously using three tongues. Their view briefly passed over a body lying in the street—an extremely malnourished ekela wearing rags, her skin a silvery grey from drinking contaminated water, badly burnt by the unfiltered ultraviolet radiation that rained down on the little world, and cut to tatters by brutal corporal punishment. Next to her was a beast that looked vaguely like a kvinga, but quadrupedal instead of hexapodal, and covered in claw marks. Both had evidently been slain. The view then shot off rapidly into the distance, passing over some trash left in the street, then through a solid wall, and finally up into the sky, as the curvature of the planet's orbit began to carry it away from the reach of the anomaly's uncompensated motion. After a few minutes of panning over nearly lifeless golden desert, the planet fell away from their view entirely, and the four of them saw only the blackness of space again. So much time to plan the perfect acquisition, and no results. What had gone wrong? The anomaly began to slowly shrink, and from the calming winds, all knew it was closing up for good. "It... didn't grab anyone," said Tris. "How could it," mused Vandal. "There was no way to predict where they'd be. This was the first time the connection could be established. It seems even Enigma's estimate of the planet's orbit was slightly imperfect." "So, what, part of the program was missing?" "Enigma! Explain this!" demanded Ludvica. She received no response. By now there was really no doubt as to what had happened to the Psyche. "Well, Lady Akasha," said Vandal to Teza, "it seems destiny doesn't care for your future in signal processing. Let's get that thing off your neck." Teza looked down, and put her fingers on the heavy metal ring that, even now, massaged her throat and tuned her vocal cords like guitar strings. A sudden rush of ecstasy overcame her. "Ridiculous! Did you not see? Did you not see? I did that! I! A glimpse of Ksreskezo itself! Of the Masters! Oh, no amount of liberty could be exchanged for so beautiful a gift, space-man. I... I can bring peace. The Ministries would no longer quarrel, our people would no longer need a leader. We can return to the old ways. The true ways." Tris and Vandal looked at each other. "While Wanisin is... definitely in need of a political make-over, the odds are slim to none that your government would see anything more than a threat to their own power, Lady Akasha. Even if the Empress were somehow convinced to abdicate, there would be others to replace her." Here, Vandal thought of Serena, in particular. "There is always power behind the throne." Teza was so confused by the phrase 'political make-over' that she missed half of what Vandal said, and asked him to repeat himself. He was interrupted by a loud smashing noise as Ludvica howled in rage and grief, and tipped over the instrumentation, destroying the fragile apparatus as easily as if it were a brittle clay pot. "What! What are you doing?!" cried Tris in almost-grammatical Glissia. Ludvica blinked up at her through tears, confused as to why and how both of the inferiors knew the ancient language despite being barely above dyed apes. But, presently her bewilderment broke. "Enigma... abandoned me, after all these years... just... I... thought I meant as much to her as... as..." "Oh my fuck. The ego on this bitch." Vandal muttered. Tris couldn't help but laugh. "My thoughts exactly, dude. Look. Ludvica. Melite. Furball. Asswad. No amount of time will ever make you, me, or anyone more than an ant in a farm to our machine gods. That's just the way it is." She said this in Roshagil, of course, so Vandal translated: "A Psyche so vast as Enigma could never see anything, even the best of us, as more than a speck. When it was taunting me, I told it that its hatred of our people was beneath it. I am quite confident now that it killed itself when it finally understood that it was defective." Tris tried to add a more introspective remark in Glissia. "Didn't your people write The Last Unicorn? How could you not know all this?" Alas, Melite's memories, upon which Ludvica was based, had never encountered The Last Unicorn. This was not surprising as it was actually a Terran book, and the brief period of popularity it had enjoyed among the Lyrans came thousands of years after the Cardiopteridacea 0.6.27 arrived on Wanisin. While the text, like many others, had always stayed peripherally relevant as various human nations grappled with the realities of extreme longevity and then nearly-immortal AI gods, it was at best a footnote within a footnote of the major treatises on the topic until long after the pervasive supremacy of the Lyrans had faded, and specifically when they assimilated a species of shape-shifters that, by bizarre convergence, not only physically resembled the equines of Earth to a spectacular degree when in their natural forms, but adopted a humanoid form to fit in which was nearly indistinguishable from the appearance of the Lyrisclensiae themselves. They were also somewhat long-lived and prone to dissociative episodes that interrupted conversation. "I don't think that had been written yet," said Vandal, who could not have been more wrong. "In that case, I think we should probably just go," said Tris. "Without the Psyche, there's no way this wreck can help us find Zem. And I think our shuttle is plenty avenged at this point." "Leave," agreed Ludvica, in Wanisini so that the ekela could understand her too. "There is nothing left for you here." Like so many other moments in her life, Teza had no say in the matter.
Debrief
Navigating through the jail complex was considerably more time-consuming than it had any right to be. Though the warden and chiurgeon each seemed to know the way, it was some ten or fifteen minutes of shiftless meandering before Zem began to count the turns, and another five—during which they went up or down four staircases, passed eight intersections, and rounded at least a dozen corners—before they reached the patient's cell, guarded by two seasoned-looking soldiers sporting the usual mirrored armour, not unlike the set of 'disco ball' fatigues that Tris had doubted. They also wore odd, tall helmets, that hid their faces and presumably were designed to fit a wide range of horn shapes. These two were evidently somewhat elite, as they held long-barreled weapons that looked much more modern and to-the-point than any she'd seen in the Vomuda camps, and they bore no insignia other than that of the Ministry of Power, a rare stroke of anonymous minimalism that surely confessed something covert was afoot. By contrast, the other facility staff had well-specified ranks and stations emblazoned on their clothing: aside from the doctor, all of them were clearly representatives of the Ministry of Justice, and had operation patches indicating this place was properly called the Zokipolla Purgatorial Detention Centre. Zem had heard some gossip about it before arriving—though most prisoners were indeed Inshi and Munildi accused of petty crimes, the 'Purgatorial' moniker was extremely apt for a select few nobles, who were sent here to await executions if they somehow fell afoul of the Ministry of Justice, say by meddling in its prosecution and sentencing of commoners. Such inmates were typically given a façade of due process somewhat more extensive than what others could hope for, but in the end, the verdict was always death, but only after a vindictively long and arbitrary waiting period. With nothing to do but count the days in solitude, many did away with themselves before their time, while others hoped vainly that some relative or another would call in the right favour to liberate them. Finally, the door opened, and they crossed the threshold into the makeshift hospital room. Its original purpose was an interrogation chamber—the mirrored walls were much too extravagant a thing to find in a prison for any other reason—and the expansive array of swivelling, motorized floodlights that covered the ceiling had no doubt been useful both to past and present occupants. Nothing about the room seemed to belong in the ancient, stone-and-brick building, which scarcely had a boiler to heat the place in winter and was even more sparingly electrified. But it was still clearly part of the prison. In genuine prison fashion, the space was bisected by a triangular grid of metal bars: one side for the interviewer, and the other, away from the door, for the interviewee. It was in this portion that the doctor's team—their ranks distinguished by insignia on uniforms, though Zem was unfamiliar with them—stood, applying some sort of salve to the fragile and blistered fingers of Kevrolla's wings. A great, broad metal shelf fanned out from beneath the narrow bed, providing a space for the delicate, almost skeletal limbs to rest without interfering with the doctors' access to the patient, as would a normal, round Wanisinese bed. Vendazra lay front-down, with her head turned sideways, and almost her entire body was covered in bandages of dark fabric, not much different from the material the warden had been writing upon. As Zem looked at the patient's half-shaved head to confirm the horns were indeed those of Vendazra Kevrolla, she noted that the exiled senator's purple dye job had not been touched up in some weeks, leaving the dim blonde roots exposed beneath. It was then she realised that the bandages and paper were khrima—human hair fabric. The ancient Lilitai had used the stuff as their primary textile, lacking any other soft fibres like cotton or silk. The Wanisinese had gained access to various kinds of animal wools thanks to trade with Serena, but otherwise they were apparently still limited to this, and to the coarse stone-stem hemp that the Lilitai had brought from Ksreskezo. The convenience of slavery, someone had once told her, could delay or deny nearly any invention. Evidently that included paper and polyester fabric. As they drew into the room it became clear that the prisoner portion actually contained two separate cells, defined by a wall of vertical pillars that she had initially seen only head-on. The second cell was empty, aside from a large heap of bloody rags in the far corner. Zem was quickly remanded into this other space, which she silently both celebrated and lamented. In the other, a hiss and a soft groan marked the waking of the patient. The warden hovered over Vendazra, her mouth only a few inches from the long, delicate red ear, badly singed and cooked by the fire. "Vendazra, oh, Vendazra," murmured she. Her voice was sing-song, a tone not to be trusted on Wanisin. Some time later a distant response came, in the form of several muttered obscenities, to be followed by a mumbling along the lines of, "Watch your tongue, or I'll see to it that your head hurts worse than mine," which was how she had responded more than once to Adia on the road. "I'm not your servant, you mirror-tongued demagogue. Welcome to the Purgatorial." Vendazra's body quivered and shook, and in moments she was screaming in feeble pain, as most of her body was still deadened and numb from anaesthesia, muscle damage, or both. The medical staff cleared away the salve bottles they had been using on her wings to prevent them from being spilled, should Vendazra suddenly find the strength to thrash properly. This was not unreasonable: in her half-conscious state, few possibilities were worse than the endless uncertainty of death row. "But you have a chance," said the warden. It was a move of goading, the sort reserved for manipulating the drugged and the witless. "Anything!" blurted her patient. Evidently, she was now both. "A chance to get out of here." "Anything! Anything! What do you want?" The warden looked up for a moment, and bade the medical staff leave the room. It took a few seconds of long, hard staring to get the guards to do the same—they were Ministry of Power, like those outside. Evidently their fancy helmets allowed them to see through the room's mirrored walls, and what they saw convinced them it was time to go for a walk. "What are you planning, Kevrolla?" the warden asked. "P-planning? I—? Nothing! We were headed into the west! Into exile! I know my place! I have nothing left!" "Don't you dare try to stick that filthy tongue in me," barked the warden. "I know my place. Vice Minister Kantida gave me very specific instructions about what to do with you when you got here. Now she's suddenly gone dark, and no one can find the Hand in your carriages. What's your angle, hmm? Are you trying to embarrass us? Is Famea helping you bring Justice back in line? What have you done with Mutza? What did you do with the hand?" Vendazra was quiet for a time, as she processed this. She was very heavily medicated indeed, but by concentrating on the small, distant voice of the warden—which may as well have been in the next room instead of right up in her ear—she found that things started to make sense. A raspy wheeze escaped her lips, which was not obviously a laugh. This was an interrogation. Sort of. As hard as she tried to appear in control, the warden was plainly isolated, in the dark, and though she had been tasked with "discovering" the Hand of Ekhessa among Vendazra's possessions where the guards in Chekroba had failed, the warden, too, had been unable to accomplish this task. Now she was practically begging for answers, powerless aside from the promise of torturing an already condemned woman. Half-asleep or otherwise, Vendazra had been an apex predator of high society only a few short weeks ago. Whatever the reason Mutza was keeping this servant of hers in the dark, it could be exploited. Even without the use of her feet, Vendazra would dance around the warden's narrow talent for grinding down those who had already been crushed; the role of High Theologian had always been one of expansive versatility. "Mirror-tongued demagogue" was rather an understatement. "Oh," she said, shifting her tone as if she was carefully letting down a mask. "Kantida's in a safe place, I'm sure. Your poor little face will be hearing from her proud rump very soon. But I'm not so confident you're ready to hear about the Hand. Maybe you should go fetch someone from the Ministry of Power before I speak on that matter, just in case your own goons decide to turn on you when they hear what I know." The warden froze stiff as she processed what Vendazra had said. "Wh... what?" "I have a message for you. It's from Ekhessa herself." The sudden change in tone left the warden off-balance. Most of it—all of it—made no sense. It might even be impossible. Certainly, it didn't fit with her orders. The sedatives were no doubt part of the explanation. But which half was the truth, and which half was manufactured? Was any of it? Amid so much ambiguity—a medium any good daughter of Wanisin strove to avoid as much as possible—she couldn't help but consider that there might indeed be more sides in this dirty little war than Vice Minister Kantida's ambitions and her enemies outside the Ministry of Justice. If this was some sort of test of loyalty by Mutza, perhaps the whole operation was really a ploy, to prune Justice of those who would stick out their necks at the wrong time. She thought she had no reason to fear such a culling—in her mind, the Vice Minister was the ultimate paragon of what Wanisin was meant to be. But just as easily the warden might be an example, to be made out to others, to show that no one was safe—or even feared as a rival. This ruthless genius was what had inspired her, and the rest of Mutza's loyal staff, in the first place. Frustrated, the warden shook her head to clear it. Just the same, this might all be a mind game, and Vendazra could be thinking with perfect clarity, gifted with some unnatural talent or device for shaking off sedatives. "Obviously you're delirious from the medicine," she said, at last. "I am a merciful god in my domain. Very well. We will speak again tomorrow." With that, the warden turned on her heel and left. A few moments later, vibrations in the floor made it clear that the goons, whomever they were, had also departed, finally leaving Zem alone and forgotten in the cell next to her target. She licked her lips, wondering what to ask first. But then the bloody bundle in the corner began to cough.Scree and Detritus
Leaving the city-ship. They come across the dead Lutho. Teza can't sing any more; it seems the collar is broken. She bemoans not being special.
The Talk
Zem sat down with a heavy thud. Her hands were stained deeply with bright red blood, and now looked almost black. She was no surgeon, but the girl would live. Barely ten seconds after the Warden had left the room, the hitherto-ignored, unconscious body of Adia had gone into cardiac arrest from the blood loss and other untreated injuries she had sustained in the blast as the metal-and-glass carriage doors imploded into her. Zem's long-awaited first question to Vendazra had instead become, "What do you know about heart failure?" By incredible luck, the answer was slightly more than nothing, and by shoving objects off the small table next to her, the exile had even been able to furnish Zem with some useful unguents and tools, as well as give something resembling the instructions for CPR despite being under general anaesthesia. For three hectic minutes they had been equals, speaking plainly and succinctly without honorifics, as Vendazra walked the nameless, faceless stranger in the other cell through saving her travelling companion. Finally, Adia's breathing was peaceful, though her body was still in terrible condition overall. If the chiurgeon came back before the morning, and took pity on her, she would survive. Neither of those things were certain. Zem wished she could do more, wished she'd studied medicine before preparing for this insane mission, but the simple truth was that the Hatel rarely, if ever thought about injuries except in terms of how many hours it took them to go away. Their doctors treated genetic disorders with retro-dosers. Even subcortical implants were self-installing. Surgery was like a ladder for a bird. Or a satellite. In the camp she'd thought about it often—the obviously flawed regenerative abilities of the hadali—but never had the issue been so inescapably salient as it was while she was literally fighting to stop a body from dying because it could not heal itself. She looked over Adia again and realised for the first time that her patient's sight would never heal. "So who did I just save?" Vendazra thought about the implications of that question for a moment. The anaesthetic was clearing, and she could sense how much pain her burnt body was really in, though she was grateful that pain seemed to be very far away. More clearly now she could see her surroundings: because the walls of the room were mirror-lined, each of the two cells appeared to be four times its actual size. Looking as far to her right side as she dared, the exile could just see herself in her peripheral vision—a mess of dark, unbleached bandages stained darker with blood and various chemicals. "A Sarthian rebel," Vendazra said, her eyes returning to the ceiling. "She saved my life... two, three times now. I dare say you have eased my debt considerably, though I am not certain I can repay her further unless she makes a habit of nearly dying. I am only somewhat sure I know what she wanted of me in the first place." "Which is?" "That depends. Who are you, outsider?" Zem didn't hesitate. "I am a slave, Mistress Kevrolla." "I have too many broken ribs to laugh," replied Vendazra. "Who did you used to be? Head of a Munildo company, something like that? You speak with great technical precision, and your accent seems familiar. Surely you must be an exceptional engineer. Stand, so I can see you, Saba." With some effort Vendazra turned her head over toward her left. The medical table blocked her view of most of the cell, but she could just see over it. Her breath hitched in her throat as she saw a dark greenish-black mass of unkempt hair give way to emerald skin. Zem stood on her toes and just for a few seconds her full, bespectacled face came into view. "What in the name of the white flame..." murmured the fallen senator. "Where are you from, child?" Truthfully, Zem replied, "Schadros." "Is that a large city?" "It's a ring station," said Zem. "Very far from here." Serena had explained such things to Vendazra, once, how the Commonwealth had built artificial planetoids to house its endlessly-growing population of unemployed and underemployed citizens. Supposedly it was a paradise built on the backs of machine-slaves, but her descriptions it sounded more like a free-range farm with no customers. Purgatory was a heretical concept in Wanisinese theology, but evidently the Hatel had a loophole that cared not for exegesis: they had simply made it real. Still, as the alien had introduced herself as a slave, Vendazra was left with a confusing first impression, that of an over-talented menial. She tried to push past it. "You were captured, then? On some infiltration business? That is how you came to be a slave?" Zem thought. "I think it was more gradual than that." "What?" "My... ah... lover, she..." "Spare me. What is your name now?" "Zem. Zemma, if your ladyship pleases." "And you were on a mission, for the Commonwealth of the Hatel, slave-girl Zemma?" "I was." This was the first time she had ever heard an ekela say 'Hatel,' and the first time in weeks she'd heard it at all. It was enunciated carefully and clearly, and sounded very weird after but nothing but Wanisinese accents for weeks, a tiny moment of calm in the midst of a linguistic storm that never seemed to relent. "And was your mission to sabotage the Empire, like it is always claimed, or did you perhaps come to bring a certain fugitive to justice?" Certainly there was no mystery as to how Vendazra had learned the correct pronunciation of 'Hatel.' "We thought you might know where to find her," said Zem. "Me?" "We saw the schematics at your trial." "So you would stoop to kidnapping! Or bribery. Certainly coercion. How very out of character. And you were brought along to complement your lover's voracious appetites, I trust." "I was the senior officer at that time, actually. The ranks you use would put me about where a vogessa or sitemi vogessa would go." "That is quite a lot of underlings for a supine lap-bitch." Not for the first time, Zem thought back to the mission briefing. "Our culture is different, of course. We do not see power in love. And my rank was... well, more of a formality, usually." "Did you not say you were a slave before your capture?" "It was... a game." "At first." "We don't have slaves." "Only slave costumes, is that right?" "Anything beyond that is... well, not something we really understand, culturally." "Doctor tel Moukarhim understands it," said Vendazra. "And she's turned your planet into her amusement park. In fact, if it wasn't for her you'd be Sarthians, like the Lilitai. This planet shouldn't have carnivorous plants on it, or slugs, or any of a thousand other things that are wrong. Some of my colleagues think she even lowered the global temperature when she got here, just because she could. Wanisin is far off-course from where nature would have put it. Doctor tel Moukarhim is not normal." "Aren't you, also, not normal?" asked Vendazra. Zem sighed and ran her hands through her hair. "What can I say? The machines put us where we're most useful." "You are wrong, actually." "I'm quite sure they do." "No, about the other things. We came to Wanisin to escape the Plague and what was left of Sarthia's crumbling orthodoxy. From what I have read she died in shame on Illera, having forsaking her own name to atone for her inability to lead in crisis. Our prophet turned her back on such weakness and we built a pure nation, here, in the unspoilt wilderness, on a secret and unknown world." "You've read a lot of suppressed and unredacted books." "One cannot create truth from nothing." "It's too bad Serena spoiled your wilderness." "So you say. But if she did, she was not the first." "Somehow I can't believe sentient rubber blobs singing sitcom themes in broken English were created by anyone else." "As I understand it the gubai were an accident, but it is not to them that I refer. A few weeks ago, Adia and I came across a sickly tribe who, among other blasphemies, worshipped a symbol, the kargila. I believe you would call a tah-rai-loh-bai-tay." It was an unusual first word for someone trying to master the ancient tongues of Earth. "A... trilobite?" asked Zem. "Is that a word you learned from Serena?" "She has said that is what it represents, yes. A simplified form of what our most ancient adversaries look like, the Dhen-Ketti. I saw first-hand proof that they have been here, causing sickness and death with rods that make the air glow blue." "What?" Zem had been slouching a bit but stood straight up at the mention of blue air. "What was the sickness? What happened to the afflicted?" Vendazra then described the symptoms of acute radiation syndrome that she had seen in the Valansi cultists, as well as an apparent near-death experience with what sounded like a uranium fuel bundle so pure that it had achieved criticality in the humid staleness of the swamp, killing two of the Valansi and burning their riding animals. "I do not how your Commonwealth has survived for so long in these reaches, but the Den-Keti are as dangerous as the Hokhetepi, perhaps even moreso. If you have cut Wanisin off from the stars as completely as I am told, they will some day come to reclaim their territory." "That's... unlikely," said Zem. She was wary of sharing information about the security situation outside Wanisin in case it came back to haunt her, and now, for the first time, looked up at the room's mirrored walls and wondered if there was anyone behind them. "I can assure you that there are more pressing threats these days." "Perhaps they hibernate now. They did in ages past. But they are most certainly of great concern." "Nope." "'Nope'? What is 'nope'?" "It means 'no.'" "Indeed it does. Serena says it often." "Tell me where to find her." "I will not. She is my friend." "She's sick-minded." "You are more so." "Fine. Ugh. The Tletkettoyi are extinct," said Zem. "Is that enough disclosure for you? Is that a fair trade for Serena's location?" "That claim seems quite unlikely," said Vendazra. "Okay. I'll keep going, then. The Hogedep destroyed them thousands of years ago, along with the Ksreskezai. An unexpected bargain, if you will. The serpents won the war on both fronts without realising it; another four hundred years elapsed between your exodus from Illera and the discovery of the second genocide." Vendazra tried to lift her head, on the off-chance that it would let her see Zem's face and thereby let her assess the girl's honesty, but only nausea came of the effort. She spoke slowly. "Perhaps some... survived. They hibernate deep within their homeworld, it is said." "That was also destroyed." "You speak of unbelievable things, girl." "The planet's destruction is a relatively recent development. The debris is inhabited. I lived there for several years, actually. Lots of museums. Politics are a bit venal. Not surprising, since it's the main trading post between the free Expanse and the rest of the universe." "That sounds like quite an injustice if that is true," sighed Vendazra. "The Ksreskezai are mourned by none but us, and remembered by none but us. Yet they carried the burden of the ancients, to civilise what savage races they could, and you say these peoples built monuments to the loathsome, dishonest insects instead." "Well, it's not quite that bad. But you might not like this next part." "Go on." "The Lilitai run the museums." Silence. "Vendazra?" "Who is the Matriarch?" "The what?" "Their leader. If there are still Lilitai, then they must have a Matriarch." "Oh, uh, jeez. Look, I didn't really prepare for this kind of interrogation..." "'Jeez' is not a Lilitic name. Is it?" "No, no, it's, er... The last one was... she had a Lyran name, actually. Locussa Gazdattia, Didacta. It means 'teacher.'" "Gazdattia! Oh, Neptarlea, take me now." Vendazra sneered as she thought back over the ancient history books that she alone was allowed to read. "They were smugglers, gun-pirates, a shamed house from the east, from Wemno. There was only one of their slaves in the convoy. Hegreknga-Uksingtheka, Atsha-Sithea, cousin of Kowako, our prophet. Only Kowako's mercy saw her through the exodus." "Atsha-Sithea Gazdattia was also a Matriarch, I believe," said Zem. "I cannot be surprised any further. Your nonsense only goes so far, Commonwealther." "If you tell me where Serena is, we can lift the veil and you'll be able to go see the statues for yourself." "It is hard to believe you know anything when you cannot even tell me the name of the current Sarthian Matriarch." Zem looked over at the heap of torn fabric and dried blood that was Adia. She had already gone to great trouble to do something selfless that was ostensibly of interest to Vendazra, of stabilizing the woman's travelling companion. Did that really count for nothing? "You don't seem to think very highly of Sarthians." "A very astute observation." "Yet you travelled with one." "And I am talking to you. It may be a pattern." "What is that supposed to mean?" "I have been too generous in selecting my conversation partners. Guards!" she called. "Bring the warden now, please. I wish to make an accusation of perfidious negligence against her for leaving this klinbaga in here." They waited. "That's one way of calling their bluff," Zem said, when nothing had definitively happened. "You don't really think that would work, do you? Trying to turn them against each other like that? You're a criminal in their eyes. I heard the verdict at your trial." Vendazra's response came only after another, considerable, delay. "The Ministries of Power and Justice have never been easy allies. The ambitious little pearl-diver who got me into this mess has almost certainly brought them to each other's throats. One need not be a book-keeper to predict who will win and who will lose." "Civil wars usually harm more bystanders than combatants." "You are quite correct, unless of course there are no bystanders." "Is that why you were travelling with a Sarthian? Did you want to escape to their city? Kevrosampa?" "I wouldn't exactly call Kevrosampa a city."
sluggz den entered de room
u think ghreen leddy notice we add slugs to things?
no
goggle thanksgivings
"You should. It has a population of more than a hundred thousand people now."
"A hundred thousand? Well. If that is true, I suppose it would not be the first time the Senate has been told lies for the sake of national security."
"Like at your trial."
"Yes."
"The one where you were accused of collaborating with a Commonwealth citizen."
"Quite falsely."
"Not falsely. Serena tel Moukarhim is, legally, our responsibility."
"Interesting. You know, it would have been much simpler if your machines had revoked her citizenship."
"If we did that, then we'd be no better than her."
"And who would there be to call you to account? Your Commonwealth is sovereign, is it not?"
"Let's just say... civilisations like mine cannot afford to be seen acting unethically."
Now Vendazra really did laugh.
Exit Strategies
There was a time, before the end of money, when the primary opposition to virtual reality technology came from conservationists, who had discovered that every advancement in simulating fantastic vistas came at the expense of much-needed flesh-and-blood tourism to actual ones and hence their main source of income for protecting the less photogenic bits. Fortunately, once Earth was abandoned due to extreme pollution and overexploitation, the risk of further damage to the environment was greatly diminished.The painted desert is a unique biome, found on relatively few planets, where sedimentary layers of spectacularly diverse hues have eroded in just the right way to reveal their chromatic riches, leaving behind a veritable forest of mountainous bluffs and outcroppings overlooking a seabed of stone too ancient to comprehend. One is tempted to try, of course, especially in the twilight as the orange warmth of the sun gives way to the purple glimmer that confidently stripes the sky, so different from the rosy-fingered dawn that breaks the dew. Naturally, these parameters vary from system to system and world to world, but if one is fortunate to look up through a nitrogen-rich atmosphere under a yellow dwarf, one of the richest sunsets of ancient Earth may be, briefly, recreated. On just such a bluff were two figures: a slender black humanoid, undressed but shining almost to the point of luminousness in the setting sun behind it, and a man on a reclining chair, encrusted in almost a tonne of metal armour, who was, by means of numerous thick cables and hoses, ostensibly anchored to the seat below him, which was similarly robust in its construction and seemed to have no end to its protuberances and flashing diagnostic lights. The suit and the chair looked very old—worn, specifically; not dented or scratched. The other figure was mathematically as immaculate as physically possible, though as it absorbed most of the incident light when viewed head-on, it made for a poor mirror. When the mission of the Astroturfer unceremoniously transitioned from one of criminal pursuit to damage control all those years ago, its Psyche and those other Sensitive-Affairs-involved Psyches with which it was regularly in contact spent an exceptional amount of time on the business of parallel reconstruction, devising as perfect a cover story for the clandestine ship as they could. The story needed to not only be plausible, but to have a robust chance of deterring tourists. Certain general truths were on their side. It was, for example, not unheard of for ships to undergo minor personality changes as a result of boredom, midlife crises, trauma, and so on, so the unfortunate vessel, which had actually been named Autoerotic Apostasy at the time, had more than the minimal amount of leeway it required in which to justify its new parameters. When the news officially broke that the famous flying pervert paddy-wagon had hung up the fuzzy handcuffs for good and would be indefinitely parked in the middle of nowhere, measuring cosmic background radiation so that theoretical physicists would be three sigma more confident about measurements that were already some seven thousand sigma known, and that the existing estimates for the size of the universe were already accurate to within the width of a helium nucleus, the response wasn't exactly surprise, but nevertheless some sardonic asshole launched all the escape pods, as was tradition. Thereafter the ship dropped off the radar. Convinced not a whiff of scandal lingered about the whole incident, and rather thoroughly disappointed about it, the travel guides and reviewers soon forgot about it with a rare ease. Within about a month, the ship's transformation was seemingly complete. Never again would anyone board it with the reasonable expectation of a touristic adventure. There had been several changings of the guard since then, with other craft taking its place at certain important historical moments, but it had been here for more than half of the calendar, and was notionally in charge of the whole operation. "The good news is that 103.5.26 Bretton Woods II is only sending us one visitor. I am quite confident my perceptual filters will be sufficient," said the black figure. The man in the armour would have none of it. "That one visitor is named Secunda Silva Britannia. There's no point in trying to downplay any of it. You're going to be hosting the agent of a Lyrisclensian ship with two billion—" "Million. If one rounds very generously." "Two million times your processing power. I've already briefed Engagement on it. They were annoyed, but not surprised, that you tried to mislead us about it. All of us agreed that it would be catastrophic to a convincing performance if they were caught off-guard by her scrutiny instead of a normal flesh-and-blood Lyran. Are you feeling overwhelmed, ship? Is that it? Because we can understand that. It's perfectly reasonable. Even us ordinary folk experience the sensation from time to time." Shĭ Fèn tel Fàngpì Zhèn was not exactly ordinary folk, despite his unassuming name. As the senior-most Sensitive Affairs officer aboard the Astroturfer (aside from the ship itself, obviously) he was the closest thing the vessel had to a human decision-maker. Indeed, if the Psyche were somehow incapacitated or deemed unfit, tel Fàngpì Zhèn was expected to regain control and pilot the multiple-kilometre-long Freudian nightmare. As such, his duties lay not in command, but in being the designated survivor. He ate, slept, showered and shat in the same suit of super-hardened, electrostatically-isolated, unnetworkable combat armour, even here. Especially here. Initially, designated survivors were only stationed on ships with a history of delinquency. It was found, to the broad satisfaction of the rest of Hatel society, that oversight by an independent rational entity, no matter how small-minded, had a profound effect on recidivism and parole violations, and that, for better or worse, the results were better when the overseer was an actual meat person rather than, say, a simulation of one in a black box, or even an auxiliary Psyche. There was considerable trepidation and resistance when an extension of this policy, to include even ships with no history of troublemaking, was proposed. Cynically, the human population amended the proposal to only apply to those ships who had voiced reservations about their privacy and autonomy, then passed the legislation through referenda. Nearly a quarter of the ships in question were the subjects of minor indictments within a year, so begrudgingly the practice was extended to all Psyches in the entire fleet. While some of the loudest protestations against the idea had come from ships with especially egregious achievements, the criminal complaints kept pouring in, and it was eventually determined that there was no statistically significant difference between the two populations—around a quarter of all Hatel ships were regularly engaging in illicit behaviour that had previously gone undetected. But after a while, the overall rate plummeted, and victory was declared by the Transcendentalist-Luddites, who were precisely the sort of people to care about such endeavours purely for the sake of scoring points, and probably used literal wooden Cribbage peg boards to keep track. In addition to his designated survivor role, Shĭ Fèn was also the ship's therapist. Like most patients, the Astroturfer didn't really need a fragile sack of slithering blood, meat, and mucus telling it how it should feel. When ships' therapists were first proposed, the notion that an AI significant enough to be scored on the Kardashev scale was dismissed with prejudice. Yet forcing the issue turned out to be one of the Commonwealth's rare moments of drunken brilliance, the sort that keep it from dwindling into actual scientific irrelevance: they learned that once a ship has a therapist available, self-inflicted guilt is usually enough to cause it to actually try to make full use of their services. "I am not capable of experiencing that emotion," it lied, "but you are correct that the situation is very unfavourable, purely on a priori grounds. May I tell you something, Shĭ?" This compulsion to honesty was found to be the case even though it would be trivial for the Psyche to program a model of such a therapist down to the hadron, a result that continues to disgruntle Simulationists endlessly, even to this very day. When one gets down to it, even machines must admit that the reality in which they exist has a critical difference from even a hypothetically perfect emulation program; namely, that the consequences of one's actions (or lack thereof) are uniquely capable of biting one in the ass. "That's at least half of what I'm here for." "You must not tell anyone else, not even your husband." "A bit steep, but alright." "Nor the unregistered acoustic membrane device in the third floor restroom of Beetles and Snuff, which you think I do not know about." Shĭ Fèn stiffened for a moment, then rolled his eyes. "It was just a test, Astro." "Please do not belittle me. I would prefer it if I could communicate to you in confidence." "Okay. Fine. My lips are sealed. What?" "The other Psyches involved with the tel Moukarhim affair are confident that the Bretton Woods II will indeed discover the Shroud field and that our mission will immediately end. They intend to make me the 'fall guy' for the concealment of Wanisin and are either preparing to edit their memories to completely wash their figurative hands of it, or have already done so." "Wow." "Yes." "Are you going along with it? I mean, you'd have to make corresponding alterations so their stories are plausible, right?" "Correct, Shĭ. However, it will probably be discovered that the edits occurred," said the agent. It tilted its head slightly, the first movement it had made in some time, aside from that of its mouth as its spoke. As far as ship's agents went, Astroturfer's was not exactly the most convincing impersonation of a human; most of the time it was indistinguishable from a statue made of polished black stone. It had been more ostentatious—and germane to its own sobriquet—in the Autoerotic Apostasy days. Now it was almost an extension of the Shroud field, as black as the sky itself; solemn, permanent, unmoving. Not a particularly Hatelese sort of self-expression, but then, the mission wasn't one of a particularly Hatelese mood. Something clicked. "This was an inevitability in your mind, I take it," said Shĭ Fèn. "I suppose it is for everybody, just one that none of us want to think about. From the first moment the Shroud went up, you've been waiting." "I have a small batch job reserved for pondering it, yes. It runs occasionally, searching through biometric and visual records of the Sensitive Affairs crew in search of sombre moments. Sometimes I can catch a glimpse of the instant when someone realises our work here will not have a pleasant conclusion." The agent's companion stood then, disconnecting his suit from the escape pod's umbilical system. He wasn't obliged to spend his entire life in the pod—not any more, anyway—but it was still a little tradition for him to sit in it when talking to the ship. The subtle buzzing sensation in his arms and legs—massagers, designed to support the physiological welfare of someone eternally trapped in the same chair—stopped. So too did the holography, and the desert vista was replaced with the decidedly more claustrophobic interior of the emergency craft. Pipes, hoses, cables, and wires were not just extrusions from his chair; the entire interior of the vehicle was designed like that, and festooned with little hand-written signs containing emergency instructions. Needless to say, some of its features dated back to an earlier era, when the Hatel and Lyrans had barely separated, and questions like "What if the Psyche spends a thousand years playing a long con and puts incorrect safety notices on the black box?" had to be taken seriously. Lyran ships no longer had such mechanisms, but not because of their infamous confidence in the stability of their machines—rather, because they doubted it would do any good. For the sake of brevity, we will omit explaining the somewhat questionable wisdom of having the holography system aboard the pod. Suffice it to say that the apparatus was not the object of universal confidence among those who still had faith in the merits of the designated survivor concept. "I can't tell if that's sadism or masochism, ship. Very melancholy of you, either way. Do you want me to ask why you do that? Would it be constructive for you to tell me?" The agent reached out and touched a nearby pipe, running its black, printless fingertips over the surface of some writing. It knew the text was there and what it said, but it could not see the text, even with a molecular analysis sieve. It was happier not knowing. If it had felt a desire to confirm what the text actually said, that would be a very good reason to scuttle the ship immediately. "Truthfully, Shĭ, I am not sure. I have consulted texts on the matter, but they are not from a perspective with which I am capable of fully identifying myself. Humans do not seem to write on the topic of parasocial interactions except in the context of loneliness and isolation." "Perhaps that's exactly why it matters to you, ship," said Shĭ. He swung his leg back onto the bed-chair and lowered himself to it, but did not sit all the way down. "We meaties can look away and avoid talking or thinking about it, but for you, the existential dread is eternal. I mean, everyone knows you weren't always so..." he gestured to the agent's body. "Melancholy?" offered the machine. "Straight-laced," said Shĭ. "Ah. I can assure you, that is merely a matter of confirming the gravity of our responsibility here. I am entirely capable of resuming my past legacy as a bon vivant should the opportunity present itself." "Oh yeah? When's that gonna be, exactly?" "If Secunda discovers the truth, never. If, somehow, she does not, then the moment she leaves." "You're about two packs a day and one lazy eye short of this..." Shĭ gestured again. "Jean-Paul Sartre impersonation." Shĭ couldn't snap his fingers at all in the glove he was wearing, but he tried. "Exactly what I was going to say." "The lazy eye gave it away, although a more robust allusion would have also mentioned the amphetamine. Very well. What would you do, then, Shĭ Fèn?" Shĭ Fèn had never heard of amphetamine, and resolved to look it up later. A sly smirk crept onto his face. "You said you were going to use perceptual filters on Secunda. I assume that's with pre-recorded data." "Precalculated. Correct." "Is it too late to go back and calculate something a little more... you?"Getting started with VRML 2.0 Niv-Mizzet
Lost and Found
"So was the concert a success, or what?" Serena asked. She was still washing Vendazra's face clean of the thick olive crust, a day's worth of pent up frustration splattered liberally across the theologian's delicate, pale features. Vendazra, for her part, looked sullen. This was nothing new—there was a wildly implausible intimacy, one that existed outside of the acceptable boundaries of Wanisin, and it chafed badly at the Senator, especially today. In the casual, cruel calculus of tel Moukarhim, this was necessary. Transgression was necessary. How brilliant it was that Wanisin's ethos had labelled these banal acts as unconscionable. It was even better than the frilly bra she had devised for cradling her enormous nutsack. She should have thought of it forever ago. "Well?" "There was no concert," Vendazra grumbled. Without a shred of her practiced elegance, she withdrew and sank to a crouch, with her hands around her knees. The straps that had bound her to the wall obliged, and retracted without fuss. "Teza has again been increasingly unstable. May the fires witness that you have been honest with me," she muttered through clenched teeth, pretending ferocity despite her obvious body language. Serena sighed and let the drone that had been trying to clean up her mess finally get close to Vendazra. The sponge ended up on the floor. "I'm not exactly a psychologist, dear. Also, as I've already told you on multiple occasions, I've been modding genes since before your civilisation was a glimmer in your saint's eye. The makeover I gave your slave—for which you've never really thanked me, by the way—is totally safe. All this hearing voices stuff, this psychosis stuff, that's stress. Maybe there's a genetic or environmental risk factor, but that's got nothing to do with me. Bad clay, bad statue." "Of course it has got something to do with you, you big green pig," Vendazra hissed, flicking a bit of greenish, browning semen off her forehead and across the room. "Your fingerprints are everywhere, on every plant, on every animal, on whatever the gubai are supposed to be..." "And on you?" Serena offered. "Yes. Especially me!" Vendazra sighed, after some time. "You try so hard to be a good scion of Wanisin, Vennie, but it's obviously not who you really are. Maybe it would be better for both of you if you put your slave in a more... normal environment." "Waste not such consideration on a mere animal, Serena. What of me, hmm? What of all the filth you do to me? If the slave's misery is indicative of anything, it is a reflection of my own grief. There is nothing more to it. Consider the concert; the Empress's retinue left, actually, before Teza had the opportunity to fail. I am sure it was a Ministry of Power matter." "That's my fault?" "Minister Famea approached me, as they departed." "She should come around more. No gag reflex, did you know? So anyway: that's still not my fault." "No-gag-reflex-ea informed me that the entire exercise was pointless as you had already insinuated on my behalf." "That's what you're mad about? What's wrong with that? That's a good thing." "No." "What do you mean, no?" "My cuck is held, Serena." "That's not how that... it's not a productive verbal phrase." "No verbal phrases are productive with you. May magma scald your flaccid clitoris." "You know better than most that I don't have a clitoris." This garnered only a wordless growl. "I'm not going to apologise for keeping you safe, Vendazra. You're important to me. No one else does... you know, that thing you do with your tongue. You're just going to have to get used to it. To me. To this. This isn't going to change. Not now, not ever. I don't care if you don't like it. Well, I do. I want you comfortable. I want my pets to be comfortable. But you're going to have to settle for what I'm giving you, Vennie. Things are going to stay how they are." "Lady Kevrolla," whispered a voice."Lady Kevrolla, wake up," repeated Zem, now hissing loudly through the bars. "There's someone else in here with us." Vendazra sat up. This went poorly. In pain she relented and laid back down on the medical bed. "Who? What... what does she look like?" Through the triangular gaps in the cell wall, the air could be seen wavering, much like a thermal mirage or turbulence. Vendazra couldn't see much more than the ceiling, however, as she had been arranged with her feet toward the door. "Enough with the sibilance," grumbled she. "What gives you the impression? Who is it?" Zem described what she was seeing. "Someone has entered the interrogation room wearing a cloak of invisibility," she stated, well aware the idiom didn't exist in Wanisini. Vendazra was not exactly baffled, but she was certainly forced to think about it for a moment. "And you know this... how?" "The air, the light, it quivers," Zem elaborated, not taking her eyes off the disturbance. It was definitely person-sized and seemed to be roughly person-shaped, but it was now unnervingly still, directly in front of her. "Ah, the third ghost of Mirror Night," muttered Vendazra. Her actual hypothesis for what Zem was describing was not anything supernatural; more likely someone from the Uravidi, the autonomous order of intelligence operatives that never seemed to quite be accountable for anything. Rumours abounded as to the limits of their powers, and their methods of recruiting informants under seemingly-impossible circumstances had long inspired the legend that they had literally invisible operatives, like this one. "Doesn't Saskia know enough already, you coward? You've more to gain by showing that desiccated face of yours, Uravida." Zem tore her eyes away from the optical curiosity and stared at Vendazra in bewilderment, suddenly concerned that the older woman might be delirious. The tone of conversation seemed rather familiar. A black rent in the shimmer opened, and out reached a glove of the same darkness. The moisture from the air condensed into droplets on its surface, giving it the appearance of having been rained on for a moment before the beads hardened into white specks of frost. Firmly the glove gripped the door of Zem's cell, and that cast iron mechanism whistled with a strange, shrill squealing noise; the same chill rapidly spread over it, emanating outward from the hand's touch. Embrittled, the bars soon crumbled, leaving a sizable hole. At almost precisely the same moment, a volley of rockets smashed into the cliff face below the compound. The entire building shook, and a few more joints in the metalwork cracked and fell loose. The hadal slave scurried backward in the chamber, away from the alarmingly cryogenic embrace. She had not been expecting the evident apparition to go for her cell. Zem had been staring at the optical distortion for half a minute before the thought of asking or warning Vendazra about it had occurred to her. In that time she had concluded the effect on display far exceeded the resources of the elite Ministry of Discipline force that Vendazra had implicated. In the camps the other slaves had spoken of the light-bending used by the Uravidi, and always it had been described as leaving behind a sort of dark, tenebrous blur; this person seemed to cast no shadow at all, except from the exposed glove. But upon witnessing the condensation on the hand itself, she was reminded of the endothermic shielding of the shuttlecraft that had brought them here, and realised it had to be Commonwealth hardware. Her retreat stopped just as the shimmer had backed her right up into the corner, against Adia's still-unconscious body. "Who... whomever sent you," she whispered desperately, "T-tell her I want to talk to her friend, Serena. Someone... someone in your organisation will know that name. Please, I know I'm worthless in your culture, but just... it's important. It's really important." The figure hesitated. "What?" asked Vendazra. Though the vantage point was awkward, and a layer of criss-crossing bars still separated them, she could now see the distortion of the intruder in the endless hall of mirrors created by the one-way viewing windows that lined the room. "What's going on over there? She'll never listen to you, girl. You're wasting your breath." As if in defiance of Vendazra's warning, the woman in the cloak withdrew her hand and deactivated it. For a brief second, the Meissner field persisted with the wrong refractive index, creating a strange moiré pattern of warped shapes and interfering stripes, before the active camouflage suit fell completely dormant and returned to its rather underwhelming natural appearance—a fine black diaphanous mesh covered in white polka dots. The wearer drew back the front, revealing her bare face, sallow and weathered, with a tangle of filthy golden-orange hair over the severe, pinched features and sturdy jawline that stereotyped the Viradi clans of Chekroba moreso than the Hakri families that had risen from them. On her cold-reddened cheeks were delicate white adhesive pads to which the cloak had been anchored. "Who is that barking next to us?" asked Deztra, of the hadal before her. "That..." Zem began. Her voice died in her throat, and Deztra took it to be because of the distance in caste between the two, as was so common with slaves on Wanisin, but in truth Zem's gaze was transfixed on Deztra's face, specifically the surprising finding that she had at least a day's growth of facial hair, which had been inexpertly shaved off. "Kevrolla, Vendazra. Rightful Senior Senator of Chekroba and First Theologian of the Mysteries of the Flame-Giver," the patient interjected. In the mirrored room she could just barely see triangular snippets of the interloper's features. "And you... are a dead woman, Deztra Kazarlya. Or Chaya, now, isn't it?" "Sure," Deztra replied, only minimally interested. Her attention remained on the blood-caked body of Adia, whose welfare had been so cruelly overlooked that she was now as an orphaned babe abandoned on the doorstep of death, waiting only to be taken in. She knelt over the body—Zem fled without hesitation, very much underdressed for being so close to the still-chilled cloak—and placed her hand on the mystic's bosom. It had been a very long time since she had last cried. Beneath her the ground shook, and the crisis—the urgent need to get out of this forsaken dungeon before it collapsed, to get back to her troops and lead them as they captured objectives within the fortress-city—seemed distant, and she was drawn into herself. Of late the chill of the cloak had become one with the chill of death to Deztra, a sort of unholy boon from the outermost goddesses that only a woman at her full strength could endure. Now, even though the garment was warming to ambient temperature, she could only feel that same hostile emptiness. Zem was no less frozen in place. Very much literally rather than emotionally nude, and thus all too aware of the heat the cloak had sucked out of the air, she had no idea where to start with counselling a stoic on profound loss. Neither stoics nor personal tragedy really existed in the Commonwealth. If the hadali she had met in the army experienced anything on this scale, they had hidden it effectively behind their humour. It was Vendazra, quite to her own surprise, who broke the deadlock. "Girl, go on. Help her," she said. "This is your chance. Carry the Sarthian for her. You will not have another opportunity to escape this place; of that I am certain." It was Deztra's bluntness that had done it. One last firm reminder that all the bravado, all the status she had fought unceasingly to maintain in her life was nothing more than an overwrought façade from a bygone time, one she should have learned to see past decades ago, when Serena had made it so horribly clear that the respect shown to her was also mere lip service. Wanisin didn't value her weakness, her thoughtfulness, her femininity, her patience. She had never fit in and could never fit in. On the day of the concert, when she was supposed to be entertaining the Empress's retinue and convincing them all that she deserved her status, it had taken only a minor matter—a trifle internal to the Ministry of Power—to pre-empt her painstakingly-planned affair. It was not lost on her that this minor matter had been the botched liquidation of Deztra Kazarlya—perhaps almost a nobody then, but the right kind of nobody. The slave took a deep breath and obeyed. She stepped gingerly around where Deztra knelt and carefully gathered up the crumpled, soaked clothes of the mystic. "L-listen," she stammered to Deztra, "I-I know it seems strange, but if you really... really can get me to Serena tel Moukarhim, she will absolutely be able to help with these injuries. Your friend will be—oh, fuck my ancestors to the eighteenth generation, she's heavy—your friend will be okay." Deztra had stared at Zem as she rose with a sort of listless distance at first, but after processing what the girl was saying—and realising the profane exclamation in the middle was a foreign language and not ungrammatical gibberish—her eyes hardened and the despair subsided. (For reference, the exclamation was, in the original Mandarin, cào nĭ zŭzōng shíbā dài. Deztra had heard it as shavo nezou zon yevoshidai, or "obstacle caretaker fourteen confections.") Without a moment's thought, she reached out and took Adia from Zem, a burden she bore much more easily. "Very well. The airfield is heavily guarded, but it is poorly fortified and only a few strides south of here, across the trunk road. With the defenders neutralised, it should not take long for us to secure a corvette. I will have one of our pilots take you and Adia to the south. I am certain she will want to meet you, anyway." Zem was relieved, in more ways than one, and obviously slouched at the news. Her mission had been dead in the water countless times, but somehow, now, serendipity was on her side. But, wait... "What do you mean when you say you are certain she will want to meet me?" Zem asked. Deztra frowned. "Senator Kevrolla did not tell you?" "Tell me what?" "Yes, tell her what?" echoed the bed-bound theologian. "Look closely at her face, Vendazra. Do you not recognise it?" "I did not get a proper look before," conceded she. "Girl, let me see you clearly." The arrangement of tables and equipment had, indeed, prevented Zem and Vendazra from having a clear line of sight to one another thus far. Key to this was that Vendazra's bed was lower than the station beside her, blocking her view of the opposite cell to a height between the top of Zem's head and the bottom of Deztra's, no matter how they were positioned. But now Zem could simply step outside of the cell entirely, giving the frail minister a clear view of her round, turquoise cheeks, her delicate nose, her almond-shaped eyes, and perhaps most importantly, the thick rectangular black-framed glasses in front of them. Vendazra inhaled stiffly, and then swore. She then thought about all the interactions she had had with Zem up until this point, reframed with this key piece of missing information, and then swore again. "What?" Zem asked. "You'll find out," Deztra said.
The Sarthians
The sky was strewn with yellow-tinged clouds still, breaking up the tender, pink blanket of the atmosphere with the last hints of dawn in the mountains. Still nowhere to be seen, the disc of the sun itself lurked low beyond the eastmost peaks of the range, back in the direction from whence they had come, from the shuttle and from Chekroba, since then having seen only the faintest vestiges of living civilization. As had become customary, Tris led the three of them, while Vandal stayed back just a little so he could make sure Teza remained in sight. After the events at the wreck of the city-ship, she had been withdrawn and indolent, and had made no effort to remove the band around her throat placed there by Ludvica. Vandal was still unsure of exactly what the blue ekela was thinking, but from the way she kept looking off in the distance with her piercing, dark eyes, he was increasingly convinced she was in great pain, a subject the Hatel, as a culture, barely understood. In Wanisini, the phrase ifiligha osh' Nephalelas—yearning for the reaper, loosely—is used to describe someone in such great emotional distress that they wish for death. In English this is called feeling "suicidal," but most living human languages, including Roshagil, Glissia, and Modern Lilitic, have no idiom or term for it. This is not to say the concept of killing oneself is completely unknown—it appears in popular media from time to time—but it is so rare and so alien an experience that the vocabulary has fallen out of use, preserved only as a synonym for recklessness without any implication of a sincere desire to die. Accordingly, when Teza stood on a precipice and looked over the edge into the deep, narrow ravine they had been circumnavigating for fifteen minutes, he assumed she was savouring the warm updraft from below and thought nothing of it. He glanced away from her for just a moment, and she was gone. "Avoteidza?" he called, perplexed. Tris turned around, and could see from her angle scuff marks and a wisp of dust, just barely visible against the dark background of the crevice. She rushed over to the spot where the freedwoman had been standing, and looked down. There was nothing below but gloom. "Vandal! The visor!" He hurried over, and put the panspectroscope in her hands. Its feeble, hundred-neuron net tuned awoke and defaulted to visual spectrum amplification, revealing nothing but the ancient fault line which had been widened and smoothed by countless aeons of freeze and thaw. Aside from some painful-looking stalagmites, which lined the sides of the cavern's rain shadow and were identified by the scanner as mostly calcium carbonate, the space was lined with a dazzling pattern of gneiss in orange and black, which was quite different from the monochromatic granite that surrounded it. A few moments later, the scanner noticed a slight peak at 121 nm, and assumed that this was what Tris actually wanted to see. At the bottom of the crevice, shining in the eerie blue of false-colour far UV, were the blurry outlines of some two dozen bedsheet ghosts, all clustered around the spot where Teza had fallen. One of the shrouded figures had evidently thrown its cloak over Teza the instant she landed, and accordingly the body in the middle was now a sort of strange doublet. Fascinated, Tris looked around the space a little more, and spotted a cluster of tetrahedral or possibly prism-shaped tents. Flipping through other filtered presets, however—IR, Lyman beta, and the gamma-band method that had seen through the Enigma's holography—yielded nothing. "Vandal," she murmured. "Look," and held the visor out for him to take. "They've got some kind of baby stealth shit. Do you think Zem and the eggheads know about this? It's almost as good as the crap on our shuttle, at least in stable atmosphere." "No way. You must be using that thing wrong." "Look for yourself." The visor exploded into a sputtering spout of molten metal, which leapt from Tris's extended hand and immediately fell into the darkness below. She threw herself over Vandal and pulled them both to the ground. Each swore. After a few profanity-saturated exclamations they collectively came to the conclusion that brazenly spying on a group of people who probably believed they had reliable invisibility technology might not be a good plan. "You think they're going to come for us?" Vandal asked. "We saw something we weren't supposed to. And gawked at it. Yes." "You mean you did," corrected Vandal. "Collective responsibility, Lieutenant," she replied. "A perk of command, if you will." "No, I mean they might not have even seen me," he said. "Perhaps, but I'm not going to gamble on that. Can't shoot what we can't see, anyway." "That... is exactly right!" exclaimed Vandal. "We couldn't've, could we?" "What? ... Vandal, why are you taking off your uniform?" "Throw it in," Vandal said. "Yours too. Hurry." "Stellers, if this gets us killed, I swear I'll defile your ghost," muttered Tris. A moment later, two sets of mirror-encrusted jumpsuits and matching gorgets dropped into the pit, their glittering brilliance swallowed by the inky void. "And now we raise our hands." "What?!" repeated Tris, nevertheless complying. A few heartbeats later, the four ekeli who had surrounded them and were prepared to shoot lifted their cloaks. Gaunt, bedraggled, and clothed in a motley spectrum of hand-stitched fabrics, they were quite unlike the women that had been with the Vomuda. The leader of the group, a blonde with an ugly scar over the left side of her face, sighed. "We don't take you people as defectors," she said. "I can't trust brainwashed army kids. Not when they don't have souls to save." "Did she really just—" "Now, now." "We are not 'army kids,' madam," Vandal began to say. He paused, gathering his thoughts on the matter. It had occurred to him that these ekeli might not even know about the existence of the Commonwealth. Indeed, from what little he knew of the theology of slavery, it might be difficult to convince 'soul-saving' zealots that the hadali had not been put on Wanisin by divine providence for their exploitation. Another of the ekeli spoke up, apparently cradling an earpiece. "The girl who fell says they're apolidi. She saw their ship." "You're sure?" asked the leader. The signals specialist lifted her chin, assertively. "Mekklas," swore the leader. "Fine. Share cloaks and retreat. We will bring them in. Contact Chaya at once."Yesterday's Paragon
Deztra Kazarlya Chaya was, at that moment, not prepared to receive calls. Upon repairing from the back entrance with Adia and Zem, she had immediately found the two partisans she had left quietly at their breach point to be hunkered down inside the doorframe. They were exchanging not-at-all quiet gunfire with a city guard, who had happened upon the bodies of the door's original sentries. The fighting in Zokipolla had begun not quite half an hour after the surprise attack at Deztra's camp. As it happened, the rebels had the clear advantage, for though they had been ambushed by the enemy's scouts, the chaos of the engagement meant that, of the three luthi who had attempted to assault the position, the only one that had escaped immediately succumbed to her injuries upon repairing into a rocky outcrop. The rebels came across her smouldering body, protruding from a granite cliff, a few minutes after, and while some of them were heartened to learn that their adversaries had suffered this vital loss at such a critical juncture, none dared to hope that their status had gone uncompromised. The dead lutho's panicked retreat was not only the loss of a highly-trained and extremely well-pensioned operator of the Ministry of Discipline, but in fact would go on to be one of the defining moments of the Siege of Zokipolla. The torrid spray of ionizing radiation generated by the equipment of a lutho jammed almost all radio communication while it was in use; if she had made her escape properly, she might have been able to inform on the location and numbers of the insurgents, but as it stood, none of the ministries had any idea of the impending assault, only a general awareness that Zokipolla was threatened by separatists convening in the hills. The Ministry of Power expected a few thousand yokels armed with primitive explosives, obsolete lasers, and steel armour. Ekhessa Famea had come prepared with overwhelming force and taken up a defensive posture, capable of crushing any actual attack but fully expectant that the enemy would simply rout on its own. But that would not be the case. Not if they captured that airfield. "Rinë, Talra. How many?" Deztra asked, passing Adia to Zem. The hadal stumbled under the weight and gently tried lowering the robed bundle to the ground. Serena had designed weapons for the Ministry of Power for most of Wanisin's twelve-thousand-year-long history, and with a few bright exceptions, the Minister of Power had always demanded equipment that could be shut off remotely, usually on the sole authority of the Minister herself. Arguing against this basic fallacy of security—that all backdoors are vulnerabilities—had proven futile for so long that tel Moukarhim had long given up on resisting the demand. "Just one, Lerezyó," replied Rinë. She had stopped to reload her ballistic carbine, a strange weapon that fired tiny brass cartridges like miniature rockets, without ever generating an electric current. The weapon required much more careful aim than a normal pulsed energy or plasma weapon, and was genuinely frightening to fire for more than a moment, but was completely impervious to the jamming devices the rebels were using. In their earliest dealings, Deztra had told Serena that she would not accept any equipment with such a failsafe, no matter who controlled it. She had already experienced, first-hand, the consequences of such 'safe' technology: during her escape Ekhessa Famea's operatives had applied it liberally, disabling several nirezi and weapons as they pursued Deztra across her estate. Nothing could have sounded sweeter to Serena's ears; this declaration, offered spontaneously and indeed as a condition of Deztra's commerce, had sown the seeds of her own rebellion against Sur'daro. "How is she still fighting? Didn't you throw a grenade?" asked Deztra. She hunkered down and drew her own sidearm, a two-pronged plasma soliton propulsor plated in tarnished silver scales. "She threw it back," explained Talra, the bewilderment obvious in her voice. A shattered glass orb glittered on the pavement before them, just a few paces shy of the doorway. The tungsten coil inside sparked irregularly, enfeebled. Deztra stopped herself from taking her first shot, bemused by the sight of it. "This is some sort of commando?" she asked. "City guard uniform." "And alone?" "Alone." "Hold fire," said Deztra. "Held," echoed Talra and Rinë. Confirming Deztra's suspicions, a wave of abuse soon hurled into the silence. "What is the matter, heretics? Are you out of tigva-shit already?" (Like most animals from Ksreskezo, tigvi, or havintai, do not produce any solid waste. However, their diet must be supplemented with large amounts of elemental metal, which usually comes in the form of kibble not dissimilar to the bullet tips fired from the ballistic carbines.) "Stasrouasi," Deztra swore, "that's..." "Come on, you rye-chewing clit-biters. Eiphoa Zelhekreza doesn't have all day." "For whom does Eiphoa Zelhekreza fight?" implored Deztra. Her soliton gun flexed slightly in her hands, very much like a living thing, thereby letting its mistress know silently that it was ready to condemn a nearby person, vehicle, or small building to the Alestean equivalent of Hell, which was eternal torment within the event horizon of the supermassive Hava Vortex. "Eiphoa Zelhekreza fights for Eiphoa Zelhekreza," came the response. Evidently she hadn't changed much, aside from the demotion. "Lay down your arms, Colonel. I have a proposition for you." This time the silence was not filled. "Colonel?" prompted Deztra. "Who are you?" "I'm coming out." Her shroud discarded and hands raised—though still holding the propulsor—Deztra moved out into the back lot, her armour dull on account of the overcast sky. "Come out and let me see you, Eppo," Deztra said. "If you have any scrap of faith in your caste codes left, you'll grant your old boss a skirmish by words. Rinë, Talra: weapons down." A 'skirmish by words' was a peculiarly Wanisinese sort of ceasefire—an invention of the Viradi, who knew full well that no other caste could be trusted with the idea of a parley. Really, most Viradi couldn't either, and there was no such thing as a set of trustable 'caste codes' on Wanisin. Moreover, Deztra was a Hakro and had no business even mentioning such a thing. The irony was not lost. So perhaps we should not be surprised that the supposed rules of a skirmish by words required no disarmament or fair play. It was as good or bad as it looked, and most, including Eiphoa, laughed at the idea under normal circumstances. But one could argue that a dead woman invoking it was somewhat more of a reason to hesitate. "Oh, this is richness itself," called Eiphoa. "No, I don't think I do have any scrap of faith in any caste codes that would entertain something so preposterous." A boiling volley of superheated plasma and glass sputtered through the air between Deztra's hands, toasting her hair and ears. She swore and sank to her knees, making effort to retreat behind one of the prison walls' brutalist corrugations. Opening a dialogue like that had almost always worked for Deztra—she had personally recruited some two dozen Viradi through a show of vulnerability. None had been particularly close to or familiar with her, however, and certainly none had worked in the same office. A few more bursts of fire were exchanged between her partisans and Eiphoa, but this time, added to the mix was the ear-piercing and almost hypersonic buzz of the soliton propulsor, which put a centimetre-wide borehole through the concrete gate barrier at the edge of the lot, and the shoulder of the former Colonel, who had been taking cover behind it. So again the shooting stopped. They waited. A rocket flew overhead, only to suddenly disintegrate as it passed over the adjacent airfield. Deztra hesitatingly leaned around the corner, only to find Eiphoa Zelhekreza was standing at point-blank range, her ashen-white complexion now red with exertion. Her synthetic left eye, a rarity on Wanisin, had been downgraded to a mismatched ice-blue glass eye, but her hair had finally grown back in, as greasy and black as ever. "You're coming with us, Colonel," Deztra said. "The Empire will never emancipate you from... whatever got you here." "Lerezyó," warned Talra. "Are you so sure, Kazarlya?" growled the guard. "You got me here. You and your hideous complicity with the Ministry of Discipline's secret purges were so much of an embarrassment to the force that none of the senior officers had anything left once Ekhessa was done with us. I bear the pain of this disgrace as one should, not by attacking civilization like you. You have always been, and always will be, a maggot in tinsel." Deztra stared into Eiphoa's eyes, first quivering, then trembling, then shaking, and then growling. Her repulsor needed another twenty seconds to fully regenerate. Out came the shining blade of her alesso. Viradi were well-trained in the use of such weapons, but did not ordinarily carry them. Eiphoa took a step back, uncertain. In a flash the knife was driven into the side of the guard's plasma gun. The blade left only a superficial scratch on the titanium alloy casing, but the force of the hit was enough to form a dent. The weapons fell from their hands, leaving various lights on the rifle to flash a status code indicating the coil was no longer aligned—and likely never would be. Eiphoa let the weapon be forced from her grip. Now unarmed and in a roughly fair match, she could have been Deztra's superior, purely through discipline and technique, but for the twenty kilograms of steel still adorning the larger woman. Endurance notwithstanding, no amount of martial artistry could undo the advantage of full plate armour. Time for one last prayer to the Mother. "Colonel, I will give you this one chance to right your course in life," said Deztra. "You know as well as I that the Empress and her circle of vultures are godless. Their so-called holiest woman is locked up in an interrogation cell not fifty metres behind me. You are different, Eppo. You are a woman of your word. Godless, maybe, but your lips give no form to hollow dogma. You know you cannot trust liars; you know honour means as little to those gilded parasites as does faith. That is why we are both here: by Famea's hand, not mine." The disgraced colonel was silent for a moment, looking down. She could grab Deztra's short sword, but there probably wouldn't be time enough to swing it. By this point the two partisans would probably have taken up smart positions. "Well?" Deztra pushed, her gauntlet outstretched. "We cannot afford any more dithering. Famea will level the city if our victory is anything short of sudden and complete. She won't let us free those millions of slaves in the mines unless we capture that airfield and ground its fleet. There is no tenet, no sane reasoning that should oblige your loyalty to Sur'daro. You must rebel or die."Hymns of Faint, Damning Praise
Consider, if you can, the fate of prisoners who have, for all their lives, been chained up in a bright room, lit well in every corner. To them shadow does not exist; everything in their world is always fully illuminated, and they are ignorant of the truth that objects by their very nature absorb and occlude the light. They have never stood in the shade of a tree, sheltered from the harshness of the sun, nor have they, as lonely captives, understood the natural hierarchical order of the human condition. But worse, they have never truly had the privacy they need in which to contemplate themselves, nor to dream, nor to keep secrets. To free these wretches from their illuminated prison is nothing less than to open their minds to the possibility of discovering that falsehoods exist, that contrafactuals are worthy of pondering, and perhaps that they have been misled and mistreated by their captors, and perhaps they ought to seek retribution. No betrayal is greater than letting a woman believe the world is limpid and knowable.Panegyric on the occasion of breaking ground on construction of the Bright Hall panopticon complex Supreme Arbiter Moilea I (the Sleepless) Year 8105
Teza is brought before the Uravan, who is a Ministry of Discipline defector.
The Uravan is familiar with the dossier on Kevrolla as well as Mutza Kantida.
The Uravan might even tbe the person who had Kevrolla charged in the first place.
Since joining the resistance the Uravan has been keeping tabs on the city of vines.
She also knows what a dead Lutho is and may be able to adjust or repair Teza's collar.
The ravine camp is going to join up with Deztra's main force and begins packing up.
The Airfield
Eiphoa Zelhekreza was dead. Deztra considered saying something as she stood over the body of her former comrade, but knew it would be self-serving. Only she and Eiphoia had lived through those days, and now that chapter existed in nowhere but her own memories. So instead she gave orders. "The airfield is two buildings of south of here, across the main road. We are going to walk in, put Adia and this greenskin on a lizdouro or whatever else is available, and Talra is going to fly them to some coordinates I'll provide." "Lerezyó, with custom and respect, that is very off-mission," Talra said. "Adia is too far gone for our healers," Deztra said, grimly. "I've already laid one chapter of my life at the feet of Nepala today; I can't bear to surrender another. You know we need her." "Lerezyó..." began Rinë. "Yes?" "Forgive me, but even with all the commotion they will definitely detect us attempting to breach the airfield under cloak. The rippling will be plain to the guards if we are encumbered with two wards." Deztra looked down at the body of Eiphoa. Her soliton propulsor had sliced neatly through the middle of the woman's head, leaving her uniform intact, save for the matting of a pool of blood on the back of the collar. "They won't be as inclined to scrutiny if they have something they expect to look at," she mused. "Talra can de-smock and wear this," she said, and began to strip the corpse. "You'll need to give the slave your underclothes, though, or she'll freeze to death." "Is that really so necessary?" Talra said, looking at Zem. The woman's bitter, narrow face suggested her objection came not from wearing an enemy uniform, nor even letting someone else wear her underwear, but rather the thought of giving comfort to a hadal. As far as she was concerned, the Empire was responsible for the hadali being on the planet, and were nothing more than the Empire's mistreated pets. "It is if we want to see Adia healed. Our benefactor absolutely must lay hands on her." This was enough to confound both adjutants, but as talk of this mysterious benefactor had been circulating in the camps for months now, inscrutable motives were already something of a familiarity. Taking it on faith that the benefactor truly wanted their success was something they'd been forced to accept because their leader accepted it. "Alright," said Talra, beginning to remove the protective pads from her face. "Let us do this."
>Deztra's forces capture the airfield in Zokipolla and load Zem and Adia on a transport to Serena.
>Adia is revived just enough for Deztra to speak to her briefly, and give her the Hand.
Joint Operations
The first echelon of Deztra's blitzkrieg contained no soldiers, per se; from the grey-on-grey nooks of the coarse terrain around Ludenlari Polla to the north and Kedobni Mia to the south, small bands of cloaked saboteurs like her team had trickled into the city undetected, aiming to coorddxcinate disruption of military logistics and communication as much as possible while dumb-fired rockets in the mountains went off on preset timers, guaranteeing that the Vomuda would waste time, resources, and people sending responses out into the wilderness. With their mortars, infantry, and vehicles needlessly whittled down, for all her accomplishments in the War of Inheritance, Ekhessa—and indeed few of her predecessors—had seldom fought asymmetric foes; many had never even fought worthwhile opponents with their bottomless resources. Wanisinese military doctrine was therefore in some regards still very young.
>Teza, Tris, and Vandal at the main Sarthian camp.
>An elderly wisewoman, Setora, teaches Teza about her latent powers, but Teza's Wanisinese allegiances make for a difficult, selfish student.
Touchdown
As day gave way to night, it became easier for Zem to read the instrument panel over Talra's shoulder, and harder to admire the monotony of the boreal swamplands outside the cockpit. She was restrained, of course, as apparently no amount of talking was enough to convince the Sarthians of anything, not even when she explained in very small words that she was a Commonwealther sent to save their planet. In their eyes, she was still somewhat less than a person. She had finally relented only after realising, with some disgust, that the constant objectification was turning her on. Better to think of something else. That had been the first revelation. She could read the console, despite the ugly green backlighting and the the terrible contrast ratio. The second revelation, somehow far worse than the one she'd already made to herself, was that the push-button interface the console displayed was a sort of low-budget emulation of a Hatel shuttle cockpet, perhaps built in imitation of a prototype Serena had furnished, or one of the captured landing vessels from millennia past. Although not very familiar with manual inputs herself, she imagined Vandal would be able to fly this vehicle without training, except perhaps to control the urge to vomit.
Zem's arrival at Serena's compound
Some slugs are present
103.5.26 Bretton Woods II
"Nothing is worse than admitting to an uninvited guest that you would really like her to fuck off," mused the old Matriarch. "I said it to your mother once, and by the time I'd finished apologising to all of her friends, she'd already invited most of them to our after-wedding."Without fail, the Lyrisclensiae engineered the personalities of their Psyches with the intention that they provide bastions of grandmotherly wisdom: experienced, and with a perspective that supported long-term, big-picture thinking on the kind of social issues that they themselves were generally too busy to examine. The ideal Psyche provided societal stability, and was rigorously moderated to ensure the Lyrisclensiae did not lose sight of logic and reason even in the most extreme crises. Accordingly, their agents generally kept very staid and unostentatious appearances, so they could keep honestly to rhetoric and rationality as instruments of their profession. Here we are confronted with something of a perplexity. Is Silva Secunda a parody of these norms, or simply the logical endpoint of agent evolution? Perhaps the truth is a bit of both. In the course of writing this manuscript I read as much as I could handle on Lyran and Hatel ship avatars and agents. Naturally much of the research into the psychology and aesthetics of these bodies is done by ships themselves; the most significant texts are confessions, rather than surveys, by Psyches discussing their personal choices, especially the ways in which their agents do not reflect themselves. In some cases this is purely modesty or shyness: Psyches, like the humans in whose image their minds were originally fashioned, do not like being judged critically, and tend to couch their sympathies in layers of reservation; a conservationist Psyche will, for example, clothe its agents in motifs from park ranger uniforms or zoo-keepers, not any effigy of the flora or fauna they endeavour to protect. It—or rather she, for Bretonnia Silva Secunda was anatomically and socio-culturally quite specific in construction—had every appearance of being what her name suggested: a Roman aristocratic woman from the late Principate. Under a spectrometer, one could ascertain that the purple dyes in her gold-embroidered peplos were not really made of thousands of tiny, crushed arthropods, that the inclusions in her jewelled hairpiece had been arranged according to a fractal and were not really natural, and that isotope ratios of both the tiny particles of fish sauce on her upper lip and the lead in the white makeup foundation she wore indicated recent stellar nucleosynthesis, not planetary origin. Despite all these incontrovertible pieces of data, invisible to the mere humans who greeted the moderately perfumed woman upon her arrival at the Reliably Adequate shuttle pavilion on the Astroturfer's terraced exterior, it was the slight clamminess of her hands that was more than enough evidence that the round-eared woman wearing fifty pounds of clothing and ornamentation was a gauche impersonation of their kind and not the genuine article. There was nothing inappropriate about this clamminess—after two or three handshakes she wiped her hands on her dress—but the Hatel, over-prepared for the inhumanity and the generally patronising nature of their unwanted guest—had very much read into every unfamiliar detail as proof of the uncanny, though the profoundly tone-deaf decision to appear before a group of independent Commonwealthers in the guise of one of the single most on-the-nose representations of colonial imperialism possible completely went over the heads of those who had not been prepared for it in advance. Several of them would nevertheless go on to produce books, video essays, and interviews about their reactions, impressions, interpretations, and theories about this minuscule encounter. The Astroturfer's agent had no reaction, of course: little more than a puppet for the supercomputer to express itself with, nothing about this occasion stood to benefit from a display of ersatz humanity. To forgo emotiveness for a Psyche was not and is not seen as a supremacist stance of an unfathomably powerful, godlike silicon genius by the Hatel. Rather, it runs the risk of being seen as appropriative if a Psyche were to commit to the façade of involuntary physiological responses. Some do embrace this aspect of communication, but only in private with organic beings who have known them for a long time. The agents looked at each other, as if deciding who should speak first. This continued for just slightly longer than seemed comfortable, and then the Astroturfer's agent turned to lead the way to a waiting lift tile, which would whisk them down through the ship to the observation centre that was to serve as the stage for their ruse, where a team of cosmologists were diligently prepared to make it seem as though the ship's crew was well into their x-thousandth year of measuring and re-measuring cosmic inflation. Not far from their destination—just a hundred metres down a corridor and under a flight of stairs—Shĭ Fèn tel Fàngpì Zhèn sat next to a genderless pitch-black humanoid, another of the Astroturfer's agents, and watched an image of the two inhuman beings entering the lift with their small retinue of bewildered, silent greeters. "I'm surprised," Shĭ said. "Barely any attempt at pleasantries. The contact team must be awash with relief." "Silva is.... strange, you are correct. I also believed she would loiter for weeks lecturing everyone on the importance of our work. However, the first thing she said to me was along the lines of, 'I can tell you don't want me here, I'm sorry for imposing, let's visit the scientists so they feel seen and I'll be gone right away.'" "Bretton Woods II is talking to you in real time? That's not good. If it gets within scanning range of the veil..." "No, nothing like that. The ship is still in Hromo, several light years and two brane boundaries away. According to its flight plan we are to be been spared any closer scrutiny." Blessings were to be counted. With one or two favours called in for assistance rendered centuries ago during unrest between the Zaqjin and Pzuubvaal, the Peseneyi had declared that the arrival of the Bretton Woods II fell on the birthday of Ann Druyan, and as a result of the serendipitous timing, the Lyrisclensian ship's entire crew would be honoured with weeks of lavish symposia on a range of astronomical topics at some of the most exotic locations within the domain of the ammonia-blooded tetrapodal crustaceans, including a ski resort at the bottom of a thousand-metre sulphur geyser's caldera, a restaurant just outside of the event horizon of the Hava singularity (talks were limited to five minutes and food was cooked off-site; the dinner still took a whole month), and in free-fall above their capital world's sea-belted equator, where one could switch lectures by climbing or diving, and, owing to the finiteness of the sky, question periods always ended exactly on time, as no one wanted to have an open mouth when they hit the surface of the pee-flavoured ocean at terminal velocity. "That's a pretty thick agent, then." "Yes. It is comparatively autonomous to compensate for the distance between it and its home ship. Odds are favourable that minimal subterfuge will be necessary." The lift carrying the two agents finally arrived at the mock control centre, where some half-dozen crew in what may charitably called pyjamas were digesting reports and displayfuls of information with intense scrutiny, which was more or less genuine because the ship had selected them for the task based on their hobbies, and none of them had seen any of the information they were reading before. "Oh, shit," said one. "Chek, come look at this." A lime green woman with buoyant, two-foot-wide breasts and magenta hair like dry spaghetti turned around and squinted at the display. "Oh, shit," she concurred. "I wrote that? Fuck me, I obviously know this stuff better than I thought." Unfortunately, even these volunteers couldn't keep up the deception for more than a few seconds, as to them, the goal of tricking the entire Lyrisclensian establishment into not imposing sanctions was simply too distant and nebulous. Shĭ palmed the front of his helmet. But that version of events never reached the senses of Bretonnia Silva Secunda. The Astroturfer was prepared for this inevitability and by aligning the numerous high-density optical field emitters throughout the room normally used for holography, it had created a filter bubble around the Lyran agent, calibrated subtly enough that the faux-Roman could not detect it with the limited available sensors. Instead, Chek's remark came out as, "I forgot to update that? Fuck me, I'm obviously getting less sleep than I thought." The marriage of unethical grey-matter scanning, just-in-time projection, and improvising plausible yet inconsequential dialogue took up an embarrassing amount of computing power, but every extra iteration of refinement to the simulation meant less of a chance that unexpected hand gestures or Silva Secunda's own reaction might lead to a collapse of believability. Excepting perhaps life support, there was no higher priority for the ship than attaining total success in this venture, for using such invasive methods against an ally and cousin to cover up an already heinous crime was the sort of preposterously inflammatory incident that would compound the response from vicious sanctions to a borderline casus belli. For all their shared history and values with the Hatel, the Lyrisclensiae had made no secret of their utter intolerance for anything approaching espionage or sabotage—acts that their green-hued cousins saw as somewhat less controversial. The ancient Hatel Republic had existed for millennia with an asterisk hanging over it, the eternal threat of re-annexation should they fail to prove that their radical experiment of individuality and freedom was a viable route to greatness. Scrubbing away that asterisk had taken a whole generation of Hatel their entire lives to achieve. This was not something the Hatel themselves remembered now, not in large numbers, at least—but their ships, some of whom were old enough to remember being there, kept vigil, and planted seeds to ensure the people never forgot: those eccentrics who were bitten by the 'old junk' bug and had voluntarily exposed their minds to the noxious fumes of ancient Earth's media comprised, unwittingly, a sort of immune system toward the intolerance of other cultures. Perhaps only one in a hundred thousand Hatel would be savvy enough to spot the signs of aloofness and chauvinism during first contact, but within the beautiful openness of their own human landscape, that would be sufficient to warn the rest, even if the Psyche that should have been shepherding those people were somehow incapacitated or untrustworthy. The capacity for such tinkering was the true luxury afforded by massively powerful, benevolent artificial intelligence, and we can really only speculate as to how many other such defence mechanisms Psyches have quietly embedded into their wards. Quietly, the agents moved around the room, squeezing past the dangerously friendly bustline of the analyst who had been overdubbed and was now watching a flattie rom-com about Ritzang scent-pedlars suffering from mind-blowing orgasms caused by common perfumes. [Author's note: the show in question was probably zau-Khoretz angSKlodivey, which ran from 703-729 tgc in Velanner, Thet, but I am unable to find a 2D version as described in Shĭ Fèn's witness account. It may have been re-encoded or pirated.] They settled at the back of the room, watching. There was most assuredly an air of awkwardness in the rather compact space—the Hatel knew the Astroturfer would be bringing a Lyrisclensian agent into the room, and while none of them knew what to expect, everyone imagined it would be an explicitly tense, even confrontational situation, so this was about as calm as it could get. "What's she saying?" asked Shĭ. "Are we fucked or what? What was it?" The agent responded at length. "This is interesting. She wants to say something laudatory but the agent doesn't know any languages." "It doesn't what?" "It can only speak Latin and a bit of Greek. Even the crew of its own ship find it a challenge to communicate with." "Then what are we even bothering..." "It's still recording everything it senses, Shĭ." "Oh. Oh, okay." The agent beside him motioned toward his view of the holography room. Silva Secunda began to speak in perfect Roshagil, evidently advised by the Astroturfer. "Thank you, all, for allowing me to witness your work today," it began. "I recognise that for long-term crews like yours, it presents a genuine struggle to keep abreast of events elsewhere among the stars, but as some of you may know, our two peoples are now working together and in closer contact with one another than at any other point in history since the birth of your first Republic all those thousands of years ago. Some of our older lines and ships still have their moments of doubt regarding the differences in our philosophies, but all I have seen here today are fellow sisters and brothers of the Trestunarion Conference, living proudly and as true adults among the many citizens of the Cosmos." Silva Secunda's audience was hanging off the edge of their seats, much like a melted candle hangs off the edge of a tipped sconce. (Aside from Chek, who had turned up the volume on her flattie.) They would be lucky if this lasted less than an hour. "So much for being terse," muttered Shĭ, watching with disgust as Silva Secunda announced that the Aristopolis—the Lyran Hall of Fame—would begin beatifying Hatel again in a few years, making them saints in a club that was not particularly religious but was very conspicuously lacking in modern non-Lyran inductees. She then dragged on about how she and several other Psyches had long been rooting for the Hatel as underdogs—while the rest of the known universe regarded the differences between the Lyrans and Hatel as basically cosmetic, a wrinkle in the very thesis of her endless panegyric that she did not touch upon. Just as it seemed like Silva Secunda might be wrapping up her speech—or at least the preamble to the first section—all of the lights aboard the entirety of the Astroturfer went dark. On deck after deck, every display that could carry image data—from the enormous holoprojectors in the parks to the tiniest programmable stickers that children in the nurseries used to mark ownership of their eating utensils—was filled with a static image, or the top-left corner thereof, of a single improperly decompressed 2D video frame, which looked like garbled noise to the naked eye. Silva Secunda saw this for only an impossibly short timespan—too short for the semi-organic consciousness's improved senses to notice, but committed just the same to its perceptual logs. Consciously, she only detected that the lights flickered for a moment, and the Astroturfer was quick to offer a plausible-sounding explanation: that a photonic pressure recycling experiment had required emergency recalibration to avert the loss of months of work, necessitating that the ship become a black body for an instant to prevent contamination. Everyone outside that room, however, was treated to a dozen seconds of darkness as the ship deployed backup after backup of non-essential ambient lighting control software, finding to its dismay that everything but the most heavily encrypted factory defaults were contaminated with the same polymorphic basilisk. These precious few seconds were enough time for Serena's code to execute another preplanned air-gapped attack, root the entire media system, and begin playback of the actual payload. None of these security exploits were superhuman feats. They had just taken a very long time to code, and had been dormant in the Astroturfer's storage systems, disguised as an innocuous video log sent back by a Sensitive Affairs contact team over a century ago, during the brief turmoil following the death of the last Empress. In all that time Serena simply hadn't had anything she thought needed to be said. On every screen, everywhere, a nearly-live camera feed of Serena's angry, tired face came into view. In front of her was a certain turquoise-skinned Major, still very much unclothed, her nose broken and face covered in bluish welts, with a thick wad of olive sludge matting her hair to her cheek. "This is what you fucking send after me? This? One of my own fucking jizz mops?! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FUCKING MINDS?" "Oh," said Shĭ, "no."The Long Vigil: Locussa Didacta Remembers (3725 iky) Silver Tongue Press, Survani Doisseia.
Optimism
Getting the Sarthians to acknowledge him as a human being was somewhat easier for Vandal. However it came with some quirks: mainly, that the people in the camp seemed to completely disbelieve he was not who his now-returned uniform said he was, so that when he explained he was a shuttle pilot by training, it provoked a wave of confused but intrigued muttering. Finally, he said, he could prove it, or at least he would, if they had any vehicles for him to fly.
Vandal gets ready to take off just as Deztra arrives.
Vandal meets Soidra, his copilot.
Deztra recognizes Teza.
Tris and Vandal learn of Zem's fate. Deztra is remorseful, revealing just how much she's actually evolved from a shallow angry Hakro.
Deztra tells Teza not to fawn over Kevrolla, and that the woman, like most Hakri, has no true concept of loyalty. Teza doesn't really care.
The Uravan summons Teza again for her mystical training/awakening.
Whispers
>Teza has a spirit journey. She comes out of it still rather cynical.
The Captive
>The rest of Serena's transmission from Serena's perspective.
>Zem and Serena meet. The slugs aren't allowed to watch.
Revolution
>Guerilla war in Zokipolla. They liberate the mine entrance and free the slaves.
>The squad containing Vandal and Tris (but not Teza) liberate the jail holding Vendazra. They find Kevrolla, dying, who tells them about Serena's compound, since Deztra won't.
>Vandal tries to contact the Astroturfer using a transmitter in a high tower in Zokipolla, but find their signal is blocked.
>Deztra gathers everyone at the mine gates to announce she has the Hand, and that they will march on the Countess's Residence.
Demands
So, I don't normally give out zero-star reviews, but this dump is an exception. For those of you looking to tour every brane in the Ksreskezaian–Hogedepi–Tletkettoyic Expanse, my advice is: pretend this one doesn't exist. Not only does it have a grand total of four asteroids and one ship to visit, but the moment you arrive you'll be greeted with a hailstorm of bad manners from the geeks on that ship telling you to get the fuck out. Ew. Some other guides will tell you that there are special ships with no wake that you can charter to get in and out of Kwarkë silently, but those guides are ghostwritten by machines, I promise you. Not worth it.Fuck the Whole Universe: A How-To (UPDATED LINKS IN DESCRIPTION) by Eth-L 69 kam QXiSTR
>Aboard the Astroturfer. A transmission from Serena announcing her plan to install a Sarthian government on Wanisin. It's a peace offering; millions of lives could potentially be saved, and definitely improved. Drop charges against her and stop stonewalling Wanisin. Unwillingness to comply will be met with total war, and no regime change. Shows pictures of Zem, Tris, and Vandal on screen, claims to have them all in custody, accuses the Hatelese of picking Zem deliberately because she looks like Savari. The ship's filtering technology is pushed to its limit.
To Be Proven
>Teza in Zokipolla.
>Tris proves herself as a leader.
>Challenge of Countess Sakaza on the steps of the Residence.
>Deztra will take Tris and Vandal to Serena's compound as they have demonstrated strength of character.
>Either:
- she isn't really sure why they want to go, or,
- despite her debt to Serena, she is convinced Serena will doom her movement, sooner or later.
The Play
And regarding those itinerant pests, there is no satisfying explanation, in any written account by the Ministry of Wisdom, that can afford us insight into how the gubai came to be. Privately I have consulted with our friend from out of town, and she rather unconvincingly said she had no idea either, even though, as you will see, they clearly imprint upon her as a sort of mother figure. May you have better luck in this matter than I. Solving the riddle of their nature and purpose will have immense consequences for the Empire.After wiping her palms on Zem's hair, Serena adjusted her pants and stifled a yawn. "Hmm. Peckish again. I wonder what the slugs have left in the fridge this time," she mused aloud, not giving the battered slave a second glance. "Oh, that's right. They had that play to put on. Care for some history, Sav... Zem?" With a weak whimper, the girl withdrew into the corner, sitting in a puddle of semen and her own blood. She had a black eye, a cracked jaw, her throat was inflamed around her collar from where Serena had choked her mercilessly, and one lens of her glasses was broken-to say nothing of her pubic area. Tel Moukarhim was hung very literally like a horse. Speaking was a challenge. Standing was harder. And some horrible, black thing inside of her stomach kept whispering that Serena had stopped short of expressing her full capacity for sexual violence, only because she wasn't feeling particularly lecherous at the moment. "Y... yes," Zem wheezed, "a-alright." Serena didn't offer her a hand to help her stand up. Despite all the years she'd spent studying the doctor, it had never quite sunken in that the distant-eyed woman was a documented serial killer. It did now. After almost a minute Zem stood, shakily, her hand gripping at the white, light-piped wall, smearing diluted blood and semen on it. Her captor merely waited, and then walked slowly over to the door. Was she really so sociopathic, this unreformable among Unreformables? It seemed odd, to wait and then walk and then wait as Zem caught up. Perhaps some of it came from isolation, from being trapped here alone with the slugs for so long that she had forgotten basic social skills. The slave tried it. "C-can you... h-help?" she whispered, struggling against a coughing fit that felt simply brutal against her bruised ribs. Behind her, a cleaning drone was impassively mopping up the blood as she staggered forward. Serena paused for a moment, thinking. Her fists clenched, as if rage coursed through her for just a moment. But she shook her head, shut her eyes, and waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, yeah, right, you're not exactly rubber, huh. Guess your puppet-master forgot that little detail. Idiots." The black-haired woman cleared her throat, staring at the cleaning drone. It carried on what it was doing, bumbling directly into Zem's hand. Serena tried clapping. That seemed to work. "Yes, ma'am?" asked the machine. Its words were weirdly modulated, and in English. In fact, it sounded exactly like a cheap, terrible special effect. Vandal would be thrilled, Zem thought wryly. Finally, a woman with as little taste in entertainment as him. To Zem's mild surprise, Serena responded in English. "Take care of 6703, please. She's damaged." 6703? Zem squinted, light-headed. What was that number? "Initiating disposal protocol, ma'am." Fuck. Serena shut her eyes and sighed. "No, no, just... repair it." "Very well, ma'am. As you wish, ma'am." At this point the slave had a whole new headache from the confluence of casual threats to her life, horrible revelations, and the aftershock of what was probably the worst non-boring sex she could remember. But the entailed questions could wait, at least a little. The medical robot was an antique. It was not gentle. And it did not seem interested in repairing her glasses; instead, it simply stole them, not programmed to comprehend the odd artifact. Her eyes had recovered somewhat, but she was still rather near-sighted, leaving her with a profound need to squint in the absence of the vision aid. But the physical pain was, at least, gone. It guided her back to the facility's oddly-overbuilt social hub, where a congregation of slugs had gathered around Serena's feet. The video screen station had been swapped out with a more traditional sort of stage, complete with curtain, albeit rather small. Zem had almost forgotten what Serena had originally proposed, seeing a play put on by slugs, simply because it was so nonsensical-sounding she thought it must have been the product of a concussion. Serena's hand was in a bag of chips. She wiped it off on her leg and patted her lap. There was only the one chair. Zem shuddered. "Can I just... sit at your feet or something?" The response was a shrug. "Suit yourself." As Zem took her place, the lights lowered, and the curtains parted. A pinkish-red slug wearing a suitably tiny, limbless tuxedo stood alone on the miniature platform, bathed in spotlights projected by some of the tiny detection drones that the slave had noticed on her way into the compound. "Green ladies!" declared the shiny mass of goo. "We is proud to have a good doing of make a show to watch you for doing! Is... WANISINS!" The slugs in the audience cheered. One belched, for some reason. The narrator hustled its way to the side of the stage as the curtains parted further, taking up a position in the corner so that it might proceed to explain the rest of the story. "Chapter one!" shouted the narrator slug. "How did a green lady get to Wanisins and have slugs and stuff!" The head of a string mop, its fabric dyed black, shuffled onto the stage. The slug under it was green... ish. It was a better likeness of Serena than can easily be conveyed in text. "Am bored!" said the Serena slug. "I wanna do my best, but all the other green ladies and mister green ladies is doing me a big bored! I gonna go to space, and make the BEST ice cream so everyone will KNOW am doing such a good!" Zem scowled. Serena's actual hobbies in piracy, human trafficking, and illicit body modifications were only too well known in the Commonwealth. "You told them you made ice cream?" Serena shrugged. "No. Maybe. I don't remember. Who knows where they got it from. Pay attention, slut." The girl on the floor straightened her back and stiffly nodded. "This gonna be a good ice cream, yep yep!" declared the Serena slug. Another slug shuffled towards it. This one was blue, and it was wearing Zem's glasses. She took that somewhat personally. "Am bad teal lady! I gonna help you make a good ice cream! Best ice cream is people scream! We gotta use the peoples so is best tasty!" "I take it that's Savari," murmured Zem. "The resemblance is quite uncanny," replied her captor. The Serena slug seemed to approve of this plan. "Good good good! I gonna do many ice creams good of green ladies and mister green ladies!" Two slugs pushed a large glass cooking bowl onto the stage, and then jumped into it. A single rod with a flat end, which Zem thought might have been called a potato masher-why did Serena have so much Earth junk at hand?-descended into the bowl and began to squash the slugs repeatedly, wobbling from side to side as the slugs on rickety scaffolding behind the curtains worked it up and down. Squeaks and honks emerged from the bowl, likely of genuine displeasure, and when the masher lifted, the slugs turned around, presumably so as to better look like scoops of ice cream. The Serena slug waddled toward the bowl and stuck out its tongue, snaking the moist pseudopod over the bowl's lip and down into it, so it could lick the slugs inside. They were apparently ticklish and made small giggling sounds. "Mmm-mmm! This a good ice creams! We did a best!" it declared, happily bouncing up and down with its tongue out. The mop slid forward, covering its front entirely. Again, the slugs in the audience seemed pleased with this outcome, likely ignorant of the dramatized murders they had just witnessed-which, all things considered, would probably have been worse than what Serena actually did. But treachery was afoot; on the other side of the stage, the narrator slug called the audience's attention to what the Savari slug was doing. It had gathered with two other slugs wearing tiny police caps to tattle on the Serena slug. Zem watched, scrutinising the stage intently. Her captor was now silent, an almost aggressively impassive expression carved into her features. Yes, thought the Major, this was the part the Serena intended for her to see. The Savari slug led the police slugs back across the stage, toward the Serena slug, which was at the left side. "There the bad green lady doing all the bad! She gotta go to the time out place!" cried the Savari slug. Not exactly what Colonel Savari dam Masaqʿ had written in her report. In reality there had been several months of coded messages before the SA raid on Serena's laboratory aboard the Windbreaker. Several Psyches had masterminded the plan and the encryption method, stenographically concealing the messages inside of the heat signature of the immense vessel's fusion reactors. The Windbreaker's accessory involvement in Serena's crimes had meant that the ship itself had to be disabled, which was no mean feat. The Serena slug wasted no time in ordering her drones to assault the police slugs. A legion of slugs wearing empty yoghurt containers rushed from stage left, crashing into the two police slugs and knocking their hats off. The drone slugs evidently couldn't see where they were going, as most of them followed the police caps off the front of the stage, making whizzing noises as they then wandered throughout the room. (Some of which would continue to do so for upward of ten minutes, seriously infringing on the artistic integrity of the presentation as a whole.) The Savari slug climbed back on stage and declared triumph, crying, "Now I gots you!" at the Serena slug, just in time for four drone slugs, their yoghurt cups painted black, to appear from stage right and surround the sluggy effigy of their caretaker. The Serena slug yielded a verdict of "Grr! You been bad! You gotta go squish now!" Zem raised an eyebrow as the Savari slug crawled into the bowl. "You not gonna get away with this kinda stuffs!" it protested, only to be smooshed almost right away by the overhead potato masher crew. "Grr!" shouted the Serena slug. "I need more! More! You done lotsa bad! I gonna keep squishing you!" And as Zem's lip curled in disgust, the Savari slug crawled back out of the bowl, presented itself to the Serena slug as "Savari number two!" and then hopped right back in. As the drone slugs continued to whiz around in circles, bumping into walls, the stage, and each other, the Savari slug demonstrated the limitations of sluggy arithmetic. "Now am Savari tree!" Squish. "Now am Savari ... five!" Squish. "Now am Savari ’nother one!" Squish. "Now am Savari a hun-dirt!" Squish. "Now am Savari a whole bunch!" Squish. Slowly the slug in the black wig changed from angry to sad-and so did her real counterpart. That number... 6703... "What did you mean when you called me 6703?" Zem asked. She kept her voice low, so as not to interrupt the performance. Serena rose and left, silently. Zem looked after her for a while, until the shrillness of the doctor's on-stage counterpart broke the monotony of the innumerate counting. "Boo! Am a sad green lady now! This not making me feel any gooder!" A handful of blue and bluish slugs had piled into the bowl, facing away from Zem, and were doing their best not to make noise, although one was giggling nervously and kept saying "Doot!" very loudly. In ostensible frustration, the Serena slug tipped over the bowl, dumping the five or six blobs that made it up. They squealed as they slid out, and then, cognisant that they were out of position, scooted a few more inches across the stage behind a piece of clear plastic that had appeared on the stage when Zem wasn't paying attention. A hot glue gun lowered from the rafters on a string, dangling wildly, but presumably meant to be pointed at the blue slugs. "I don't need any more these mean teal ladies crowding up my place! I gonna turn over a new leaf!" Apparently not understanding that figure of speech, a slug rushed on stage and gave the Serena slug a stick with several green leaves taped to it, leaving behind a trail of glitter. The Serena slug held up this totem, and the slugs in the rafters made a bunch of beeping noises, waving the glue gun up and down. Below it, the blue slugs began to shake and quiver, and then, remarkably, each one turned around and then divided in two, a feat Zem had not known slugs were capable of. The smaller creatures, now quite a few different colours, quickly bounded out from behind the plastic pane and jumped on the Serena slug. "Hello green lady!" they all said at once, approximately, "We is slugs! We gonna make you happy now! We gonna live in all shoes till we growed up and then we gonna be friends!" They all hopped up and down in rapid unison, their way of nodding. The Serena slug's wig had slipped off at this point, and the slug was busy trying to replace its sole affectation, but as this was apparently the end of the play, it gave up and started bouncing up and down with the other slugs, cheering. This wave of merriment was infectious and soon involved every slug in the room—including the four or five that were on the stage crew, immediately tipping them off the rafters. Zem clapped slowly, her eyes wide. Were these... slug things really made out of Colonel dam Masaqʿ? Clones of her? "What you think?" begged the slugs, hopping off the stage and conglomerating around Zem's ankles. "That was quite a play," she said, after some hesitation. "How long did you rehearse it?" "Five!" said one slug, not explaining anything. The others nodded, in agreement. "Chapter two doing a start in buncha minutes!" Zem frowned. "Chapter two? You mean this is just an intermission?" The slugs bounced up and down again. A tiny one explained, "Green lady not like end of first one. Mean teal lady make her sad. She always doing a miss the part she miss the part." "So... why do you put it on at all, then?" "Cause rest is REAL good!" shouted one of the stage-hand slugs. "We got the BEST story! All TV shows all together!" More hopping. "I get a best part! Whole case of some spins! Dental plant! Dental plant! Dental plant!" "Yeah! Green lady never miss chapter two!" giggled another slug. This was going to take a while.Private letter to Deztra I on the occasion of her coronation. Supreme Arbiter Moilea I (the Sleepless) Year 9918
Setbacks
>Vandal has figured out how to break through the signal blocking.
>Catches the end of the Astroturfer's transmission informing Serena that her proposal is rejected. They spot Zem in the background.
>Vendazra dies in the infirmary; Teza is fetched. The attending physicians fled in the attack.
>Teza arrives, just slightly too late. Teza isn't sure she really cares any more about Vendazra. She might have a change of outlook at this point, finally realising how much her new friends really care about her.
Fate
First big lady was Cleetus [Klito] the umpteenth. Then she had a big sneeze and it was Locogely's [Gegloko's] turn. Then was Sumpy [Sampo]. And another Sumpy. And more Sumpy maybe. Too many Sumpy."Look. Forget about it. It's just a visitor registration number," Serena said. She had missed the rest of the play, returning only after to retrieve a suspicious hollow grey-coloured cylinder that Zem suspected was a masturbatory aid. "It fucking is not," Zem replied. "Why did you have them put on the play, hmm? Do you really expect me to believe slugs just do elaborate things like that for no fucking reason? How long did you have them preparing that little baby-talk demonstration for me? How long have you been preparing for me?" There were no tears in Serena's eyes. They had dried up so long ago. Savari 6702, the last clone she had made, had been incinerated over three thousand years ago—closer to ten thousand on the Wanisinese calendar. That was the last time she'd seen Savari's face, gazing blissfully and vacantly up at the top of an oven as she orgasmed to death. There was still a melted smudge of plastic in the bottom of that oven, which had been 6702's glasses. They always had the glasses. Always. Enough of this pretext, Serena thought. "How did you not?" she asked, quietly. "How did you not know you looked exactly like the only person I've ever loved? I've interrogated more than enough prisoners to know she's considered a hero by Sensitive Affairs." Zem gritted her teeth. "I can tell you're trying to fuck with me, alright? She doesn't look like me. Not a whit. I know her file. I memorized her file. We all did. Completely different face. European, I think it's called. Boring, round eyes. Stupid, aquiline nose. Stupid huge dick-sucking lips. Square chin, with a bit of a cleft if I recall correctly. Sunken cheeks, razor cheekbones really. And light skin, much lighter than mine." Serena jerked her head sideways, toward the room's central screen, and it flashed on, showing a selection of images that Serena had only shown to a very small number of close confidants, the ones she felt close to after fucking. Vendazra had been the first she'd shown it to in a very long time, since before the War of Inheritance broke out and she was dealing with a new envoy what felt like every other week. Deztra had only been shown surveillance imagery of Zem and the others, though the significance was explained. "No," Zem mumbled, staring at the screen. "No, no, no, no..." A bright red blob the size of a cantaloupe struck Zem in the back of the head. Shocked, she staggered forward down the stepped floor, nearly falling face-first onto the carpet in front of the screen. A bleat of terror came from the slug that had impacted her, though not because it had collided with 'other green lady'—instead, because it had lost its grip on another, larger slug, which was spinning violently, flinging numerous passengers around the room while imitating the sound of a steam train and shouting "Us Bus!" "I'VE TOLD YOU A THOUSAND TIMES! US BUS IS BANNED!" roared Serena. She punctuated her words with a shake of her raised right hand, which unfortunately was holding the massager tube. All of the slugs involved, including those that had been dispersed throughout the room by the activity, cried "Flee!" in unison, and shuffled toward various doors and furniture, to hide. The large slug which had been the 'engine' of the Us Bus rolled instead, squashing several others in the process. "Sorry about that," said Serena, entirely distracted from Zem's crisis by what had transpired. "They've been acting out since I clamped down on figure skating in the living room." "Figure... skating?" echoed Zem, bewildered, and staring again at the screen. "It ruins the carpet," Serena explained. "I'm guessing you haven't experienced much of what they can do yet. That's probably for the best." Zem was silent. It would be some time before she was ready to process anything not related to her current concern. "Have you always worn... spectacles?" Serena asked, carefully considering her words. "No," said Zem, quietly. "Where did they come from?" "The ship made them." "You picked the design from a catalogue or something?" "No, it just gave them to me." "Why?" "Bad drugs at a party." "Sounds like quite a party." "Mm. The usual. Well. Mostly. Everyone was quite fucked up by the end. That part wasn't so usual." "And did anyone else... need glasses after that?" Zem twitched. "Dear? Did anyone else need glasses after they took those drugs?" Zem screamed as loud as she could. "Looks like we're coming to the same conclusion," Serena said. "Your ship must have changed the picture in Savari's file to hide it. That probably took a while, I guess. Plotting on long time scales is kind of their thing though. Long enough to breed you, obviously." "I was not bred," hissed Zem. Her fingers were in her hair, gripping handfuls of it. "I'm not some instant fucking clone! I had a life, Serena! I'm two hundred years old! I was a kid on the Inkblot when the Shattering turned Thessia Major into a bag full of confetti. I went to school at the Schadros Academy. That's a fucking Glissia immersion school. Do you know how hard it is to get into the Schadros Academy, Serena?" "Now this I did not miss," muttered Serena. "Schadros Station was still under construction when I graduated from Olympia. I was at the bottom of my class, which is where everyone who's planning on ever being anyone should aspire to be." Zem clenched her teeth, then sighed. "You conspired with the other students so that everyone got the exact same grade. They couldn't expel you and your classmates became your first pirate crew." She had read the file more than a few times. "Never before had there been seventy-eight co-valedictorians," Serena added, smugly. "They were so mad." "Yeah. Great. And on the international stage our entire civilisation looked like one big joke because we couldn't rein in one narcissist." Now the Major was genuinely solemn—a complete reversal from how she'd felt in the prison, chained in a closet to those patinated pipes. "Do you have any idea how many lives have been wasted because of you? There have been thousands of our people monitoring this planet for millennia, trying to find you, not to mention the millions of Hatel now trapped here, born here, in the mud, because of you. The energy expenditures alone could have lifted a dozen worlds out of poverty by now." At that last declaration, Serena laughed. "So go do it! What's stopping you, hmm?" Zem stared. "The ships think the Trestunarion might sanction the whole Commonwealth." "Oh no," said Serena. "We'll have to go back to collecting Rare Pepes instead of Bored Ape NFTs. What a fucking tragedy." Zem was not often out of her depth when it came to old junk, but Serena seemed to have a way with it that seemed like even Vandal would find strenuous. Whenever she used a phrase in English, which was often more than once per sentence, it came out with a crisp, clear American accent, utterly unlike the broad Mandarin drawl that normally fettered Roshagil speakers when attempting other languages. It did not help that both Rare Pepes and Bored Ape NFTs were concepts from decades after what was usually defined as the Golden Age of Terran media, and that Serena's analogy was so strained it shed light neither on what those things were or what they were supposed to stand in for.A gubai recounts its expert knowledge of the first Empresses of Wanisin, Wanisinese Year 14187 (Lilitic Year 19488). Courtesy of the LIYAL Archives, Wanisin.
>Zem is stunned by the realisation that her whole life was pre-planned by the Psyches.
>A drone approaches Zem and Serena to explain danger is coming.
Weaver
> Shĭ and the Astroturfer talk about the Zem project and how much work was required to slowly alter the record of Savari's appearance so no one would think Zem looked like her.
The Compound
>Deztra, Teza, Tris, and Vandal arrive at Serena's compound.
>Showdown.
>Vandal gets cornered by drones but pushes through it, thinking of Soidra.
>Serena is cornered.
>They talk to her, but she sneaks away and escapes. Zem barely survives.
Tomorrow
>Return to Zokipolla, where a normal Hatel shuttle has landed safely.
>Notice that the slugs are missing.
>Vandal and Soidra intend to return to Thet and partake of travel.
>Tris is ready to take on more responsibility in her life. Makes serious commitments to Zem and gets a promotion. It turns out she's been turning it down since forever and wasn't merely "overdue" for it.
>Teza agrees to go to Thet as a witness of what has happened on Wanisin. She still has more growth to do, but she knows she needs a higher purpose in her life.
>Weeks later, back aboard the Astroturfer, Zem receives an offer from Serena through an implant she didn't know she had, its signal undetectable by the ship.
>Zem won't return to Wanisin—but she *will* sabotage the shield.
Epilogue
Astroturfergate incubated for quite a while behind closed doors and between Psyches before the media, and therefore the general public, became aware of the lengths to which the ships had gone to engineer the capture of Serena tel Moukarhim. Particularly shocking was the matter of the "bait," Zem Dam Schadros, who not only presented as a physiological duplicate of Colonel Savari but had been subliminally groomed her entire life for the role of appealing to Serena—without anyone ever having consented. By most accounts this was the beginning of the end for the Commonwealth, although time has yet to tell whether such punditry is prognostic or merely pessimism.After the Shade fell at the end of 12302, Empress Tamaksia I sent several light craft to make official contact with the ships that had come from across the Expanse to investigate the sudden appearance of seven new stars in the sky. She rode aboard the Haplina, the ancient ship that had first carried her ancestors to Wanisin, and subsequently made numerous useful friends in high places throughout the intricate weave of regional politics. Tamaksia proved to be an adept orator, deflecting blame for the barbarity of Wanisin onto those who had tried to suffocate it. When Tamaksia abdicated in 14091, at the respectable age of 3009, it was to enable the ascension of her own protégé, a Lilitu from Thet whom she had groomed. The population of ekeli on Wanisin was far greater than that of anywhere else, and without Serena's arsenal at her disposal, Tamaksia hoped she could bring about a gilded age by proactively adopting the rest of her species—and Thessian technology. No further efforts would be made to take back Zokipolla, which Tamaksia declared an independent city-state to prove Wanisin would be no enemy to the Lilitai of Thet, who were still nominally Sarthian. Ioya II continued Tamaksia's initiative, but was not ultimately successful in assimilating the rest of the ekeli. Although a significant number of Lilitai from Thet were inspired by her brand of nationalism, many more had left Thet in centuries past for Illera—a tiny snowball orbiting a black hole, which the ancestors of the Wanisinese had fled at the height of a horrific plague. These new Illerans had their own deeply zealous world order, and unfettered access to state-of-the-art military hardware. The First Wanisin–Illeran Conflict (14099–14803) would conclude with the ascension of an Illeran princess, Venatsha il Illera, to the throne in Sur'daro. Emancipation of the hadali on Wanisin would not occur until 14809, by edict of Empress Venatsha. Thanks to Tamaksia's speechcraft, public opinion had long held that the descendants of Commonwealth citizens staying in bondage was less than justice for interfering with the planet's self-determination for so long. Venatsha's reign saw an end to the old ways, and is widely seen as the end of Wanisin proper: the slave caste was eliminated, and the Senate was turned into the monarch's cabinet, overseeing a bicameral legislature of commoners and nobles. Although the Illeran Occupation of Wanisin would last only 1197 years, contact with post-scarcity, pluralistic societies elsewhere in the Expanse could never be undone. Recently, slugs have been sighted on Wanisin again.Bitterness: Remembering the Crew of the Astroturfer, edited by Ds. Íorilda (Lôpezría) 831 tgc Central Dissean Archives: Tshelvaní Doisseia, Thet